He was getting near her spot. The forest was quiet in the heat of the day. He moved silently through the undergrowth. He wanted to see her before she saw him. He was still not sure he had the nerve to approach her. Most of all he was afraid of putting her off. He had spoken to her on the very first day he returned to Kingsbridge, the Whitsunday that all the volunteers had come to work on the cathedral, and he had said the wrong thing then, with the result that he had hardly talked to her for four years. He did not want to make a similar blunder now.

A few moments later he peeped around the trunk of a beech tree and saw her.

She had picked an extraordinarily pretty place. There was a little waterfall trickling into a deep pool surrounded by mossy stones. The sun shone on the banks of the pool, but a yard or two back there was shade beneath the beech trees. Aliena sat in the dappled sunlight reading a book.

Jack was astonished. A woman? Reading a book? In the open air? The only people who read books were monks, and not many of them read anything except the services. It was an unusual book, too-much smaller than the tomes in the priory library, as if it had been made specially for a woman, or for someone who wanted to carry it around. He was so surprised that he forgot to be shy. He pushed his way through the bushes and came out into her clearing, saying: “What are you reading?”

She jumped, and looked up at him with terror in her eyes. He realized he had frightened her. He felt very clumsy, and was afraid he had once again started off on the wrong foot. Her right hand flew to her left sleeve. He recalled that she had once carried a knife in her sleeve-perhaps she did still. A moment later she recognized him, and her fear went as quickly as it had come. She looked relieved, and then-to his chagrin-faintly irritated. He felt unwelcome, and he would have liked to turn right around and disappear back into the forest. But that would have made it difficult to speak to her another time, so he stayed, and faced her rather unfriendly look, and said: “Sorry I frightened you.”

“You didn’t frighten me,” she said quickly.

He knew that was not true, but he was not going to argue with her. He repeated his initial question. “What are you reading?”

She glanced down at the bound volume on her knee, and her expression changed again: now she looked wistful. “My father got this book on his last trip to Normandy. He brought it home for me. A few days later he was put in jail.”

Jack edged closer and looked at the open page. “It’s in French!” he said.

“How do you know?” she said in astonishment. “Can you read?”

“Yes-but I thought all books were in Latin.”

“Nearly all. But this is different. It’s a poem called ‘The Romance of Alexander.’ ”

Jack was thinking: I’m really doing it-I’m talking to her! This is wonderful! But what am I going to say next? How can I keep this going? He said: “Um… well, what’s it about?”

“It’s the story of a king called Alexander the Great, and how he conquered wonderful lands in the east where precious stones grow on grapevines and plants can talk.”

Jack was sufficiently intrigued to forget his anxiety. “How do the plants talk? Do they have mouths?”

“It doesn’t say.”

“Do you think the story is true?”

She looked at him with interest, and he stared into her beautiful dark eyes. “I don’t know,” she said. “I always wonder whether stories are true. Most people don’t care-they just like the stories.”

“Except for the priests. They always think the sacred stories are true.”

“Well of course they are true.”

Jack was as skeptical of the sacred stories as he was of all the others; but his mother, who had taught him skepticism, had also taught him to be discreet, so he did not argue. He was trying not to look at Aliena’s bosom, which was just at the edge of his vision: he knew that if he dropped his eyes she would know what he was looking at. He tried to think of something else to say. “I know a lot of stories,” he said. “I know ‘The Song of Roland,’ and ‘The Pilgrimage of William of Orange’-”

“What do you mean, you know them?”

“I can recite them.”

“Like a jongleur?”

“What’s a jongleur?”

“A man who goes around telling stories.”

That was a new concept to Jack. “I never heard of such a man.”

“There are lots in France. I used to go overseas with my father when I was a child. I loved the jongleurs.”

“But what do they do? Just stand on the street and speak?”

“It depends. They come into the lord’s hall on feast days. They perform at markets and fairs. They entertain pilgrims outside churches. Great barons sometimes have their own jongleur.”

It occurred to Jack that not only was he talking to her, but he was having a conversation he could not have had with any other girl in Kingsbridge. He and Aliena were the only people in the town, apart from his mother, who knew about French romance poems, he was sure. They had an interest in common, and they were discussing it. The thought was so exciting that he lost track of what they were saying and he felt confused and stupid.

Fortunately she carried on. “Usually the jongleur plays the fiddle while he recites the story. He plays fast and high when there’s a battle, slow and sweet when two people are in love, jerky for a funny part.”

Jack liked that idea: background music to enhance the high points of the story. “I wish I could play the fiddle,” he said.

“Can you really recite stories?” she said.

He could hardly believe she was really interested in him, asking him questions about himself! And her face was even lovelier when it was animated by curiosity. “My mother taught me,” he said. “We used to live in the forest, just the two of us. She told me the stories again and again.”

“But how can you remember them? Some of them take days to tell.”

“I don’t know. It’s like knowing your way through the forest. You don’t keep the whole forest in your mind, but wherever you are, you know where to go next.” Glancing at the text of her book again, he was struck by something. He sat on the grass next to her to look more closely. “The rhymes are different,” he said.

She was not sure what he meant. “In what way?”

“They’re better. In ‘The Song of Roland,’ the word sword rhymes with horse, or lost, or with ball. In your book, sword rhymes with horde but not with horse; lord but not loss; board but not ball. It’s a completely different way of rhyming. But it’s better, much better. I like these rhymes.”

“Would you…” She looked diffident. “Would you tell me some of ‘The Song of Roland’?”

Jack shifted his position a little so that he could look at her. The intensity of her look, the sparkle of eagerness in her bewitching eyes, gave him a choking feeling. He swallowed hard, then began.

The lord and king of all France, Charles the Great

Has spent seven long years fighting in Spain.

He has conquered the highlands and the plain.

Before him not a single fort remains,

No town or city wall for him to break,

But Saragossa, on a high mountain

Ruled by King Marsilly the Saracen.

He serves Mahomed, to Apollo prays,

But even there he never will be safe.

Jack paused, and Aliena said: “You know it! You really do! Just like a jongleur!”

“You see what I mean about the rhymes, though.”

“Yes, but it’s the stories I like, anyway,” she said. Her eyes twinkled with delight. “Tell me some more.”

Jack felt as if he would faint with happiness. “If you like,” he said weakly. He looked into her eyes and began the second verse.