Free The Cross of Lead by Avi

knew what sin was embedded in me to have brought God’s hand so hard upon me.
    “Crispin,” said Bear, “a wise man—he was a jester by trade—once told me that living by answers is a form of death. It’s only questions that keep you living. What think you of that?”
    “I don’t know,” I said.
    “Think on it. For we shall soon be passing out of this zone of desolation. From here on, as God is good, many living villages shall appear. They’ll be small, but if we labor well, we can survive, you and I. Will you join me? I give you the freedom to choose.”
    “You’re my master,” I said. “I have no choice.”
    “Crispin, decide,” he barked.
    I shook my head. “It’s not for me to do so.”
    “Should not every man be master of himself?” he asked.
    “You made me call you master.”
    His face grew redder than it normally was. “You’re a willful fool,” he bellowed. Clearly frustrated, he poked the fire. “You’ll go.”
    “As you command,” I said.
    He frowned but only said, “Before we get there, you’ll need to learn some things.”
    “What?”
    “Time enough for that tomorrow. Go to sleep.” Without further ado, he lay down.
    From the pouch around my neck, I took out my cross of lead, and upon my knees, prepared to pray.
    “What are you doing?” I heard him ask.
    I looked over my shoulder. “Praying.”
    “What’s that in your hand?”
    “A cross of lead. It was my mother’s,” I said, holding it out for him to see. “It even has writing on it.”
    “Writing or not, it’s useless,” he said, waving my hand away. “No more than a trinket.”
    “What do you mean?” I cried, fearing he was slipping back into madness.
    “All these things … your cross, your prayers. As God is near—and surely He always is—you need no special words or objects to approach Him.”
    “But this cross—” I began.
    He cut me off. “I know what it is. It’s made of lead. Made in countless numbers during the Great Death. Never blessed, they were given to the dying as false comfort. They’re as common as the leaves and just as sacred.
    “Crispin, as Jesus is my witness, churches, priests—they’re all unneeded. The only cross you need is the one in your heart.”
    Greatly shocked, I didn’t know what to say.
    “But,” he added, with a hard edge of anger, “if you so much as spoke my words in public, do you know what would happen to you?”
    “No.”
    “You’d be burned alive. So don’t repeat them. And if you said I spoke them, I’d denounce you for a liar and a heretic.
    “So, put your cross away. I don’t wish to see it again. Keep your faith to yourself.”
    Though unsettled by his words, I turned away and made my prayers, the cross in my hands.
    I prayed to Saint Giles and asked him to remember my father whom I had never seen, my mother whom I missed so deeply, and last of all, myself. I also promised him I’d not believe the things Bear had said.
    Though Bear must have heard me, he did not interfere. When I was done, I said, “Bear, I’m sorry I know so little.”
    “Sometimes it’s better not to know.”
    “How can that be?”
    “Ah, Crispin, if I have learned one thing, it’s that he who knows a bit of everything, knows nothing. But he who knows a little bit well, knows much of all.”
    He said no more and was soon asleep, grunting like a pig.
    The fire had collapsed into a heap of smoldering coals. The night being cold, I drew closer to it and tried to make sense of the things that Bear had said. He had confused me. First he said it was better to live by questions. Then he said it was a mistake to know everything. I struggled to put the two notions together, but could not.
    What I did know was that he was unlike any man I had ever known. There was madness in him, to be sure. Yet, I could not deny, some kindness too….
    But what vexed me most was his saying that every man should be master of himself. If I knew anything it was that all men belonged to someone.