Crossing To Paradise by Kevin Crossley-Holland

Author:Kevin Crossley-Holland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

I’m topsy-turvy and arsy-versy,

Heels in the air,

YZX and BAC.

Mongrel-and-jumbled-and-scrambled-and-tangled.

That’s me!”

The Saracen astronomer laughed.

“Can you hear the stars too?” Gatty asked him.

Before the astronomer could reply, a figure loomed over them in the almost-dark.

“Gatty!” said a voice. “Is that you, Gatty?”

“No,” said Gatty.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” the voice said. “We thought you must have fallen overboard. Help me down.”

Gatty grasped a damp hand, and Nakin plumped down into the little boat. He was carrying a leather flask and immediately took a draught from it.

“Better than the watered stuff the sailors are selling,” he said, and he offered the flask to the astronomer.

The Saracen shook his head. “Alcohol!” he growled. “The work of the devil.”

“As you please,” said Nakin. “Who are you, anyhow?”

The Saracen astronomer courteously inclined his head towards Nakin. “Osman of Trebizond. Now of Byzantium.”

“What names!” cried Gatty. “Zz-zz-zz!”

“Can you smell them?” the astronomer asked her, smiling.

“Smell them?” exclaimed Nakin, and he gave a loud hiccup. “Nakin,” he announced, holding out a hand to the Saracen. “A merchant from Chester.”

“Chester,” Osman repeated. “Yes! Across the Sea of Darkness.”

“God’s own country!” Nakin declared.

“I’ve heard rumors,” Osman said, “that there are scholars in Chester. But Allah knows best what goes on at the ends of the earth.”

“Allah!” barked Nakin.

“What do you mean?” asked Gatty. “Ends of the earth?”

The astronomer smiled and nodded. “Just in a manner of speaking,” he told Gatty, and then he laid two fingers on Nakin’s wrist. “Let us not argue,” he said. “What are the words of that psalm? ‘You made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows when it must set. You bring on darkness and night comes.’ Let us sit together and watch this pale moon climb the slope of the sky. I believe more unites us than separates us.”

Nakin hiccuped again. “Trade,” he said.

For a little while, sitting there, Gatty could hear the moon: a kind of faint, breathy whistling. But all she could smell was salt and pitch and, now and then, the wad of sandalwood the Turk was chewing.

“I’ve heard there are tiles in Chester cathedral,” Osman said, “tiles with leaping and boxing hares on them. The hare is the creature of the moon.”

“Yes,” said Gatty. “I remember. When Lady Gwyneth said she was going to box my ears, Everard told us about them.”

“Everard?”

“He’s the choirmaster,” said Nakin, “at the cathedral. The little man with pink cheeks.”

“He’s teaching me to sing, and to read and write,” Gatty told him.

“Very good,” said Osman, and he stood up and stretched the dark wings of his gown.

Nakin opened his mouth so wide he could almost have swallowed the sky, and yawned noisily. “Time to sleep,” he said. “Come on, Gatty.”

Gatty sensed the astronomer wanted to be alone with the stars, and so she climbed up out of the boat.

Nakin stumbled across to the hatchway. He backed onto the topmost rung of the ladder—but the ladder was not there. With a yell, the merchant fell into the dark hole and landed with a heavy thud on the sacking at the bottom.

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