Free The Cross of Lead by Avi Page B

now?”
    “Anyone from Stromford.”
    “By the certainty of Saint Paul, they are gone. They’ll never bother you again.”
    “But what if they do?”
    “First you say you are nothing. Then you say half the world is looking for you. Make up your mind. If you have one.”
    “But, Bear,” I said, “the steward tried to kill me. Twice. And when I was hiding in the woods, he came along the road. I’m sure he was searching for me.”
    He looked at me slyly. “For an insignificant creature, you’re very vain. Give me one reason for their concern.”
    “They think I’m a thief”
    “Crispin, did you steal?”
    “As God is my witness, no.”
    “Then it’s all a sham. You were only being blamed for what someone else did.”
    “But it’s they who matter, not me.”
    “Then I shall make you matter,” he said. “I’ll teach you music.”
    “I won’t be able to learn,” I said.
    “Do the birds sing?” he asked.
    “Yes,” I said.
    “Do they have souls?”
    “I don’t think so,” I said, somewhat confused.
    “Then surely you can sing no less than they, for you have a soul.”
    “Sometimes … I think I have none.”
    For once Bear was speechless. “In the name of Saint Remigius, why?”
    “I have … I have never felt it.” Bear gazed at me in silence. “Then we,” he said gruffly, “shall need to make sure you do.”

 
    26
    H E BEGAN BY INSTRUCTING ME about the pipe’s holes—the stops, he called them—and the way to shape my mouth around the blowing end, how to shift my fingers, how to make different sounds.
    Reluctantly, I took up the recorder, and with fingers like soft clay, tried to play. What came out were sorry, shallow squeaks. “You see,” I said, “I can’t do it.” I offered him back his pipe.
    Refusing, he railed at the top of his voice, threatening to inflict upon me every kind of grisly torture if I didn’t try.
    At first his shouted warnings terrified me. But as the day wore on, I realized he was mostly bluster. While I didn’t doubt he could have done the ghastly acts he threatened, it was but a rough kindness.
    The more I realized this, the less tense I became. Gradually I found my way with tongue, fingers, and breath. Before the day was half done, I managed to pipe out his simple song.
    “There. You’ve done it,” he cried out when first I did. “Tell me that you didn’t hear it, too.”
    No one was more amazed than me. To think that I, with my breath, could make a song, thrilled me deeply. I wanted to play it over and over again.
    Bear only made me work harder. Then, as I played, he began to strike his drum so as to keep the proper beats.
    It was midafternoon and I was playing, when something different happened. Before my astonished eyes, this enormous man jumped up and began to dance. Holding his large hands up, pumping his knees high, prancing, his great red beard flapping, his two-pointed hat bobbing this way and that, the hat bells jingling, he was like one possessed. Though a giant, he appeared as light as a goose feather in a swelling breeze.
    I was so taken aback at the sight I stopped playing.
    “Now you know why I took you on,” he said with a grin.
    It took a moment for me to fully grasp his meaning—he wanted me to help him.
    “Play, fool,” he yelled. “That’s the point of it all.”
    Excited, I resumed, continuing to make music while he paused to scoop up his leather balls. For now, as he danced, he also juggled. Then to all of this he added singing.
“Lady Fortune is friend and foe.
Of poor she makes rich and rich poor also.
Turns misery to prosperity
And wellness unto woe.
So let no man trust this lady
Who turns her wheel ever so!”
    Finally, he stopped.
    Panting, he thumped me on the back and said, “There, Crispin, my young and fool-ish, soulless saint, you see what we shall do. While I perform my revels, you shall pipe the tune. I promise, it shall bring us pennies of plenty and we—the Bear and his cub—shall prosper greatly!”
    His