At the Crossing Places (21 page)

L
ORD
S
TEPHEN HAS ORDERED HAKET TO LEAVE HOLT.
He says he never wants to see his shadow again.

Haket shouted at Lord Stephen and told him he had no right to take the law into his own hands, and a priest could only be tried according to canon law, not in a lay court. He said he'd talk to the bishop of Hereford himself, and bring a lawsuit against Lord Stephen. And he kept tightening and loosening his fists and licking his lips.

Lord Stephen replied very soberly, but he was just as definite as when he came to our manor court at Caldicot and sentenced Lankin to lose his thieving right hand. He said he certainly had the right to decide who should serve as parish priest at Holt. He said Haket had abused his position by blackmailing and seducing a young woman, and that he'd be extremely unwise to press matters further, since even a Church court would be bound to rule against him—and, in all likelihood, call for his excommunication.

“The punishment for blackmail is most unpleasant,” Lord Stephen observed. “And for seduction, even more so. The testicles! A priest is required to be strictly celibate. I'm giving you another chance, Haket, but not here. Leave Holt at once, or I'll make accusations against you.”

“You can't accuse me without accusing Rowena,” Haket said nastily.

“Once,” said Lord Stephen, “I saw a fish so rotten, so revolting, it glowed in the dark. You are disgusting, Haket!” Lord Stephen waved his hand dismissively.

Haket licked his lips again. And then, large as he is, he slouched, and almost slunk out of the solar.

Lord Stephen hasn't told me yet, but I suppose Miles will give me my lessons now. He's the only person here who can read and write better than I can. But it can't be long before we leave for Champagne to take the Cross, and before that I have to help bring home the harvest as well as visit Wenlock Priory. I do wish I could see Winnie again—I keep thinking about her.

As for Rowena: Lord Stephen and Lady Judith have decided to forgive her, because she has never offended before and because she stole the bloodstone not out of greed, but to pay for medicines for her mother. But instead of serving Lady Judith with Izzie, she has to help Gubert in the kitchen. Lord Stephen made it quite clear that if she's accused of stealing again, he will also charge her with stealing the crystal.

I was down on the riverbank very late this afternoon, trying to measure the length of my shadow and divide it by my true height, when I saw Simon ride in with a young woman and a baby.

Tanwen and her son! Serle's son. My nephew.

So Serle was right and Merlin was wrong. Serle said Sir John would never allow Tanwen to stay at Caldicot once her baby had
been born, because the baby wouldn't belong in the manor or in the village either. But I'd no idea they'd be coming to Holt.

“Surprises,” said Lord Stephen, blinking and smiling, “They're like spices. They make our daily bread more tasty.”

“What will she do here?” I asked.

“Serve Lady Judith,” Lord Stephen replied.

“You mean…instead of Rowena?”

Lord Stephen's eyes gleamed. “God moves in a mysterious way,” he said.

The baby is called Christopher, but Tanwen calls him Kester. He doesn't look like Serle. He hasn't got Serle's thin, curling lips, and I hope he won't have his sharp tongue either.

“White fire,” said Tanwen. “You've got my Welsh white fire, haven't you, Kester? Haven't you?”

One moment she talks to him as if she expects him to reply, the next she coos as if he were a dove. Kester looks plump and pink, and he's got strong lungs. He's already nine weeks old—nine weeks and four days—so I hope he'll live. Tanwen says Serle will ride over to see them once each month.

I think Tanwen was pleased to see me, and I was certainly glad to see her. I asked her at once about Gatty and Jankin, and whether Lankin's stump is still healing. I told her I wanted to know everything: how many calves Brice sired this spring, and whether Howell and Ruth still laugh so much now that they're married, and who lit the fire on Saint John's Eve, and whether Martha still has a warm eye for Macsen, and…

“
Gogoniant!
” said Tanwen. “Glory be! I've only just got here, and the first thing I have to do is feed you, isn't it, Kester?”

It is difficult to think of Kester as my nephew, or even as a person. He is just a baby.

Tanwen embraced me. “You've grown,” she said. “Gatty and Sir John and Sian and everyone, they're all glad you're coming to Caldicot.”

“Am I?” I exclaimed, and I hugged Tanwen for a second time.

“After the harvest's home! Simon told us.”

M
ORGAN LE FAY GLARES DOWN AT URIEN, HER SLEEP
ing husband.

“Loyal to Arthur,” she whispers. “Loyal to the king is disloyal to me.”

Morgan's servant is standing outside the chamber.

“Go and get his sword,” Morgan whispers. “I'll be waiting in the solar.”

But Morgan's servant doesn't go to the armory. She hurries to the little room where Owain is sleeping and tugs his shoulder.

“Your mother has sent me to get your father's sword,” she says. “She is going to murder him.”

“Go and get it,” Owain says. “I'll prevent her.”

At once Owain hurries up to his sleeping father's room.

Now the servant brings back the sword from the armory. Her hands are shaking as she gives it to Morgan.

Morgan unsheaths the sword. Very quietly she creeps back into the dark chamber, right up to Urien's bed. Her black eyes, they're snarling!

At once Owain steps up beside her. He throws his arms around her. His mother wrestles like a wild beast in a net—like a black fiend pierced by an arrow of God's light.

“My son!” Morgan whispers.

“Were you not my mother…” Owain growls.

“Mercy! It was madness. A devil was inside me. I didn't know what I was doing.”

“I'm the son of a she-devil,” says Owain.

“Never again! I swear it!” Morgan says. “Owain, protect me. Never breathe a single word about this.”

T
ANWEN WAS BORN AT CALDICOT, AND IT HAS ALWAYS
been her home. Now it is not. I know how that feels.

Last night, Kester kept grizzling, and each time I fell asleep he woke me again. So in the end I sat up with Tanwen while she tried to feed them. She told me about Caldicot, but I kept yawning.

Sir John has accused Cleg of knowingly selling short measures of wheat, and I hope the manor court finds him guilty. He's a cheat. If he'd come to court last June, and Lord Stephen had been able to question him, Lankin would never have been found guilty.

Macsen may be betrothed to Martha this Hallowe'en, and one of Sian's molar teeth is loose, and Oliver surprised everyone by telling a joke about a naked nun and a blind man, but it wasn't very funny and Tanwen said she couldn't even remember it…And Tempest and Storm put up a doe and chased her into Pike Forest, but they didn't come back all night, and when they did, Sir John gave them both a good thrashing…and the copper beech and Tumber Hill are the same as always, and Tanwen says that even with all the sorrow and the pain, even with having to leave Caldicot,
giving birth to her baby son is still the most wonderful thing that's happened in her life…

“Wake up, Arthur!” said Tanwen. “Come on, boy! I'm not your pillow.”

I stretched and gave a yawn, as wide as the world, and lifted my head from Tanwen's warm lap. Piers's cock was crowing!

One of the squares in Lady Judith's wall hanging shows Piers standing beside his plow and holding a pot. This afternoon, I asked Lord Stephen whether he would show it to me.

“Yes, I did promise you,” Lord Stephen said. “Here it is.”

Then he tipped up the pot and emptied more than one hundred silver and bronze Roman coins onto the solar table.

Gently, I picked up a coin: delicate as a flake of flint, no larger than the pad of my forefinger. On one side, there was a man's head, wreathed, but I couldn't read the letters around the rim, because the coin was quite worn. On the other side were two tiny men facing each other, wearing helmets and holding spears as tall as they were. I picked up a second coin: just a little wafer, grey-brown with a greenish tinge…

“Who did this pot belong to?” I cried. A young mother, I wondered. Or a thief? Or a priest? A woman about to murder her own husband? Who hid these coins? And why?

I thought if only I could ask exactly the right questions—who and why and how and when and where?—the coins might start to wink and tell me their story.

On the tabletop, I began to arrange them in a loop: silver and bronze—bronze, then silver—silver, then bronze.

“What are you doing?” Lord Stephen asked.

“Making a necklace,” I said.

Lord Stephen smiled.

“What were they like?” I asked. “Here in Holt.”

Lord Stephen blinked. “The question is,” he said, “does human nature always stay the same?”

I
CAN THINK BETTER WHEN I AM OUT OF DOORS.

Up in my climbing-tree on Tumber Hill, between earth and sky. Sitting on the flat stone in the middle of the river. Around the stables.

Once the door has been bolted for the night, Lord Stephen doesn't allow anyone to leave, except to go to the latrine, but last night I went out all the same. Winnie and my mother and Tanwen and her baby, all were tugging inside my heart. I wanted to be on my own and think about them, one by one.

The still night air smelled so sweet. The lolloping moon was harvest heavy. And Bonamy and Pip both grunted and then stamped as soon as they recognized me.

I couldn't think clearly, though. I kept worrying how Lord Stephen would be certain to hear about my disobedience, because he always finds out about everything, and how I'd be punished. Probably with extra Yard-practice. Perhaps with the cane.

But is disobedience always wrong? By speaking up and saving Erec, Enid proved how much she loved him. But Wild Edric disobeyed his wife because he was selfish. And Lanval knew he'd lose his lady if he talked about her, but he still couldn't stop himself.

Half my life is choosing: this way or that way, honorable or not, impulsive or thoughtful, and each choice has its own consequence.

I may never see Merlin again, but I can go on learning from
the stone he gave me, just as much as I'm learning here as Lord Stephen's squire.

But whom can Arthur-in-the-stone learn from?

A baby wrapped in gold, a boy pulling the sword from the stone, a king naming the knights of the Round Table: King Arthur has always had Merlin at his side.

But now Merlin is imprisoned under the rock. He cannot help anyone because he will not help himself.

King Arthur is very strong, but he is surrounded by enemies and dangers. Sometimes he must feel half-naked. Inside his head he can still hear Merlin's voice, but he knows the time has come to listen to his own voice.

T
HOMAS RODE IN,” LORD STEPHEN SAID.

“Thomas!” I exclaimed.

“Is that such a surprise?”

“No, but—”

“I've been busy since dawn receiving rents from each household in this manor and arranging which days people will work my land. And as if that's not enough, Thomas says Sir William wants me to release you.” Lord Stephen clucked irritably. “He wants you to help him harvest at Catmole.”

“But I can't.”

“No, you can't. You're my squire, and I need you here.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your father. He's unreasonable!” Lord Stephen's eyes gleamed. “I told him your first duty is to me. And I wished him a merry Christmas.”

“Sir!” I exclaimed, and I laughed. “Did Thomas want to talk to me as well?”

“He did, as it happens,” Lord Stephen replied. “I told him he'd have to find you himself.”

“He didn't, though.”

“Well, it can't have been anything important then, can it?”

Why did Thomas want to see me? Was it about my mother? Anyhow, I want to see him. I want to ask him and Maggot to help me.

That's what I wrote on the eve of Lammas, ten days ago, and since then I've been so busy with the harvest that there hasn't been time to write another word, or even to look into my seeing stone. I've been out in the fields, reaping and binding and stoking, or else fast asleep in the hall.

My forearms and the backs of my hands are puffy with nettle stings and crisscrossed with thistle and barley-beard scratches. My whole body prickles, and I've inhaled so much husk dust I keep sneezing.

This afternoon I worked with Anian and Rowena and two villagers—Robert, who never stops chuckling, and Donnet, who's as strong as the other four of us put together. We reaped and bound the last two acres on the other side of the river.

The oat stalks were almost greasy. Like tallow. A thousand thousand swaying tapers.

Just as I was about to scythe the outmost strip, Donnet yelled, “No! That's the mare's, that strip.”

“Which mare?”

“I don't know, do I. We never cut that. That's the mare's.”

Everyone at Holt seems to have heard of the mare, but the only person who knows anything about her is Miles. “She comes from the north,” he said, “and trumpets like the north wind, and she has eight legs.”

Anian's face was on fire. Rowena's whole body was smoldering.

“Come on!” said Donnet. “One more effort.”

Slowly we walked to the bottom end of the field. We shouldered the bound sheaves, and one by one, we set them up in stooks to ripen.

On our way back across the ford, I sat down in the water. So did Anian. But when I tried to splash Rowena, she tossed her head. Since Haket left and Lord Stephen sent her down to work in the kitchen, she has been quite angry with everyone.

“I'm wet enough already,” Donnet said, and Robert just went on quietly chuckling to himself.

Half the people in the manor had already gathered in Clunside Field, and when we'd set down our scythes, Gubert gave us cider and lumps of cheese. Then Sayer began to prod Izzie with his pitchfork, and Izzie said Gubert was the son of a purple plum…and Gubert kept twitting Catrin, and Catrin lay on her back while Simon poured cider straight into her mouth and all over her face…and all the while we milled around the last uncut sheaf, as we did around the fire on Saint John's Eve at Verdon, when Winnie kissed me.

At last Lord Stephen came out into the field with Lady Judith, and she was carrying a linen bag.

“Well?” asked Lord Stephen. “Who's going to cut the last sheaf?”

I could hear a lark trilling halfway between me and heaven.

“You, Sayer,” Lord Stephen said. “Was it you last year?”

“The year before, sir,” said Sayer. “That's why my wife died.”

“I remember,” said Lord Stephen. “Who cut it last year, then?”

“Alan,” replied half a dozen voices.

“Ah yes!” Lord Stephen said thoughtfully.

“If I throw my scythe at it,” Donnet said, “that might cut itself. Stand clear, you!” Then Donnet picked up his scythe and hurled it at the barley, but it only quivered and swayed.

The barley whiskers were Welsh gold. Almost as red as Winnie's hair. And that lark: It was like an auger, drilling into my skull.

Surely, I thought. Surely I can. I'm Arthur de Caldicot, and I'm going to take the Cross. Surely I can make my own luck.

“I will,” I heard myself say. “I'll cut it.”

“That's the boy!”

“Go on, Arthur!”

“Good luck!”

I could hear voices around me, encouraging me, warning me. Then I picked up Donnet's scythe and grasped the barley. With one stroke I severed all the stalks. At once there as a shout, and then Donnet quickly bound the sheaf, and Lady Judith opened her bag and pulled out a linen shift and a woolen kirtle and a battered old straw hat.

She gave them to Donnet and Robert, and they dressed the sheaf while everyone encouraged them.

“Dressing a woman!” Donnet complained, grinning. “That's unnatural.”

“A maiden,” said Lady Judith. “With long hair.”

“Like Winnie's, almost,” I said to Lady Judith.

Lady Judith smiled. “You and your Winnie,” she said.

“What? Winnie again?” Donnet said loudly. “It's been nothing but Winnie, Winnie, all day long.”

“That's not true,” I protested, and several people began to laugh.

“If things get any worse,” Tanwen called out, “we'll have to wrap Arthur in water lilies.”

“That's right,” said Agnes. “They'll cool his blood.”

When Donnet and Robert had dressed the corn-maiden to everyone's satisfaction, they presented her to Gubert.

“Keep her in the kitchen!” Lord Stephen told him. “Then she'll give us a good harvest again next year. Now, Sayer!”

Sayer was holding a black-faced ewe on a very short tether. She had a blob of green dye on the top of her head, and around her neck was wound a tawny woolen scarf.

Lord Stephen untied the scarf. “This is for Arthur,” he announced, and everyone hurrahed. “He cut the last sheaf, and that's always risky. But he'll be all right. He'd better be. He's my squire!” Then Lord Stephen looked around at all his villagers—all the poor people living in his manor. “You've all worked hard,” he said, “and you deserve your reward. Tomorrow you can glean, here and in Otherside.”

“What about the fodder, sir?” Rhys asked.

“I was coming to that,” said Lord Stephen. “On the day after, everyone's to pick stubble for my horses and carry it up to the stables to mix with the hay. On the third morning, you can take as much stubble as you need for thatching and bedding. All the corn will be ripe in ten days, God willing, and then we'll bring it home. We'll feast all night.”

At this, almost everyone yelped and barked and clapped.

“But now…” began Lord Stephen, and he screwed up his eyes. “You know what to do.” Before he had even finished speaking, he let go of the ewe, and she scuttled across Clunside and away across the grazing land and down to the river, followed by a pack of scrambling, shouting villagers.

First, the ewe sidestepped Simon and then she squirmed out of
Abel's grasp, leaving him holding two handfuls of wool. Then Rowena tripped and fell face-first into the river. After that, the ewe suddenly doubled back and ran right round the chasing pack and straight up to old Wilf, who fell over backward, clasping the ewe tightly in his arms.

“Fair and square!” exclaimed Lord Stephen, laughing. “She's Wilf's! He won't let go of her until he sees his Maker.”

“Fair and square, but dark and round!” Rahere said mysteriously, and then he began to warble:

“What would you do with a ewe?
Would you milk or wear or kill her?
Tell me now, tell me true:
Would you boil or smoke or grill her?”

Lord Stephen smiled faintly, then waved Rahere away as if he were a noisy bluebottle.

“We're going to have to manage without you,” Lord Stephen told me.

“Why, sir?”

“Because in seven days' time the priest at Caldicot—”

“Oliver?”

“—Oliver, is coming over to take you to Wenlock Priory. You and Miles, to see the scribes at work.”

“We were going to go last December,” I said.

“I heard about that,” said Lord Stephen. “Well, better late than never! After that, how would you like to ride over to Caldicot?”

“Oh!” I cried. “Thank you, sir.”

“And not long after that we'll be leaving for Champagne.”

“When?” I asked.

“When Milon names the date,” Lord Stephen replied. “We should hear any day now.”