The Door in the Wall (4 page)

“Will you teach me to write, too, and how to make letters as you promised?” Robin asked. “It sounds exciting now, to learn, and I wish to send a letter to my father.”

“We shall begin today. We shall divide the days into teaching thy mind and teaching thy hands, then weariness shall not give thee excuse for discouragement.” Then Robin knew that Brother Luke had seen him throw the pieces of the cross and the chisel. Yet the friar neither spoke of it nor showed in any way that he was disappointed.

“Rest while I am gone,” continued Brother Luke, “and I shall bring quill and parchment to pen a letter for thee. It so happens that a hundred men at arms and a hundred foot soldiers have sworn to serve loyally their King and the city of London and are leaving for the Scottish border tomorrow. With them goes a minstrel well known to us, one John-go-in-the-Wynd. He will gladly carry thy letter and put it into thy father’s hands.”

He soon returned with pen, inkpot, and parchment, and arranged them on the desk near Robin.

“Say this,” Robin began, then went on to dictate the words as the monk penned them.

It is a fine thing that your son Robin is left to the care of strangers. Had it not been for Brother Luke, who is writing this letter, I should be dead. As you know, my lady mother had been commanded to attendance on the Queen at Windsor, and I was left to await the coming of John-the-Fletcher in the care of Dame Ellen.

Just before the Feast of St. Matthew, the twenty-fourth of February, I woke one morning unable to rise from my bed, being very
ill. So that when John-the-Fletcher came to take me to my Lord Peter de Lindsay’s castle in Shropshire, I was unable to go. Wherefore he sent a physician to care for me, who came not again, but left me as before in Dame Ellen’s care. The men at arms are with you, as well you know. The house servants, even old Gregory, have left our service, for the plague had them. Ellen, too, was taken of it, and I was left alone and helpless. My legs are as useless as two sausages. Bent ones.

Now I am in the care of this good Brother at St. Mark’s. How, then, shall I do? Send me a letter, I beg you, and Farewell.

“Now, attend,” said Brother Luke. “I shall read this slowly, pointing out each letter and word, so this may be thy first lesson.” The two heads bent over the parchment together, Brother Luke’s tonsured, Robin’s dark and thickly thatched.

“Oh,” said Robin, “you have made it look like poetry with red capitals!”

“Yes,” agreed Brother Luke, “but when it is read to thee, ’twill not sound like poetry, I’ll vow. Thou hast not minced words in thy letter.”

Slowly and carefully he spelled out the letter to Robin, who would not change a word of it, but signed his name with Brother Luke guiding his hand. The friar folded it and took it to the scriptorium to seal before sending it off, then gave it to John-go-in-the-Wynd, who waited.

J
UNE
passed, and the days lengthened into summer. The plague had died out, but with its going went many of the people of London, even some of the monks. Once more the monastery kept its usual round of service to God and humanity. The monks who were left added to their own the duties of those who had died. Brother Luke sometimes helped in the preparation of food. Sometimes he carried Robin down into the kitchen, where he could be warm on a wet day. It was there that he finished the little cross.

“Although it is yet too soon for thee to carve figures for choir stalls or for bosses for chapel, a child’s puppet could be made more easily. Why not make one for that poor girl child who hung to my skirts that day? She dwelleth by Houndsditch in a poor hovel where I go on my errands.”

“A girl’s plaything?” asked Robin. Then he began to think what fun it might be to carve out a face. He might even make the arms and legs so they would move. “Yes,” he said. “I will try.”

So began the making of the doll for the little girl. Head and body were to be in one piece, with arms and legs jointed.

“Brother Matthew will help thee to work that out,” said Brother Luke.

Soft pine again was used, because it was easier to cut.

Robin became so excited at seeing real features emerge from the piece of wood that he could hardly bear to take time to attend to his studies. Reading went well, and he was beginning to make fair characters in writing with the quill.

On clear nights Brother Hubert took him to a high tower of the monastery to tell him of the stars. He told Robin, too, of far countries: the Holy Land where crusaders had fought for the tomb of our Lord, and of Greece and Rome, whose ancient languages were the beginnings of many other tongues. He told of Roman legions who had come to Britain centuries before, and of Saxon and Danish kings who in turn had ruled their land. Robin couldn’t always remember which ones came first, hut he liked to hear Brother Hubert tell about them.

One day Robin was sitting in the trundle cart finishing the child’s doll when Brother Luke came into the garden.

“Thy hands are well used to the chisel now,” he said, in praise of Robin’s work. “That is a face and body right enough, and I see thou’rt attaching the arms. Will they move then?”

“Yes,” said Robin. “See how this peg fits into the shoulder then slips into the top of the arms, and it swings. See!”

“It will make a little child very happy,” said the friar. “Now, because the day is so fine, and thou’rt getting so strong, it might be well if we should go fishing.”

Fishing? Could he really leave the hospice and go fishing? Even the fun of fitting arms and legs to the doll could not keep Robin from wanting to get out into the fields and away from bench and bed, stool and trundle cart.

“I could sit against a tree and fish, too, think you?”

“No doubt,” agreed Brother Luke. “Come, then.” He
lifted Robin to his back and they went, down the green, to the brook outside the walls.

They fished for a time, each catching several trout, which they wrapped in leaves. The sun shone warm through the leafy grove. Insects droned in the noon heat, and the water slipped musically over green-mossed stones.

It was very still.

Suddenly the quiet was burst with the shout of boys’ voices. Six or seven urchins ran over the green, stripping off clothing as they came. Robin, looking over his shoulder, saw Geoffrey Atte-Water, the same lad he had first seen limping through the corridors of St. Mark’s. Geoffrey raced down the bank ahead of all the rest, swinging his crutches ahead of him and taking in his stride twice as much ground as the other boys.

Geoffrey saw Robin at the same moment.

“Hi! Crookshanks!” he called. “Art finding fish for thy fasting?”

Off came the last ragged garment, down went the crutches, and with a “Whoosh!” he was into the water with the others and away with the current. Thrashing arms and legs beat the water into foam and spoiled the fishing.

Robin wished with all his heart that he could go into the water and swim, too. It was all very well for Brother Luke to bring him fishing, but it only seemed to make it harder that he couldn’t run about or swim like the other boys.

The friar saw Robin’s hungry look.

“Off with thy jerkin,” he said, at the same time rising and taking off his own habit. “We’ll give thee a good bath and cleanse thy humor. Who knows? Mayhap we can teach thee to swim!” He pulled off Robin’s hosen and carried him into the water, holding and dipping him where the current ran deep.

“Now swing thy arms about, with fingers closed to push the water back.”

Robin pushed, and felt himself moving along with Brother Luke walking and supporting him. All the troubles of the past months seemed to float away with the running of the brook and strength and power to flow into his arms.

It was wonderful.

Brother Luke didn’t allow him to stay long in the water, but promised to bring him every day.

“For some time I have had this in mind,” he said. “Now I know I was right. This will make thine arms even stronger, and soon they will help thee to get about on land as well.”

“How?” asked Robin. But even as he said it, he knew what Brother Luke meant. Crutches I That was it I With crutches he would be able to go about as Geoffrey did. He could play at duck on a rock with the boys. He could join them in hoodman-blind or hide-and-seek. Crutches would be almost as much fun as stilts!

Then Robin remembered that his father expected him to be a knight. How could he ride horseback in chain mail while his legs were bent and he had to use crutches?

How could he face his father? How bear his mother’s pitying look? How would they feel to have a son who could not fulfill his knightly duties?

“I see thou hast my meaning,” said the friar, as he finished dressing Robin. “Crutches or crosses as thou’lt have it. ’Tis all the same thing. Remember, even thy crutches can be a door in a wall. By the time they are made, thou’lt be ready for them, God willing. Up, now, and hold fast whilst we go up the hill.”

From that day forward swimming became a part of Robin’s everyday life. Besides reading, writing, and the study of history and the stars Robin was given certain duties in the routine of the church. At the lectern during rehearsals he turned the pages of the missal, a book of music notes large enough for all the Brothers to see as they stood in the chantry. Each day, too, he worked with Brother Matthew in the carpentry shop. He liked the music and the carpentry better than the reading and writing, but best of all he liked the swimming. It made him feel free and powerful.

Even on cloudy or rainy days, and when the weather was quite cool, Robin was taken for his daily swim, and soon he was able to dive beneath the water and play tricks on the good friar. Once, when the boys saw Robin’s little boat, they begged to be allowed to sail it, too. But they were all so eager to try it that soon its rigging was broken and its pennant dragging. So Robin helped each of them make a boat of his own. Geoffrey’s was made from a piece of the willow overhanging the brook. A twig stuck into a wormhole made the mast and another twig through a leaf served for a sail. Then Dickon must have one, then Alfred, and the swimming hole became a boatyard.

Sometimes they marked out squares on the sandy bank and played a game of checkers with round stones. Sometimes,
on hot days, all the time was spent in the water, and the boys raced Robin to the weir and back. Once Robin beat them all.