The White Ship

by Nicholas Salaman

  ‘Well, you were very much Juliana’s right hand. One of her ladies. You kept apart from the rest of the castle. It’s a man’s world, all that soldiering…’

  ‘By heaven,’ she broke in with some passion, ‘it was boring at Breteuil until you came along. Of course I knew what you and the Comtesse got up to. I’ve told you that already.’

  ‘And you didn’t mind?’

  She was suddenly fierce.

  ‘Of course I minded – I was half in love with her myself – but at least it was interesting. Do you still love her?’

  This put me on the spot. I did not want to tell her a lie because I loved her, but to admit that I loved another would provoke, at the least, annoyance. To delay would be to multiply suspicion.

  ‘I am glad that I loved her,’ I said, ‘because love is like anything else. It needs practice. If I had loved you first, you would have got all my awkwardness and roughness.’

  ‘I like a little roughness.’

  She was teasing me.

  ‘I meant the gaucheries, the unmannerliness …’ I told her.

  ‘I know what you mean … but you haven’t answered my question…’

  She was too wise to pursue it. I had not known many women, but I knew that she was a rare girl. I kissed her and told her that I loved her.

  I knew it was not the same with Alice as with Juliana. I loved them both but Juliana was already a wife and I was her pastime and, yes, perhaps also her passion. With Alice it could only be serious. A kiss could lead on, and on at last to marriage.

  Alice sensed something of my thoughts for she surprised me with what she said next.

  ‘I will sleep with you but I will not make love with you. It is too soon.’

  I was content. I had to be. I thought that she would change her mind. We went downstairs and found Berthe who led us to a fragrant room where a table was laid, and sat us down, putting before us trencher laden with the finest beef stew you ever tasted, cooked in ale and divinely seasoned with herbs.

  She poured out wine for us and left until we had finished. She then cleared away the plates, offered us apple-cake – equally delicious – poured more wine and sat down to talk.

  ‘Where did you meet Eliphas?’ she asked.

  ‘In a village called Verneuil. There was a fair going on and he had a stand there. A priest wanted him arrested, and by good fortune I was able to help him.’

  ‘Priests,’ sniffed Berthe disdainfully. ‘God’s spies, I call them. They’re just sneaks, if you ask me. They inform on you to God.’

  ‘And God doesn’t need them because He can see everything,’ said Alice, entering into the spirit of the thing.

  I felt sorry for the priests, having lived for many years among them.

  ‘God can see everything, but He cannot do everything, because that would be breaking the rules of his game. He sent His son to set us right and that was stretching them. Now the priests have to do the best they can, sometimes not very well.’

  I could see our hostess was not entirely convinced, but Alice was sensitive enough to steer us away from the subject.

  ‘What made you interested in herbs and spices?’ she asked Berthe.

  ‘My father was an apothecary and he met this old man, a seaman he was, who sailed everywhere in his hulk. He told him stories about spices that came from faraway places, and father paid him to bring him samples back with names of the merchants and the places they came from. Tyre and Constantinople and Carthage and Odessa and the Atlas Mountains … I just carry on his work and expand my frontiers when can … I never stop working, that is the trouble. I need help.’

  ‘I would really like to learn about it all,’ said Alice, quick as a flash spotting the opportunity. ‘Perhaps I could help you. I can draw, you know. That might be a way of telling people what the herbs look like, where they are grown and what they are good for. We could put a wonderful sign up too…’

  Berthe’s face became quite flushed with pleasure.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘that could be a very good idea. Let’s see how you take to Rouen and whether you want to stay here.’

  ‘Good idea,’ I said, ‘and now if you don’t mind we will go up to bed. I am falling asleep as I speak, In fact I can’t remember what I just said.’

  ‘Be off with you then,’ said Berthe. ‘It’s a pleasure to have you both in the house.’

  Alice undressed in the other room, and came back in a simple nightdress. She put a bolster down the middle of the bed, but she gave me a kiss and held my hand as we settled down on the pillows. I desired the girl, but in all honour, and with the knowledge of Juliana still fresh upon me, in my mind and in my heart, I would do nothing to destroy her trust. We slept like dormice, and woke to a blue sky and a blazing sun streaming in through a half-open shutter and tickling our eyelids.

  ‘I like seeing you when I wake up,’ Alice said.

  LVI

  Eliphas came in just as were about to sit down to breakfast. Berthe made him take a seat to share our cold chicken and bread, washed down with a mug of ale.

  ‘We have to decide what you are going to do,’ he told us.

  ‘Alice is going to help me,’ said Berthe.

  She had clearly decided on this course in the night.

  ‘That sounds a good idea,’ said Eliphas, ‘and what about Bertold? I believe there is work for a fish porter.’

  Alice looked shaken.

  ‘Fish?’ She shuddered.

  ‘You don’t like fish?’ he asked her.

  ‘Not all the time.’

  ‘Yes, it would be all the time. But I was only joking.’

  ‘I would do it,’ I told him. ‘If necessary.’

  ‘But I am told you have an introduction to Master Haimo, the butcher?’

  ‘That I have, from the Comte de Breteuil’s marshal. Apparently, Master Haimo is a provisioner for the Duke’s army.’

  ‘Is meat better than fish?’ queried Alice.

  I could see she pictured me coming home dripping with blood and stinking of sweetbreads.

  ‘I don’t think Master Haimo has a special need for a meat porter,’ said Eliphas. ‘There are plenty of lusty men in Rouen. No, I think the Comte’s marshal had something else in mind.’

  ‘Well, that is fine,’ I told him. ‘So long as Master Haimo has it in mind as well.’

  ‘Master Haimo has much on his mind, that is for sure, but I am sure there will be room for you. I will take you to see him when you have finished your breakfast.’

  ‘Do you know everyone, as well as everything?’ I asked him.

  ‘That pretty well covers it,’ said Berthe, smiling at him.

  I wondered whether there was something between them. She was a handsome woman and a clever one. As for Eliphas, he looked different every time you saw him, he was lightly built, of indeterminate age, with an expressive face, a pointy inquisitive nose, and dark hair; you couldn’t really tell what age he was, but he had the gift of making a woman smile which is better than a good leg and well-chiselled features.

  ‘I know that people like to listen to stories and they like to laugh. There can be wisdom in a jest and there’s many a fool that wears a frown. But I have also looked into things that are more secret.’

  ‘What things?’ asked Alice.

  ‘How to change my shape, become a boy, a woman, a fish, walk on fire, cast runes, read entrails, speak languages that have never been heard. There are books I have read that would make your hair stand on end.’

  ‘They would too,’ said Berthe. ‘I have seen them.’

  ‘But you have not read them?’ Eliphas asked anxiously. ‘It would not be good for you to do that.’

  ‘I have kept them in the house for you. That was enough. There seemed to be voices talking that I could not quite hear. They are not the sort of books you want to open.’

  ‘I thought you were a jongleur,’ I said to Eliphas. ‘And now you are a magus.’

  ‘One thing leads to another,’ he said. ‘I feel at the mo
ment that we are standing on the edge of something bad, something that is slowly gathering shape and weight. Something, in fact, that started at Breteuil and was begun by a fool in a drunken fit.’

  ‘If I stay in this house with Berthe’s wonderful cooking, I shall be gathering shape and weight myself,’ I said, foolishly.

  I did not want Alice to be alarmed, although in a way, I sensed that she might be stronger than me when the Duke’s men came knocking at the door. God only knew where the Duke’s spies were.

  ‘I shall say no more now, but we will speak of it in due course,’ said Eliphas. ‘It is good that you should know what is happening. Great matters start with small beginnings. A nail from a horse’s hoof, a glass of Burgundy too much … princes have fallen for less.’

  He seemed to be talking to himself about some vision or dream we could not share.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, seeing our bemused faces. ‘It will all become plain in due course. Meanwhile, let’s get down to some butchery. Come with me, young master.’

  I turned to see if Alice wanted to come, but she fanned her face.

  ‘I am not too fond of shambles,’ she said. ‘I would really like to stay with Berthe and learn about her herbs, if she’ll have me.’

  ‘That she will,’ said Berthe.

  Once outside the house, Eliphas and I turned right and walked down a little lane towards a crooked street that ran beside the river. It seemed a popular thoroughfare. It was full of people and carts, horses and the occasional donkey. Wagon-loads of barrels trundled by, holding salted fish, pork, ale, and wine, all drawn by those big, sturdy horses of Perche which gave me a sudden pang of homesickness.

  ‘Have you ever been to the back of a butcher’s shop?’ Eliphas asked.

  ‘Not really. And not much to the front of one, either.’

  ‘Animals with their clothes off look surprisingly human, I always think. There is something shocking about flesh without its skin on – which of course you can see after a battle. That is like a butcher’s shop. Do you think you have a stomach for the trade?’

  ‘Butchery or soldiering?’ I asked.

  He laughed.

  ‘I will do either if I am put to it. If you were to ask me which I would prefer, I would say neither, but I am not in the business of preference. I need to make a living,’ I told him.

  ‘She is a fine girl, your Alice. She might have the gift, you know.’

  ‘The gift?’

  ‘She sees things other people don’t.’

  I thought about that.

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘Perhaps she does.’

  We walked on. These last three summers had been unusually warm, with drought and failing crops. Some folk had talked of this being a precursor of the end of the world. People are all too ready to seize on such things. It had to be said, though, that this summer, at last, after the recent spell of stormy weather, seemed to be setting fair. The sun was hot on our faces.

  ‘They’re planting a vineyard near Chartres,’ Eliphas said. ‘Never been one in Normandy before, not since the Romans. There’s a thing.’

  ‘Haven’t they got enough wine in this country?’

  ‘In France they have, but not in Normandy. The Duke likes to keep the two countries separate, but King Louis likes to keep them together. That’s what all the fighting’s about. The Duke won’t pay homage to the King, but at the same time he wants the King to recognise William, his son, as his successor. And the King won’t do that until the Duke pays him homage.’

  ‘It sounds like an impasse.’

  ‘Impasse is the word. Look out!’

  He grabbed me by the shoulder and thrust me roughly out of the way of a cart that veered aside to avoid another wagon. I had not got the hang of these crowded streets yet.

  ‘You have to go about this town like a soldier,’ he said. ‘As if you’re expecting an ambush. And of course you might get one of those too. Or a cut-throat after your purse…’

  I was somewhat alarmed at his words. What kind of place had I brought Alice to?

  ‘Tell me about the butcher,’ I asked. ‘Why should he want help from the likes of me?’

  ‘You would think a butcher would be a big jolly man, wouldn’t you?’ he said. ‘All jowls and whiskers. But not Haimo. He’s a little, thin fellow, always looks worried. But he’s the best butcher in Rouen, the Duke’s butcher and all. Henry will have no one else.’

  ‘I’m not sure I want to see the Duke,’ I suggested.

  ‘Oh that’s all right. You’ll be out the back.’

  ‘The back?’

  I had visions of myself sawing enormous carcasses in half and pulling out giblets from horrific cavernous bellies in a room that smelt of gore. There had to be some alternative employment in a town like this. Eliphas saw my look of revulsion and laughed.

  ‘Relax,’ he said. ‘I do not see you in the charnel house. And here we are now. This is Meat Street.’

  It was a broad street and he was right. It was full of butcher’s shops, and the kennel running down the centre of the street ran red. The smell as we progressed down the road was strong, a mixture of fresh blood, ripe flesh and over-ripe flesh.

  ‘The smell of the battlefield,’ said Eliphas. ‘You’ll see.’

  Dogs scurried earnestly about like businessmen engaged in some important transaction, momentarily indignant at a kick, but on the instant referring back to the transaction in hand.

  ‘At the back,’ said Eliphas, ‘behind the shops there is a smaller lane where the beasts come to be killed. The customers prefer the killing to be done out of sight. Besides, the poor beasts shit a lot.’

  ‘Is that where I’ll be?’

  ‘Let’s talk to Haimo and see what he says.’

  We stopped at a shop bigger and better appointed than the rest, its wares well displayed. A small, worried man in a butcher’s apron was sitting at a counter inspecting a bundle of small sticks, with a look of despair.

  ‘Haimo,’ Eliphas cried. ‘Cheer up, my old friend. See, I have brought you Master Bertold.’

  The little man’s face showed an expression of almost comical depression.

  ‘He is not a butcher? He does not look like a butcher. The Marshal at Breteuil sent me word of a man who might be of use to me, but I took him to mean a butcher. Anyway, the only man who could help me now is a man who can do my accounts, tell me how much I buy, at what a cost, and how much I sell and how much I make. The English soldiers come by and they want meat. They say, the quartermaster or the provisioner will pay, and then they go. What can I do? They are the Duke’s soldiers…’

  ‘I know what soldiers are like. Everything has to be on credit, always it is someone else who will pay, someone coming quartermastering along behind. Except he never comes unless you seek him out of the woodwork, or surprise him on board when he’s going back to England,’ said Eliphas.

  ‘I am in debt because of my accounts. My cursed accounts … and my man Roger has taken ill and cannot help me. I am a butcher, Eliphas, not a money man, but I soon won’t even be a butcher.’

  ‘You are going to be a rich butcher, Haimo, and Master Bertold is the man who is going to see to it,’ said Eliphas.

  He made his excuses and said he had errands to do and people to see in town, and left Haimo and me to explore each other’s possibilities.

  The little butcher opened a cupboard door and out tumbled a clatter of sticks, all of the same size. He picked them up, wearing an air of puzzlement and mortification as though they were the architects of his misfortune.

  ‘What are these sticks that you are looking at?’ I asked him, though I had seen such things before and knew their purpose.

  ‘Why, they are the accounting sticks with a notch for every transaction. But my man Roger has had trouble with his eyes, and can no longer work. I believe he has put the notches in the wrong place. Do you understand these things, young man?’ he asked, addressing me.

  I had noted the sticks at Breteuil in the steward’s room, and
Juliana and I had spoken to slimy Odo about them. Everyone used the sticks and notches. I was back for a moment in old Saul’s room at the abbey, saying goodbye. ‘More useful than a bag of gold or a bright sword by your side,’ he had said, and now I knew he wasn’t wrong.

  ‘I understand accounts, but not how you have been using them,’ I told Haimo. ‘If you explain your business to me, I will sort out your sticks. And then I can give you a better system using figures, written on slate or vellum, showing what comes in, what goes out and who owes you what. All very simple. I can do that for you if you have, perhaps, a room upstairs where I can work…’

  He clutched at me as if he were a drowning man and I a piece of cork.

  I had found myself a job. No, that is wrong. My friends Saul at the abbey, the Marshal at Breteuil and Eliphas the jongleur had found a job for me. My only annoyance was at how little I was able at the moment to pay them back.

  The little butcher led me upstairs to a small room overlooking the shop – rather than giving me a view of the back where the animals were killed, I am glad to say – not that I am usually squeamish, but there is something defenceless about a poor beast being led to the slaughter that reminds me of the way we ourselves meet our fate: more roundabout than the road to the abattoir, but just as inevitable, and we are helpless and dumb to the end. It is too near the truth and God himself must look away sometimes when the suffering grows too much, but that’s another story – or rather another part of this one. I believe some of us shit before we die too, especially if we are strung up on the scaffold.

  Haimo described to me how he bought the beasts, what they cost to keep, and what the shop and its staff cost to run. I told him I would need slate and vellum, chalk and ink.

  ‘What do you need with all this?’ he asked. ‘You are not writing a monkish history.’

  ‘Slate is fine for day-to-day accounting,’ I told him, ‘but if you want a portrait of your affairs which slowly grows and provides you at the year’s end with everything you need to run a successful business, the slate must be copied on to vellum.’

  ‘You have done this before?’ he asked, suspiciously.

  I could not blame him for it. I could ruin the man if my theory was marsh-gas and my sums thistledown. I am ashamed to report, at this point, I lied.