CHAPTER XLI: LIBERTY

     Liberty is the goddess gull that flies constantly over your sea, but it rarely perches; it is born without a cradle, for all men, for whoever wants with courage to take it; it grows up in shocks and many times it withers; and if it lives, it can be born and die as that malnourished infant who does not survive a few days, but once it is known and reached, you can live your entire life with its lighthouse. There I was, Liberty, a captive of your wings, considering what I already had in a long period of reflection. I did not need any more mirrors to know that I would stay forever next to my mates. And fear had given way to a shocking bird, with repaired wings, of love for Lucy and Luke which now I needn’t hide. Those days from the end of October I started to deliberate. I recalled an advice of my beloved girl who recommended me to meditate on the first part of the enigma and only if I was able to solve it, see if I could accept the second and finally the third part. This day 21 was still unexpected summer, but the next day cold and rain returned and the clouds in my mind persisted when my musings began seriously, but I could reach nowhere.

   While Lucy walked in the street, Luke took the opportunity to swim awhile at the lake ─that weekend that was our way of washing─ and meanwhile I spent the morning with the little king, but I hardly spoke to him. I tried to remember the old tales that my grandfather had taught me, intending to tell him one day, whether I accepted him or not as my son. But finally Lucy came from the street. She had brought sparsely any food, but something we ate. Later, at about 3, my mate and I left. We had to deal now with dinner. We walked down Damascus Road. I had suggested that, since today it was a holiday, we could go to St Mark. There we were, without much luck, for a couple of hours. My thought was divided between the memory of the Virgin who was a mirror of Margaret Prancitt and the strange feeling to go for the first time to the street with my mate, both in love. But Luke read me as usual.

  ─ "I can see what you're thinking, Nike, but even if you didn't know, it is not the first time. The road back we have always done in love. And the road there every day but that moving October 4 when I still did not love you, but you were teaching me to love you. Whatever we do in our lives, rest at least of fear. A beggar like you, My Mate, does not deserve it. Let us love each other in Liberty and let us feel new sensations."

   Mental rest. Passion. It was strange to walk with him like that, but he was right.

─ "We have not kissed yet. And I really wish to. But a former son of a bitch tells you that the street is not the best place ─he said, nearly shivering at the memory of that kiss that he had surprised from Miguel and John which was going to get his fate sealed─. We will one night in our outskirt, if you're ready."

─ "Luke, of course I would like to: I love you. But I have not yet begun to meditate and it does not seem correct to me. Give me some time."

   The right thing would be that he kept his kisses for his wife. And even if I meditated better with the cold and started the next day, an icy wind invaded me and took me back to believing that I was a stain for them and terrified I was frightened to think that because of me they could separate.

    But it was a fruitless afternoon that of St Mark. We were not long until Luke suggested that perhaps we should try our luck in the Basilica. I accepted and we arrived on time for the 6 o'clock mass. Among the beggars who that afternoon were at the top of the stairway you could see Vera and Enoch. We said hello with affection and we stood in the immediately lower treads. They looked really in love and Vera did not seem jealous to see the continuous "photos" that Enoch took for his album "beautiful girls", perhaps because in them Vera always had several pages with superb portraits. But our harvest hardly improved that day and I had seen Luke before walking with difficulty. So I said:

─ "I may have a small sprain and although I could get home, there is another possibility. With what little we have today, we will be hungry, and there is something that still my mate does not know. Nike, we could spend the night at the RASH"

   I wanted to be like them and had I to know everything, so soon we arrived at the RASH. Not very fast, because Luke walked slowly and with difficulties and did not let me help him: I would have carried him on my shoulders. There was a large queue of beggars that day, but we still had hopes to get some food and a room. In fact ten or twelve beggars entered behind us, until the door closed with a funeral noise. While we were waiting, Luke startled me:

─ "I have just thought about it, Nike; note that nothing is casual with us. And at this moment I shudder thinking that my name is after all just the beginning and the end of your names: the first two letters of the woman of my life and the two last letters of yours, let me say the man of my life. So, once again, everything was written."

   I was shocked. Since then I wonder whether chance there is, but the words were changing my life. And the universe I don't know, but my universe was moving on stars and names, now also on syllables.

   My first impressions of the RASH were dark and cold. It came through foreign channels, through the windows, through fireplaces. I hoped sheets would be a better shelter. Gloomy hallways, low lighting and a ramshackle atmosphere on the dirty walls and the meager furniture, old and moth-eaten. But in autumn, you get rid of visiting strangers. All kinds of vermin, including rats - I remembered Miguel and his phobia─ swarm there in summer without any control.

   We were welcomed by a woman, also blonde and voluptuous, called Marilyn Mart. Once they had named her before me and the successive beggars that I started to know continued naming her with affection. She had a reputation for friendly and a good listener and thus she earned everybody’s trust. I felt bad when I saw that for no reason she only made me suspicious. I looked at my mate and I found that he had the same feeling. We gave our names and some more data and then she gave us room 60, sixth floor, without elevator. Sexagesimal system again, I smiled. It could not be otherwise. We went to the dining room, on the left.

   After a dark corridor, we entered the dining-room and we sat at a table at the back, with no tablecloth. That day we were lucky. Sometimes you have to share it with other beggars. We waited for about a quarter of an hour and finally we got a single dish, fish, hake, I think. But there was also a dessert. Something sweet, maybe custard. I told my mate, as excusing myself, the impression I had got from Marilyn.

─ "Nike, I don't know why, but I don't like that woman. Ah – he sighed─ it is in the little she says. Some hints or winks make me believe that Marilyn knows that I've been a bald man, and that troubles me. Of course anyone can have told her, it is very natural, but she speaks to me sometimes as if we had some kind of complicity. I'm not quiet. They may be natural misgivings after what I was. But I think about some little incidents and... ─and when I looked at him inquisitive, he went on─, small thefts, an offence or aggression of little importance... I don't know. Marilyn earns people’s trust easily. Some can speak too much. But I don't want to scare you. Don't look at me thus. It is only my impression."

   But it was also my impression and I can only say that I also walked gingerly with her. I tried to avoid her and in any case I did not talk much to her. But then I changed the subject.

─ "I did not tell you yesterday, My Mate, that John showed me the constellation of Leo, teaching me to recognize its stars, and that you can see Regulus now."

    I didn't tell him that I had the disturbing impression that his star was pretty close to mine and somewhat far from that of his wife.

─ "And you can also see Lucy’s star, Algieba, and Denebola, yours."

─ "And Zosma. Whatever we are on Earth, in the skies we really are together. Our hearts are already a constellation. I want to see them all, but especially Regulus. “

─ "You can see them just an instant before dawn and even in the Village light pollution would make it impossible for us to see them. But if you are able to walk, we could get up at 5 and go up Knights Hill or perhaps walk down Umbra Terrae."

  Luke found it a good idea and we agreed that his mental alarm clock would work again to wake us up at 5. We finished dinner without much more conversation and we went to the room 60.

   They had not even taken care that the two beds, we had to sleep two in each room, were of the same size. Luke was ahead of me when he entered and was already at the bottom, where the largest bed was. Then he asked me tenderly in which one I preferred to sleep.

─ "In this one, Luke."

─ "Why?" – He asked curious.

─ "Chronological order, My Mate. The biggest one must be for you. You have been on the street longer than me and..."

─ "Only eleven months, Nike. I've not even been one year. But I have interrupted you."

─ "Nothing important. I was also going to say that you're closer."

─ "Okay, My Mate. I give up with you. And you're not going to know the RASH with a little altercation about the beds. I only tell you that if the beds are also uneven another day you would sleep in the biggest one, as long as you don't decide that we sleep together."

   Yes, it was true that we slept together, in separate beds, for the first time. It was inappropriate. He should sleep next to his wife, not yet my wife. In these conditions, it was difficult to sleep. But soon I was deep asleep, while my first experience in the RASH made me conceive an idea that I will also tell you.

   At about five Luke woke me up. We got dressed, had breakfast and finally left the RASH in the direction of Knights Hill. My mate walked well then and preferred this outskirt to see the star of his son from the place where he was conceived.

   We crossed Knights Bridge and soon we reached the Hill. It was more or less the hour of the morning twilight, but Leo was already in the skies. Luke was speechless, with wet eyes. The vision of his son as a bright star had touched him. He insisted that Lucy should also see it and one day the three of us should get up early, make a fire and watch it together. I think that time was stopped while we were there, frozen stiff. And even the morning twilight was trembling. It was not more than ten minutes, but we did not talk, like devoted people at a solemn mass watching our altar, taking communion with harmony.


 

   But just then I decided to leave. I had spent half the afternoon with the Protch and I still wanted to beg for a while. The next day, now February 23, still the colour of spring, they both met me in the living room. Maudie looked calm in the midst of her everyday anxiety. I knew that there was no news, and that was reassuring, about her brother. She had a coffee ready for me with some pastries; and I, finally docile to their kindness, began to eat without no objection. Protch, standing at the window watching the street, walked certain to his chair, warmly inviting me to continue. And so I did. With my soul again erupting in sobs, I watched Jupiter’s face again.

 ─I think I must tell you something about the RASH, about which, later, I would give my opinion to Bruce, but I don't know what you might think. Maybe I have described it pejoratively, but they were my first observations. Not everything in my life is worthy. But to sleep there was an important lesson for something that I did later.

─Nike, I will respect your rhythms, as my husband has respected them –Maudie said─ but certain ideas come to my mind.

─I thank you for your patience, Maudie. But believe in your intuition. It seems to me that you find out things before you are told. However, I notice that whether you can see or not what I started to think about, your husband is still in the dark.

─Thanks to both. But it is not necessary for you to enlighten me – he said then─. I can wait. And how much better it is for me that things surprise me when they arrive.


 

   Still absorbed in the lights of the sky, we went down the hill with good speed. For Luke it was easier to go up than down and we descended with some difficulty. He decided to follow the path of the river, down the outskirts, and with slow but certain steps, we finally reached home. Three of our mates were sitting around the fire, since Olivia had had breakfast and had returned to her tent to finish reading The Three Musketeers, which her daughter had lent her, so that they would finally return it to James Prancitt, even if he was in no hurry to recover it. He knew well that in the Torn Hand they were good readers and took good care of the books they were lent. There were then my mate Bruce, calmly smoking on the left, and John, meditative and silent on the right, who left shortly after greeting us. And Lucy, sitting opposite with the rising sun bathing her hair with liquid gold, who looked at us. I dared to speak to her of love before Luke.

─ "Lucy, my heart, since I am aware that I love you, I always see you like that, with a golden crown that makes you a queen at dawn or at any time, always illuminated, at least in my heart."

─ "Thank you, my heart – she answered─. Luke calls me openly now Daughter of the Earth. Who am I to deserve such a high title? But you can see that for the other man of my life I am The Daughter of the Sun".

   I have always called her thus, in addition to my heart, and my mates, including Luke, reserve me this vocative for her and they have never used it. We sat and talked about our night in the RASH. They had already assumed that we had spent the night there. Bruce liked walking and would go today to Evendale and even perhaps dared to reach Fairfields. But before he left us three diplomatically alone, he asked archly my opinion about the shelter.

─ "And don't be afraid to give your opinion, Nike. Everyone here avoids it if we can. Even the most solitary beggars of the city go their own way and do not go there unless it is strictly necessary to alleviate hunger and cold."

─ "That is all that matters, Bruce – I did not want to be unfair─. Too dark and somewhat dirty, perhaps, but it performs well these two functions for extreme days. Although I prefer a thousand times to be somewhat hungry or cold and watch your faces, framed with stars."

    It was clear that they shared my opinion. Bruce went away and at the bonfire were Lucy, Luke and I, almost for the first time the three of us alone, almost in silence, leaving our three hearts, smiles, looks and gestures, usurp our voices. I spoke little more besides telling Lucy that one morning she should get up early with her husband and me to see the star Regulus. Agreeing with Luke that if in the afternoon he was not able to walk, I will go to the street alone, I stood up and started to walk towards the Thuban.

   Every morning, as long as Miguel was absent, I stopped on the façade following the same ritual: I wanted to see Castor along with his twin Pollux and perhaps it was silly, but I calmed down seeing them always together. Norman Wrathfall’s health was the main topic of conversation. He did not seem to recover and we almost prayed so that he had a peaceful transit. Of the rest I only remember that Samuel Weissmann came to my office to tell me that an hour later he was going to invite me to a coffee, for he wanted to talk to me. I trembled at the thought that I should now inform my friends of the Thuban of so many things... So I took the liberty of going down to the bar. I should first talk with Richard.

   Just saying hello to him, I saw little I would have to tell him because my transparent face betrayed me as usual.

─ "Today I can see in your eyes a new light. It shows happiness, Nike."

─ "It has been a strange weekend, Richard. I have so much to tell you. First I was in a great despair. But Luke loves me. I don't know where to start."

─ "Perhaps it would be good that it was me who started. I must tell you I knew that, Nike - and seeing my obvious surprise, he went on─. I had not told you anything because Luke told me that he would immediately tell you and you would be reassured. That morning he was here in the bar he was very sincere. As I expected, you are in good hands. You can now embrace the goddess friendship with him and the goddess, I guess it is goddess, love. This weekend I've been pondering: because he loves you, but what about Lucy?"

─ "It might be crazy, Richard, but I also love her. I suspect that there are things that you still don't know. I will try to summarize."

   Discovering suddenly that I also loved her, her son miraculously talking and saying inadequate words, wandering desperate down the alder grove, Luke who found me and rescued me with his tenderness, The Cave of Beggar Sally and The Beggar of the Golden Cradle - the story of my life, which I promised to tell him one other day─ and everything that came after that: Lucy also loved me, the chance that the three of us joined, Paul might be my son, Luke as a giant proposing me to have a child with Lucy and it would be our second child, that of the three... I wasn't used to summarize but I told him all this in less than half an hour.

─ "But I still see you with fear, Nike. Now you are afraid how I can react. I only knew that Luke loved you, but not everything else. Too much unexpected information. But I will digest it. Meanwhile, hug me, Nike. I'm with you whatever happens. I wanted you to find a little happiness."

   We embraced intensely but the conversation had to be stopped there. Samuel Weissmann had just arrived. But we agreed that he would come to the Torn Hand twice a month if I went to his home other two times, alone or with Lucy, Luke or whoever I would like to go with. Since then your cousin and I, as well as every day on the Thuban, see each other every week, Protch.

  That morning the bar was hardly crowded and Samuel and I found a table next to the kitchen and speaking in a low voice we had sufficient privacy.

─ "I will not have a work conversation with you, Nike – he began─, but if you allow me, it will be a personal conversation. And I have to start apologizing for not having told you anything before or because now I am not going to refer everything your mate and I talked the day I met him. And you must forgive him for having told me things that you must have known later. But there is a reason: for Prancitt it was very important to be as nude as possible before someone "on the other side," he said to me, to explain to what extent he loved you and didn’t want to make you suffer. Sooner or later he would make you know what he made me know. Since then I have been wondering whether I should tell you something and this morning when I saw you enter, your face told me that you already knew. So the question is, Nike, have you already decided anything?"

─ "Forgive me, Samuel – I asked restless─ what is exactly the question?"

─ "Ok. Either of us must be the first to name it and I repeat that your face is telling me. Anyway, decide if you prefer to talk to me about anything. I respect you well enough to understand that you can prefer to keep silent. Let’s see. Besides confessing to me that he loved you, he assured me that he would make you one day... say... a proposal in three parts. Just answer me this, if you want: has Luke already made it?"

─ "Yes" - I replied. And I didn't know what else to say.

─ "Nike, believe me, I am just trying to calm you, you must not fear me, I already know. And whatever your decision is, you are going to continue to count on me. The three of you - and he mentioned the number─, or if we continue calculating, the four or the five. Do you understand me now?"

─ "Now I understand that you already know and we are talking about the same thing. And it is true that I was afraid to talk to the people "on the other side". One thing is that you have shown me, and you keep doing it, that we are friends, and another thing is to accept all this madness. I have not given any answer yet, and this afternoon I was going to start meditating. But tell me the truth, Sam - I called him thus for the first time─, isn't it all nonsense?"

─ "I only see that your happiness is in it and you do not dare to take it because you revere them. Is it not so, Nike?"

─ "Everything would have been different if we had fallen in love with one another all three almost at the same time. But they have been together for a year, they love each other and I am not able to go beyond. It is a moving image and I don't want it to break because of my unstable heart. I show them openly that I love them. But I don't know whether that will be enough."

─ "I still think that it is people like you that I really want to know. Thank you for your sincerity, my friend. This coffee had the only aim to make you see that also "on this side" you will have people who will hear you as far as your thoughts progress. And, I will say it openly, with one or two children too. Count on me, Nike, and on Richard Protch, who I guess also knows─, I nodded - because any decision you take, you can tell me, for I will always be on your side supporting you. Lately you've made tough decisions, but now your happiness depends only on you. You continue earning everybody’s respect. Whatever you do, it is a pleasure to have met you. If you need to talk, or think aloud, call your friend Sam and we will talk. And nothing else. I am leaving now. Be happy in life, Nike."

─ "Thank you, Sam." – I hardly had time to tell him as he was leaving. Richard and Samuel were on my side. I had watched Anne-Marie all morning, but I dared not say anything. I feared this time she would reproach me. Time passed and I was not able to speak to her. It would be the next day, when she would unexpectedly visit us in our outskirt.

   Back to the Torn Hand, I wanted to reach an agreement with Luke and go alone but he said he no longer limped, except downhill and I could not convince him. I soon realized that he was telling the truth. Lucy had had a good day, despite the cold. It was drizzling and my mate and I left with umbrellas, today southbound.

   I did not know The Holy Ghost Church yet and I suggested Luke to go there. Countless narrow streets lead to a square where stands, as you know, almost an exact copy of the Basilica, but anchored in the south, in the busy Riverside, and a single tower. There were very few people and it was a rainy day but the afternoon was good for us, which made me be particularly taciturn. Luke, who sensed that I was meditating, helped with his silence, scarcely interrupted by some shocking "my love" and some banal conversation.

   My mind was, like the square, a labyrinth of narrow, long, huge, streets that had no mouth. I had spent that weekend showing them my love and I did not know whether it was enough. I wanted to briefly imagine all three of us together, but I went cold. The snapshot of them two fired so much shine that my dirty silhouette only darkened them. I remembered Luke’s words: "the two people you love are loving each other", and its immense happiness filled me. With that alone I was already happy. It is true that jumping toward the Three I would be much happier. Or sadder, whispered me an inner imp. It was also true that I had been educated too well or too bad in the persistent idea that a couple is two people. Where have you seen that three people can join even if they all love one another? In the end I could not go beyond the idea that being three was such a free notion and so revolutionary that it would end up failing. There were no precedents that could guide me. We had our own laws indeed but this was breaking all traditions. Not only that day, but all that was left of October, my mind was lost in that cul-de-sac. The afternoon was passing and it was being unexpectedly good and finally well supplied, in love but taciturn, we returned home. In the bonfire that night I agreed with Lucy that on Saturday we should three wake up to see the constellation of Leo, then I would go with her to the street while Luke took care of Paul, and later, as my mate was in the street, I would tell her the tale of her husband while we both would take care of the little king on Meander Bridge. There I was also looking at Olivia and I thought I could not decide anything before I had a sincere conversation with her, because she was directly involved. The same as James Prancitt, I suddenly thought. Olivia spoke very little but in her crystal eyes you could only read affection. Those days she must be going through the same I was going through.

   Of the next day I would not have anything to tell you if it were not for the unexpected visit of Anne-Marie. She came at night to bring a new letter from Miguel. Luke and I had not returned yet and when we did, we got news that they were both walking. Anne-Marie must be showing him her friendship, which I had not done. I had so much to ponder that I feared that he spoke to me about Miguel and I could fill his head with Lucy and Luke. While awaiting his return I knew that Miguel had told him that his father's situation did not worsen but neither did it improve and that for the time being he remained in Cádiz. This I knew later, but they soon returned.

   Something must have noticed Anne-Marie in my face, for she suggested a new walk. We were half an hour walking down the alder grove.

─ "I have not taken care of John as much as I would have liked to. He must have noticed my encouragement, but I have barely spoken with him. Look, I know you will not like what I'm going to say, but my life has changed this weekend. And I am afraid to tell you because I fear your criticisms, but soon you will find out, especially if I say yes. But I still have not said yes. This I have to think."

   Down the dark, at that time, roads of the alder grove, I was informing her of the latest news and of that weekend, so strange. I was afraid of her reply, but it wasn't so terrible.

─ "Nike, I have been for months trying to make you see that one day you will repent. But you have spent half a month here and I can see you’re still here. You're really stubborn, but it seems that so far you have been right. Anyway, what you have just told me... I will not say much, just that I insist that it seems crazy to me. It has been months for me to assume that you loved Luke, and now you say you also love Lucy. You know that I am slow. Perhaps one day I understand. But the three of you together and having two children... it makes no sense and I repeat: one day you will repent. It may not succeed. Actually I was wrong once with you. It may well be that I err again. But if I've learnt anything it is that with all your silly things I cannot help but love you. Do not fear me, Nike. Now I have to think about all this."

   We said little more, but the important thing was that I had already told her. That day she didn’t stay long and I was there with my mates, noticing that they hardly talked to me because they did not want to interrupt my thoughts. But they looked at me fondly. And it was curious: in their faces I think I could see that they believed that I would sooner or later accept. The only certainty is that my place already was always together to Lucy and Luke, at the bonfire on the place where the stars are born.

   For three days I have nothing to tell you. My thoughts were rivers that could not find their sea. And so we arrived at Saturday 27. I had already gone to the street with Luke and Bruce. That day it was my turn to go with Lucy. Luke’s mental watch was ready to wake me up at a quarter to five. Out of my tent I saw them two sitting next to the bonfire and I was moved when both said good morning to me kissing me on the cheek. They were facing east and I sat with them in the same position. I prepared the coffee and I saw that prodigy again. At that time Luke’s star and mine were not visible, but you could see that of Lucy, that of Paul and that of a possible second child, but seeing Algieba, Luke and I said at the same time:

─ "There you are, Lucy."

   But she, as we had felt before, stopped her moist eyes in Regulus, and I, the third time that I saw it, couldn't help but being moved again.

   Three little kings had to bite me, I told Protch one day, and if you still cannot see them, they have been a basilisk, little Paul, and now watching the star Regulus, with its master light making us see it. With these three snakes I've been crawling in life.  

─ "And I still have to see the two men of my life," she said.

  We didn't have to wait too long. Denebola and Zosma appeared shortly after, and the sky stretched joyful.

─ "It is moving – Lucy continued─. I am convinced that I am seeing the picture of what we will be. Fear not, Nike: sorry if I speak too soon, but my mind already knows, as the sky knows we are already together. The universe follows a harmony, but Leo will not be possible without you."

   There were things that no longer scared me, but I said nothing. I did not know where my thoughts would end but I saw increasingly clearer that these dawns with them would be longer, we would kiss and not only to say good morning, we would cry and laugh together, they were in me, I would be myself with them. The three of us remained silent and we stopped silently to watch that celestial show and for the first time, seeing the five stars, I understood Mistress Oakes reading the Tarot: "one will turn into five." Only then I assumed it. I trembled, but I was not scared anymore. I realized that I would evolve because of having lost fear. There was a time for fear, but now the days of harmony began. We were there until the sun sailed again on the ecliptic of Lucy’s hair. She suggested leaving at about 9. I told her that we would go where she suggested and she was talking to me about the Village, not only the churches, and finally the Basilica. I agreed to go for the first time with her where I had gone with him.

   I spent a couple of hours reading, and since it was a warm morning, on the threshold of my tent, sometimes distracted by the beautiful picture that I could see in front. Paul in Luke’s arms and Lucy and her husband playing with him. I thought that it wouldn't be right to be the one to break that image.

   But the time came to go to the street with Lucy. She explained to me how since August she had felt the desire to go with me but she never forgot Luke, and more than once she expressed to me how much she loved him. And I went on her side concentrated in her beauty and at times taciturn. We were walking the streets talking about recent events and I asked my mate to tell me something of how her life had been. But she told me to wait to be sitting in a square. She decided that our first stop would be in St John’s Gospel. There we were about two hours in that fruitless October morning. Then she began to tell me the story which I have already told you.

─ "About my birth, you know that I was born the same day as Luke and you, the same month, same year, but as my mother told me I was separated from you for ten minutes, five from Luke. In our case, Nike, you first, Luke second and I third, reversing our chronological order. Of course I was not aware, but I was born in the street, on Knights Hill, in a time when my mother was between Mistress Merton and Miss McDawn. Yes, that surname is familiar to you. Brenda McDawn was Miguel's aunt. The first six years of my life I had a so-called second life, because I spent them in a home with good food and clean and warm sheets."

    So that morning was not entirely fruitless and in that square I knew the ups and downs of her childhood while I at times was absent-minded because she was in a position in which the sun was wheat again on her hair. She spoke of her early years at Brenda’s, of how her mother found herself on the street again and how they had met Mistress Oakes and our galaxy began to take shape with her close friend and mate and how her mother, unknowingly, was again happy and sheltered. And I was impressed that being nine she knew, the youngest one, her motif by Verôme. Chance encounter with a man who she did not know who said he was her uncle Gerald, who told her that she had a grandmother who was dying and wanted to see her, visit Hunter’s Arrows and kisses and tenderness with her unknown grandmother Linda, last hours of hers and great temptation to get out of the street or receive a considerable inheritance. Return to her life and check that her mother would die if she was taken away of Mistress Oakes. Say nothing and only remember her uncle Gerald's address and follow the ups and downs of him in life. More or less there she stopped.

─ "Nike, the morning has not been good so far. We have been here for two hours and not a single coin. We could move to St Mary. The mass must have already finished but there are more people"

   I accepted and we tried our luck in the main church of the Village. There Lucy would tell me her adolescence and youth. But before that she would surprise me with a comment:

─ "My mate of the sun. I'm going to have to call you like that. Now you are the one placed in such a way that its light is bathing you so if golden was your cradle, golden must also be your recent steps and love has given a shade of dark blond beauty to your hair."

   I was going to say something when the first coins rained on us, on her first and a few seconds later on me. The story was repeated. It was another white-haired lady. 20 dains too. Of course she was not my first alms giver. I remembered her well: her features, her hair, the color of her dress. However our flow was still insufficient.

   There I knew from her years of youth and her slow evolution towards maturity. But we were suddenly interrupted by a tall, blond, beggar whose face seemed punished by years of drunken destruction. He greeted Lucy as if he had known her his entire life.

─ "Hello, Lucy, darling. How do you do?"

─ "On the street with a mate. He is called Nicholas, but we call him Nike. And how are you, Ephraim? It is strange for me to see you without Jessy."

─ "She is visiting a relative and I came alone. I miss her, but it is only one day. With her my life is bearable and I am now rehabilitated."

   I've never been a jealous man and I didn’t mind he called her darling. The morning was going well for this Ephraim and the conversation continued for about ten minutes. It seemed that this beggar was matched with one Jessica Parker and I listened with attention, wanting to know something about every beggar I knew. Lucy did not tell me, but for many reasons I assumed that also for this beggar alcohol had been, or was, a scourge. Finally he went away well provided for him and his partner and I asked Lucy about him.

─ "His name is Ephraim Hugg, and I have known him all my life. His mother’s life was ruined by alcohol and she found herself in the street, and I have known her son since he was 15 years old. He is older than me, but we are almost equal and we used to share laughter and games. His mother was charming when she was sober and she was tender and a good teacher. She had been a hairdresser and she was the one who taught me the craft. You can reproach me, Nike, because I have never worked, but I decided that as long as my mother and Mistress Oakes lived, I had to share their life."

─ "And who am I to reproach you, my heart? We are all caught by all, and now I feel the same as you. John told me about a trap, he did, and there we eight are, but I think all of us are happy"

─ "So it seems to me, Polar Star. You have always seen us as we see ourselves - and looking at me for a few seconds, she added─. Soon I will have to do your hair, but not yet. Nike, what do you think of moving to the Basilica? There I will tell you what I am sure you want to hear: how Luke came into my life and how I fell in love with him."

   I thought it was a great idea and we walked there. Approaching the RASH I saw that it was full of beggars. It was already one o’clock and lunch hour was close. But it was noon and whatever the day was for us today we did not have to sleep there.

   The Basilica was packed with poor people who exhausted the warm noon. They occupied the grand staircase, the sidewalks. We sat practically in the same place as I had been sitting with Luke on October 4. And even the Trelawney couple was there and shortly afterwards came Gwenda.

   There she told me how she had met Luke, how he had cried, remorseful in his first conversation with her while Lucy gave him clothes inside her tent, still not in love, the decision to have a child together, Luke's resolution to stay there with her, with them. Olivia’s acquiescence. Her story was just as he had told me in every detail. And then? Months of tenderness and love coming in a twilight in March under Wrathfall Bridge, wounds that were opened with him to not ever heal, naked in a not too warm night, between clouds of cotton, love just discovered and the scarce wind as a soft music that never faded and continued to be heard, a lullaby for accompanying a love that I wanted eternal. And she even had time to tell me that in August the passion for a man called Nike had started, one who was going to shake her life again. And there she stopped.

─ "Thank you, my heart. One other day I will tell you my story. But not today. Today I have to tell you Luke’s tale, so that we shall not forget him, so that you love him more every day. You know what, my heart? I like the fact that on my first day on the street with you we have not got anything either. We have Luke. He must be waiting for us. Shall we go back?"

   So a poetic fate had wanted my first day with her to be alike my first day with him. Back in our outskirt, so we told Luke, who rejoiced that our common story was beginning. From that October 27, I'm going with her often to the street. One day each weekend in the morning with her and on weekdays in the afternoon with my mate.

   Luke left giving us both another kiss on the cheek. Now he had to get something more for the three. In this we were already a society. We were in charge of Paul, and in his mother's arms, we walked with no hurry towards Meander Bridge.

─ "I don't know whether I will tell someone else, but in any case you have to be the first, and it should be seen how much Luke loves us, and while he is fighting in the street for three, he is here with us. Whatever I am able to decide, love that man forever."

─ "Fear not, my mate of the sun, I will always love him. Tell me about his beauty."

   I started to tell the tale of The Beggar of the Golden Cradle, and the Kilmourne wanted to accompany with its turbulent jingle the words and the rhythm of the absent mate who was so present in our minds. Lucy rarely stopped me and when Luke told me that he knew that I loved him, she told me:

─ "That is Luke. He is able of that and more. But after a year with him, I'm still amazed. Go on, Nike. How much love for you."

─ "And for you, my heart. I am unable to forget how his voice trembled when he mentioned his Daughter of the Earth. There is still much to tell. But I want to tell you everything today, as I remember it. And evoking his words, I feel no hunger."

─ "Neither do I. Let us feel hunger for him. You have good memory. And you are getting that so much love remains here with us."

   And thus, wearily, we were ending the afternoon and finally I got to what he had seen of my October 4 and the little missing to complete his story.

─ "Now not only do I know him better, but through him, I also know you better. And I love both of you more. Perhaps I will make him or you repeat one day this tale. You are amazing, Nike. This first day with you you've got what you wanted: to increase my love for him. For this reason, my beggar, I also love you. So you must not fear us."

─ "And I also love both of you more. It is incredible, Lucy. I have not yet taken any decision, but some time ago nothing frightens me. And Luke is right. There's nothing like rocking in your eyes. In them everything is calm. Somehow or other, I want to always be with you."

   Paul had been very good and had not interrupted us. Maybe he understood that two souls who could be his parents needed to know each other better. We returned to the camp with him now in my arms. They were all there and Luke had returned tired but with something to eat. The tale had led both Lucy and me to the first stars. We ate well after all. That October 27, thanks to Luke’s efforts, was very similar but the outcome was different from my October 4. Oh, Lucy, my mate, the moon becomes a crown in your hair. And the stars are fire, which build the structure that now I want to create with you. So come more days like this and may the warm night wrap us bravely.

  And October was passing on and my dead-end could not find at least a fork through any street half way up or perhaps it was that I was not sure of turning left or right, where they were waiting for me, and preferred to return to the starting point: the inevitable of loving us three from a distance. I preferred that we were somehow a two plus one and happiness could never find me joining them, because I thought that for being three we were in danger of being one plus one plus one.

   This way, I get to the first day of November, where I was to have two decisive talks. The day had been so good for my mate and me that we came back very early. They were only at home Mistress Oakes, Olivia and Lucy. If I did not dare to speak with the second, I needed to at least talk with my first mate and get to know her opinion. She could read me again with eyes showing that she would wait for me at Menhir Bridge. I went over there. Actually she was awaiting me.

─ "Hi, Nike. I sensed that you wanted to talk."

─ "The other day - I told her as an excuse─, seeing Leo with Luke and Lucy I finally understood what you had meant with one would become five. But I don't know if it will become a reality. I cannot reach anywhere. Can you not help me?"- I cried.

─ "Nike, you would be able to see it for yourself, if you wanted to look. Really. I know that you still do not believe me, but you also have that power. I cannot solve the riddle. The decision is in your hands. But we can talk about it. What's worrying you?"

   I was talking for half an hour arguing her how happy I could be with them if I joined. I was not worried about how unlikely it all was, but if because of me they might stop loving each other, I would be lacking them respect.

─ "So that is what bothers you. You have to decide, but I can tell you something. Nike, be careful with respect. It is a beautiful word, but it is also a double-edged sword. For years I heard people say "you have to respect everyone" and I didn't know why, but such imposing sentence appeared to me to be false and even harmful. Until one day talking with Luke, yes, precisely with him, he gave me cause for thought saying that not everyone is respectable. He, as you know, does not respect the bald people, and besides, I agree with him that there is no reason to do it. So now both of us say the sentence thus: you have to respect everyone who is respectable. And I also tell you, my dear Nike, be careful not to lack respect to anyone precisely for wanting to respect them."

   I wasn't sure of having understood her, but that sentence made me think a lot. She added something else.

─ "And I don't know whether this will help you, but don't be afraid of my girl. You must speak, but I know that she is on your side."

   She left and I stood there next to the bridge, taking courage to deal with a conversation with Olivia, which could no longer be put off and wanted to see the Kilmourne water, doubting also whether it would ever find some sea. With reluctance I went back to the camp. John had arrived and now everybody but Bruce was there. Shaking I went to her and spoke.

─ "Olivia, I would like to have a private conversation with you."

   She stood up and went with me back to the same bridge.

─ "Nike, first of all, let me tell you that I love you, and that is not going to change. And do not fear me: all the loves that have started are innocent."

─ "I cannot advance without you. It is true what you say and I see in your eyes that you like me and I do not know how to thank you. But tell me the truth. Do you not find all foolish?"

─ "It is foolish, but now nothing can be done. Only to see in which direction you must row. I have also spent days meditative and I do not reach anywhere, except to remember that whatever you do, I love you three. ''

─ "We love one another, ok, but what if we leave things as they are?"

─ "I cannot tell you what you must decide, Nike, but think about this. I know my daughter, and I know that it is not a fleeting love. You don't want her and Luke to separate, but do not forget that they love you and that due to not having you they could distance and lose their love. I don't know whether the three of you together is the best solution, but as things stand it would be the least bad. I can't tell you what to do. But always count on me. I love you, Nike, and that you have earned it alone. If you decide to join, I will also love you as a son-in-law. And if not, I will love you whatever you do or wherever you go."

   I was shaken by her words. They gave a different perspective to everything and altered it. Now I had to stop to meditate.

─ "Thank you, Olivia." -I told her.

  I certainly needed a deep reflection alone, where no one could find me. For this reason I walked thoughtfully the alder grove. I'll go to the park of Rivers´ Meet, I thought. I had to jump a fence, because it was already closed. Everything was wild and rebellious, perhaps like my soul at that time, with its own laws, like us, a kind of anarchy that strengthened it. And on a bench alone I began to meditate, as unsuspected happiness began to invade me. Now it was not only me. Olivia had oriented me towards a direction in which I had not stopped. I could not move forward because I always found it inappropriate that this couple, sacred for me, could break. But now I saw that someday it might break if I exaggerated the measure of respect. Olivia had made me see that now nothing could be done, that the three pawns had chosen their place and we moved on the board with no drift. But if it was like that... My mind began to be invaded by a new peace, a wind of heat, a whisper of glory. We were three free people and wise or foolish, beauty had been given to us, found by chance in a curve of life, and might my heart be liquid so that the red drops of my blood would join theirs and happiness exploded. We were already three, but they didn't know yet. I jumped the fence again and almost ran down Millers' Lane on my way back to the Torn Hand.

   They were all there, but I wanted to talk to Lucy and Luke in private, and I was lucky. They were at the door of their tent changing Paul’s diapers.

─ "Dear Sacred Couple – I hesitated─, I have to talk to you though I suspect that something you know by my face. I cannot hide anything. I come from the park of Rivers' Meet, where I have made a decision at last - they looked at me expectantly─. I accept the first part, if you have no doubts what my heart can offer. Now I'll have to think of the second and the third. But if you want to accept this poor castaway beggar who only knows how to stumble in life, then I am yours, we are three."

─ "Congratulations, Nike – Luke told me─, My Mate, my love, I am speechless. Of course we accept you. But let our wife also speak."

─ "Everything will be fine, Nike. We love one another so much that it will be, believe me, forever. We will be building our history every day. Oh, my heart, what pleasure that you're here already with us."

  We almost cried in this new recognition of acceptance. But I had to say something more.

─ "I accept your plan, Luke. Even if we are already three, you must be a year together, alone. Not before the 18th I'll sleep with you. I'll wait for days 19 and 20, but meanwhile we are three. Now our mates must know."

─ "Nike – Luke said─, if we are already three, before November 18, would you dare to kiss us?"