DO YOU REALLY THINK I WANT TO BE COOPED UP IN this stuffy tent, teaching you the ten categories?” I demanded. “I could be galloping Bonamy, or collecting clams, or oiling my armor and talking to Turold. I have to brush Lord Stephen’s clothes. I could be writing.”
“I’m not stopping you,” said Bertie.
I shook my head. “You know perfectly well what Milon and Lord Stephen have told us. Four classes each week. Two for my French. Two for your learning.”
“What’s the point? Milon doesn’t know about quantities and qualities and all that.”
“The more you learn, the more you understand. I like learning French. I like the sound of it. One moment throaty, the next like bright birdsong.”
“You can’t learn prowess,” Bertie said, bright-eyed. “Let’s go outside.”
“No,” I said. “You won’t work outside.”
Bertie grinned. He’s got a gap between his two upper teeth. “I don’t need to understand how you say something to know what it means,” he said.
“Which category stands on its own?” I asked.
“The substance,” said Bertie, screwing up his face as if he’d tasted something awful.
“A sword.”
“What else?”
“I don’t know. A horse. A finger.”
“Good,” I said. “What about two?”
“Two what?”
“Two fingers.”
Bertie looked at me as if I were trying to trick him. “That’s a substance and a quantity,” he said cautiously.
“At last!” I exclaimed. “So what are the other categories? All the ones that can never exist on their own but must always belong to a substance.”
“I can’t remember,” said Bertie. “This is so boring!”
“Then let’s get it over with. Come on! Times. Activities.”
“There’s no point,” said Bertie. “I’m not going to.” He stood up and tousled his hair as if he were trying to get rid of every category and judgment and substance and accident in his buzzing head. “You can’t teach me anyhow. You’re not a priest.”
Nothing is easy when it’s new. How can I talk to the Venetians who can’t speak English? How should you pitch a tent in soft sand? How do you crack a lobster? From the moment we got here, we have been faced at each turn with new difficulties.
I do like challenges, but what I haven’t found out yet is how to teach Bertie. If I were Serle, I’d just shout at him. But I’m not like that. Anyhow, he’s much younger than I am, and we’ve got to live side by side for weeks and months.
This evening, I told Lord Stephen about my mother’s ring and how she secretly sent it to me. I explained how I promised Thomas, Sir William’s servant, that I wouldn’t tell anyone about it.
“And you kept your promise,” Lord Stephen said. “Which is more than Thomas did. He failed you. He said he’d arranged for you to meet your mother, but she never came.”
“Perhaps she doesn’t want to meet me,” I said.
“Of course she does.”
“That’s what I think sometimes,” I said.
“Anyhow,” said Lord Stephen, “you’re quite right to tell me everything now.”
Then I showed Lord Stephen my ring.
He had to hold it very close to his eyes so he could see baby Jesus reaching out and giving His mother something…what it is, I still don’t know.
“Yes,” Lord Stephen said. “Wear it, and keep it warm. Your mother cares for you. You will find her.”