by James Meek
‘Let him come another mile down the highway and be founded in flight,’ said Hayne.
Out of the house came a man with a full beard, naked out-take white breech with green bars. It was the bowman they called Sweetmouth. Two little knaves followed him bearing rods of hazel. He sat on a log, straightened his back, knit his arms tight to his ribs, clenched his jaw, and said: ‘Begin.’
The two young knaves, his sons, of eight or nine winter, began to hop about him and beat him with the hazel rods. Soon his skin was streaked with red weals and the knaves were breathless. They stinted often to rest and to read them which span of skin to smite next, while the man cried he was ashamed to have begotten such weaklings, and egged them to beat him faster.
‘Beat him on the head!’ cried Mad to the knaves. ‘Let it find a use at last!’
They heeded him and whipped fast Sweetmouth’s noll till it bled.
‘His wife the brewster hasn’t the time to beat him herself and must leave the chore to the children,’ said Mad to Will.
When Sweetmouth’s wife came to fill their cans and behold the children’s work, Will asked what her husband had done to earn such blows.
‘Nothing,’ said the brewster. ‘But if we ne beat him now for all the wrongs he’ll do while he’s away, who will?’
Sweetmouth fell on his knees on the grass and his sons dipped their hands in a stop and sprinkled water on his noll.
He rose and came up to the board with blood and water dripping of his beard. He shook hands and asked after Noster.
‘Went to the iron-works of Dene again,’ said Longfreke. ‘Home to his mum and his burd.’
‘He’s a whore bitch’s whelp, damned to hang by his whore tongue from the Devil’s inmost arse hair,’ said Sweetmouth.
‘Sweetmouth means he wishes his even-bowman well,’ said Mad.
‘May the Fiend fuck me in the arse till my eyes weep shit if that were my meaning,’ said Sweetmouth. ‘Who’s the featous knave? He looks like he came down of a church wall. Are you in the score? I need a fellow like you.’
‘We’re to found him betimes down the road,’ said Longfreke.
Sweetmouth went into the house and came out later with the blood cleaned of him, a pewter St Christopher hung of his neck over a blue shirt, and a pack on his back. His wife stood in the doorway, the end of her barmcloth held to her mouth, her eyes sore of weeping. One of Sweetmouth’s sons handed him his bowstaff. Sweetmouth rubbed the knaves’ scalps with his knuckles and turned from them and the four men at board rose, nebs reddened by ale, and went on their way down the southward road.
The low sun gave the hayshocks long shadows in the cropped fields and made the bowmen squint. As they went by, the culver fowl that picked at the earth between the sheared stalks took fright, and flew into the sky, threshing the wind with their wings.
‘I SAW A wonder thing,’ said Sweetmouth. ‘A maid flew by on a dear horse like to the Fiend was at her heels. She’d hidden her neb with a cloth and wore a white gown sewn with flowers, like a king’s daughter would wear to her wedding, and she was alone, without friend nor kin to shield her. A handwhile later I saw the same maid walk by through the woods near the road, in the same dress, but with her neb not hidden no more, and instead of a horse she had with her a much boar.’
‘How did she ride?’ asked Mad. ‘Legs astride or hung off the side?’
‘It walked beside her,’ said Sweetmouth, ‘with her gear on its back.’
‘A witch,’ said Mad.
‘I ne spoke to her for fear of that. A maid who may craft a horse into a boar might hurt a man. But now it seems to me she looked too fair to be a witch.’
‘Now we get to it,’ said Mad.
‘She’s dark as a bourne on a summer’s night, and when I woo her it must be dreadful, like to the sun nears the moon and so heats her she’s bound to shed her gown and let him shine within her.’
‘A Saxon man outdoes my song,’ said Mad.
‘I ne know her name, nor where she goes, but she has a lickerous mouth and silk blossoms on her tits, and I’d spend the leave of my days in a monastery, with my flesh under a knotted rope, could I kiss her cunt but once.’
‘Sweetmouth likes to kiss a maid on the lips in such a way she may sing at the same time,’ said Mad.
‘A boar,’ said Longfreke, ‘is a right hard deer to break to burden, and a maid alone on the road with blossoms on her dress is not but a whore or wit-lorn.’
Sweetmouth’s eyes widened and shone. ‘My pintle would be to her cunny like to a naked king slid inside a bearskin on a winter’s night, a bearskin fit for a king, made of the smoothest, youngest bears, tight to his shape.’ He put his arm around Will. ‘I wived too soon. The dark maid is she our Maker wrought for me alone. I’ll meet her on the road, you’ll help me win her. There’s none better than me in the greater deal of wooing, but to draw a maid’s eye, man would have a fair neb, which I lack. So I’ll have you be the bait, to draw the maid in.’
‘Ne heed him,’ said Mad. ‘Sweetmouth speaks so much of maids only that none might know his shame, that he’s true to his wife.’
They went on, and Will and Longfreke fell behind. Will learned they were to fare on foot through Wiltshire as far as Westbury, where they’d meet one of the English lords who held Calais, who was to get them horses, and take them through Dorset to the ship that would bear them to France.
‘Then Hayne’s not our chief, this lord is,’ said Will.
‘This high-born fellow’s no lord. He’s lower, a squire or some such. He does the bidding of the lords that hire us. Laurence Haket by name.’
IT APPEARED TO Berna an over-eager suitor kissed her. She opened her eyes and regarded the salivating mouth of Enker, with Hab beside him. The boar pressed his nose to Berna’s cheek and grunted pleasurably. He was shod and had a sack tied to his back. Hab wore his usual patched tunic.
The lady was far from home, said Hab, her wedding was soon, and her folk would lack her.
Berna stood and brushed grass and leaves from her person. ‘Where I travel and fare isn’t yours to know,’ she said. ‘It’s not your place to wake a lady, sleeps she in her chamber or a forest. Who gave you leave and permission to quit my father’s manor?’
Hab said he sought his sister Madlen.
‘I know the names and faces of each of the servants and bound folk on my family’s estate, and even of servants’ servants like you,’ said Berna. ‘You have no sister. There’s no Madlen.’
There was a Madlen, said Hab, but she was shy, and versed in concealment.
‘Were you to have a sister indeed, why would she be here, half a day on foot from her right and proper stead and place?’ demanded Bernadine.
Madlen had left Outen Green that morning, said Hab. She loved Will Quate and sworn to follow him wherever he went, be it to the ends of the earth.
Berna laughed. ‘My poor pigboy,’ she said. ‘Your kind hasn’t the time, nor the letters, nor the fineness of mood and sentiment for love. Drink ale with your friends, wed and marry your sweethearts, bear and carry children, the Almighty won’t ask and demand no more of you. It’s only we of blood must endure love’s smarts.’
Hab’s face crinkled with subtlety, and he addressed Berna with a sudden directness, as if they were of one estate.
‘Is it for love you sleep in the wood, instead of being at your father’s side to meet your new husband?’ he asked.
For a moment Berna was incapable of response. She turned her head in esperance of aid, in vain; they were alone.
‘You may not speak to me in that familiar way and manner,’ she said, attempting to give her voice authority. ‘Depart from my presence this instant.’
‘In your sleep I took you for Madlen,’ said Hab.
‘How is that possible? Your sister mayn’t afford a cloth as rich as this,’ said Berna, holding out the flowery stuff of her marriage gown.
‘She stole it,’ said Hab.
Berna put her hands to her mouth, then
to her cheeks. ‘Why, my dear Hab,’ she said with sincere pity, ‘if your sister is the thief who stole my first gown, she’ll rightly be caught and hung.’
The menace of penalty mortal failed to provoke the proper response. Hab ne trembled nor blanched. He regarded her disdainously. ‘You fear you won’t outshine Madlen unless she’s dead,’ he said.
‘Outshine?’ said Berna. ‘You demonstrate a marvellous ignorance of our different natures.’
‘Demon-straight a what?’
‘You see, pigboy? We scarcely speak the same tongue and language. You’re incapable of comprehending that were your sister to able herself in my gown, it wouldn’t change her into no demoiselle. The qualities that mark and distingue our kinds go deeper than outward seeming and appearance. Her lack of gentilesse, her coarseness of movement, the roughness of her shape, are in harmony only with dull colours and cheap cloth. In my gown, she would become discordant and odd. She would seem still lower and meaner than she already is.’
Hab beheld Enker and scratched an ear in thought, only instead of his own ear, he scratched the boar’s. ‘You ween Madlen ne look fairer than you, though she wear the same gown? How may you know, if you’ve never seen her?’
‘I ne say your sister’s not fair,’ said Berna more gently. ‘A daisy may be wonder fair, and never as lovely as the humblest rose.’
‘I saw Madlen in the gown she stole,’ said Hab. ‘She hight herself right winly. I saw her come again of the still water at the foot of the bourne and she seemed to me as fair as any rose. Truly, when I beheld you asleep, I took you for her.’
Berna coloured. ‘You lack the sense to apperceive and know the clear signs of my nobility,’ she said.
‘You’re like to her in other ways. She’s a thief, and you’re a thief, for you stole yourself from your own wedding.’
‘I lose all rule by which to measure your offensiveness,’ gasped Berna.
‘And you’re like her that you fare for love, Calais-bound. Madlen yearns for Will Quate, and you, I guess, for Laurence Haket.’
‘Shut your mouth!’ cried Berna, so furiously that her horse, tethered nearby, reared and whinnied. ‘I shan’t accept no comparison of my fare and journey to no errand of a pigboy’s sister.’
Hab shrugged. ‘High-born as you are, you’re alone in the wood without friend or kin to help.’
‘Ne harm me,’ said Berna, ‘or you’ll be pined and made to suffer.’
‘How?’
‘I am imaginative,’ said Berna.
Hab’s demeanour changed again; the familiarity that had so troubled Berna disappeared, and his consciousness of the lady’s superiority seemed to return. Humbly he proposed to accompany the lady on her journey, that she might appear to have an entourage. Together they would attempt to travel under the protection of the archers. Somewhere on the road to Calais, Berna was certain to encounter Laurence Haket; while Hab, if he kept close to Will Quate, would surely catch his sister.
‘But Will Quate will know me,’ said Berna. ‘He’ll see I’ve fled my marriage. He will betray me to my father. I already know he’s not to be trusted. I met him as I left Outen Green and he behaved despicably towards me, without honour or worth, like to we were equals – as you did just now, but worse.’
Hab said no doubt the lady’s face had been veiled; no doubt Will, thinking like Hab that the lady was occupied with marriage preparations in the manor house, had mistaken her for Madlen.
‘Another one?’ said Berna. ‘Do I seem so like a low-born woman?’ She examined the backs of her hands. ‘Is it because I’ve let the sun brown my fingers?’
She could turn it to her advantage, said Hab. The other bowmen would accept her as she was, as the lady Bernadine, but providing she went veiled, Will would assume she was Madlen.
‘That Lady Bernadine should pretend to be Madlen pretending to be Lady Bernadine?’ said Berna. She laughed. ‘You’re imaginative.’
Hab said it was her second usage of the word, but he ne knew what it signified.
‘As you may understand it,’ said Berna, ‘it is the sleight of mind that gives the speed to know things not as they are, but as they might be, were God or man to work them otherwise. Have you any food?’
WILL AND LONGFREKE next came upon their even-bowmen in the cool shade of a wood. Hayne lay stretched on the leaves, eyes shut, the likeness of Christ flat on his chest, while Mad and Sweetmouth made a rope fast to the crown of a young birch, drew it down and knit it to the trunk of an oak.
‘It’s a proud young birchling, and we’ll learn it to know its stead in the forest,’ said Longfreke.
‘We’ll make of it a bow, bound to its lord the oak,’ said Sweetmouth.
‘We haven’t no arrow, and it needs us a true one,’ said Mad. ‘Where in this wood might we get such?’
They turned to Will, gripped him with firm hands and tore the pack of his back. Will strove to free himself but the other two were stronger together and they laid him down with his rigbone flat against the bowed birch.
‘An ill token he ne struggled much,’ said Mad.
‘I ne used but half my strength,’ said Will.
‘A proud arrow that backbites,’ said Longfreke. ‘We’d best found it. Shoot!’
They loosed the knitted rope and let Will go. The birch whipped and Will was flung upwards. He flew through the air and came to earth through a holly tree. He fell on his shoulder and cried out once, then cried no more, but ne rose, and lay still.
‘He flew true,’ said Sweetmouth.
‘He flew crooked,’ said Mad.
‘True,’ said Sweetmouth. ‘I took the holly as the mark.’
‘Crooked,’ said Mad, ‘I took the nettles.’
‘Player!’ called Sweetmouth to Will. ‘You’d best have shielded your neb from scratches, for I need it whole.’
‘How did the world look when you saw it as the birds do?’ asked Mad.
Will groaned and stood up. Hayne loomed over him and said: ‘Would you be a bowman in my score, and come with us to Calais?’
‘Yeah,’ said Will.
Hayne clasped Will’s head in his great hands and looked at it from this side and that like to he’d made Will out of straw and sticks and rags, and would see he’d made him right. He stepped away and bade Longfreke take the oath.
Longfreke took Will’s wrist and put his bowstaff in his hand and bade him swear by the blood and bones of Christ, by their Clean Mother, by St Sebastian and by St George, and by his bow, to be true to Hayne Attenoke and to his even-bowmen of the Gloucestershire score, to do the bidding of the master of the score faithfully and without backbiting.
Will swore it.
Longfreke bade Will say after him:
Feathered tail but I ne sing
I rise high without a wing
I am but a wooden freke
Yet I have an iron beak
As a falcon so my flight
Of my master’s will and might
Ne to think on flying’s end
Free in air to while and wend
Faring far in light and dark
Blind to my high master’s mark.
‘What are you?’ asked Longfreke.
‘An arrow,’ said Will.
‘Who is your master?’
‘The bowman.’
‘And who is that bowman?’
‘Hayne Attenoke.’
‘It is the Lord God Almighty,’ whispered Longfreke. He took a flask of his pack and gave it to Will and bade him drain it to the bottom. It was a Scotch drink, he said, of frozen ale. Will drained the flask, sat on the ground, shut his eyes and slept.
NOW IT IS night, when under the abbot’s regimen the monks would have been asleep. Under the invigorated rule, one third of the community chants, insomniate, sating the vacuum of tenebrous nocturnal silence between Compline and Matins with adamantine clarifications of the divine.
The abbot and his pomp are not part of this. The abbot, formally the monastery’s most senior cleric, ce
lebrates mass in his private secretarium, absents himself from chapter, does not participate in processions, and has separated himself from the chanting of the liturgy. I have become the sole inhabitant of both abbeys, the decadent abbey of the abbot and the austere abbey of the prior.
Accordingly, I divide my hours. After Vespers I exit the nave and transit the area to the abbot, who tells me that the prior is a fanatical dictator, a usurper, a depraver of regulations, that he is ignorant of the furious verities of public administration. It is the abbot’s opinion that only the fatuous would find it credible for God to damn the carnivores and offer the herbivores and pescivores salvation, or exterminate humanity because an abbot in Malmesbury wears coloured velvets. ‘Are we to accept,’ the abbot says, ‘that God may perceive true fidelity only through the rags of penury, the habits of opulence rendering it invisible?’
But before Vespers, and at night, I regress to the nave, ambling between the pilgrims pressed to the pavement, supplicating miserably as they reptile to the sanctuary. I resonate with the chanting of the choir. The chancel exhales an incensed nimbus, mollifying the flagrant ardors of the candles, while the immense columns of pale native stone simulate the trunks of celestial arbors.
NB Marc. I should have conducted you with me to England, as you requested. I confess I was directed by an irrational resentment which is difficult to explain: I resented the contrast between your superior (in respect to me) command of Latin and your inferior command of rhetoric, which resulted in the more erudite of us – you – being subordinate to the more sociable, me. You remained my servant, when you might with facility have found an alternative master who honoured his dependency on you in terms more amiable than finance alone. I request that you absolve me.
PS The request for absolution to be extended to your wife – Judith having indubitably suffered indirectly from my resentment.
WILL WOKE ON a sack of straw in a hot dark room. Evening light came of small windows pitched in the wall and around him were the shapes of other men asleep.
