The Seeing Stone (2 page)

I
WON'T TELL ANYONE,” I SAID.

My aunt Alice snapped off the head of a flower. “Now look what I've done,” she cried. “An innocent cowslip!”

“I swear by Saint Edmund,” I said. “I won't tell anyone.”

“I should never have told you, ” my aunt said in a low voice. She twisted one of her light brown curls, and then she tucked it under her wimple. “You're too young.”

“I'm thirteen,” I protested.

“You must try to forget I ever told you.”

A bumblebee, the first of the season, droned into our herb garden and threshed the air in front of us. Its wings glittered.

I shook my head. “It's dreadful,” I said.

“I can't tell anyone else at all,” Lady Alice said. “If people ever found out, there would be terrible trouble. You do understand that?”

“Will you and Grace and Tom be all right?” I asked.

Lady Alice closed her eyes, which are the color of ripe hazelnuts, and breathed deeply. Then she opened her eyes again, smiled and stood up. “I must go or it will be dark before we get back to Gortanore,” she said.

My aunt took both my hands between her small hands, and kissed me on the right cheek. Then she looked solemnly at me, turned and hurried out of the herb garden.

I wish there had been more time to tell Lady Alice about how Merlin disappeared from the top of Tumber Hill. And I wish I could have asked her whether she knows anything about my father's plans for me. What I hope with all my head and heart is that he does mean me to be a squire, and that he will send me away into service. Nothing in my life matters as much to me as this.

M
Y MOTHER SAYS I'M CLEAN ENOUGH TO COME BACK
into the house, but I can still smell the manure.

My little sister Sian says she can too. “You stink, Arthur!” she keeps shouting.

This afternoon my brother Serle and I went over to the Yard, wearing our mail-shirts and carrying lances.

“Three times round,” said Serle. “And this time, no shortcuts!”

There's a track right round the Yard, behind the archery butts at each end, and it has five obstacles. There are two ditches, one shallow, and one really deep with steep sides, and that's the muddy one; there's a low hurdle made of wattle, and a gravelpan that's almost always full of water; and worst of all, there's an upright ladder with nine rungs, and big gaps between them. You have to climb up one side and down the other.

It's difficult to run round the track wearing a mail-shirt. As soon as I'm at all off balance, its weight pulls me farther sideways or forward. And when I'm carrying a lance as well…Mine isn't at all heavy but unless I'm holding it exactly right, it drags behind me or swings in front of me, or the point sticks into the ground.

It was very hot, and I started to sweat before we reached the starting post.

Serle smiled his curling smile. “You're useless at this,” he said. “God made a bad mistake with you.”

I showed both my fists to Serle, and my mail-shirt squeaked and clinked.

“How much start do you want?”

“None,” I said.

“Because I'll beat you anyhow.”

“Stop it, Serle!” I shouted.

What stopped Serle was a distant roar. Then a scream and yells.

“The fallowfield,” said Serle. “Quick!”

We pulled off each other's mail-shirts, and ran back to the stone bridge, then down to the church and across the green.

Wat Harelip was looking over the hedge into the fallowfield. So were Giles and Joan and Dutton, still holding their scythes and twig-brooms.

Then I saw for myself. Somehow, both our bulls had got into the same field, and Gatty was standing between them. I could see she was talking to Harold—he's our old bull—but I couldn't hear what she was saying. She kept shaking her head, and the curls of her fair hair jumped and danced like impatient water.

“Gatty!” bawled Wat Harelip.

“Come on!” shouted Dutton. “Come out!”

Harold ignored Gatty. He was glaring at Brice, our other bull, and Brice was glaring at Harold. Both bulls roared, and began to scrape the ground. Then they charged at each other. Their horns clashed, and they rushed past each other so that Gatty was left standing between them again.

“Look!” cried Joan. “Harold's got a rip over his right shoulder.”

“Gatty!” shouted Wat Harelip again. “Wait for your father.”

“The bulls won't wait,” said Joan.

“He was here in the field, Hum was,” said Wat. “I saw him take off his jacket. Go on, Dutton! Go and find him. I can't run no more.”

Dutton gave one last look at Gatty and the bulls, and then he barreled off across the green, calling for Hum.

“Lankin was here too,” said Wat Harelip.

“I saw him sneak off,” Joan said. “The thieving weasel!”

“What's he up to now?” said Wat. “He should be in there, herding the cows.”

Our whole herd of cows are folded in the fallowfield, but they were standing well out of harm's way, some on their own, mistyeyed and mooing, some jostling each other, stamping and farting.

Gatty turned her back on Brice, and walked past Harold, and started talking to him again. Then she held up her father's maroon jacket, the one my father gave him on the day he appointed Hum reeve of Caldicot manor.

Harold didn't like the sight of it at all. He lowered his horns and charged, and everyone gasped. But at the last moment, still holding up the jacket and waving it, Gatty stepped to one side. Harold caught the jacket, he drove one of his horns right through it; then he shook his head and tossed it away.

At once Gatty picked it up, she ran after Harold and twenty paces beyond him.

“What's she up to?” asked Giles.

“What does it look like?” said Wat Harelip.

“She's drawing him away from Brice,” I said.

That didn't work, though, because Brice didn't want to be left
out. Suddenly he came charging up behind Harold and butted him in the rump. Harold roared to heaven, and I saw that Gatty would never be able to separate the beasts on her own.

“Serle,” I said in a low voice. “We must help.”

“Are you mad?” said Serle.

“But we must.”

“You'd be ripped to pieces.”

“We must, though.”

“It's not your duty,” Serle replied. “And it's not my duty.”

“I know,” I said, “but I have to help Gatty.”

“Fieldwork,” said Serle contemptuously. “Squires and pages don't tangle with bulls.”

“Squires and pages
are
young bulls,” murmured a voice at my shoulder. “Aren't they?”

“Merlin!” I cried. “You've come back. Gatty needs us.”

Serle shuffled and planted his feet more firmly on the ground. But then I felt the flat of Merlin's hand in the small of my back, gently encouraging me.

“I will then,” I said loudly. And I ran along the hedge to the stile, and into the fallowfield.

“That's the boy!” shouted Joan.

“Careful, Arthur!” yelled Wat Harelip.

God's bones! I ran straight into it, a sloppy pool of first-day dung. I slithered, I slipped and fell flat on my back.

Seeing this, Harold at once trotted over to have a closer look. Still lying on my back, I saw the strings of saliva hanging from his mouth, and the points of his horns. Then Gatty came running past
Harold. “Get up!” she panted. “Get up!” She pulled me to my feet, and at once Harold lowered his head. He pointed his horns at us.

I think I closed my eyes. Then I heard the thunder, and I felt it. And when I dared to look again, Harold had charged right past us, and Wat Harelip and Joan and Giles and Merlin were clapping and cheering.

“Now get out!” shouted Gatty.

“No!” I yelled.

Gatty looked at me with her river-green eyes, and they were shining.

“Come on! You come out!” I said, and I clutched at Gatty.

“Keep your hands off me,” said Gatty, grinning.

Then she looked at her father's jacket. She found the tear Harold had made, pulled it apart, and ripped the whole jacket in two.

“You do Harold,” she said. “Keep him in this corner. I'll do Brice.”

I walked towards Harold, slowly. His right shoulder was bleeding and his rump was bleeding. His eyes were bloodshot.

“Come on then, Harold,” I heard myself saying. “Are you coming?”

Harold looked at me. He looked at the red half-jacket. Then I did what I'd seen Gatty do. I flexed my knees, I raised the jacket and waved it and, as Harold ran at me, I stepped to one side.

I could hear more clapping and cheering and shouting from the hedge.

“Again!”

“Go on, Arthur!”

Gatty, meanwhile, made short work of Brice. First I saw her draw him across to the far side of the field, and then she waved him right into the bullpen. As soon as she had closed the gate, she ran back across the field to join me.

“Come on!” she gasped.

But now that Brice was in the bullpen, Harold completely lost interest in Gatty and me. He snorted and turned away, and then tried to look at the wound on his right shoulder.

Gatty and I staggered across the fallowfield to the stile.

“Disgusting…you…” she gasped.

“Why were they both in the field together?”

“I fenced the pen wrong,” said Gatty. “Brice barged out. My father will be furious.”

“And mine,” I said.

Gatty was right and she didn't have long to wait because Hum, followed by Dutton, came running down to the fallowfield while we were still talking. Hum was upset at Harold's wounds; he was angry when he saw what remained of his precious red jacket; and he was furious with Gatty for being careless.

Hum glared at Wat Harelip and Dutton and Giles and Joan. “And I suppose you lot encouraged them,” he said.

“No,” said Merlin. “We encouraged the bulls.”

First Hum cuffed Gatty's right ear. Then he grabbed Dutton's twig-broom, told Gatty to bend over and thrashed her six times.

Gatty didn't make a sound. Slowly and stiffly she stood up, and she looked at me. Her eyes were glistening. Then she lowered her
head. I could tell Hum was minded to say something to me as well, but he must have thought better of it because he just glared at me.

“I told Arthur not to,” Serle said. “I told him.”

Hum said nothing to Serle either. He just turned his broad back on both of us. “Come with me!” he told Gatty and, without lifting her head, Gatty slowly limped after him.

“That man!” said Wat Harelip darkly.

“I'd like to break every bone in his body,” Dutton said. “He weren't fair to Gatty, and he's never fair to us.”

After that, I walked over to the millpond on my own, and my legs were shaking. I washed off as much of the filth as I could, but my clothes were still soiled, and my hair was sticky.

My mother was waiting for me in the hall, and as soon as I walked into the house, she ordered me straight out again.

“Go on!” she yelled. “Get your clothes off! Into the moat! Wash yourself all over, you horrible dung beetle!”

That's just like my mother: She's Welsh, and often sounds much more angry than she really is.

I took off all my clothes and slipped into the cold water. Then Sian and Tanwen, my mother's chamber-servant, came out of the house with a whole pot of soap and clean clothing.

“Wash your hair!” Tanwen called out. “Wash yourself all over.”

“You dung beetle!” cried Sian joyfully. “How cold is it, Arthur?”

The mutton fat smelt bad but the wood ash smelt good, and both smelt much better than the cow glue. But now my mother has allowed me back into the house, I can smell the manure again.

“Serle has told me what happened,” said my mother.

“He doesn't even know,” I said indignantly. “I'll tell you.”

“I've heard quite enough,” said my mother. “You can tell your father, and he will punish you. He'll talk to you tomorrow.”

I pressed my lips together.

“Well?”

“Yes, mother.”

“That's better. Always acknowledge your parents when they speak to you.”

“Yes, mother.”

“Serle says you left your lance and mail-shirt in the Yard. Run and bring them in before dew falls.”

“Let's run together,” Sian said. “Three-legged. You stink, Arthur!”

F
ROM ALL THIS WRITING, MY LEFT HAND ACHES. THE TIP
of my king-finger is black.

Our priest Oliver says my father wants me to have a good writing-hand, and that I must practice for one hour each day. When I asked him what I should write, he replied: “That's obvious! It's quite obvious.”

“Not to me,” I said.

“No,” said Oliver. “One person glimpses paradise while another stares at a field of thistles.”

“What do you mean?”

“We read in the Book each morning, don't we? Today it was Abner and Ner and Ishbosheth and Joab and Asahel, who was as light on his feet as a roe. You must copy out your reading.”

I don't want to write about Abner and Ner and Ishbosheth and Joab and Asahel, especially not in Latin. I want to write my own life here in the Marches, between England and Wales. My own thoughts, which keep changing shape like clouds. I am thirteen and I want to write my own fears and joys and sorrows.

I can hear snoring down in the hall. That will be my grandmother. When she starts snoring, the whole house trembles.

B
UT IF I HADN'T HELPED HER, GATTY MIGHT HAVE
been killed.”

“Maybe,” said my father. “But firstly, Arthur, your duty is not to talk but to listen.”

“But…”

“Secondly, it's not up to pages to play among cowpats. You shouldn't humble yourself. You know that.”

“No one else lifted a finger. Wat Harelip and Giles and Joan, they all kept shouting, but they didn't help.”

“What you did was wrong,” said my father, “but for the right reasons. I know you were being loyal to Gatty, and you were extremely brave. No one wants to go into a field and face two angry bulls. But I want you to understand: Each one of us here in this manor of Caldicot has his own duties. What are your duties?”

“To learn to tilt and parry and throw and wrestle and practice all the other Yard-skills; to dress my lord, and serve at table, and carve; to read and to write.”

“Exactly,” said my father. “No one can learn these skills for you. In just the same way, Hum and Gatty and Wat Harelip and everyone in the manor have their own duties. They must be accountable for them—to me, and to God.”

“Yes, father.”

“In fact, it's the same for each man and woman and child on
middle-earth: Each has his own place, his own work, his own obligations. If we all start taking one another's places, where will we be?”

“Is it wrong, then,” I asked my father, “to do what your gut tells you to do?”

“Well,” replied my father, “our instincts never lie to us, but they do sometimes instruct us to do things we should not do. And your tongue, Arthur, often says things it should not say.” My father walked right round the chamber, and poked with his left forefinger at one of the little horn-window-slats which had slipped out of position. “The next time Serle and I go hunting,” he said, “you will stay at home. That is your punishment, and the end of the matter. Now! It must be a moon-month since you dressed me.”

As he spoke, my father started to undress. He unlaced his tunic and took it off, and threw it on the bed. He kicked off his boots. Then he pulled off his shirt and rolled down his hose. Soon, he was wearing nothing but his breeches. “What can you remember about the skill of dressing your lord?” he asked me.

“First,” I said, “I invite my lord to stand near the fire.”

“Or…”

“Sit by the fire.”

“Go on, then.”

“Sir,” I began, “will you come and stand by the fire? Or sit on this stool? It's warmer here.”

“I'm warm enough,” said my father.

I picked up my father's shirt and turned it the right way out. “Your shirt, sir,” I said. And I held it up so that he could put his arms into it.

“And now,” I said, “your red tunic. It's well aired, sir.”

“And still in one piece, I see,” said my father.

“Father,” I said, “Gatty was really brave.”

“Arthur!”

“May I lace your boots for you, sir?” I asked.

“No, Arthur. You're not concentrating. My hose first.”

“Yes, sir.”

When I had finished dressing my father, I went over to the window ledge, but the comb wasn't there with the mirror.

“Well, what are you going to do about it?” my father asked.

“Sir, will you wait here while I find it?”

“There's no need,” said my father. “Not today.” And he ran both hands through his long black hair. “But we do need another comb in this house.”

“I cut one for Sian,” I said.

“I know,” said my father, and he smiled. “But what's lost is only hiding. It will show its teeth again at the next spring cleaning.”

“Father,” I said. “You know I'm thirteen now?”

“I do.”

“Serle was twelve when he went into service.”

“You are in service.”

“I mean, when he went away into service.”

“Aren't you learning enough with me?”

“Yes, but I mean…most pages go away when they're thirteen.”

“Some do. Some pages become squires to their own fathers.”

“But Serle went away.”

“You're not Serle.”

“Can't I go to Lord Stephen as well?”

My father shook his head. “I think one de Caldicot was quite enough for him,” he said.

“Some pages go into service with their own uncles, don't they?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“I could serve your brother.”

“Sir William?” exclaimed my father. “You?”

“Why not?”

“He's very much older than I am,” my father said. “He's sixty-four. And he's away from home half the time.”

“Lady Alice would be glad if I did. I know she would.”

“You do, do you?” my father replied. “It's not up to her. A squire serves a knight, not a lady.”

“I mean, wouldn't I learn even more if I were away from home? Oliver says boys learn better from teachers than from their own parents.”

“Hang Oliver!” said my father in a slow dark voice.

“But…”

“That's enough,” said my father sharply. “At present, you're a page here in this manor. In good time, and before long, I'll tell you about my plans for you.”