GATTY,” I SAID. “YOU KNOW I PROMISED WE’D GO BEFORE Easter?“
“The fair?” said Gatty.
“Yes.”
“And the stream,” said Gatty.
“I know,” I said. “But I can’t. Lord Stephen has sent a messenger, and I’m to ride over to Holt in three days’ time.”
Gatty slowly pushed out her lower lip.
“I wanted us to go,” I said.
“Tomorrow, then?” said Gatty.
“I can’t!” I cried. “There’s so much to do. But one day we will go, Gatty. I promise you.”
Gatty brushed the curls off her forehead.
“You remember that friar who preached the crusade? Lord Stephen and I are joining the crusade.”
Gatty looked at me under her eyelashes, and they were trembling. “Jerusalem,” she said in a desolate, faraway voice, as if she were naming something that had been lost to her forever.
“Oh, Gatty!” I cried.
“Don’t matter,” said Gatty quietly, and she took a step back from me. “Jankin says you went down and talked to Lankin.”
“Yes.”
“You. You and Jankin.”
“You went down for me?”
“Yes, Gatty.”
“Here comes Serle,” Gatty said. “I’ll be going, anyhow.”
Then Gatty tossed her head and her curls danced. I watched her as she walked away.
“I’ll see you before I go,” I called out.
“Saying your goodbyes?” said Serle, and he raised his eyebrows.
“Serle! Our father’s told you.”
“Yes.”
“And you know Lord Stephen’s taking the Cross?”
“So everything’s all right for you.”
“Not for me,” I cried. “For you, Serle. You said I was a cuckoo and that I was trying to push you out. But it’s not like that. You’ll inherit Caldicot. All of it.”
“Sir William’s a wealthy man,” Serle said in his sharp voice, “much richer than his younger brother. Tom will inherit Gortanore, but you’ll take the second manor at Catmole and that’s larger than this one.”
“But there’s enough for both of us,” I said, “and for Tom as well. Isn’t than a good thing?”
Serle said nothing.
“What about Tanwen?” I asked. “If you had told me, I would have helped if I could.”
Again Serle said nothing.
“Can’t she stay here? I asked. “It’s your baby too.”
Serle shook his head. “My father wants her to go away,” he said.
“But what do you want?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter what I want,” Serle said in a flat voice. “I don’t know, anyway.”
“Serle,” I said. “We’re not blood-brothers. We’re cousins. There’s nothing for us to argue about. Can’t we make peace before I go?”
“It’s all right for you,” Serle said again, and very bitterly.
“How is it all right for me?” I replied in a loud voice. “How would you like Sir William for a father? How would you like not to know who your mother is, or where she is? All you think about is yourself.”
Then I turned away from Serle. I took long strides, with Tempest and Storm leaping beside me. I ran. I raced past the fishpond and the orchard, the copper beech. Then the hill slope began to tug at my calves and thighs and I had to slow down. I was panting, and the snow was almost as deep as my forefinger. There is no quick way to reach the top of Tumber Hill.
He was already there, sitting on a large rock.
“Merlin!” I cried. “I need to talk to you.”
“I suppose you do,” said Merlin.
“You’re in the stone,” I panted.
“Ah,” said Merlin. “So you’ve found me.”
I flopped down beside him.
“Sit on this rock,” said Merlin, and he shuffled along it to make room for me.
“You’re the hooded man,” I said. “Aren’t you?”
“But who are you?” asked Merlin. “And who are you to be? That’s what matters.”
For a while we sat on the high hill, and the bright sky around us breathed and shimmered and flowered.
“I am Arthur the king!” I said. “And I’m squire-in-waiting to Lord Stephen. I’m the foster son of Sir John and Lady Helen de Caldicot. I have two fathers, two mothers…My life here! My life in the stone! What does it all mean?”
“What do you think it means?” asked Merlin.
“My stone’s smoky, or it fizzes, but then its eye opens. It shows me part of what’s going to happen, or has already happened, and it takes me on amazing journeys. I don’t know why.”
I remembered then what my father had told me, and looked north and south, even farther than the New Year bonfires. I looked west into dark and shining Wales.
“Merlin,” I said, “my stone has shown me dragons fighting and burning passion and magic and argument, wise words and foul plots, great kindness, cruelty. It’s showing me what’s best and worst, and right and wrong, and I’m part of it.”
“And that’s not enough?” asked Merlin.
“Well, I think it’s showing me I’m on a quest, but I don’t know exactly where.”
“And by the time you find out,” Merlin said, “you’ll have grown into your name.”
“That’s what Sir Pellinore told me,” I cried. “In the forest.”
“He did, yes,” Merlin replied. “And I said that anyone without a quest is lost to himself.”
“I see,” I said.
“You’re beginning to,” said Merlin, smiling and unsmiling. “So, then. You’ll take your stone with you.”