The Seeing Stone (12 page)

J
OHANNA WAS RIGHT. LUKE DID SIP A LITTLE OF THE WARM
wine with shepherd's purse and honeysuckle in it; but when we sat him on the three-legged stool, and held him there, bare and upright, and kindled the charcoal fire under him, he screamed and threw it all up again.

Some of the fire's heat must have entered Luke, and risen right through him. But that hasn't done him any good either. All it has done is made Luke's bottom very red and raw.

Tanwen has given my mother a pot of ointment for burned skin. It smells quite disgusting, and is made of oil and dung beetles, and the heads and wings of crickets. When my mother rubbed it into little Luke's bottom, he screamed terribly.

My tail bone began to ache again while my mother and I were in Johanna's hut, and it still hasn't stopped. So it seems it doesn't hurt only when I have dark thoughts, but sometimes when I'm upset or afraid.

I could tell Johanna about my devil's part in case she has a cure for it. But I think that's too chancy. She might denounce me to my father.

I
F YOUR BABY NEVER STOPS MOANING

And whimpering and groaning,

Feed him with wine and shepherd's purse,

And light a small fire under his…

Pronounce a blessing or a curse.

That's Johanna's medicine.

If your baby never stops crying

And there's nothing left worth trying,

Brew him ointment from fish oil,

Dung beetles and crickets' wings,

And bring the mixture to the boil.

Then smear him, Tanwen says.

If your baby needs a new night nurse,

There cannot be anybody worse

Than Sian, my little sister.

All night she'll want to bolster-fight,

Royster-doyster, play the jester.

And that's Sian's treatment.

I know this song isn't fair, except about Sian; but sometimes I start to make one up without really knowing where it is going.

It is true some herbs can help us, as long as we don't pick them on an evil day when they have no power; and I know Johanna and Tanwen have learned more recipes than anyone else on our manor. Tanwen has sometimes given me lemon balm to sweat out my fevers, and once she quieted my aching head with feverfew.

All the same, I know some of her and Johanna's recipes are completely useless, because Tanwen told me so herself.

“They're bogus,” she said. “But we still sell them at Ludlow Fair. People pay for them.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Fear, I suppose,” said Tanwen. “When people are ill, they become afraid, and when they're afraid, they can be very stupid.”

When Tanwen said that, I remembered what the hooded man told King Uther after Duke Gorlois and Ygerna dared to leave his feast.

“Very stupid,” I said. “Or very bold.”

M
Y NEW BOW! IT IS SO BEAUTIFUL.
I know I am meant to keep it in the armory with my father's coat of mail and the practice swords and spikes and everything, but I have brought it up here so I can keep looking at it.

Will bore it into the hall after dinner, and it's made of elm, but at first I thought it was made of yew.

“Not until you're seventeen,” my father said. “I told you that.”

It doesn't matter, though. My bow shines in sunlight and candlelight, and the stave's a fingerspan taller than I am.

“He'll grow up to that,” Will said.

“He's grown two fingerspans during the last twelve months,” my father said.

“Can I string it?” I asked.

“Not much use otherwise,” my father replied.

So I noosed the hempen string round the bottom horn nock and planted the bow on the floor against the arch of my foot; then I grasped the middle of the stave, and reached up and pulled down the top until I could just slip the string over it. Lightly I pulled the string, and it popped and hummed. Then I slid one hand down the top half of the stave, the long slope of it, and felt how it flexed and swelled like a woman carrying her baby. “It is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen,” I said.

Then Will looked at my father and my father looked at Will, and they both laughed because I was so pleased.

“With this bow,” my father said, “you'll be able to shoot the full furlong. Make sure the butts are that far apart.”

“Now?”

“Wait here!” said my father. He went into the chamber and came straight out again with a long linen bag.

“You'll need these,” he said.

Then my father gave me the bag, and I opened it. Inside were the most wonderful arrows in the world. Their shafts were cut from pale ash-wood and their flights from peacocks' feathers, downy and blue and green.

“Where do they come from?” I cried.

“Lord Stephen keeps a pride of peacocks,” my father said, “so I sent for some feathers.”

One by one I rolled each arrow between my right thumb and forefinger: ten arrows! Each flight was bound to the shaft with red silk, and each nock was inlaid with little strips of horn. The heads were lean and very sharp, and I pressed each one into the ball of my thumb. When at last I looked up, my father and Will were still standing there, quietly watching me.

“May Will come too?” I asked my father.

“Down to the forest first,” my father said. “That's right, isn't it, Will?”

Will nodded.

“Pike?” I said. “Why?”

“The wood come from Pike, didn't it,” said Will. “Take some, give some!”

“Every bowyer and fletcher will tell you that,” my father said. “Never take without giving. Otherwise the wood will turn against you.”

So my father and Will and I walked out of the hall, and when we had crossed the bridge, we saw Oliver picking up fieldstones in the glebe.

“Come down to Pike,” my father told him.

Oliver sucked his teeth, and looked up at the sky. It was full of rooks, sweeping upwards and hurtling downwards.

“Breaking their necks!” said Will. “There's a gale on the way.”

“Or…” said my father. But he didn't finish what he had to say.

We walked right down to the edge of the forest: nothing in front of us but leaf-mold and tangled roots and clutching ivy. The darkness of the forest reached out towards us. Will pulled an old arrow from his belt and handed it to me.

“Give him one of the new ones,” said my father. “Better be safe.” Then he put a hand on my shoulder. “Careful!” he said. “You're not wearing a bracer.”

I notched an arrow to the new hempen string, and drew the string right back to my cheek, and cocked my wrist a little so that the string wouldn't lash it. Then I fired the arrow upwards, deep into Pike Forest.

“That's it,” said Will. “Wood to the wood.”

So now I have nine arrows fledged with peacock feathers, and nine's my number.

“Good!” said my father. “Now let's see what you can do in the Yard.”

Oliver made the sign of the cross over me and my bow.

“Peace be with you,” he said.
“Pax tecum.”
And as he walked away, he called out, “The stones await their master.”

My father and Will and I followed Oliver, and when I thanked Will for making my bow, he lowered his head.

“I know a good bow doesn't make a good archer,” I said.

“You're good already,” my father said.

“And I know a good archer doesn't make a good squire. But father, this new bow will make me better at my other skills as well.”

W
HEN I UNWRAPPED MY OBSIDIAN EARLY THIS
morning, it was cold as a lump of ice. I cupped it and rubbed it between my hands for quite along time, but it still didn't grow warm, as it has done before, and its shine was a dull shine.

Why wouldn't it show me anything? What have I done wrong? I am sure I wrapped it up right, and I held it in the same way I always do, with the lumpen side and white spots pressed into my right palm. Or is my stone's silence saying something?

Ygerna's heart is ice. Her baby has been ripped away from her, and I don't think she will ever see him again. She is so frozen with grief she cannot even melt into tears.

M
Y STONE'S SHINE WAS DULL AGAIN TODAY, LIKE THE
shine on one of Slim's cooking pots. I could only see the smoky shape of myself, not my eyes or my nose and mouth. The roll of my scarf made my neck as wide as my head. And my ears were the flaps of my rabbitskin cap, sticking out sideways. If I hadn't known who I was, I wouldn't have been able to recognize myself. In fact, I wouldn't even have been sure I was looking at a human being!

For a long time, I nursed my obsidian between my hands, as I did yesterday, and my blood warmed it. Then I heard words in it, and it must have been a priest speaking.

“Remember the words of our Lord,” says the voice. “He said, 'Ask, and you will receive.' He said, ‘Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the gate will be opened for you.' Listen to us, Lord. Let us who ask receive. Let us who seek find. Open the gate to those who knock.”

At first, I thought this priest sounded quite like Oliver. But maybe that's because Oliver likes saying the same thing twice, or else priests saying prayers all sound like one another. To begin with, the words were a very long way away; and although I kept warming the stone, it still would not show me anything.

“Lord,” says the priest, “we pray this baby will be blessed by your heavenly washing. Let him be an heir to the kingdom of
heaven.” The priest coughs. “Who speaks in the name of the child?” he asks.

“I do,” booms a deep voice, and I recognize it at once. It is the hooded man.

“In the name of this child, will you renounce the devil and all his works?”

“I renounce them.”

“Do you believe in the three-in-one and one-in-three?”

“I believe.”

“Lord,” says the priest, “bless this water. Let it wash away sin. Let the old Adam in this child die and be buried. Let the spirit live and grow in him.”

“Amen,” says the hooded man.

“Amen,” say several voices. Who are they? They must be the baby's foster mother and his foster father. His elder brother. His whole family. I wish I could see them.

“Who names this child?” asks the priest.

“I name him,” says the hooded man.

“Name him!” commands the priest.

But I can't hear what name the hooded man gives the baby because of the sip-and-slop and splashing of the water as the priest dips the baby into the font, and then the baby's yelling because the November water is so cold.

“I baptize you,” says the priest, “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.”

A
T DINNER THIS MORNING, MY FATHER WAS IN A GOOD
mood, so I asked permission to speak.

“What is it, Arthur?”

“My name.”

“Yes?”

“Who chose it?”

“Chose it?” said my father. “Your father, of course.”

“What does it mean?”

“Mean? I don't know.”

“But some names have meanings,” I said. “Oliver told me about the three kings. He says Melchior means king of light…”

“What do I mean?” asked Sian.

“Trouble!” said my father. “Who said you could speak?”

Sian put her head on one side, and grinned her gap-toothed grin. She can get away with almost anything.

Nain turned to my father. “The boy is right,” she said. “Of course names mean, and you know that very well. You, Helen, you mean the bright one. The dragon chose your name. And John means the favored one. Serle means armor.”

“I chose that,” said my mother.

“And Tanwen means white fire,” added Nain. “Remember?”

“What about me?” demanded Sian.

At this moment, Tempest and Storm started to bark, and then there was a loud knocking at the door. My father and Serle and I all stood up.

“Who is it?” shouted my father.

“Thomas,” called a muffled voice. “From Lady Alice.”

So my father unbolted the door, and Thomas fell in. He looks quite like a hen, with his beaky nose and jerky movements, and this morning he looked like a very wet one.

“Devil's teeth!” he exclaimed, and he shook himself and sprayed us all with raindrops. “I've never known rain like it. Cold and biting.”

“Warm yourself by the fire, man,” my father said. “You'll soon dry out.”

Thomas told us Sir William is staying at his manor in France, and is not expected home until Christmas, but that Lady Alice and Tom and Grace wish to visit us.

“Excellent!” exclaimed my father. “There's plenty to talk about.”

It is agreed that our cousins will arrive in ten days' time, and stay for three nights. I am very pleased about this. I like them both and it is a long time since I have seen them, because they were ill and unable to come in August. I won't have to do lessons with Oliver while they are here, and I can use my new bow when we go to the Yard. And at last I can show Grace my secret climbing-tree.

Serle is always kinder to me when Tom and Grace visit us, and sometimes he makes us all laugh. He was quite friendly and laughed when we bobbed for apples on Hallowe'en, and I remember how he unrolled Sian's and my bedding, but for all of October and these first days of November he has been strangely quiet, and sometimes
he gets angry without good reason. I know he doesn't like me, but he doesn't seem to like anyone much.

If I can find a way to be alone with Lady Alice, I may be able to find out more about whether Grace and I are to be betrothed. And I want to tell her I have kept her secret about Sir William, and ask her whether she has told it to anyone else.

I still don't know what my name means either. The only other Arthur I have ever heard of is the prince of Brittany, the son of Coeur-de-Lion's younger brother Geoffrey.

“Geoffrey died thirteen years ago,” my father told me, “and he was younger than King Richard but older that John, so the fact is that young Arthur has a better claim to the throne of England than his uncle John.”

“Then why is John the king?” I asked.

“He snatched the crown,” said my father.