To Calais, In Ordinary Time

by James Meek

  ‘I would be a lady,’ said Berna. ‘My dearest wish is to be like the fair Bernadine in all things. But I am too low, too slow-witted, too rough. I lack her learning and her feelings. I lack the softness of her heart and her sharp wit. Were you to set me and her beside one another, even in the same gown, it were like to a gem beside a wall-stone.’

  ‘I ne know aught of that.’

  ‘But isn’t she right fair?’

  ‘Not that I marked.’

  ‘You say so to spare my feelings.’

  Will snorked.

  ‘Poor Bernadine,’ said Berna. ‘How sad she was when Laurence Haket went away and her father made her wed an old man.’

  ‘I wrought her dad’s land,’ said Will. ‘I hadn’t no time to see no sorrow in no daughter of his.’

  ‘I saw,’ said Berna. ‘I saw how Haket wooed her and I envied, that is nithed, them. I wished I might have their dear clothes and clean well-shaped hair and their playful ways with each other. It was ruthful to see how the lady Bernadine was pined when he went away. The hearts of all who saw her were melted.’

  ‘Not mine.’

  ‘As her sorrow deepened, she wouldn’t eat, and grew thin and wan, and her eyes were much and bright. I saw that as one near death, Bernadine had been so near the unearthly bliss of love her soul had risen to her neb. I overheard her kinswoman Pogge say to her, “Terrible as your suffering is, it has conferred on your appearance a touch of the divinity of the martyr.”’

  ‘Too much French there for me to know.’

  ‘And me, but the sound of it liked me. And the lady was so fair in lovesickness I would have my own likeness of true love. And since I mightn’t have no gentleman, but only a churl, I fastened on you, and stole her wedding gown.’

  ‘I’m no churl. I’m a free man. You were better to forget the lady and work out how you might get yourself off this gallows road you’re on.’

  ‘Yeah! I believe you’re right, my friend,’ said Berna. ‘After two days on the road I understand my wrong. I know now I mayn’t rise above my kind. I’m a pigster’s daughter, not made for love. I’m of the earth, as are you, and Bernadine is made of other pith, less earthly, more fire and air.’

  Will frowned and looked up at her. ‘You’re a dote, Madlen,’ he said.

  ‘I know,’ said Berna.

  ‘But now you’ve shifted your song I’ll say I worth you more than the lady Bernadine. You’ve come far, and put your life at stake for something you won’t never win, while that one only stints at home and meekly does her father’s bidding.’

  ‘You ne know what the lady Bernadine does or thinks or feels,’ said Berna hotly. ‘Hers is a higher and harder way than we can hope to follow, for we know not of the world but through our eyes and noses, rather than, as she, through heart and soul. I reckon when I left Outen Green she readied for a fare of her own. Against hers mine’s but a bound girl’s foolish game. There mayn’t be no love between us, Will. You’re betrothed to Ness, and when you come again from France, you’ll go behind the plough, and Ness’ll cook and keep house and bear your children and bring your ale, and you’ll hop on the holidays till you lame, and if she ne do as you bid, you’ll beat her, and your backs’ll bend like two old trees, and you’ll die and have a little house in heaven together.’

  ‘Go home, then,’ said Will. ‘I ne wanted no love of you. I ne asked you to come after me. Go home with Hab and make out some other stole the gown.’

  ‘I shall. And I shall seek some filthy villain to breed with, more meet to my kind.’

  Will laughed.

  ‘Why do you laugh?’ said Berna.

  ‘You mirth me.’

  ‘You owe to be more sorry I ne love you no more. Tell me truly, am I not fairer now than when we last met?’

  Will keeked at her and shrugged. ‘Yesterday in the ridding you nad no cloth on your neb, and now you do, so I mayn’t deem your fairness.’

  ‘Am I not wiser, then?’

  ‘Yesterday you were steadfast in your wishes. You knew what you would have, all that I wouldn’t let you have it. Now you’ve lost your boldness. It’s like to you ne know what you’d have or where you go or who you be no more.’

  ‘The lady Bernadine …’

  ‘And I ne understand why you’re so sweet on your lady Bernadine when you know what a dizzy twit she is.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Busied she less with her heart and soul, and heeded more her eyes and ears, she’d have learned what Laurence Haket would do with Ness Muchbrook when she thought him at hunt. Then I wouldn’t be betrothed to a maid already gave herself to a high-born in the wood, and wouldn’t have to seek my deed of freedom from the man who swived her and got her great.’

  ALL THE STRENGTH flowed of the lady Bernadine, and she fell forward onto the neck of her horse, and would have fallen to the ground had Will not hent her.

  He laid her by the side of the road. Breath came of her, so the bowmen knew she lived, but they ne durst lay a hand on her, even Thomas, even to take the cloth of her face. They asked Will what he’d said to fell her like to a knight shot of a steed. He said they’d talked of doings in Outen Green, and he mightn’t guess what made her sicken so ferly.

  At the word sicken Hornstrake got on his knees, took a glass ball of his shirt and began to say a broken paternoster.

  ‘Leave me here,’ said the lady Bernadine, with her eyes shut. ‘I die. It is my heart.’

  ‘My guess is lovesickness underlies this,’ said Thomas.

  ‘We owe to leave the harlot where she lies, as she asked,’ said Dickle. ‘We ne owe her nothing. She’s no lord of ours.’

  Lady Bernadine began to sob.

  Will looked for Hab, but the pigboy had gone on down the road, and whistled while he plucked blossoms of pig’s parsley the muchness of trenchers and fed them to Enker.

  Hayne came up and bade Softly get Cess to help the lady Bernadine into the cart. Softly said Cess wasn’t to be shared, nor his cart neither. They were soldiers, he said. It wasn’t their lot to keep knights’ children.

  Hayne took three strides and stood against Softly, his shoulders a good inch higher than Softly’s head. Softly ne shifted his ground. The two stood clammed together.

  ‘I may over you,’ said Hayne, ‘and you ne may over me.’

  A handwhile went by when all was still, out-take that Dickle set his hand on his bollyknife, Longfreke cracked his knuckles, and the lady wept to herself.

  Softly laughed, clapped Hayne lightly on the cheek and stepped back.

  The lady Bernadine was laid on a heap of woollens in the cart, and Cess bidden to see to her while Hornstrake drove. Will was given the lady’s horse to lead. Will would speak to Hab, but when he called to him, Hab ne answered, and ne came near.

  AT ABOUT NOON they came to Chippenham. A bridge bore the highway from Bristol to London and Canterbury over Avon stream and through the town, the greater deal of which was on the far side. The bowmen hadn’t no need to overgo the bridge, for theirs was the southern road to Dorset. They stinted to rest and eat where a warrener hucked brad hare at the meeting of the roads.

  ‘We owe to go into Chippenham,’ said Hornstrake. ‘There’s a stall in the shambles there sells the best hot cow’s feet in England.’

  ‘I mind what happened when we last came through Chippenham on the way from France,’ said Longfreke.

  ‘We ought to have fired their stinky cots,’ said Dickle.

  ‘I ne know what stirred them up so much,’ said Sweetmouth. ‘I did but spill a drop on the alewife’s bosom.’

  ‘It wasn’t the spill but how you cleaned it,’ said Mad.

  Sweetmouth opened his mouth, let his broad tongue loll of it and tapped it with his finger. ‘You owe to learn of the cat how well a tongue may wash a kitten,’ he said.

  ‘It ran out of hand,’ said Longfreke. ‘You let so much of their ale into their trough our own horses got drunk.’

  Hayne told Hornstrake he might go, were he back within
an hour. None would go with him, so he went alone.

  ‘They’ll know you,’ said Longfreke.

  ‘It was more than a year ago,’ said Hornstrake. ‘They won’t mind no more.’

  Off he went. An hour went by and he ne came again. A flock of grim men came out of town bearing baskets full of stones. They set the baskets down at the far end of the bridge and beheld the bowmen with their arms folded. Hayne went to deal with them.

  LONGFREKE BADE THE bowmen gather by him and be ready. Will made to string his bow, but Longfreke took his bowstaff from him and dight it with his own in the cart, and their even-bowmen did likewise. Softly whistled to Cess and she handed each bowman a bat of willow wood, an iron cap and a wicker shield. Behind her the lady Bernadine could be seen only as a lump under a woollen.

  Longfreke learned Will how to knit the leather strings that held the cap on his noll and how to hold the shield.

  Softly bade Will follow him, and learn how to fight, and how to win by it.

  ‘Ne heed him,’ said Longfreke to Will. ‘This is a small fight, not soldiery.’

  ‘Follow me, lest you live as meanly as Longfreke,’ said Softly. ‘The greater deal of soldiery is to learn other folk their lack of might. If they fear for their goods and their women, they won’t fight no more, and the war ends quicker.’

  ‘But Chippenham folk are English folk,’ said Will. ‘We haven’t no war with them.’

  ‘They’re no kin to me,’ said Softly. ‘All know Wiltshire churls are milksops, and spend their holidays pining their bulls to take them up the arse.’

  ‘I thought me to fight the French,’ said Will.

  Longfreke said Will would do as he was bidden.

  Cries came of the bridge and Dickle yall that the Wiltshire churls had blooded their vinter. He took off his shirt and let it fall to the ground. On his bare chest in blackneedle for all to see was the likeness of two legs in armour, with spurs on the heels, in the teeth of hell-mouth.

  Hayne came of the bridge like to naught had happened, but a stone had hit his forehead, and it dripped blood. The townsfolk had known Hornstrake, and took him and put him in the stocks and wouldn’t let him go out-take that the score gave them five pound silver against their losses from last year’s fight. When Hayne bade them let Hornstrake go, they cast stones at him.

  Holiday smeared treacle on the wound, and Hayne dight the bowmen as he would have them go into Chippenham: Dickle, Longfreke, Softly and Holiday foremost, Sweetmouth and Hornstrake in the middle with the ladder, Mad, Will and the priest behind. Cess would mind the cart with the lady Bernadine, and let the swineherd see to it that none came near.

  ‘I’ll bide here with the cart,’ said Thomas.

  Hayne said Thomas must leave his horse behind and go with them, and they’d keep him from harm.

  ‘Free Hornstrake, do no more,’ Hayne told his men. ‘Ne handle these folk as their like in France. Ne steal, ne fire no house, ne spill no goods nor guts, ne lay no hand on no maid, wife nor child. Use no weapon with an edge. Fight clean, look to each other, keep your eyes on the swivel, and ne shame the name of Gloucestershire.’

  Hayne took a shield and an iron cap and went to the stream’s brim, near the bridge. He lifted the shield over his head and strode into the river. Deep and fast as the Avon was, it reached no higher than the giant’s waist, and he fared through the stream as lightly as a man who walked on land through the wind.

  The Chippenham folk howled and hooted with scorn and glee and began to stone Hayne. But they mightn’t hit him, for he was shielded. They ran onto the bridge and leaned over the water to let fall their stones the better. When they did this, Longfreke led the bowmen over the bridge toward them.

  The townsfolk stood frozen with fear to see Dickle come at them with the token of the Fiend on his bare chest and the holy rood on his forehead, Longfreke, with his cloven face, by his side, and six handy young gomes with them. They ne knew which way to turn, for the giant Hayne came on through the stream, and clamb up the town half, and the other bowmen neared them quickly. A few made shift to let fly slingshots, but none hit their mark, and the greater deal of them let fall their stones and fled.

  Hayne caught two Chippenham knaves, gripped them by the throat, lifted them like to they were hens, carried them to the bridge and let them fall in the river. The lanes that led of the high street rattled with the snackle of locks and bolts and shut doors, and those few shopkeepers yet selling made fast to put up their boards. A cheesemonger’s board, held flat of his window by two strong chains, was laden with ripe wares, and seeing the bowmen near he made to lift the board, cheeses and all, that the window might be shut with his goods inside. He was a bald red fellow and his neb shone of tears and sweat. The brim of the board nearly met the wall but one thick round cheese withset him, like to the bailiff’s foot in the bondman’s door, and he began to mew with fear. Dickle dang him on the back of his shoulders with his bat, the old gome fell on his knees in the street, and the cheeses, let free, trendled toward the bowmen’s cart. While Dickle thrashed the cheesemonger, and the women of his house screamed from the windows above to spare his life, Softly and Holiday hent the cheeses that went by and stowed them in sacks on their backs.

  Longfreke would drag Dickle away from the cheesemonger that the man not be killed, but Dickle smote him yet. A housewife emptied a pot of filth and piss on the bowmen from a high window. Sweetmouth and Hornstrake reared the ladder to the house, clamb up, leapt in through the open window, broke open the shutters of the other windows and began to cast down cloths, cups, cats, bags of pepper and shoon. Three knaves ran out of a lane and would overthrow the ladder, but Mad and Will smote them on the legs and drove them away. Holiday hopped about the cart, catching pepper in his iron cap, and a pewter flask full of wine let fall by Sweetmouth struck him on the head. Wine and blood ran down his neb into his mouth, and he licked his lips, and Mad held the priest by the wrist and bade him look on a holy thing, wine into blood.

  Longfreke got Dickle from the cheesemonger, who dragged himself away by his elbows, and yall Hornstrake and Sweetmouth down of the house, and Hayne came out of a lane, and the score went on to the market ground. It wasn’t a market day, or maybe it was and fear of qualm kept the sellers away, but anywise nobody sold and the shambles was empty, out-take an old buck goat with one good eye bound to a post, and Hornstrake, locked in the stocks.

  ‘Ne rue,’ said Sweetmouth. ‘You ne got your hot cow feet but you kept your great much donkey head.’

  ‘They knew me early,’ said Hornstrake. ‘It was hue and cry.’

  Softly broke the lock with a tool he bore, set Hornstrake free and, while Hornstrake rubbed the smart of his wrists, struck him a blow across the side of the neb to learn him to be wiser. Holiday washed the blood and wine of his neb with water of the trough.

  The empty market about them was still and no sound came of the houses at its brim. Nothing was to be heard but the cratch of the priest’s pen on a littlewhat of calfskin and the creak of the rope as the buck goat stretched toward the water.

  ‘What do you write?’ asked Dickle.

  ‘Letters,’ answered Thomas, ‘to them as come after us.’

  ‘Who’s after us?’

  ‘Our children.’

  ‘I haven’t got no children.’

  ‘Nor have I.’

  ‘You’re a liar, then.’

  ‘Anyone’s children, I meant.’

  ‘You’re a liar. I never met no child as could read. Ne write nothing of what we do or say, or I’ll quell you,’ said Dickle.

  ‘I shan’t, I swear,’ said Thomas.

  ‘What was the last you wrote?’

  ‘“The intangible sensation of terror I have experienced in proximity to this squalid militia manifested itself today in violent action.”’

  ‘What’s that in English?’

  ‘“I fare well to France, haply met with a score or thereabouts handy fellows of Gloucestershire on their way to Calais, who keep me from all
harm.”’

  Dickle went to the trough and splashed water on his face and chest.

  ‘Write my name,’ said Dickle, ‘and I’ll quell you. I shan’t tell you the wrongs I’ve done, not you nor any man. I ne fear the fire.’

  He dight his whole head in the water. The old buck goat heard the sound, wrathed, found strength, broke its rope and hurled at Dickle while he was bent over the trough-side. Before any bowman could lift a hand the goat’s head and horns struck Dickle in the arse and he flew over the trough and landed flat on his back in the dirt.

  All laughed, out-take Hayne. Dickle lay still while the goat drank. The back of Dickle’s noll had struck the brim of the trough and he’d been knocked witless. Holiday and Hornstrake lifted him and pitched him up against the trough to wake when he was ready.

  Softly whispered to Holiday and Hornstrake and they went over to where the goat drank. They gripped the beast, Holiday the horns, Hornstrake the hind legs, and wrestled it over on its back. Softly took out his bollyknife and came up to the goat and asked it sweetly if it rued that it had hurt their friend Dickle.

  The goat bleated.

  ‘That’s no answer,’ said Softly. ‘I asked an ask, and if you ne answer, it means you ne worth me, or my friend Dickle.’

  Softly turned to Will and held out the knife to him.

  ‘Come help learn the goat worthship,’ said Softly. ‘Hew its legs off at the knee, one by one, until it rues its deed.’

  ‘While the goat still lives?’ asked Will.

  ‘How else would it rue? Let it be your christening into the score.’

  ‘I was christened already,’ said Will. ‘I shot the moon, I was shot from a tree as an arrow, I drank Scotch and I took the oath.’

  Softly shook his head. ‘I wasn’t there,’ he said. ‘Anywise, those games are for green bowmen. I’d know you were good for the true bowman life. He that holds goat legs higher than one of his fellows isn’t fit to bear a bow to France.’ He held out the knife to Will again, and smiled, and bade him come.