Chapter  8      Cadmon Druce Arrives

 

 

 

 Alexander stood on the walkway of the estate wall.  Below him lay a close valley plaited with narrow fields.  Brilliantly painted clouds flew across the sky.  The late afternoon sun touched only the edges.  Two months before, he had watched farm families, fathers, mothers, children, grown and half-grown, carrying outsized bundles of hay to the ricks at the ends of the fields.  He remembered well, with a touch of envy, the days when he had been among them.

He closed his eyes and recalled the smells of freshly mown hay.  He saw dogs running among the gleanings, men and women carrying sheaves from the near ends of the fields, ox carts carrying heavier loads from the farther ends.

In his memory, mountains of hay rested beside the tree line, having sprouted and grown with a speed that would put mushrooms to shame.  Many families, most of them related to one another, labored like ants around the dusky green hay ricks.  A stream of laborers walked out to the fields carrying wide straps over their shoulders or around their necks, and another stream plodded towards the ricks after having gathered as many sheaves of grass as they could carry in the strap.  Some slung the strapped bundles over their shoulders, some over their backs, but the strongest carried enormous loads with the strap passing across their foreheads, their arms behind them to support the weight.

Rick masters paced around the centers of the stacks, expertly tossing sheaves into place with two-pronged forks, accepting and thatching sheave after sheave from the haulers.  Hay laden carts moved amongst the haulers and served as haying platforms for the rick masters when the piles grew higher than their heads.  Sheaves moved up the ricks from steadily replenished stores at their bases.

Once the rick stood twice as tall as a man, the rick master thatched a roof and began a new rick beside the first.  Some masters, when time allowed, wove a cock or donkey out of hay and mounted it on the peak with a stick.

But that activity had occurred in late summer.  The cool, trailing winds of autumn whispered around him now, winter close at hand.

The memories of last harvest merged with others from longer ago.  He had been top hauler for his father not too many seasons before.  He looked at his calloused hands.  His work now, and his estate in life, had changed since his family had succumbed to influenza.  His family was gone.  If the lord had not offered him a position with his household, he would have cast his lot to fate entirely.  He supposed he should feel lucky.

Ravens croaked in the distant trees.  Alexander looked up and smiled.  He liked the ravens and their rough noise.  Rarely did anyone spare them a kind word.  They were too wise and proud for their station, and they did not care what people thought.

A movement caught his eye.  Between the skeletonous branches of trees lining the road, he saw, with some surprise, a lone rider leading a pack horse.  Long, dark shadows from the horses' legs swept like scissors across the darkly stubbled fields.  The horseman's shadow alternately merged and detached from the tree shadows.

Who was this arriving alone and unannounced on horseback?  The whole thing immediately struck him as odd.  Word always swept the estate when a noble visitor was expected, and if he was not mistaken, the pack horse was an elderly war horse.  No one of stature traveled alone, yet the man's saddle and bridle glistened with metal decoration.  A merchant would hide his wealth and a peddler would be too poor to own one horse, much less two.  No one but a leper dared travel alone, but this man did not strike him as a leper.

Alexander studied the courtyard and kitchen.  No movement, though the gate watch had roused himself to attention and studied the stranger's approach from the battlements.  Very curious.  An unannounced nobleman riding alone.  Alone!  As far as he could see, no retinue followed at a respectful distance.  What kind of man would venture out on the highways alone with two horses and, in all probability, a purse that could choke the horse he rode?

The horseman stopped outside the gate and spoke to the keeper in a strong, clear voice shadowed by an accent that Alexander could not place.  It sounded faintly Scottish, but had hints of other tongues as well.

"Gatekeeper, who is lord of this manor?"

"'Tis Lord William," answered the gatekeeper, emboldened by his high placement.  "And this manor is Norbury.  May I ask, sir, your name to announce?"

The stranger seemed to consider his next action for several moments, then said, "Announce me as Cadmon.  I shall await your reply."

And with those words, the stranger settled into his cloak and removed himself from the world, like a monk in meditation.  The gatekeeper stared for a moment, as if wondering quite what to do next, then turned to the courtyard and began whispered shouting for one of the guards to alert the manor house that a gentleman by the name of Cadmon wished to enter.  After issuing his commands, the gatekeeper turned back to the stranger and said, with respectful volume, "The manor house is being informed, sir."

The cloaked figure did not move.  The gate keeper shrugged, then divided his attention between the manor house and the stranger.

Alexander studied the newcomer from his perch.  Shadows spilled across the man and his horse, dappling his serge cloak with incongruous patches of light.  Somehow, the umbral face in the recesses of the hood wanted light.  The voice had not been one used to shadow.

Alexander climbed down the steep wooden stair behind the gate tower and moved to a position where he could see the stranger as he entered.  He wanted a closer look at his face, for the character of a man who would ride the roads alone must surely be visible behind the eyes and such character appealed to him strongly.  And he knew why.  The man traveled alone, but by the ornament on his possessions, it was obvious he had known the brightness of far off lands.  Alone meant forsaken, pushed aside.  So, in a way, like himself, the stranger had been cast out.  He was ashamed, but he wanted it to be so.  Though the stranger came from higher station, he wanted to share with him a feeling of camaraderie.  The stranger was a man with whom he would feel proud to share exclusion. 

The manor house door opened at the sergeant's knock.  A rectangle of light silhouetted the chamberlain and a servant.  They burnt many candles inside for such a light.  The door closed again, the sergeant standing idle, casting sidelong glances at the gatekeeper.  A couple of the household knights, charged with watching over the manor in Lord William's absence, leaned against the outer wall of their barracks, observing the activity.  Voices drifted from inside the squire's dormitory.  In all the buildings containing people, window shutters eased outward on their iron hinges.  The inhabitants of the manor stirred and watched.

The manor house door opened.  This time, Lord William's lady, Lady Em, stood in silhouette.  Alexander knew it was her by the clothing and the firm stance.  But what was this?  The Lady emerging from the manor to greet a stranger?  Cadmon?  Sir Cadmon?  Lord Cadmon?  The name meant nothing.  He had never heard it spoken before, though from the way the Lady emerged from the doorway and gestured the sergeant to move in haste, she had heard the name before, and held it in high regard.  Indeed, the face of this stranger would bear full light.

At last, the gate bar lifted and the heavy doors pulled open from the middle.  The stranger put slight pressure on his heels and the palfrey entered the yard at a slow walk.  The old war horse with the pack harness followed.  Alexander stepped close to the path of the horse, knowing he would have been chastised for impertinence by the marshal, if he were there.  The marshal, however, was not there, and curiosity for the man, Cadmon, outweighed prudence.  In any event, the horses would need tending.  It would be a good excuse to fall back on if questioned.

The horses cleared the gate and the gate keeper lost no time in battening things down again.  The heavy doors thumped into their frame and the cross bar slid home.  The horseman continued his pace, unperturbed by the activity behind him.

As he approached, Alexander saw the hood shift, almost imperceptibly, toward him.  The stranger watched him as the horse ambled closer.  The half seen glint of eyes betrayed a division of attention between himself and the lady on the landing.  That he was worthy of such attention at once flattered and disturbed him.  The stranger could, as easily as not, report him to the mistress for his affrontry.  But he did not think so.

The stranger stopped a few paces away and stared at him, studying his face, his stable apron, his boots stained with manure, his face again.  In the shadow, the man could not possibly see the manure stains, but he, Alexander, felt their blemish acutely.  He looked into the shadows of the hood, but saw little beyond an outline of an ascetic looking forehead and cheekbone.  So this was Cadmon.  The taking of measure lasted only a few seconds, then Cadmon, for he now thought of the stranger by that name, nudged his horse forward and all attention focused on the lady.  It only occurred to Alexander later that such a measure had not been taken of anyone but him.   The gatekeeper, the lounging knights, the buildings, all had been taken in at a glance.  Only he had been singled out for special scrutiny.  What is more, he felt he had been examined from the inside out, rather than the other way around.

Cadmon approached the stone landing where the lady stood, her arms at her sides.  The horse stopped at the stonework.  The sergeant took the palfrey's reins at the bit and Cadmon dismounted.  He moved with a fluidity that rendered the whole dismount a single movement.  He stood quite tall and faced the lady.   Alexander could see they were speaking to one another.  Alexander moved closer to take the horses.

Cadmon had pulled back his hood so the lady could see him better.

"How long has he been gone?" Cadmon was asking.

"Six days," the lady answered.  She paused, studying Cadmon's face, as if looking for something familiar which she knew should be there but that was eluding her gaze.  She reached for his hands with both of hers.  They held each other's hands for a moment, making the greeting, at once, intimate and formal.

"You are welcome, Cadmon," said the lady with growing warmth.  "Our hearth is yours, by right."

Alexander frowned.  "Cadmon.  So his name was known to Lady Em, though it meant nothing to him.  But the other part bothered him more.  "...by right," the lady said.  By right?  Who but blood kin could have the hearth by right?  He studied the man's face from lowered eyes.

The lady released Cadmon's left hand, but retained ownership of the right.  "Your hands are cold, Cadmon, if I may call you so familiarly."

"Please do," Cadmon smiled.  "Your hearth sounds very inviting, lady, but I will store my things with the knights, lest I compromise you by remaining in house with your husband away."

"'Tis your choice, Cadmon.  You are welcome here from manor to stable, but I insist you join me for an evening plate.  We have mutton and an excellent pie, if the kitchen maids have not made off with it yet.  And call me Em."

"Em," said Cadmon in a very calm, matter-of-fact voice, "I would be honored to share a plate."  His voice seemed to come from far away.  It wasn't merely the accents and overtones which made him feel that way.  His voice had a timbre which instinct told him would move in its course unperturbed, a deep current immune to the lashings of gales and tempests above.

His voice had the assurance, though not the brittleness, of a very old monk he had once chanced upon at the edge of the woods outside Evesham abbey.  The old man had been sitting on a bench in the warmth of an October sunset, the air cool and the hollies green around him.  In his robes, illuminated by amber light, he had appeared very pious and content.  Eyeing him, the old man had smiled and asked him where he was going.  "Home," he had replied.  The old monk thought about this a moment, studying him.  "I, too, am going home soon," said the monk.  Alexander remembered feeling awkward.  "It is getting late," he remembered saying, not knowing what else to say to someone who was far older than anyone he had ever met before.  "Goodbye."  He began walking.  "Goodbye," the monk had called after him.  He had turned again to wave to the monk, but the monk had already returned his gaze to the sunset.  It bathed his deeply lined face in mahogany light.

It was the same kind of voice that came from Cadmon.  Yet he looked no more than forty.

"Sergeant," the lady said, "Please place our guest's things in the banneret's quarters."

"Please, Em," said Cadmon, "Let me not displace anyone.  An empty corner will do."

The lady tilted her head slightly.  Normally, she would have protested and laughed and given the guest the best accommodations available.  She seemed uncertain how to proceed in the face of Cadmon, however.  It did not seem so much she wondered why he insisted on such rustic accommodations as why she could not bring herself to bluster him into the best room of the manor.  She recovered her sense of gravity and said with a smile, "Very well, Cadmon, a trestle bed in the barracks then."

Cadmon smiled benignly.

"Stable boy," the Lady said suddenly to him.

"Yes, ma'am?" Alexander answered before he knew he had spoken.

"Attend to our honored guest's horses."

"Yes, ma'am."

Cadmon turned to him.  This time, by the light of the lamps held by two servants flanking the Lady, Alexander could see Cadmon's face plainly.  It disconcerted him in its apparently unjudging acceptance of whatever sights entered the deep-set brown eyes.  He had never encountered a face like it before.

"Mind the old horse," said Cadmon simply.  "Do not give him too much grain and make the straw in his stall extra thick.  Give him fresh water.  He has had a long journey."

"Yes, sir.  I will treat him like Bucephalus himself."  He had thrown in the name of Alexander the Great's horse to impress Cadmon.  A minstrel had sung of it once.

"Beaucephelus," repeated Cadmon, with a gleam of humor crinkling his eyes.  "If you see Bucephalus there, young man, then your vision is either very poor or very insightful.  Here."  And he placed, not tossed, two pennies in Alexander's hand.

The lady dragged Cadmon along with her through the door.  The servants shut the door behind them, pulling the light in with them.  Only a crack showed beneath the door and between two planks in the door itself.  The sergeant turned the palfrey towards the knight's barracks.  Alexander followed with the old war horse.

"Back to the stable, lad," said the knight at the door of the barracks.  "We will stow this fellow's pack and bring the horses 'round."

"I would be glad to help carry."

"This is squire's work, lad.  We will be 'round."

Alexander started to glare his displeasure at the knight, but his resolve failed.  He sighed deeply, sighed again, then returned to the stable.  As he entered the stable, hoots and laughter pelted him from the loft like droppings from a flock of starlings.

"Sir Alex," said a stupid sounding voice, "Would you please to step aside?  Oh, Sir A-A-Alex-x-x!"

"Night dirt has more sense," said another voice.

Another voice proclaimed, "Why, Paul, look below!  'Tis Lord Alex!"

"Toss us trash up here a penny, Sir Alex.  Be a good fellow!"

They were not his friends and never had been.  The two old men did not care much one way or the other, but the younger ones quickly picked up on his dream.  It was just a dream, but they could not let him have even that.  Alexander looked up at them, ringing the edge of a trap door like vultures, a warm glow of fat lamps behind them.  Dutton's weasel stared down at him, its black eyes like two ebony worry beads.

So, I am the fighting cock, the dog in the pit, and you are my tormentors.  Laugh and jeer, you bastards, you imbeciles, you strutting asses.  Suddenly, he knew how the blinded old bear felt, chained to a post and snapped at by dogs, while passersby shouted and laughed and paid their pennies to watch.  He felt very low in himself.  Where on most days, he would have shouted a comeback or challenged one of them to a fight, all he could bring himself to do this time was shake his head and disappear into the gloom.

In the private closeness of the twilight, Cadmon's arrival brought both hope and realization.  He was what a knight looked like, for Alexander was certain now that knight he must be, while his own reflection in a horse trough showed him true enough for what he was: a stable boy.  A twenty year old stable boy, and thus, he would probably die.  The whooping and laughing above slowly died away..

Alexander waited in the shadows, glancing out at the barracks while two knights left by Lord William to guard his manor unloaded the horses.  Light glowed from the barrack's door, and from the glow, he saw the flash of a shield, and on it, a strange device, the image of two ravens, black silhouettes, against a field of blue.  He searched his memory, but could find nothing familiar in the arrangement.  No pennant or banner he had heard of had such an insignia.  Then, he laughed at himself.  Exactly how well traveled was Alexander of Norbury?

They were getting bored in the loft.  The jeers eventually stopped once they realized they could not bait him out.  A while later, one of the squires brought the horses to the stable door and Alexander led them into the depths of the barn.  Light seeping through the overhead flooring combined with bluish twilight to provide enough light to see.

He put the palfrey in a stall, and the old war horse into the one next to it.  Only then did he light a fat lamp, well protected by a tin housing. He hung it from a peg in the aisle running in front of the stalls, out of reach of mischievous nudges.  Light sprinkled out from a hundred holes pricked in the sides of the lamp.  It was not the best light available, but it was the safest.  In a dry barn, if a lamp must be lit, better it be fully enclosed, for a fire could sweep through such an ancient structure like a blast from a forge.  Buckets of water stood filled and ready in accessible spots all over the stable and loft, but they would be useless on anything greater than a spark.

By the peppered dots of light, Alexander saw the old horse had a gray nose and benevolent brown eyes.  He nuzzled against Alexander's shoulder, smelling him, feeling who he was, checking his hands for treats.  Alexander smiled at the old horse, made a gardening fork of his fingers, and scratched between the horse's front legs.  Immediately, the horse stretched his neck out to its fullest extent and luxuriated in the ecstasy of a well scratched itch.

"You are a pet, old horse.  That is plain as cream."

     The horses' hooves were well trimmed and shod, the saddle areas of both horses free of sores and dirt.  The girth paths showed no injury or abuse, and most of all, the flanks of both horses, where a rider's spurs would strike, bore no scars.  Lips felt soft and uncalloused.  Alexander nodded to himself in approval.  Cadmon cared well for his horses, and only an excellent horseman could afford to do so.  That, in itself, was a good measure of a man.

Alexander threw several extra forks of straw into the old horse's stall, fixed water buckets for both horses, and filled their mangers with good hay.  He gave three cups of grain to the palfrey and half that to the war horse, as instructed.  Soon, the slow grind of equine chewing filled both stalls.  It was a good sound.  Nowhere did he feel quite so content and comforted as in a stable full of horses at night.

Not caring for the company of his peers, who were talking in low, rumbling voices above, Alexander pitched himself a few forks of hay in the stall next to the war horse's and settled into it to think and sleep.  A considerable time passed.  Lovel, the big Irish Wolfhound, padded by, making his rounds, when he suddenly stopped with a sniff and a snort.  Alexander could picture the big head cocked first on one side, then the other, as he tried to figure out where the smell came from.  Then, with sudden revelation, Lovel dove into the open stall, wet nose and all.

"Found me," whispered Alexander, grabbing the dog's wiry cheeks and rubbing foreheads with him.  "My big beastie!"

Lovel's tail thumped against the oak boards.  Several horses in nearby stalls snorted in question.  Alexander grabbed the big dog's tail.  "It is all right.  Calm.  Calm," he said quietly to the horses, and the sound of a human voice quieted them.

"Shush, Lovel, or they will throw us both out."  Lovel settled down beside him, putting a chin and one heavy paw on his leg.  Alexander absently rubbed the dog's neck just beneath the collar.  Lovel emitted a low groan of delight.  Eventually, Lovel fell asleep.

Alexander was weaving stems of straw into disks and square chains solely by touch, when he heard the rustle of a dress dart quickly by just outside the barn.  Lovel immediately raised himself on one shoulder, ears as erect as they would go.  Alexander put a restraining hand on his neck.  They listened for further developments.  The big door, which opened into the courtyard, creaked open and shut with near perfect stealth.  He heard shoes, and the rustle of a dress climbing the ladder into the living quarters.  One of the manor house maids, no doubt, out for a little cavorting or gossip or both.  A few creaking floorboards, then voices all talking at once.  Laughter. 

Then he heard clearly, "Well, who is he?"

"E's a gentleman.  A knight, back from Byzantium or God knows where.  'Is name is Cadmon Druce.  Sir Cadmon Druce."

Alexander heard a girlish squeal.  It was Lizzie, Paul's girl.

"You stop that!  Or I shall not tell you one thing more!"

More giggling and rough joking.  They were as sensitive up there as an oak stump.  He heard a flute try to take up a tune, then fell silent amid more juvenile prattle.

Shut up, thought Alexander.  Let her talk.

After a few more minutes of competing nonsense, their curiosity got the better of them.

"All right, then, tell us the rest."

"No.  You were churlish.  I shall not tell you one word more.  Not even if you beg me."

"I will beg you," said another voice.  It was Paul, a would-be bully out to prove his sexual prowess with every female he met.  He had even propositioned a goat once, though to the best of Alexander's knowledge, that is as far as it had gone.

There was a scraping of shoes across the floor and mock fighting.  He could just see the little group of followers sitting in hushed silence with huge, embarrassed grins on their faces as Paul and the maid ducked into a dark corner for a quick coupling.  What foolishness!  Now, he would have to wait several minutes before he heard more about Cadmon Druce.  Druce.  That name meant nothing either. 

Paul had all the finesse of a boar, which in this instance stood him well, for he took about as long as a boar to fulfill his lust.  Alexander sighed and let his head thump against the half polished wood of the stall.  Lovel huffed and stretched luxuriously in the straw.  A big foot pushed against Alexander's leg, then relaxed, with just enough physical contact to alert the big dog if Alexander decided to leave.  Soon, the dog's snoring whispered from the gloom.

After a while, Alexander heard the conversation resuming, though less noisily, more satiated.  Walter started off the second round of questions with his habitual opening, "So."  "So, Cadmon Druce is his name?  What is he?  A knight?"

"A knight, at least," replied Lizzie.  "His family comes from the Borders."

"A Scots, eh?"  This was Reid's voice.  "He looked behind his fortune to me."  Reid was a solid fellow, not a churl, one of the elder men who provided continuity in the stables as squires and stable boys came and went.  Reid was a Scots himself, and Alexander could detect a note of sympathy for a kinsman.   

"A man does not ride alone unless there is no one who will ride with him," Reid said.

"Maybe he is an outlaw!" said a younger voice, hopefully.  Young Jimmy was the wine steward's son, the wine steward being called Elder Jimmy.  Young Jimmy still burst upon the world.

"No," said Lizzie with unusual assurance.  "He is no robber.  One look in those eyes of his, and you would not be thinkin' the like."

Explain, thought Alexander.

"So, what kind of eyes has he got?"

Thank you, Walter.

"Well," Lizzie stopped talking to think.  "You will say this is foolish, but he has the same eyes as Saint Benedict.  You know, in the chapel."

There were several seconds of silence as everyone tried to remember the small painting of Saint Benedict which the Chaplain kept hanging in a prayer room behind the alter.  Alexander brought the face before him.  He saw gentle brown eyes framed by lids and brows which, by line and color, held high nobility and self assurance, even wisdom, a face to be trusted.  But then again, most of the good saints paintings tried to depict something like that.  Yet for a living face to be compared to that of a painted saint propelled his thoughts like few things had done since childhood.

"So, what brings him here?"

"He was roundabout on that.  Said he wanted to speak to the lord about it."

"Haw, haw!" guffawed Paul with typical sensitivity, "That should not be too hard, him being a saint and all!"  He was much taken with his joke and thought his humor quite accomplished.

"Come on!  What did he say?"

"Truly, he would not speak his purpose, but he did speak of having come from the east, From Byzantium!" said young Jimmy.

"The Eastern Empire," said Reid, his Gaelic accent not entirely lost to the ear.  "That explains his look and the old war horse.  He is about the right age, too."

"Right age?" asked Paul, his sneer tempered with curiosity.

"Why, 'tis plain as the lump of a nose on yer face," Reid replied.

Alexander smiled to himself in the darkness.  A fight had left the end of Paul's nose looking like the bottom side of an apple, four lobes radiating from a pit in the center.  Paul would not put up with such a remark from anyone but Reid, but even Paul respected a man who could pierce a horse fly from twenty feet with a throwing knife.

"Well?" asked Paul, petulantly.

"The man's a Crusader.  Went out with the Crusade of Kings, twenty years ago if its a day.  Why, he may have come from this very household.  Before my time here, though.  Not hardly a body here anymore goes that far back.  Bet is, Lord William and the cook may be the only ones who would remember.  Maybe another of the senior knights, but not nobody here now who would know him for who he really is.  What else did he say, girl?"

"Oh, they took me into their confidence, they did!" said Lizzie.  "I was serving in the private chambers.  I did not get to hear everything!"

"How thick are those doors?"

Lizzie was embarrassed.  "Now, you do not go around telling everyone I gossip about private matters in the manor, all right?"

Everyone laughed.

"I mean it, now.  If you go and spoil my reputation, I will not come back again!"

More laughter.

Angry footsteps pounded across the floor.  Another set of footsteps bounced after her.

"Hold on, Lizzie," said Paul's voice from near the ladder.  "We are just having some fun.  Do not get all serious on us!  We promise, we will not tell a soul."  And in a louder voice, "Right fellows?"

Alexander could picture the heads shake solemnly, suppressed smiles on every face.

"Come back."

Alexander heard Lizzie's sigh all the way down in the stall.  "Just a minute more.  That be all."

"What else did he say?"

"Well, he asked about Alexander."

"He asked about our Sir Alex?" asked Paul.  He was incredulous.

Alexander stopped breathing.

"He did, indeed!"

Alexander liked Lizzie.  She always treated him as a friend.  Unfortunately, her strength of character only allowed such friendship when the stable clan busied itself out of earshot.

"Now, of what flavor was the asking," demanded Paul, obviously hoping the stranger's inquiry sprang from some infraction on Alexander's part.  Alexander wondered, too.

"I was bringing in the broth and a loaf of bread," said Lizzie, but then remembered something else, and said, "He ate like a gentleman.  Very fine.  Three fingers only."

"Forget his eating!" cried Paul.  "What did he say?"

"He was dipping his bread in the broth, and he turns to the lady, real serious like, and says, `Who was the young man who took my horses?' and the lady thinks a bit and says `His name is Alexander.  An orphan from the village.'"

"Well?  What else did he say?"

"Then he asks, `Is he a solid fellow?' and the lady answers, `Very.  He does not seem very joyous of life, though.'"

"And then what?"

"And then nothing.  They go on eating."

"That is all they said about Sir Alex?"

"That is all.  I am going now," announced Lizzie.

"Hey, where is that sad-faced horse apple, anyway?" asked Paul in general.   He was careful never to go too far with his language, and he felt vaguely uncomfortable under Alexander's gaze.  Too much sadness there.  No telling what he might do if you pushed him too far.

"He is probably up on the wall," said Dutton, referring to the curtain wall surrounding the estate.

"Probably hiding around here somewhere listening to us!"

Lizzie was climbing down the steps.

"Hey, wait a minute, Lizzie.  I will walk you home!"  Paul's shadow covered her.

Lizzie stood on a middle rung, looking up.  "Why can you not leave him alone?"

"Who?  Sir Alex?"

"Oh, poo.  I do not know why I ever come here."

"Because," Paul's voice turned suddenly serious, "you are my girl.  Never forget that."

Lizzie did not say anything.  Alexander could imagine her boring two holes in Paul.  He heard her step off the ladder and exit through the big doors into the night.  Again, the sound of dress fabric rustled by the barn, and after that, another door, distant, opened and closed.  Lovel only opened an eye partway, saw his companion still with him, and went back to sleep.