To Calais, In Ordinary Time

by James Meek

  He reclined on his elbow at the rear of the cart, on a blanket, with a container of ale in his hand. His face, humid with perspiration, had a mortal pallor, contrasting with the ruby tincture of his ocular margins. It was evident he desired to communicate.

  Addressing me with an effort, he said he was not ignorant, as if I had expressed the contrary. He was literate, he claimed, and by way of evidence produced a legendary he carried on a cord round his neck. The pages, I noted, were tainted with desiccated blood. He repeated that he was not ignorant, and added that he was a veritable Christian – again, as if responding to an accusation I had made, although I had voiced no opinion on his piety.

  ‘WHO’S HAYNE TO tell us where and when we list our lives before a priest?’ said Holiday. ‘Softly and I will have a great shrift next year in Bristol, when we come of France again and are ready, and have the silver. We’ll hire St Augustine’s for it. A thousand candles will be lit and the abbot will be our shriftfather. You can hire him and the church together for twenty pound a day, and they throw in a heap of singers, and enough reekles to choke a coalman. It’ll be bare winly. You have to make a wonder if you’d have God heed you. And afterwards we’ll bake twelve sheep for poor folk, one for each of Jesus’s men, and open five barrels of wine, one for each of the Deemer’s wounds.’

  ‘You would that the world know how free you are in your humbleness.’

  ‘We shan’t go down in no beshitten outcome barn, or tell our sins to no Scottish proctor who thinks him he’s Tom Aquinas. Yeah, grin if it likes you, you wouldn’t have me know the names of great doctors. You take me and Softly for green uplandish gnofs who ne know how to read nothing. That we be fools to think us we may go to France and ne fall sick of this qualm, this pest. I’ll tell you something you ne know. When Hayne bade us go to Calais with him, we already knew the pest. We knew it in Bristol.’

  ‘Knew it?’

  ‘Cess sickened of it. There was a French ship bore wine to Bristol and Cess thought she’d creep aboard and go back to her own land. But Softly found her and took her home again. And she sickened, for those French seafarers were lousy with it. Great much botches in her armpits like to Hornstrake had, skin hot as a foundry. And she got well, thanks to Softly, who cared for her till she was heal. And I too, a little, for we all shared one house.’

  ‘And Hayne ne knew this.’

  ‘We ne told no one. Hayne was like you. He took us for fools, always did. He weened that in our pride we staked all our endlessnesses on a throw. He deemed himself nimble, but we japed him. We made out we were so bold in our hopes that we’d got some pest-ridden woollens of a French ship, and would take them along with us, that the stakes be yet higher.’

  Thomas put his head in his hands and wrothe his cheer in riddle. At the other end of the cart Cess had clamb down and washed clothes.

  ‘Do you say,’ said Thomas, ‘that Hayne was ready to have the whole score sicken and die of the pest, of these woollens if not otherwise, to make you, Softly, Dickle and Hornstrake die a bad death on the road?’

  ‘To him we’re all guilty. I, Softly, Sweetmouth, Longfreke. Will Quate. The captain and his burd. You. All who’ve yoked themselves to this score of bowmen. I ne say Hayne hadn’t no wit at all. He was nimble to get you, for you’re no use to help a dying man get to heaven, but you’ve got the sleight of ask to wring the shame of his deeds out of him for all the living to hear. What Hayne ne understood was that I and Softly ne feared the pest. We ne feared the woollens, for there wasn’t no pest in them. Softly got them last year in the thieves’ riot in Bristol. They’re clean. We ne feared the pest in England, for we’ve no Jews. And we ne feared the pest in France, for we’d lived three weeks in a house with a pest-sick French harlot who got it of a French ship, we breathed the same air, and we ne sickened.’

  The mirth of minding how they’d swiked Hayne stirred Holiday, but he wearied, the flesh of his neb fell, and he was racked by coughing. He reached up and dight a cloth to shield the back of the cart from anyone looking in.

  ‘You ne seem well,’ said Thomas.

  ‘Look,’ said Holiday. ‘Come nearer.’ He drank a mouthful of ale, which wasn’t no light swallow for him, and opened his shirt, baring his chest. His flesh was blackened, like to he’d been beaten from within.

  ‘Do you know it?’ said Holiday.

  ‘God’s tokens,’ said Thomas. ‘They spoke of it in Heytesbury. Not all who sicken of the pest have them.’

  ‘And those that do? Tell me the truth.’

  ‘It ne bodes well.’

  ‘Would you hear why I have this?’

  Thomas looked at his feet and ne answered.

  Holiday lowered his speech to a whisper. ‘It’s her, the French whore. She’s one of the Fiend’s folk. A devil’s made a nest in her cunt and Softly’s bewitched. Hers wasn’t the first maidenhood he reft but it was the first maid he took away with him. That devil had him by the pintle, and he mightn’t let her go. She even made him seek to wed her, then turned him down to madden him more, and still he keeps her. She sent the devil into the goat that killed Dickle, and made Longfreke and Hornstrake and the captain and me sicken. It’s she, all she.’

  THE APARTMENT ROYAL was extensive, consisting of a bedchamber and privy, several closets, two separate chambers for servants, and a private dining room. Berna, attempting to avoid the assistance of Madlen, found the presence of what Thomas called ‘plumbing’ to be of inestimable assistance. By ingenious artifice water ran continuously of a spigot. The water was cool, fresh and clear and served as well to drink as to lave with. Berna pressed wet cloths to Laurence’s forehead to ease his fever and responded to his constant complaint of thirst. He passed of lucidity to raving and to clarity again. In the most terrible moments of fever he demanded a male servant be summoned to assist him to the privy. He called for Raulyn, then said he would accept Madlen as the closest to a knave they had.

  Madlen had already made attempts to visit Berna, offering to serve. Each time Berna dismissed her peevishly, but now she was obliged to accept her aid. Together the two women raised Laurence’s trembling body of the humid linen and together they discovered indisputable signs of the pest between his legs.

  Laurence slept. Berna sat on a chair by the bedside and caressed his face. ‘I ne expect you to remain in these chambers,’ said Berna to Madlen. ‘It would be unjust for you to be infected. Go to your Will for now, lest the qualm spread to you.’

  ‘We wrathed you, lady,’ said Madlen. ‘You saw us in the rose room. We ne understood what you said but maybe it ne liked you to see me in the gown I stole of you and Will got up like a high-born.’

  ‘It ne liked me to see you look so well in clothes you have no right to wear,’ said Berna. ‘It ne liked me to see you do so well in deeds I never bode on you to do. You and your loveman went to each other without no doubt, when in the hours of my marriage to a heal and handy young man doubt was all I had. Now he’s punished, and I’m punished by losing him.’

  ‘I ne understand the meaning of “doubt” or “punished”, like half the words you use,’ said Madlen. ‘It ne helps you nor him to talk about yourselves to me like I was your friend. I’m but your hire, and I’ll do right by you as best I can.’

  ‘How can you speak so?’ said Berna. ‘This very day I saw you and your love so sweet and joyous and stately together, and now it’s as if you desire to deny these attributes and the emotions we have in common, and the perils we face.’

  ‘Too many French words again for me,’ said Madlen. ‘You turn to me to say what’s on your heart for that you haven’t no other near to hand more like yourself. As for Will and I, we are as we be, not as we’re seen to be by some other.’

  ‘I wish it were I who sickened.’

  ‘And I wish I might drink and hop at my own burial,’ said Madlen. ‘You may better help your husband do you hold his hand and speak to him. I’ll do the leave. If we’re to fare tomorrow we owe to be ready.’

  IN THE EVENING Thomas c
ame to the chamber. Laurence’s fever had decreased and he lay supported on cushions with his eyes large and staring like a bird’s, his hair pointed and dishevelled with perspiration. Berna sat on a chair beside him while Madlen passed in and out. There wasn’t no bread in the castle nor fresh food, but Madlen had found nuts, bacon, hard cheese, apples and wine.

  Laurence affirmed he was capable of riding, and Thomas recommended that next day the party attempt to reach the infirmary at Cerne Abbey. It was a long journey, but the infirmary was excellent, the air and water pure, and Thomas was personally acquainted with the abbot. Once Laurence had recovered, they might travel on to Melcombe at leisure.

  ‘There’s no leisure,’ said Laurence. ‘Our ship departs finally on Thursday morning. I consent to ride to Cerne tomorrow, but do my condition ne improve, my spouse must fare on alone.’

  ‘I refuse,’ said Berna.

  ‘You’ll change your mind,’ said Laurence. He turned to Thomas. ‘How do you estimate the new archers?’ he demanded.

  ‘Unreliable,’ said Thomas. ‘Holiday won’t survive long. Softly is attentive to the castellan’s instructions to charge the carts. He pursues his second profession here, as if already in France. He perceives the plague as an opportunity for enrichment.’

  ‘Half the archers at Crécy were criminals in quest of a pardon,’ said Laurence. ‘We may have over-encouraged their tendencies.’

  Thomas regarded Berna, and Laurence turned to her.

  ‘You consider me as if I were an additional problem,’ said Berna.

  ‘I’m strong enough to mount a horse, but too feeble to fight,’ said Laurence. ‘And you mayn’t defend her.’

  ‘You’ll recover in my care,’ said Berna. ‘You’ll rest at Cerne and we’ll find a different ship.’

  ‘I haven’t no money for no second ship,’ said Laurence.

  ‘There appear to be two choices,’ said Thomas. ‘One, the course of personal security for yourself and your young spouse: to abandon the archers, ride with the greatest rapidity to Cerne, hope for treatment from the monks, and attempt to catch the ship before it sails. Two, the course that reflects the promises you made to your commanders, to deliver archers to them, and the promise to the archers themselves, to ferry them across the sea: travel with them to Melcombe via Cerne, but less rapidly.’

  ‘For Berna’s sake, the first,’ said Laurence. ‘It’s not my fault the pest arrived in England. I mayn’t be blamed that the score I ordered has ceased to exist.’

  ‘As I indicated, there appear to be two choices,’ said Thomas. ‘Unfortunately this is an illusion. For you, there are no choices, only preferences. Although you are the captain, and the most senior here, the choice falls to another. We pray and contest against the malady that affects you, but we owe not to delude ourselves that even if we attain Cerne tomorrow night your recovery is certain. If you insist your spouse travel on to France, she must be accompanied; she owes not to be no solitary voyager. Madlen ne suffices. Bernadine must have one with her who’s both honest and capable of defending her. There’s only one such in our party.’

  ‘Well, let’s take Quate,’ said Laurence. ‘That’s the reason I bought him a horse.’

  ‘He’s promised to the archers,’ said Thomas. ‘He also made promises to Longfreke regarding the prisoner.’

  ‘Wasn’t it to Hayne he promised loyalty? And Hayne has gone. I’ll tell Quate he’s finished with archery for now.’

  ‘Have you the power to enforce such a command?’

  ‘He’s decent enough to know his place.’

  ‘There are only two places now, sick and heal,’ said Thomas.

  Laurence pushed himself up in the bed. He regarded Thomas defiantly, then sensed the air on his white chest and clutched the ouverture of his shirt to close it. ‘Place isn’t simply a matter of degree, to be erased by pestilence,’ he said. ‘It’s a matter of the particular terrain that unites persons superior and inferior in a sense familial. Will Quate is the lady’s father’s man. There are obligations of loyalty between peasants and their patron that urbane clerks such as you fail to comprehend.’

  THEY SENT MADLEN to get Will. Madlen found him in the darkening yard, lit by hornlights glimmering under the cerecloth telds of the carts. He was hungry and weary of the load of goods. There wasn’t room in the carts for a hundredth deal of the castle gleanings, and each time a cart was full, Softly would find another thing he worthed more dearly, and bade Will and the new hires unload and stow again of the beginning. To make it worse, Sir Walter hopped about, found keys to rooms he’d forgotten, showed Softly new gear to take, like a thief’s knave, and chid them for working too slow.

  Softly gave Will leave to see the captain, bidding him not to dally, and he followed Madlen into the castle. On the stairs she took his elbow and would keep him.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she said. ‘Let’s take our horses and go.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Anywhere. God drives folk of the world that he might have free hold of it again. We’ll find a town where all have left or died and bide there together until he comes for us. Hayne went, and your friends Sweetmouth and Mad had the wit to go. We’re bound to sicken soon and I’d spend my last days with you and not work for these gnofs no more.’

  ‘I’m a sworn bowman. I must go on.’

  ‘You told me you’d be a free man.’

  ‘I am free, and I freely choose to be a bowman, as you freely choose to work for the lady Bernadine.’

  ‘I ne chose her. I’m her maid only to better follow you. But now we may be truly free.’

  ‘I shan’t break no oath,’ said Will.

  Madlen shoff him in the chest. ‘You think you they’re so true? They’re up there now reading how to swike Softly and run to France without him. They only need you for your strength, to shield the lady on the fare when her lord gives up the ghost. They think them you must choose their way or Softly’s. They ne ween we have another road without them.’

  Will shook his head and went on up the stair. ‘I shan’t break my oath,’ he said again. Madlen stood and looked forlornly after him, then ran behind.

  Before Laurence, Bernadine and Thomas, Will kept to his word. He ne need be no archer, said Laurence. Go speedily with them, and he might be the Hakets’ reeve and bailiff in the new manor, and Madlen their housekeeper.

  ‘I shan’t break my oath to the score, sir,’ said Will.

  ‘An oath to a body of men led by Hayne and Longfreke loses its weight when another becomes the head,’ said Thomas. ‘More so when that new leader is as other as Softly. He leads you into guilt. He drives you to steal.’

  ‘I do as I’m bidden,’ said Will. ‘Longfreke held all of us steeped in guilt already for the take of Cess. They as did it, and they as let it be done. It seemed to me you thought so too.’

  Thomas opened his mouth to speak, then shut it.

  ‘I swore a second oath to Longfreke,’ said Will, ‘to help Cess go to her own folk again.’

  They mightn’t lead him to another way of thinking, and in the end they read that they must go to Cerne together next day, to reach the abbey before dark.

  SOON AFTER SUNRISE they left the castle. They thanked the castellan and told him they would strike the French a blow from behind, by going over the sea to France, which was true, in a way.

  The castellan clapped his hands and said it liked him. He gave the lady Bernadine a white dove in a wicker basket and a bag of corn and said she should let it go when they reached Calais so it would fly home and he would know England was won of the foe. A little water and a small handful of corn a day, he said, no more, or it would grow too fat to fly. When they went through the castle gate, the castellan wouldn’t leave the yard, still heaped with his broken old things, and in the bright light of day outside the castle walls, they couldn’t see, looking back into the shade within, if there were anybody there.

  They came into Dorset and fared through the long hot morning by the Stour vale meads in a cloud of dust k
icked up by their cartwheels and horses’ hooves. The dust made it seem to those they met that they were more and higher than they were, and they were shunned, as if they brought new hardships to folk who already had more than they could bear. They saw friars stooped over one of their own who’d fallen by the roadside, a whole town on the run with its geese and pigs and children – but to what haven? – and the sights that tokened the old life: reapers in the cornfield, old men outside the alehouse, women hanging out washing, maids with stops of milk, a moleman with hide like oak rind skinning moles in the sunshine on a board before his house.

  They weren’t far inside Dorset when Bernadine saw that Laurence must be taken of his horse, for he hadn’t the strength to ride. They shifted him to Fallwell’s cart, where the softest goods taken of the castle were, and Bernadine sat with him there. They went on and ne stinted till noon. By then Thomas proctor had also sicked.

  DEI GRATIS, MOTION has ceased. I rest. Will perceived I was afflicted, assisted me from my horse, put me under a tree out of the sun and offered me ale, which I accepted. We have travelled halfway to Cerne but I have the impression we have been moving for eternity. Dolour has penetrated my bones. Each pace of my horse creates a violent prickling sensation in my joints and muscles. My trachea is in agony. The condition I assumed had disappeared after its manifestation on Sunday has returned with terrible intensity. I cannot postpone the manual examination of the symptomatic area. I must momentarily put aside my scribal implements.

  Is this legible? My hand is not stable. They are there, as I suspected: two oval protuberances on opposite sides of the groin.

  It is marvellous how one’s speculations on the destruction of humanity are transformed when the most familiar specimen to be destroyed is oneself. Death is universal, and yet it arrives to each individual, even in a period of terrific mortality such as this, as a sort of miracle. How might all that is this mind and memory cease? In place of imagining a universe without people, I imagine a universe without me, and it might as well be silent and void if I am not present. Let us all perish simultaneously, or not at all! In place of a fervent spiritual preparation for divine judgement and eternity, there is a terror exactly proportionate to my corporeal presence – i.e., small enough to establish my insignificance in the universal scheme, vast enough to obliterate me.