LADY ALICE WAS WEARING HER OLD BURNT-ORANGE cloak. She lifted her reins in greeting as she always does, and I was filled with such a rush of joy that as soon as she had dismounted, I threw my arms around her and crushed her.
“Arthur!” she cried in her light voice. She kissed me on both cheeks and shook out her gown, and tucked her sandy curls under her wimple. “Squeezing me like that!” she said reprovingly. She put her head on one side and inspected me. “Can it be you? Where is everyone? We didn’t think you’d come home this year!”
“Come up to the solar,” I said. “Lady Judith’s there. And…”
How long did we sit in the solar, the three of us, under the wall hanging, with Lord Stephen sleeping in the inner room?
The sun was not long past its zenith when Lady Alice rode in. It was bleeding and dying when we stood up.
I told them everything.
Backwards.
I mean I told them first about how Sir William attacked Lord Stephen. They both stiffened and sat up straight. They didn’t look at each other to begin with, and their breasts heaved, and then they both began to weep and sob, and Lady Judith crossed over to Lady Alice and raised her and held her in her arms for a long time.
Sometimes, even words just get in the way.
After a while, they asked me questions, hesitant at first, as if they didn’t really want to know.
I answered. I answered them all. I told them about the horrors, the Saracen singing teacher and his wives and their slashing scimitars, the boy, the dark-eyed Zarans, the old Saracen traders being beaten, crusaders attacking each other and Bertie being wounded, the rag doll. I told them there was so much bloodshed and cruelty that it began to seem normal—as normal as courtesy and kindness feel here.
Sometimes I had to stop because one of them began to weep again, and that made the other weep, but I told them many other things too. About Simona, and the Violetta sinking, and how Lord Stephen and I often talked and he counseled me, and the wonderful day when Milon knighted me and gave me a superb sword, and how Sir William was the oldest knight and I was the youngest in the entire army and how we met the Doge.…Sometimes they were listening; sometimes they seemed to be far away, inside their own heads and hearts.
But when I told them about my mother’s gold ring! About her sending it and Thomas giving it to me, and Sir William ripping it off my finger and throwing it into the sea! They both listened then, and Lady Alice’s whole body jerked as if she had convulsions.
“God forgive him!” she sobbed. “God forgive him! I cannot.”
Lady Judith had Catrin bring us up little honey-cakes and juice pressed from pears. We sat quietly together. Talking about little things. How my boots need stitching again, and Lady Alice saw a red kite on her way over this morning, and how at Gortanore Grace found the Easter Hare’s nest this year.
“Gubert made hare pie for us,” Lady Judith said. “And Arthur said the words.”
“What words?” asked Lady Alice.
“The ones Lord Stephen says each Easter before we eat dinner,” Lady Judith replied. “He shows the hare the palms of both his hands and says, ‘Eostre, Eostre, this is your hare. Keep us all in your green care.’”
“Who is Eostre?” Lady Alice asked. “Easter?”
Lady Judith shook her head.
“In Zara,” I said, “there’s a church and the builders used marble from the old Roman temple with the names of old gods on it. Eostre could be a name like that.”
Then Lady Judith stood up, and asked Lady Alice to go with her to Lord Stephen’s bedside and pray. She turned me round to look at the wall hanging.
“As you can see,” she said, “Rowena and I have been busy. This panel shows the two of you taking the Cross in Soissons. But when people are looking at the life of Lord Stephen de Holt one hundred years from now, what else should they know? This linen and silk, Arthur: What are they to tell? Your crusade may have been curtailed, but it has still been the greatest adventure of Lord Stephen’s life. I think we should sew four or even five panels, don’t you?”
“There are so many things,” I said. “One panel could show the Saracen traders and all their spices.”
“You must choose.”
“Lord Stephen reminded me about buying them,” I said, “and I got them for you in Venice on the way home. Lots of different kinds.”
When Lady Judith and Lady Alice came back from the inner room again, I told them I didn’t know what to say to Tom and Grace.
“I mean,” I said, “do they have to know everything?”
“Yes,” Lady Alice said at once. “It will hurt them. No one wants to hear evil of their own father. But in the end it’s better to tell the whole truth. You know that, Arthur.”
Lady Judith sipped some pear juice, and cleared her throat. “What you’ve told us, Arthur, has been very painful,” she said. “Painful and difficult. For you too I know. You’ve been very careful.…”
“And fair,” Lady Alice added. She looked at Lady Judith, and I saw her give a slight nod. “We have something to tell you as well,” she said.
The moment she did so, I thought of the way Sir John told me he and Lady Helen were not my blood-parents.
“Why?” I said. “What is it?” My heart rose up, protesting, inside my chest. “It’s not my mother?”
Lady Alice gently shook her head. “No,” she said.
“What is it then?”
“Winnie.”
“What?”
“She’s only fourteen. Not even fifteen. You’re betrothed, of course, but…”
“Is it Tom? Is that it?”
“You know how impatient and impulsive she is. She blows this way and that way.”
“And my brother’s not firm enough with her,” Lady Judith said.
“She hasn’t seen you for a year,” Lady Alice said, “and, really, she didn’t think she’d be seeing you for at least another year. None of us did.”
“Then what…,” I began. I wasn’t sure what to ask.
“You must go to Verdon,” Lady Judith said.
“Nothing’s decided,” Lady Alice said. “Nothing at all. It’s just that it’s not as clear as it should be.”
“I almost knew,” I said. I looked at my rough knuckles. I thought of the poem I wrote for Winnie: “Why am I anxious that you’ll be true?”
“You must go to Verdon,” Lady Judith said, again.
“And then things will become clearer,” Lady Alice said. “We will help you, all of us, but you and Winnie and Tom must decide for yourselves.”