YOU REMEMBER THOSE SARACENS,” I SAID, “TELLING your fortune?”
“What about it?” Bertie replied.
“You don’t have to believe them, you know. It’s not like believing the Gospel.”
“Who says I do?” said Bertie, and he swiped at the long grass with his stick.
“But—”
“I told you!” Bertie said angrily. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I swore oaths when I became a knight,” I said, “but I don’t actually believe all Saracens are evil. I hope it’s not wrong to take a vow you don’t completely believe in.”
For a while, Bertie and I walked down towards the food-barge in silence. The quartermaster recognizes us now, and sometimes gives us extra food.
There was a horseman ambling towards us and I could tell by his sword he was a knight. When we drew closer, I saw his forehead was marked with a cross.
The cross wasn’t made of parchment or linen or anything like that, and it wasn’t a paint or a dye. It was a scar. It had been branded into him with a burning stick or a knife. A suppurating, purplishbrown cross that stretched from the roots of his hair to the bridge of his nose, and from the top of one ear across to the other.
“God be with you!” said the knight.
“And with you,” we replied.
The knight’s face was so disfigured, I could scarcely look at him, but his manner was courteous and gentle.
“Good luck with the quartermaster, Bertie,” the knight said. “Good luck to you and your friend.”
“Sir Arthur,” Bertie said rather proudly. “Sir Arthur de Gortanore.”
The knight smiled and inclined his head, and then rode on.
“I’ve met him before,” Bertie explained. “He comes from Provins and once he gave me two quails’ eggs.”
“He looks horrible,” I said.
“I know,” said Bertie, “and he said the cross is still burning. He told me this crusade is a penance and the more we suffer, the more certain we are to reach paradise.”
“By wounding ourselves?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Bertie said.
“Some people are disfigured because their parents had pleasurable thoughts whilst conceiving them,” I said. “That’s what I’ve been taught. And some are disfigured because they’re conceived in sin. But I’m not. And Kester’s not.”
“Why?” demanded Bertie. “Who’s his father?”
“Serle,” I said. “Didn’t you know?”
Bertie whistled under his breath.
“Some are disfigured because of their parents,” I repeated, “and some because they get wounded. But how can it be God’s wish that we should damage ourselves?”
“Serle?” said Bertie, grinning. “Kester’s father?”
Once, Gatty painted the sign of the cross on my forehead; she said I was like a crusader and Serle was a Saracen.
I wish…there’s so much that I wish. I wish I could find out more about Gatty and her singing.
What I hope is Oliver will arrange for Lord Stephen’s musician, Rahere, to teach her. He knows more about singing than anyone. He told me about the Saracen singing master, Ziryab, and breathing exercises.
“Come on!” he’ll say in his squeaky voice, “Ut, re, mi…A voice is a human instrument, Gatty. Fa, sol, la…You must put yourself, everything you are, into the sound you make.”