The Seeing Stone (18 page)

“Seventeen, sir,” said the scribe. “Seventeen guilty and five innocent. The others have not voted.”

Lord Stephen stared at Lankin, and then he turned and talked very quietly to my father. I couldn't hear what they were saying.

Lord Stephen turned to face Lankin. “Theft,” he said in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, “is a very serious offense. It is punishable by hanging.” He blinked and screwed up his eyes. “But Sir John has asked me to reduce your punishment, as he's entitled
to do— because he's your lord, and the mutton was his. Lankin, the court finds you guilty of theft, and I therefore sentence you to lose your thieving right hand. Let it be cut off at the wrist.”

Lankin said nothing. No one in the hall said a word.

“Take him out,” said my father.

Then Lord Stephen's two servants stood up and gripped Lankin under his shoulders and walked him out of the hall. My father followed him, but he didn't look at me.

“This court is suspended,” said Lord Stephen, “until the first day of June in the year of our Lord 1200.”

At once there was commotion in the hall, and a gang of villagers hurried to the door, all of them eager to witness my father draw his sword.

Then my mother stood up. She slowly walked over to Lord Stephen, and led him and his scribe away into the chamber.

So Gatty and Jankin and I were left in the hall. The three of us huddled together; we put our arms around each other. Jankin was shaking.

Then suddenly Jankin tore himself away. He ran out of the hall, shouting.

Half this night has gone. Slowly it has burned away. Maybe Lankin did steal the mutton; but even if he did, what Slim and Howell and Ruth and Wat Harelip have done, and what Hum has done, is much worse. They've chopped our village into two; they've wrecked Gatty and Jankin's betrothal.

How can they sleep? How can my father sleep? I can still hear Lankin screaming.

Y
OU?” EXCLAIMS SIR LAMORAK, THE ONE WITH THE BLUE
shield with white waves running across it.

“You the judge?” scoffs Sir Owain, the one with the gold shield with a scarlet lion on it. “You think you can judge us?”

“I can,” says Arthur-in-the-stone.

“You're no judge,” Sir Owain says. “It's for you to learn from us. What's your name?”

“Arthur.”

“Arthur! What does that mean?”

“I don't know.”

“He doesn't know,” says Sir Owain.

“But I'm thirteen,” I say, “and on a quest. Like Sir Pellinore.”

“Never heard of him,” says Sir Owain.

“What quest?” asks Sir Lamorak.

“I don't know. I have to find out.”

“You don't know much,” says Sir Owain.

“I know the difference between right and wrong,” I say.

“Right and wrong are seldom black and white,” says Sir Owain.

“Or blue and gold,” says Sir Lamorak, and they both start to laugh.

“Each contains the other,” says Sir Owain. “What seems right is often also partly wrong.”

“And vice versa,” adds Sir Lamorak.

“And if you judge us, Arthur,” Sir Owain asks, “who will judge you?”

“God,” I say. “God judges us all.”

“But who will believe us?” asks Sir Owain. “Who do you expect to believe us when we say we were judged by a boy?”

I look at both knights and press my back against the tree. “Close your right hands,” I say.

Sir Lamorak and Sir Owain glance at one another, then slowly close their hands.

“Now open them,” I say.

The moment they do so, two butterflies fly out—a blue one from Sir Lamorak's hand and a gold one from Sir Owain's hand. Open-mouthed, they watch them as they flicker across the glade.

“If anyone doubts you,” I say, “or even if you want to see a bright butterfly on a dark day, do as you've just done.”

The two knights each get down on one knee in front of me.

“I swear it,” says Sir Lamorak.

“I swear it,” says Sir Owain.

The picture in my obsidian blurs, it fades. But now I know that Arthur-in-the-stone can do magic. Did he learn it from the hooded man? Or was he born with magical powers?

S
INCE LANKIN'S TRIAL THE DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY,
everyone in the household has been ill at ease with each other. I still feel half-angry with my father, and I'm going to ask him whether he agrees with the things Joan said. I wish I could talk to Gatty, but Hum is keeping a close watch on her. Slim and Ruth serve in the hall, of course, but both of them have avoided my eye.

So unless it's mealtime, or I'm practicing my Yard-skills or studying with Oliver, I climb up here to my room, and this is where I'll stay until my teeth chatter. The words I write comfort me; my stone is my companion.

I wonder whether Merlin knows any magic? He might. After all, he gave me my seeing stone, and I think he disappeared when we were on top of Tumber Hill, and he knows about names and numbers and the nine spirits, and Oliver said some people think his father was an incubus. The trouble is that Merlin never says yes or no. He closes his eyes and then he tries to find out the question behind my question.

Of course I know a boy can't judge two knights, but all the same Sir Lamorak and Sir Owain were loud-mouthed and meanminded. They were only interested in themselves. And the last knight I saw in the stone was Sir William who bawled me down from the tree and tried to cut off my head. Sir Pellinore, though,
was on a quest. “Each of us must have a dream to light our way through this dark world.” That's what Sir Pellinore said.

Today, I saw the hooded man in my obsidian. He was sitting in a vestry and talking to a man who was holding a gold staff and wearing a mitre shaped like the mouth of a fish. The mitre was gold and had a darker gold cross stitched on it, and I think the man was the archbishop of Canterbury.

“We're alone,” the archbishop says, “so I'll talk openly. There are too many men in this country with big heads. They all think they can wear the crown.”

“King Uther told them about his son,” the hooded man replies. “Before he died, he gave his son God's blessing, and said he should claim the crown.”

“I've heard about that,” the archbishop replies, “but the earls and lords are restless, and not without reason. The Saxons are massing in the north and east again. It won't be long before they attack us.”

The hooded man smiles grimly at the archbishop.

“Things can't go on like this,” the archbishop says. “Where is he, this son?”

The hooded man gazes at the vestry roof, and shakes his head.

“How old is he?” demands the archbishop.

“Thirteen, Your Grace,” says the hooded man.

“Just a boy!” exclaims the archbishop. And he swats the thin air with his right hand. “This kingdom's in jeopardy. Britain needs a leader!”

“This is what you should do,” the hooded man says, and his voice is as rich and dark as Slim's pheasant gravy. “Send out
messengers to every earl, lord and knight in the country. Instruct them to come to London by Christmas, without fail, and this is why: to kneel down together and pray to baby Jesus on the night of his birth; to beg the king of mankind to perform a miracle and show us all who should be crowned king of this realm.”

The archbishop narrows his eyes. He rolls his golden staff between his two pink palms, first one way, then the other.

“A miracle,” he says.

“That's what Christians call it,” the hooded man replies.

“And what do you call it?” asked the archbishop.

“Many things seem miraculous until you understand them,” the hooded man says, “and some are so marvelous you could call them miracles.”

“I will send out my messengers, then,” says the archbishop.

M
Y STONE AGAIN!

I saw my namesake and the hooded man standing under a lych-gate in front of a huge church, and the hooded man was looking at me very strangely, with his left eye open and his right eye closed.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” I ask.

“A fierce wind will blow from the north and the east,” the hooded man replies. “It will tear at the trees on the forest. Many branches will bend and break. But in a forest glade an acorn will take root and grow into a sapling. Then all the oaks around it will bow down to it. So will all the beech trees, the ashes and the elms.”

“Is that a prophecy?” I ask.

“It is,” the hooded man replies.

“What does it mean?”

“Work it out for yourself,” says the hooded man. Then he closes his left eye and opens his right eye, and turns away.

The light went black inside my stone. For a while I scritched and scratched at one of the milky spots on its rough underside, like one of the mice in the storeroom. A fierce wind and a king-tree? I slowly dressed my strange stone in its cloth, and pushed it back into its crevice.

H
OW DO YOU SPELL A WORD?” OLIVER ASKED ME THIS
morning.

“I don't know,” I said. “Like it sounds?”

“But two people can say the same word in different ways. Haven't you noticed that?”

“Not really,” I said.

I have, of course. Gatty and I often say the same words in different ways. But until I know what my father's plans for me are, I'm going to disappoint Oliver.

“Here in the March we say
us,
but way east from Wenlock people say
uz.
So the same word gets written down in two different ways.”

“I see,” I said.

“And at court in London, people say
ars,
as if they were talking out of their nostrils, and so they write down that sound. Words are spelt in as many different ways as people speak them.”

“I understand,” I said.

“Not only that,” said Oliver, puffing himself up. “There's more than one way of writing down the same sound.”

“Is there?” I asked.

“Look!” said Oliver. He dipped his quill into the inkwell and sounded the words as he began to write them. “
Urth,
and
erthe,
and now
earth,
they all sound the same, don't they? And what about
this?
Woom,
and
woume,
and
woumbe,
and
woombe,
and
womb
: They all sound the same as well.”

“Yes, I see,” I said.

“Many words are like this,” said Oliver. “Words that wear different clothing.”

“Language is very difficult,” I said.

“It's a beauty and a beast,” Oliver replied. “As sharp as the most subtle thoughts we're capable of! As crude as a bludgeon!” Oliver waved his pudgy hand at me. “You'll learn,” he said.

“I can only get worse,” I replied.

“Whatever do you mean? You can only get better. Now! I've got some news for you.”

“News?”

“The guestmaster at Wenlock has sent me a message and he says there'll be room for us at the priory guesthouse next week. And then you'll be able to see the scriptorium where the monks write and illuminate their manuscripts, and you'll hear them sing the offices. A marvelous sound! I've spoken to your father, and he has agreed to it. What do you think about that?”

What I think is this: I want to visit Wenlock Priory. Of course I do. I am interested in how manuscripts are made, and I want to hear the monks singing. But I don't want my father or Oliver to know this, otherwise they may think that I'm suited to be a monk myself, or a schoolman. I am not. I want to be a squire, and then a knight, and I want to be betrothed to Grace.

I
T'S VERY STRANGE. IN MY STONE, THE ARCHBISHOP AGREED
to send his messengers to every earl, lord and knight in the country to summon them to London; and this afternoon a friar called Fulk rode in and told us he had come with the blessing of the archbishop of Canterbury.

First, he spoke to my father, and then my father asked Hum to summon everyone over the age of twelve to church, and Oliver energetically swung the church bell.

Lankin didn't come. But Cleg the miller did, and so did Martha. Jankin was there: He looked very white, and sat in a pew on his own.

The friar climbed into the pulpit. “I've come all the way from Neuilly in France, and I bring a message from the Holy Father, Pope Innocent himself. Jerusalem is still in the grip of the vile Saracens. Think of Jesus's pain. Think of His sorrow. Now the pope has proclaimed a fourth crusade to exterminate the pagans once and for all. Hundreds of the best men in France have already taken the Cross; they've shown their pity for the land oversea. They've sworn to avenge Him, the king of mankind, and recapture the Holy City.”

The friar thumped the pulpit with both his fists. “God wills it!” he shouted. “Drive out and kill the Turks! Recapture Jerusalem! Take pity on the Holy Land.”

The friar spoke with such force and feeling that people began to weep. Then I looked at my mother and saw that her eyes, too, were hot with tears, and I remembered how she reminded my father that Richard Lionheart had “roared and rattled the gates of the Saracens,” and brought home a piece of the Holy Cross.

“His Holiness the Pope,” the friar called out, “has pronounced an indulgence, and your archbishop commands me to proclaim it. Every single man who takes the Cross, rich and poor, free and bonded, old and young…every single man who serves God in the army for one year will be pardoned without penance for whatever sins he has committed during his life, his entire life, so long as he confesses them.”

The friar looked round the church. “Without penance,” he repeated. “People of God, take the Cross! Sir John, take the Cross! God wills it.”

My mother looked at my father, and tears were streaming down her cheeks; my father didn't even blink—he just looked straight ahead.

“I've come here from Lord Stephen at Holt Castle,” said the friar, “and before that I preached at Lurkenhope and Knighton. Do you know what one woman did when her husband stood up to take the Cross? She grabbed his belt and stopped him. That night, lying in bed, she heard a great voice saying: ‘You've taken my servant away from me, and so, woman, what you love most will be taken away from you.' When she woke next morning, the woman found her own baby dead in the bed beside her. She'd overlaid him and suffocated him.”

The friar paused, and then he thumped the pulpit again. “In
the name of Saint Edmund and your own souls,” he said earnestly, “stand up and take the Cross!”

There was quite a lot of noise in the church then. Wat Harelip and Howell and Dutton stood up and waved their arms; Brian and Macsen joined in and stamped their feet, and then many people started talking to each other.

But no one in the manor can go on a crusade unless my father chooses to go and takes them with him, or else releases them from their service and permits them to enlist in the foot-army. All the women will be against it, because they'll be afraid of going hungry. How would they be able to sow and reap, and make the hay, and look after their animals, without their husbands or their sons?

My father allowed people to talk for a little while. Then he stood up, and raised his right hand, and thanked the friar for preaching the crusade. “Before I can decide, I will need to talk to Lord Stephen,” he said, “and the other lords and knights in this middle March. Some of us will say that if we travel east to the land oversea, the Welsh will also travel east, and take over our women and our castles and our manors. I will send word of my decision before the end of the month.”

My father doesn't want to take the Cross; I can see that, and I know my mother will be very fearful as well as very proud if he does because she would never be able to figure all the accounts and organize all the day-work. Or would Serle stay here and manage everything? That would be terrible.

Sir William is sixty-four but he told me his crusading years were the best of his life, so he may take the Cross. Poor Grace!

Maybe nothing will come of all this. Today is only the fifth of
December, but this has already been the most fearsome and most exciting month of the year. Perhaps the whole of this month will be full of joys and sorrows because the century is ending. I've noticed my mother and Nain and Oliver keep talking about it; they're uncertain and hopeful, and full of prophecies.

In the manor court, people turned against each other, and some of them told lies. But when I looked round our church and saw everyone talking and excited, even Jankin, I thought we were all like one body, one wounded body, longing to be healed and to live in peace and friendship again.

“Some things,” said the hooded man, “are so marvelous you could call them miracles.”

Today is the feast day of Saint Barbara. She was a beautiful girl who was murdered by her father because she became a Christian. The day after he killed her, he was struck dead by lightning. I think that was a miracle. But when Fulk the friar rode in this morning, and we had to sit down side by side, whether we wanted to or not; all of us children of God; and when we heard his words, helping to heal our village body…That was a kind of miracle too.