At the Crossing Places (26 page)

C
LOSE THE DOOR!” SAID LORD STEPHEN. “I WANT TO
talk to you.”

“About my mother, sir?”

“Your mother? Why your mother?”

“I thought—”

Lord Stephen's eyes gleamed. “What's wrong with you, Arthur?” he asked. “You look like an anxious cub.”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Will the bowyer rode in yesterday.”

“From Caldicot?”

“Yes, Arthur, he brought this letter from Sir John. Oliver wrote it for him, and I suppose you know what it's about?”

“Ludlow, sir?” I said in a small voice.

“Ludlow!” said Lord Stephen, and he gave a deep sigh. “Arthur! One moment you acquit yourself honorably, even bravely…You cut that last sheaf, and I haven't forgotten how you took charge when Jacob was murdered. But at other times! What do you think you were doing? What's her name? That girl?”

“Gatty, sir.”

“Gatty, yes. Going to Ludlow Fair with a village girl. Without permission.”

“I promised her, sir. Before I left Caldicot. But then there wasn't enough time.”

“I see,” Lord Stephen said drily. “And Sir John had given you permission, I suppose.”

“No sir,” I said, and I lowered my eyes.

“Of course he hadn't! You were his page, not a village boy.” Lord Stephen's eyes gleamed. “Well!” he said. “Adam and Eve in the garden and now you, Arthur! Disobedient! What about this Gatty, then?”

“She's my friend, sir,” I said. “I know she's a village girl, but we've always been friends.”

“She was love-dumb for you when she came over here. That's what Lady Judith told me.”

“No, sir,” I protested. “She wants to be betrothed to Jankin.”

“I'm glad to hear it,” said Lord Stephen. “Sir John also said you asked who'll decide for you when you're betrothed.”

“Yes, sir.”

“He says you mentioned my niece several times.”

“Not several times,” I mumbled.

“Winnie,” said Lord Stephen, and he ran the tops of his stumpy fingers across the wall hanging. “Yes, I can see why. And I can see the sense of it.” Lord Stephen offered me a smile and then took it away again. “Not that anyone has asked my opinion! Anyhow, all this must wait until we get back. I'm not proposing to punish you this time, Arthur, for going to Ludlow, but you're my squire. I depend on you to be dutiful and obedient.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, and at once I thought about my visit to Gortanore.

“I know you went out to the stables one night not so long ago, and you know I forbid that. And now Ludlow! This is your last
warning. One more thing, and you can stay here. I'll leave you behind. You do understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right,” said Lord Stephen. “Now we've got two days and that's all. Go and check your armor with Turold, and talk to Rhys about feed for the horses. Then lay out your clothes. And stow them in your saddlebags.”

“I can't wait!” I said.

When I ran down the steps from the solar, I found Rowena and Izzie in the hall, and Izzie was sobbing.

“The stupid thing!” said Rowena. “She says you won't come back.”

“Of course I will,” I said. “In six weeks.”

Izzie looked up. Her face was blotched with pink spots. “I didn't say that,” she gulped. “It's what my dream told me.”

“Well, I'm coming back, anyhow,” I told her.

Silly Izzie, always giggling or weeping, always out of breath! She lives inside her dreams:

Witch-in-the-twig,
Rider-in-the-broom…
Tell me, teach me
How to make him love me.
Make him love me
And I will love you.

That spell I heard her singing down by the river. It really was about me!

Two days have passed since I began to write this, and we leave in the morning.

Tanwen helped me pack my saddlebags. I've decided to leave my ring here, safe in the hiding place under the short floorboard. But when I wake up, I'll put in my seeing stone. It's my dark well. My shining mirror. I must take it with me.

“I told Serle about you and Kester,” I said to Tanwen. “At least, I tried to.”

“Is he coming, then?” Tanwen asked.

“I'm sure he will. I said you want him to.”

“Who said so?” Tanwen demanded.

“You do, don't you?”

“I don't know,” Tanwen replied unhappily.

“Kester's happy, anyhow,” I said. “He's got his mother. And you like Lady Judith.”

Tanwen closed her eyes. The corners of her mouth quivered.

“I thought you did.”

“I do, I do,” Tanwen said softly. But when she opened her eyes, they were full of pain.

Lord Stephen never takes unnecessary risks. He has hired seven extra men from the constable at Wigmore Castle to guard Holt while we are away. They arrived the day before yesterday, and are billeted in the empty barn on the far side of South Yard.

When Gubert complained about having to feed them all, Lord Stephen was quite angry.

“What do you expect me to do?” he barked. “This is a frontier, Gubert! We have enemies on the other side.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And if I leave this place unguarded, the Welsh will walk in and grill you for breakfast.”

Gubert smiled sheepishly.

“There are women here, and children. Lady Judith! Rowena and Catrin in your own kitchen.”

“Yes, sir.”

One of the constable's men is called Gib, and he helped last week with a hanging: a man who murdered a woman in Hereford. No one knew where he had come from, and he wouldn't say his name.

“Bitter as a sloe,” Gib said. “The last thing he did was curse us, not cry for God's mercy.”

After the hanging, the three hangmen drew lots for the murderer's possessions.

“His clothes,” said Gib, “and a knife. I got his mare.”

“Can I see?” I asked.

“She's got the mange!” said Gib, and he led me into the stables.

“Floss!” I cried. “Floss! You've come home!”

Floss eyed me and blinked and neighed, and I threw my arms around her neck.

As soon as I told Lord Stephen, he went down to talk to Gib, and then he came up here to my room. “There's no doubt about it,” he said. “Blackberry eyes. A black chin beard. A bitter tongue. It must have been Alan.”

I tried to see Alan in my mind. But all I could see was little Miriam.

“Now in my position, Arthur,” Lord Stephen said, “what would you do about Floss?”

“Give her some medicine,” I said.

Lord Stephen smiled. “Yes, that would be a good start. But to whom does Floss belong?”

“You, sir. She's yours.”

“But as we're just going away…Wouldn't it be better to leave her with Gib?”

“Yes, I see, sir,” I said.

This afternoon, Thomas rode in from Gortanore, but the first I heard about it was after he had gone.

“It was about you, Arthur,” Lord Stephen said, very definitely.

“Stephen!” Lady Judith called from somewhere up the stone steps. “Can you please come up now?”

“One thing after another,” Lord Stephen snapped. “You'd think I was going away for a whole year.”

Does Lord Stephen know, then, about my visit to Gortanore? Has he found out?

“One more thing…” he said.

J
UST BEFORE LORD STEPHEN AND I LEFT HOLT, A HORSE
man came galloping up the causeway. It was Daw, and he had a letter for me:

Winnie to Arthur
this seventeenth day of September

To my well-beloved friend

Grace is here and she says you are not to be trusted. You keep playing with words and breaking your promises.

You are not wellborn and I know this is true though it is not your fault. Grace says you are the same as Tanwen's son your mother is only a poor woman so a knight's daughter can never be betrothed to you.

From your letter, I cannot believe you really wish to be in any case. Your words are all roundabout and not at all about true love.

Tom was stung by three bees. I have rubbed him with juice of plantain so he feels better.

May Saint Hildegard keep you safe. Think of me. Written at Verdon

BY YOUR TROUBLED WINNIE

There was scarcely a moment to read Winnie's letter before we left, and no time at all to reply. And now, I won't be able to for six weeks.

Oh Winnie! Don't believe everything Grace says. She's upset and angry because we can't be betrothed. And even if I am the son of a village woman, I was brought up in Sir John's household, wasn't I? And now I'm a squire.

Winnie, I did say you should speak to your father, didn't I?

What am I to do?

O
N THE EVENING BEFORE WE LEFT HOLT, LORD STEPHEN
told me Thomas's message was about me, and I was afraid he'd found out about my visit to Gortanore. It can't have been that, though, because he hasn't mentioned it at all.

I was going to write that Lord Stephen embraced Lady Judith. But really, it was the other way round. Lady Judith opened her arms and Lord Stephen fell into them. He only comes up to her shoulders.

Lord Stephen told me this evening that he met Lady Judith only once before they were betrothed, and their parents never even asked them whether they liked each other.

They didn't much, he said. But now I think they love each other. They're quite fond and playful, and always asking each other's opinion, and I've never heard them quarrel.

“When two people quarrel,” Lady Judith told me once, “truth is always the loser.”

“I don't understand,” I said.

“They exaggerate,” she said. “They let their feelings get in the way of their reason.”

So Sir Lancelot isn't completely right. It's true you can't oblige two people to love each other. But sometimes a boy and a girl may become betrothed without really knowing or liking each other and
then grow into love. Just as plants, stiff and straight-backed to begin with, sometimes burst into wonderful blossoms.

England is so large! It is one thing to hear about places and journeys from a peddler or a messenger, or to visit them in my seeing stone, but quite another to travel out of the March for myself.

It took us six full days to ride to London, and my legs and bottom are quite sore. Not only that. My tailbone is aching more than it has done all year.

All the same, I felt proud to be riding Bonamy. He's so alert, and keeps pricking up his ears, and wherever we stopped, people praised his chest and his silk coat, and tried to touch his silver-white star for luck. It's the first time I've ridden him away from Holt, and I did as Rhodri told me, and kept reassuring him.

“You oat-guzzler!” I said. “You London destrier! You channel-crosser! My fast friend!”

London is quite disgusting. It's as packed and noisy as Ludlow Fair but much, much larger, and it smells terrible. Not like the stink that comes from latrines, but something far worse, sour and rotten. After I'd been in London for an hour, I felt as though I'd shrunk as small as a thumb boy and been crammed inside a bad egg.

Everywhere there are chapmen and pickpockets and filthy urchins, friars, easy women, mounted messengers, mongrels, and yowling cats.

It's always noisy here, whereas in the March you can often hear the silence. It's quite thick. It enfolds you. Each sound, especially at night, is sharp and bright as a white stitch on black cloth.

I went with Lord Stephen to see Westminster, where Arthur-
in-the-stone was crowned and the whole church echoed with shouts and cries.

“
Vivat! Vivat! Arthurus rex!
”

The archbishop held the crown over my head…The two dragons on my scepter, one with a ruby eye, one with a diamond…

And Merlin! Merlin called out in his commanding voice: “Arthur, the trueborn king of all Britain…”

“Arthur!” said Lord Stephen. “Where are you?”

I drew in my breath.

“Here and elsewhere?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That's how it is in a place like this,” Lord Stephen said. “We leave today behind. We're in a world of spirits and memories. Implorings.”

Lord Stephen gingerly lowered himself to his knees, and I knelt down beside him.

“Dear Lord,” he said, “accompany us, your two servants, Stephen and Arthur. Bless Rhys and Turold, our loyal men. Give faith to those we love, and give us courage, far from our March, to welcome the unknown.”

“Amen,” I said.

As we were walking out of the church, Lord Stephen turned to me. “Difficult days,” he said. “For you.”

I didn't reply.

“Winnie, is it?”

“Yes, sir,” I whispered.

“She's such a headstrong creature,” said Lord Stephen.

“Yes, sir.”

“Let her have her say,” Lord Stephen said. “She's testing you.”

How does Lord Stephen know? He hasn't seen Winnie's horrible letter.

I wish I weren't here, in London. I wish we weren't riding south tomorrow to Sandwich and the English Channel. If only it were a whistling, bright morning, and I were galloping to Verdon.

A
BOY CARRYING THREE JAVELINS IS STANDING OUT-
side a billowing pavilion. On one side it is gold, on the other vermilion, and on the top there is an eagle with outstretched wings.

“My mother told me a church is the most lovely thing there is,” the boy says, “so this must be your house, God. I'll go in and pray.”

Inside the pavilion, a girl is lying asleep on a bed of rushes and tiny white flowers. Her hair is so fair it is almost white.

The boy tiptoes up to her, and the girl opens her misty blue eyes.

“God's greetings!” says the boy. “Please kiss me!”

“Kiss you?” exclaims the girl, and at once she sits up.

“My mother said I should greet you with a kiss.”

The girl looks puzzled. “Your mother?”

“That's what she said, yes.”

“No,” the girl says, frowning. “I won't kiss you. Certainly not! Who are you, anyhow?”

“Perceval,” the boy replies. “From Wales.”

The girl looks at him: his coarse shirt and hooded deerskin tunic, his hairy shoes. “Where are you going?” she asks.

“Five men came crashing through our forest,” Perceval says eagerly, “and I thought they were angels. They were so bright. But they said no, they were knights.”

The girl shakes her head at how simple and ignorant Perceval is.

“They were carrying spears longer than these javelins. You don't throw them, though. You charge with them, and they're called lances. The men were wearing iron, and I asked them if they were made like that, and they said no, and I said I was glad hinds and stags don't wear metal, otherwise I'd never be able to kill them.”

“You've never seen a knight before?” the girl asks.

“My mother and I live alone in the middle of the forest,” Perceval says. “We never meet anyone, and my mother hoped I'd never even hear about men who are knights.”

“She sounds as strange as you are,” says the girl.

“But then the five knights in the forest told me about King Arthur and how he makes knights,” Perceval says, “and I want to be a knight too. So I'm going to find him, whatever the cost. Now please kiss me!”

“No!” says the girl.

“But my mother said I should,” Perceval says, and he puts his arms around the girl and kisses her on the lips.

“Mmmm!” he exclaims. And now he kisses her again—seven more times!

The girl throws herself back on the bed in vexation, and Perceval sees she's wearing an emerald ring.

“My mother said I could take your ring if you offered it to me, but no more than that,” he says.

The girl frowns again and tightens her right hand into a fist. “You'll have to rip it off my finger then,” she said.

“All right,” says Perceval. “I'll try not to hurt you.” Then he
opens the girl's fist, pulls off her ring, and puts it on his own little finger.

“I'm feeling rather hungry,” Perceval says. “Have you anything to eat?”

He lifts a fresh white cloth and uncovers three little pies.

“Don't you dare touch them!” the girl storms.

“But I'm hungry,” says Perceval. “One for me and one for you and that still leaves one over.”

Perceval quickly eats the pie and smacks his lips.

“Thank you,” he says, “for this tasty pie, and for the eight kisses and the green ring. I'd better be off now. God save you!”

“He hasn't saved me from you,” the girl replies.

“God save you and bless you!” Perceval says, most politely. “Now aren't you going to bless me as well?”

“Never!” the girl says in a loud voice. “You've shamed me. You don't know anything about girls or kissing. You don't know anything!”

“But my mother,” Perceval says, looking worried, “she says a boy who shames a girl shames himself. What is your name, please?”

The girl tightens her pretty lips.

“I will name you then,” Perceval says. “White as white snowdrops, white as chamomile and hipperty-haw. You are White Flower.”

The girl gazes at Perceval in wonder. “That is my name,” she says slowly. “Blanchefleur.”

“Please don't cry,” says Perceval gently. “I'll look after your ring with my life, and I'll repay you for it. You'll see.”