Brother Dusty-Feet (17 page)

‘Dusty,’ said Jonathan, ‘go and get me the pot of salve from the cart, and a clean rag.’

Hugh darted off at once, and began rummaging in the tilt-cart. It took him rather a long time to find the salve, and even longer to find a clean rag, especially as Argos had scrambled in beside him and was trying to help; and when he came back with them, the rest of the Company were sitting in the ditch too, and Jonathan was bathing the sailor’s foot with water fetched in Nicky’s hat (it was better than Ben’s for carrying water in) from a pond nearby that had water buttercups and green pondweed growing on it.

‘I’ve brought the salve, Jonathan,’ said Hugh, ‘and here’s a bit of rag – it’s the cleanest I could find.’ And he sat down on his heels to hold the pot for him and watch what he did with it.

Jonathan finished bathing the foreign sailor’s foot, and spread salve on it, and bandaged it up with the bit of rag. ‘That feel better?’ asked Jonathan.

‘Thanka you, yes. You are – ver’ gentle,’ said the
sailor politely; and he drew his legs under him and began to get up.

‘You can’t walk on that foot,’ Jonathan told him.

‘But I ’ave to reach to Bristol,’ said the sailor in a bothered voice.

‘Our ways be together as far as Glastonbury,’ said Master Pennifeather. ‘You’d best come with us and ride in the cart.’

So they took a few things out to make room for him, and the foreign sailor came with them, riding in state in the back of the tilt-cart, with his bundle beside him, and his feet swinging just clear of the road behind. He travelled with them in that way for several days, and they grew to like each other very well; and in return for the ride he helped them with the making and mending and contriving of costumes and properties, for he was clever with his fingers, as sailors generally are. He told them that his name was Paolo, and that he was from Genoa, and that he had come to England often and often, but never seen more than the seaport towns his ship called at, until this time he had determined to see something of the country. So he had got leave from the Shipmaster, and left his ship, the
Santa Lucia
, at Poole, meaning to rejoin her at Bristol. He told them, too, about his voyages and adventures, and about his little farm inland from Genoa, that his wife looked after when he was away at sea, and his goats and his fig tree, and the uplands where his goats grazed, where the little wild cyclamen grew among the grass. He spoke English so well that by listening carefully the Players understood almost everything he told them. He was a merry, rather gentle sort of person at most times, with a liking for singing doleful songs
about drowned sailormen which made Argos howl in sympathy, as they sat round their supper at the long day’s end. But once when a countryman jostled him rudely in a market crowd, his little bright dagger was out in a flash, and Jonathan had to catch his wrist and tell him not to be a zany and that he wasn’t in Genoa now.

It was still drizzling, grey weather when they came down into the fens around Avalon; but the orchards were in blossom, pink and white like sunset clouds, and the marsh-water that lay everywhere reflected back the blossom and the great beds of brown-tufted reeds. Among the fens and the little orchard islands Glastonbury rose like a city in the clouds; and it did not seem quite real even when the Players marched right into it and up the curving narrow streets to the great Pilgrim Inn.

There was a lovely picture of St George killing the dragon, swinging over the courtyard arch; and on the front of the inn were three painted shields: the arms of England in the middle, brilliant in blue and gold and scarlet, and St George’s blood-red cross on one side, and on the other a plain white shield with nothing on it at all.

In under the shields and the swinging sign marched the Players, as dusty as any pilgrim that ever came that way. And they stayed three days, but they did not enact the True and Noble History of St George. Glastonbury belonged to St George in a rather special sort of way, but special players always came to the Pilgrim Inn to act his story every year, and so it would have been poaching if Hugh’s Players had acted it too.

On the last evening, when they had finished
rehearsing, they were all gathered together in the small private garden behind the inn, for the inn-wife, who was a sensible woman and did not think that being a Strolling Player meant that you were going to steal the best pewter or dig up the flowerbulbs, had said that they were welcome to sit in her garden, it being such a lovely evening. It really was a lovely evening; grey clouds and drizzle had cleared away at last, and the sky was primrose-yellow beyond the gnarled branches of the apple trees; and the Players and the foreign sailor sat in a row on a bench before the kitchen door, with Argos dozing at their feet. It was the last evening that Paolo would be with them, because they were turning south in the morning, and he was going on to Bristol; his foot was almost well again, and he would be able to travel on it quite well.

‘Jonathan,’ said Hugh, when they had sat talking lazily for a while, ‘could you do something to my jerkin? It’s too tight.’

It certainly was, much too tight. Hugh had been growing fast since he joined the Company, and it had been none too big for him in the first place. Now the sleeves only came half-way down his arms, and if he did up the buttons, he could not breathe properly.

‘I’ll have to put a piece in down the back,’ said Jonathan. ‘’Twill look a bit odd, I’m afraid.’

‘You’d better find a Holy Well and drop pins down it and ask St George for a new jerkin,’ Nicky told him, breaking off in his efforts to copy a blackbird who was singing most wonderfully in the tallest apple tree. ‘And while you’re about it, you might ask for
one for me, too. Mine was wore out before Jasper passed it on to me, and it’s very draughty.’

‘Wasn’t wore out,’ protested Jasper, sleepily. ‘An’ anyway, th’ only Holy Well I can think of hereabouts b’longs to St Bride. She wouldn’t be int’rested in jerkins.’

Nicky, who had given up trying to imitate the blackbird, said, ‘How do you know she wouldn’t?’ simply for the sake of being aggravating.

But before they could really start arguing, Paolo put in, in his careful English, ‘There are, then, many saints that have to do with ’ere?’

‘Oh yes, Saints in Avalon are as thick as bees in a lime tree,’ said Jonathan. ‘But St George is the best of the lot.’

‘Ah, the St George,’ said Paolo. ‘That is his, the red crossa shield I see above the doorway.’

‘That’s it,’ said Ben Bunsell. ‘How did you know, you being a foreigner?’

Paolo spread his hands and smiled. ‘Of Genoa also, St George is the Patron Saint.’

Everybody gazed at him in surprise. ‘But I say, he’s
ours
!’ said Nicky indignantly, and Ben Bunsell said:

‘Then you’ll know as much about him as we do.’

‘Ah yes! ’E killa the Dragon,’ nodded Paolo.

‘That’s right,’ they said encouragingly.

‘And ’e come from the Cappadocia,’ said Paolo.

‘Don’t you b’lieve it,’ said Jasper. ‘Came from Coventry.’

‘Coventry? That is where, please?’

‘Somewhere up north – makes knives and buckles and things,’ explained Ben. ‘If you didn’t know that,
maybe you don’t know about that other shield of his over the doorway – the empty one?’

Paolo shook his head and spread his hands and smiled. ‘You will tella me, somebody?’

‘Tell him the tale, Jonathan,’ said Master Pennifeather.

Jerkins and Holy Wells were forgotten, and everybody settled themselves expectantly. They all knew the story, and they all knew (as most people did in those days, although they have forgotten since) about St George being an Englishman; but they liked to hear Jonathan tell it.

So Jonathan told:

‘Well then, St George was the son of a nobleman of Coventry. His mother died when he was but a few hours old, and that same night, while all the castle was in an uproar and full of grief, the babe was stolen out of his cradle with its carved panels and golden bells, by an enchantress called Kalyb. Maybe it was for some spite she had against his father, or maybe she wanted a man-child to rear just for the fun of the thing; or maybe, having the Long Sight, she saw what he would be when he was grown to manhood, and thought she could train him better than his father could do – she having the ancient wisdom and the ancient magic. At all events, out of his cradle she took him, and carried him away to her own castle and set her ladies to nurse him; and when he was too old for their nursing she gave him to her household knights, to be trained in all the things that a knight should know. The years went by, and the boy grew tall and strong, and mastered one by one the many lessons that he had to learn; and at last the time came when he was old enough to carry arms.
Then Kalyb gave him a white horse called Bayard, whose upraised crest and arching mane were like the crest of a breaking wave; she gave him a plain white shield, and girded an empty scabbard about his waist, and she told him: “Go out into the world and find a sword for your scabbard and a device for your shield, and I want no more of you, for you are a man now, and there is no place for you here.”

‘So St George rode out into the world, and looked about him for an adventure. But no adventure befell him until he came riding one evening by the marsh ways into Avalon. There was no Glastonbury in those days, only a little band of monks who lived in huts of wattle and daub clustered together round a wooden hall, like the cells in a bumble bee’s nest; but they gave shelter to travellers, just as the great Abbeys did later on. And the brown-clad brethren welcomed the young knight with the blank shield, when he claimed their hospitality. They stabled his great horse Bayard, and took him to the guest-hut, and bade him join them at supper in the long hall. St George was glad to come to supper, for he was very hungry, and the coarse brown bread and river-trout tasted better to him than ever the dainty fare in Kalyb’s castle had done.

‘But it seemed to him that the brethren were troubled about something, and when the meal was over, he turned to the old grey Abbot, and said, “Father, it seems to me that there is some trouble upon you all; if it is so, and there is anything that I can do to help you, I pray you tell me.”

‘ “We are indeed troubled,” the Abbot replied, “for we are in danger of losing our greatest treasure, our only treasure.”

‘ “And what is that? And how are you in danger of losing it?”

‘ “Come with me,” said the Abbot, “and I will show it to you.”

‘And he pushed back his stool, and led the way from the hall, with St George following at his sandalled heels. He led St George to a little hut that was full of golden taper-light, for it was the chapel of the Brotherhood, though ’twas built of wattle and daub, like any shepherd’s cot, and the earwigs fell out of the thatch now and then. A young monk who was on guard like a soldier in the doorway stood aside to let them in, and the Abbot pointed silently to a great sword that lay before the altar, with all the glimmering light of the candles on its blade. It was a very plain sword, no damascening on the long, straight blade, no gems enriching the hilt; it was of a strange Eastern design, and so big that only a very tall man could handle it properly, and St George’s heart went out to it, and he longed to test its balance and feel the grip in his hand. St George was a tall man.

‘ “That is your treasure?” he asked.

‘ “That is our treasure,” said the Abbot, and he took it up, handling it as though it were a living thing that he loved. “This is Meribah. With this sword St Peter strove to defend Our Lord, when they came to take Him in the Garden of Gethsemane; and now it is ours, our treasure, and has been these many years. But it seems that it may be ours only a little while longer, for our nearest neighbour – him they call the Raven, from the device on his shield – has sworn to take it from us, and we can do little to
withstand him, for he is a powerful knight and we have no champion.”

‘St George looked again at the great sword, and he said: “I have no sword. If I had, I would be your champion.”

‘ “You shall have Meribah,” said the Abbot, his old face brightening with hope. “And if you win your fight, the sword shall be yours to take with you on your way. We would rather die than that Meribah should fall into the hands of such a man as the Raven, but we will give it gladly to a good knight who will keep the blade untarnished and use it to defend the Right,” and he put the sword into the young man’s eager hands.

‘That night St George slept with the sword Meribah against his breast, and the next morning he was sitting cross-legged in the guest-hut doorway, lovingly polishing the blade, when the young monk he had seen the night before in the chapel came scurrying to tell him that the Raven had been seen in the distance, riding that way.

‘Up sprang St George, slamming the blade home into his empty sheath, and went with a high heart to saddle Bayard. Bayard was pleased to see him, and whinnied softly when he came in, and slobbered velvety lips on his shoulder while he and the young monk were saddling and bridling him. But St George had no time to fondle him just then. “Presently, Brother Bayard,” he promised, “presently you shall have sweet crusts, but now there is work waiting for us both.” And he led the great horse out into the sunshine where the anxious monks were waiting, and swung into the saddle.

‘Down through the crab-apple and alder trees
rode St George, with his blank shield high on his shoulder, and the sunlight glancing from helm and lance-point, and the anxious-eyed brethren in their brown habits following at Bayard’s hairy heels; down towards the marshland track, where a tall figure on a black horse was pricking to meet him. As they drew nearer to each other, St George could see the raven on the other’s shield, and he wished that his own was not blank and empty. “But maybe,” he thought, “if I win this fight, the Abbot will give me a device to wear on my shield, as well as the sword Meribah that he has promised me.” And his heart beat quick and hard, and he could feel his knightly honour very new and bright inside him, because this was his first fight.

‘St George and the Raven came together just where the track ran through a little flowery meadow, and St George reined his horse across the way and bade the other turn back.