The houses in Barfleur are mostly wattle and daub, except those of the more prosperous citizens, for which they have started to use the light, honey-grey stone of Caen. The church of St Nicholas itself is newly built of the same material to the familiar form of square tower, chancel, choir and nave. They are already talking of enlargement.
I give you all this information, gleaned from various sources in the first week of my stay, because it forms an important background to the watery crisis of my tale, but the one thing I have not dwelt upon is the shipbuilding tradition of the place. It had a reputation then – and quite possibly now – for building the best ships anywhere. Perhaps it stemmed from the Norse traditions of the people. After all, it was only two hundred years since Rolf the Ganger arrived with his ferocious blond- and red-haired hordes and took over vast swathes of the French King’s land, having the cheek to call the result Normandy. They did not do that in England. There is nowhere called Normandy there that I know of, but here they set up a whole country, and we’ve been bloody-minded ever since. The point I am making is that the Norsemen knew how to build a ship better than anyone, and they went to Vinland far across the ocean and to the edge of the world to prove it.
I chose The Seabass as my base in the town soon after I arrived, mainly because it looked cleaner than the other inns, and was furthest from the jetty, which means that it gets fewer military visitors. The room they showed me was at the top of the house which reminded me of the rooms I had shared in Rouen with my darling Alice, whom I missed more every day.
There I set up my temporary home. I placed a piece of rich, curious blue cloth, inlaid with real gold, that Alice had found in the market, on the wall opposite my bed so that I could look at it and think of her. That was better. She called it a favour such as a lady gives her knight, and I always had it about me. There was also my medicine chest and a small volume of leather-bound vellum, with mysterious illustrations featuring the secrets of perfect proportion, which Saul had given me in the monastery. These I placed in the oaken chest which, along with a chair and the bed, furnished the room. There was a simple lock for the chest whose key I kept about my person.
Having completed my domestic arrangements, I was now ready for the next stage of my tour of Barfleur. I did not call on Thomas FitzStephen, shipbuilder, immediately. I wanted to do a little more research first, but it was hard to ignore his shipyard. It towered above all the other buildings on the seafront. Noises of sawing and hammering came from it, curls of smoke or steam danced from the roof, and tradesmen arrived with supplies of wood and sea-coal. A slipway connected the building with the sea which licked at it eagerly as if in anticipation.
Everyone in the town seemed to treat the building and what went on there with respect, and there was much talk in the inns of the great ship that had recently been completed. It was to be launched the following week for its trials, attended by much excitement as well as civic dignity.
After a few days, I decided that I had reconnoitred the town and its environs enough. It was time to visit Master Stephen and his white wonder-ship. There had been an influx of soldiers the previous day, a small advance party, which had sailed with the early morning tide. They had left on the jetty, as usual, the things they did not want to take home: tattered canvas and broken pegs; split shoes; splintered arrows; stinking pieces of dried meat which even the seagulls didn’t want. People from the town crept out and gathered them up after the soldiers had left – everything was useful – the dried meat made useful bait.
I picked my way through the mess, setting my course for the great shed that covered part of the shipyard. There was a house beside it on the jetty, which seemed to serve as an office, and I addressed myself to the front door. Getting no answer, I advanced on the shed itself. Sounds of polishing grew louder as I approached and the smell of wood, varnish and paint tickled my nose. I knocked at a half-open door in the side of the building and, treating that as a formality performed, let myself in.
I was at once aware of something enormous towering above me – vast, white, beautiful. It was like a goddess. I had never seen anything built in wood that was so big. I stood there in extreme awe, gazing upwards, lost in reverence, sniffing the strangely elating smell of paint and varnish, the waft of worked wood and the frankincense of resin. I was looking at the underbelly of the White Ship. It was like the roof of a cathedral.
She was clinker-built like a proper Viking ship – and indeed like the little boat we had rowed on the lake at Breteuil – plank laid over plank so the side has a slightly serrated appearance. And it curved in the most seductive way imaginable as its flanks bellied out and then tucked in to meet the keel-board, which ran like a perineum down the whole long line of the ship. As I wandered reverently, back and forth, I started to try and quantify this goddess. There seemed to be no one about, so I paced the length of her from stern to prow and hip to hip. I measured it as a shade more than a hundred and forty feet long and over thirty feet across.
I reached across and patted her, and she felt good.
‘You are the most beautiful thing I ever saw in my life.’ I said.
And she answered back:
‘And who m-m-might you be, master?’
I turned and saw a man with blue eyes and curly, snow-white hair that seemed to fizz with energy, who must have been in his late forties. He wore a shipwright’s leather jerkin and a hard, driven, slightly ironic expression. Here was another person in the grip of some passion. His slight stammer seemed a product of this energy rather than any diffidence. He couldn’t get the words out fast enough. Words were a waste of time.
‘Master Thomas FitzStephen?’ I said.
‘That is the one. And you?’
‘The Comtesse de Breteuil suggested that I talk to you.’
He did not immediately take me up on my reference to Juliana.
‘You like m-m-my White Ship?’
‘I do indeed. I should die happy if I had built anything as lovely.’
‘That is my problem, master. She is too lovely. I don’t want to let her go. And that is of course absurd.’
‘I should feel the same. There is one thing that perplexes me, though.’
‘What is that?’
‘There is a contraption around the stern that I do not recognise. It breaks the fine sweep of the vessel.’
‘That is a rudder.’
‘I do not know the word.’
‘It is the new way. Forget the old clumsy steering oar over the starboard side. The ships in future, all ships – though it may take some time – are going to have rudders: more efficient, safer for the helmsman, less prone to failure, more conducive to speed. There is less drag on the ship’s progress through the water. An oar dangling over the side is always bound to set up resistance. It will break on rocks and shallows…’
‘Where did this idea come from? Did you invent it?’
‘It is an ancient invention, the Arabs used it and the Romans before them, although they both used bindings to lash the rudder to the hull. We prefer a wooden stern-post to which we attach the rings holding the rudder to the ship. Having gone to the trouble of building the fastest ship afloat, I was not going to fob her off with an old-fashioned steer-board. When we go on board, I will show you how we m-m-move the rudder with a tiller.’
He spoke about the vessel as though he lived for it, as though it were his mistress. It was a passion I could share though I did not think it was altogether healthy. The man’s pale face spoke of tension, of snatched meals and sleepless nights.
‘I know who you are,’ he said. ‘The Comtesse Juliana sent word. You want to learn about the sea and you might be interested in a merchant ship for carrying livestock; what we call a hulk.’
‘I might,’ I said. ‘A hulk. More than one, very likely.’
I grasped his hand. ‘I am Bertold FitzRotrou.’
‘Thomas FitzStephen,’ he declared. ‘I can sell you a hulk, but wouldn’t you rather own part of the White Ship?’
&
nbsp; ‘Is part of her for sale?’ I asked.
The man’s quest for perfection had cost him dear. There was a tremor in his voice. He wouldn’t sell one nail of the White Ship unless he had to.
‘A small part,’ he said. ‘And as to which part? You choose.’
‘If I had that opportunity,’ I told him, ‘I would put my money on the rudder.’
He laughed rather more immoderately than I would have thought my suggestion merited. I could not tell whether he was serious about his strange offer. It seemed, more than ever, that this was a man under considerable strain. He was of medium height, but wiry build, and he had an odd, intense expression – maybe he was not eating enough, or was drinking too much.
‘I don’t believe I have seen a painted ship before,’ I told him.?’
‘It is not strictly necessary for a ship to be of a colour,’ he told me. ‘Normally varnish will be sufficient. Coloured paint m-m-made with oil is only for special ships that will be used by royalty or suchlike. A king’s barge will be painted where a m-m-merchant’s hulk will be varnished wood. The White Ship was always going to be a swan, not a brown duck. Come with me.’
Gripping a ladder which was positioned up the side of the ship, he shinned up it like a squirrel. I followed rather more laboriously. At the top, I climbed over the vessel’s painted side down some steps that he had set up, and found myself on a vast deck along which lay a sturdy mast, not yet in its vertical position because of the proximity of the roof. At each end of the ship, there was some shelter in the form of two small covered spaces, below a raised deck reached by stairs. On either side of the central gangway were rows of benches, built into the fabric of the vessel so that they were completely immovable.
My guide now paused by the mast, which he said would be fitted when the vessel was launched. It would hold a square-rigged sail bigger than any that had so far been considered manageable. I said that I thought ships had oarsmen to propel them.
‘Indeed they do. I am coming to that. But first let me show you the tiller since you have expressed interest in the invention.’
He led me up to the stern of the ship and showed me where the helmsman would stand, upon a platform or little deck, what he called a castle, providing a shelter for those below, but yielding a clear view for the helmsman above the crowd of passengers and oarsmen. The tiller itself, the most important part of the ship, was a stout piece of wood which projected out through a wide hole in the after-board into the rudder post itself.
‘Try it,’ he said, ‘You’ll find it sweet as a honey-apple.’
It was true. The thing was perfectly engineered, and it needed to be: its components were essentially heavy, for the ship was enormous, but like all good creations, it appeared easy. A child could have steered that vessel. Only a truly vicious man could willingly destroy such a huge and perfect work.
‘So how does it function?’ I asked. ‘I put the oar-thing over to the left and …?’
‘Tiller hard a-port,’ he corrected me.
‘We put the tiller over to port, and the ship goes to the left … to port.’
‘No no no,’ the man was quite agitated. ‘You put the tiller over to port and the ship goes to starboard. You must think of the tiller as the other end of the rudder. The rudder impedes the water on whichever side you turn it, and the ship goes in the direction of the impediment.’
‘How very perverse of it,’ I cried. ‘There must be confusion.’
The man became quite vexed.
‘Not at all,’ he exclaimed. ‘Only for a dunce.’
‘How many people can you take on the White Ship?’ I asked him quickly.
‘Three hundred,’ he said. ‘Three hundred and fifty at a pinch.’
‘It could take a whole regiment!’ I exclaimed. ‘You could begin an invasion with a ship like this.’
‘Come,’ he said, ‘let me take you to the power-house of the vessel.’
He led me down from the castle again, to the huge floor of the ship. Here there were holes in the sides of the vessel made for the insertion of great oars which were lying stacked down the centre aisle, some shorter, some longer. I asked the reason for this.
‘You see the benches here along the gangway are slightly athwart. Each bench holds two m-m-men, the one further away has the longer oar, the one nearer has the shorter. That way we can fit more oarsmen to the ship without over-crowding the passengers.’
On the floor, in front of each slanting bench, were small adjustable chocks for the oarsmen to put their feet on, to help take the strain. Thomas was proud of this because he said no one else had ever provided such an aid to the business of pulling on an oar. It was yet another thing that would add extra speed.
‘The White Ship will fly across the sea like an angel.’ he said. ‘There has never been a passenger boat or cargo boat that could chase a warship. Now we can outrun anyone. Bring on the pirates!’
‘And how many oarsmen will help her do it?’ I asked.
‘Twenty-five each side,’ he said. ‘That is the optimum for the vessel’s s-s-size and s-s-sail power. In one week’s time we will take her out for her trial and you will see her fly. We will have fifteen a side for the first trial which will be quite enough. I am waiting for some m-m-more oarsmen from Caen. If everything goes according to plan, I will then be in a position to offer my ship to the King of England, our Lord Duke.’
‘To give it to him?’ I asked.
A look of dismay crossed the shipwright’s face,
‘Oh dear no. Everyone gives him things. He doesn’t want another ship. He wants an experience. He wants the wind on his face and the spray curving away on either side, and the North Star above and the ship quivering like a greyhound. I can’t give anyone the White Ship, it is mine. I can lend it to him whenever he wants it to convey him to Southampton for the start of his Christmas holiday. That is what a true man can do. I would be a toady if I gave it to him. What I want from him, and I have a golden mark to give him for the honour, for the fief, is the office of Comptroller of the King’s Ships, which my father Stephen had before me. He put together the fleet for the invasion of England, you know.’
‘Really?’ I said, politely. She had said he would tell me about it.
‘Do you think I should give the White Ship to him?’ he asked, suddenly anxious. ‘Would you, if it were yours?’
I probably would, as it happened, if there were advantage in it, because I am that kind of person, but I had never built a ship.
‘No,’ I told him, poor bastard, ‘definitely not.’
‘She is a wonderful woman, his daughter,’ he said suddenly. ‘I built the White Ship for her, you know.’
So that was the connection. She had visited him. He was in love with her, poor fellow. How many more were there like him, like me? Had she … given them favours too? Was there nothing she would not do in pursuit of her revenge?
The more I saw of this enormous vessel, the less likely did Juliana’s plan seem to be capable of success. It was huge, unsinkable. Barfleur was a working port full of professional sailors who knew what they were doing. They were the ones she should talk to. It was the height of optimism for her to come to me for advice on any kind of naval operation. Surely something would turn up and this whole thing would turn out to be a wild goose chase, a madness cooked up at full moon? Common sense was on my side, but I couldn’t quite manage to dislodge the small cold toad that had taken up residence in the pit of my stomach.
I shivered. Someone had walked on my grave, or I had walked on someone else’s. I was glad to be wearing my sheepskin coat, gift of the good Haimo. Perhaps after all I was I was beginning to feel the cold in the shipyard. It was a relief when FitzStephen took me down to his office and poured me some wine. Thin stuff, I’m afraid – I had been spoiled by Juliana at Breteuil and by Berthe at Rouen – however, I gave no sign of the shock to my mouth, and gulped it down with a will as he continued to speak about his ship as though she were a living being. There you are, I called
it she. I was beginning to catch the fever myself.
I asked him if I could come on what he called the trial. He seemed pleased.
‘As long as you keep out of the way.’ he told me. ‘I will only have half the oarsmen at this stage, but that will be fast enough.’
I did not ask if he was rationing the trial for some professional reason or because it would cost him more. I suspected the latter. He needed Juliana’s money. I questioned him about the oarsmen – were they bondsmen or prisoners?
‘No, no, not slaves as the Arabs use,’ he protested. ‘Do not call them that or they will walk out. They are skilled professionals and very touchy about it; well paid too, and always asking for m-m-more.’
‘Meanwhile,’ I said, ‘I will think about your offer of shares in the White Ship. I will have to talk to my partner the butcher of Rouen, and of course to the Comtesse.’
And then he said something that shook me.
‘The Comtesse said you might want to borrow a small rowing boat to take round the harbour. To get your sea-legs,’ he said.
I could hear Juliana ratcheting up her plan.
‘Sea-legs …? Yes…’
I tried to sound enthusiastic. What were sea-legs? They sounded fishy to me. At any rate, I had to go along with it.
‘You can have Perrine,’ he told me, further adding to my confusion.
‘Perrine?’
Was he offering me an inducement that was not purely financial? He didn’t seem that kind of man. ‘Ah. Yes. Yes, of course. Perrine.’
‘Or Delphine. Two little boats. Can you row?’
‘Yes.’
I didn’t like to say ‘on a lake’. I was charmed to discover a Perrine again. I had been strangely homesick for Breteuil recently
‘Don’t go beyond the harbour after high water. There’s a hell of a tide here especially at the spring. It will take you out to the Quilleboeuf in no time.’
‘The Quilleboeuf?’
It was not a name I had heard before.
The White Ship Page 35
