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their bodies.”
    â€œWhat happens to them?” I asked. “Those people.”
    â€œThey try to hide it,” my father said. “They know that if anyone finds out, they’ll be tried and burned at the stake.”

25
ICE AND FIRE
    I CAN SEE MYSELF QUITE CLEARLY IN THE BLACK FACE OF the stone Merlin has given me. My mother says that when God made me, He had a spare blob of clay which He put on the end of my nose. I can see that, and my red ears which stick out more than Serle’s or Sian’s.
    I like the rough-and-silky feel of the stone, and I like the way it quickly warms between my hands. But what is it for? And what did Merlin mean when he said it was time for me to have it, and time for him to let it go? “Until the day you die,” he said, “you will never own anything as precious as this.”
    Serle always keeps an old arrow-tip in one of his pockets; he says it protects him from ever being wounded by an arrow. And Oliver has a coin from Jerusalem strung on the greasy key-thong around his neck. “The pope has blessed it,” he says, “and I wear it day and night. It drives away dark spirits.”
    Is my stone like this? A kind of charm? Or does it have some other power? My obsidian! Merlin said it is made of ice and fire.

26
MERLIN
    I CANNOT REMEMBER WHEN I DIDN’T KNOW MERLIN. HE lived here before I was born and when I look at his strange, unlined face I sometimes wonder whether he’ll still be here after I’m dead.
    I can see Merlin in one of my earliest memories. I am two, that’s what my mother says, and Merlin is holding up a large square of golden silk. When he shakes it, it waves and floats like a flag or a banner. Or a gonfanon! I like that word. It’s got air inside it. I keep reaching up to catch this silk, and it brushes the tips of my fingers. I strain and squeal. But I still can’t catch it. Then Merlin wraps the silk right round me; it winks and shimmers, and I feel much too hot.
    Each Sunday, my mother invites Merlin to eat dinner with us, and I know she and Nain like him. My father likes him too. He listens to Merlin and even asks his opinion. Sometimes they walk and talk together.
    Merlin isn’t a lord or a knight, but he isn’t a priest or a monk or a friar. He isn’t a manor tenant or a laborer; he doesn’t do any days’ work for my father. And he isn’t a reeve or a baker or a brewer or a beadle. So what is he? Has he always lived here, next to the mill? Why doesn’t he ever talk about his mother or his father? Has he any brothers or sisters? How is he able to pay for meat and bread and ale? I realize I know almost nothing about Merlin.
    â€œIt’s obvious, Arthur,” said Oliver. “Merlin has something to hide.”
    â€œWhat?” I asked.
    â€œI’m sorry to say it but he’s hiding something. That’s why he never talks about himself—his childhood, his family, where he’s come from. People with nothing to hide are open about these things.”
    â€œBut what is he hiding?” I asked.
    â€œHave you ever thought,” said Oliver, “why Merlin prefers shadows to sunlight? What does that tell you?” He lowered his voice. “Some people say he’s the child of his own sister.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œWork it out, Arthur. His father was his father and his mother…”
    â€œWho says that?” I exclaimed.
    â€œAnd some people think his mother was a nun…”
    â€œBut nuns…”
    â€œâ€¦and his father was an incubus.”
    â€œWhat’s an incubus?”
    â€œA demon,” said Oliver between his teeth. “An evil spirit! It comes during the night and enters a woman while she lies asleep.”
    â€œYou don’t think that?”
    â€œI don’t know what to think, Arthur. But when I hear what comes out of Merlin’s mouth…His delusions! His dangerous opinions!”