At the Crossing Places Read Free

uncle.”
    â€œWho’s that?”
    â€œMy uncle? Lord Stephen, of course! The fire was spitting and crackling, and one of the cinders must have caught inside my hem. Who are you, anyhow?”
    â€œArthur,” I said. “Arthur de Caldicot.”
    â€œArthur!” cried the girl. “The new squire.” She shook herself. “And I’m Winifred. Winifred de Verdon. You may call me Winnie.”
    Together we walked our poor horses up the steep path and across the drawbridge, and then we tied them to the mounting block in the courtyard. Winnie led me through the storeroom and up the circular stone staircase to the hall. She threw open the hall door, and there I saw Lord Stephen de Holt and Lady Judith and his whole household waiting to greet me.
    Lord Stephen took one look—at the snow and filth and soot smeared all over us, Winnie’s scorched cloak, my bleeding nose—and then, seeing that neither of us was seriously hurt, he burst out laughing.
    Not Lady Judith, though. She is a whole head taller than Lord Stephen, and she bore down on Winnie and buried her in her arms.
    â€œArthur—” announced Winnie, wrestling herself free, “Arthur saved me. Me and Dancer. Otherwise, Dancer would be ten miles away, and I’d be smoke and ashes.”
    When Winnie had explained, Lord Stephen gave me a curious, lopsided smile. “Well, Arthur,” he said, “what use is chivalry if it doesn’t begin at home?”
    Lady Judith looked down the beak of her nose and then she smoothed Winnie’s blaze of red-gold hair. “I warned you not to leave so late,” she said. “Now you’ll have to stay here tonight.” And with that, Lady Judith put an arm round Winnie’s shoulders and ushered her out of the hall and up the second flight of stairs.
    I am writing this by poor candlelight, crouched in one corner of the hall. Instead of my grandmother Nain and Serle and Sian and Ruth and Tempest and Storm, my sleeping companions tonight are Simon, and Miles the scribe, whom I met at our manor court, and Rahere the musician, and Rowena and Izzie, who are both chamber-servants, and they’re all asleep.
    There’s so much more to write, about Lord Stephen and Lady Judith, and about Winnie—she’s a year younger than I am, and Lord Stephen says she comes to Holt quite often. I want to write about this castle, and everyone here, but I can’t stop yawning.
    Today I have crossed from ice to flames.

2 AT THE READY
    I F I MAKE MY HAND INTO A FIST AND PLANT IT ON THIS ledge with my curled little finger at the bottom and my thumb at the top, partly tucked in, I can see four levels.
    This castle is like that. The bottom level is the storeroom, and above that is the seven-sided hall. From there, another circular flight of steps leads to the third level, my middle finger, which is Lord Stephen and Lady Judith’s private chamber—they call it their solar. The fourth level, my index finger, consists of six little rooms, each of them triangular, and each leading out of the seventh room, which is at the center and has the stairwell in it.
    Lord Stephen has given me one of these rooms for myself, and this is where I’m to study and practice my writing. He says my brother Serle used the same room when he served here as a squire, and on warm nights Serle sometimes slept up here.
    My writing-room at Caldicot has three plaster walls, and it’s tucked right under the roof-thatch. Little birds fly in and out through the wind-eye, and beetles and spiders and flies and cater-pillars are busy in the thatch, so it’s almost like being in a nest. This room’s not as friendly as that, because all the walls are stone, but it’s quite light, and I can sit on the ledge under my lancet window and look right into Wales. Offa’s Dyke, which separates England and Wales, is less than five miles from here.
    Below me, I can see the castle courtyard.