To Calais, In Ordinary Time

by James Meek

  ‘You told me you wished to come with me.’

  ‘I do. But you’ —and she dight his lips with hers— ‘must spend’ —she dight his lips again— ‘more dearly. Your mouth is cold.’

  She kissed him once more, and this time put her tongue in his mouth. Will let her in, and their tongue-tips hunted each other.

  ‘I’m tired,’ said Madlen. She put her head in Will’s lap and shut her eyes.

  LAURENCE AND HIS man Raulyn rode down the road to Edington, against the flow of carts. They wore their swords and their faces were grave. Laurence guided Berna’s horse on its reins to his rear. Berna was in the saddle, still in her Warm Welcome clothes, her back curved in a pose of such abasement that it appeared she might plunge to the ground. Laurence turned and demanded she take care. She ne replied.

  ‘We mayn’t delay,’ he said.

  The air trembled and for an instant the sombre obscurity through which they journeyed was illuminated. Gross pearls of rain penetrated their garments and glazed their faces. Laurence halted, passed the reins of Berna’s horse to Raulyn and placed Berna in front of him on his horse. They continued. They mightn’t search for refuge, said Laurence, as they were surely pursued, and must join the archers and press on regardless of time.

  ‘May the rain lave my father’s blood of my shirt,’ said Berna.

  ‘I anticipated gratitude at your salvation, given how ardently you desired to be rescued of marriage to the ancient,’ said Laurence.

  ‘I ne desired that you murder my father.’

  ‘I ne murdered no one. I cut his arm. He’ll recover.’

  ‘His face when he regarded me, his proper daughter, and realised I was a traitor. He supposes I encouraged you to violence against him. Now I may never return. I shall never embrace him again, or my sisters, or lay flowers on my mother’s tomb.’

  ‘It was necessary to demonstrate my readiness for violence, persuade them that if they resisted, one of them were seriously injured. I wouldn’t that this were no fatal venture, but I would make the hazard credible.’

  ‘His face!’ said Berna. She ne let of sobbing. ‘I despised him so long and travelled so far of my family. I considered myself liberated of the influence of filial emotion. It required but a cut of your sword to let the malice of him. He appeared so surprised, as if he ne comprehended until that moment how profoundly I resented the arrangement. And now I scrutinise my memory, and demand of myself, did I really explain? Exercise all power to convey to him how unjust his conduct was, that he might amend it, and we be reconciled?’

  ‘You do him too much justice.’

  ‘Why could you not have defended me there, at the pageant? Observed their approach, and ravished me away without combat?’

  ‘You saw how humiliated I was by the arrivage of that beastly pig. All the credit I might have won by my performance was endangered were I unable to prove my valour in a different sphere.’

  Berna turned her entire body round to put her face in Laurence’s. ‘Am I to comprehend that your decision to rescue me was inspired by a requirement to save your reputation?’

  ‘What difference does it make?’ said Laurence. ‘The result is that the purity of my honour is restored in every angle; in respect of them, and in respect of you.’

  ‘I would prefer to exist in a manner not entirely relative to your honour.’

  ‘I would prefer a more generous recognition of my role as the agent of your salvation.’

  They crossed the pasture where the pageant had been enacted, where brown pools were forming, their surface agitated by the rain as if the water boiled. They encountered the archers at the base of the escarpment, in a place where an ouverture in the trees led to a dark, abrupt ascent. All were there except Will. None had seen Madlen.

  Laurence and Raulyn had secured Berna’s possessions and placed them in the cart. She went in, where it was dry, and changed from her wet costume into the marriage gown. Cess silently gave her bread and cheese and ale, then regarded her while she ate.

  ‘Were you injured?’ asked Cess.

  ‘The blood was my father’s,’ said Berna.

  Cess pulled something out of a basket, invited Berna to open her hands, and filled them with raisins.

  ‘Let no one see I gave you them,’ she said.

  The ferocity of the tempest had receded, and the rain was now a regular gentle clicking on the cover of the cart. The archers sat under the trees, water dripping of their hoods. Laurence spoke with Hayne, but it ne appeared that Hayne replied to him.

  Hayne put his hand on Laurence’s shoulder, and at the same moment the archers rose as one. A figure approached, water pouring of the white feathers of his wings, carrying a sleeping maid in his arms who wore a ragged double of Berna’s gown.

  AS IF WILL were sent some craft of binding, none shifted nor spoke until he’d lain Madlen in the back of the cart. He straightened, and beheld Softly like to he was ready to fight him. All stood back, and stiffened, but Softly only nodded his head.

  ‘Fill my cart with your stolen women,’ he said, ‘but ne chide me for aught I’ve done.’

  Hayne said it was time to go. The captain’s man Raulyn knew a stead up on the downs where they might shelter.

  ‘It’s dark,’ said Thomas.

  ‘We mayn’t linger here,’ said Laurence Haket. ‘My lady’s kin will come again more thickly.’

  The bowmen began to go. Holiday led the cart and Thomas, Laurence Haket and Raulyn likewise went on foot and led their horses. Hayne bade Will lead the lady Bernadine’s horse.

  ‘I’d get my gear,’ said Will. ‘I wouldn’t go further as Venus.’

  ‘Your gear’s in the cart,’ said Longfreke. ‘There it’ll bide till we reach the top, to learn you. And ne cast off your wings. They as choose wings must show how well they fly.’

  Mad and Sweetmouth went beside Will.

  ‘What kind bird is it?’ asked Mad.

  ‘A cuckoo,’ said Sweetmouth.

  ‘White feathers,’ said Mad. ‘Thinks me a swan.’

  ‘True,’ said Sweetmouth, ‘for the swan’s a royal bird, and wasn’t this one seen going in the king-mother’s tent?’

  ‘One gives you ten our swan lacks a feather or two,’ said Mad.

  ‘I’ll lay, as often the queen says her cunt tickles, that’s how many feathers our swan lacks.’

  ‘But what of the maid in the wedding gown?’

  ‘Oh, this swan sheds feathers like an old hawk in moult.’

  The road was a steep hollow way. Though the rain had lessened, a stream of water ran down the middle, and in the darkness they had to steer their feet by mud and small sharp stones and swaths corven through it. Men and horses tripped and fell. They must stint to lift a great tree that had fallen athwart the way, and again to take bracken and sticks to fill holes that the cart wheels might run over them.

  They reached the top and came of the trees. The rain had ended and the moon shed the clouds that had hidden her. Before them lay a wold spread with wrought fields and the swell of downs and barrows. In a vale a mile away a great fire burned red. There weren’t no other lights.

  ‘I can’t see no one about that fire,’ said Will. ‘There’s a barn nearby, or maybe a church.’

  ‘That’s Imber town,’ said Raulyn.

  ‘Why do they set such a great fire in the middle of the night?’ said Hornstrake.

  ‘It burns hot after such rain,’ said Mad.

  ‘I ne know what they do,’ said Raulyn. He led them to a threshing barn and bade them bide inside while he sought leave and board of the owners. He rode away.

  The women bode in the cart. Cess doled out the bowmen’s gear and woollens and the last of the bread and ale and the men did on dry clothes. Thomas and Laurence Haket sat away of the others with their bags and saddles. Laurence Haket stripped to his breech and wrapped himself in a woollen and bade the proctor do likewise, but Thomas shook his head, and wrapped himself in his thin riding coat.

  IN THE CART, in t
he dark, in a bass whisper, Berna demanded to know of Madlen the explanation for her disappearance. ‘As far as I may perceive,’ said Berna, once Madlen had given her account, ‘your salvation was the result of a money bargain.’

  Madlen said she ne comprehended ‘salvation’, ‘money’ or ‘bargain’.

  ‘Will bought you,’ said Berna, ‘whereas I was saved by combat, by my courageous paramour. When I say saved, I intend ravished, and considerable violence applied to my father.’

  Madlen ne comprehended.

  ‘My point is, Madlen, that when a demoiselle suffers the grandeur and horror of ravishment, an experience as potent as any romance story, she does not anticipate an attempt at competition from an inferior, particularly one to whom she provides protection from the gallows.’

  Madlen asked how she’d offended Berna.

  ‘I judge it the height of presumption on Will Quate’s part to continue his performance in the pageant to the point of carrying you to us in his Venus costume as if he were some version of an angel, and you a form of martyr,’ said Berna. ‘And in my gown, as if portraying me! Was that your intention? Because I may assure you that were I to be seen carried home by an angel I would make a more powerful impression on the company than you and your ploughboy. Why do you still wear my gown? Remove it instantly! Take it off!’

  Madlen said she hadn’t nothing else to wear.

  ‘Cess, lend my servant a gown,’ ordered Berna.

  Cess, who was couched in the fore part of the cart, ne replied and ne moved. Berna went to rouse her, and discovered her vigilant, regarding the night, her arms crossed across her chest. She ne responded to Berna’s demands, even when Berna spoke close to her face; a peculiar rigidity afflicted her.

  ‘Cess, aid me,’ said Berna impatiently. When Cess persisted in her open-eyed silence, Berna became alarmed and passed her hand across Cess’s face, but the Frenchwoman ne appeared feverous.

  ‘Let me be,’ said Cess.

  Berna pulled at her lip. ‘Is it of my story?’ she said.

  Cess’s eyes filled. Her hand darted to them, she absorbed the tears with her sleeve and concealed the sleeve in her crossed arms, as if it carried a dangerous sign.

  Berna gently demanded her pardon, and kissed her. ‘I had no choice but to escape my father,’ she said.

  ‘I mayn’t choose to see mine again,’ said Cess.

  Berna returned to where Madlen had made them a place to couch, lay down and pulled a woollen over her.

  She heard Madlen ask in a whisper if she might come with Berna to Calais.

  ‘To Calais, I suppose, and afterwards, until a more suitable candidate presents herself.’

  Madlen lay down beside her with her back to Berna. Berna might lay her body against hers, she said, if she would, if she were cold.

  ‘I require you to keep a proper distance from me,’ said Berna, ‘even if it be no more than an inch.’

  Madlen said she had heard from Will about Berna’s encounter with Enker.

  ‘He is a noble pig,’ said Berna. ‘I wonder who keeps him now.’

  Madlen said he would find his way home again.

  WILL WAS THE first of the score to wake. He’d writhen himself into a bow by the barn doorway and the early light fell on his eyes. He rose and did on his shoon and went with his shaving knife to find water. The barn stood in a mean little town with a few whitewashed cots and their yards and one ox-shed. There were daisies in the graze and ripe corn drooped in the wet, weed-spotted fields. The new-risen sun was wrapped in mist like to a spider’s egg. A mile away on the far side of an open coomb stood the houses and church of Imber and by the church a spire of black smoke reaching into the sky. No living thing stirred out-take Will and the horses. Raulyn’s horse was gone.

  Will dipped his knife in the water of a trough that stood near the ox-shed and began to shave. He smelled coal on blaze, dried the blade on the hem of his shirt and followed his nose to where Madlen had set a kettle to boil over a fire in the yard of one of the cots.

  ‘Where did you find a kettle? And coal?’ he asked.

  Madlen blew on the fire. ‘I took them of the house,’ she said. ‘And the firestones to tind with.’ She nodded to the door, which stood open. ‘I’ve been to every house.’ She opened her hands and counted six fingers. ‘Six houses. There’s nobody here. All the folk have gone, with all their cattle and all their fowl and tools and clothes.’

  ‘You ne owe to steal what folk mayn’t bear with them. They’ll come again.’

  ‘You ne know the shed between “steal” and “borrow”. The lady must have warm water. Come with me.’ She took Will’s hand and led him to the northern edge of the town. The land fell away down the cleeve they’d clamb the night before, but instead of Wiltshire spread out for their sight, a wold of downy cloud stretched as far as they could see.

  ‘See? We’re in heaven,’ said Madlen. Her neb was lit by the strengthening sun. The bruise on her cheek was a purple bloom and the cut on her eyebrow a small black mark. ‘We look down on the clouds from above and we’re alone, you and I.’ They kissed and held each other tightly.

  ‘Does it like you?’ whispered Madlen.

  ‘I wouldn’t do it otherwise,’ said Will.

  ‘It needs you to say it likes you out loud, that I may hear it.’

  ‘It likes me to hold you,’ said Will.

  ‘And to kiss me?’

  ‘I would that we weren’t seen.’

  ‘Why?’ Madlen took a small step away, bit her lip and held Will’s fingers.

  ‘When I was a child my dad said my whys vexed him more than bee stings.’

  Madlen laughed. ‘Would it like you to sleep with me?’ she said.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Will.

  ‘Like to we were man and wife.’

  Will was still a handwhile. ‘How?’ he said.

  ‘We’ll make a way. I wish that I might make you glad to the end of your life.’

  ‘And I to the end of yours.’

  ‘Truly? As glad as now? I ne know how I might be gladder.’

  ‘Truly. As my friend. As my dearest friend.’

  Madlen wrapped her arms round Will again. ‘What is your greatest other wish?’

  ‘To be a free man.’

  ‘You might have had your freedom now if not for me.’

  Will ne answered her but took her by the wrist and led her toward where she’d left the kettle. ‘I’d borrow a stop of your warm water to shave,’ he said.

  He shaved and bade Madlen bide till evening, when he would see they were alone together.

  When he came again to the barn, he found all the bowmen awake out-take Hornstrake. Laurence Haket’s man Raulyn had run away in the night. For days he had threatened to go home to his kin in Somerset, and now, against his lord’s will, he’d left.

  Hayne Attenoke, too, was gone, with all his gear, out-take the rood he wore around his neck and the key to the score’s strongbox, both of which he’d left by Longfreke’s side. The bowmen sought all over town, but Hayne wasn’t to be found, only the mark of his giant feet in the mud, heading south.

  ‘HAS THIS HAPPENED before?’ said Laurence Haket.

  Longfreke said that for Hayne to go away without a word was like to the roof of their house were stolen overnight.

  ‘God’s teeth, it’s his score the Berkeleys hired, not some lesser man’s,’ said Laurence Haket. ‘Do you bowmen read among yourselves who you’ll have as master until Hayne comes again, and read quickly, for I’d be on the road.’

  ‘Do we ne bide on Hayne?’ asked Thomas.

  ‘This stead ne likes me,’ said Laurence Haket, and left them.

  The bowmen hung Hayne’s rood with the likeness of the pined Christ on a nail on the barn wall and stood beneath it while they read which one of them would be the leader. Holiday said he’d have Softly as the vinter, for he was the best fighter, and had the nimblest brain, and had the eldership, and should by rights have had the rood Hayne took for his own in Southampton.
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  ‘It must be Longfreke,’ said Sweetmouth. ‘Softly’s only out for himself.’

  ‘Then you can bear your own gear and not burden my cart,’ said Softly.

  ‘You wouldn’t have no cart without that your even-bowmen drove it through the mud up the hill,’ said Longfreke.

  They bickered and chid till it all but came to blows. Mad said they owed to ask Thomas to help them settle it.

  Thomas said each one of them should make their choice, and he who was chosen by most should be as master while they bode for Hayne to come again.

  ‘You’re short one bowman,’ he said, and showed Hornstrake with his finger.

  Sweetmouth strode over to where Hornstrake still slept, bundled in his woollen. He kicked him.

  ‘Get up, idle lump,’ he said. ‘You’re lacked for the first time in your life.’

  Hornstrake groaned and turned on his side. Sweetmouth kicked him again.

  ‘It’s old,’ Hornstrake croaked, and coughed.

  ‘What’s old?’ said Sweetmouth.

  ‘Apples in my shirt,’ said Hornstrake. ‘Your games are stale.’

  ‘I ne put no apples in your shirt.’

  ‘Liar. Under my arms. I feel them.’

  Sweetmouth kneeled and felt under Hornstrake’s arms. He put his hand inside Hornstrake’s shirt, felt about, withdrew and stood. His face had lost all hue.

  ‘A botch in each armpit the bigness of a hen’s egg,’ he said.

  ‘Ne look in his eyes!’ yall Longfreke. All turned their backs, out-take Thomas, who left the barn, Will, who stared at Hornstrake, and Holiday, who went to him, knit a cloth over his eyes and began to feel him with his fingertips. ‘“Whatso evil you be”,’ he spelled, in a steven like to a housewife soothing a chicken before its neck was wrung,

  In God’s name be bound to me.

  I bind thee with the holy rood

  That Jesus was done on for our good.

  I bind you with nails three

  That Jesus was nailed upon the tree.

  I bind thee with the most dear blood

  That Jesus showed upon the rood.