Kitabı oxu: «The Story of Silence»

PROLOGUE

On the far side of the inn, the flames guttered in the hearth, dancing in answer to some gust outside. Shadows gathered and fled across the floor, leaping as quickly as my fingers did along the strings of my harp. A cry went up from the crowd standing near the fire, answered by laughter, and into this cacophony I sent my voice, baritone, still pleasant, though it had seen better days. ‘There stands upon a plain … a great circle of stone. The Giant’s Ring.’ Oh, this story. I had always loved it. The tale of Merlin, that great wizard, moving the stone circle from Mount Killaraus to Salisbury. One day, I would see those stones, feel them beneath my fingers.

But for now, I was in the corner, the one furthest from the fire, while two of the locals vied at arm-wrestling. Others surrounded them, lifting tankards and sloshing ale and calling out in the growly accent of Cornwall. The fishmonger’s jerkin bore stains of guts and slime, letting off a rotten stink as he leaned in close to my ear. ‘Play “My Lord’s Gone A-Hunting”,’ he slurred. ‘No one wants to listen to this dung.’ I almost warned the man that he’d risk a curse from Merlin himself if he didn’t mind his tongue, but he’d already lurched back to the wrestling, and a cheer went up as someone’s arm was pinned, drowning out my perfect recounting of how the wizard had lifted the massive stones from the top of Mount Killaraus and …

From the door to the kitchen, Isolde caught my eye. She stood there, wooden spoon in one hand. (Don’t be fooled – she hasn’t stirred a pot in years. That spoon has other uses.) With her empty hand, she made a hook of her first finger and held it near her ear: our signal. She had sensed something in the room and so I put down my harp and took up my lute and began ‘Maeve’s Friendly Thighs’. Merlin could wait for another night.

The men roared as they heard the song and the attention shifted from the two wrestlers (who had pushed back their stools to square off – how did Isolde know?) to me, and I was forced to stamp my feet and wiggle my eyebrows and insinuate all manner of stupidity, and just as I was silently bemoaning what exactly had landed me – me! – here at the end of the world, the door of the inn broke open.

A rush of damp air swept across me. But instead of the briny sea, it carried the scent of fresh-turned fields, the sweetness of new grass.

A tall figure wrapped in a simple brown cloak strode through then pulled the door shut, and Mary, the serving-girl, stepped forward. As she took the cloak, firelight picked up hints of gold in hair the colour of winnowed wheat, gold also glinting in eyes grey as a stormy ocean. For an instant, the fire seemed to swell, the flames fanning to a rich gold, making the whole inn glow. One of the wrestlers, who a moment ago had reached out to grab his opponent’s shirt, now clapped him gruffly on the shoulder.

And myself? My lute seemed to play on its own, a little ripple of notes that made me laugh as I sang, ‘And Maeve did coo …’, the words coming out by rote despite all my attention being focused on this … figure. I could not yet tell if this was man or woman who had just entered. The side-slit doublet and leggings suggested man, but there were curves beneath the fabric, or a certain slenderness, like a boy on the verge of manhood. So, not a man. Well, probably not.

I tried not to stare at it, but stared nonetheless.

The men around me settled at their tables, taking up the chorus. Isolde ushered the new arrival to a stool near the fire and sat down next to the person, whoever and whatever it may be. I played through song after song, until my voice grew hoarse, and then I plucked a wordless melody, listening as two men with straw in their hair talked of sheep, and three men with silver buttons on their coats talked of the king. ‘They say he’s going to sail against Norway … stop the raids up north.’

‘Raids? He doesn’t care about those. He’s after more land, or more gold.’

‘Maybe if he takes theirs, he’ll leave us alone.’

‘I’ll pay my share, if he keeps our shores quiet …’

I listened, but only just. My eyes, my ears, my every sense was keyed to the person by the fire. Broad, high cheekbones, eyebrows – the dark umber of ale – two perfect arches above those grey-ocean eyes. Oh, beauty. A man could write songs about such a face. What was it? I had to know, for it felt wrong, even in my own mind, designating, as it does, plants and low things, while this being stood and sat and nodded and spoke with shoulders back, head up, moving with dignity but not arrogance. With presence. So, not it. They.

Their skin was chapped red from wind and weather, flushed, too, from the warmth of the fire. It made them look hearty and hale, as rugged as a druid’s oak. And though there wasn’t a whisker about them, let alone a long white beard, there was something of the druid about them, a wise look. They were pensive as Isolde spoke, nodding and now and then reaching down to scratch the ears of the inn’s cat, which twined around their ankles. (Wretched animal! Just that morning it bit my finger when I had tried to pet it.)

From the keep, the bell rang for Compline and several men stood, gathered cloaks, and bundled out into the night. Compline. Another day gone. I ought to be on my way in the morning; it wouldn’t do to stay put for long. Mary brought me a pitcher of wine, and Isolde gave me a stiff nod: I was done for the night.

I set the harp aside, poured myself a mug and tried to study the person by the fire while appearing to be deep in thought. It didn’t work. They stood and said, ‘I won’t keep you from sleep, good sir.’ And, oh, their voice. Husky, unbroken. Pure.

‘Stay,’ I said, raising my tankard. ‘I’ve wine to drink and maybe you’ve a story to tell.’

They considered their mug. They considered the flames licking the logs. ‘I’ve a story or two in me.’

I crossed the room and we settled at a table. I caught again a whiff of that smell – as if I had plunged my hands into the soil of a just-ploughed furrow, felt the blood-warm earth.

‘You play well,’ they said. ‘Why aren’t you singing at some duke’s court?’

‘Indeed, I played at Count Perville’s for some seasons, when I was a stripling. Played at Earl Norchester’s as well.’ Their eyes lit up at that name, and I added, ‘Years ago, mind,’ before they could ask a question I didn’t wish to answer. ‘But Life at court is for young men – wooing and flirting and gossip. I’m here for but a day or two. Good Mistress Isolde has given me hearthspace.’

‘Isolde is indeed a good woman,’ they said. I couldn’t look into their eyes for long; they were not just the grey of the ocean, but seemed to embody the roll of the swells, commanding and compelling. ‘And good people are few to be found, and so, when found, to be treasured.’ They made a little bow on their stool – a gesture that would have been awkward from anyone else, but was courtly and smooth from them. ‘I am Silence. Of Cornwall.’

I smiled. ‘And I am Heldris. And at this moment, I suppose I am of Cornwall as well. And what do we have but this moment? Do you dwell in the village or in the keep?’

‘Neither. And both.’ They stretched their legs with a sigh. They were nice legs, with the roundness of calf that comes from hours in the saddle.

The fire popped. We sipped at our mugs.

‘Silence,’ I said. ‘A most unusual name, I’d venture. How did your parents happen to select it?’

‘Have you more to drink? The story might take a while to unfold.’

‘I will appeal to Isolde.’

They chuckled. ‘It will be a good measure of you, minstrel, to see what she accords as your due. Isolde is wise and a good judge of character.’

I rose, reluctant to go, certain that, like some visitor from the land of Fey, if I turned my back, they would disappear. But wine loosens the tongue. I ducked into the warm lair of the kitchen, getting a jug and a hissed warning from Isolde: ‘Mind your manners with that one or I’ll dent your head with my ladle.’ She would, too. I returned to the fireside and poured wine. When they reached for the mug, I saw nicks and cuts on their hands, white welts of scars on rough skin – what a man gets from working in fields or forests or shops. And there on the thumb, and there, on the finger pads: yellow-waxy callouses I recognized as even more familiar.

‘Do you play?’ I tipped my head towards my harp, wrapped and leaning against the wall.

The hands disappeared beneath the table, as if they’d shown too much, and the stranger said only, ‘Another life.’

‘Tell me about that life.’

‘It starts,’ they hunched forward, staring into the leaping flames, ‘with twin girls …’

‘Ah!’ I could barely contain myself – twins are always deformed or twisted, either on the outside or on the inside, or one is perfect and beautiful and the other an ugly wretch. Or one is saintly and delightful and the other evil and malevolent.

‘… daughters of some earl, I forget who. This was years before I was born. You know the type. Rich lands, beautiful girls. The twins married off at first bloom. To two earls. Also of the usual sort.’ They spoke in a hitching, hesitant way.

Dear listener, what follows is the story as I recall it. Or as I recount it. Or, perhaps, as I have shaped it. For stories bear the imprint of all who tell them. Silence told it to me in that little inn, and I have told it to myself many times since then. And now, listener, I share it with you. I share it in the spirit of truth, knowing that you, in turn, will make it your own.

CHAPTER ONE

Once there were twin girls, born – perfect and beautiful – to Earl Le Valle. Their mother died when they were but infants, and their father raised them to be pleasant, mild, and diligent alike. He doted on them. Even the household staff could seldom tell them apart, they were so equally flawless and winsome. As they grew, they ripened, like grapes on the vine, swelling just right, softening just so, sweetening to perfection. And at the height of that perfection, two dashing earls – we’ll call them Rodney and Jacques – married the twins in great joy at their father’s court.

No expense was spared for the wedding festivities. The earl hired a dozen minstrels (minstrels are the most important part of any wedding), a dozen jugglers, and a troupe of mummers. Hunters flushed a hundred deer from the earl’s woods and so the kitchen-yard was filled with a hundred spit-boys roasting the meat to perfection. Feathers flew as geese and capons were plucked. The priest even had the altar boys polish the church bell. In short, everything was done to perfect excess and the twins were married and their husbands took them to their separate manors.

Not long after, the twins’ father died, and the two husbands laid claim to the earl’s estate – each saying his wife was the older twin. The girls themselves, of course, had no memory of their birth, and their father had insisted on raising them as equals, never disclosing their order of birth. Retainers were questioned, their old nursemaid was dragged from retirement, but no one could say for sure. The old earl had been so fair-minded – so naïve – that he had never recorded which girl emerged first. Rather, that silly fool had told them they came out side by side, holding hands (poor mother!).

The husbands fumed, stormed, and consulted their counsellors but there was no resolution at all. They appealed directly to King Evan, known across England for his sense of justice and his utter faith in the law. (Now, of course, as king he makes the law, which makes his faith in the law rather, well, self-serving, but let us never mind that. A king ought to be praised, if a minstrel wants to make a living.) King Evan considered the matter carefully and discussed it with his advisers, who examined every letter of the law. But even they could make no resolution of the quandary, apart from to suggest evenly splitting the land and holdings. Neither husband would agree to this – half a holding! When it could all be his? And so in the end the earls agreed to a bout of single combat to settle the matter.

They met on the king’s pitch: that long stretch of packed earth, its tufts of grass nurtured by the noble blood that has been spilled there. That hard and level plain beneath Winchester’s walls where men are tested and found, all too often, to be wanting. The parties went out in the morning. Two priests blessed the earls. The king, resplendent in a robe of rich blood-red, presided from a shaded pavilion. He was young then, his hair as dark as a raven’s feathers, his jaw so square it might have been carved from stone, and not yet married – his beautiful queen, Eufeme, would be won in a few years’ time. The crowd and two earls waited until the sun stood directly overhead so neither would have the advantage. Then the young lords took to the pitch. One of the earls wore armour his father had given him, with gold worked into the greaves, so that he sparkled in the sun, a gleaming paragon of manhood. The other wore a helm, won in a battle against the Danes, set with precious gems, and with every turn of his head, green and red crystals glowed; never had a man seemed more worthy.

The king raised his hand; the earls raised their swords, saluting one another. Their squires had sharpened those swords at that day’s dawning, working the edges with a whetstone until either earl could have shaved his throat, so keen were they. They set their stances. Behind the king, in the shade of the pavilion, the earls’ wives, those two twins, clung to each other and wept, tears staining their angelic faces.

The king dropped his hand, the trumpet blasted, the two earls leapt at each other, their blades shrieking, locking, the two men grappling, leaping back, trying each to gain the advantage over the other. But they were as well-matched in war as in wives and so within an hour, both earls lay dead upon the ground. The twins were now widows. The two spring flowers of knighthood had been plucked too early and their two ladies, once perfect lilies, were now left to wilt.

King Evan flew into a terrible rage – what an utter waste! What vile stupidity! If it went on like this, he’d have no knights left. And so he declared, from that day forward, no girl or woman anywhere in his kingdom could inherit a thing. Not land, not title, not even a skein of yarn.

He seized the twins’ father’s lands for himself, sent the bereaved twin widows to a convent, and …

My stranger’s name proved true for a moment. Silence. The cat came around again and jumped into their lap. It eyed me as I poured more wine. Around us, the inn had darkened. Night waited at the windows. A gust rattled the door, pushed down against the flames in the hearth. Then they leapt back up, illuminating a golden highlight in Silence’s hair, so momentarily radiant, I swore I could smell sun-warmed oats and not the smoky belch of the fire. They leaned back, putting themselves in shadow, nodding to themselves, as if they were telling themselves the story, keeping it from me. Unfair.

I fed the fire another log. I prompted as gently as I could with a conversational nothing: ‘Twins. They’re always evil.’ But even as I mumbled, my mind was spinning out the twists this story might take (a visit from an incubus to the convent, one of the twins conceiving the person who sat beside me). ‘Was it,’ I tried, ‘a demon? Who came to lie with one of the fair twins?’ I paused, but no answer came. ‘Like Merlin’s own begetting?’ I prompted. ‘Surely you know the story how the great wizard’s mother lay with an incubus and that is how Merlin got his sorcer—’

My stranger stirs. ‘You will hear of Merlin soon enough.’

I lean closer to them, my fingers flexing. I could already imagine how I’d tell this tale – how at the earls’ dual fall, I’d strike my harp, thus and so! And the promise of Merlin, and magic to come …

Silence cleared their throat a little. ‘Sometimes it seems it’s all a dream. I wake from one only to find myself in another.’

That voice seized me back to the present. An old man’s words. Odd to hear them in the mild tenor of a boy’s voice, with the huskiness of innocence. I waited, trying to be as patient as a priest.

‘Maybe it doesn’t begin there,’ Silence said at last. ‘Maybe it starts with …’

My stranger was threatening to settle into deep brooding, so I pushed their mug closer. They drank deeply. I watched the cords of their throat move with each swallow (no Adam’s apple, but not all men have one). Some downy hairs on their cheeks, though their words made them seem old enough to be a greybeard. Words! Few enough of those to go around.

‘Perhaps it starts with my father. He served King Evan. Was a knight of his inner circle. Fought at his side in many a battle. But mostly he went hunting.’

We were off again at last, all herky-jerky.

‘My father was Earl Cador.’ They paused as if waiting for a reply.

I mumbled, ‘Ah, Cador,’ as if it were a familiar name. Sons of earls always think their fathers are famous because those fathers hire minstrels to write stories about them. But there are earls enough in this country to pave a road with them. ‘You’re his … son?’ I ventured, hoping they would affirm my choice of ‘boy’.

‘I’m not a bastard, if that’s what you’re asking. Nor am I a liar. I may not look to you like the child of an earl, but I am.’ They levelled their gaze, staring straight into me. ‘I always tell the truth.’

A shame. I thought then that the story would be of little worth, for the truth is seldom wondrous. Moreover, they had dodged the question I asked – neither saying they were Cador’s son, nor saying they weren’t. I pushed aside my frustration and said, ‘Cador … your father? I’ve heard he was brave and gallant in his youth.’ I’d heard no such thing, but then I’ve always thought the virtue of honesty is rather a tepid one.

‘Mmmmm. Yes.’

Such reluctance and stammering was enough to make me want to set aside my tankard, unroll my blankets and curl up, story be damned. But the firelight cast hungry shadows on that face, set those grey eyes glowing, and I found that I wanted, I needed, to know this person.

‘Yes, I believe it does start with Cador. My father. Years before I was born. He served King Evan. They often hunted together.’

King Evan, who ruled all of England from the Humber in the north to the tip of Cornwall in the south, from Offa’s Dyke in the west to the sea in the east, had received word from a bedraggled messenger (who practically crawled into his hall bearing the message in a last gasp) that raiders had come ashore near Titchfield and put houses to flame. King Evan had been dining when the messenger arrived (for King Evan often liked to dine) and sent his beautiful queen Eufeme away from the hall to her chambers, ordered the servants to clear the tables, and commanded his knights to ready their horses immediately. Titchfield lay two days’ march away, across the heathland and down to the coast, and they hastened to begin immediately.

King Evan rode in the vanguard, his normally handsome face contorted with rage. Raiders! Interrupting dinner! They gave their horses free rein, galloping across the marshy plains. Alongside the king rode his nephew, Cador, an orphan whom the king had generously brought up in the keep, raising him to knighthood in just the last year. What a pair they made. King Evan’s raven-dark hair now bore a few strands of silver, giving him a steely affect. Square-jawed and blue-eyed, he sat upright on his horse, hand resting on the pommel of his sword, staring ahead of him as if, despite the miles to go, he could see the raiders already. Cador bounded at his left, riding so fast that his blond hair streamed out behind him (long hair was the fashion then for knights), his ruddy cheeks still soft with youth, his hazel eyes drinking in the world. But this man was anything but soft: he had first blooded his blade against Norway’s raiders, in the battle that won King Evan his beautiful bride, Eufeme. If the king looked to be carved from stone, then Cador was hewn from oak. A perfect pair of men, riding side by side.

The raiders had long since left Titchfield and proceeded up the coast. King Evan surprised them in the midst of marauding the coastal village of Hook and soon his knights had put them to the rout. The battle is not worth telling: the raiders were only a motley crew, half-starved, without much fight in them. The fishermen of those parts were grateful (and no doubt the brave king capitalized on their daughters’ gratitude in particular). They hailed him as he was often hailed: King Evan the brave, King Evan the gallant, King Evan the just. The troop from Winchester stayed long enough to enjoy as much of a feast as the fisherfolk could offer (I suspect they enjoyed other offerings of flesh much more than the fish) and then, in short order, began their long journey of return.

Evan and his knights had stripped off their heavy mail and thick plates of armour, loaded these on the packhorses, which they left in the care of their squires, and now rode lightly, the rich air of late summer carrying scents of ripe grain – what the raiders had hoped to make off with. One squire rode ahead of the king, with Cador once again at his side, carrying a staff with the king’s banner. A golden lion, passant, stood against a field of azure blue. Each gust of wind made the lion writhe, the banner snapping so the blue looked like the waves on the sea, and the lion’s tongue, blood-red, licked the air. The squire who carried the staff puffed out his chest and strained to keep the staff perfectly upright: he was leading the king’s procession.

Evan, for his own part, slumped a little in the saddle, passing bits of gossip with Lord Fendale, who rode to his right. Lord Fendale, old enough to be the king’s father, had grown portly in recent years but he still enjoyed squeezing himself into his old armour and riding out for a good fight, especially one he was likely to win.

‘Ah, that was a merry battle,’ Lord Fendale sighed.

‘Hardly a battle, old friend.’

Lord Fendale laughed. ‘It is true! I have fought greater wars at my own table.’

‘You married off that daughter of yours yet?’ King Evan asked Lord Fendale.

‘Which one?’ the lord lamented with a moan. ‘I have three yet to dispose of.’

With a circling flourish, the king settled a hand on his chest. ‘The one with the large … heart.’

‘Ah. Helena. I was thinking to save her for young Cador.’

At this, Cador blushed. He had a fair complexion, white as milk, as befitted his innocence and purity, in those days. ‘Thank you, m’lord,’ he fumbled.

‘Cador will have his choice of women, I should think,’ King Evan said. ‘Though I would be happy to see him settled with someone not just of ample bosom but of ample land as well.’ He turned to the younger man and asked, ‘You are the third son?’

‘Fourth, Your Highness.’

‘I could never keep track of how many my late brother had,’ the king said. He leaned over to Fendale. ‘Have you any younger brothers? No? Just as well. Mine was in swaddling clothes when I earned my first sword. But he still spawned half a dozen children before I had even one.’ Fendale coughed and hemmed at this. It was well known in Winchester that Evan’s first wife, and now Eufeme, his second, had delivered nothing but stillbirths. ‘No matter,’ the king said, turning back to Cador. ‘You have grown into a fine man at Winchester.’

‘Thanks to your generosity, Your Highness,’ said Cador, offering a little bow in his saddle.

They passed through a small hamlet of rough huts, their thatch grey though the fields around them were golden. Children, most half-naked, ran about, and a dog streaked across the road, making Lord Fendale’s horse shy to the side. Cador reached a hand down and stroked the side of the neck of his own horse, Sleek. ‘Easy,’ he murmured. Some peasants emerged from the huts, shapeless in rough brown tunics; it was impossible for Cador to discern if they were men or women until a couple of them folded over in awkward bows. Cador responded with a scanty nod and King Evan, for his part, ignored them entirely. In a moment, they were past the squalid huts, and the rutted track carried them through fields thick with grain. The king’s mount, a chestnut stallion named Hero, whuffed and shook his head, jangling the bit, as if he knew that some day these stalks of oats might feed him.

The crow squawked at him. ‘Haw! Worst prayer I ever heard. Help me? Really. Now listen. You can charge. Maybe you’ll get lucky. But in all likelihood, you won’t. You have to get close.’

‘How close?’ Cador asked. The wind gusted through the trees, setting oak leaves flapping, and he shivered inside his mail shirt. The crow just bunched its feathers up and pulled its neck in, staring implacably down on Cador.

‘Inside the reach of her claws. Right up against her.’

Beneath him, Sleek sidestepped and Cador reached out a gauntleted hand to rub the horse’s neck. He wondered if Sleek was bothered by the foetid smell of the dragon, which the gust of wind had not managed to dispel. ‘That’s very close,’ Cador said, keeping his voice low. He stared down through the branches into the basin. The dragon had, at least, withdrawn back into its lair.

‘You have to strike at her heart.’ The crow’s beak clicked.

Without the sight of those terrible fangs and the horrible tongue, Cador felt his courage returning. What did this wizard, this dirty old man, know about fighting dragons? He gave Sleek one more pat on the neck, ruffling his grey mane, and said, ‘Conjuror or not, I must tell you that I have no intention of killing …’

‘Are you sure?’

And with that teasing phrase, the ground beneath his mount’s hooves gave way, spilling Cador and Sleek down the side of the basin. The horse stumbled, nearly falling. Cador cried, ‘God in heaven!’ The horse found his footing, but, compelled by magic or some force of nature, continued his hurtling descent, with Cador as an unwilling passenger. He got his wits about him, raised his shield and couched his spear; how he wished he were back on the pitch at Winchester, tilting against a human opponent. But ahead of him loomed the dragon, all its hideous length spilling out of its lair, and who had ever jousted with a dragon?

Sleek reared up as they reached the basin’s bottom, and Cador had to pull hard on the reins; the horse gave a terrible shriek but dropped his hooves to the ground, jolting Cador hard. The breath rushed out of him and then he sucked at the air, drawing in a lungful of foul vapour, damp and rotten, the effulgence of the dragon. He coughed; his lungs burned. He felt Sleek restless beneath him, threatening to rear once more, and so he dug his spurs into the horse’s sides, driving them both forward.

Forward, towards the terrible beast, which had itself reared up, its head high above Cador, its belly – the scales there silver-grey-white – exposed. Cador spurred Sleek again, aiming them towards that underside, hoping they were moving fast enough that the dragon couldn’t lower its head to strike in time.

He lifted his shield so that it would guard against the dragon above him. Another shriek echoed in the basin – not Sleek this time, but the dragon – a noise like ten falcons, shredding the air. Cador struck the serpent, his spear hitting the grey-silver scales of the serpent’s underside and bouncing off, as if he were jousting a castle wall. The impact threw his shoulder back, sent him spinning in the saddle, then out of the saddle, tumbling to the ground, knocking the breath out of him again. He rolled over, got his feet beneath him and watched Sleek gallop away. At least one of them was safe.

‘Told you,’ Merlin’s voice mocked, ringing in his ears. ‘Go for the heart.’

Cador thought that if he ran, he might make it; his blow had stunned the dragon. A bit.

Take that back. The dragon was merely swinging away to land a killing blow. Cador drew his sword and dodged as the neck flicked out. Snap of jaws on empty air.

‘Cut inside!’ Merlin insisted.

Cador could summon no better plan, and so, instead of putting distance between himself and the dragon, as every instinct in him screamed to do, he steadied his sword and shield, and, as the neck drew back to strike, he rolled around a rock and darted past the clutch of claws, stepping against the serpent’s belly. He saw the wisdom of Merlin’s advice – this close, the serpent couldn’t wildly lash out at him. But the dragon began a questing descent with its neck, mouth open, fangs (they had to be as long as his legs) bared.

Worse even than the fangs was the tongue: gore-coated grey, thick as his arm. It flicked out, once, twice, almost touching Cador, and he shuddered. Every breath he drew brought him the metallic tang of blood; the blood of his squire, the blood of those helpless horses, and who knew what other victims. He would take vengeance. He was a knight. And so he peered out from behind his rock and studied the dragon’s scales.

The neck stretched up, too high for Cador to see the head (which was fine with him), so he looked at the underbelly, where the silver scales were tightly meshed as fine chainmail. Chainmail. That he knew. Chainmail had weaknesses. It was good against slashes, weak against jabs. Cador ignored the tongue as it flicked him for a third time. He had to aim well. Mail was weakest between links. He saw a few battered scales, perhaps where his spear struck, showing milk-white instead of silver, as if they’d been chipped. There.

He raised his shield to fend off the fangs, leapt, and thrust his sword forward. His shoulder jerked as the blade made contact and he pushed, until the serpent pushed back – its weight crushing him. He fell and rolled away. The ground shook as the dragon collapsed.

CHAPTER TWO

Naught but embers remained in the hearth; their orange-gold glow provided the barest of illumination, enough for me to see the silhouette of the empty wine pitcher, the dark hump of my stranger in their chair. It had grown so still, just Silence’s voice in the inn’s darkness. And now that had gone quiet, too. A mouse skittered across the floorboards, found some crumb and began to gnaw. That simple sound brought me back to myself: I had been in the sun-dappled forest, I had heard the shriek of an awful dragon in my ears. My stranger slumped, so still I thought they might have lapsed into sleep.

I leaned close, taking a lungful of air, and I swear, dear listener, I swear I tell you the truth, that I smelled for a moment the sour sweat of a terrified knight, the rotten stink of a corpse-eating serpent, right there in the inn. Then Silence stirred and stood up, and the sourness I smelled was nothing but spilled wine, and the rot was just the odour of the night-soil pot.

‘It has grown quite late,’ they said.

‘But …’ I fumbled for something to make them sit back down. ‘How is this the start of your story?’

‘Evan was so pleased with my father, he let him choose any woman to be his wife.’

‘Ah! A love story? This is where you begin? So we have only reached the start!’

My beautiful stranger rubbed at their eyes. ‘I can’t tell a story to save my life. They’re all like dreams. They make perfect sense in my head, utter gibberish when I try to explain. God keep you. Good night.’

I grabbed their arm – an arm as strong and firm as oak – and said, ‘You can’t leave. I must have … I must hear … please. Tell me your story.’

They pulled away from my grasp easily and said, with a voice that sounded amused, though it was too dark to tell if they smiled, ‘Very well. I’ll return, but I must use the jakes first. And check on my horse.’ Their footsteps barely made a sound; a brief gasp of fresh air marked their departure. Alone in the dark, I feared they would not return.

Isolde pushed open the kitchen door; carrying a taper in front of her, she peered down at me. ‘What’re you doing, still awake?’

‘Could you tell me of the person who has lately been talking with me? Silence?’

Isolde settled one hand on her hip. She wore her night cap, a grubby beret from which a few strands of her brown hair straggled out. ‘Silence. Leave that one well enough alone.’ She stared at me, her brown eyes level and grim.

Couldn’t she spare a modest hint? A he or a she? A man or a woman? No. That one. ‘I’m in the midst of hearing a most unusual story, and I find myself wondering if it is true.’ I offered her my best smile. ‘Do you know anything about Silence?’

‘If I do, it’s not for me to say.’

‘Fair enough, mistress. But what about Earl Cador? Do you know his story?’

‘Which part?’ she said.

I hoped that Silence would be a while with their horse. ‘Ah. The part about the dragon. And what follows.’

‘Who doesn’t know the story of Cador and the dragon!’ she said, her voice full of scorn.

I settled on a stool and gestured for Isolde to do the same. ‘I am not from these parts,’ I said.

‘What parts are you from, not to have heard of Earl Cador?’

I shrugged. Every piece of the earth that I have visited (and I’ve visited quite a few) thinks it is the most important. It does no good to dispel them of this notion. ‘I’m from nowhere. So Cador killed the dragon. And then …’

‘Cador killed the dragon, all by himself. And King Evan, may God keep him, was so pleased that he told Cador he could have the pick of any woman of the kingdom, so long as she wasn’t promised to another.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘A most generous gift from the king.’

‘King Evan is known for his generosity. Have you not heard of his feasts? Of the gifts he gives to his faithful knights?’

I held up my hands in surrender. ‘Mercy, mistress. King Evan is known far and wide for being generous. And most just.’

This earned a grunt in reply. ‘Justice is different to fairness.’

‘You possess wisdom as well as beauty!’ I said.

She leaned across the table towards me. ‘I am no beauty, you liar. I never have been and I never will be. Your flattery does you no good. So just tell me what you want, and I’ll decide if I ought to give it to you.’ She reached down and placed a log on the fire. The flames took to it hungrily, casting enough light that Isolde blew the taper out.

I looked down at the table. Ashamed. She was no beauty. She must have had a bad case of the pox when she was young; her face bore the scars, and the disease left her skin mottled, so that she looked like a bowl of porridge with currants. I thought of telling her that true beauty lies beneath the surface, but I didn’t want to risk my space at her hearth, so I simply said, ‘Which woman did he choose?’

King Evan led his knights and lords out of the woods of Gwenelleth. They were a diminished company, it is true, but joyous at Cador’s success. The one remaining squire rode in the vanguard, Evan’s banner hoisted aloft once again, the evening breeze making it stutter. They had bickered over whether to bring the whole of the serpent back to Winchester, or at least a part. Lord Fendale had wanted to take the head, but the stench was so foul, they decided to leave it in the forest. In the end, Lord Fendale extracted one fang to hang as a trophy in the castle’s great hall.

So they rode, the squire at the head, King Evan behind, flanked by the Duke of Greenwold (who still thought they had killed a wyvern) and Lord Fendale, the fang lashed to his saddle. Cador rode further back still, though the king often turned to urge him forward, to tell them again of how the dragon had writhed, of how Cador had charged, of the killing blow to the heart.

But Cador waved them off. His mind was full of the battle, true, full of the king’s generous promise. But he was troubled by Merlin – he had mentioned the old wizard in his retelling of the story, explaining that Merlin had given him the insight into how the dragon might be slain. But he hadn’t mentioned Merlin’s promise, nor his prophecy, and he mulled these now.

And it should be said that Cador was not feeling well. Indeed, as the day lengthened, his normally ruddy cheeks grew pale, waxy, and he took on almost a greenish tinge. By noon, though the breeze kept the air cool, Cador was sweating, and when the Duke of Greenwold approached to ask how he fared, he touched the young man’s arm and found that his skin was hot as fire.

‘My lord!’ the duke called to the king. ‘Young Cador is ailing! I fear it is the dragon’s foul vapour; he breathed more than his fair share.’

The king drew near and laid a hand on Cador’s cheek. ‘How hot he is!’ He turned to one of his knights. ‘Take him on your horse; he cannot ride on his own.’ Indeed, Cador had slumped to the side, listless. The other knights took him down gently and settled him in front of the first knight, two to one horse. And then they rode, as swiftly as they could, to Winchester.

They rode through the afternoon and into the dusk, lighting torches and riding on, their horses frothing at the bits. Cador burned with fever and his breath came in rattling gasps and the king, hearing each tortured inhalation, urged greater haste until they arrived beneath Winchester’s walls at last.

A litter bore Cador to a chamber where a fire roared in the hearth. The king, still in his riding cloak, his black hair coated with dust from the road, called for the best physician to be brought, now, now, not a moment to be wasted.

It was nearly dawn when the best physician came, a slender young woman named Roswyn. She wore a simple dress of dark blue, embroidered with white loops and knots down the bodice. Her hair was tightly done up and hidden beneath a coif. She curtsied to the king, holding her skirt out to one side only, as her other hand clutched a bag of remedies.

The king’s steward bustled in after her, carrying a tray of vials and jars of ointment. He managed a bow and said, ‘My lord, King Evan, may I introduce to you Lady Roswyn, daughter of Renald, the Earl of Cornwall.’

‘Ah! Roswyn. The only daughter of Renald, if I am not mistaken. And his only child.’

‘Yes, my lord,’ said the young woman, curtsying again.

King Evan nodded, for even in this time of distress – for he was truly concerned about young Cador – he was thinking of land, and inheritance, and how Cornwall had no heir …

‘Roswyn is the finest physicker I have ever known,’ the steward blustered. He set the tray down next to the bed where Cador lay and peered at the knight. ‘Blessed Mother of God!’ he exclaimed. ‘He looks near to death!’

Roswyn drew near to the bed as the steward backed away. Dawn broke and grey light seeped into the chamber. ‘He seems to have breathed in foul air,’ said Roswyn, leaning one ear to the knight’s chest. ‘I can hear a rattle that bodes nothing good.’

‘Have you not heard what happened?’ the king said. ‘He slew a dragon, all on his own. It was a dreadful serpent and filled the whole forest with its stench.’

‘Oh!’ Roswyn straightened, gazing down at Cador. ‘How terrible and how wonderful!’ She placed her hand on the knight’s forehead, brushing back his hair (though this was not, strictly speaking, medically necessary). How handsome he is, though his vigour is drained, she thought, but said aloud only, ‘He is cool and pallid. Build up the fire. We must draw the heat from his body. More wood.’ The steward leapt at her command. Then Roswyn turned to the king and gave a quick curtsy. ‘I beg your pardon; I’ll hear the tale eagerly another time. For now, I must attend to his ailments. This is most dire.’ And with that she began to rattle the vials and pots the steward had carried, reaching now and then into her bag to extract a wizened root or handful of desiccated leaves. The king, though worried for Cador, was all too happy to remove himself from the chamber, which was growing stuffy from the fire’s heat. Roswyn was pretty, to be sure. She had a fine nose and lips in a perfect Cupid’s bow, but she was much too commanding for a woman. She might be a fine physician, but such an occupation was most unbecoming for a lady.

Within the chamber, Roswyn mixed a poultice of mustard and goose fat and nettle. She had the steward remove Cador’s jerkin and shirt and settle the poultice against his chest (the steward furrowed his nose in disgust, but did as she told him). She sat as far from the blazing heat of the fire as she could, crushing mint and pulverizing the bones of a crow to mix into a potion, pausing only to wipe the sweat from her patient’s brow, to lift his wrist and feel for the thin beat of his heart, to reassure herself that he yet lived.

Three days, Cador lay in this state. Three days, Roswyn sat by his side. Three days, she poured elixirs of her own devising down his throat, rubbed ointments into his temples. Three days that he was sunk in a sleep beyond sleep and she sat sleepless beside him.

Even in his illness, he was so fair and handsome and Roswyn would often lean over him, smooth his blond hair back from his brow, or wipe his lips with a perfumed kerchief. Whenever she sent the steward out to fetch more wood or more supplies, she would take up Cador’s hand, and hold it in both of her own, her skin as pale as milk, her fingers thin and dainty; both her hands were barely the size of one of his. And, holding his hand, she would sing to him. Simple songs. Something to lift the spirits.

It was during one of these moments, when she was singing ‘The Song of the Rose’, that Cador opened his eyes. First the left, then the right. How beautiful they were, a tawny brown-gold. Roswyn stopped singing. He blinked. Opened his mouth and spoke with a rusty voice. ‘Are you an angel?’

‘My lord!’ Roswyn said, dropping his hand and standing up (for she had been sitting right beside him on the bed). ‘How do you feel?’

He paused to consider this question. ‘Quite terrible,’ he decided. ‘And I’m very hungry. Where am I?’

Roswyn dashed to the chamber door, her cheeks flushed and not just from the heat of the fire. ‘Sir Cador has awoken!’ she shouted down the hall.

The king came running and so did the Duke of Greenwold and even Lord Fendale climbed all those stairs to the chamber, panting, and they crowded into Cador’s room and cheered the knight’s return to health.

‘We shall make a proper feast for you tonight!’ King Evan roared. ‘And you can tell the whole hall about the dragon.’

‘I do still think it was a wyvern …’ the Duke of Greenwold began.

‘My lords,’ Roswyn said (she stood pressed against the wall furthest from the bed). ‘The good knight Cador shouldn’t dine on such heavy food, being so recently unwell. Though his fever is diminished, he should have naught but broth for a day or two. I’ll go and order some from the kitchens.’ And with that, she fled the room.

‘Never mind the wench,’ Lord Fendale said, watching her run away, her skirts streaming behind her. ‘We will bring you a haunch of venison. Nothing like it to cure your ills.’

Cador tried to lift himself to bid Roswyn farewell, to thank her … but she was already gone and so he lay back in his bed. ‘I should rather be fed broth by her than ever eat meat again,’ he said.

‘Surely you do not mean that!’ Lord Fendale protested. He turned to the king. ‘Are you certain he is cured?’

‘I truly do feel much better,’ Cador said.

‘Your cheeks are still flushed,’ the king said.

‘And your eyes are awfully bright,’ added the Duke of Greenwold.

‘If you are not sick,’ said Lord Fendale, ‘then you must be in love. I see this often enough with my silly daughters.’

At this, Cador blushed an even deeper red. ‘What is her name?’

The men roared with laughter. ‘In love! And he doesn’t know her name!’

King Evan had some mercy on the young knight. ‘She is Roswyn, the only daughter of Earl Renald of Cornwall.’

‘She’s beautiful.’

None disputed this, though the king coughed a bit and said, ‘It would be good for you to be acquainted of her a little more.’ A knock on the door made them all turn. Lord Fendale opened it and Roswyn entered. She held a ewer of watered wine and behind her the steward carried a tray with a steaming bowl of broth. ‘Ah,’ said the king. ‘Here she is. Steward, set that down and let the physician attend to her patient in peace.’ And all the men withdrew from the chamber, leaving the two new lovers alone.

‘They were married within the month,’ Isolde said, leaning back and sucking at her teeth. ‘And here’s where King Evan made a generous move, but still kept his own interests at heart. You have heard, even though you are from nowhere, that Evan had forbidden women from inheriting.’

‘Of course. Everyone knows that.’

‘Well. As Earl Renald’s only child, Roswyn would have inherited Cornwall, had King Evan’s law not been in force. But as it was, she stood to inherit nothing – that is part of why she trained in physick. But when Cador asked to marry her, King Evan took pity.’ She stood and stretched her arms, then scratched beneath her night cap.

‘Yes?’ I prompted. ‘What was his notion?’

‘He promised Cador and Roswyn that if they had a son, he would give the son all of Cornwall, and that, when Earl Renald died – though he hoped that would be on a day far distant – Cador would become Earl of Cornwall, holding everything in fief until his son could inherit.’

‘Most generous,’ I said.

‘King Evan is known to be generous,’ Isolde agreed. ‘But you see the weakness, do you not? If Roswyn and Cador did not have a son … if they only had daughters …’

‘Ah,’ I said.

‘Ah, indeed. Cador would have nothing. King Evan therefore seems generous yet stands a fair chance of gaining Cornwall all for himself. Most clever. That’s our king. Minstrel, you’ve half-turned me into a bard, making me tell you stories! It is almost midnight … there’s bread to be readied for morning and you had best be getting yourself some rest.’ She relit her taper from the fire and retreated to the kitchen. A moment later, the inn’s door opened, and my stranger returned.

‘How fares your horse?’

‘Well,’ they reply. ‘There is no better companion than a horse.’

I might have disputed this, but instead I merely raised an eyebrow: I had greater concerns. ‘Will you tell me of your birth?’

They tilted their head and looked at me as a bird might, with one bright eye. ‘Have you the whole night?’

‘I have nothing in the world but this night.’

Within a year of their wedding, Earl Renald died, and all of Cornwall mourned his passing. They say that even the piskies sent a bouquet of daisies to be laid on his casket (and mind you, he died in midwinter). Cador was installed as Earl of Cornwall, Roswyn beside him, in a sombre ceremony overseen by King Evan. The king offered words of comfort to Roswyn at the loss of her father, bemoaned how his own court would be losing a fine physician, praised Cador for his choice of a wife both wise and fair, and sent them on their way with wishes that she might bear many healthy children.

This last landed heavily on Cador’s ears, for he knew he held the earlship in fief only. It would not be his – would not belong to his line – unless he had a son. For a knight who had grown up with only a meagre holding, to be offered something as vast as Cornwall … well, he could not let this slip through his fingers.

He led his bride back to where she had grown up, the beautiful castle of Tintagel. Cador had never seen such a place. He marvelled at how it perched at the edge of a cliff, at the sheer drop of its walls straight to the ocean below. He delighted at how the wind rippled and shrieked around the walls, stinging the skin with its saltiness. It felt wild, it felt alive.

But to Roswyn, it was home. Here had been her childhood, falling asleep and waking to the crash of waves against rock. Here had been her young maidenhood, full of dreams and stories, hopes that a knight would carry her away, hopes that one of her mother’s babes would live beyond infancy to give her a brother or sister to care for. As they approached, and Tintagel’s square towers appeared, then its grey walls, Roswyn nudged her palfrey closer to Cador’s gelding and pointed to the base of the cliff. ‘See that dark spot, my lord?’

Cador craned his neck, using the gesture as an excuse to lean closer to Roswyn and take in her scent: lilies and a spicy root (likely she had been working with herbs). ‘I do, indeed.’

‘That is Merlin’s cave, they say, where the wizard once lived, and where he will return again when he is released from his curse. They say it is where he awaited the arrival of the baby Arthur, who came in on the waves of the sea, and where he will wait again for Arthur’s return. Or perhaps it isn’t Arthur who will return … the story isn’t clear. It says, the one true knight. That could be you, my love.’ And she smiled up at him.

By now Cador’s tale of the dragon and the wizard in the forest of Gwenelleth had spread quite well around the hall of Winchester, and he thought his wife might be teasing him a bit. He hoped so. He had no desire to live near the sorcerer. ‘Truly?’

‘Truly.’ She reached over and put her hand on Cador’s. ‘When I was a little girl, I would beg for my father to take me down there, when the tide ran low, and I could venture inside, if I dared. I dreamed that Merlin would come back and instead of being dark and rank, the walls would sparkle and gleam.’

‘I see.’ He patted her hand. Based on what he had seen of Merlin, the man might prefer to live in a dank hole. ‘He seems quite cursed.’ He nudged his horse along.

Roswyn looked over her shoulder at the cave mouth as they continued along the road towards the castle. ‘Too bad. Once there was magic all over this land … it’s seldom felt today.’

And Cador gave a little shiver, as if someone had let a drop of water trickle down his spine.

The lords and knights of Cornwall had gathered to welcome their new earl, and Cador answered their welcome as a good earl ought: with a sumptuous feast, a festival for all the crofters and fisherfolk about.

Renald’s coat of arms was a field of azure with a line of gold, bend sinister. Just a single slash of yellow running across the blue. ‘You should add your own device,’ his lady wife told him, one evening as they shared a mug of wine by the fire, with her curled in his lap.

‘And what ought I to add? A dragon?’

‘Heavens,’ said Roswyn. ‘The beast that nearly killed you?’

‘Nay. The beast that brought us together.’ And he bent his head down and kissed her rosy lips.

Rosywn thought a moment. ‘Add a crow,’ she said. ‘They are the cleverest bird there is. And did you not say that Merlin sounded like a crow and then appeared in the form of one?’

‘He did,’ said Cador, though the memory of the wizard’s voice made his flesh crawl. Even now, he could hear that laugh – Haw! – echoing in his skull. ‘Quite like a crow. I think I’d prefer something else … a fish?’

Roswyn took his chin in her hand and stared into his golden-brown eyes. ‘My lord. A fish will not do. Put on a crow, perching o’er the top of the field of azure, as if he is looking at the sea and the line of gold is a ripe sheaf he wishes to peck at.’

Cador shook his head. In truth, since the ordeal in Gwenelleth, he rather hated crows. But he could not deny his beautiful wife and said, ‘Of course, my sweeting. Whatever you wish, I shall give you.’ And he kissed her again.

‘I wish, more than anything, to bear you a dozen sons.’

‘One will do,’ Cador insisted. ‘One healthy son is all we need.’

Within a year, Roswyn was heavy with child. And though overjoyed at conceiving, the matter of inheritance preoccupied her, as it does so many who own property. Indeed, even a simple innkeeper might accurately claim that it is their inn that owns them, rather than the other way around. ‘What if I bear a girl, and I die giving birth?’ his wife would worry, and Cador would take her into his arms. He, Cador, killer of dragons, would murmur sweet reassurances into her hair, kiss her lily-white forehead, and tell her it would all be fine, and, when on his own, tremble with worry that it might happen as she feared.

But Roswyn would not be put off with such platitudes. ‘If it’s a girl and an only child,’ his wife would admonish him, ‘remember King Evan’s law. You’ll be the end of this line, all the lands and wealth lost that my ancestors have held for so many years. Our name and heritage erased!’

Cador sat with Roswyn for many an hour in one of Tintagel’s high chambers, overlooking the sea. With her in his arms, they’d watch the gulls wheeling over the rocky cliffs, watch the swells batter themselves against the shore. And when his wife slept, Cador would busy himself with the matters of the keep. And such matters they were. A quarrel among the grooms. A flock of sheep with the mange. And messengers coming from all manner of relations he never knew he had, but who suddenly recalled their bloodlines now that he was Earl of Cornwall. When these were attended to, he would walk the battlements of Tintagel, letting the wind from the ocean whip his blond hair around his face – the salt and sun had bleached it lighter, so now it looked less like ripe wheat and more like dry grass. Often, he’d lean against one of the stones, damp and streaked with the marks of time, and press his hands to the rock. This was his. This stone. These battlements. This castle. All the land, as far as he could gaze. Only the sea was not his, though his fishermen plied the water. It was magnificent. It was his. He must hold on to it.

On one morning in late autumn, Cador received an especially bedraggled messenger from a distant relative, Griselle. Unlike many of the other cousins who’d lately turned up, Cador did recall Griselle – she had once visited Winchester, when Cador was a newly orphaned page. A squire had mentioned in passing that Griselle’s eyes bulged out like a fish’s, not knowing she was Cador’s cousin, and Cador had challenged him to a duel and won, beating the older boy until he was bloody. Griselle had chastised him for such savagery, but also called him her champion. Cador was flattered but did have to admit her eyes did bulge rather a lot and the whole thing confused him completely.

He was recalling all this as the messenger unfolded a most sorry tale: how his cousin Griselle was the youngest of a long line of children, and her father had no dowry for her, so had sent her to a convent, but the convent had burned to the ground, and now the old maid had nowhere to go and was lodging with a distant relative, sleeping on the hearth for there was not even a pallet to spare for her. Could Cador find her some situation, anything, there at Tintagel?

Such a tale of woe! Cador waved the messenger to cease his story. ‘I cannot bear any more. Hurry back and fetch her before any more misery befalls her.’

The messenger bowed low before departing and, after a tedious report on harvest taxes from his steward, Cador climbed the steps to the battlements, where he strolled about, his thoughts turning as they were ever wont to do, to his wife. To the future.

He wheeled about, putting the ocean to his back, and walked across the stones towards the wall that overlooked Tintagel’s yard and the forests beyond, the green tops of trees swaying in the breeze, here and there a grey line of smoke rising from some croft. The ocean roared in his ears, the breeze rasped salt against his cheeks. ‘If she bears a daughter … what could be done? What if this is our only child?’

Just as this question left his lips, a massive crow plumped down on the wall in front of him, making Cador shriek with surprise. The crow snapped its beak. ‘Shoo, you bugger!’ Cador said, flapping his hands. ‘Hateful bird!’

‘Haw! Haw!’ The crow hopped to the side, easily evading the knight. ‘Haw!’

Cador unsheathed his belt knife and took a wild slash at the bird, which spread its wings and took flight, circling once, releasing its bowels with a splash (which Cador barely dodged) and then flying out over the forest. ‘Haw! Haw!’ rang in Cador’s ears, a sound that always and forever would bring him back to the forest of Gwenelleth. And for the first time since then, he wished Merlin were by his side. Merlin could turn a king into a stag; Merlin had worked magic within these very walls, putting a glamour on Uther so that he appeared to be Gorlois. Surely Merlin could change a girl into a boy, or at least make it seem …

He dashed down the stairs, paused only to swap his salty, damp jerkin for a fresh jacket (emerald green, embroidered with jet-black crows) and hurried to Roswyn’s chamber. Pregnancy had brought a healthy blush to Roswyn’s face, and he kissed each cheek before embracing her: how warm she was after the sea-driven wind of the battlements. ‘My love … what if we disguised the child – if it is a girl – as a boy? What if we raised it as a boy … no one would know!’

Roswyn considered this, leaning against the velvet of his jacket, but, like many of her husband’s thoughts, it was not hard to pick a hole in. ‘The midwives would know, and it is impossible to keep such a group silent for long. Secrets only mean juicier gossip. The rumour would spread within days.’

‘True,’ Cador had to consent. He puzzled on this a moment, before saying, ‘Just this morning, I heard a petition from my cousin Griselle, a lovely woman who finds herself in dire conditions and wants a position here at Tintagel. She shall be your only attendant.’

‘Does she know anything about childbirth?’

‘Dearest,’ Cador said, patting her hand reassuringly. ‘You know so much about physick and the body. I am sure you can teach her what she needs to know.’ He kissed the tips of Roswyn’s fingers. ‘She alone can deliver the child. And, once she has delivered it, she can come out and proclaim to me – to everyone – that it is a son. Regardless of whether it is.’

‘And then?’ Roswyn gave him her other hand to kiss, but she was still looking for loose threads in this scheme.

‘She will take the child and raise it, if it is a girl and we disguise it. I will think of some appropriate spot. Off they will go and no one will be the wiser.’

‘And what will happen when it comes time for our child to marry?’

Cador waved the objection away. ‘King Evan may have changed his decree. Or may have died. A thousand things could happen.’

His wife must have been exhausted by all the worry, or distracted by the finger-kissing, for she could find no other point to dispute and told him, ‘It is a good plan. Let it be so.’

Indeed, pregnancy must have addled her brain. Disguise a girl as a boy? The sham would be discovered in moments. I tried to say nothing. I tried to hold back. But I couldn’t keep from bursting out with laughter. ‘You’re having me on!’ The laughter changed to hiccups and my stranger wrinkled their nose at me. ‘They thought they could raise a girl as a boy? Swap a dress for leggings and no one would know?’ Another wave of laughter seized me, and when I surfaced from it, I found my stranger placid, staring into the glowing coals of the fire.

‘Yes.’

I raised my mug to my lips and took a small swallow. ‘But a girl could never play like a boy – could never learn what they learn, do what they do. She’d be crying, hurt, and bewildered within moments. Everyone knows that …’ I bit off my remark, suddenly recalling that this is their story, and that meant …

Griselle arrived a few weeks later, mud-spattered by a late autumn rain storm, weary from days on the road. Her eyes still bulged like a pollock’s but her lips were red and full, her step lively. She gave Cador a graceful curtsy, holding her skirt in one hand, for she had a muddy basket in the other. ‘You look the same as when I last saw you in Winchester,’ Cador said, offering her an arm to lead her from the entry hall.

She took his arm and laughed, loud and long. ‘I appreciate your courteous lie, cousin.’

‘Would you like that basket taken to your chamber?’ Cador asked.

‘Oh, no, thank you,’ she said.

He showed her to a small cabinet off the main hall, a cheery room hung with tapestries of twining vines and roses. A fire danced in the hearth and Roswyn waited in a chair, too heavy with child to stand. Griselle took her hand and made a low curtsy. ‘M’lady. Thank you for welcoming me to Tintagel.’

‘You are most welcome.’

Cador offered Griselle the chair nearest the fire.

‘My lord,’ she said. ‘You’re too kind. A stool would be fine.’

‘Nonsense. Sit.’ Cador poured them each a cup of wine.

She set down the basket she had been clutching and took a swig of the wine. ‘Ah. They water the wine quite too much in convents. Many’s the time I prayed for the miracle of the wedding of Cana to happen at the convent table.’ Her laughter echoed around the room, so merry and appealing that it brought a smile to Roswyn’s lips.

‘Indeed,’ Cador said at last. ‘I had heard you were at a convent. I hope the arrangement was … suitable?’

‘I stayed at a convent once,’ Roswyn said. ‘Not too far from here. St Alma’s. It had a beautiful herb garden, and when I was learning remedies, I made a visit. If you’d like to go there, it’s not but a half-day’s ride …’

‘M’lady, I hope never to visit a convent again.’ Griselle raised her mug, took a swallow, then bowed her head to Cador. ‘Though if m’lord requires … it’s only that …’ She sighed. ‘Our prioress was rather strict, even though many of us hadn’t taken our vows. Prayers and prayers and prayers. My knees are quite worn out. I missed … music and dancing and stories and riding my palfrey in the woods and all the simple things of life …’ The basket at her feet rocked back and forth, hissing. ‘Oh!’ She lifted the basket to her lap. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’ She released the catch of the basket and a cat, bedraggled and mud-spattered, leapt out, spitting. ‘I so missed having a cat as well. I always had one as a girl. And this one was by the road, not far from the castle.’

‘Not at all,’ said Cador. ‘Castles and cats are a fine combination. The cooks will be especially pleased.’ He reached out a hand to the creature – a gesture of true bravery – and the cat steadfastly ignored him, settling instead by the fire, licking its haunches. Roswyn cleared her throat sharply and gave Cador a pointed stare (Griselle, smitten by the cat, was risking her fingers and ignoring her hosts).

‘You are most welcome,’ Cador began. ‘You and your cat. And I assure you there will be dancing and songs and stories. We have a very good bard here, Sticks by name. We do, though, have one request to make of you.’

‘Have you ever delivered a baby?’ said Roswyn, one hand across her massive belly.

Griselle was aghast. ‘Never, m’lady! Some convents are known for that, but not St Agatha’s.’ She looked at Cador. ‘Surely m’lord has midwives who can …’

‘You see, fair cousin,’ Cador began, ‘this is the favour we need of you. To deliver the child. And whatever its Nature, declare to all that it is a boy-child.’

‘Well and good if it is a boy. But what if it’s a girl?’ She leaned close, as if to catch Cador’s words more quickly, her eyes becoming wider, shinier still.

He gave his wife a glance. ‘Ah. Yes. Should the Nature be that of a girl, we would ask that you would take the child to some pleasant retreat, where you shall have every comfort and freedom, and raise the child as if it were a boy.’ He smiled, pleased with how clear and proper this all did sound.

Griselle stared at him for a moment. Then she began to laugh and laugh; eventually she caught her breath and wiped tears from her eyes. ‘You are a funny lord,’ she said. ‘Make a girl a boy. And would you like me to raise this cat to become a dog?’ From the hearth, the cat gave her a baleful look.

‘That is impossible,’ Cador scoffed.

‘It’s all that we ask of you,’ Roswyn said sweetly. ‘And you don’t have to accept. There are lovely convents nearby. And besides, it is just until we have a true male heir.’

Griselle straightened in the chair and picked up her mug of wine, taking a steadying swallow. ‘I’ll do it. You’ll never know a finer boy.’

In due time, Roswyn was ready to deliver. Cador sat in his hall with his retainers; they ate, drank, and then Sticks the bard began to play, plucking out notes on his harp. ‘Now you all know the story of how Uther Pendragon came to these very halls …’ The knights called their approval – we do! We do! – and though a few cried that he should tell that story again, Sticks ignored them and said, ‘Tonight, I will tell the story of Arthur’s birth, in hopes that our Lady Roswyn will produce an heir as fine and as noble.’ Murmurs of approval as the notes of the harp rang and fell; the melody sounded to Cador like the patter of rain on flagstones, a gentle spring rain, lulling him as Sticks sang of Igraine’s beauty and the love between her and Uther. ‘Now Merlin had made Uther promise,’ Sticks said; words that made Cador sit straight up – Merlin! Promise! – ‘that he would turn the baby over to his care. Now, it might seem cruel, but Merlin knows what is best, and he could see into the mists of the future and knew that the child would only be safe if he were carried away and raised in ignorance of who he truly was.’ Cador rubbed his eyes and waved for a servant to pour more wine as the bard continued. ‘And Arthur was born and his father carried him down from this very hall, down the side of the cliff and there, on the shore of the sea, handed him to Merlin.’

A sigh went through the hall as the wind picked up, finding the gaps in Tintagel’s stones and whistling through them, insistent. Cador shivered and swallowed more wine.

‘Merlin then was a young man. Very powerful. And he took the baby in his arms and swore to Uther that his line would rule in Cornwall forever and again and then he turned and went into his cave and though many a brave knight tried to go in after, none could pass through the darkness that had closed behind him.’ The harp sounded a few notes, melancholy chimes. ‘The rest of the story is for another time,’ Sticks said (likely remembering that it involved the death of Arthur’s mother and father and was not truly fitting for the moment). ‘But mind you, there are those who say Merlin has lost his power as he has grown old, and there are those who say that Merlin will never come again to Cornwall’s shore, but they are wrong. Merlin is waiting. For the one true knight who we were promised would come again.’

And then Sticks struck up a lively tune and had just gone through a verse when Griselle came down – pale and drawn and eyes bulging – and announced: ‘My lord, you have a son!’

The hall erupted in cheers. Wine flowed into cups, cups were raised to the health of the lady mother, to the health of the babe, to a bright future for the heir, to the health of Griselle (she enjoyed a mug or two with them), and Cador smiled, laughed, and wiped a tear. Only then did it occur to him: this is what they’d agreed Griselle would declare, whatever the truth. It might be that he had a daughter, not a son. No, he resolved, as if the matter was his to decide: I have a son.

‘Take me to the chamber,’ he ordered. ‘This pregnancy was hard on my wife, and I would see that she is well. And I would meet my son.’

Griselle led him to where Roswyn lay with sweat-soaked hair plastered to her brow, so pale the dark circles under her eyes looked as if they’d been painted with pitch.

‘My love.’ He knelt at her side.

‘My love,’ she echoed. ‘It is a girl, a daugh—’

He stopped her words with a finger on her lips. ‘Never say it. Here is our son.’

Cador admired the baby. The perfect bow of lips, the skin clear and opalescent, the fringe of sun-yellow hair. Everything, everything, perfect: the whorl of the ears, ten toes, two little nostrils.

Griselle coughed gently.

‘What is it?’ Cador asked.

‘The baptism.’

‘Good God. It must be done. But the priest cannot know.’ Here was a loose thread Roswyn had not foreseen.

‘I will fetch the priest,’ said Griselle. ‘With luck, he is full of wine. I will tell him the babe isn’t well, that the baptism must happen now, without delay, for the child has taken a chill.’

Cador squinted at the pink and rosy baby. ‘He would have to be drunk indeed to believe that. I know nothing of babies, but even I can see this one is hale.’

Griselle scowled at him. ‘You fetch the priest. I’ll fix the baby.’

Alarmed, Cador replied, ‘Do not hurt the child!’ and ran out, calling like a madman for the priest. ‘Quick! Quick! My son has caught a chill, he is ailing, he must be baptized post-haste!’

Meanwhile, in that high chamber, Griselle rubbed the baby’s limbs with the winter snow that rested on the window ledge and covered the baby’s lower half with a napkin. When the priest came, flushed from the pace Cador had set on the climb to the chamber, flushed from the evening’s wine as well, Griselle held the baby in the crook of her arm so that its head flopped back, as if it was too weak to support itself. She bobbled it up and down so the head jostled loosely.

‘Feel his arm,’ she insisted. ‘He is so cold.’ The priest flinched when his fingers made contact with the icy skin. ‘He may die at any moment. Hurry or you’ll consign his soul to the flames of hell!’

The priest fumbled out his holy water; he didn’t even question the napkin, but delivered the blessing as hastily as he could and asked Cador, ‘What will the child’s name be?’

Silence.

CHAPTER THREE

Cador had delayed certain preparations, holding out hope, as any father would, that his child would be born a boy. (His child was a boy. Would become a boy. Had to be a boy!) And so that winter, as snow piled over Cornwall’s stubbled fields and the wind sent gusts of smoky air down Tintagel’s chimneys, he quietly made arrangements. To any curious mind, it would seem that the earl was merely readying a hunting lodge, making certain that provisions were laid in, comforts ensured, security seen to. And what earl doesn’t like to hunt, and to hunt in comfort?

Roswyn stayed cloistered with the babe in a high chamber, allowing Griselle the freedom to come down in the evenings and listen to Sticks play the harp. She even could be found listening to his stories in the morning, all the children of Tintagel gathered about for their lessons; while the other women of the castle withdrew to knit and gossip, Griselle would plonk herself down with the young ones and set to her embroidery, her little cat, Mooch, batting at every stray thread. And in the evenings, she would dance with the squires – the knights were busy courting the younger ladies, and Griselle paid them no mind, picking up her skirts to show the squires exactly how to do the steps of the round dance, and laughing her too-loud laugh.

Betimes, Cador would sit in the high chamber with his lady wife, and the two of them would kiss and coo at the babe and marvel at how perfectly Nature had made … her. For between the two of them, they could admit Silence was a girl. And what a girl! Already, she had creamy fair skin that blushed sweetly pink and hair the hue of sunlight. ‘Perhaps,’ Cador ventured, ‘we could try to make another … so that this one doesn’t have to be a boy.’ And Roswyn quite agreed.

But alas! As with so many things in life, it was not to be.

Just as winter’s back had broken and the Trevillet river had shed its ice, just as the first hearty ewes were dropping their lambs, just as the tenderest shoots of onion were pushing through the melting snow, a terrible fever swept through Tintagel. Knights and their ladies took sick, wracked with aches and trembling, now with chill, now with heat. Roswyn readied poultices and taught Griselle how to grind herbs and fashion tinctures and teas and elixirs. The two women tended to the ill until Roswyn fell ill herself, fainting away while she and Cador enjoyed a meat pie by the fire of their chamber.

‘My love!’ he cried as she swooned. He barely managed to catch her limp body before it crashed against the stones. ‘My love!’

The baby set up a wail, as if it knew it would have no more milk, no more nourishment, no more mother.

Griselle came running when she heard Cador cry; helped him settle his lady wife in bed, cover her with the heaviest furs and pelts, stoke up the fire. For everyone knew that heat broke a fever, and soon the room was sweltering. Griselle took the babe in her arms, let Cador minister to his wife, pour the bitter potions that her own hands had mixed.

The raw wind of spring rattled at the shutters, as if demanding entry. Cador held Roswyn close – how she burned, how she burned. He lay down in bed beside her; if the fever took her, let it take him too. He held her there, his tears carving twin tracks down his cheeks, cool water against the fire of their joined flesh.

Griselle sang softly to the baby to quiet its cries, rocking it in her arms. Roswyn gave a moan now and then as Cador held her tight. And Cador, Cador tried to pray. He appealed to St Alban, known for his healing. ‘Please, save my wife …’ He knew he ought to get down upon his knees, or send for the priest to assist him in his efforts, but he couldn’t bear to unwrap his arms from around Roswyn, couldn’t bear to leave her alone, shivering and moaning in bed, even for a moment. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to pray, but instead of seeing the mighty saint, it was Merlin’s dirty form that swam into his addled mind. And as Cador held his wife close, his lips against her hair, he thought of the wizard and murmured, ‘You promised to help. You did! Please!’ over and over again: please, please, please, until he fell into a restless sleep.

Somewhere in that night (Silence swears they remember this, though how a babe can remember such a thing, I do not know), a great black crow prised open the shutters of the room and hopped inside. Its claws crackled against the stone as it hopped closer. Haw? Haw? Its call was quiet, probing, but nonetheless roused every being in the room save one. Mooch, hunched down near the hearth, watched it with a half-open eye. Griselle, slumped at the foot of the babe’s cradle, startled awake with a snort and crossed herself. ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God,’ she murmured. The crow gave her a wide berth. Haw? Haw?

And Cador … he sat up in bed, shirt soaked through with sweat. ‘The fire,’ he said, and Griselle roused herself to throw another log upon it. The chamber glowed red-gold with new flame and the crow hopped onto the bed.

‘Well?’ Cador said, pointing at the crow. ‘Can you save her?’

The crow picked at the bed coverings with one foot. Haw. It cocked its head to look at Cador out of one eye. The other flashed, yellow as an egg yolk, in the firelight, and Griselle lifted her amulet of St Agatha from her neck, kissed it. Slowly, the crow turned its head to one side, then the other, before hopping sideways and up, landing on the headboard of the cradle. Haw! It croaked its loudest cry yet, spread its wings, fanned its tail, and lifted up, turning a circle around the chamber, and crashed through the shutters into the night. Mooch leapt after it, giving a swipe at the empty window slit, catching only a glancing blow at the tail. A single black feather floated down.

They buried Roswyn as soon as the ground grew soft enough to dig. The fever had burned its way through Tintagel, claiming many fine men and women, but all of Cornwall turned out to mourn Roswyn. Some recalled her as a small child, her father’s little pet, riding along with him as he inspected the fishing boats in the spring, the crops in the autumn. Some recalled her as a young woman, a healer, who would help them when their sheep were afflicted with hoof rot as readily as when their children had a cough. Cador nodded his head, receiving their kind words, raising a flagon to toast her memory again and again.

Griselle tended to the baby while the rains of early spring fell, soaking the fields and turning the tracks that led to and from Tintagel to soupy mud. Now she brought the baby to hear stories by the fire, held the child in her arms as she turned the steps of the dance; she weaned the child, replacing mother’s milk with goat’s milk, which Mooch liked to share.

The roads hadn’t been dry but a day when a messenger pounded down Tintagel’s causeway, his dappled gelding foaming at the bit. He wore a tabard of azure blue, with a gold lion passant on his chest: the king’s arms; the guards welcomed him within. The grooms took his horse, the steward showed him to the great hall, for he declined every offer of a chance to change out of his muddy leggings, or enjoy a quick repast, or at least a mug of hot wine. But, no, he must see the earl immediately, and deliver his message. And so Cador came down from his chamber, his clothing all a sombre black, his golden hair lank and hanging about his ears, his beard grown out now, scraggly and untrimmed (though Griselle had urged him to shave).

‘I see, my lord,’ the messenger began, ‘that this is a house of mourning. I am sorry for your loss, and sorry to intrude upon your grief. But the king’s message is urgent.’ From his seat at the head of the hall, Cador waved for him to continue. ‘The winter has seen unrest arise in Norway, and they have sent ships full of their finest warriors, restless after a long winter in their keep …’

Cador held up a hand to stop what would surely be a long and riveting description of all the terrible soldiers headed towards England’s coast. He was not in the mood for details. ‘And what does the king wish?’

‘He wishes you to assemble your knights and your retainers and ride with him against Norway.’

The words were barely out of his mouth when Cador rose from his seat and said, ‘Immediately.’

And so, all of Tintagel was thrown into an uproar. Grooms scurried to ready horses, sutlers dug through barrels of winter-stored apples and sacks of flour. Cador gave orders to the steward and then sought out Griselle, finding her sewing quietly as the babe slept.

She rose and gave Cador a curtsy as he entered. ‘My lord. Are you well?’

‘That matters little. It is time for you to take the child and go. I have prepared a place for you. It is a day’s ride away, no more, a place called Ringmar, which Earl Renald once used as a hunting lodge. You will find it most suitable.’ He glanced down at the babe in the cradle, a gaze that held doubt and fear and anger and longing. ‘The seneschal who runs the hounds there is a goodly man. He, and he alone, have I told of Silence’s Nature. You will leave in the morning.’

Earl Renald had been wise in his choice of location for the hunting lodge. Ringmar sat in the midst of a thick, wooded glen. Few travellers came down the track that led to the lodge; the nearest lord’s holding sat a morning’s ride away, and so the deer and grouse filled the woods, unused to and thus unafraid of human presence.

Griselle and her young charge rode in a cart, escorted by two guardsmen; the steward of Tintagel insisted on it. She had hoped that Cador would come for a final farewell, to kiss the child and perhaps shed a tear over the babe, who was, after all, the last earthly connection to his Roswyn. But the earl did not, and so they left Tintagel and took the road inland.

The roar of the sea soon faded behind them to dullness and then to nothing. Griselle held Silence in her arms (Mooch was shut up in a basket at her feet) and looked about at the countryside. She would have preferred to be on a palfrey, side-saddle; carts were for the old, the ill, the infirm. They passed through a little hamlet, then freshly ploughed fields lined each side of the track. The guardsmen murmured to each other and Griselle fell into a little drowse, lulled by the cart’s rocking. When she woke, the babe was fussy, and she soaked a rag in goat’s milk and let it suckle that (Mooch got what was left, dripped through the basket’s wickerwork). They were past the fields now, and she watched with interest as they travelled through a bog; some peasant had built a house on stilts, though why anyone would wish to live in a bog she could not fathom, and then the land levelled and dried out and she spotted a squat stone keep on a rise. As they drew nearer, she made out thatched cottages dotting the fields nearby. ‘Whose holding is this?’ she called to the guards.

‘Lord Wendell, m’lady. It is the nearest keep to Ringmar.’

‘Indeed?’ she replied. ‘And how much further is it to Ringmar?’

The guard squinted up at the sky; they had left Tintagel before Tierce and the sun had passed its height back by the bog. ‘We’re nearer to Ringmar than to Tintagel. I’d say we’ll be there before Nones.’

They passed the keep and soon the trees grew denser, closer, though the track was clear and firm. Griselle peered out of one side of the cart, then the other. Trees. And more trees. Here a little rivulet ran along the track, then crossed it, and the horses splashed through. In the distance, Griselle thought she spotted another house, but it was merely a clearing in the woods, where sunlight dappled down on new-green grass.

‘They call that Merlin’s Hollow, m’lady,’ one of the guards said when he saw her looking. ‘There’s a spring, with a waterfall.’

And on they rode. Two stone pillars on either side of the track formed a crude gate. ‘Here we are,’ said the guard. ‘Ringmar.’ The trees had been thinned and then cut back entirely, and Griselle could see that there was a garden in the midst of being planted, its new-ploughed furrows protected by a sturdily woven willow fence. A low stable sat to the left of the track, and a few thatched buildings to the right; one, Griselle thought, might be kennels (at least she heard quite a bit of barking) and another, given its square holes, a dovecote. And straight ahead, where the track ended, stood Ringmar.

Walls of knobbled grey stone rose twenty feet up. It lacked … grace; it was, simply, a stone box. There were windows, of course, and the door was arched and welcoming; Renald’s arms had been carved into the keystone, the only hint of ornamentation.

Griselle was just thinking that it reminded her strongly of the convent she had so recently been delivered from when a man stepped out from the doorway. ‘Welcome,’ he said, hurrying to set up a stool and offer a hand to Griselle as she stepped down from the cart. ‘M’lady.’ He gave her a bow. ‘I’m Geoffrey, the Seneschal of Ringmar.’ He was a man of middle age with grey in his hair and beard and a paunch of flesh about his midsection.

She arched an eyebrow. ‘Good sir. I’m Griselle, nurse to Silence, son of Earl Cador and Roswyn, may God keep her in heaven.’

‘Amen.’ The seneschal paused a moment. ‘It is sad news that speeds you here, but I am glad of your arrival. I have had the earl’s orders to make the place welcoming and comfortable for his son and the son’s nurse. Please,’ and he bowed again, gesturing for them to go inside. Griselle nodded to him and proceeded, as the guards dismounted and began to unpack the trunks and bundles they had brought with them from Tintagel.

The seneschal held the door for them, and Griselle gave him a demure nod as she passed by, alert for any signs of trouble. But his jerkin bore no stains; she caught no whiff of stale drink; his beard was, in fact, better trimmed than the earl’s, of late. Inside, two hearths stood, one on each end of the hall. Massive fireplaces, with andirons taller than Griselle. Fires burned low in each, and someone had taken care to strew the floor not just with rushes but with bundles of sweet grass and dried herbs, so that the air swirled with the resin of the smoke and the comforting tang of mint.

‘It’s simple,’ the seneschal said, ‘but pleasant.’

Indeed. As Griselle’s eyes adjusted to the dimness, she began to admire the tapestries that hung on walls without the hearths. Green and gold and brown, they depicted a forest scene, every bit as real as the one just outside the hall, each leaf worked carefully down to its veins, the bark stitched to show its bumps.

Silence knew that, with his soft paunchy belly and cheerful smile, the seneschal did not cut the dashing figure of a knight, not like the stiff-backed figures who rode in plated armour across Griselle’s embroidery, nor like his father Earl Cador, who came to Ringmar once a year in the company of guardsmen, astride his charger, his face grimly set. But the seneschal was as close to a knight as Silence would likely find in these woods. And so he took the lessons to heart and practised every day, sometimes twice a day, and told himself that he would be a knight, and he would earn himself a place at court, even if his father wouldn’t grant him one.

So Silence studied all he could glean of knighthood from the stories told to him in the evenings, and he would ask the seneschal to test his knowledge. ‘Ask me what the virtues of knighthood are.’

‘Very well. What are they?’

And Silence would pull himself up straight and say, ‘Faith. Courage. Honesty. Loyalty. Courtesy. Um.’ He counted on his fingers. He thought there ought to be seven, but he only had five. ‘Is that it?’

‘Yes, quite perfect,’ the seneschal said. ‘And which is most important?’

‘Courage?’ Silence said.

‘No, no. Honesty. For without it, all the others are false. Remember that. You can speak your mind with courage only if you are an honest man.’

CHAPTER FOUR

There came a day when Lord Wendell was to make a visit; his true purpose was to hunt, but he was a well-mannered lord, so he brought along his wife and son and daughter, thinking that Griselle and Silence might enjoy the company, as well as a cart with some gifts for the hall: two plump hens with beautiful plumage, a few skeins of well-dyed wool, a small cask of mead, and sundry other things.

For Silence, who (like many a child raised as a boy) was blissfully unaware of future events, the day of Lord Wendell’s visit began the same as every other at Ringmar. A pleasant conversation with Clopper and then out to the yard with his practice sword to swing and slash at the air until he was sweaty and panting. And just as he was thinking that it might be a good time to take Clopper into the cool shade of the woods, he heard a call from the kitchens. ‘Hey, then.’ Cook filled the doorway. ‘Little Sir Silence, if you’re done with swinging that sword, will you fetch some water?’

He dashed over and leaned his sword against the wall of the kitchen house. ‘Of course, m’lady. Knights always help damsels in need. But I’m not little. And I wasn’t just swinging my sword. I was practising fighting.’

‘Ah.’ Cook handed him two buckets, then used her apron to dab at her red face. Silence could feel the heat pulsing out of the kitchen behind her. ‘You’re little to me. And I’m not a lady. Nor a damsel.’

Silence looked up at her, puzzled. ‘But you wear a dress and you have a bosom, so how are you not a lady?’

She laughed, a gulping sort of sound. ‘You’re a keen one to notice such things. A wise boy, you are. A lady’s not a matter of having a bosom or not. It’s a matter of birth. Were you born high or were you born low?’

Silence considered this, swinging the buckets in his hands. ‘I was born in a chamber in Tintagel. So, fairly high I believe, for Griselle said the chamber was above the hall.’

More of her gulping laughter. ‘High indeed. You’re the son of an earl.’

‘But I’m not a lady …’ This was all getting confusing.

‘That you’re not. Nor will you ever be. And nor will I ever be. I’ll be a cook, and some will call me a wench. And that’s that. Now fetch me water.’

Across the yard, behind the kennel, Silence tied a bucket to the well’s rope. He liked the well, its stones mossy and damp and cool. He liked to lift himself up and lean over to peer down into its depths to see himself. His face was little more than a blob of white, his hair looking darker than usual, as it was sweaty and flattened to his head (Griselle would insist on combing it later). ‘Hellooo-ooo!’ he called down and let the echo come back around his ears. ‘Whoo-ooo are you?’ And then he smiled down at his reflection and it smiled back. Griselle said he looked mostly like his father, but with a little of his mother’s chin, rounded. He wished it was more square like his father’s chin. But when he was older, he could grow a beard like the seneschal’s and hide his chin entirely. He leaned further over and turned his head side to side. How would he look with a beard? Would it be as blond as the hair on his head? Or come in red-brown, like the groom’s, whose hair was otherwise almost as blond as Silence’s?

‘Have you fallen in?’ Cook shouted.

He dropped back to his feet and lowered the bucket with a splash, hauling it up, then doing the same with the other. The weight was almost more than he could bear, the handles cutting into his palms, but a knight does not complain, and he hurried as best he could across the yard and put the buckets at the kitchen door. ‘Here is your water, m’lady Cook.’

‘Off with you, you scamp.’ She shook her apron at him.

‘Ah, there you are,’ Griselle said, coming out of the back door of the hall towards the kitchens. A few chickens scattered away from her. ‘What have you been doing?’ She tugged at his shirt to straighten it and widened her already bulging eyes at his hair. ‘And I do wish that Cook wouldn’t address you so. You are an earl’s son.’

‘Yes, she explained that,’ Silence said. ‘High-born. Like a lady, but not a lady.’

‘What?’ Griselle squawked. ‘Did she tell you that?’

Silence paused and tried to recall. ‘No, I told her that. She told me I was the earl’s son.’

Griselle shook her head, her face pale. ‘Up now to our chamber. Lord Wendell is coming to hunt. He and his family may stay for a day or two.’

She chivvied him from the kitchen to Ringmar’s rear door. They passed Cook’s patch of herbs and Griselle’s rose garden – in full bloom now – and then inside Ringmar’s hall. Gloomy compared to the summer day. ‘Could we go some time to see Lord Wendell’s hall?’ Silence asked. ‘I would enjoy the ride. Wouldn’t you?’

‘Quite,’ Griselle said. ‘But your father wants you to stay at Ringmar.’ She gave his shoulder a little push, for he was dallying near his favourite spot by the hall’s tapestries, where the woodland scene showed, in the background, a knight riding off, streamers on his lance, towards a cave. If you looked really closely (and he had and often did) you could see a dragon’s snout poking out of the cave.

‘But why?’ Silence said. ‘Why do I have to stay here? Why can’t I go to court or at least to Lord Wendell’s keep?’

‘Bite your tongue! No more complaining! Why, I stayed for years upon years in a convent so bleak it makes Ringmar look like a fairground.’

‘Convents are for ladies. And I will be a knight and knights should be at court.’

‘Well, knights and lords spend time at hunting lodges too, so Ringmar should suit.’ She closed the door to the chamber behind them and caught hold of Silence’s sleeve. ‘Off with that jacket.’ She tugged it loose and Silence shrugged on the one she offered him, black with a pattern of vines embroidered on its stiff velvet. Griselle brushed at his shoulders and eyed him with a pursed mouth. ‘This won’t fit much longer. Growing like a weed. Boys.’

‘Why can’t I go to court?’ Silence insisted.

Griselle flapped the jacket at him. ‘Court is a place for men, not little boys. Your father has enough to worry about without having you underfoot. He has coin to manage and armsmen to oversee and he must act as judge of all disputes that arise.’

‘But I will soon be a man,’ Silence declared.

‘Will you now?’ Griselle said, and Silence was puzzled by the tight amusement in her voice.

‘The seneschal has been teaching me the sword, and I can ride well, too, and I am working on being virtuous.’

‘Enough!’ said Griselle. ‘You can practise your virtues when Lord Wendell visits. How should you greet his wife?’

‘M’lady,’ Silence said and stepped back, just a hint to a bow at the waist.

‘Very good!’ She picked up a comb and dragged it through his hair. He stood and submitted to this treatment: courage, he told himself. Mooch watched from the bed, her eyes narrowed sceptically. ‘Now, run along, and see if you can be of use to the seneschal. But mind that you don’t get dirty.’ She nudged him along the hall. As he started towards the stables, he heard her mutter, ‘Boys! Or close enough there’s no difference. Now, where’s my sewing basket?’

The clatter of the cart and the jingle of bridles announced the arrival of Lord Wendell’s party. A few men-at-arms rode in the lead and a servant sat at the reins of the cart, loaded with shields and spears, as well as the gifts for the hall. Silence stood in the yard as they approached, admiring how the lord sat his horse, the reins easy in one hand, his sword scarcely jostling at his hip. He admired how the lady sat, neat and prim, in her side-saddle, now and then smiling at something that the lord said to her. She held the girl in her lap, and the child seemed to be a miniature of her mother, with the same dark green gown and the same white headdress, and their dark hair done in braids in front, one on each side of their faces. The boy, also named Wendell, rode behind his parents, on a dappled grey horse larger than Clopper. He looked hot in his brown jacket, but glanced around curiously.

‘Welcome to Ringmar,’ Silence declared when the cart and horses had come to a halt in the yard. ‘We are glad of your arrival.’ And he offered the bow that Griselle had taught him and then straightened up, the better to inspect everything up close. The seneschal and the groom hurried about, helping the servant and the men-at-arms with unloading and putting the horses away.

‘We thank you,’ boomed Lord Wendell. He wore a soft velvet cap that didn’t quite hide his bald scalp, and a rich brown jacket over his broad shoulders and thick chest. ‘It has been a few years since I came to Ringmar. Indeed … I believe you were still a babe in arms, and now you are growing to be a fine boy. Quite tall!’

The seneschal helped the lady and her daughter down and led their horse away. ‘M’lady,’ Silence said and carefully stepped back with his foot. In the stories, knights were always taking a lady’s hand, but he wasn’t a knight, and he wasn’t sure what he should do with a lady’s hand once he had taken it, so he simply bowed. ‘Welcome.’

She returned with a curtsy, holding her skirt in both hands. ‘How is Lady Griselle?’

Silence blinked. He didn’t think of Griselle as a lady … but of course, she was … but … ‘She fares quite well, m’lady. Come within and refresh yourself. Griselle is attending to your chambers, I imagine.’

‘Come, come,’ the lady chided, taking her daughter and son each by the elbow and propelling them forward. ‘You saw how nicely Master Silence bowed to welcome us. Now you must return in kind or else he’ll think we have no manners!’

The two children shuffled and murmured and stared at the ground and the boy bent forward in a sort of bow and the little girl plucked at her dress. Silence felt a burst of pride that Griselle and the seneschal had raised him so well. ‘Welcome,’ he said again.

Soon enough, the lord and lady were properly brought into the hall and handed over to Griselle, relieving Silence from the role of host. Cook began to load the table with roasted rabbit, bowls of turnips, heaps of bread, platters of greens. Lord Wendell and the seneschal sat next to each other, already deeply immersed in a conversation about tomorrow’s hunt, what game had been seen recently, and which hounds ought to be run. Silence sat on the seneschal’s other side, next to Griselle, who was leaning close to Lady Wendell. Now and then she laughed, loudly, then covered her mouth. The food disappeared and Cook clattered away with the serving bowls, returning with sweets: pastries and stewed berries and, for the seneschal and the lord, mugs brimful of wine.

‘To King Evan,’ the seneschal said, raising his mug. ‘May he always uphold the justice of the land. And continue to be generous to his lords.’

‘And to Earl Cador, long may he rule Cornwall,’ Lord Wendell added. ‘Until it is Silence’s turn, eh?’

Silence felt his cheeks flush as he nodded. It seemed impossible that he would rule all of Cornwall, when he had only seen but this tiny corner of it.

‘Run along then,’ Griselle whispered in his ear and he stood up from the table.

The light had nearly faded from the sky; soon Griselle would want him to retire – the hunt would begin early the next morning. So Silence hurried across the yard towards the stables; footsteps pounded behind him and he turned to see Young Wendell jogging after him. They pushed through the stable door together.

‘Which one’s yours?’ Wendell asked.

Silence studied the other boy a moment. He had dark hair, the same hue as his mother’s, and a high forehead over brown eyes. Though not as tall as Silence, he still loomed, thick in the chest like his father. Silence pointed to Clopper’s stall and then walked nearer. The horse shook his head, and rolled his eyes a bit; he didn’t like the company, all the new horses, their smells and sounds. Silence could tell. He reached up and rubbed Clopper’s head, right behind the ears – his favourite spot. Clopper bent his neck, the better to enjoy the scratching.

‘Is he fast?’

‘Very,’ Silence said.

‘He doesn’t look it.’ Wendell levered his body up against the door of the stall, leaning over to examine Clopper’s flanks and fetlocks. ‘My father is going to get me a charger when I become a squire, as soon as I start jousting, he told me.’ He let himself down to the ground and waved a hand towards his dappled horse, which chewed at whatever was in its trough. ‘Arrow’s a good enough mount for my sister, but he’s no mount for a squire. Neither is this one.’

‘Clopper’s a very good …’

‘Clopper?’ Young Wendell snorted. Then stretched. ‘I want another pastry.’

Silence followed him out of the stables, back into the twilit yard. Normally he stayed awhile in the stable, telling Clopper a story or two, or helping the groom with some task or other. But he felt he ought to be a good host. More, he felt he ought to do as Wendell did; weren’t they supposed to be friends, or at least companions?

Back in the hall, the little girl had fallen asleep in her mother’s lap. The adults still talked, heads tilted close. The pastries were gone, but Silence hurried out of the back door to the kitchens, retrieving one for Wendell and a pitcher of wine as well.

‘What, don’t you have servants?’ scoffed Young Wendell as Silence went to the table to refill the men’s mugs.

Courtesy, Silence thought, as a feeling of outrage swelled in his young chest. Courtesy was a knightly virtue. He cast his eyes sideways at Young Wendell. ‘Would you care to look at the tapestries?’ he asked. ‘They’re quite interesting …’

But before Silence could explain just how interesting they were (he was keen to share their magic with someone else), the other boy scoffed, ‘Tapestries? Is that all you have to do here?’

Silence felt a flush creep up his neck. ‘But they’re quite marvellous …’ The other boy was laughing, so Silence trailed off. In fact, he didn’t wish to share his tapestries with this oaf.

‘Up you go,’ Griselle called. ‘Both of you. The morning will be here before you know it.’

Young Wendell grumbled as Silence took a taper and led them up the stairs, but as Silence entered the chamber he shared with Griselle, he felt a pang of relief. It was tiring being a host.

The hunt was a great success. The hounds flushed out two massive harts and the party crashed and leapt and darted through Ringmar’s woods to bring them down. Clopper had done a fine job, nimbly bounding over a stream, and landing so softly that Silence was able to draw and release an arrow that landed soundly in the hart’s neck. Lord Wendell delivered the killing stroke and complimented Silence on his aim.

Young Wendell had charged on his dapple in pursuit of the other stag, the seneschal and a man-at-arms giving chase as well, but they returned empty-handed. ‘Just slipped into a thicket,’ the seneschal said, dismounting and helping to truss up the fallen hart. ‘The hounds couldn’t give chase.’

Indeed, the hounds were panting, tongues lolling. ‘You ought to prune some of your brambles,’ Young Wendell said.

‘Now, it’s a wood, not a garden,’ Lord Wendell chided gently, as he inspected the edge of his sword.

Silence thought the comment quite ignorant. The magic of the woods, well, part of the magic of the woods, came from them being quite unpruned, untouched, and almost fully wild. One never knew what one might find. He swung himself down from the saddle and lifted up one of the panting greyhounds, running his fingers down its thin legs, picking some bark and pitch off its paws. Then he remounted, holding the dog in front of him on the saddle, and started to ride back towards Ringmar, rubbing the dog’s ears (and now and then reaching out to stroke Clopper’s neck) and recalling the actions of the hunt, so that he could recite it to Griselle perfectly.

Back in the yard, Lord Wendell and the seneschal conferred about butchering the hart, and the groom led away the horses. Silence took charge of the hounds, settling them into their kennels and checking their ears and paws and noses. Young Wendell followed him into the kennel, leaning against one of the waist-high partitions that separated the pens.

‘You ought to have some lymers,’ Wendell said. ‘I’d’ve caught that hart if you had lymers.’ He reached out with a toe of his shoe and poked at a greyhound’s ribs. ‘These dogs are much too loud. At Tintagel, they’ve dozens upon dozens of breeds. Boarhounds and kennets and raches and lymers and …’

‘You’ve been to Tintagel?’

‘Of course!’ Young Wendell said, crinkling his nose. ‘Haven’t you?’

‘My father, the earl, comes to visit Ringmar every year,’ Silence said. He drew himself up straight, with his shoulders back. Something funny was fluttering in his chest and throat. An unpleasant tickle, as if he would cough.

‘My father’s going to bring me to court soon. I’ll be a page at first, but then I’ll be a squire. Our master-at-arms has been training me already.’

Silence finished checking the hound’s paws and straightened up. ‘I’ve been training too, with the seneschal.’

Wendell laughed. ‘That old man? What’s he been teaching you? How to train a dog? Or how to dress a deer?’

In fact, the seneschal had taught Silence both of these things, years ago. But the flutter in his chest was going faster now, and he lifted his chin and said, ‘He’s teaching me the sword, of course.’

Wendell laughed so loudly that the hounds started barking and then baying, setting each other off, and Silence moved through the pens, soothing and shushing, then pushed the still-laughing Wendell out into the yard. The boy caught his breath and said, ‘Let’s see what you know. You have equipment to spar with, don’t you?’

Silence felt the flutter in his throat thicken and he swallowed hard. ‘I have a practice sword,’ he said. And he strode across the yard to the stables where he kept his sword, and took it down from its spot on the wall.

‘That’s not a sword,’ Wendell scoffed. ‘That’s a stick.’

‘It’s a sword. I helped to carve it.’

‘I have a real practice sword. A waster,’ Wendell said. ‘And a padded jacket and a shield, and our master-at-arms says that I will be the best-prepared page at Tintagel.’ He snatched the wooden sword from Silence and marched out to the yard. Only a spot of damp darkness marked where the hart had been. ‘I’ve learned the first forms already.’ Young Wendell hefted the sword. ‘This is much too light. No balance.’

Silence found that he needed to swallow again as he watched Wendell step and lunge and cut. Heat rose up his neck, though the day was not particularly warm. He shifted his weight uncomfortably, foot to foot, as Wendell did a neat sidestep, and a low cut, and spun about to deliver a blow. ‘Well?’ the boy said, tossing Silence the sword (really, Silence saw now, it was no more than a stick). ‘Let’s see what you know.’

Silence said a quiet prayer to St George and thought of the knight in the tapestry. Straight back, noble gaze. He raised the sword as the seneschal had taught him and summoned up his imagined enemy. A sinister knight, like Gawain encountered, all in black armour. Silence imagined the weight of those metal plates, the straps tight around his chest and arms. And despite the weight – which would be nothing to a knight – he would be ready to face anything, to save fair damsels and serve the king. And Silence parried and slashed and leapt and … Wendell began to laugh again. ‘What is that nonsense? You don’t know anything.’

‘I do so. I know the knightly virtues and …’

‘Virtues! You don’t know the first thing about wielding a real weapon.’ And Wendell tried again to snatch the sword from Silence. But this time Silence didn’t release his grip and soon the two were tugging back and forth. Wendell gave a mighty wrench and Silence spilled forward, relinquishing his grasp on the wood, and instead grabbing Wendell about the middle and trying to wrestle him to the ground. But Wendell wriggled away easily and threw a punch; Silence ducked and, knightly valour be damned, kicked Wendell hard in the shins. The boy howled, then grabbed Silence and threw him easily to the ground and sat on top of him.

‘Boys! Boys!’ The seneschal’s voice rang out. Silence felt a rough hand grab his shoulder and pull him up. He held the two of them apart and Silence stood there panting, his face hot and dusty. Tears pricked at the corner of his eyes and he blinked them back. ‘What’s the matter now? You ought to be helping with the horses …’

‘That’s a groom’s job,’ Wendell sulked.

Lord Wendell came around the corner of the stables. ‘Fighting with our host? For shame. Come with me, now, and help with the hart. We’ll soon need to be on our way.’

‘You should help, too, Silence,’ the seneschal said, releasing his grip on Silence’s shoulder, as the groom led out the cart horses.

Silence shook his head, turned his back on the seneschal, and walked around the back of Ringmar. The funny thick feeling in his throat had returned and he thought he might walk through Cook’s gardens until it went away. But as he rounded the corner, he saw Griselle sitting with the lady and her daughter, as well as one of Lord Wendell’s servants, who played a flute.

When Griselle saw him she jumped to her feet. ‘What in the name of the Good Lord have you been doing?’ She bustled over and began to brush at his jacket. He tried to fend her off, but it was no use. The dust flew from his clothes and hair. ‘Were you rolling in the dirt?’

‘Oh, Griselle,’ Lady Wendell said. ‘You know boys, they’re always tussling and wrestling and fighting …’

Griselle gave him an odd look and pressed her lips together. Silence settled on a wooden bench in the garden, across from the flute-playing servant. Griselle and the lady resumed their conversation while the little girl sat primly beside her mother, swinging her feet.

‘Silence, dear,’ said Griselle. ‘Don’t you want to go off with Young Wendell? The lord will soon need to depart, so you should enjoy …’

‘No, thank you,’ he said stiffly. ‘I would rather sit here and enjoy the music.’ And so he did, until the cart was loaded and the horses were readied and Lord Wendell came to lead his wife and daughter to their mount.

Silence stood beside Griselle and bade Lord Wendell farewell and watched as the knot of horses disappeared past the curve in the track, the cartwheels squeaking.

Then he rounded on Griselle. ‘When will I go to court?’

‘When your father the earl summons you,’ Griselle snapped. ‘Go inside, it looks like rain.’ She shooed him towards Ringmar.

‘But Wendell said he was going to Tintagel to be a page and then a squire. Why is he permitted to go but I can not?’ He felt his neck and then his cheeks flush once again, the heat creeping up, even though they had entered the cool darkness of the hall. ‘Why does he have a man-at-arms to train him, a real knight, but I’m stuck here in the woods?’

‘Now!’ Griselle said sharply. ‘That’s enough. The earl has the final say in these matters, and the seneschal is a good man, and you ought to be grateful for the freedom you have. Up to the chamber and no more nonsense from you!’

Silence was taken aback, for Griselle was normally most kind and patient, but still, the heat had risen in him and his pulse pounded in his ears, so though he stomped towards the stairs as she had ordered him, he called over his shoulder, ‘But why? Why can’t I go to court?’

The seneschal, beard dripping from the rain outside, stood by the hall’s back door, near the foot of the stairs, and put out a hand to arrest Silence, holding him gently by the shoulder. He shook his head, as a dog would, and droplets went flying. ‘My boy,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you why. I can’t bear it: I’ll tell you if no one else will. My boy, you are a girl.’

‘Geoffrey!’ Griselle cried.

The seneschal still held Silence’s shoulder (which was good: without that steadying hand, Silence felt as if he might collapse) and he gave a little squeeze. ‘Good lady,’ the seneschal said to Griselle, ‘it is high time he understands. Did you not see him at play with Young Wendell? It is all very well for him to be raised far away from others and appear to be a boy, but if he is to be a boy in the world, then he must learn how to overcome his Nature. He must not simply look like a boy, but actually be one.’

‘That is why he must stay here,’ Griselle responded; she crossed the hall and stood on the other side of Silence, resting a hand on his other shoulder. He felt quite like a nut caught in a cracker. ‘It was a mistake to allow Lord Wendell to bring his son. Nature cannot be denied, but Silence can be hidden.’

The seneschal cocked his head to one side, appraising Griselle, before saying, ‘He will have to enter the world at some time, good lady. I know the earl denies this and so you do. But the day will come when he will have to leave Ringmar, and he must be prepared.’

Silence shrugged his shoulders, freeing himself of their grips. ‘Will someone,’ he said, fighting to keep his voice level, ‘please explain what you are talking about?’

And so the seneschal bellowed that they were not to be disturbed until dinner was ready and they sat at the great wooden table beneath the tapestries while the firelight flickered and with many interruptions and contestations and not a few disputes, they managed to communicate a mangled version of the twin girls and the earls. The seneschal blamed the twins’ father for being a naïve fool. Griselle blamed the husbands for their greed, and the twins for choosing such ninnies for husbands. The seneschal took offence at this, as he held that the twins were angels. The things they agreed on were: first, that King Evan was of questionable intelligence and unquestionable avarice. Second, that after avarice, lust was the king’s great weakness and, if he could have, King Evan would have remedied the situation by marrying both of the twins himself. Third, that this situation was the root of Silence’s problem.

‘But how does this make me a girl?’ Silence demanded.

‘This is what makes you a boy,’ Griselle said. ‘For you see, you are a girl. That’s Nature. This law, though, forced your father to make you into a boy.’ Griselle pulled her embroidery hoop from her basket. ‘You must keep your Nature a secret, never telling anyone. There are only a few of us who know. Your father, Geoffrey, me, and now you.’

‘And you must not just act and move and speak like a boy, but you must know yourself to be one. It cannot just be pretence and pretend,’ said the seneschal.

‘Good,’ Silence said. ‘I don’t want to be a girl.’

The seneschal clapped a hand on his shoulder. ‘That’s right, lad. Come now, it must be time for dinner.’

He stood and crossed over to the back door and hollered out through the drizzle for Cook to ready the meal. And Cook yelled back that he should fetch a few platters himself, and Silence and Griselle went over to help and as they stepped out into the pattering rain Silence looked at the seneschal and then at Griselle and said, ‘I have a question. Just what is it that makes a girl a girl and a boy a boy?’

Cook, who stood at the door of the kitchens, bellowed with laughter when she heard this. ‘Oh-ho! This one is starting to grow up. And before you know it, I’ll be cooking dinners for the ladies he’ll be a-courting.’ She reached out and pinched Silence’s cheek, giving it a shake.

‘I expect that’ll be a while yet in coming,’ Griselle said, her voice as dry as kindling. She picked up a pitcher of cider in one hand, a basket of bread in the other and dashed back to the hall. The kitchen steamed and smoked; the hindquarters of the hart roasted on a spit in front of the massive hearth, and Silence followed Cook over. ‘Hold that platter,’ she said and turned the spit so that the brown-roasted side faced out. With careful cuts of the knife, she sliced neat rounds of flesh; flick, flick, they fell right onto the serving plate, until he could barely hold the platter with both hands. Then she gestured with the knife, pointing it right at him. ‘You listen to me, Master Silence. Too many men are rogues. They act gallant in public, but in private …’ The seneschal, who had been ladling dripping into a pitcher, opened his mouth to intervene, but Cook had gained momentum, like a stone rolling downhill, and barrelled on. ‘Don’t ever lay a hand on a serving maid. Even if she winks at you. It’s your coin she wants, not your touch. Don’t spend all your time staring at a woman’s chest. Try her eyes once in a while. Try learning her name before you stick your …’