Free Crossing To Paradise by Kevin Crossley-Holland Page A

pilgrim to Jerusalem, and the blessed Christopher who carried the whole world…”
    â€œI know that story,” said Gatty eagerly. “Oliver told it to us. He carries a small boy on his back across a river, and the boy gets heavier and heavier, and the boy is Jesus, and Jesus is the whole world.”
    â€œExactly,” said Austin. “The blessed Christopher, and Saint David, and also Michael the Archangel.”
    â€œI know that story too,” Gatty said.
    â€œAll right, Gatty,” said Lady Gwyneth. “You’re to ride beside me, and pray silently to those saints. That’s your penance, and you’re not to speak one word until I say you can.”
    Gatty did ride close to Lady Gwyneth, but she didn’t pray to Saint Christopher or Michael the Archangel or anyone else. She thought about Geoff telling her she didn’t know much, and how she was beginning to know how much she did not know. Inside her head she kept singing-and-saying:
“ I didn’t know I didn’t know.
Nobody told me so.
All I know is Hopeless lowing,
Scythe and rake, spade and plow.
I didn’t know I didn’t know.
I never been beyond Ludlow.
Nobody told me so.
What and when and where and how?
I didn’t know I didn’t know.
Nobody told me so. ”
    Gatty’s reverie was interrupted by Nakin. “Look!” he called out. “Hares boxing!”
    Just ahead, two hares were standing up on their back legs, and pummeling each other. Then they broke off, hared away, stood up and began to box again.
    â€œStrange beasts!” said Everard. “Boxers, little buskers. No rhyme or reason.”
    â€œThere is!” said Gatty. “They box before they mate.”
    â€œGatty!” Lady Gwyneth exclaimed. “Who said you could speak?”
    â€œOh!”
    â€œI’ll box your ears if you don’t listen to what I say.”
    â€œI’ll keep quiet,” said Gatty. “I will.”
    â€œMy lady,” said Lady Gwyneth.
    â€œThere are tiles in the cathedral with hares on them,” Everard said. “I don’t know why.”
    That night, Everard gave Gatty another singing lesson in the back room of a hostel.
    First, he took his little maple psaltery out of its bag, and riffled the strings.
    â€œIt’s what angels play,” Everard said.
    â€œReally?” exclaimed Gatty. She reached out her little finger, blunt and rough, and carefully stroked the frame.
    â€œWhen did you start to sing?” the choirmaster asked her.
    â€œWhen my father died. He never liked me to sing, he didn’t. He said it just reminded him of my mother.”
    â€œAnd what do you sing?”
    â€œEverything,” said Gatty. “Prayers and field-songs and carols. Some I just make up.”
    â€œNow I want you to learn to breathe properly,” Everard said. He reached over for the candle on the table, and set it right in front of Gatty.
    â€œPut your mouth quite close to the flame,” he told her. “Now take a deep breath, and sing uuuuu-t . Sing it slowly, so steadily that the tip of the flame never flickers.”
    â€œI will,” said Gatty, wide-eyed.
    â€œI will,” the clerk repeated, in the same low pitch Gatty had just said it. “That’s the note for you to begin on. Your normal pitch. Then go up one note and sing re for as long as you can. Then mi, fa, sol, la …And always so steadily the flame never flickers.”
    On they went, the pilgrims, along the king’s highway, between bristling hedges, over kindly hills, through scruffy, huddled villages, under bending naves of trees, on they went through pale sunlight and gusts of wind, rainstorms and sleet, arriving before daylight failed at noisy, jostling hostels.
    On the fourth morning they drew near to Canterbury, and the road was seething with travelers. But then the way divided. To the right was a broad track leading to Canterbury, and to the left a track