At the Crossing Places (17 page)

I
CAN HEAR PEOPLE GATHERING DOWN IN THE COURTYARD,
although the sun's not yet up. First the quiet river of voices. Someone coughing. Robert's chuckle now, like water pouring over a weir. I'd recognize that anywhere. I can hear Haket. The haymaker's prayer. The same words Oliver always says on this first day of June.

So with our magic words we wake and quicken the year. We say it green and sing it ripe. And Lord Stephen and I will be able to take the Cross at last.

But Merlin has gone. In my stone he has gone. He was always at the king's side, strange and familiar, and now he is not.

“If you know what is going to happen,” Arthur-in-the-stone says to Merlin, “stop it from happening. You know magic?”

Merlin blinks. “I cannot,” he says.

The king stares at Merlin.

He is Arthur's cornerstone.

Because of him, Arthur is king.

“Not because of me,” Merlin says. “Because of who you are.” Gently he smiles. “But Arthur!” he says. “What kind of king?”

“Will I see you again?” Arthur says.

Merlin bows to the king slowly and deeply. He takes Nimue's hand, and leads her down the length of the hall—away, out of sight.

My seeing stone follows them. Merlin is watching Nimue. He can scarcely stop himself from touching her.

“Teach me,” says Nimue. Her voice is as eager and clean as wind over the hill.

One by one Merlin teaches her his magic skills. He is besotted. Blind. Or worse—not blind, but unwilling to save himself.

And day by day Nimue wearies of Merlin's attentions. She's half-stifled by his infatuation. She makes him swear not to give her a drug or put her under any kind of spell. She keeps wondering how to get rid of him.

Merlin and Nimue are walking towards a hill. It's almost the same shape as Tumber Hill—the steep rise, the level ridge. At the bottom there's a massive rock: larger than Haket's church—as large as a cathedral.

“It is more than it is,” the magician murmurs.

“More than it is?” Nimue asks.

Merlin closes his eyes:

“The head of the wonder
Is the cave of making
Under the grey rock
And green hill, quaking.”

“What do you mean?” cries Nimue. “What wonder?”

“Time cannot touch it,” Merlin says,

“I dare not!” Nimue cries. “You go in. You tell me.”

Merlin looks at Nimue.

He knows.

He cradles his head between his hands. He voices the magic sounds. He opens the dark passage and walks in under the rock.

At once Nimue clenches her fists white. Sound by sound, syllable by syllable, she repeats what she has just heard. She turns Merlin's own magic against him.

He is helpless. Bated. He is unmade. Merlin is trapped under the grey cathedral rock.

O
R WRESTLING MATCHES,” LORD STEPHEN DICTATED.
“Wrestling matches. Have you got that?”

“Yes, sir,” said Miles.

“Our shepherd of Caldicot is a good wrestler,” I said.

Lord Stephen glared at me. “We can't both talk at the same time,” he said. “Where was I, Miles?”

“No shepherd is to leave his fold after nightfall, or to go to fairs, markets, or wrestling matches…”

“…markets or wrestling matches,” Lord Stephen repeated, “without asking his lord's permission and ensuring that another dependable man will look after his flock for him. Otherwise it is his fault…Have you got that?”

“Yes, sir,” said Miles.

“Now then. I want to say something about markings. I'm going to stamp out all the sheep stealing and cattle rustling in this part of the March.”

There was a knock at the solar door.

“Teeth!” exclaimed Lord Stephen. “We came in here to get some peace.”

“I'm sorry to bother you, sir,” said Simon. “Daw has ridden over from Verdon.”

“Daw?” I repeated.

“Sir Walter's messenger,” Simon replied.

“That's not a name.”

“It is,” said Miles. “
D, a, w.
Short for ‘David.'”

“Manners!” said Lord Stephen sharply. “I'll see Daw later.”

“He wants to see Arthur as well, sir.”

Lord Stephen clicked his tongue and sighed noisily. “All right! Show him in.”

Daw brought exciting news. Sir Walter and Lady Anne have invited me to visit Verdon for the midsummer solstice, provided it won't inconvenience Lord Stephen.

“You'd like to go, I suppose,” Lord Stephen said, plucking his lower lip.

“I would,” I said, “But not if—”

“Yes, yes,” said Lord Stephen. “Well! You've been working hard here, haven't you?” Lord Stephen turned to Daw. “Petition approved,” he said. “Arthur will ride over on the day before Midsummer Eve.”

No sooner had Daw left the solar than there was another knock on the door.

“God's gristle!” complained Lord Stephen.

“I'm very sorry, sir,” Simon said, “but another messenger's come in. From Champagne.”

“Champagne!” exclaimed Lord Stephen, standing up. “From Milon, it must be. It's no use, Miles. We'll have to try again later.” Lord Stephen turned to me. “You'd better stay here,” he said. “News of our crusade!”

“Who is Milon, sir?”

“Milon de Provins,” Lord Stephen replied. “One of the great men of Champagne. His father was the marshal, and Milon was
one of the very first to take the Cross. When the friar Fulk preached the crusade here last December—”

“I remember him,” I said eagerly. “He kept punching the pulpit. ‘Drive out and kill the Turks!' he shouted. ‘Recapture Jerusalem!' Half the people in church were weeping.”

Lord Stephen blinked at me several times. “As I was saying, when Fulk came over from Neuilly, Milon de Provins came with him. He stayed here with us. First with us and then with the earl of Chester.”

“Was it Milon who persuaded you, sir?”

“I persuaded myself,” Lord Stephen said.

Milon's messenger spoke little English, so he and Lord Stephen used French.

“We're invited to Champagne,” Lord Stephen announced. “Milon has invited us so that we can meet Count Thibaud. He's leading the crusade. And we'll be meeting many other crusaders as well…”

While Lord Stephen and Milon's messenger were still talking, Simon knocked on the solar door for the third time. This time he just smiled mournfully.

“Who it is now?” Lord Stephen asked. “Saint Gabriel himself?”

“A messenger from the king, sir,” said Simon.

“I see,” said Lord Stephen. “Well! You'd better send him in. I'll talk with Milon's messenger again before supper.”

As soon as the king's messenger walked in, I recognized him. He was the man who insulted Sir John, and complained about our food, and cursed half the night, and had to run out to the latrine five times.

“Not you again!” he said to me. “What are you doing here?”

Lord Stephen cleared his throat.

“I beg your pardon,” the messenger said, and in his right hand he raised his red wax disk, stamped with a mounted knight brandishing a sword.

“What's your message?” Lord Stephen asked rather testily. “Nothing good, I suppose.”

“King John greets his loyal earls, lords, and knights who are the strength and health of his kingdom, and brings you news of peace. He has made peace with Philip, king of France, and they have signed a treaty at Le Goulet. King Philip recognizes King John's right to all the lands his father and brother held in Normandy and Maine, Anjou, and Touraine and in the south.”

“And in return?” asks Lord Stephen.

“King John acknowledges Philip as his overlord. He agrees to pay Philip a duty of twenty thousand marks.”

“I see,” said Lord Stephen, pursing his lips. “So the lands King Henry and Coeur-de-Lion held for free, our new king has to pay for. Or rather, we have to pay for.”

“It's the price of peace,” the messenger replied.

“It's the cost of weakness,” Lord Stephen said. “And it's going to hurt every man, woman, and child in England.”

I don't like the king's messenger. He looks down his nose at us here on the March, as if we were all half-wild. And he smells sour.

When I told Rahere about his visit to Caldicot, and then about the new tax and how it will hurt everyone, he raised his pipe, the large one, and made it fart loudly.

First Rahere looked at me with his blue, then with his green eye.

“Five times, was it?” he said, grinning.

“Six, actually,” I said. “He got caught short again the next morning.”

“Well, then,” said Rahere, “we'd better introduce him to our latrine.”

As soon as it grew dark, Rahere and I left the hall and hurried out across the courtyard. We grasped the wooden frame of the latrine and dragged it back three steps behind the stinking pit.

Rahere burbled with laughter. “The horrible, hairy hellhole of Holt!” he exclaimed. “The huge, hungry, humming stinkhorn.”

Sure enough, in the middle of the night, the messenger woke us all up with his groaning and cursing. First he kept doubling up, then he hurried out of the hall. Rahere and I followed him.

It was so dark, and he was in such haste, that the messenger never saw the pit. He went in right up to his neck, and Rahere and I let him splash for a while before we fished him out. By the time he had squelched down to the river, cursing, the messenger had roused all the dogs and geese. And after he'd hammered at the locked door and yelled at us all, absolutely everyone was awake, even Lord Stephen and Lady Judith.

When Rahere came out of the solar this morning, he pretended to fall into my arms. “Sshh…” he murmured. “Sshh…
IT
!”

Lord Stephen was just as angry with me. “How dare you treat any visitor like that?” he demanded. “You're my squire, aren't you? Aren't you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes, and today's Saint Blandina's Day.”

“Sir?”

“Just a little slave girl. The Romans tied her in a net and threw her to a raging bull. Then they tortured her, but all she would say was, ‘I am a Christian, and we do nothing vile.' Nothing vile! Is that true of you, Arthur?”

“No, sir.”

“No, it is not. I've a good mind not to let you go to Verdon.”

I had to apologize to the messenger, but my only real regret is that I've made Lord Stephen so angry.

A soft, sweet, hay-thick wind has put its mouth to my window, and a lark keeps lacing me with his glittering song. But this room's chill, and I have to stay here all day.

Down in the courtyard, poor Rahere is mucking out the latrine. That's the worst job of all.

W
HILE I WAS IMPRISONED FOR THE WHOLE DAY IN MY
room, I thought about Merlin.

When he came here last week, he seemed more melancholy than usual. And when I asked him what kind of king Arthur-in-the-stone would be without his advice, all he said was, “There comes a time.”

What did he mean?

Did he mean there comes a time when each of us has to make his own choices and decisions? Or that each human being comes to an end of his time on earth?

In my stone, Nimue has trapped Merlin inside the rock, but surely that doesn't mean anything has happened to Merlin of Caldicot.

Why did Merlin come to see me, though? I keep thinking of the things he said:

“When something's too deep for saying…”

“I'm passing…”

And all the things about crossing-places…

Has Merlin come to his own crossing-place?

There's only one way I can find out. I'll ask Lord Stephen whether Simon can ride over to Caldicot with some questions for Merlin, and tell him it's urgent. I've been here almost five months and never asked him a favor before.

I
T FITS MY FOURTH FINGER. BUT I CAN'T WEAR IT. IT'S LIKE
my seeing stone: No one must know about it.

While I was out in South Yard with Turold, practicing at the pel, Thomas galloped in from Gortanore with a message for Lord Stephen. When I went up to the hall, Thomas was still there, on his own.

He peered at me sideways. “I've got something for you.”

“What?”

“Where can we—”

“Up in my room,” I said. “No one comes up there.”

Thomas kept clucking all the way up the stone steps. By the time we got to the top, he was breathing heavily. He sat down on the floor and started to unlace his right boot.

“Only way to be sure,” he said.

Then Thomas reached inside the toe and pulled out a little screw of cotton, mouse-grey.

“Open it!” he said.

Inside the grey cotton was a wrapping of cream silk, soft and floppy as the mutton-fat soap Lady Helen makes. And inside the cream silk was a gold ring.

The top of the ring is almost square and flat, and engraved with
a tiny portrait of baby Jesus in His mother's arms. She's holding Him so safe that black storms could shout and the earth itself could shake and He would still be all right. Jesus is reaching out toward His mother, I think He's giving her something, and she looks so patient and tender, so motherly.

I stared at Thomas.

“Your mother's,” he said.

“My mother's!”

“It was hers.”

“My mother's!”

“Maggot's looked after it. Kept it safe for you.”

I turned the ring over and over. I closed my palm and squeezed it, and quickly it warmed to the heat of my own blood, as the best gold does.

“You want to find her—” Thomas said.

“You know her?” I asked breathlessly.

“I didn't say that,” muttered Thomas. And twice he jerked his head from side to side. “The ring's for you. And if you do want to find her—well, we can help you, maybe. No promises, mind.” Thomas smiled, sharp as a knife's edge. “Don't tell no one,” he said. “Understand?”

“I won't,” I gulped.

Thomas shook his head fiercely and clucked. “If anyone finds out…”

My mother's ring! The first link in my search. I will find her. I know I will.

When I was born, my mother was living on Sir William's manor. So did he give it to her?

Thomas told me Maggot has looked after the ring. When did my mother give it to her? Is she sending me a message?

What are the questions I have to ask if I'm to win the true answers? Unending, warm, bright ring: What are you telling me?