ONCE WE WERE OUTSIDE THE WALLS, SERLE AND I rode Shortneck and Bonamy hard. We must have galloped for at least two miles, and then we reined in.
I rubbed Bonamy’s fiery neck. “Rhys made up a song about the color of horse coats once,” I said.
Serle answered my feelings, not my words.
“I’ll look after him,” he said. “I’ll do my best.”
“Do you want to send Sir John and Lady Helen a letter?” I asked.
“You know I can’t write.”
“I’ll write it for you.”
“What shall I say?”
“What do you want to say?”
“I don’t know,” said Serle. “What they want to hear.”
“Say three things, then. About you.”
“About me. I am well. I am healthy. Say that.”
“Three special things, I mean. How you saved a Venetian girl from angry sailors…I don’t know. About Zara. How when you close your eyes you see Caldicot and the winter wheat growing…”
Serle shook his head. “You’re better at words than I am.”
My mouth went dry. “Or about Sir William,” I said slowly. “Something. He was your uncle. Sir John’s brother.”
“You must feel terrible,” said Serle.
“I do,” I replied in a low voice.
“What you did.”
“You’re not saying—”
“I’m not saying anything,” said Serle in his thin, cutting voice. “Why? Should I?”
“If you’d been there and not with Simona,” I exclaimed, “it wouldn’t have happened.”
“I see!” said Serle. “You’re passing the blame.”
“I didn’t kill him!” I cried. “You know I didn’t! He wanted to kill me.”
When I lived at Caldicot, Serle was always so unfair, and he’s still mean and insinuating sometimes.
For a while we drew apart. I trotted Bonamy and buried my face in his warm neck. Then we began to talk again.
“You and Simona.”
“What about it?” Serle bit his upper lip. He made it bleed.
“I won’t tell Tanwen,” I said. “I’ll tell her you talked about her and Kester, and often think about her.”
Serle gave me an odd look—suspicious and grateful at the same time.
“I do,” he said forlornly. “I wanted to ask you something.”
“What?”
“That rag doll. The one with the dark eyes. Can I give it to Kester?”
I lowered my eyes, then I slowly shook my head. “She’s too sad,” I said.
When we got back to the undercroft and dismounted, Serle said, “You’ll know what to tell them. My mother and father. Everyone. Greet them all in God. Give them—”
“What?”
Serle shook his head unhappily.
“Hope?”
“Yes. Give them hope.”
“I will,” I said.
“And this,” said Serle, twisting and twisting one of the shiny brass buttons decorating Shortneck’s bridle until it came off. “Give this to Kester!”
“I will!”
“If I don’t come back…you know…can you watch over him?”
I smiled. I wanted to cry. I embraced Serle. I know Milon will welcome him, but it will be difficult for him here without Lord Stephen or Sir William or any of us. To begin with, anyhow.
“Say a prayer for me,” I told him. “In Jerusalem. God bring you back home!”
When Serle left me alone with Bonamy, I couldn’t help myself—I began to sob. And through my tears, I could see Bonamy frowning and flicking his eyelashes; then he gently nuzzled me.
“Oh Bonamy!” I sobbed. “Bonamy!”
I wanted to tell him everything: how I’d chosen him, and trained him, and trusted him, and relied on him, and loved him.
My thoughts and feelings about people are sometimes so complicated. My love for Bonamy is so simple. So blessed.
I threw my arms round his neck.