Read Online Crossing To Paradise by Kevin Crossley-Holland - Free Book Online Page B

payment. That’s right, isn’t it, boy?”
    Sagely, Solomon nodded his heavy head.

10
    Armed men, buffoons, cornmongers, dung-men, eagle-eyed stallholders, friars, fortune-tellers, fish merchants, guards, hook-nosed Romans, ironmongers, Jewish moneylenders: a whole alphabet of people swarmed round Gatty and the other pilgrims as they picked their way out of London.
    At dawn, Gatty had thought the city was too empty, too quiet, but now it seemed too crowded and noisy. She was glad to cross London Bridge, and to feel the wind fingering her scalp, pawing her left cheek. She was glad to leave seething, thieving London.
    On the far side of the bridge, a group of children, twenty at least, were sitting on the ground, and a man with a tricorn hat was talking to them. The boys cheered, the girls jeered and then they all began to prod and push one another. The other pilgrims ignored them, but Gatty reined in.
    â€œNot only that,” the man called out. “Your tummies often rumble! You often fart!”
    Again the boys cheered and the girls jeered.
    â€œAnd as soon as you’ve been washed,” the man went on, “you make yourselves ab-so-lute-ly filthy!”
    More cheers, more jeers. But before Gatty could find out why the man should choose to talk to children, and deliberately make them laugh, something she’d never once come across before, Everard rode up.
    â€œAre you trying to get lost again?” he demanded in his squeaky voice.
    â€œSshh!” said Gatty. “He’s telling jokes.”
    â€œLady Gwyneth says you’re to come at once.”
    For some while after that, Gatty, Lady Gwyneth and Nest rode three abreast: Lady Gwyneth silently mouthing words as she told her rosary, Nest sometimes sighing and rearranging at her gown, Gatty still wondering about the man and the group of children, and rather indignant she had no chance to find out what was going on.
    â€œMy lady,” said Gatty after a while, “I don’t know how to say it exactly, but is our pilgrimage a kind of story?”
    Lady Gwyneth reached up and played with a strand of her fair hair that had escaped her wimple. “Yes,” she said hesitantly. “In a way it is. An unfinished story.”
    â€œAnd inside it,” said Gatty, “there are parts of other stories, aren’t there. I mean, how did the stablemaster train Solomon? Any why was that woman throwing the cabbage at that man? All those children on London Bridge? What were they laughing at?”
    â€œI don’t know,” said Lady Gwyneth.
    â€œThat’s it,” said Gatty. “We stepped into their story, and out of it again. We never will.”
    Lady Gwyneth nodded. “That’s how the story of a pilgrimage is,” she said. “Because we have to move on each day. But all the stories we step into become part of our own story. Our pilgrimage.”
    â€œThe parts we know do,” said Gatty.
    Once again, Gatty and Syndod began to drift, to fall back, until they were at least a stone’s throw behind the other pilgrims. Then two young men mounted on rather mangy ponies trotted up and fell into step with her.
    â€œI’m John,” said one of them. “He’s Geoff. Going to Canterbury, are we?”
    Thinking about him later, all Gatty could remember distinctly were his sharp, dark eyes. That, and the way his tunic was open at the neck. The blades of his shoulders.
    â€œWhere?” said Gatty.
    â€œCanterbury.”
    â€œWhat’s Canterbury?”
    John grinned. “You having us on or something?”
    â€œEither that,” said Geoff, “or…” He tapped his temple with his right forefinger.
    â€œI’m not,” said Gatty loudly. “I’m with Lady Gwyneth. I’m her chamber-servant.”
    â€œWhat about Becket?” John asked her. “Heard of Becket?”
    Gatty shook her head.
    â€œYou’ve got a scarlet cross on your shoulder