Free Belle's Song by K. M. Grant

not everything is always as it seems, I find. Is that not right?” Master Chaucer said nothing. As he passed me, Summoner Seekum made a noose with his reins. I saw the hanging boy again.
We spent that night in a barn with the farmer’s cattle and pigs, which Sir Knight’s horse didn’t like at all. Shortly after we left the next morning, there was a rumpus over the priest’s crucifix. He’d been boasting of it to the half-witted swineherd and now it was gone. It seemed that even pilgrims weren’t safe from villainy. This diverted attention from yesterday’s goings-on, but the delay meant we’d only been going about an hour before a messenger shouted for us to stop. The summoner had made me so nervous that my heart leaped into my mouth. But the message was not for me. It was for the Master, and it was a very gloomy message indeed. The worst, in fact. His wife had died. I know I should have been sorry, but since I’d never met her, allI felt was relief. With Mistress Chaucer dead, the summoner’s plans were quite foiled. Even if the Master was up to something, which I didn’t believe for a minute, I couldn’t find out because he would have to return home.
The messenger didn’t tarry and when he had gone, the Master dismounted. He handed Dobs’s reins to Luke. Respectful of death, we all dismounted too. The Master unstrapped his writing box, tucked it under his arm, and wandered off the road toward the river. For all his bright clothes, he was a shrunken, melancholy figure as he settled himself on a stone and set out his writing tools. “Looks like we’ll be here for a bit,” said the wagoner, loosening the carthorses’ traces. Sir Knight, with Walter and the page in attendance, took the opportunity to fly his hawk. I hooked Dulcie’s reins over a tree and went to Luke. “I don’t think he expected her to die,” Luke said, never taking his eyes off the Master, “at least not while he was away.”
“You’ll be setting off back to London very soon.”
Luke’s lips tightened. “No need to sound so pleased.”
How could I explain? “Has he got children?” I asked.
“Two that I know of, but the oldest, Thomas, is with the Duke of Lancaster in Spain, and I don’t know where the younger one is.”
The Master was hunched over a parchment, his quill trimmed and poised but no words coming. It was a miserable sight and it suddenly struck me hard that if God hadlet good Master Chaucer’s wife die, he was never going to do anything for my father’s legs. The seed of miraculous hope that Luke had sown in my soul outside the oculist’s shop began to wither. I bit my pendant. “God doesn’t seem to have listened to the Master’s prayers.”
At first Luke thought I was being pert and he stiffened against me. Then, just as quickly, he melted, and I saw myself reflected in two milky irises, not so much gray today as violet and deep enough to drown in. This wasn’t without its discomforts. Drowning eyes are all-seeing eyes, and there was plenty about me that I didn’t want Luke to see. Without Poppet to steady me I had difficulty keeping my chin from wobbling. “Luke?” It came out as a gurgle.
“Yes?”
“Will you pray for my father? God will listen to you, I’m sure. After all, you’re practically a monk.”
He put his glasses back on. The purple dulled. “Of course I’ll pray for your father,” he said. “I’d be honored.” His touch on my shoulder was light as a butter fly. “Now, take Dobs. I must see to the Master’s baggage.”
I held the reins, wiping my tears on the cob’s sturdy shoulder. Why hadn’t I been born a horse? They were afflicted by neither conscience nor nightmares. Then I felt disloyal. If I were a horse, I’d want to be pretty Dulcie, not loyal Dobs, though Dobs was easily the more useful and dependable. I was rather disgustedat myself. How could I be daydreaming now ? Dobs sighed. I patted him. “You’re a better horse than I am a girl,” I told him. One ear