The Book of the Lion Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Copyright Page

  chapter ONE

  chapter TWO

  chapter THREE

  chapter FOUR

  chapter FIVE

  chapter SIX

  chapter SEVEN

  chapter EIGHT

  chapter NINE

  chapter TEN

  chapter ELEVEN

  chapter TWELVE

  chapter THIRTEEN

  chapter FOURTEEN

  chapter FIFTEEN

  chapter SIXTEEN

  chapter SEVENTEEN

  chapter NINETEEN

  chapter NINETEEN

  chapter TWENTY

  chapter TWENTY-ONE

  chapter TWENTY-TWO

  chapter TWENTY-THREE

  chapter TWENTY-FOUR

  chapter TWENTY-FIVE

  chapter TWENTY-SIX

  chapter TWENTY-SEVEN

  chapter TWENTY-EIGHT

  chapter TWENTY-NINE

  chapter THIRTY

  chapter THIRTY-ONE

  chapter THIRTY-TWO

  chapter THIRTY-THREE

  chapter THIRTY-FOUR

  chapter THIRTY-FIVE

  chapter THIRTY-SIX

  chapter THIRTY-SEVEN

  chapter THIRTY-EIGHT

  chapter THIRTY-NINE

  chapter FORTY

  chapter FORTY-ONE

  chapter FORTY-TWO

  About This Book

  For Sherina

  Each dawn

  against the current

  they sail

  the White river

  Speak

  Published by Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  345 Hudson Street, NewYork, NewYork 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2 Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand

  First published in the United States of America by Viking, a division of Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers, 2000

  Published by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers, 2001

  This edition published by Speak, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  Copyright © Michael Cadnum, 2000

  All rights reserved

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE VIKING EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

  Cadnum, Michael.

  The book of the lion / Michael Cadnum. p. cm.

  Summary: In twelfth-century England, after his master, a maker of coins for the king, is brutally punished for alleged cheating, seventeen-year-old Edmund finds himself traveling to the Holy Land as squire to a knight crusader on his way to join the forces of Richard Lionheart.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-14256-1

  [1. Knights and knighthood Fiction. 2. Crusades—Third, 1189-1192 Fiction.

  3. Middle Ages Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7C1172Bo 2000 [Fic]—dc21 99-39370 CIP

  http://us.penguingroup.com

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  chapter ONE

  The hammering woke me—a fist pounding on the door.

  A man’s voice called, “Open, in the king’s name!” and I could hear my master’s wife telling her husband to stay still, that it was a group of traveling peddlers, swine-drunk on new wine.

  But the pounding continued. I was wide awake by then, sitting up on my straw pallet, telling myself that it was certainly the miller’s son. Or perhaps one of the minstrels, having a bit of riot with his companions. My pallet was beyond the dining stools and table, at the door to the smithy itself, and I stayed where I was, sure that my master could deal with this.

  But then the startling music of splintering oak flung me out of bed. I offered a silent prayer to Saint Mark, the patron saint of those who would be brave.

  Out in the night, a voice was calling orders, an accent of a man not from this town. I hurried into my tunic, just as my master was scurrying toward the hearth. It took a long time for the door to come asunder, and my master had the bellows working by then, the glow from the flames casting shadows.

  My master thrust a straw rush into the suddenly glowing embers and called out, “Who is it? Who’s knocking?” He managed to sound unconcerned, using the kindly questioning tone he used on matron and madman alike. I picked up the wood-ax, set it down, hefted the meat hook, and set it down, too. I was aware of how little I knew about fighting. The kitchen servants were stirring, and I cast aside a waffle iron and a pair of tongs, neither of them a weapon.

  Maud, my master’s wife, was saying this was exactly why we needed a dog. “And a big dog, too,” she added, none of us really frightened yet. It was a time of outlaws and traveling beggars, and we were prepared for whatever Heaven brought our way.

  I darted into the smithy, where the dark was scented with charcoal, and found what I was seeking. I hurried back into the growing light of the hearth fire, a penny maul, the hammer I used for minting fresh coins, in my grip.

  Otto my master was a moneyer—a man who minted coins for King Richard. He was still trying to get a straw rush alight, blowing on the gold spark of the tip. When he had the flame alive, and had touched it to the candle ends on the hearth, he told his wife to run and tell the sheriff’s men, “Outlaws are being killed by Edmund here. Hurry before they are all dead.”

  He said this with a hopeful smile in my direction, trusting that my duties as apprentice included knocking the brains out of outlaws. Pickpockets crowded the streets every market day, nearly every knight gone south to travel with the king to the Holy Land on Crusade. My master loved a touch of luxury, and he wore a coney-skin ruff at his church-day collar. Even though he now wore an evening robe, hastily thrown on, the gold thread gleamed. The door was pounded to kindling by then and a black glove flung the remaining scraps free of the door frame.

  And then we knew this was not a brace of cowherds celebrating Monday market a few nights too soon. This was not a tavernful of drunks winning a bet by breaking into the silver mint. At the sight of the black leather armor and chain mail of our besiegers, my master Otto, Moneyer of Nottingham, drew back all the way to the far wall.

  “Run!” he rasped.

  I did not take a step. Even if it cost me my head, I would defend my master and his good wife.

  “Edmund, run!” Otto said again, not raising his voice, the words snapping white in the cold that entered the room with the Exchequer’s men.

  Sometimes I hear good advice and take it, quickly. But sometimes I am slow to come to reason. “Heaven be my shield,” I prayed as black ox-leather gauntlets seized me and held me hard.

  My hammer dropped. Stout figures pinned my master to the wall. His good wife had not had time to hurry to the sheriff, and now looked on helplessly. The men dragged my master into the smithy, and others hauled me after him, and we panted in the blackness while these strangers lit the stub candles.

  “Otto of Clifton?” said the accent, and I recognized it now, the way they spoke in London, where they prefer names like William and Robert. The Exchequer’s man rep
eated my master’s name, pronouncing Otto as though the name were an absurdity.

  “I am Otto, and I ask who addresses me,” retorted my master. I felt a dash of pride at the spirit of the man who had become, in a sense, my father.

  The Exchequer’s men groped among themselves. I thought for a moment that they looked for a document from the king, a proclamation, a summons to London to answer for some mistake in the Pipe Rolls, some trifling sum my master had gotten wrong. A broadsword glinted in the shifting candlelight.

  “Hold him!”

  Two men stretched my master’s hand out along the cold iron of the anvil, his fingers splayed out white against the black. I kicked and wrestled, and though I was a mere seventeen to the full strength of these king’s men, I was a moneyer’s apprentice, a seasoned hammerman. The men holding me groaned with effort. A fist struck me from behind. I felt the knob of each leather-bound knuckle, a red echo of the blow in my skull. I dropped to my knees.

  Strong arms pulled me erect again. The chief of our attackers, a stout, white-faced nobleman, said something in London speech. We all fell silent, the only sound Maud choking back sobs.

  It took a heartbeat, no more. Steel flashed and rang against the anvil. A white, wriggling thing struggled in the char-dust on the plank floor and my master’s cry was one of disbelief. Maud began to scream, and I was crying out, too, as one of the leather gauntlets picked my master’s severed right hand from the coal dust. My master’s cry took on a new tenor as blood pumped into the candlelight.

  One of the Exchequer’s men held the white thing flat against the base of the anvil while a companion drove a spike through it, like a hand of Our Lord on the Tree. The stout, white-faced leader of the men turned to me and said, “We’ll have two right hands, side by side.” He said this without relish, but with impatience, a man with no love for being out and around on a late winter’s night.

  He gave a nod and the two leather-clad men on either side of me heaved and dragged me forward. Maud struck out with a coal-poker, a span of iron like a quarterstaff. My master was bawling my name, like an animal cursed or blessed with the power of speech.

  I broke free.

  I bounded through the door into the dwelling quarters, and through the splintered door, into the night. My feet were bare. I wore only my tunic, and I was glad because I could run far faster than the mail-clad, helmeted men right behind me.

  They were fast, and I heard them panting from street to street, steps splashing in the runnel of water down each stone lane.

  I knew the ways, and they did not, and I knew there was a nook called Grope Corner where an arrow slit in the city wall was wide enough for an eager or fearful body to worm free. I reached the slot in the stones, forced my shoulder through, but I had not attempted this since boyhood. I had forgotten my broad chest and the hammer-muscles in my shoulders.

  I hung there, half in, half out of the opening in the walls. The Exchequer’s men ran everywhere beyond, huffing and calling. It caused me effort, but I snaked through the fissure and fell onto the frosty grass.

  I climbed to my feet and ran as a voice from the wall began to sound the alarm.

  I sprinted over the star-glazed field, cursing the stitch in my side.

  As I ran my tears flowed, grief over my master’s agony. But in my ignorance I shed not a tear for myself. Even the sound of horsemen, three or four of them, gave me little terror.

  As I ran I prayed. God sent an angel to Daniel in the lion’s den, and I prayed He would send me swiftness over this dark ground.

  In my ignorance of the ways of God and man I had faith that I could avenge my master’s injury. I certainly believed that I could run like this forever, with the Virgin’s help.

  Hoofbeats grew closer. A night bird eased from the crook of an oak.

  Wet clods of earth splashed on either side ahead, and the heat of the warhorse was upon me.

  chapter TWO

  I dodged the steed.

  But I had reached a field surface recently spread with clay-marl and lime. It was slippery, and I fell, skidding across the slick earth.

  I was up at once, but the horseman rode me down, the chest of the charger striking me hard. I was slimed with white clay, and wriggled free of the hands that fought to take custody of me. They hauled me to a puddle, splashed me more or less clean. I noted well the manner of these king’s men, careful that nothing happened to me, no bodily harm.

  Far from being encouraged by this, I saw the care with my person for what it was: desire to enact their duty exactly, and bring me entire to their chief.

  Blood reflected the candle flames. The severed hand glowed, white against the black head of the spike. I didn’t look directly at it, but I saw it nonetheless, aware of it even when I looked at the dark stone wall. Heavy feet pressed me down into the cooling gore all over the wooden planks.

  “Stretch out his arm,” said the leader. My arm was strong, and it took three men all their effort to force it out and press it flat on the use-worn planks.

  I had often imagined myself in combat, or in pain, and wondered how I would conduct myself. I did no wonderful or brave thing. I stretched the fingers of my right hand, working them, aware that they were still attached to me. I clenched my teeth.

  I prayed for courage.

  And then the room fell silent.

  A new voice ordered us to be still.

  It was an authoritative accent of my own town. The voice demanded to know who broke the king’s peace on such a night. It was all formula. Even I, as ignorant of law as a tomcat, knew that with the right answer, the proper phrase delivered, the sword could do its work.

  The Exchequer’s man explained in his even London voice that the moneyer had been found guilty by the king’s assayer of coining debased pennies. The punishment for such a felony was fit and quick, and there was already a spike, right here, through the master criminal’s hand.

  “And this apprentice?” was the question, and I expected to hear a fast and easy answer.

  I was pulled to my feet. Geoffrey, the Lord Sheriff of Nottingham, stepped to one side to avoid the puddle of gleaming black blood.

  Without looking at me he said quietly, “Put him in chains.”

  I was allowed to walk through the streets, up into the castle, with a guard at each side. I was permitted to remain on my feet down steps, and down further into a corridor of cold stone. A small oaken door was wrenched open with a squeal and I was wedged through the opening. These links were fresh forged, still bright with the hammer work that had shaped them.

  My hands were connected to the wall with long, heavy chains, and my feet were bound into place on the floor, but these were sheriff’s men manhandling me, not strangers from London, and they did their work without kicking or digging in an elbow, avoiding meeting my eye. I knew them by sight.

  “Daylight comes in through the windows,” said one, Henry, fat and out of breath. These were capable men, but halt or old. Most of the fit fighters had long departed to join King Richard on his holy war. The Holy Father in Rome had decreed that all who fought to take Jerusalem from the heathen would obtain indulgences—forgiveness of sins. The foulest criminal could absolve himself of wrongdoing before Heaven by joining the army of God. I envied those war pilgrims. I knew that my master was a good man, but a criminal, and that the law would consider me guilty, too.

  And so would Heaven.

  “And we have a she-cat who kills most of the rats,” Henry was saying.

  He gave my leg chain a shake of encouragement; the door creaked and slammed. A key took its time finding the slot and turning. I let my head rest against the stone. When I tried to huddle, the chains scraped along the mortared rock.

  Although I could scratch the itch on my cheek, it was a laborious process, my arm weighed down with the heavy links that dragged, whispering, as I shifted them.

  I had indulged in daydreams. I had visions of traveling to London once a year with my master, to sit at the Exchequer’s table. Of fighting in
a war against the heathen, side by side with knights. In these private glory-pageants I had imagined meeting King Richard, and serving him. Like every Christian, I longed to pray in Jerusalem. But I knew nothing of swords and lances. Worthier men than I went to fight for Our Lady.

  Above all, I had dreamed of winning Elviva, who lived near the city wall. Her father was Peter de Holm, a merchant in sheep’s wool, and a good friend of my master’s. She had visited my master’s house with her father many times, and as the two men drank Otto’s Rhine wine Elviva and I shared our innermost questions about the wonders of the world, the way a witch could turn herself into a rabbit, and the power of nymphs to speak in human language. We spoke of what it would be like to meet an angel, whether he would be covered in dazzling light. Elviva leaned forward eagerly as she listened, and her green eyes brightened as she laughed. She dressed like any maiden merchant’s daughter, in folds and hoods of the finest cloth, demurely, to keep the men who saw her from temptation, but her beauty was not well hidden.

  Because we spoke of High Fairies and dwarves, her father thought my mind was full of lore and the simple Latin Otto had been teaching me, hoping that some day I could be, as he was, a man of worth. But Elviva and I were speaking of such things as a special language, a code safe to use. I told her that if I spied a troll I would catch him by the nose. I had begun to see myself returning from London some day with scarlet sleeves and a brocaded cap, asking to speak to her father.

  Now I was where I justly belonged, before God. A pair of eyes glittered, vanished, and glittered again. The prison cat had not done her work at all well. A rat nosed the air, crept close, and peered at me. One of my first memories was of listening to my mother sing of cuckoos in Maytime while rats squeaked softly in the walls. “The old cat’s been cheating her lord,” I said. “Letting the likes of you dance all night.”