I SAT UP WITH A START.
My father was kneeling beside my bed, holding a candle in each hand.
“Luke is dying,” he said quietly. “Will you go and wake Oliver? Ask him to ring the Passing Bell.”
I pulled on my drawers and rolled up my leggings.
“You can wear your house-cloak,” said my father. “Leave the door unbarred when you come back in, and carry this candle through to our chamber. I’ll wake Serle and Sian and Nain.”
As I walked down the glebe, each star was sharp as one of the thorns in Christ’s crown. I had to bang on Oliver’s door seven times before he woke up, and by then I had woken every dog in the village, and some of the goats as well.
When I got back to the house, my mother and father and Nain and Serle and Sian were all kneeling round Luke’s cradle, each holding a candle.
Sian stroked Luke’s forehead with her right forefinger. “Little one,” she said. “Don’t die.”
“He’s not dying hard,” said Nain.
My mother gulped, leaned forward, and nuzzled her face into Luke’s body.
Nain was right. Luke didn’t struggle; he didn’t whimper. The pulse of life in him just faded. He reached out and up with both hands and, between breath and breath, he died.
Our candles shone in the darkness; they did not even flicker.
But suddenly my mother jerked and screamed, as if she had been pierced with a spear. She threw herself against my father, and tore at her long black hair.
“Arthur,” said my father. “Hide the face of the mirror so it cannot trap him. Over there, on the ledge! And open the hall door. We must clear the way for him.”
“My Luke!” keened my mother. “My Luke! My beautiful life!”
My father tried to draw my mother to him, but she tore herself away and banged her head against the ground, and gasped.
“Mother!” said Serle hoarsely. “Please, mother!”
Sian’s eyes were quick and bright with tears. “He’s not dead for me,” she said.
We all stayed with little Luke through the watches of the night, and when dawn broke, my father sent Serle over to Brian’s and Macsen’s cottages. “Ask them to dig the grave,” he said. “They know where.”
Then Nain and my mother washed Luke’s body. His skin was bluish-white, like milk after the second skimming, and his limbs had become very stiff. I held his cold right hand, and I wanted to squeeze it, but I was afraid I might break it.
My mother and Nain dressed Luke in his new nightshirt and little stockings, and my mother put on his head the cornflower-blue nightcap she bought from the peddler. Then they wrapped him from head to toe in a black winding-sheet. But when the time came to carry him down to the graveyard, my mother wouldn’t let him leave the house.
“No!” she wailed. “He’s mine! My life! My life!”
“Helen!” said my father, gently and steadily. And then he reached out for Luke, but my mother held him to her all the more tightly, and I don’t think my father knew what to do.
Then Serle put his arms right round my mother—round her and Luke—and for a long while he held her without saying anything. Slowly my mother’s passion and energy drained away. She sagged, and Serle had to hold her up. Then she began to shake without making a sound, and my father gently took Luke out of her arms.
Brian and Macsen had opened Luke’s grave next to the little mounds where we buried Mark last year, and Matthew the year before.
“The Lord shows mercy to the children He takes away from this evil world,” Oliver told us. “They are alive but in another place. They are angels.”
Again my mother began to shake, and then to sob. She leaned over little Luke as he lay in his winding sheet, cradled in my father’s arms, and her warm tears splashed onto him.
“A child,” Oliver said, “is flesh of his parents’ flesh. It is natural to feel grief when he is taken away. But it’s wrong to mourn as if there’s no life after this life. Those who mourn lack faith.”
As soon as my father and Oliver had lowered Luke into his little grave, Sian stepped forward and quickly dropped something on top of him.
“What was that?” demanded my father.
“My knucklebones,” said Sian.
“He may need them.”
My father looked at Oliver and Oliver shrugged his shoulders, but there was nothing they could do about it. You can put things into a grave, but you mustn’t steal from the dead—not even a game of knucklebones.
“We brought nothing into this world,” said Oliver, looking down his nose at Sian, “and it is certain we can take nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away.” Oliver reached down and picked up a handful of earth, and gestured to us to do the same. “We commit Luke’s body to the ground,” he said, and he cast his handful of earth into the grave. “Earth to earth,” cried Oliver, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust: in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life. Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.”
Then we all cast our handfuls of earth over Luke, and after that Brian and Macsen filled in the grave with the soft earth. They used their spades as gently as I use this pen.
“Arthur,” said my father. “You’re our wordsmith. You must choose the words to be carved on Luke’s tombstone. That’s right, isn’t it, Helen?”
My mother inclined her head.
“Will you do that?” my father asked.
I will; I’ll do it for Luke. But I don’t want my father to think I’m a wordsmith. I’m going to get worse at reading and at all the writing exercises I do for Oliver; and I’m going to get better, much better, at all my Yard-skills.
“Good,” I heard my father say. “You find the right words, Arthur; and then I’ll ask Will to cut them.”