The Cross of Lead

by Avi

  “I… didn’t understand it,” I said.

  “Not at all?” he asked, showing disappointment.

  “It sounds like … treason,” I said, only to instantly regret my words.

  Sure enough, his face clouded with anger. “Does it, now?” he bellowed, making me jump. “So be it. I hate all tyranny. Is that treason, too?”

  I did not dare to speak.

  Then, far softer, he said, “Well, by all the blessed saints and martyrs, what does it matter what I think? Come closer. I’ll give you some bread.”

  My hunger was so great that whatever prudence I might have had, I put aside. Instead, I returned my cross to my neck pouch, and hurried around to the church’s proper entry. I then approached the man where he sat, moving quickly when I saw he had untied the sack that lay by his side. With something close to elation I saw him pull up a large, gray lump of bread which he held up.

  I reached out toward it.

  The moment I did, his free hand shot out, and with a speed that belied his bulk, he grabbed me by my wrist and held me with the strength of stone.

  17

  LET ME GO,” I CRIED, TRYING TO pull back. “I only wanted bread.” “Bread is never free, boy,” he roared. He was still upon the ground, but his arms were long, and his huge hand held me fast while the bells of his hat tinkled with the force of his exertion. “Or is it treason to say that, too?”

  No matter how I tried to pry away his fingers, I could not break his grip.

  “And what I’d guess,” he went on, “is that you’ve run away from your lawful place. Out with it now, or by the wondrous music of Saint Gregory, as sure as I beat my drum, I’ll beat it out of you.”

  “Please, sir, let me go,” I screamed, for his hold was intense.

  “Boy,” he bellowed, “I want the truth from you, or you’ll suffer from it.” His fingers tightened.

  “I told you, I’m going to a town.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “To save myself.”

  “Save yourself?” He laughed. “No man can do so on his own. No boy, either. What makes you think you’ll do it in a town?”

  “I was … told.”

  “By what authority?”

  “Father Quinel.”

  “A priest” he said mockingly gripping me tighter. “I might have guessed. And you believed him?”

  “Sir, you’re hurting me.”

  “The Devil take your hurts. Why did you run away?”

  “I had to.”

  “Had to?” he said, his grasp so hard I thought my arm would snap.

  “I … was proclaimed a wolf’s head.”

  “A wolf’s head. That’s extreme. For what reasons?”

  “My master accused me of theft.”

  “What master?”

  “The steward. I feared he’d take my life.”

  “And what did you steal?”

  “Nothing.”

  “And yet you ran away.”

  “To save my life, sir.”

  “And failed to note that anyone who catches you may haul you back?”

  “Please, sir, I’m in great pain.”

  “And what of that father whom you seek?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Mother?”

  “Dead, too.”

  I no sooner said that than he released me. But in the same motion he leaped up, swung about, and stood between me and the doorway of the ruined church. My way was blocked.

  18

  TOWERING ABOVE ME, HAT BELLS tinkling with mocking laughter, bushy red beard like flames from Hell, he seemed to me a true demon.

  “You have a new lord now,” he declared.

  “Please, sir,” I begged, trembling with panic and rubbing my wrist where he had squeezed it. “I don’t know your meaning.”

  “By the putrid bowels of Lucifer, boy, the law affirms that having unlawfully left your true master, you become servant to the first free man who finds and claims you. You’ve left yours. And I have found you, a gift of God. From now on, you’ll serve me!’

  “Please, sir,” I said yet again, cringing. “I don’t want to.”

  “You have no choice. You either do as I command, or I’ll march you back to where you came from. I’m sure I’ll come upon your former manor soon enough. Once there I’ll toss you to your steward. No doubt he’ll be pleased enough to slit your throat.

  “I don’t know how you came,” he went on. “But did you, perchance, see that rotting man on the gallows at the crossroad?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you read the screed that told of his crime?”

  “I don’t know my letters, sir.”

  “Well, I do and did. That man rose up against his lord and master. How? By holding back a pound of wool to sell that he might feed his sickly child.

  “What he did was theft,” the great man said, pointing down the road, “and that’s what they’ll do to you for having done the same.”

  “Have mercy, great sir,” I pleaded, dropping to my knees in terror, for he seemed to know the awful truth of things.

  “Don’t ‘mercy’me,” he thundered on, leaning over me so that I felt no more than a tiny mouse. “But swear, in Blessed Jesus’name, not to leave my side, or else your blood will flow like water. And, as God is good and holy, I promise you, in such a cursed place as this, only the dead shall know. Do it,” he shouted, now brandishing his dagger.

  I was in such fright I could hardly breathe. Tears were coming hard. “I … I swear,” I choked out.

  “On the sacred name of Jesus.”

  “On … the sacred name … of Jesus,” I went on.

  “That I will be your servant…”

  “That I will be your servant …”

  “That if I default…”

  “If I default…”

  The words caught in my throat. It was a dreadful thing he was making me swear. One could never break such vows.

  “Say it,” he cried, his dagger drawing closer.

  In fear for my life, I said, “If I default…”

  “May the all-seeing God strike me dead where I stand.”

  “May the all-seeing God … strike me dead,” I whispered.

  “Where I stand.”

  “Where I stand.”

  “Done,” he proclaimed. Then he put his dagger aside and tossed me a piece of bread. “Now you are mine, or God will chew you up and spit you out like the living filth all wolf’s heads are.”

  19

  BREAD CLUTCHED IN MY TREM-bling hand, I crept into a corner of the broken church as far from the monstrous man as I could go. Though I swallowed the bread he’d given me, I knew I’d sworn a sacred oath to which I was forever bound. Far better, I thought, to have died on the road.

  Hearing him move about, I stole an anxious glance in his direction. He had sat down again, but in such a place so as to prevent me from bolting. What’s more, he was staring at me with his moist, sly eyes. I dared to look back with the greatest loathing I had ever felt.

  “Ah, boy, what does it matter?” he said, speaking in a far softer voice than before. “You didn’t truly expect to live without a master, did you?

  I made no reply.

  “Or do you believe that some day none of us will have masters?”

  Unable to find words for my misery, I remained mute.

  “Answer me!” he cried, making me jump. “Do you believe that someday none of us will have masters, or not?”

  I shook my head.

  “Why not?”

  “God …” I said, gulping down my misery, “has willed it otherwise.”

  “And yet,” he said, leaning toward me and leering, “when Adam plowed the earth and Eve spun, who then was the gentleman?”

  His question was so unusual, I did not, could not, respond.

  “You don’t like my sense of humor,” he said. “You think it treasonous”

  I wanted to say yes, but was too afraid.

  “You needn’t be so resentful,” he sai
d. “When you’ve lived as much as I, you’ll learn to neither trust nor love any mortal. Then, the only one who can betray you is yourself.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “Do you ever smile, boy?” he demanded. “If you can’t laugh and smile, life is worthless. Do you hear me?” he yelled. “It’s nothing!”

  I winced.

  Then, smiling, he cocked his head to one side, and ruffled up his beard. With a sweep of his hand, he snatched off his hat, revealing a bald pate. “By the love of Saint Arnulf the King,” he said, “you could do much worse than being bound to me.”

  That stated, he seemed to pull back within himself and give way to private thoughts.

  Fearing what sudden thing he might do next, I watched him warily. But after a while he said only, “Do you wish to ask me anything? Who I am? My name? What I’m doing here?”

  “It doesn’t… matter,” I stammered.

  “Why?” he said.

  “Because you’re already my master forever.”

  “So be it,” he said, acting as if I had offended him.

  For a while he toyed with his hat, not to any purpose that I could see, but as if lost in thought.

  At length, however, he reached over and took up his sack and rummaged through it. From it he took out three balls, each made of stitched leather.

  To my surprise he tossed the balls into the air. Instead of falling to the ground, they stayed in the air and rotated at his will, with only the smallest touch and encouragement of his fingers.

  I looked on, astonished.

  “What think you of that?” he said, laughing.

  “Are they … enchanted, sir?” I whispered.

  “Hardly,” he said as he continued to keep the balls in the air, sometimes higher, sometimes lower, until, as abruptly as he’d begun, he gathered them in, and they rested upon his great slablike hands.

  “I’m a juggler,” he said. When I made no response he said, “Don’t you know the word?”

  I shook my head.

  “A French word. It means I balance things, or toss balls, boxes, knives—anything I choose—through the air and catch them up again. And what do I do with my skills? I wander from town to town through the kingdom. Not as a beggar, mind you, but as a man of skills. Skills, boy, which enable me to gather enough farthings and pennies to live and keep this belly full.” He patted himself on his large stomach.

  “Believe me,” he said, “there’s no place in the kingdom I’ve not been. Gascony, Brittany, and Scotland too, for that matter. What think you of that?”

  He rushed at me with so many new and strange ideas I could not grasp them all. So all I said was, “I don’t know, sir.”

  He cocked his head to one side. “Do you have any thoughts about anything!”

  I hung my head to avoid his eyes.

  He sighed. “What’s your name?”

  I hesitated, not wanting him to call me what I had always been called—Asta’s son. But I was not comfortable with my newly discovered name either.

  He leaned toward me, glaring. “Boy,” he said, “as I am your master let me offer you advice: I’m a simple man. I go by simple means. You’ll do as you’re told or suffer the consequences. Now, answer me or, as there is a loving God in Heaven, I’ll thrash you. What is your name?”

  “I’m called … Asta’s son.”

  “Asta’s son. That’s not a name. It’s a description. Were you never,” he said, “christened with a name of your own?”

  “I was … told it was … Crispin.”

  “Crispin. That’s too fine and noble a name for such rubbish as you. Have you a surname?”

  “I … don’t know.”

  “God’s blood. You might as well have been a dog,” he said.

  It was all I could do to suppress screams of rage.

  “Very well, Crispin—for henceforward that’s what I shall call you—I too am bound for towns and cities. But I wend my way to such places—not as a runaway peasant beggar like you—but earning my bread with tossing things into the air the way I showed you. People in towns pay fair coins to see my revels in squares, in merchant houses, and inns, as well as guildhalls. Do you know how to make music?”

  “Music?”

  “By the Devil’s own spit,” he said. “Have you lived your life under a rock? Were you born of sheep? Do you know nothing of drums, horns, and pipes? Do you even sing?”

  “No, sir.”

  “God’s holy wounds,” he said. “Music is the tongue of souls. Is there anything you can do?”

  “I can follow an ox. Sow seed. Weed. Gather crops. Thresh wheat and barley.”

  “Merciful Heaven,” he said. “And in this town or city you intended to go, were you going to plow the streets there?”

  Unable to withhold myself I cried out, “I don’t know what I was going to do. I wanted to gain my liberty. And with God’s help I would have, if not for you.”

  His eyes opened wide. Then he tilted back his head and roared with laughter as if I had told the rarest jest of all. “Liberty” he said. “And with God’s help too, I’ll wager. It’s a marvel you don’t seek out the blessed Saint Crispin himself to come to your aid. No wonder you want to die. The only difference between a dead fool and a live one is the dead one has a deeper grave.”

  It was as if all the scorn and insults I had ever endured were pouring forth from him. If there had been an open hole in the earth I would have crawled into it willingly.

  “Ah, noble Crispin,” he went on, “Our Blessed Lord, in His wisdom, must have sent you to me for instruction.

  “I shall begin by teaching you something. Mark me well: with all the armies of the kingdom at your side you could not gain your liberty on your own. A boy? Alone in a city? A wolf’s head? Why, any city you entered would swallow you like the whale took Jonah. And not to spit you out, either, but only to belch up your empty soul.” That said, he erupted with another great laugh. “Now, go to. Let’s see if you’re capable of asking me a question.”

  Struggling to find something, I said, “What … what is your name, sir?”

  “Orson Hrothgar,” he said. “But people call me ‘Bear.’ Because of my size. And strength. Pay heed, young Saint Crispin,” he added, glaring at me with eyes that seemed to glint, “a bear has two natures. Sweet and gentle. If he becomes irritated, he turns into a vicious brute. So I beg you to consider the two sides of my nature. Next question.”

  “Where are you going?” I said.

  “To my death,” he said, “as must all men.”

  “And … before that?” I ventured.

  His eyes seemed to laugh. “Ah, you do have some wit. God’s truth, before I reach my end, there’s work to be done. Big work. The work of ages.”

  “What… is it?”

  He cocked his head and laughed. “On the Feast of Saint John the Baptist I must meet a man in Great Wexly. Large things are brewing, young Crispin,” he said grandly, “and I intend to play my part. Let it be as it may be. But, time for that to come. Until then you and I shall wander. Our task is to stay alive and measure this great kingdom with our feet, our eyes, our ears.”

  With that, he tossed his sack to me. His meaning was perfectly clear. Huge as he was, I was to carry his belongings.

  Inwardly lamenting my fate, I lifted the sack and began my life as servant to the Bear. I began to wonder if he was mad.

  20

  THE LIFELESS VILLAGE WAS SOON behind us. Bear went first, moving over the road with the strides of a giant.

  And what a strange sight he was with his black tunic, legs of two colors, split hat bobbing, and bells jangling. As for me, with his heavy sack upon my back, I had to struggle to keep up.

  At first we didn’t speak. I was too down in my spirits. That I, in fleeing from one cruel master, should be bound to another, was almost too much to endure. And to a man who claimed he hated tyranny.

  More than once I considered dropping the sack and running away. I had to remind myself that I had sworn a
sacred oath to stay. To break it would cast me straightaway to Hell. There was nothing to do but march along and do as God had willed. Then I recalled that Great Wexly was one of the places Father Quinel had said I could gain my liberties. Perhaps there would be some advantage in my going there. Silently, I prayed it would be so.

  For the rest of the day we tramped along. In all that time we saw no one, nor came to another village.

  Once I asked, “Sir Bear, why are there no people about?”

  “By Saint Roch, it’s the pestilence,” he said, confirming my fears. “Hardly any villages were spared in this area. But farther along, you’ll see people aplenty. And in the cities …”

  “Is there no one left in them, sir?” I asked, worried that they too might have been abandoned.

  He laughed. “In London, say thirty, forty thousand.”

  “Forty thousand?” I cried, astonished.

  “Don’t worry. It’s far more than any man—except the royal tax collectors—can count. And don’t call me sir,” he snarled.

  “Why?”

  “I’ts servile.”

  “But you’re my master.”

  His answer was a growl.

  We had trudged on for I don’t know how much longer when Bear stopped. “We’ll take some rest here.”

  21

  HE LED US TO A GROVE OF TREES. There he flung himself down and told me to do the same. That done, he called for his sack. He rummaged in it, producing more bread, which he tore and gave me half.

  When we had been silent for a while—I, still brooding over my unhappy fate—he said, “I don’t think you care for me.”

  “I have no choice,” I said.

  “Would you like one?”

  “God’s will be done,” I said.

  He shrugged and said, “You might not believe it, but I was fated to be a priest. In the City of York. That’s far to the north.”

  I looked at him anew. Father Quinel was the only priest I had ever known. This huge man could not have been more different.

  “It seems my father grew weary of me,” Bear continued. “Said I caused too much trouble and ate too much. In truth,” he added with sudden bitterness, “I suspect he offered me to God to fulfill a pledge he’d made in exchange for some profitable trade. Though, I ask you, what kind of man would exchange a boy for a sack of wool?”