The Falconer's Daughter - Liz Lyles Page 0,19

Awkwardly he pulled the covers up around her, his voice uneven. “Go to sleep, Cordaella. It is too late for this.” He patted the covers down before standing up. She closed her eyes. “That’s right,” he said approvingly, “Sleep now or Mrs. Penny will take the strap to all of us.”

Cordaella kept her eyes shut until she heard his steps retreat across the nursery floor. She had been here two weeks and it seemed like forever. Everything was so new, so strange that it was still difficult to sleep in this room with these people. Her cousins. They were supposed to be her people—kin—but they didn’t feel like anybody she had ever known. Cordaella listened to Philip climb back into his bed, his eleven-year-old body still skinny, all pointy elbows and knees, and she remembered his gangly walk and the odd way he ducked his head when he laughed.

She wanted to smile because there was something funny about Philip, a nice funny, but she wouldn’t let herself. She was too angry at being brought here, too angry at what happened to her father. Not wanting to think anymore, Cordaella turned onto her stomach and buried her face in her pillow. Against the black of her eyelidsm and the dark of her mind she saw the rocks, and the rocks were dark red.

*

BY NIGHT, THE nursery served as a bedchamber for the children. By day it became a schoolroom, lunchroom and playroom. Now, in the early hours of the afternoon, it was a schoolroom and the tutor from London—a young man recently completing studies at Queen’s College—was assisting Philip in translating a Greek poem into English.

“It is the new development,” he was saying to the boy, “this resurgence of interest in the Anglo-Saxon language. Since early time, historians and poets have written in Latin. Latin is the universal language of Europe and the educated people. But now, more serious works have begun appearing in translation.”

“In English?” Philip asked.

“Not just English, but many vernaculars—French, Italian, German. And some very modern authors have recently composed in English, like the Londoner, Geoffrey Chaucer, and William Langland, who wrote Piers Plowman.”

Cordaella lifted her head from her book. “Then why do we not read in English?”

The tutor considered her for a moment in surprise. So far in his instruction, she had never asked a question, never directly addressed him. After two and a half months he was almost shocked to hear her speak.

She repeated the question. “If there are books in English, why do we not read them?” It was, to her, a perfectly logical question. It seemed ridiculous to learn Latin only to read a book which might already be available in English. She was sure that if the Latin verse could be translated into English verse, Latin prose could also be translated into English prose.

The tutor, Simon Pole, sniffed. “Only the common people,” he said, giving her a meaningful look, “need books in English.”

“But why?” she interrupted. “Why do the common people need books at all if—as you say—they cannot read and do not need to read?”

Philip lifted his head quickly up and to the side as he was wont to do when amused. He would have laughed, but he was embarrassed by his laugh, and instead he covered his mouth, his head bobbing silently and his eyes, light gray like Cordaella’s, creased.

Mr. Pole shot a reproving glance in Philip’s direction before turning his hard gaze on the younger girl. “Some common people read.”

Elisabeth closed her book. “Even you can now read,” she said coldly.

Cordaella glanced from Elisabeth to the tutor. She thought the entire argument was stupid. Why should some people read one kind of book and others read another? It would be far simpler if all books were the same. “If I learn to read in Latin—”

“You are already learning to read in Latin,” the tutor corrected impatiently.

“Yes,” she answered, “but if I read in Latin, may I still read in English?”

“Why would you want to read in English if you could read in Latin?”

“Perhaps there are books in English that will not be translated into Latin—”

“For example?” He sighed, exhausted and nervous.

“The Londoner.”

“Chaucer?”

She nodded. “Yes. If he was English and wrote his poems in English, why should they be translated into Latin? An Englishman ought to be able to read his own language. Isn’t that so?”

Simon rubbed his forehead anxiously. “But there are those in Denmark or Portugal who might want to read Chaucer. Thus, a Latin translation of Chaucer would