FOR A LONG TIME LAST NIGHT I LAY ON DECK, UNDER the mainmast, swaddled in skins.
I stared at the glittering stars, so beautiful, so merciless, and thought how night swallows almost everything.
Then I thought of my hopes and sorrows and how I used to write them down.…
I want to please God. I want to be a knight of the heart, and I’m eager to enter Jerusalem, but sometimes I have night terrors. I want a magic fish to toss back my gold ring; I long to meet my poor mother. For Gatty I want all she’s worthy of, and more. I want Bertie to live for years and years, and Simona’s father to spit the ocean out of his blue mouth and come back to her. I want my father to praise me. I want him to die. I want Lord Stephen to know I know how well he has fathered me. I want to marry Winnie. And couldn’t Serle marry Tanwen? My namesake, Arthur-in-the-stone, has enemies inside Camelot. His fellowship has gone with the four winds, and I’m fearful for him.…My heart would sing if I could see Merlin again.…
Tears were streaming down my cheeks, hot and icy cold, and she was on her knees, bending over me, and for a moment I thought she was my mother.
“Arthur!” she whispered.
“It’s nothing,” I said, rubbing my eyes.
“Everything.”
“This cold! It makes my eyes weep and my nose run.”
Simona looked down at me. “Sunt lacrimae rerum,” she said gravely.
“What’s that?”
“The tears of things,” said Simona. “All human sorrow, all our longings. That’s what you were weeping for.”
Then Simona flopped down beside me. She wriggled under my sheepskin. We slept like that.