At the Crossing Places (30 page)

M
ATINS,
T
ERCE,
S
EXT,
N
ONE
sets of prayers said or sung at 2
A.M.,
9
A.M.,
midday, and 3
P.M.
In all, monks attended seven services during
each twenty-four-hour period: Matins/Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline

MIDDEN
a dunghill

MIDSUMMER-MEN
a plant with purple-pink and purple-red flowers used in magic and medicine; also known as orpine

NOVICE
in religious orders, a person under probation, prior to taking monastic vows

OBSIDIAN
volcanic glass, usually black, believed by some cultures to have magical powers

OCTAVO
the size of a piece of parchment or paper when each leaf is one-eighth of the whole sheet (i.e., when it has been folded three times)

PALFREY
a saddle horse for day-to-day riding

PARRY
to ward off or deflect the thrust of a sword

PAVILION
a large tent with a peaked top

PEL
a wooden post against which squires practiced swordplay

PIGEONS OF
C
AEHOWELL
pigeons superstitiously believed to predict someone's death; Caehowell is a farm in the county of Shropshire

PISMIRE!
an exclamation that someone or something smells of urine, like an ant-hill

PORTCULLIS
a heavy iron grating lowered to bar the gateway to a castle

PUMICE-BREAD
powdered glass, flour, and brewer's yeast made into loaves, baked, and then cut into small chunks for use in the scriptorium

QUARTO
the size of a piece of parchment or paper when it is folded twice, so as to form four leaves

RECKLING
the smallest or weakest animal in a litter

RED-LETTER DAY
a letter written in red ink, used in church calendars to indicate saints' days or festivals

REEVE
the overseer (or steward) of a manor

RUNE
a letter (or character) of an alphabet said to have magical powers

SCREE
a steep slope of loose stone

SHAWM
an oboe-like instrument that came to Europe from the Near East in the twelfth century

SOLAR
a withdrawing room, where one can be alone

SPRING-LINE
the dividing line between an elevated hillside and a valley basin

STOOKS
bundles of grain

SUMPTER
a packhorse

VELLUM
the best kind of parchment, made from the skin of a calf, lamb, or kid

WIMPLE
a cloth covering for a woman's head arranged so that only her face is exposed

WITHERS
on a horse, the highest part of the back, between the shoulder blades

Kevin Crossley-Holland grew up in the English countryside at the foot of a high hill. While an undergraduate at Oxford University, he fell in love with the Middle Ages and Anglo-Saxon poetry—a passion now reflected in his many highly praised collections and retellings of medieval stories and myths. In 1985, he received the Carnegie Medal for his novel
Storm,
while
The Seeing Stone,
the first book in his Arthur trilogy, won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and was shortlisted for the Whitbread Award and the
Los Angeles Times
Book Prize. It was also named an ALA Notable Book for Older Readers. The Arthur trilogy, which concludes with
King of the Middle March,
has won worldwide acclaim and is being published in twenty-one languages. It has already sold more than a million copies.

Kevin and his wife, Linda, live on the coast of the North Sea in Norfolk, England.

A
NUMBER OF PEOPLE HAVE GENEROUSLY GIVEN ME ADVICE
on specific matters: Thérèse Ballet-Lynn on the identity of Marie de France, David Crombie on cartography, Donald Davis on Jewish beliefs and customs, Anne Holland at the Ludlow Tourist Information Centre on Clun Castle, Maddy Léget and Anne Marzin on the history of Provins, and Simon Puttock on the organization of chapters.

Jeremy Flynn has continued to educate me in aspects of early medieval armor, Matthew Francis introduced me to the legend of the Butterfly Bishop, Fiona Fraser lent me books, and Lawrence Sail led me to Arthur's mother's ring, while my father and elder daughter, Peter and Oenone Crossley-Holland, have made helpful textual suggestions. I'm so grateful to all of you and to Helen Flanagan and Annabel Plowden for your word processing skills.

Hemesh Alles has drawn two attractive maps. Students of Shropshire will see that Holt Castle and the manors of Caldicot, Catmole, Gortanore, and Verdon stand on the sites of existing medieval buildings or their ruins.

My British publishers, Orion, are supporting this trilogy with great skill and style. In Judith Elliott, I have a friend and editor/publisher with an incomparable eye for the whole as well as the particular, and I am deeply grateful to you; to Fiona Kennedy for your finesse with world rights and sensitive editorial help; to Tamsin Curror for your flair with publicity; to Alex Webb and Jane Hughes; and to our maestro, Anthony Cheetham, himself a medievalist.

Nicole Crossley-Holland, a distinguished and humane scholar, has worked through my drafts with a fine-tooth comb and made very many invaluable suggestions, large and small. Any factual inaccuracies are mine, not yours, and I am greatly indebted to you for giving me such guidance and time.

My wife, Linda, and I have had many valuable discussions (often while walking) about this book's issues and ways of enacting them, while as teacher, she has blue-penciled my drafts with “the impatient eye of a twelve-year-old.” We have shared the pressures as well as the pleasures, and your belief in the author is rather more than he deserves. To you this book is dedicated.

BURNHAM MARKET

APRIL 12, 2001

In readying this text for American publication, I have made a number of changes as a result of my editor Arthur Levine's imaginative and very helpful suggestions. I am most grateful to him.

MARCH 14, 2002