At the Crossing Places (24 page)

A
FTER WE RODE BACK FROM WENLOCK, AND BEFORE I
set out for Caldicot, I wrote this:

Arthur to Winnie
on the twenty-fifth day of August

To my dear friend

I can read your letter, Winnie, and I hear your voice each time I read your words. I hoped I was the person.

I think I would agree if everyone does. First speak to your father. I am not sure who will decide for me, but I will try to discover while I am at Caldicot. Sir William, certainly, but I hope Sir John and Lady Helen will also.

I dressed this piece of parchment for you. It is lambskin. Simon says he will put these words between your hands as soon as he can, but I wish I could.

We leave for Champagne in three weeks. May Saint Winifred keep you safe. Written at Holt in haste, by candlelight.

BY YOUR LOVING ARTHUR

T
HE MOMENT I SAW TUMBER HILL, I COULD SEE MYSELF
up on the crown again, playing hide-and-seek with Sian, climbing my climbing-tree, dancing round the New Year bonfire, sitting and talking with Merlin…

Then I saw her. She stepped out into the sunlight from behind the knotty trunk of an oak, her fair hair sizzling.

“Gatty!” I shouted, and I swung out of the saddle.

When Gatty came to Holt, she was a crock of mucus. Her eyelids were orange and her lower lip was raw, and she was so worn out she could scarcely speak.

But now!

“Gatty!” I cried. “You're taller. And, well…”

Gatty lowered her eyes and her eyelashes swept her cheeks.

“You walked all this way,” I said, “and you slept in a tree. Lady Judith said you were like a bear cub.”

“And she's an eagle and all,” Gatty said.

I hadn't planned to, and I'm not sure how to arrange it, but I heard myself saying, “You remember what we said? About going to Ludlow?”

Gatty looked at me. The way she does. Half-hopeful, halfwistful.

“This time we will, Gatty! Ludlow Fair!”

While we were still talking, Serle rode up and interrupted us.
That's exactly what he did when I was saying goodbye to Gatty last January, and the strange thing is we were talking about Ludlow Fair then as well.

“I thought so,” Serle said loudly, looking down at me. “Laying plans?”

“Serle!” I exclaimed, and I grinned and grabbed his right knee. “I haven't even arrived yet. I haven't seen anybody.”

“I'm off,” Gatty said. “Got to get some wood.”

“I'll see you, Gatty,” I said. “We will, this time.”

“Will what?” Serle asked.

“Nothing.”

Serle hasn't changed much since January. Now he knows I'm not his blood-brother and he'll inherit Caldicot, all of it, I thought we could get on, but he keeps finding new reasons to be sour, and whatever I say only seems to make things worse.

“I've got a chestnut colt,” I said. “A destrier! He's wonderful. I wanted to ride him over to show you, but Lord Stephen wouldn't let me.”

“Of course he wouldn't!”

“I thought he might. I mean, Sir John paid for him.”

“Thank you for reminding me,” Serle said.

As Serle and I were riding up toward Hum's cottage, I saw Merlin stepping into the church. I know I did!

“Merlin!” I yelled. “Merlin!”

I spurred Pip and cantered up to the church.

But Merlin wasn't there. He wasn't anywhere. Just like that time when we were sitting on top of Tumber Hill and he disappeared while I was talking to him.

“What was all that about?” Serle asked when he'd caught up with me.

“You heard,” I said. “I saw him.”

“You couldn't have. No one's seen him for weeks and weeks.”

“I do. Every day.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Serle asked.

What Merlin said to me at Holt and what I've seen in my stone make me think his time really has come. But I don't think he has gone into the earth, or thin air, or into the minds of schoolmen at Oxford. No, not even to an island of glass. I think Merlin's still here, a wise old spirit, hovering, and it's just we can't see him unless he wants us to.

Last night, Sian insisted on sleeping next to me, and she woke me up this morning by clinging to my back.

“Let me go!” I said.

Sian dug her fingernails into me.

“I'm mother-naked! Let me get dressed.”

I shook Sian off me and scrambled to my feet. Then I threw her up and caught her, and she squealed with excitement.

“I love you, Arthur,” she said fiercely.

When Serle and I talked again this morning, I thought he would want to hear about Tanwen and Kester.

“No,” he said.

“But—”

“Just because you see them the whole time, that doesn't mean you know everything.”

“I know but…Tanwen does like Lady Judith, and Kester…”

“Shut up, Arthur!” Serle said angrily.

“Tanwen told me you'd ride over every month. She wants to see you.”

Serle said nothing.

“Will you come before we leave for Champagne?”

“And that's another thing,” Serle said. “I've no idea why you're joining the crusade—and neither has Sir John. No one else from the Middle March is going.”

“That's not true,” I said. “Sir Josquin des Bois.”

“Two knights, then,” Serle exclaimed scornfully.

“And hundreds from other parts of England,” I said hotly, “and thousands from Picardy and Flanders and Champagne and France.”

“While you're away,” said Serle, smiling with his thin lips, “lining your pockets with gold, you're shirking your duties here. That's what my father thinks. He says you're as bad as Sir William: He's been away in Champagne now for a full month.”

“Running his manor,” I said indignantly. And as soon as I said it, I realized that's the first time in my life I've spoken up for Sir William.

“When the Welshmen show up, who'll defend Holt?” Serle's piggy eyes gleamed. ” We will! We'll have to. Sir John and I and Sir Walter de Verdon and everyone else. You think you're so brave, battering the brains of a few infidels and entering the golden gates of Jerusalem, but your real duty, your real responsibility, is here at home.”

I didn't tell Serle what I thought. I didn't tell him how this would be the turning point of my whole life. I didn't say that, any-how, I don't really belong anywhere in the Middle March—not at
Caldicot, not at Gortanore, not even for all that much longer at Holt.

“So you and Lord Stephen do exactly as you please,” Serle continued, “and then expect us to defend your backs. There's no justice in that.”

“It's you who's unjust, Serle,” I replied. “You know you are.”

Oliver was right! Nain has lost her last tooth. But that hasn't stopped her from having a mouthful of opinions.

“You don't need teeth to have teeth,” she told me. “White fire! I always said that girl was no good.”

“It wasn't only her fault, Nain.”

“Pah!” exclaimed Nain.

“But Kester,” I said. “He's a bundle!”

Nain gargled. “That baby! He's wrecked his mother's life and poisoned Serle's. That brother of yours, he's sour as a crab apple.”

“He's not my brother,” I objected.

“Just as well,” said Nain.

“But wasn't I like Kester?” I asked. “I mean, my father and my mother, they weren't married.”

“Don't think of it!” said Nain.

The truth is I do think about it often. Did my birth wreck my mother's life? Where is she now? How can I find her?

I haven't seen Sir John and Lady Helen for six months, and after I'd climbed Tumber Hill, we sat and talked in their chamber. To begin with, we were quite awkward. But then we began to laugh, and they asked me all sorts of questions about my life at Holt.

“You've got a warm eye for Lord Stephen's niece,” Sir John said, smiling. “That's what we've heard.”

“Well…” I began, and I could feel myself flushing. “I do like her.”

“What about Winnie?” Lady Helen asked. “How does she feel?”

“Sir,” I said, “when I get betrothed, who'll decide for me? Sir William, I know, but will you as well?”

“Mmm!” said Sir John. “I'm not sure I know.”

Then Lady Helen smiled at me; she clapped her hands.

“Anyhow,” said Sir John, “come home safe first from your great crusade.”

“You're not against that, sir?”

“Against what?”

“Lord Stephen and me. Going on crusade.”

“Of course not. What gave you that idea?”

“Nothing!” I said.

After that, I told Sir John and Lady Helen how I keep thinking about my mother. “I must find her,” I said.

“I understand,” said Sir John. “We've always tried to make the right choice for you, haven't we, Helen? Do you remember I told you once that what one wants to do and what is right are not always the same thing?”

“When I wanted to go into service with Sir William,” I said.

“Exactly,” Sir John said drily.

“I didn't know then. About everything.”

“No,” said Sir John. “Now, what Lady Helen and I think is that searching for your mother would be very dangerous.”

“Because Sir William doesn't want me to dig anything up.”

“What hurts Sir William is bound to hurt you as well,” Sir John
replied. “Of course you want to find out—but the price would be too heavy. For Lady Alice and Tom and Grace. For us all.”

“But I must find out!” I said desperately.

I looked at Lady Helen, and the corners of her mouth were twitching. She stood up and wrapped her arms round me.

“Arthur,” she said huskily. “You told me I'd always be your mother. And I called you my crusader son.”

“I've loved you as a son,” I said quietly, “and you have loved me like a mother.”

Lady Helen sniffed. “But that's not enough?”

“Where there's love, there's duty,” Sir John said. “Isn't that right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So what is your duty to Lady Helen and to me?”

Up here in my writing-room, the floor is covered with bird droppings and little drifts of white flakes. And when I put my hand into the gap between the blocks of dressed stone where I used to hide my seeing stone, I pulled out a whole cluster of snails. Somewhere, something's ticking! I smell the friendly thatch-scent and yawn. It's almost as if I've never been away.

L
OVE WITHOUT FEAR,” SIR LANCELOT SAYS, “IS FLAME
without heat.”

I've heard those words before. At the wedding feast of King Arthur and Guinevere. And here, last Christmas! The song of the snow-white girl with dark pouches under her eyes.

Guinevere's right hand, her long fingers, are stretched across Sir Lancelot's open palm.

“What are we to do?” she whispers.

“Have we any choice?” Sir Lancelot asks.

“It's true!” Guinevere says, and she is breathless. “We're helpless. We're caught in love's snare.”

“This is God's gift,” Sir Lancelot says. “We must accept it with all its joys and terrors.”

Guinevere slowly shakes her head. “A woman may be ready to sin and to suffer,” she says, “but unready to allow her husband to suffer.”

“Where there is love there's suffering,” Sir Lancelot replies.

“But I am Arthur's queen.”

“He is my king.”

“But his quest!” says Guinevere. “His dream.” Fearfully she clutches Sir Lancelot's hand, and he closes it like a vice around her fingers. “Around the table my own father gave him. One fair fel
lowship. One round of honor. One unbroken ring of trust. If what I do in any way dishonors him…”

“How can our love be wrong, if no one knows?” Sir Lancelot asks. “Heaven help troublemakers and gossipmongers.”

“I am torn,” says Guinevere. She is fearful and in pain.

Lancelot comes close to her. On her cheek she feels his warm breath, and she can hear the stamping of her own blood.

“The song of the nightingale,” the queen murmurs, and she closes her eyes.

O
LIVER TOLD ME AT WENLOCK THAT THE GREEK WORD
for a nightingale is
philomela,
a lover of song. But lovers seem to think it means the opposite: a singer of love.

In Lady Marie's story, the song of the nightingale was the song of the wife's own loving heart. And when Queen Guinevere heard the nightingale, she allowed Sir Lancelot to kiss her.

Poor nightingale! Everyone blames his song, but it's not his fault, is it?

What if the young girls do as they please
Or if young men grow hot and strong?
You can't blame that on my song.

Or if a man gets on his knees
And sighs and begs? Just like some dove!
What if a girl gives all her love?

Chook! chook!
As if that is my fault!
I'll tell you who should get the blame
For love's joys and tearing pain.

You should! You all know right from wrong.
I won't keep quiet, I won't lie low.
The choice is yours: Say yes or no.

S
IR JOHN DISLIKES THE NEW KING EVEN MORE THAN
he did before I left Caldicot.

“Soft-sword!” he said in disgust. “That's what people are calling him. That treaty he made in May with King Philip, agreeing to pay him twenty thousand marks: His brother would never have stood for it.”

“Then why has he, sir?”

“Because he's soft,” retorted Sir John, “and we have to pay for it. Our kings may rule by the will of God, but just look at them! Coeur-de-Lion despised England. His men may have loved him and his enemies admired him, but he was wolf-cruel. And as for our king's great-great-grandfather—”

“William the Bastard?”

“He was as porky as a pig's bladder,” said Sir John. “They didn't bury him in time, and his body blew up and burst.”