WHAT ARE YOU SINGING?” I ASKED RHYS.
“Nothing,” said Rhys.
“Names?”
“The colors of horses.”
“Go on, then.”
So Rhys whistled-and-sang:
“What are you called?
Piebald!What’s your name, squire?
Chestnut-on-Fire!Hey you! Misfitten?
Me? I’m Flea-Bitten!”
“Chestnut-on-Fire,” I said. “I like that. The first time I saw Bonamy, his coat flashed like a horse chestnut breaking out of its shell. Anyhow, what are you doing?”
“What does it look like?” Rhys replied. “Stupendous’s bridle has come to bits.”
“And, by the look of it, his bit’s come to rollers and keys and rings and cheek-pieces!”
“What about Bonamy’s wart—just above his left fetlock?”
“Nothing serious,” said Rhys. “I’m keeping an eye on it, see.” He looked up at the swirling sky. “Rain!” he said. “The first spot.”
When I went back to our tent, Lord Stephen had still not come back from Milon’s camp—his second visit there in two days—and it was too damp to air his clothes, so I lay on my back and began to think about Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot.
Can it be true that their love is blameless?
Guinevere is married to King Arthur.
The truth always rises to the surface. People will find out, and then there will be a great deal of bitterness and pain.
Overhead, the canvas darkened and gulped, and I remembered how the king felt when he first saw Guinevere, shaken and yet strong, the same as I feel when I look at Winnie.
Merlin told Arthur that he was love-blind. “Don’t say I haven’t warned you,” he said. “If you were not so deeply in love, I could find you a wife both beautiful and loyal.”
I think the king still needs Merlin, and I do too. The last time I saw him was one day in May, when he appeared at Holt and I told him how I was between my squire-self and my knight-self. At the crossing-places…
“On a quest,” Merlin replied, “is there anywhere else to be?”
But then he disappeared. That’s just like Merlin.
I still don’t completely believe he has left this world. He knows magic. He leaped the salmon-leap. Forty-seven feet! And once he just vanished on the top of Tumber Hill. I half-believe I will see Merlin again.
It’s only two weeks now until Milon knights me, and before that I want to think more about what it really means, and how things will change when I’m a knight. I’d just started when Bertie stuck his head through the tent flap.
“Come on!” he exclaimed.
“Where?”
“The Rialto. We can go on the food-barge.”
“I can’t.”
“You can!”
“Not without asking Lord Stephen.”
“Come on!” said Bertie enthusiastically.
I don’t know why—maybe it was Bertie’s grin; in any case, I jumped up, though I knew it was wrong. “Come on then!” I said.
“Really?” shouted Bertie.
The two of us ran down to the empty food-barge, which was just about to go back to Venice.
As soon as the oarsmen pulled us out from the dock, Bertie stood up and yelled, “Saint Nicholas is a prison, and we’ve escaped!”
“What happens to prisoners when they’re recaptured?” I asked.
“I don’t care!” said Bertie, and he stuck out his jaw. “Now tell me about your mother!”
So I did. I told Bertie her name is Mair and I still haven’t been able to meet her.
“Is that what you meant when you said you couldn’t bring her back to life again?” he asked.
“Yes! She’s a poor village woman, and she was married, and my father used her. But it’s even worse than that. I’ve found out that Emrys, my mother’s husband, openly accused my father in church, and soon after that, Emrys disappeared.”
Bertie gave a sharp whistle.
“I was taken away from my mother, and sent to foster parents,” I told him.
“So you could be a page?”
“No, I was just two days old. To get me out of the way, so my father could behave as if nothing had happened. He must have been afraid my mother would tell me.”
“But you did find out,” Bertie said.
“Not until two years ago,” I said, “and Sir William has warned me against trying to meet my mother. He’s dangerous. I think he murdered Emrys—and he knows what would happen if the truth comes out. He would go to the gallows.”
“I’d try to meet her anyhow,” Bertie said.
“I have tried,” I said, “and Lord Stephen has been helping me. My mother entrusted this ring to two of my father’s servants, Thomas and Maggot, to give to me. Then, when I promised them favors, they told me they’d actually arranged for me to meet her.”
“But you said you hadn’t.”
“I woke up so excited on the day we were going to meet. I did a handstand and called out the whole alphabet backwards while I kicked my legs in the air.”
“What happened?”
“Lord Stephen and I rode to the meeting place. The Green Trunk. A huge old fallen elm, wrapped in dusty ivy. We waited and waited. All afternoon. We waited.…”
Bertie screwed up his eyes and shook his head.
“Maggot said my mother was ill, but she and Thomas are untrustworthy. They’re in my father’s pay, and they probably never even told my mother about meeting me, and how it matters more to me than anything in the world. But sometimes I’m afraid she doesn’t want to meet me.”
“But she sent you the ring,” said Bertie. “She must love you. Can’t you just go and find her yourself?”
“That’s what I asked Lord Stephen, and he said he dreaded to think what would happen if Sir William found out we were going behind his back.”
“Why? What could he do?”
“I don’t know. Something to my mother. I don’t want to put her in any danger,” I said. “I never thought it would be this difficult.”
“You’re lucky, all the same,” Bertie said. “At least you’ve got a mother to find. I won’t see my mother until I die.”