The White Ship

by Nicholas Salaman

  I was thankful, though, that Alice and I were of a more discreet persuasion. Valour isn’t everything unless there’s no alternative. That is the bastard’s motto.

  I now extracted the key from the lock, pulled the bolts back – they resisted sullenly – opened the door, and we stepped out. I concealed my relief from Alice because I wanted her to trust me. She was taking a big risk, leaving the service of a great family, losing her name as like as not, by throwing in her lot with a bastard who had no employment. I felt responsible for a woman for the first time in my life. (I had never been responsible for Juliana; she had been responsible for me.) It was a slightly weighty sensation, but again it had a certain warmth to it. I felt like Theseus taking Ariadne away.

  ‘Come,’ I said to my Ariadne. ‘Your whole life is about to change.’

  The evening air was bracing but welcome after the musty chill of the tunnel. I locked the door and placed the key carefully on a high ledge in the concealing wall of the cavern. Alice asked why I bothered to do it, seeing that we weren’t coming back.

  ‘You never know when a secret tunnel may come in handy,’ I told her. ‘If not for you, for somebody else.’

  The boat, a trim craft, was drawn up in its usual place at the entrance to the cave, and it took some effort for us to drag it to the water’s margin.

  ‘Can you row?’ asked Alice. ‘Because if you can’t, I can.’

  ‘I was taught at the abbey,’ I told her, ‘and coached on the Risle by the brawny Brother Pierre, a chandler’s son. There is no end to the things you can learn in a monastery and they have a way of coming in useful when you get outside. I was even given instructions in picking a lock when one of the Brothers had lost a key. There is much to be said for monastic life if you are in the right place.’

  I was talking too much, probably to hide my nervousness. A little bit of me was wishing that I was back there in the quiet room with Old Saul instead of being on a cold lake with evening coming on, and no night’s rest in sight.

  However, I said nothing of this to dear Alice and we were soon embarked and traversing the lake, my oars dipping cleanly – nothing alerts like splashes on open water. How different was this journey from the one I had taken before with Juliana – and now here I was betraying her. I could plead a good excuse – she and fate had forced me out. And, after all, I was only rescuing Alice. The thoughts went back and forth in my head as if in rhythm with the dipping of the oars.

  As I looked back, I saw something that filled me with alarm. There was a flood pouring out of the entrance to the tunnel; somebody had voided the cistern. Was it because they knew we were likely to be there? Or just on the off-chance of drowning a traitor? I said nothing.

  We were soon out of sight of the castle and under the lee of the woods. I heard the shouting of soldiery, but no one immediately seemed to have noticed us; there were no figures running along the shore to intercept us. We were, at least for the moment, safe.

  We disembarked alongside the little promontory that had served for a jetty when Juliana had landed there last summer. If anyone had questioned such an excursion at the time, we had agreed we would say we were looking for wild flowers and leaves for the little girls to draw. Yes, it was a thin excuse, but who was going to question the Comtesse except the Comte himself and he didn’t count. At least I had thought he didn’t, but he surprised his wife all right. And now the little girls were gone, and Juliana and I were sundered, and another tiny fault had formed in the fabric of the universe.

  Alice shivered. She was wearing a thick travelling dress and heavy cloak, but the wind from the northwest had strengthened. It was an unsettled May, but everything was unsettled that year in Normandy.

  ‘Out of the frying pan into the ice-house,’ she said.

  We had to find shelter for the night.

  I heard at that moment movement in the wood, too near at hand for comfort. I had brought a short sword, more of a long knife really, but it was all I had been able to find in the hurry to leave the castle. My hand flew to it, and I called out.

  ‘Who’s there?’

  There could be soldiers everywhere. If the Duke had known about the tunnel, he would doubtless have taken measures to intercept escapees. I resolved to die rather than serve a further term in the castle of Ivry. A roe deer sprang out of the bushes and ran across our path disappearing into the scrub beyond. Alice laughed at my alarm.

  ‘Who’s afraid of a big nasty deer?’ she said.

  ‘It’s all very well, but this is not a good place to be,’ I told her.

  My goal was the suggestion of the innkeeper, that tumbledown cottage deep in the woods some distance from a track that ran westwards at the far end of the lake. How could I forget it? It had been midsummer night, when good people should be in their beds. There was either an old woman living there or a young girl or both, and magic of a kind I could never find again.

  I told Alice about it; not all about it, but some of it. It seemed the thing to do. She took it calmly – after all, we were not lovers.

  ‘I knew about you and Juliana,’ she said.

  She shivered again, sending me off on shivers of my own.

  ‘Could we not go to the town?’ she suggested.

  ‘Full of the Duke’s soldiers; we’d be arrested in no time if we went there.’

  There was no alternative but to make for the cottage as fast as we could, if I could find it. It was not an easy track. It plunged into the forest among undergrowth that had turned into overgrowth, it branched out in ways that I had not remembered, and more than once we found ourselves back in places where we had already been. It was growing darker by the minute. I was completely lost – though again I did not tell Alice so. I began to have visions of us being found, like the children in the forest, covered with leaves and snow and completely dead – but by luck and a little instinct, and the memory of summer days with Juliana whispering in my head, I found the path again, and finally we saw the light among the trees. It was almost dark; the northwesterly blustered about the trees. I put my arm round Alice and gave her a hug, as we set off again. Rounding a corner, we came in full view of the light’s source – a dark cottage, battered and decayed.

  ‘There’s our palace,’ she said.

  ‘It will seem so if you are there,’ I replied.

  She kissed me for an instant with lips cold as a mermaid’s, her eyes shining out from under the thick hood of her cloak like carriage lights. I beat at the hovel door and listened intently, but there seemed no sound in reply, only the scrape and moan of the wind in the branches overhead. I beat again.

  ‘You will break the door,’ said Alice.

  ‘If I have to,’ I replied.

  Finally, a small shuffling sound from within hinted at movement.

  ‘Hello,’ I cried. ‘Two travellers lost in the forest.’

  I suggested to Alice that she say something too. It might reassure the inhabitants if they heard a woman in distress.

  ‘Please let us in,’ Alice said to the door. ‘We are tired and cold.’

  Finally there came the sound of bolts being drawn back, and the door opened an inch or two.

  ‘Who is it?’

  It was a very old voice, which I recognised as that of Mother Merle.

  ‘I am Bertold – we met last summer – and this is Alice.’

  ‘I know who you are. What do you want?’

  ‘We don’t want to die in the forest and we will if you don’t let us in,’ said Alice.

  The door opened a little more disclosing the big chin, the long nose, and the long grey hair of the hag I remembered. She peered at us both intently from rheumy old eyes whose pupils flickered like fish in a dark pond.

  ‘She looks like a witch,’ whispered Alice. ‘She’ll turn us into beetles.’

  There was a moment of indecision, and then the witch opened the door wider.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘you’d better come in.’

  The cottage, I knew, was better than it looked from
outside.

  A fire glowed in the grate, a pot of what smelt like rabbit stew steamed beside it, and three chairs stood in front of it near a table which was laid for three.

  ‘I been expectin’ you,’ the old crone said.

  She said nothing of having met me before, Perhaps it was merely tact, though I didn’t know witches exercised that art. At any rate, it made an odd situation easier.

  ‘You can’t have expected us!’ I exclaimed. ‘We didn’t know we were coming until this afternoon.’

  ‘Don’t tell me what I can’t do,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t ha’ laid for three if I hadn’t been. Take off your cloaks and warm yourselves, my lovers.’

  We accepted her invitation, gratefully.

  A jug full of strong cider was put in front of us, and we poured it into our mugs and drank happily, feeling the warm glow spreading in our bellies. I had no idea where all this was going to lead us, but for now I didn’t care. Alice appeared happy. Her eyes sparkled and her skin bloomed in the heat. Dishes of pungent stew were put in front of us, not just rabbit, but game and herbs and the lord’s venison no doubt, and bread to soak it in. It did not seem right to ask the old woman where she obtained such supplies. Eustace’s steward would have been interested, but perhaps he knew about the witch and stayed well clear. Or perhaps she did him service and provided good fortune.

  We ate without speaking as the old woman watched. When we had finished she drew up her chair and sat with us, still watching. Finally she rose, took the kettle from the fire and poured boiling water into a jug from which a fragrant smoky aroma rose. She gave each of us a cupful after she had let it stand for a few minutes. It was both refreshing and drowsy-making, like poppy.

  Alice was tired; her head on her hand, supported by an elbow propped on the table, served her as a cushion, and she was falling asleep. All at once her elbow slipped, jolting her awake.

  ‘Well,’ the old witch said, ‘can’t sit here all night talking. You can tell me what you’re doing wandering the woods in the morning. What you need is a good night’s sleep, I daresay. Go on with you. Up the stairs and into bed. It’s big enough.’

  Alice and I looked at each other.

  ‘What will you do?’ I asked the witch. ‘Where do you sleep?’

  I had not asked her that before.

  ‘Oh, I shall do very well,’ she said. ‘Don’t you’m be worriting about me. Up you go. Here’s a candle to light you to bed.’

  We did as she told us. There was the same fair-sized room under the eaves with a little window that admitted the pale light of a waxing moon, the place almost dwarfed by the enormous bed, covered with rugs and furs. We took off our outer garments and tumbled into it, Alice on the far side, I on the nearer. It smelt of old animals, but not unpleasantly; feral but welcoming. We fell asleep in the shape of a couple of Ss, our contours perfectly adjacent, clutching each other for comfort. It was no time for love.

  After a while, I woke up. Something was prodding me awake. It was the hag. It seemed she hadn’t meant she would find somewhere else to sleep downstairs, she proposed to join us here. Why had I not thought of that? It was not really my place to protest, but I wasn’t altogether happy. It had not happened when Juliana was here. Perhaps the Duke’s daughter merited special treatment. Anyway, as a guest I was obliged to do what my host required of me. I was dimly reminded of fairy stories my mother used to tell me when I was little.

  ‘Move up, monster,’ said the old hag in the night, prodding me again.

  But she wasn’t the old hag. It seemed that she was a lovely girl.

  I did what she asked, and then she put a hand on my membrum virile. Alice stirred in her sleep next to me, moaning slightly. I know it may sound hard to believe, but I found the experience arousing. How could I, you will ask? I should have been revolted, but the witch-girl knew what she was about. She extracted my prick from my hose and fondled it with cunning practice. I trembled, I quivered and in due course I came, it seemed, monumentally. Strangest of all, she gathered my seed and crammed it into her mouth.

  I feared that Alice would wake, but she slept on, frowning, moving a little, a tiny trickle of moisture showing at the side of her mouth, which beguiled me.

  The witch-girl patted me as if I had been a good horse, turned over and went to sleep. I comforted myself that at least I had not offended against the contract between host and guest. A rejection would have caused offence, or worse. It was all very strange, but at the same time it was completely matter of fact, as though it had all happened before. Then I too feel asleep. In the morning, I woke up beside a beautiful girl on my left but, on my right, an absence. The hag had disappeared. I could hear sounds of someone moving about in the kitchen. No doubt she was preparing some sort of breakfast for us. Alice woke and smiled at me sweetly.

  I came to the conclusion that I had dreamt of the little matter between the hag and myself, a strange concurrence, but I put it all down to my mother’s fairy stories. At least the hag had had the good grace to turn into a pretty girl, or so it seemed to me.

  ‘In the night, I dreamt that the old woman was lying beside me,’ Alice said. ‘But it wasn’t the old woman, it was a girl.’

  ‘Did she … do anything?’

  ‘No … I don’t think so…’

  There was a slight hesitation.

  ‘What did she do?’

  ‘Perhaps I dreamt it.’

  She would say no more. The thought of what the old witch-girl might have done to Alice was both horrible and curiously arousing. The monks used to talk about these things, but more in speculation than from experience.

  ‘Perhaps you did,’ I said.

  Alice would never have let anything like that happen. She was still drowsy. I was happy for her.

  ‘I don’t know how you found the way down that path last night,’ she said.

  ‘Nor do I. But she seemed to be expecting us.’

  ‘We must pay her something. Have you any money?’

  ‘We have paid her in our way. She is a witch,’ I told her. ‘Witches don’t need money.’

  ‘Of course they do. Money is power.’

  ‘Get up,’ I told her, gently pulling her arm. ‘We must move on.’

  She disengaged her hand and snuggled in to the bed.

  ‘Or we could just stay here.’

  ‘The Duke will find us if we stay. We must go. I must find work.’

  ‘Where will you do that?’ she asked.

  ‘We need a big town. Somewhere like Rouen. We won’t be noticed in Rouen.’

  ‘It’s miles away.’

  I looked out of the window. The wind had freshened and the forest leaves showed the sheen of fallen rain. The sun appeared intermittently between the clouds. ‘About three days if we had a horse.’ I said.

  ‘But we don’t.’

  ‘The witch will lend us one,’ I told her.

  Of course, I could go back to my father’s chateau of Mortagne, but it seemed like a step backwards. You don’t want to do that when you are twenty-two.

  We dressed and went downstairs. I left Alice sitting there in the empty kitchen, and went out into the yard to wash. A pretty country girl was making a kind of porridge at the stove when I returned, shivering. She poured boiling water into a jug full of fragrant herbs, let it cool for a minute or two and then pushed it towards us.

  ‘Drink that,’ she said. ‘It keeps out the cold and lifts the spirits.’

  It had a strange herbal taste, but it certainly had lift in it and I could feel the warmth coursing through me.

  ‘Where is old Mother Merle?’ I asked the girl.

  ‘Oh, she’s off somewhere, gathering lichen or summat. Always on the go is Mother Merle.’

  ‘Is she a relation of yours? Perhaps your mother?’

  ‘That sort of thing.’

  She didn’t seem to want to expand on the subject so I applied myself to the bowl of porridge she put in front of me. She wasn’t going to talk about the last time we had met, either.<
br />
  ‘What is your name?’ I asked her.

  ‘Merle,’ she said.

  ‘Merle too?’ Alice asked.

  ‘Merle Two.’

  She smiled at us in an amused sort of way.

  ‘You’ll be off to Rouen later,’ she said, after a while.

  ‘It’s a long way to walk on a windy morning,’ I told her.

  I took another sip from my cup. The drink this morning was really quite different from last night’s brew. It was aromatic and fresh, bracing and vigorous. It smelt of springy meadows and high woods where woodruff grows, and thyme.

  ‘Do you know where we might find a palfrey or even a nag?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t have one myself. Got an old donkey, but she’d buckle under the weight of you two,’ she said. ‘But the Marshal from the castle, he’s got some. I sent word to him, private-like, that we had visitors. There’s a chance he’ll have a palfrey with him if young miss don’t mind riding pillion. I always liked a good pillion ride, joggling about behind a nice bum.’

  ‘I bet you did,’ I said. ‘Not so easy to come by out in the woods.’

  I was glad to hear that my friend the Marshal had managed to survive the fighting and maybe even the Duke’s wrath.

  ‘You’d be surprised, my duck,’ she said. ‘There’s always someone passing through.’

  Alice was trying hard not to laugh. At that moment there was a knock on the door. I thought for a moment it might be the Marshal but it was one of his grooms. The girl let him in and I glimpsed my palfrey Blackberry nudging the spring grass as she waited outside, tied to a post.

  ‘Marshal said you might be needing a horse,’ said the groom. ‘Old Mother Merle sent word.’

  My friend Eliphas had hinted at a communicating system between the inns but it clearly included other reference points. It was after all a wise woman’s business to know everything that went on. A good name they had for her too: Mother Merle. The old blackbird had more tricks up her sleeve than the French King’s Arabian conjuror.