by Avi
His question made me think upon my father. I tried to imagine what kind of man he might have been if he had lived, and if he would have done such a thing with me.
“A punctilious man, my father,” Bear went on. “He paid my fees in full, gave me his hasty blessing, and walked away. I never saw him more. Willy-nilly, I was enrolled in the Benedictine abbey to be a monk. Twelve years of age—younger than you—and already in robes. An acolyte.”
“Did you become a monk?” I said.
“I was at the abbey for seven years. I learned how to pray. How to be silent. I learned to read Latin, French, even English. There’s that. It keeps me from the gallows.”
“Why?” I said, for in spite of myself, I found myself interested in his story.
“The law. If you can read, you’re treated as a priest. Common law does not allow priests to be hanged.
“But shortly before I took my final vows,” he continued, “when on some errand for my fat and greasy abbot, I came upon a group of mummers in a square close to the York minster. Their music, tricks, and most of all, their laughter beguiled me.
“Perhaps it was the Devil himself who took a liking to my soul. In any case I ran off. Like you,” he added, with a laugh.
“But… how could you abandon God?” I said.
“Had He not abandoned me?”
“It was your father, not God, who left you,” I said.
I must have surprised him with my words, for he grew silent. And when he spoke again it was with less bravado. “For ten years I traveled with those people,” he said. “They became my dearest friends. We went all about the kingdom. Mind you, we lived only a tad beyond beggary. But my companions taught me better languages: the language of song, of hand, of foot. And most of all, of laughter.”
“Can you still be hanged, then?”
“Is that your hope?” He laughed. “Not as long as I can read. But I did the next best thing. I went off to be a soldier.”
“And abandoned your new friends,” I said.
“Not abandoned. Disbanded. Only Saint Anthony knows where they went. Some wandered off. Others lost their lives to brawls, jails, duels, or sickness. Some were lost to marriage. The wandering life—the mummer’s life—is fragile at best.” He shrugged. “In any case, I’d rather be alone.”
“Then, why …?” I faltered.
“Why, what? Speak out.”
“Then, why do you need me?” I said.
In response he reached into his sack and pulled out the leather balls again. As before, he tossed them round and round, so that they seemed to float about his hands.
“Here,” he said, holding out the balls to me. “Let me see how skilled you are.”
“Me?”
“Of course, you.
“I can’t do such things.”
“Saint Crispin,” he barked, “stand before me.”
Reluctantly, I took my place before him.
“Now, pay attention,” he said. Beginning with one ball, he demonstrated how to toss it back and forth between his hands. He told me to do the same.
I did so, clumsily at first, but under his insistent commands, I began to grasp his method.
“There! Now,” Bear said, “watch this.”
He took up a second ball, and along with the first, began to throw it back and forth. “Do that,” he said.
Tossing two balls between my hands was quite another matter. I could barely manage it.
“Again,” he shouted. “And again.”
When I failed he was always severe, insisting I try over and over again. But, at last, the balls began to fly for me.
After sitting back and watching me intently with his shrewd eyes, he said, “Enough. We need to move on. You’ll practice more. You’ll add more balls as you go. Music, too. And I vow, by the joy of Christ, you’ll learn it well.”
“But… why?” I said.
“You shall see.”
We continued along the muddy road. This time, as we went, Bear sang at the top of his voice:
“Loudly sings the cuckoo!
Grows the seed and blooms the meadow!
Comes the spring,
The woods do sing!
Sing, cuckoo, now; sing, cuckoo!
Sing, cuckoo, now; sing, cuckoo!”
Then from his sack he took out a music pipe—a recorder, he called it—and began to play the same melody, after which he sang the verse again. “Sing,” he commanded. “I don’t know how.”
“Crispin, if I bid you to sing, you’ll sing,” he said.
Haltingly, I tried. “Louder.”
I complied. As we went along, I was convinced more than ever that Bear was mad.
22
TOWARD EARLY EVENING BEAR found a secluded spot some paces off the road. There he ordered me to stand against a tree.
I hesitated.
“Do as I say,” he said.
When I did, he pulled a twist of rope from his sack, and to my alarm proceeded to tie my hands behind the tree.
“What are you doing?” I cried, seeing this as confirmation of his madness.
“I need to fetch us some food,” he said, pulling the knot tight. “You’ll only interfere. And I don’t want you running off”
“But I swore I wouldn’t,” I said. “I beg you, don’t leave me here.”
“Pha,” he mocked. “As God in Heaven knows, both wheat and trust take a full season to grow.”
Without another word, he went off, leaving me alone. More than once I tested the knot, determined that despite my vow, I’d run off. But no matter how I tried, I could not get loose. Instead my arms grew numb.
How long he was gone I don’t know. Enough to fill my heart with more misery and make me swear violent oaths at him. I even screamed for help, though I knew help would never come.
But when I caught sight of the sack he had left behind, I told myself he was bound to return, if not for me, for it. Sure enough, he did. What’s more, a large, fat rabbit dangled from his hands.
“There, Saint Crispin,” he said when he came into view, a great grin on his red-bearded face, “now you can see that for good or ill, I always keep my word.”
He untied me. Faint from standing so long, my arms aching from being tied, I immediately sat down.
“Do you know the penalty for poaching?” he said as he worked his dagger skillfully to skin the rabbit.
I was so angry, I only shook my head.
“To feed us I’ve put both ours lives in jeopardy,” he said. “That’s the kind of freedom that exists in this kingdom.”
With flint, steel, and tinder, he made a fire, which he told me to stoke with bits of wood. Then he took up the rabbit, spitted it, and soon had it roasting.
“Do you like meat?” he said, seeing me with my mouth agape.
“I’ve only eaten it a few times,” I confessed.
“A few times.” He laughed uproariously. “Ah, Crispin, the blessed saints were kind when they guided you to me. For my part, I love meat.”
When he proclaimed the rabbit cooked, he tore it apart, and gave me some. As I shoved the bits into my mouth with my hands, I admitted to myself it was the best food I had ever eaten. My resolve to flee abated—somewhat.
Later, when we had our fill—more meat than I had consumed at one time in my entire life—and the embers of the fire had burned low, Bear told me to lie down on the far side as he wished to speak to me.
What madness, I wondered, would he reveal to me now?
It had grown dark. The only light was our little fire. A breeze had sprung, which caused the flames to dance. Bear’s red beard seemed to glitter in the firelight, so that his face—despite the dark—was equal to any sun. His bald head gleamed like a moon. Indeed, he was big enough to fill the entire sky.
Then he began to speak of his many adventures, his riotous life, the marvels he had seen, the scrapes he had escaped, his fortunes good and bad. Never had I heard such tales. It was a world and life, a way of being, utterly unknown to me. Wha
t’s more, everything he talked about was stitched with laughter. It was as if life itself were a jest. Except, every now and then he’d cry out with an awful anger at what he called the injustices of the world.
Then he spoke of his soldiering days, fighting alongside the Black Prince in Gascony and Brittany.
“Our master has been fighting in France for so long,” I said, “I’ve never seen him.”
“What’s his name?”
“Lord Furnival.”
“Furnival,” Bear said. “You’ll be pleased to know his first home is in Great Wexly, where we’re bound.”
I said, “What manner of man is he?”
Bear shrugged. “I saw him too much. A great landowner. And arrogant. What he lacked in fighting skills he made up for in bragging, drinking, and killing. In that order.”
“But he’s a noble knight.”
He snorted. “Do you think that makes him less mortal? By God’s everlasting bones, Crispin, war is where the Christian is truly tested. Alas, your Lord Furnival was not one to inspire faith. If there were looting and cruelty to be done, he did more than his share. With a falcon’s eyes for ransom. As for those prisoners who would yield nothing …” Bear waved his hand dismissively. “Doomed. Regarding his fondness for women … I shan’t say. But you may believe me: As Jesus shall be our Judge, your Lord Furnival shall have much to answer for.”
“His steward is cruel,” I said.
“A suitable pair,” Bear said. “And what village is that?”
“Stromford,” I said before I could catch myself.
When he lapsed into silence I thought of what Bear said about Lord Furnival. It made me uneasy, thinking it might have been a mistake to reveal my connection and where I had come from. There could be a danger if Bear was truly mad and we were going there. And yet… he seemed to know so much, more than any man I had met. How, I asked myself, would he consider me when he knew more of what I was?
The fire smoldered. A breeze blew. A bird whistled into the dark. My uneasiness had just begun to subside when Bear said, “Now, Crispin, it’s time I learned the truth of you.”
23
I HARDLY KNEW WHAT TO SAY. I felt a desire to speak about who I was and what had happened. Yet it did not seem proper. He was, after all, my master. I was his servant. We were not equal.
But before I could think more on it he said, “When did your mother die?”
“A … short time ago,” I said.
“May the blessed Saint Margaret care for her in Heaven,” he said, crossing himself. “What manner of woman was she?”
Since no one had ever asked me about my mother, it was difficult to know where to begin. Just to think of her brought pain to my heart. “She was shunned by the others in our village,” I said. “Nor did she talk very much. When she did, she was bitter.”
“Why so?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes I thought it was because she was slight and frail. The steward, the bailiff, and the reeve always set her difficult tasks. More often than not they made her work alone. But though she worked as hard as she could, she received little thanks.”
To my surprise there was a relief in speaking. How strange it was to have someone listen to me.
I went on: “Sometimes she would hold me to her. At other times she seemed to find me …repulsive. Sometimes I thought I was the cause of her misery.”
“And your father?”
“He died before I was born. In the pestilence.”
“No other kin?”
“None.”
His eyes narrowed. “How can that be?”
I shrugged. “My mother said they also died in the Great Death.”
“A common enough story. I escaped it.”
“How?”
“By running as far north as I could go, to Scotland’s wild northern isles. Had your mother no surname?”
“I never knew it.”
“Do you ever want to know these unknown things? About your name? Your mother? Your father?”
“I do,” I said, “but I don’t know how.”
He was quiet for a while, as if thinking on what I said. Then he said, “Now, Crispin, tell me of how you came to be proclaimed a wolf’s head.”
24
BY THEN I HAD SLIPPED SO easily into talking I simply told him what had happened, as much as I could recall.
When I had done he asked, “And they proclaimed you a wolf’s head for that?”
I nodded.
“To be a wolf’s head is to say you’re no longer human. So anyone may kill you.” He grinned. “Even me. But,” he went on seriously, “your priest told you to flee.”
“Yes.”
“And since your steward tried to kill you, your priest was proved right.”
After a moment, I said, “And they killed Father Quinel.”
Bear sat bolt upright. “Killed the priest?” he cried. “In the sacred name of Jesus, why?”
“I don’t know. But when he told me I had to leave, he also promised he’d tell me something of importance just before I left. Instead, he was slain.”
“Have you any idea what he was to say?”
“Something about my father. And mother. So I think his death was my doing. God was punishing me.
“By killing His priest? It’s a thing I’ve noticed,” the big man said with laughing scorn, “that the greater a man’s—or boy’s—ignorance of the world, the more certain he is that he sits in the center of that world.”
I hung my head.
“Crispin,” he said after a moment of silence, “I’ll give you some advice. You’re full of sadness. Those who bring remorse are shunned. Do you know why?”
I shook my head.
“Because sorrow is the common fate of man. Who then would want more? But wit and laughter, Crispin, why, no one ever has enough. When I think on the perfections of our Savior, I choose to think most upon His most perfect laughter. It must have been the kind that makes us laugh, too. For mirth is the coin that brings a welcome. Lose your sorrows, and you’ll find your freedom.”
I remembered the word—-freedom—as one which Father Quinel used.
After a moment I said, “But you gave me no choice but to stay with you.”
His eyes flashed with anger, enough so that I regretted I had spoken. But then, as happened so often with him, he laughed. “Crispin, do you know why my hat is split into two parts?”
“No.”
“Like all men with a skill, I wear the livery of my trade. For me, the two-part hat informs the world that there’s more than a simple nature residing in my soul. There’s bad and good.”
But I am only bad, I thought to myself, wishing yet again I knew what sin was embedded in me to have brought God’s hand so hard upon me.
“Crispin,” said Bear, “a wise man—he was a jester by trade—once told me that living by answers is a form of death. It’s only questions that keep you living. What think you of that?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Think on it. For we shall soon be passing out of this zone of desolation. From here on, as God is good, many living villages shall appear. They’ll be small, but if we labor well, we can survive, you and I. Will you join me? I give you the freedom to choose.”
“You’re my master,” I said. “I have no choice.”
“Crispin, decide,” he barked.
I shook my head. “It’s not for me to do so.”
“Should not every man be master of himself?” he asked.
“You made me call you master.”
His face grew redder than it normally was. “You’re a willful fool,” he bellowed. Clearly frustrated, he poked the fire. “You’ll go.”
“As you command,” I said.
He frowned but only said, “Before we get there, you’ll need to learn some things.”
“What?”
“Time enough for that tomorrow. Go to sleep.” Without further ado, he lay down.
From the pouch around my neck, I took out my cr
oss of lead, and upon my knees, prepared to pray.
“What are you doing?” I heard him ask.
I looked over my shoulder. “Praying.”
“What’s that in your hand?”
“A cross of lead. It was my mother’s,” I said, holding it out for him to see. “It even has writing on it.”
“Writing or not, it’s useless,” he said, waving my hand away. “No more than a trinket.”
“What do you mean?” I cried, fearing he was slipping back into madness.
“All these things … your cross, your prayers. As God is near—and surely He always is—you need no special words or objects to approach Him.”
“But this cross—” I began.
He cut me off. “I know what it is. It’s made of lead. Made in countless numbers during the Great Death. Never blessed, they were given to the dying as false comfort. They’re as common as the leaves and just as sacred.
“Crispin, as Jesus is my witness, churches, priests—they’re all unneeded. The only cross you need is the one in your heart.”
Greatly shocked, I didn’t know what to say.
“But,” he added, with a hard edge of anger, “if you so much as spoke my words in public, do you know what would happen to you?”
“No.”
“You’d be burned alive. So don’t repeat them. And if you said I spoke them, I’d denounce you for a liar and a heretic.
“So, put your cross away. I don’t wish to see it again. Keep your faith to yourself.”
Though unsettled by his words, I turned away and made my prayers, the cross in my hands.
I prayed to Saint Giles and asked him to remember my father whom I had never seen, my mother whom I missed so deeply, and last of all, myself. I also promised him I’d not believe the things Bear had said.
Though Bear must have heard me, he did not interfere. When I was done, I said, “Bear, I’m sorry I know so little.”
“Sometimes it’s better not to know.”
“How can that be?”
