The Brothers Lionheart

A blanket to wrap around me when I had to sleep. A tinderbox to make a fire with. A nosebag full of oats for Fyalar. And a sack of food for myself. Well, I had nothing but bread, but that was the best bread, Sofia’s ring loaves. She’d come over with a whole pile of them, and I stuffed the sack full. That’ll last a long time, I thought, and when it’s all gone, I’ll have to eat grass like the rabbits.

Sofia was going to bring some soup the next day, she had promised, but by then I would already by far away. Poor Sofia, she would have to eat her own soup, but I couldn’t let her just wonder where I’d gone. She would have to know, though not until it was too late. Too late to stop me.

I took a bit of charcoal from the hearth and write in large letters on the kitchen wall: “Someone called me in my dream, and I’ve gone to find him far, far away beyond the mountains.”

I wrote it in that funny way, because I thought that if someone besides Sofia came to Knights Farm, someone snooping, then he wouldn’t know what it meant. He would perhaps think I had tried to write a poem or something. But Sofia would at once understand what I meant; I’m away looking for Jonathan.

I was glad and for once felt really strong and brave. I sang to myself.

“Someone called to me in my dream, and I’ve gone to find him far, far away beyond the mounta-a-a-a-ains,” and oh, how good it sounded. I would have to tell Jonathan all this when I found him, I thought.

If I find him, I thought then. But if I didn’t...

Then my courage ran out of me all at once. I was a little bit of filth again, a scared little bit of filth, as I’d always been. And then I longed for Fyalar as usual. I had to go out to him immediately. That was the only thing that helped a little when I was sad and anxious. How many times had I stood with him in his stall, when I couldn’t bear to be alone? How many times hadn’t it comforted me just to look at his wise eyes and feel that he was warm and his nose was soft? Without Fyalar, I couldn’t have lived though that time when Jonathan was away.