The Seeing Stone (14 page)

S
ERLE HAS A TOOTHACHE AND A STINKING MOUTH. ONE
of his molars is rotten, and Johanna says there are worms in it.

Last week, she pasted the tooth with purple periwinkle petals crushed in honey and vinegar, but that didn't help. And then she made Serle swill and swallow a mouthful of his own warm urine, but that didn't help either. The ache is even worse today, and Serle keeps groaning; he thinks the tooth will have to be pulled.

My mother says that when I was a baby and teething, I fretted and yelled so much that she asked Johanna for a medicine, and Johanna told her to boil a hare's brains in a little water, and rub them into my gums. And that is what my mother did.

Serle is right: Witches do turn themselves into hares in the daylight. Hum says they steal milk from our cows, and when she was pregnant, Wat's mother saw one hop into her cottage, and that's why Wat was born with a harelip.

But hares can help us as well, and not only with teething. My aunt Alice swears that the hare's foot she keeps in her pocket eases her stiff elbow and knees and ankles. I want to put all this into my hare-song; and I think Serle will like it then.

Merlin came back to the manor this afternoon. I was standing in the middle of the ford, trying to find the right words for Luke, when he came riding in from the east on Sorry, his old rounsey.

“Aha!” called Merlin. “Arthur of the crossing-places.”

“Where have you been?” I shouted.

I told Merlin about Luke at once. I told him everything.

No one listens to me like Merlin. He keeps very still, and looks at me very calmly and warmly. He makes me feel he isn't interested in anyone or anything in the world except me.

But when I repeated what Oliver had told us—his words beside Luke's grave—Merlin frowned.

“Dead babies do not become angels,” he said. “That's against the teaching of Holy Church.”

“How do you know?” I asked.

“I have been away in Oxford,” said Merlin.

“Oxford! Why?'

“Talking to schoolmen.”

“Why?”

“Why does one usually talk to schoolmen?”

“I don't know,” I faltered.

“Then guess,” said Merlin.

“To learn their teaching?” I asked.

“And to teach them learning,” said Merlin, half-smiling. “In any case, Oliver is wrong. He's a heretic, and I will tell him so.”

“But Luke?” I said.

Merlin gazed at me and his blue eyes were unblinking. “Time and place and flesh and thought and feeling,” he said. “All these things are our friends but also our enemies. Luke has escaped them. He is at peace.”

“Sian said he's not dead for her,” I told Merlin, “and that's what I think too. He's not dead in me, and he never will be.”

“True,” said Merlin, “and that is another kind of life.”

“Merlin,” I began. “My stone!”

“And that is a third!” said Merlin.

“I've seen myself in it.”

“Your reflection.”

“No. I've seen myself in its story,” I said.

“Have you!” exclaimed Merlin, and he looked rather pleased.

“What does that mean?”

Merlin pushed out his lower lip. “I've told you before,” he said. “The stone's not what I say it is; it's what you see in it.”

“I was kneeling in front of a tombstone,” I said, “and it had just one word carved on it:
BROTHER.
”

“
BROTHER,
” repeated Merlin.

“What did that mean? Did it mean Luke was going to die?”

“Maybe,” said Merlin.

“Was it telling me what was going to happen?” I asked. “Or was the word for Serle? Was it because he hates me, and I've lost him as a brother?”

“Don't you remember what I told you about questions?” asked Merlin.

“What?”

“They're like nutshells…with their answers inside them. What if your stone is telling you whatever you need to know?”

“I see,” I said slowly. “I think I do.”

With this, Merlin clapped his hands and looked at the sky, and then he remounted. “Come on, Sorry!” he said.

But Sorry wouldn't even lift one hoof. Merlin clucked and he
neighed; he dug in his heels; he slapped Sorry's rump; but it made no difference.

“Well,” said Merlin, “I'm not surprised. It's a long way from Tumber Hill to Oxford; and even farther back again. And clever as they are, those schoolmen do talk a lot of nonsense. How many angels can dance on a pinhead? I ask you!”

“Is that what you talked about?” I cried.

“Yes, and how can you free a human soul trapped in a mirror?” said Merlin.

“But that's important,” I said.

“Though there were other matters,” Merlin said thoughtfully.

“Tell me,” I said.

“Is it the case,” asked Merlin, “that the Christian religion hinders a full education?” First he nodded and looked extremely solemn; but then he shook his head and grinned like a naughty child. “Ah yes!” he exclaimed. “I'd still rather talk to a schoolman than anyone else.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because the greatest of all pleasures is insight into truth,” Merlin replied. He patted Sorry's neck. “And the slowest of all journeys is aboard this stupid horse.”

Then Merlin dismounted again, and at once Sorry set off for home. Merlin cursed, and trudged after him.

I watched them until they were both out of sight; then I paddled out into the ford again and went on looking for the right words in the water.

A
GAGGLE OF LITTLE CHILDREN, LITTLE CHILDREN AND
babies, some of them well-dressed and some of them in rags, came running up a long straight path, running towards huge iron gates, and I knew they were the gates of heaven.

All the children ran past me, laughing and shouting, all except three, three tiny ones lagging far behind. They couldn't run, all they could do was stagger up the path.

“You three!” I called. “Why can't you run?”

Then I recognized them. They were little Luke, and Matthew, and Mark. Each opened the side of his cloak, and showed me a heavy, brimming metal pot.

“These are our mother's tears,” Luke said.

“The tears she wept for us,” said Mark.

“They weigh us down,” Matthew said.

Then my three brothers turned away and staggered on up the path, and I thought they would never reach the gates of heaven.

This was my dream.

K
ING UTHER'S HALL.

A knight and a squire are kneeling beside the king's bed, and Uther looks much older than when I last saw him. There are yellow-brown patches under his eyes, and he has shrunk; his skin is too large for his body.

Now King Uther slowly raises both arms, as if he were lifting two flat irons.

“I, Sir Ector, swear my allegiance,” says the knight, and he looks like my own father.

“And I, his squire Kay, swear my allegiance,” says the squire, and he looks exactly like Serle.

“You're still a squire?” the king asks.

“Yes, sir,” says Kay.

“It's time you were knighted,” says the king. And then he looks at my father. “And this is your only son?”

Sir Ector and Kay stare at each other.

“There is another,” says Sir Ector. “But he is still too young.”

“How old?”

“He's only thirteen,” says Sir Ector.

“And he hasn't mastered his fighting skills,” Kay says.

The king levers himself up on his pillows. “I need every boy in this kingdom,” he says. “You know what our Saxon enemies call
me, the half-dead king! Yes, and it's Octa and Eosa and their treacherous followers who are killing me, not my old illness. They torture my men and rape my women, they enslave my children; they torch my villages and cornfields. They destroy the whole body of my country.”

“You can count on us,” Sir Ector says quietly. “Thousands of us.”

“And I will lead you myself,” replies Uther in a hoarse voice. “I'll have my carpenter build me a litter.”

“There's no need, sire,” my father protests.

“Nothing comes of nothing,” says King Uther. “We must fight. I'd rather die with honor than live in disgrace.”

A young girl with hair as black as my own walks up to King Uther. “Father,” she says. “It is time.”

The king nods, and Sir Ector and Kay stand up and bow.

Before they have left the hall, the old, ill king has already fallen asleep.

L
ADY ALICE AND MY COUSINS GRACE AND TOM HAVE
just gone. For three days and three nights Caldicot Manor has been filled with laughter and activity, and now it seems very quiet.

My only chance of talking to my aunt Alice on her own was after we came back from church this morning. While my father went off to the stables with Grace and Tom to oversee the saddling of the horses, I asked her whether she would like to see my writing-room.

“You want to show it to me,” she said, “and so I want to see it.”

Because the wind has blown from the north during the past three days, my room was very cold. Not even its rough coat of thatch has managed to keep it warm. When I invited my aunt to sit in my window seat, she drew her orange cloak around her, and then took my right hand between both her small hands. “How are you able to write?” she asked. “Don't your fingers turn blue?”

“Up here, I write with my left hand,” I replied.

“And that hand stays warm, does it?” asked Alice, and she laughed and took my left hand.

Although she was only teasing me, I believe Alice was telling the truth. My right hand often feels cold and stiff, but even in the bleak midwinter, my left hand almost never gets cold.

I thought of showing Alice my obsidian, but when Merlin gave
it to me, he warned me it would lose its power if I showed it to anyone, or even told anyone about it. But I did show her something else. I hadn't planned to do so, and I'm not quite sure why I did, except that she's the only adult I know whom I can trust with a secret.

“You swear,” I said.

“I swear,” said Lady Alice. “You've sworn to keep a secret for me, and I swear to keep one for you.”

“And it doesn't matter how bad it is?”

My aunt gently shook her head.

“Because I think it's very bad. In fact, I know it is.”

“Tell me, Arthur.”

I looked at my aunt, the curls of her light brown hair peering out from her wimple, and her wide-apart eyes, hazel and unblinking, and I realized I was almost out of breath.

“I'll show you,” I said huskily, and I turned round and pulled up my house-cloak and pulled down my hose and showed Lady Alice my tailbone.

“You poor creature!” said my aunt. “You must rub ointment into it.”

Then I told Lady Alice everything I have found out about humans who grow tails, and how they're like rotten apples in the loft that poison all the apples ripening around them; how they have to be rooted out and burned at the stake, or drowned.

“But this is a tailbone,” said my aunt. “It's just a tailbone, not a tail.” Then gently she pulled up my hose, and pulled down my house-cloak.

“You are sure?” I said.

“It's not unusual,” said Lady Alice. “Maybe your mother or your nurse dropped you. Or did you fall wrong? On the ice? Or out of a tree?”

“I did,” I exclaimed. “A tree.”

“There you are,” said my aunt. “And you dislodged your tailbone.”

“Then why does it ache when I'm upset or think dark thoughts, and when Old Nick rode past on Hallowe'en?”

“I think I can explain that,” said my aunt. “Some parts of our bodies feel things more quickly than others. Because your tailbone has moved, it is very sensitive. It's the first to feel things, and it feels them deeply.”

“I thought I was growing a tail,” I said.

My aunt smiled. “And what about my secret?” she said. “You haven't told anyone?”

“I swore not to,” I said.

“Because there'd be terrible trouble. You know that?”

“Would Sir William…I mean…”

“Oh yes!” said Lady Alice. “Sir William would be tried and hanged.”

“That's dreadful.”

“Not only that,” said my aunt. “The king would take control of our manor.”

“Don't be afraid,” I said. “I will never tell anyone.”

“You serve me with your secrecy,” Lady Alice said.

“I wish I could see you and Grace and Tom more often,” I said.

“I know your secret wishes,” said my aunt. “To go away into service. To be betrothed. To Grace.”

“How do you know?” I exclaimed.

My aunt drew her knees right up and swung her legs down from my window seat.

“Because you haven't talked about them!” she said. “And because you have a mother and a father.”

“They've told you?”

Lady Alice shook out her orange cloak. “Be patient!” she said. “What's worth having that isn't worth waiting for?” My aunt smiled at me. “I may see you again before Christmas,” she said. “If Sir William comes back in time, the two of us may ride over.”

“Why?”

“Because,” said my aunt, “your father and mother have invited us.”

“But why?” I asked.

“You're worse than Tom,” said my aunt. “If I opened you up, I'd find you were full of questions.” Then she stepped towards me and kissed my left cheek. “There!” she said. “A flower!
Un fleur de souvenance!
”

“What's that?” I asked.

“You must learn French for me,” said my aunt.

So now they have gone. The hall is very quiet, and this writing-room is very cold. But my left hand is warm, and my left cheek is still burning.