WE WERE STILL IN THE WOOD, BUT I KNEWWE WERE almost there because I heard them screaming.
“My lord!” I cried. “Can you hear them?”
Lord Stephen looked up from his litter and smiled sweetly.
“Lady Judith’s peacocks!” I exclaimed.
I thought of the turquoise peacocks spreading their feathers on the tent of the Saracen traders, and the mosaics in Saint Mark’s, and Simona telling us they promise everlasting life.
Lord Stephen looked up at me. “A path of feathers…,” he said wonderingly.
“Sir?”
“Are you deaf?”
“Oh sir!” I gasped. “You’re talking! A path of feathers, yes. With Lady Judith’s peacocks, a path of feathers from earth to heaven.”
Lord Stephen smiled again, and closed his eyes.
He is going to get well. I know it! He is!
Then our horses picked their way out of the wood, and there it was! The seven-sided castle capping the small, steep hill. The curtain walls. The drawbridge. All yellow in the gentle, late afternoon sunlight.
Robert was the first to see us—he was working on his croft. Then Agnes, the wisewoman, came limping down the track from the castle. The hounds started barking, and Sayer strode up from the kennels to see what was going on.
This was when Rhys saw his wife at the door of their cottage in East Yard.
“Bronwen!” he yelled. “Bronwen!” He dismounted and leaped towards her, crying “Gogoniant! Gogoniant!”
Then, as I looked across the Yard towards the stables, I thought I saw Pip. His shape. His color. The way he pricks up his ears and holds his head slightly to one side. I wasn’t quite sure.
He saw me. He gazed. He went completely still.
Then all at once he trumpeted and I shouted. I swung down out of my saddle. I raced across the Yard and reached up and threw my arms around his neck.
He shifted and stamped, he almost knocked me off my feet.
“Pip!” I cried. “Pip!”
By now Donnet and Piers and Abel had come up from Clunside and were standing quietly beside Lord Stephen’s litter. I greeted them, and then I took my horse’s bridle and led everyone up the track and across the drawbridge. As we entered the courtyard, Rowena and Izzie stepped out of the castle with two men I haven’t seen before.
As soon as she realized it was me, silly Izzie screamed and threw herself at me, and I had to hold on to her to stop myself from falling backwards.
“Izzie!” I exclaimed. “You’re as bad as Pip!”
The men were two of the soldiers from Wigmore hired to guard Holt. Izzie wants to marry one of them.
Then I saw Lady Judith standing in the doorway.
Everyone grew silent.
Lady Judith looked at me. She gazed at the litter slung between the two horses. She lowered her eyes.
I stepped towards her. My head felt as if it were ten feet up in the air.
I bowed. “My lady,” I said.
“Arthur! Greetings in God!” She looked over my shoulder. “Is he dead?”
“Oh no! Not dead! He’ll get better. I know he will.”
Lady Judith and I crossed the courtyard. She bent over Lord Stephen. He was sleeping. She grasped the side of the litter and got down on her knees, and prayed.
Lord Stephen opened his eyes.
“My lord,” she said gently. “My husband.” She laid her right hand over his heart.
Lord Stephen smiled at her.
“He was wounded in the shoulder,” I said, “and he’s hurt inside his head.”
Lady Judith got to her feet, and looked at the whole group of us.
“Turold! Welcome home!”
Turold took both her hands between his, and dumbly nodded.
“Rhys!” said Lady Judith. “Welcome to you!”
“My lady,” said Rhys, gently shaking his head. He too was almost dumb.
After this, Lady Judith greeted the Welsh farmer and his daughter and thanked them for their help, and Rhys translated what she said. Most people are quick to show their feelings, but not Lady Judith. She always minds her manners, and you can’t tell what she’s thinking. I’ve never seen her weep; I could feel her anxiety, though.
“He can’t walk?” Lady Judith asked.
“He hasn’t,” I replied. “Not since…”
“No. Well, one step at a time.”
She asked Turold and Rhys to unhook the litter and carry Lord Stephen straight up to the solar, and told Agnes and Rowena and Izzie to go up with them. Then she turned to me again and walked me to the drawbridge.
“He was attacked,” I told her, “and he cracked the back of his head against a stone floor.”
Lady Judith took my arm.
“I wouldn’t,” I said. “I’m dressed in mud.”
“So I can see.”
“And worse. I haven’t washed for days.”
“You brought him all the way?”
“Yes.”
“From Venice?”
“From Zara, across the Adriatic Sea. Milon said I should. He said it was my duty to care for him and help him home.”
Lady Judith nodded and sighed.
“We did go to Venice, though,” I said.
“I know. That girl told me.”
“Tanwen, you mean?”
Lady Judith sniffed.
“She did get home, then! It’s so far.”
“I’m sure it is…And you, on your own.”
“Not on my own! I couldn’t possibly have done it without Turold and Rhys.”
Lady Judith turned to me. Her eyes were dark and shining. “You’re dirty and you stink and you’re exhausted,” she said. “Oh! Arthur.” Then she buried me in her arms, the same as she buried Winnie when her cloak got scorched. She smoothed my hair.
Tears welled up into my eyes. I couldn’t help myself. I felt so happy and sad and relieved and tired.
“You’ve done your duty,” she said warmly. “More than your duty.”
“He’s my father, really,” I said.
“Yes,” said Lady Judith, pushing me away, but still keeping her hands on my shoulders. “I want to hear more, much more, but first I must wash and dress Lord Stephen, and lay him in a clean bed. Rowena and Izzie can help me, and then I want Agnes to search his wounds. And you…”
I yawned!
“Exactly. You should wash and get Gubert to give you something to eat, and sleep.”
“Once,” I said, “when I was like this before, Lady Helen made me swim in the moat.”
“Quite right! Go down to the flat stone and swim in the river.”
“In the water’s womb, whirligig!” I said, and I yawned again.
“I’ve no idea what you mean,” Lady Judith said sharply, “and I don’t think I want to.”
I grinned. “It’s where Rowena and Izzie used to sit and cast their spells,” I told her.
“Tomorrow’s the feast of Easter,” Lady Judith continued, “and it’s important to do what we always do. That’s what Lord Stephen would say.”
“You mean…”
“I mean celebrate the Eucharist, and climb Swansback together, all of us here in the manor, and eat hare pie.”
“And search for the Easter Hare’s nest.”
“The old ways,” Lady Judith said. “They’re right, and comforting.”
“There’s so much to tell you,” I said. “And ask you.”
“Lady Alice has promised to ride over,” Lady Judith said. “Arthur, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing!”
Lady Judith fixed me with an eagle’s eye.
“They haven’t come back as well, have they?”
“Who?”
“Sir William. Serle.”
“Oh no!” I said. “No, they haven’t.”
“Well then,” Lady Judith continued, “you can tell me and Lady Alice everything. And of course there are things you should know.”
I yawned once more.
“His shoulder, you said?”
“And his head,” I replied. “The back of his head. Inside his head.”
“Sometimes it takes a long, long time for a wound to heal,” Lady Judith said. “I’ve only to look at you, Arthur, to see what horrors you’ve faced.”