More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Then Robin knew that Brother Luke had seen him throw the pieces of the cross and the chisel.
“Rest while I am gone,” continued Brother Luke, “and I shall bring quill and parchment to pen a letter for thee. It so happens that a hundred men at arms and a hundred foot soldiers have sworn to serve loyally their King and the city of London and are leaving for the Scottish border tomorrow.
He soon returned with pen, inkpot, and parchment, and arranged them on the desk near Robin.
It is a fine thing that your son Robin is left to the care of strangers. Had it not been for Brother Luke, who is writing this letter, I should be dead.
Just before the Feast of St. Matthew, the twenty-fourth of February, I woke one morning unable to rise from my bed, being very ill. So that when John-the-Fletcher came to take me to my Lord Peter de Lindsay’s castle in Shropshire, I was unable to go.
The house servants, even old Gregory, have left our service, for the plague had them. Ellen, too, was taken of it, and I was left alone and helpless. My legs are as useless as two sausages. Bent ones.
Send me a letter, I beg you, and Farewell. “Now, attend,” said Brother Luke. “I shall read this slowly, pointing out each letter and word, so this may be thy first lesson.” The two heads bent over the parchment together, Brother Luke’s tonsured, Robin’s dark and thickly thatched.
Brother Luke sometimes helped in the preparation of food.
So began the making of the doll for the little girl. Head and body were to be in one piece, with arms and legs jointed. “Brother Matthew will help thee to work that out,” said Brother Luke. Soft pine again was used, because it was easier to cut.
Robin became so excited at seeing real features emerge from the piece of wood that he could hardly bear to take time to attend to his studies.
On clear nights Brother Hubert took him to a high tower of the monastery to tell him of the stars. He told Robin, too, of far countries: the Holy Land where crusaders had fought for the tomb of our Lord, and of Greece and Rome, whose ancient languages were the beginnings of many other tongues.
Brother Luke came into the garden. “Thy hands are well used to the chisel now,” he said, in praise of Robin’s work. “That is a face and body right enough, and I see thou’rt attaching the arms. Will they move then?”
Even the fun of fitting arms and legs to the doll could not keep Robin from wanting to get out into the fields and away from bench and bed, stool and trundle cart.
Suddenly the quiet was burst with the shout of boys’ voices. Six or seven urchins ran over the green, stripping off clothing as they came. Robin, looking over his shoulder, saw Geoffrey Atte-Water, the same lad he had first seen limping through the corridors of St. Mark’s. Geoffrey raced down the bank
ahead of all the rest, swinging his crutches ahead of him and taking in his stride twice as much ground as the other boys.
He
It was wonderful. Brother Luke didn’t allow him to stay long in the water, but promised to bring him every day.
