THAT FRIEND OF YOURS,” SAID RAHERE.
He looked at me with his sky-blue eye, then with his green eye.
“Who?”
“Who walked here from Caldicot just to see you.”
“Gatty.”
Rahere raised his eyebrows, then lifted his pipe and played a trill. “You may be a knight now, but you could learn a thing or two from her,” he said.
“I have.”
“You rascal!”
“No! I don’t mean that.”
“That potbellied priest brought her over.”
“Oliver. I hoped he might!”
“So I could listen to her voice. Ut, re, mi…out of her nose and head. The very top of her head.”
“She’s never had any lessons.”
Rahere shrugged. “Her voice is the voice of an angel,” he said. “Do you remember I told you about the Saracen? Ziryab, the singing master?”
I remembered Nasir and lowered my eyes. “I do,” I said.
“If he’d heard your Gatty…mmm…I don’t know what. If all the Christians and Saracens could hear Gatty, I don’t think they’d want to fight any longer.”
“Rahere!” I exclaimed. “That’s wonderful!”
“She should go into a nunnery and have singing lessons, and put her voice to good use. That’s what I told Oliver.”
“What did he say?”
“It costs money to enter a nunnery, lots of it, and Gatty hasn’t got any. Or anyone to pay for her. What’s so funny?”
“The thought of Gatty being a nun,” I said, grinning.
“Well, she’s wasted out in the fields all day,” Rahere said. “That’s what I think.”
I can’t wait to see Gatty. When I tell her everything that’s happened! She’ll be more interested and understand better than anyone else.
I want Gatty to sing to me.