Belle's Song (13 page)

“No. I’ve told you. Not that.”

“A lovers’ secret all the same.”

I didn’t want to talk about secrets. Picardy began to jog. Luke was going to leave me. I had a sudden inspiration. “You’ve got something to give me, something that nobody else could, something that’s yours entirely.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“Your memory. I mean, anybody can fight and pay compliments, but almost nobody can remember anything worthwhile. How do you do it? I want to learn.”

“It’s a trick,” he said, after a small pause.

“Everything’s a trick, Luke.”

He slowed Picardy to a walk. Our knees touched. “What do you want to remember?” he asked.

“Words,” I said at once. “Words in books. Can you remember those?”

“That’s beginner’s stuff.” He polished his glasses. “You make a pattern in your head, perhaps of the first letter of every line. Setting key words to a tune can help, or making up a silly rhyme, or just allowing the shapes to press themselves into your brain.”

He waited. I think he wanted to see if I was serious or not.

“Show me,” I said.

He scrutinized me quite hard before drawing a thin roll of parchment from his belt. “This is what the Master was dictating earlier,” he said. “We could try, I suppose.”

I smiled straight into his eyes, and the smile he eventually returned was like a gift.

“In Brittany, or as it then was called, Armorica,” he recited,

Here was a knight enthralled

To love, who served his lady with his best

In many a toilsome enterprise and quest,

Suffering much for her ere she was won.

“What happens to him?” I prompted.

“That’s not the question a memorizer asks,” Luke said, and he was still smiling. “I say ‘
iatis
’ to myself.”

I looked at the parchment and nodded. “The first letters.”

“I look at the page as a picture and hear it as a song. That way, it seems to paint patterns in my head.”

I concentrated very hard. “In Brittany, something something Armorica.” I stopped. “I can’t do it.”

“Look again. Forget the words. Hear it as a painted tune: called, enthralled, best, quest, won—”

I started, then faltered, then started again. He encouraged and guided and in a few minutes, I could recite the whole thing.

“You won’t recite it in front of the Master.” Luke was suddenly concerned. “It’s just a fragment of something and he doesn’t like his work to be seen before it’s finished.” He put the parchment away.

“I won’t. It’s our secret.”

He flushed. “Secrets again.”

“In the great panoply of secrets, I don’t think this is a big one.” I had an overwhelming desire to tell him everything about the Master. I couldn’t bear to be deliberately keeping him in the dark. To stifle the temptation, I went back to his text. “The end of the next line will be ‘son’ because that rhymes with ‘won.’ Then either the knight or his lovely lady will be tested by another, and their love will be stretched and almost broken, but then somebody will do something great and everything will turn out well.”

“Stories are like breathing to you,” Luke said, disconsolate again. “Even Walter with his horsely horse has more natural talent than I have. I’m the Master’s temporary scribe and soon I’ll be a monk. I’m nothing and nobody.” He stopped. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to whine.”

“You’re not whining,” I told him. The wind had dropped completely and beneath the cloudy sky, the
day was hovering above a gauzy twilight. It gave me an idea. “Take off your eyeglasses.”

“Why?”

“I want to try something.”

Nervously, Luke did as I asked. He didn’t entirely trust me and who could blame him? “Will you do exactly as I say?”

“That depends.”

“First, forget everything and everybody,” I ordered. “Have you done that?”

“As far as I can.”

“Now, what can you see?”

He gazed ahead intently. “Nothing except the road, and it’s empty.”

“Yes,” I said patiently, “it’s empty in real life, but look again and ask yourself what you might see.”

He thought hard. “I might see somebody coming along, I suppose.”

“In my imagination I already see somebody,” I said.

“Tell me.”

“I see a figure on a dark horse, and the horse’s skin shimmers like water at midnight and its eyes are silver. There’s a smell too, of oil and leather and a battle lately fought. Can you see it? Can you smell it?”

Luke gazed ahead even more intently. “Perhaps. Go on.”

“The figure is a man, fully armed and helmeted. He
has a purpose. I’m not sure yet what it is. Can you hear the hoofbeats?”

Luke was scarcely breathing. “I can,” he said, “but I think there’s more than one man.”

“No,” I said, “only one. He’s got a message for us from another world. Perhaps this is the knight of Walter’s story. Perhaps he’s a knight of the Round Table. In a moment he’ll pass in a scattering of dust, leaving only a nosegay of flowers and a promise to return.”

“He wants to leave with more than that!” Luke shouted.

“What?”

“Duck!” And when I didn’t, he threw himself from Picardy onto Dulcie, who snorted and tilted away, leaving Luke clutching at air. I could now see quite clearly what I had completely failed to see before, which was that Luke was right: there was not one imaginary knight approaching; there were at least a dozen real ones. What was more, these were not chivalrous nobles scattering flowers and enigmatic promises. Their matted hair, grime-gritted skin, and rough, mismatching armor revealed them as men-at-arms gone bad, their honor blemished, their swords stained, and their iron clubs spotted with old flesh. The pilgrimage route from London to Canterbury offered rich pickings. With our baggage carts bumbling behind, we must have looked to be a particularly juicy prize.

Thin and flat-eared with misuse, the bandits’ horses bared their teeth at ours. Luke squared up like a boxer. I screamed, for the bandits were whirling their clubs. In seconds, the shrill screams of the lady pilgrims echoed my own. The bandits were amongst them.

A man the shape and color of a dirty leather strap issued brisk orders, which were less briskly obeyed. When Luke had been restrained and Dulcie and Picardy seized, we were marched back to the rest of our party. With the bandits growling like dogs, we were herded off the road through the thicket into a scrubby clearing. The prioress’s dogs yapped and yapped and yapped. Luke managed to stay beside Dulcie, leaving Picardy whinnying in the rear. I begged Luke to go back for him, but he wouldn’t leave me, and I was so thankful for that.

Once in the clearing, we were all forced to dismount. Three of the bandits took our horses and tied them together. One tried to unwrap the prioress’s arms from around her dogs, but she clutched them as hard as the mother clutched her babies. I thought the man might just club the creatures—anything to stop their infernal noise—but though he threatened, he let them be.

Walter appeared on my other side, and he and Luke squashed me between them, with Master Chaucer forming a barrier in front. Sir Knight roared as loudly as a bull as the robbers divested him of his sword.
Everybody else was forced to throw their weapons into a pile.

“If we’re to die, please God make it quick,” Madam Prioress sobbed. I held on to my pendant and thought of my father. I could hardly believe this was real. The dogs yapped and yapped.

The leathery leader banged two shields together. “Shut those damned animals up or I’ll do it myself.” He brandished a dagger. I whipped around and slapped both dogs hard on their rumps. The prioress was outraged and the dogs’ yaps rose to howls. I slapped them again. Only when I threatened a third belt did they finally quiver into silence.

“That’s better.” Sir Leather Strap dropped the shields. For effect, he thrust his sword into the ground in front of him. Earth is not unlike flesh. It slid in with a kind of squelch. I pressed closer into Master Chaucer’s back.

Sir Knight, hopping from foot to foot, objected to our treatment in the strongest possible terms. “We’re holy pilgrims on our way to the tomb of St. Thomas! God won’t forgive you for this.” But everybody knew that without his sword and horse, he was a tuskless boar. Eventually, knowing he looked ridiculous, he fell as silent as the dogs.

“Peace at last,” Sir Leather Strap said, as though we were a class of noisy children. “And now that I can get
a word in, I’ll tell you what I want.” He leaned on his sword hilt. “I want gold.”

“Gold?” repeated Sir Knight stupidly. “Why would we have gold? I’ve told you, we’re just poor pilgrims on our way to the tomb of St. Thomas.”

“No pilgrims are poor,” Sir Leather Strap said. “If you were poor, St. Thomas wouldn’t be interested in you.”

“We’ve no gold,” Sir Knight declared. “You can search our baggage all you like.”

Sir Leather Strap pursed his lips. “As we will. I’ll be sorry if it turns out to be true because then we’ll have to check your teeth.”

The merchant shut his mouth with a snap, as did Summoner Seekum, Master Friar, and almost everybody else. I’d inherited my mother’s teeth, white and strong, but they were hardly going to take my word for that. When Sir Knight had nothing more to say, Sir Leather Strap ordered that we should be divided, men on one side and women on the other. I found I’d been holding Luke’s hand. Letting go was awful.

As we were pushed about, there was argument and agitation between the robbers themselves, and it became clear that some had more on their minds than gold. There were unmistakable gesticulations. I was the youngest, so they singled me out. They formed a line. They prodded me down it like a cow at auction. It’s hard to tell you what it felt like.

When I reached the end of the line, the men formed a circle. It amused them to whirl me around, and I grew dizzy as their faces flashed and disappeared, flashed and disappeared, in a grinning, pointing blur. I knew I must not fall. Once on the ground, I’d never get up again. But my feet were faltering, my legs were tangling, and I was pitching into a terrible, surging sea of arms that grasped with greedy and evil intent.

Just before the sea roared over my head, I heard Luke’s voice. “You want gold?” he was hollering. “I can give you more than gold. I can give you gold that will never be spent, but touch that girl and you’ll get nothing, nothing.” He hollered again and again. The sea wavered.

“You said if we gave you gold, you’d let us go. I can give you gold, I tell you. As much as you like. A hill—a mountain—a whole universe.”

The thieves sniggered. “What are you, some kind of a wizard?” Dirty fingers pulled at my skirt. The sea surged again. In a moment, the men would hear only the pumping of their blood.

Luke hollered louder. “Of course I’m not a wizard. I’ve much more power than that. I’m an alchemist. Do you understand? An alchemist. But I repeat, touch that girl and you’ll never know what I could have done for you. Never. What’s more, I’ll use my skills to hunt you down and I’ll make your skin burn and your toes rot so that you’ll believe yourself already in hell. I have that
power and you’d better believe me when I tell you that God himself can’t stop me from using it.”

My padded trousers had come undone and my skirt was above my knees. Luke’s voice rang out once more. “Let the girl go and I’ll provide riches beyond your wildest dreams. Touch her and you’ll leave with nothing but a curse.” Then his voice changed. “I have the philosopher’s stone,” he said, and his voice boomed like a thunderclap.

Sir Leather Strap shifted. “What did you say?”

“I said I have the philosopher’s stone.”

There were exclamations amongst both pilgrims and thieves. Sir Leather Strap banged his two shields. “You’re telling me that you have the elixir that transforms base metal into gold?” His voice was an almost comic mix of deep mistrust and fascinated hope.

Luke paused for dramatic effect. “I don’t just have it,” he declared, “
I make it
,” and though his voice was deliberately soft, it was as though God himself had spoken. Momentarily, even I was forgotten. Sir Leather Strap recovered first. “I don’t believe you,” he sneered, but couldn’t disguise that Luke’s words sparked like a flint against a tinderbox.

“It’s because I make the elixir that I go as penitent to Canterbury,” Luke said.

The spark snuffed out. “You have, at your fingertips, the gift of eternal riches and you want us to believe
that you’re going to do penance for it?” Sir Leather Strap was completely disbelieving.

Luke stood very tall. “I’ve trespassed onto God’s territory, meddling where man shouldn’t meddle. So I’ve decided to cast my tools and all the elixir I have left onto St. Thomas’s tomb and pray that God will help me forget the recipe.”