The White Ship

by Nicholas Salaman

  She made a little gesture with her head to indicate that the steward should leave. He looked at Eustace for assent, but the Comte was busy with another thought – you could almost see his head swelling with the effort. The steward bowed himself out. We three were left alone.

  ‘I wondered why you smelt of spice, Latiner. My nose was ever sharp, and my mind runs after it,’ said Eustace, delivering the sentence like a turd in the moat.

  I thought quickly to try and deflect him from any suspicions he might have about me and the wardrobe.

  ‘I learned of spice from Brother Paul in the abbey, sire. He came from Spain and had learned many things from the Arabs, mathematics … medicine … Some of these spices and herbs can work wondrous cures, properly used.’

  The Comte was interested now.

  ‘Cures, you say …? Can they heal wounds of battle?’

  ‘Some of them, yes.’

  I thought for a terrible moment he was going to ask me once more to heal the wound that had unmanned him. The idea of grappling around in that dark and unvisited portion quite set my teeth on edge. But his mind, it seemed, was on his favourite subject.

  ‘Then you shall come with us when next we fight.’

  You had to hand it to Eustace – there was no end to the unpleasant surprises he could spring on you. Going on campaign with Eustace was the last thing I wanted. I exchanged a glance with Juliana. Then I had a further thought. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

  ‘There is an invention of the Arabs called alcohol. They distil wine to make a stronger aqua vitae. If I could obtain some of that from my old master, I am sure you would find it … exciting …’

  ‘It is like strong wine?’

  The man was interested now. I felt I had betrayed the confidence of my old friend Brother Paul, but I hoped he would forgive me.

  ‘Very like strong wine … only stronger.’

  ‘You must get me some of that, Latiner. It has a brave sound, does it not, Madame? Excellent, Latiner. Wheel it on. You are not as useless as you look.’

  He left us on that note. It was the nearest Eustace ever got to a compliment. Evidently the steward had been waiting for him on the landing. We watched them go down the stairs together, the steward leaning over to talk in Eustace’s ear.

  ‘If they get any closer, his tongue will come out the other side,’ I told her.

  ‘I will not have Eustace coming up here,’ Juliana said. ‘He is becoming a nuisance. We may have to get rid of him.’

  I looked at her again with a kind of admiring horror. Was this really the woman who melted in my arms as we made love to the scent of oranges and grains of paradise, and the swooning sounds that girls make?

  ‘Would you really do that?’ I asked. ‘Get rid of him?’

  ‘Keep your voice down, Latiner. Of course I would, if it were necessary. He knows that too.’

  She was her father’s daughter all right. Did she mean that I was to help her?

  ‘But what if he bumped you off first?’

  ‘I’d be ahead of him.’

  ‘Shall I see if I can get him some of the distillation they call alcohol?’

  ‘What will it do?’

  ‘It will make him very drunk.’

  ‘That will be good. It will keep him out of our way – out of everyone’s way … The more he drinks, the quicker he will go, may God forgive me.’

  ‘I will ride to Saint-Sulpice tomorrow.’

  ‘No.’ She put a hand on my arm. ‘I need you here. You will only linger with your old friends at the abbey. And it would be too easy for Amaury to arrange to have you killed on the way. One of the pages shall go. There is a boy called Guyon. He can be trusted. I will summon him now.’

  She went out and I wrote to my old friend Brother Paul, explaining the interest that Lady Juliana had expressed, requesting a small quantity of the liquid he distilled and enclosing a generous gift to pay for his further medical researches. I also asked for some advice as to how the spirit might be consumed. Juliana then returned with the lad Guyon, a strapping youth who looked as though he could take care of himself. What Juliana had said about it being easy for Amaury to have me killed, was beginning to sink in. It was difficult to imagine, but also terribly real. It is hard to believe when you are young that life is serious, and even harder to conceive that someone dislikes you sufficiently to have you bumped off. I found myself shaking. These were dangerous waters I was swimming in.

  I managed to control myself sufficiently to give the lad instructions as to where to go – he came from the town of Bernay which was not far from the abbey – and I put the vellum in his hand saying that he should be sure to give it only to Brother Paul. Juliana gave him money for the journey, and he left forthwith. I sank down with relief into a chair. Stupid, wasn’t it? I am not a coward but the thought of a stab in the back or a poisoned pastry at some low inn caught me unawares. I can face death only if I can look him in the eyes.

  I did not think that Juliana had noticed my moment of weakness. I told her more about the alcohol, how I was confident Eustace was going to discover the most exquisite sensations which would render him even more insensible than usual more quickly. Frankly, insensible was the way she liked Eustace best.

  ‘By the way,’ said Juliana, smiling, ‘what on earth persuaded you to encourage that boy Fulk to tell me that he was in love with me?’

  I had forgotten about that.

  ‘I thought it might help him,’ I told her. ‘He seems so depressed. And I thought it might keep him on our side. What did you do?’

  ‘I’m afraid I laughed.’

  ‘What did he say to that?’

  ‘He said he was going to kill himself.’

  ‘And what did you say?

  ‘I told him not to be so silly, of course.’

  Not for the first time, I wondered how such asperity and softness could co-exist in Juliana without inducing some kind of precipitation as in the dressing the cooks make with oil and eggs and vinegar to accompany a sallet. One little thing wrong and it curdles.

  XXXIX

  Four days later, Guyon returned carrying a half-firkin of alcohol and a letter from Brother Paul, full of kind thoughts. He was missing me, he said, and urged me to use the liquor sparingly. He reminded me he had obtained its recipe and means of production, not without difficulty, through a Jewish friend of his at the hospital in Salerno. In the right hands it could be a power of good. It had preservative strengths and was also sovereign for hardening the skin and for cleaning dirty wounds. It should only be consumed to revive the near-dead in cases of extreme exhaustion or to puff away ventosity or pounce the stone. I kept this good advice to myself, in my heedless way, and almost wept when I thought of my old friend and the chaste life I had led in the abbey, compared with the sinful and dangerous existence I had found at Breteuil. Brother Paul begged me to give up my sublunary life and return to the cheerful disciplines of Saint-Sulpice, but I knew I could not. Life was an adventure, the flesh was weak, and I was young. I debated with Juliana how best to introduce the alcoholic spirit to her husband’s cup, and at what hour it should be.

  ‘After his dinner,’ she told me, ‘tomorrow afternoon, that is surely the right time. He will have drunk wine and be ready to try the strong water. He is already excited about it. I heard him telling the steward to bring up cordials to mix with the alcohol. After that he will sleep where he sits with his head in a plate of cheese, if he wishes.’

  We were stupidly excited about it, like giggling schoolchildren, but had we known what would follow, we would have saved the ill-begotten brew for the broken heads and wounds of the next tournament. It would at least have served the benign purpose for which it was made. As it was, it brought us nothing but disaster.

  At first all seemed well. Indeed, I was pleased to be able to take Juliana’s mind off her little hostage daughters far away in Caen. I approached the whey-faced steward, Odo, before dinner, and told him that his master wanted him to pour the clear fluid int
o a silver beaker, and give it to him at the end of the meal in the place of the Rhenish. I told the man, quite accurately, that it was a strong elixir drawn upwards by heat and collected in a coiled vessel from the sweat and steam of wine. The man looked dubious, but I told him that the Comte was counting on him; he would be angered if the potion was not presented as he had commanded. Odo sensed some kind of personal disadvantage in the scheme, but for the life of him he could not pinpoint it, and he finally agreed to do as I had bidden. His attitude towards me was a curious mixture of evasiveness and truculence. He knew that Juliana and I were aware of his dishonesty, but he wasn’t altogether certain that it mattered since he was the Comte’s man, although you could never quite tell in matters like this which way the Comte would jump. Eustace would naturally side with anyone whom his wife was against, but on the other hand cheats hate to be cheated.

  The meal came to an end. Juliana and the ladies left the table, and in walked Odo carrying the silver goblet which he set down in front of Eustace.

  ‘What is this, steward?’ he enquired, fatuously. ‘Some kind of potion to make me beautiful?’

  The knights all convulsed with laughter.

  ‘No, sir,’ said the fawning little creature, ‘you are handsome enough already.’

  More laughter from the audience.

  ‘Will it make me sleep a hundred years and be woken by a beautiful princess, and not my wife?’

  I gritted my teeth at his oral infidelity to my mistress.

  ‘Not woken, sir, no. But I am sure that any woman would be proud to keep you awake, sir.’

  There was more raucous glee from the groundlings.

  ‘So what will it make me do? Latiner,’ and now he called down the table at me. ‘What will happen when I drink this stuff?’

  ‘Well, sir,’ I tried to control the nervousness I felt for this was now the moment of truth.

  ‘It will feel at first like a warm fire in the mouth,’ I began. ‘Then, as it starts to trickle down the throat, you will feel quickened, all your senses will seem sharper, for they will be trying to assess the meaning of this new sensation. Nothing like it has happened to them before. This will be followed by a cordial mellowness in the belly spreading to all the organs of the body. You will feel stronger, braver (if that were possible), more cheerful, more generous. Any doubts will disappear. Your companions will seem better fellows. Melancholy and choleric thoughts will dissipate like clouds before the sanguine breeze of the elixir. In short…’

  ‘Enough, Latiner,’ he cried, seizing the goblet, ‘if it does even half of what you say, my life so far has been wasted. Alcool is the stuff for me. You can keep your Burgundy and your Rhenish…’

  He made a clumsy sweep of his arm, knocking beakers in all directions. He was already drunk. And now we all watched as he emptied the goblet’s contents into his capacious mouth. His expression as it did so followed very closely my description of the liquid’s transit. His eyes rolled, his cheeks flushed, his stupid mouth widened in a fatuous grin, he rubbed his large stomach like a child and made a low sound like a cow being milked. He stood up – and then he sat down again, rather quickly.

  ‘Where’s the other one?’ he asked me.

  I had taken the liberty of ordering quite a generous stock from Brother Paul, not that I had told Eustace of it, but no doubt he assumed there would be a further supply. I handed a vial over, and it too was quickly despatched.

  There was a pause.

  ‘Mushic,’ he commanded, and the old fiddler in the gallery responded with a jig.

  Nobody moved. We were all watching the Comte as though he were in labour.

  ‘I tell you what, Latiner, you’re a good fellow …’ he started, fatuously, ‘thish ish the finesht …’ but at that point he slumped forward on the table in a swound.

  We thought that was the end of it for the moment, but then he raised his head again and spoke with the clarity of those at the limit of their powers, as those who are about to die deliver perceptions.

  ‘I have had a message from my Lord de Montfort,’ he said. ‘The Castellan of Ivry is cheating us. Something must be done to change the game.’

  A silence fell on the gathering. We looked at each other. And then Eustace slumped forward again.

  ‘I hope it is not poison you have given him, Latiner,’ said the steward, unpleasantly.

  ‘Of course, it is not poison,’ I told him. ‘The Comte asked for the elixir himself. Its method and extraction is prescribed by the famous hospital in Salerno.’

  ‘What nasty things occur in that evil mind of yours,’ said Juliana to the steward, appearing quietly, as she so often did administering grace or reproof. ‘You heard the Comte and now you have heard Bertold. See, I drink the dregs of this so-called poison. Watch while I turn black and vomit.’

  She picked up both goblet and vial, and drained them.

  ‘There is nothing there but what there is in strong wine – only stronger. It is a rare spirit and not to be taken lightly, but the Comte knew that. He will recover, but let him sleep now. Take him to his bed.’

  ‘I say it is the devil’s brew,’ said the horrible little man, ‘you had better pray that my lord wakes up.’

  Juliana took a step towards him and the man cringed.

  ‘You had better pray, Odo, that I never hear you uttering threats to me or my guests in this castle. That is, if you do not want to spend the rest of your days in a dungeon. You have already robbed us. If you call a constable, make it for yourself.’

  The steward backed down immediately, of course.

  ‘I hope you didn’t think … I didn’t mean any disrespect. It is just that in these lawless days, we begin to think that anything is possible.’

  ‘Well, don’t think, steward. You are not here to think. You are here to do your job – and that, it seems to me, you do not even passingly well and cause a great deal of trouble on the way. Take your master to his room and see that he is comfortable – put some water by his bedside, then leave him.’

  He jerked a greasy thumb at four of the servitors, and they carried the unconscious Eustace up a further flight of stairs to the first floor of the castle where he had his bedchamber – a site as far away as possible from the Comtesse’s, which she had personally selected for him. Juliana watched them for a while and then turned to the assembled knights in the hall. It was early evening, though darkness would not fall for another hour.

  ‘The working day is not over,’ she told them. ‘It is the Comte’s privilege to spend it as he will. But for you who have to fight and make a way in the world, there is plenty of work to be done. I am sure the Marshal will see to it that you are exercised before nightfall.’

  The Marshal was a burly figure who ruled the parade ground between the stables and the main gate. He had a voice like Roland’s horn.

  ‘I will indeed, Madame Comtesse.’

  He drew himself up, puffed out his chest, and shouted at the lolling soldiery.

  ‘Come on, you idle knights. On your feet and try to look like soldiers, not like leftovers from the local pisshouse. Begging your pardon, Madame.’

  ‘Go ahead, Marshal.’

  He rounded them up and took them outside where he made them run, holding their swords over their heads, round and round the bailey. Juliana gave me a look that set my blood on fire as surely as any elixir.

  She relaxed her usual rule, and we almost ran to the secret-scented chamber and made love.

  ‘I don’t know what it is you do to me, Latiner, but you should be careful that I do not have you named as a witch,’ she told me.

  I slept well that night in my own bed with the fragrance of her upon me. I was woken early by the sound of wailing from the nurse. I hurried out and found Juliana in her night robe holding the old woman by the shoulders.

  ‘What in God’s name is the matter? You have woken the whole castle.’

  ‘Oh sir,’ the nurse cried when she saw me. ‘Oh madam … the little boy…’

  Juliana p
aled.

  ‘What has happened to him?’

  ‘He has disappeared. I have looked everywhere.’

  Juliana looked stricken.

  ‘Disappeared? It cannot be.’

  She was doubtless thinking of the possible repercussions for her daughters. It did not do to lose a hostage.

  ‘We must search immediately,’ I cried.

  We hurried downstairs and summoned the steward. To our astonishment, Eustace also appeared. He looked the worse for wear, his eyes were bloodshot, and he smelt of sweat and alcohol, but there was something about him that was new – he looked different, wilder, as if in love. Perhaps in alcohol he had discovered a sweetheart. Juliana, I could tell, did not like what she saw, but none of us had any inkling of the engine that had been put in motion, trundling along downhill, unstoppably, like a runaway siege piece.

  Eustace lifted his hand as if in blessing.

  ‘Not so fast,’ he said. ‘The child is not missing. I … we … have sent him back to his father.’

  It was one of those moments that should have warned me that nothing, ever, was going to be the same again. And yet, at the time, it just seemed to be another piece of Eustace stupidity.

  ‘You have done what?’ cried Juliana.

  She was not in any way panicking – panic wasn’t her game – she was merely outraged that he should have acted without consulting her, because anything he did off his own initiative was bound to be a cock-up.

  ‘I sent him back to his father,’ repeated the Comte. ‘It was the only thing to do. Amaury sent word that his father was plotting against us. He was strengthening the castle. That was against the terms of our agreement.’

  ‘What agreement?’ asked Juliana.

  ‘Why the agreement that your father spelt out to us, of course! He would take our daughters as hostages and we would take the snivelling castellan’s son. And during that term we would behave honourably and maintain the peace. When I heard from Amaury that the agreement had been broken, there was only one thing to do.’