Read The Seeing Stone for Free Online Page A

equal. But you can be sure hell’s mouth is wide and waiting for heathens and heretics and infidels.”
    â€œSir William fought in Jerusalem,” I said, “and he doesn’t believe that. He thinks…”
    â€œSir William is a knight. He is not a priest,” Oliver replied.
    One reason why I quite like my lessons with Oliver is that I am allowed to argue with him, and find out new things. It’s like climbing Tumber Hill inside my own head: The further I go, the more I see; and the more I see, the more I want to see.
    â€œHow many books are there?” I asked Oliver.
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œIn the world. Altogether.”
    â€œMy dear boy! You expect me to know everything! Well, now! Each church in England has its Bible…”
    â€œI don’t mean copies of the same words,” I said. “I mean different words.”
    Oliver pressed the palms of his hands over his stomach and gave a long, gentle sigh. “It is impossible to say,” he replied. “There are books in Latin and in French, and a few in Hebrew and in Greek. I don’t know! Twenty books, or even thirty, have been translated into English, and I have heard that one or two have even been written in English.”
    â€œSir William says there are Saracen books too. About the stars, and medicines…”
    Oliver shook his head. “You see?” he said. “If only they were Christian! No, Arthur. It’s impossible to say. But I know you. You won’t be content with that.” Oliver paused and slowly nodded. “I think…I think there must be more than one hundred books altogether.”
    Another reason I like my lessons is that no one else in my family can read properly. My father can only read very slowly, and my mother can’t read at all. Serle had lessons while he was in service with Lord Stephen, but he can’t read as well as I can, and he doesn’t know how to write.
    Nain thinks there is no reason whatsoever for a page to learn to read and write. “Your father didn’t learn much,” she said. “And the dragon certainly didn’t. Think what will happen if you start to depend on writing. Your memory will soon weaken. If something’s worth knowing,” she said, “it’s worth remembering.”
    When people are as old as my grandmother, they don’t like new ways of doing things. They soon start talking about their own childhood, and say that wise people leave the world as it is.
    I would like to see how books are made: how the hide is scraped and dried and pumiced and chalked. I’d like to find out which plants make the different-colored inks.
    Oliver says he will talk to my father about taking me to visit the priory at Wenlock. He says there is a writing-room there, and two monks and two novices work in it each day, making copies of the Bible and other books.
    â€œIt is hard work,” he said. “Very hard.”
    â€œSometimes my writing hand aches,” I said.
    â€œThen pray for scribes,” replied Oliver. “Aching wrists and aching elbows; aching necks; aching backs. Their eyes water and grow dim. But make no mistake: each word written to the glory of God is like a hammer blow on the devil’s head. That’s what the blessed Bernard said.”
    What I cannot work out is why my father wants me to read and write so well. I like reading. I like writing. And I would like to see the scribes in their writing-room. But not instead of serving as a squire. A squire, like Serle, and then a knight: That is what I want to be.

14
JUMPERS AND MY WRITING–ROOM
    A STAIRCASE CLIMBS OUT OF OUR HALL. A FLIGHT OF fourteen oak steps winds you round and lifts you up to the gallery.
    The gallery is a good place to stand if you want a lot of people to be able to see you. When the guisers come on Hallowe’en, and when all the villagers crowd in at Christmas and the hall is packed, my father goes up there, and rings