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- such as it was - was removed,
Only then did the words I heard in the forest make sense,
And am I to act immediately?
Are you not her kin? Do you not see the consequences if you don t?
A great danger to us all.
The her was Lady Furnival,
To say I had stolen money was merely Aycliffe's excuse to declare me a wolf's head. He sought to kill me because of who I
was, No, not who ~ was, but who my father and mother were. For me - as Widow Daventry had said - they cared not so much
as a rooster's tooth.
Father Quinel must have known the truth. And he was killed. Again, Aycliffe's hand.
And Bear came to know it but didn't tell me. He was shielding me from the poison in my blood.
Now he had been taken, most likely to be killed. All because of me.
No, I had to remind myself. Not because of me, or anything I'd done, but because I was Lord Furnival's son. The only
question was, now that I knew who I was, what should I do! .
Because it was dear that they had taken Bear to get at me.
51
FOR THE REST OF THE DAY I remained in the hiding place, thinking. In doing so, I continued to piece together the
fragmentary bits of my life and arrange them until they became a mosaic,
I kept asking myself if I felt different, if I was different. The answer was always yes. I was no longer nothing. I had become
two people, Lord Furnival's son ... and Crispin. How odd, I thought. It had taken my mother's death, Father Quinel's murder
and the desire of others to kill me for me to claim a life of my own.
But what kind of life?
I supposed some might have considered me blessed m that I was of high blood. But I knew that blood, as Widow Daventry
had said, to be nothing but venom. That Lord Furnival was my father had been but a cruel burden. Bear - in the short time I
had known him - was a thousand fold more a faithful father to me.
For the first time, I began to think upon John Ball's words. They made sense. For what I recalled most was his saying that no
man, or woman either, shall be enslaved, but stand free and equal to one another'.
I recalled too what Bear had told me, that he was a fool because he should like to be in Heaven before he died'.
I saw it then, Bear and Ball were talking about the very word Father Quinel had used, freedom. Something I had never had.
Nor did anyone in my village, or the other villages through which we had passed. We lived in bondage.
To be a Furnival was to be part of that bondage.
As time passed m the darkness of my hiding place, the one thing I knew for sure was that as Bear had helped to free me, he
had given me life. Therefore I resolved to help free him - even if it cost me that new life to do so.
52
IT WAS SHORTLY AFTER THE church bells rang for late-afternoon Vespers that the widow reappeared 'I've found
someone to help you escape from Great Wexly, she said 'You'll leave tonight. The man knows a safe way over the walls. If
all goes well, you'll not be seen.
'But what about Bear!'
'In the name of God, Crispin, she said, you cannot help him. He's already lost.
She started to leave.
'Where do you think I should go?' I said.
She shrugged .'Go as far away as possible.
'Bear spoke of going to Scotland.
'Perhaps out of the kingdom is best.
'I don't know where Scotland is.
'To the north, she said.
'When will your man come!' I asked.
'After Compline - and curfew. Pray for clouds,
'Why?
'It will be darker,
'Widow, I said as the woman moved to leave me, where is the White Stag?'
'By the Western Gate. Why do you ask!'
Not wishing to mention John Ball - whom she seemed to hate - I said, 'Bear spoke of it.
She smiled grimly. I m sure Bear, God keep him, spoke of many taverns.
I fell asleep, only to waken at the sound of ringing bells. Shortly after, I heard the tramp of feet outside. Then, from some
distance, came the cry, 'The hour of Compline is at hand. The curfew is in force. No one may be on the streets
Not much later the widow appeared, holding a lighted lamp. The man is here. It's time.
I got up, making sure I took Bear's sack as well as his hat. I also took some of the pennies we had earned and placed them in a
pocket. Lastly, I touched around my neck to make certain my leather purse was there. I did not want to leave my sole
possession - the cross of lead - behind.
'Widow, I said, I should pay for our lodging.
'Don't be foolish. You'll need whatever you have.
She led me down the steps. In the dimness of the empty tavern room, a man stood. He was rather small, with one shoulder
higher than the other. His garb - jacket, leggings and boots - was dark. He had a scabrous face, with a dirty cloth wrapped
around his neck. His mouth was a narrow slit.
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