The Prince of Poison

by Pamela Kaufman

  Madame Eglantine chattered nonstop about our sailing, which I only half-followed, for my mind was distracted. Bonel and Theo and Queen Eleanor and King John and Enoch tumbled widdershins as the oarsmen bellowed a fiendish chantey to the smack of oars on water. The Drage hissed over the heavy swells; Bonel grew smaller and smaller. Four brawny sailors braced the mast with mast partners as four others untied the sail. Madame Eglantine proudly pointed to the cross designs of leather sewn on the white muslin sail to increase its strength.

  “Oh, they be canny seamen!” she cried.

  Henry bit me again.

  Though long and narrow, our Viking ship wasn’t painted blue, but was a polished oak with a golden glow. Gold—not red sleet—not fire. I felt safe.

  Madame Eglantine and I leaned comfortably against our dragon pole.

  “Ye war wise, Sister, to wed Jesus; a hard terse doesna compensate fer the beatin’s that go with it.” She paused. “Still, my da put my youngest sister in a convent and she starved in a year. Mayhap she war too hungry goin’ in, but . . . werse than any madhouse, it war.”

  “Did anyone else die?”

  “Aye. Mast nunneries simply gi’e free funerals ond graves, ye know. Did ye ha’e enow to eat?”

  “Too much; the Sisters were fat.” I described Queen Eleanor’s kitchen at Fontevrault, the only nunnery I knew, which I called St. Michael’s at Nantes.

  She crossed herself. “I niver sailed wi’ a haly Sister befar, sae excuse me yif I seem to blasphene, I doona mean naught.” She smacked my knee. “Ye bring God’s blessing on our journey, no doubt aboot it.”

  Though I nodded, I hadn’t attended Mass in more than two years.

  “I wouldna travel on the Lord’s Day, Sister,” Mistress Eglantine apologized, “except that, after six weeks of Lent, ye ken, the market will be that eager fer meat.”

  She made sucking sounds with her lips; the doomed ducks quacked in response.

  Easter, it was Easter Sunday; I hadn’t seen Theo since last Wednesday. Had Lady Matilda taken him to Mass today? He was luckier than the ducks in any case, for at least Theo wouldn’t be served up on someone’s platter tomorrow.

  Mistress Eglantine had seven children; therefore, she was fat and toothless, but her eyes were a bright happy blue, her pink cheeks firm, and she could sing like a bird, which she did frequently. Though I admired her shrill voice, her matter was disturbing:

  A seal-suave mermaid swims in sparkling waves

  A glint! A glare!

  Now dives down in darkest depths

  Oh where? Oh where?

  Up she swims in serpent green—

  Red eyes aglow, gums afoam

  From fangs of fearsome sheen!

  Roars with glee and drags us doon!

  “Avant le hel!” shouted a blond giant, and we turned to the left.

  Almost at once, he sang out again, “Sus le hel!” and we turned right.

  We were at sea.

  Mistress Eglantine informed me that though Ostend was the most excellent port in the north, it could have benefited from a Roman seawall such as she’d once noted at Dover—had I seen it?—because the Channel could be rough indeed, especially at takeoff. Boats from Ostend also had to contend with blasts from the North Sea and icebergs aplenty, as well as the monsters she’d sung about. Once, a storm had delayed her for three days before she could even board her ship. She always felt more secure once she could see England’s shore approaching.

  I surveyed the retreating hills of Europe. Suddenly, I again saw Bonel high on a bluff, his hand raised against a whipping line of trees.

  “Be that a friend?” Mistress Eglantine asked.

  “A brother who . . .” I couldn’t speak for a lump.

  “Yer brother? He mun be hard to leave!”

  “Yes, he is.”

  When I looked again, Bonel was gone.

  So was Europe.

  Our fellow passengers were dressed in short tunics and colorful braies and boots. Most of them were merchants, according to my friend; they sat in the hold on heavy wooden boxes containing their goods and held others on their laps, wrapped with their arms and legs. That one in the yellow and blue was Master Edgar, who sold finished woolen goods to London; next to him and just to the left was Master Randolph, who might be a knight, though Mistress Eglantine wasn’t certain. In any case, he carried arms to sell. Other crates contained salt, meat, bread, and wine. The knight (if he was a knight) and Master Edgar were regular passengers.

  The steady slap and roll would have put me to sleep if the sleet hadn’t pricked my face.

  “We be beyond the troughs!”

  Mistress Eglantine explained that the floor of the Channel in the north had deep gouges on the European side, but a shallow shelf next to England. Add to that, the English side had warm seas. She always felt safer once they were past the depths and were in the shallows.

  “The days be lang,” she repeated, “which be a good omen as weil. Nicht can bring winds.”

  We rose and fell on the billows, the wind blew, Mistress Eglantine fell quiet, and I slept. Once I woke—it was still light—and I removed Mistress Eglantine’s sharp chin from my shoulder. My habit was wet from her drool. Her ducks, free from their cages, waddled among the other sleeping passengers, cleaning their crumbs off the deck. What did it matter? The ducks should be permitted a bit of freedom on their last day on earth.

  I planned to think of Theo, but I fell asleep again. Perhaps I dreamed of him, for I woke myself briefly by laughing.

  It was twilight. We were passing an island.

  “Be that a landmark?” I nudged Mistress Eglantine.

  She roused herself for a moment. “An iceberg.”

  “Impossible!”

  Then she sat upright. “Boot we shuld be headed south!” Then she discovered her empty cages; her ducks, now sleeping with their heads under their wings, perched next to the captain. “Oh, weil.” She snuggled into my shoulder again.

  I watched the iceberg as long as I could see it. One of the blond, barefoot sailors was also watching it; his face looked worried. Mistress Eglantine had been right; as darkness fell, the wind rose. Even with two tunics, and Mistress Eglantine as windbreak, my teeth chattered. The Drage shivered, too, as it took the billows directly on with a steady thump. The sail had been lowered; the sailors again used their oars.

  Though dark at sea level, the sky high above us still glowed. It was a strange sensation, sailing in a black world under a luminous sky. The rocking motion, the rhythm of the snores, the slap of waves lulled me into forgetting the iceberg. Again, I slept.

  I was wakened by shouting! The Vikings—where were they in the dark? What were they saying? Were they speaking Viking? Or Danish? Crates crashed! Where were their owners?

  Because it’s night, I thought groggily. Deo gratias that we’re on a Viking ship.

  This time icy foam woke me thoroughly! I tried to stand in the lurching ship. Lightning flared over an oil-black sea. The mast broke with a giant splinter right in front of me—had it hit the other passengers? Where was Mistress Eglantine? I groped in empty air. Only water! Wind! The dragon pole lay flat across the prow—could it be raised again? Oh God, where were the Vikings? I screamed—a wave broke over me like a jaw! Mistress Eglantine! The jaw clamped— I swallowed salt water.

  I grabbed the pole at the dragon-head end. Together we slid into the sea. The ship sucked behind me and I kicked with all my strength! Theo! Enoch!

  My head hit my saddlebag. Gagging and swallowing, I looped its handle to my belt. Kicked forever—O Deus juva me, did I move? Keep your mouth shut—don’t swallow water! Theo, oh Theo, don’t give up, God help me, I’ll pick you up.

  Where was Dover?

  My foot touched solid ground.

  A sandspit or the shallows of England?

  I stood—I pushed my dragon pole back to sea. An orange sun crept over the horizon before me. Crept over the mountain! Land! But where? Something heavy bumped my knees—Bonel’s saddleba
g. I couldn’t undo the wet knot at my waist.

  With waves licking my ankles, I stared at a rounded blue horizon—England, it could only be England!

  Now sobbing, I staggered onto sand dunes. Only when I was on a dry beach did I look back to sea; the ship was gone.

  Crates of cargo and supine merchants littered the beach. I stumbled among the bodies looking for a sign of life—all were dead, some hideously injured. Even Lord Randolph the knight, if he was a knight. They sprawled on bleached bones, showing that we hadn’t been the first to wreck on this beach. Bones and bodies, except for Mistress Eglantine. I looked three times before I gave up. Vultures circled low.

  I felt guilty for surviving. Mistress Eglantine had thought I would bring good fortune to our ship because I was a nun. But I wasn’t a nun. Was this God’s way of punishing me for my disguise? Was He offended?

  I knelt to ask God’s blessing for the dead and to thank Him for His mercy toward me. I won’t forget, I promised.

  Where was I? To my left and to my right stretched a wide expanse of sand. The beach was enclosed by two long arms reaching into the sea, forming a bay. Was there a bay above Dover? I was too tired to seek my whereabouts just yet.

  I sank upon a high dune away from the human graveyard. To my right rolled a series of dunes stretching to infinity; to my left was a rocky promontory, with stunted trees atop and perhaps a hill behind it. The rocks, I thought. I should go toward the rocks. After I’d rested.

  But I couldn’t rest—I was agitated. Theo, I had to reach Theo.

  I curled on the warm, dry dune.

  A flat spoon nudged under my nose. I pushed it away.

  “Quack! Quack!”

  I dozed, it came again: “Quack! Quack!”

  I lay in a stupor. A duck—was it possible that Mistress Eglantine had survived? I sat up.

  “Quack!” the duck sounded urgently. Henry or Clmence? I couldn’t tell.

  “Lead me to her.”

  My heavy saddlebag still struck my leg every time I stepped. What had happened to Theo’s document? I reached inside. It was dry, everything safe. Smart Bonel, to anticipate water damage. After I’d cared for Mistress Eglantine, I would examine all my treasure. The duck waddled confidently, turning his head from time to time to be certain I was following. He headed to a pile of kelp.

  “Quack! Quack!”

  Tangled in the weed was a dead bird. I leaned closer; the other duck.

  “He’s dead,” I told my guide gently.

  He nudged the supine duck with his bill, and I changed my mind.

  “Almost dead,” I amended. “There’s naught I can do.”

  He quacked vociferously, alternately nudging the duck and pulling at my skirt with his bill. Impressed by his determination, I decided there was only one way to prove my point: I picked up the sopping fowl, whose cold, webbed foot curled around my finger; I carried him to a higher dune, and wrapped myself around him.

  With a purring whimper, the first duck forced his way under my arm as well. We all fell into a deep sleep. I was wakened by a soft conversation. With quacks and a variety of other noises like purring, laughing, even words, the ducks conversed under my arm. When I sat up, I could no longer tell the sick from the well: they were identical.

  The sun had descended—the air chilled. The dead bodies still lay on the beach; two had been licked by the incoming tide. I should search them, I thought dully, remembering Bok, but I couldn’t. Several had lost their eyes to seabirds. With a shiver, I turned away.

  “I lead, mates!” I said. “You follow.”

  Still chattering and splattering in the sand, the ducks waddled after me.

  We walked around the rocks without having to climb over them. We did have to climb over a fallen oak tree in our path, however, which took all our strength. On the far side of the tree stood a tall daub-and-beamed house, built on stilts below and with an ancient thatch on top. The bottom part was a cow byre, and there were several white beasts who mooed when they saw me.

  “Is anyone home?” I shouted.

  “Quack!”

  “Not you—be quiet.”

  A shutter on the top floor opened. “Who’s there?” called a woman’s voice. “Do you have a duck to sell?”

  No face appeared.

  “I’m a nun from St. Margaret’s Abbey in Nantes and yes, I have two good ducks to sell, but only for laying, not for the table!”

  “Stay right there—I’ll be doon.”

  In time, two ancient dames walked around the corner of the house.

  “What’s your name, Sister? Did you walk from Nantes?” It was the voice from the window.

  The women were so alike that they must be sisters: tiny creatures who didn’t reach my shoulder, with wrinkled faces and bright blue eyes under brown woolen scarves tied low across their foreheads, full brown tunics protected by black aprons to their ankles. Their bare feet were splayed.

  “Nantes is in France, and I was shipwrecked; Sister Angela at your service. I was on my way to London to join King John’s Crusade to the Holy Land, when my ship was wrecked at sea and . . .”

  “France?”

  “Close to Paris.”

  “And you drifted so far north?” the first old lady said. “Usually our shipwrecked guests come from Scandinavia. Isn’t that right, sister?”

  Sister nodded.

  “We’re Abigail and Alysoun of Sky-field,” the first said. “May we offer you hospitality?”

  “Can my ducks have shelter as well? They’re the only other survivors and . . .”

  “Of course.” Abigail clucked sympathetically. “They would survive, wouldn’t they? Ducks can swim.”

  I’d thought of that, of course. Yet my survival—the dragon, the shelf under the sea—seemed a miracle greater than the ducks’.

  I followed the sisters and the ducks followed me around the house to where a double door gave entry.

  “Our cows live on the ground floor,” Alysoun explained, as we stepped into a pitch space redolent of milk and cow pats, sweet breath and hay. Memory surfaced: Theo, when we’d hidden in France, the friendly sound of swishing tails, and Theo getting his fill of milk at last. Oh, how could I get to London from here? Was Lady Matilda giving him fresh cow’s milk?

  As if she caught my thought, one sister said, “They give us milk; we give them a home. A fair exchange, isn’t it, sister?”

  “We should pay them rent,” her sister argued gently. “They warm our quarters in winter and give us curds, cheese, butter . . .”

  One sister nimbly climbed a ladder against the wall.

  “Quack!”

  “Leave the ducks with the cows,” Alysoun called down. “I’ll bring them grain and water.”

  The instant I reached the first level, she climbed back down with a small sack of oats and a crock of water. The cow smell was less distinct here, the warmth greater.

  “Quack!” came the grateful sound from below.

  “Are you hungry as well?” Abigail asked. “I can give you bread and beer. We have a bit of sausage if that’s to your taste.”

  Oh, it was. More than anything at Bonel’s, I’d missed my pork. Rachel had said that Jews didn’t eat pork because it caused leprosy. She was probably right, so I would get leprosy!

  Alysoun climbed back. “Those ducks are almost human, aren’t they?”

  “Aye.”

  The sisters brought forth an apple pudding and a bit of cheese.

  When I’d finished eating, Abigail said gently, “Tell us all about your shipwreck, dear.”

  I tried, unsuccessfully because of my emotions, so said simply, “A miracle.”

  They gazed in awe. “You’re the first person since we were children who’s survived such a disaster.”

  “And he was a holy man as well, you remember, sister.”

  Alysoun nodded.

  Abigail took my hand. “You’re a saint, Sister Angela. God preserved you for some great purpose.”

  Since I’d been feeling guilt
for my survival, I thrilled at her words. “Do you think so?”

  They both nodded.

  “A miracle,” Alysoun assured me, “and to be accomplished right here in Dunsmere.”

  “Dunsmere?” I sank to the floor, unable to stand. “Did you say Dunsmere?” Practically the same as saying Wanthwaite!

  Dunsmere was their closest village, though they’d been there only once, when they were children. Their father, a worldly man from Denmark, had taken them to the fair.

  “How far?” I asked.

  Less than a day’s ride, across the ridge and onto Dere Street.

  Their voices continued; I heard them as through a fog.

  Dunsmere, I was close to Dunsmere, God was rewarding me!

  At my insistence, they returned to to their memories of Dunsmere with its green and its church. My eyes filled.

  I’d heard a tale, once, of a shipwreck on a strange strand and how one woman alone had been saved to make a miracle. I was that woman! Wanthwaite was my miracle! Aye, I would have to travel to Dere Street anyway to go to London and it would be only a week at the most and Theo was safe for a month! This was the proper order, Wanthwaite first, I was about to see Wanthwaite.

  And Enoch.

  Though I protested that the nag the sisters gave me in exchange for my ducks was too much, the horse was a bad bargain. She trembled and stumbled on the path up the ridge until I apologized profusely for my existence; I would get off and lead and felt I should offer her my back! The sisters called her Shark—they named all their animals for fish; the ducks were now Minnow and Trout—and maybe Shark could swim better than she could climb. Nonetheless, we reached the top of the ridge. Looking down at the smiling sisters and their new ducks, I waved and called, “Thank you!” again.

  There was a dramatic drop to my left, and a vertical hill covered with spring growth to my right, an ancient path along the top of the ridge. The vista below thrilled my very bones, a bright green mixed with forests, a handsome castle looming in the distance, the beating heart of England. I felt the miracle of my survival all over again: England, Wanthwaite, Enoch. Enoch and England, Enoch and England!