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me from my hounds, she might at least have brought aname."
"Ihad a name, I'm sure. It seems to have slipped mymind. What would you like to call me?"
"Why not Ruth?" said Stephen. "She was always going on journeys in the Bible, leading cousins and
such, wasn'tshe?"
"A mother-in-law," corrected John, who felt that,what with a Crusade ahead of them, Stephen should
know the Scriptures.
"Leading andbeing led," observed the angel, whose memory, it seemed, had begun to return. "By two
strap-ping husbands. Though," she hurried to explain, "not atthe same time. Yes, I think you should call
me Ruth."
She is much too young for Ruth, thought John, whoguessed her to be about fifteen (though of course as
anangel she might be fifteen thousand). The same age asStephen, whose thoughts were attuned to angelic
visionsbut whose bodily urges were not in the least celestial.Unlike a Knight Templar, he had made no
vow of chas-tity. The situation was not propitious for a crusade in thename of God.
But once they had entered the Weald, the largest for-est in southern England, he thought of Mandrakes
andgriffins instead of Ruth. It was true that the Stane, anold Roman highway, crossed the Weald to join
Londonand Chichester they would meet it within the hour but even the Stane was not immune to the
forest.
At Ruth's suggestion, they carefully skirted the groundsof a neighboring castle, the Boar's Lair.
"Someone might recognize John," she said. "Send word to his father."
"Yes," John agreed, staring at the Norman tower, oneof the black wooden keeps built by William the
Con-queror to enforce his conquest. "My father and Philipthe Boar were once friends. Philip used to dine
with uson Michaelmas and other feast days, and I played thekettledrums for him. Since then, he and my
father havefallen out about their boundaries. They both claim a cer-
28 Thomas Burnett Swann
tain grove of beechnut trees pannage for their swine. Philip wouldn't be hospitable, I'm sure."
Deviously, circuitously, by way of a placid stream andan old water wheel whose power no longer turned
mill-stones and ground wheat into flour, they reached theRoman Stane. Once a proud thoroughfare for
uncon-querable legions, it had since resounded to Saxon, Vik-ing, and Norman, who had used it for
commerce and war but, unlike the conscientious Romans, never repaired theravages of wheels and
weather. Now, it had shrunk in places to the width of a peasant's cart, but the smoothRoman blocks, set
in concrete, still provided a path forriders and walkers and great ladies in litters between twohorses.
"I feel like the Stane," sighed Ruth, "much-troddenand a trifle weedy." She had torn the edge of her robe
on prickly sedges and muddied the white linen. She hadlost the circlet which haloed her head, and her
silkentresses, gold as the throats of convolvulus flowers, hadspilled like their trailing leafage over her
shoulders. As for John, he was hot, breathless, and moist with sweat,and wishing that like a serf he dared
to remove his long-sleeved tunic and revel in his breechclout.
"Stephen," Ruth sighed, "now that we've found theroad, can't we rest a little?" Her speech, though still
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melodious, had relaxed into easy, informal English.
"We've just begun!" he laughed. "London lies daysaway. We want to be leagues down the road before
night."
"But it's already mid-afternoon. Why not rest till itgets a little cooler?"
"Very well," he smiled, reaching out to touch her ingood-humored acquiescence. Stephen, who found
diffi-culty with words, spoke with his hands, which were neststo warm a bird, balms to heal a dog, bows
to extract themusic from swinging a scythe, wielding an ax, gatheringbranches to build a fire. He could
gesture or point ortouch with the exquisite eloquence of a man who wasdeaf, dumb, and blind. When you
said good morning to him, he clapped you on the shoulder. When you walkedwith him, he brushed
against you or caught you by thearm. He liked to climb trees for the rough feel of the
THE MANOR OF ROSES 29
bark or swim in a winter stream and slap the icy currentsuntil he warmed his body. But he saved his
touch forthings or the people he loved. Neither ugly things nor unkind people.
"We'll rest as long as you like," he said.
Ruth smiled. "I think I should borrow one of yourtunics. You see how my robe keeps dragging the
ground." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]