The Seeing Stone (15 page)

T
HE PRETTIEST THING ABOUT GRACE IS PROBABLY
her delicate, sloping shoulders, and the funniest is her little snub nose. But what I like about her most are the lights dancing in her blue eyes, and the very quick way she speaks and moves.

When I saw her in May, I promised to take her to the top of Tumber Hill and show her where England ends and Wales begins, and point out where the jumpers came from when they raided us last year, and climb my climbing-tree with her. And that's what we did, although not in the way I expected.

On the first afternoon, Serle and Sian and I climbed Tumber Hill with Grace and Tom and the dogs, but Serle didn't talk much because Johanna had pulled out his rotten tooth early that morning and his mouth was sore. It was damp and cold, so when Sian begged us to play hide-and-seek, we agreed so as to keep warm.

Sian was the first to hide, but it didn't take us long to find her half-hidden under a pile of leaves. I was the last and, while the others hid their faces in their cloaks and counted up to one hundred, I ran through the beeches to the little green glade just over the top of the hill, and quickly climbed my climbing-tree. There were few leaves left on it to hide me, but seekers seldom think of looking above their heads.

“How did you know?” I asked Grace after I'd pulled her up on to my high perch.

“I thought of it at once,” Grace panted, “because you promised you'd show me your secret climbing-tree.”

While Serle, Tom and Sian sought us, and the hounds galloped between them, barking, Grace and I talked. She told me how her stepmother, Lady Alice, has begun to teach her French, and I told her how I'm going to get worse at my reading and writing lessons with Oliver in case my father wants me to be a monk or a schoolman, and she told me how Tom is no good at reading anyway, and I told her about Serle's unkindness, though not what he said about my inheriting only a little land, and she told me she often cries because her father is always away or going away, and I told her how I want to go away to serve as a squire, perhaps with Sir William, but I didn't say my father doesn't seem to like this idea.

“I'd never see you anyhow,” Grace said dolefully, “because my father is never at home.”

“Does your stepmother mind?” I asked Grace.

“She has to do all the lady's work, of course,” Grace replied, “and half the lord's work too. She figures the accounts and, this autumn, she managed all the day-work, the ditching and dungspreading and sedge-cutting and all that. She grows very tired, and that's when she cries.”

Grace and I stayed up in my tree, and talked and talked, until it was the blue hour and our limbs were almost as stiff as the tree's branches. Then we shouted and called out for Tom and Sian and Serle, but none of them answered.

It was very quiet in the glade.

“Sometimes,” I said, “you can hear the whispering spirits.”

“What spirits?” asked Grace.

“The voices of the dead in the trees. That's what Nain says.”

“You could cut Luke's name into this bark,” said Grace. “Then it will become part of the tree.”

“Come on!” I said. “We'd better climb down now.”

From the top of the hill, I pointed out Pike Forest, but beyond that there was nothing but grey gloom, rising from the ground and falling from the sky. We couldn't see the violet hills or the shadowy shapes of the Black Mountains.

“Wales isn't there,” I said, “but it is there.”

“There's a word for that,” said Grace, frowning.

“Paradox,” I replied. “Something that seems to contradict itself.”

Grace smiled. “You're a paradox,” she said, and for a moment she took my arm. “Isn't there, but is there,” she slowly repeated. “In that case, Wales is a matter of faith.”

“Grace,” I said.

“What?”

“Will you be betrothed?”

“I don't know,” she said. “I think they're talking about it.”

“Not Serle?”

“Serle! No! I won't marry Serle,” said Grace fiercely.

“Would it be all right?” I asked.

“You and me?”

“Yes.”

“I don't know. You're not too old, anyhow.”

“I'm thirteen!”

“I know, but my other cousin had to marry a man who was
nearly forty and had a stinking mouth. My mother was twelve when she was betrothed, the same as I am, and Sir William…” Grace paused and counted on her fingers. “…my father was forty-four.” There were daggers in Grace's eyes, and when she tossed her head, her hair sparked and flashed.

“The trouble is…” I began.

“What?” asked Grace.

I wanted to tell her what Serle had said—that my father doesn't mean me to be a squire, and that I can't make a good marriage without inheriting my own manor—but I was afraid to. “Come on!” I said. “It's getting dark. We'll be in trouble.”

When we got back to the manor, we found Serle and Tom and Sian sitting beside the fire; the hall was very smoky, and they were cross with us for not shouting and calling out earlier, and Serle said we'd wrecked their game.

“No, Serle,” said Grace. “We hid for as long as you had light to find us. But you gave up and left us to freeze to death.”

While Grace and Tom stayed with us, my father excused my lessons with Oliver. It rained so hard all the next morning that we were unable to go to the Yard, but on the third morning we went out immediately after dinner. Sian wasn't allowed to come with us, though, because first she dribbled into her food, and then she was rude to my mother and said she looked like a bad mushroom.

“In that case, Sian,” said my father, “you can stay in for the morning and sew.”

Sian howled, and then my mother and my aunt asked my father to excuse her, but it didn't make any difference.

“There's only one way of learning,” my father said, “and that's the hard way.”

In the Yard, Serle had first choice, and he made us tilt at the quintain, so we all had to troop back to the stables, and I saddled Pip while Serle saddled Gwinam. Tom's horse was lame, so Serle offered to share Gwinam with him.

In the first round, I managed to hit the shield with my lance, but the sandbag swung round so fast that it swiped me on the side of the head, and I fell off my horse. I didn't ride the next two rounds because I was dizzy, so Grace pronounced that I was third and scored no points, and Tom was second and scored one point, although he never hit the shield at all; and Serle, of course, was the winner, so he scored two points.

When it was my turn to choose a Yard-skill, I opened my mouth to say “archery,” but instead I said, “I choose swordplay.”

“You choose swordplay,” repeated Serle.

Tom grinned a slow grin. He knows he and I are on the same side and do things for each other. “Like a brother”: That's what I was going to write.

“Are you mad?” demanded Serle.

“Right!” said Tom, and he spat into the palm of his right hand, and drew his short sword from its sheath.

“Wait!” cried Grace. “Put on your jerkins!”

“Our jacks,” I said.

“This is swordplay, Arthur,” said Serle, and he smiled a twisted smile. “Not wordplay.”

First Serle beat me and then Tom beat me, as he always does;
but he beat Serle too, by seven hits to four, and once he dashed Serle's buckler right out of his hand.

So after the first two Yard-skills, Serle and Tom had each scored three points but I had scored none.

It was Tom's turn to choose next. He scratched his head, and grinned, and then he licked his right forefinger and held it up against the wind, and then he sniffed the air and shook his head and sighed.

“Come on, Tom,” said Grace.

Tom looked at me with his blue eyes, which are even brighter than Grace's because there are no flecks in them. “I choose archery,” he said.

“You choose archery,” repeated Serle. “You're both mad, then.”

“That's really chivalrous, Tom,” said Grace.

Tom stared at the ground and scraped it with his right boot.

“That's not chivalry,” Serle said. “It's tit for tat.”

I let Tom use my new bow and peacock arrows, but I still beat him easily, and he beat Serle. So after the third round, I had two points and Tom was in the lead with four points and Serle had three.

While we were standing at the far end of the butts, Gatty and her little brother Dusty came trudging out of the sites with two dripping sacks slung over their backs. The sacks were so heavy they could scarcely carry them.

“Who says you can take that?” Serle shouted.

Gatty tried to look up at him and staggered sideways.

“Stop!” called Serle. “I'm talking to you.”

Gatty dropped her sack and walked up to Serle; there was a
smear of manure across her right cheek and neck. Then Dusty dropped his sack and walked up behind Gatty.

“Who says you can take that?”

“Dunno,” said Gatty.

“That's our manure. You're stealing it.”

Gatty shook her head.

“Did Hum say you could?”

“Yes,” said Gatty.

“Why didn't you say so?” demanded Serle. “Go on, then.”

Gatty looked at me. I know she was waiting for me to say something, and I didn't. She looked at me again, and when she turned away, I felt my head drawing up all the blood in my body, and my face growing red.

“That's Arthur's friend,” Serle explained to Grace and Tom.

Gatty crouched down and gripped the sack of pig manure with both hands, and then swung it round on to her back. My heart banged inside my chest.

“He helps her with fieldwork,” Serle said.

“You don't,” exclaimed Grace, and she smiled at me and put her hands on her delicate shoulders.

“And yardwork,” added Serle.

“Stop it, Serle!” exclaimed Grace. “Stop teasing!”

“Fieldwork and yardwork,” Serle said, “against our father's orders.”

“It's not true, is it?” Grace asked me, her eyes wide open.

“Why should Gatty and Dusty—Gatty and Dusty and Giles and Dutton and Brian and Macsen and Joan and all the others have to do all the dirty work?” I asked. “Yes! I do help them sometimes.”

Tom was frowning. He didn't say anything, but I could see he felt uncomfortable.

“At least I used to,” I added.

“But now he's promised not to work in the fields or the sties or stables or anywhere else,” said Serle.

“How do you know?” I cried.

“But they're not your duties, Arthur,” said Grace. “I don't understand.”

“Exactly,” said Serle.

“Maybe they are my duties,” I said.

“Maybe they are?” Serle repeated. “Only if you want to be a reeve, like Hum. Is that what you want?”

“You don't understand,” I mumbled.

“It's you who don't understand,” said Serle. “Or you do understand, but choose to disobey.”

“Stop arguing,” said Tom, and he sounded quite angry.

Serle glared at me and I glared at him.

“Anyhow,” said Serle, “you can see what kind of friend Arthur is. He didn't say a word. He didn't defend Gatty. That's what I call a fair-weather friend.”

“Come on!” urged Tom. “It's your turn to choose a skill, Grace.”

“Well,” said Grace. “I was going to choose wordplay…”

“That's not a Yard-skill,” said Serle.

Tom shook his head dismally.

“Who says the competition is only for Yard-skills?” Grace asked.

“It is,” said Serle.

“Who is the judge?” demanded Grace.

No one said anything.

“Who is the judge?” Grace repeated.

“You,” said Serle in a quiet voice.

“And I say it's not,” said Grace.

“Can't we run at the ring?” asked Tom. “We did that last time.”

“What use are Yard-skills without manners?” Grace continued. “Anyhow, it's beginning to rain.”

Inside the hall, Sian was sewing with Nain, but as soon as she saw us she jumped up, and Grace hugged her.

“Poor Sian has been in prison all morning,” said Grace, “and we must cheer her up.” And then Grace asked us to praise Sian in just eight words, one for each year of her life.

“Praise!” I exclaimed. “Can't we insult her?”

“Insults are not mannerly,” said Grace. “Sian, you can be the judge with me.”

“Sister black,” said Serle, “and sister white, with hair like jet and whalebone teeth and keen eyesight.”

“That's not eight words,” said Grace.

“It will be when I've boiled it,” Serle replied.

“What about you, Tom?” asked Grace.

“Erm!” said Tom. “How about, Sian is the daughter of a mushroom?”

“Sian is the daughter of a mushroom,” Grace repeated solemnly, and then we all reeled around laughing, even Serle.

“Seven words,” I said.

“Easy!” shouted Tom. “Sian is the bad daughter of a mushroom!”

“What about you, Arthur?” asked Grace.

“Hail, nightingale!” I said. “Nimble thimble! Moth-mouth! Climbing rhymer!”

“How do you like that?” Grace asked Sian.

“Best,” said Sian.

“So do I,” said Grace. “And Serle's second best.”

So after the last test, I had scored four points and Serle had four and Tom had four, and only Serle was disappointed.

On our way down to church for Terce this morning, Grace nudged me and said under her breath: “Try to find out.”

“What?”

“Betrothal.”

“I will,” I said, “but my father never tells me anything.”

Lights were dancing in Grace's eyes. “We can't often see each other,” she said, “but we can still be like Wales to each other.”

“What do you mean?”