by James Meek
More than anything there is a desperate interest in the actions of those in my vicinity apparently unaffected by the pestilence, as if horror of infection by plague has been replaced by avarice for a quasi-infection of life. I perceived Fallwell and Miredrum as brutes, but they are healthy; I observe their movements voraciously as they attend to their horses. How I desire that the vitality they exude diffuse through the air and condense on me. Madlen and Bernadine tend Laurence. And there is Cess, under the supervision of one who violated and continues to violate her, Softly, obliged to care for her other rapist, Holiday, now dying. Cess, under so crude a malediction, apparently ignored by God, yet in secret from all except me and her abusers the most vital of any of us, the only one to have contracted the pestilence and survived. She is hope. She is the future, held captive by the dying past of Holiday and the malign present of Softly, and the rest of us do not care enough about her to save her from them.
Will persists as if indestructible, solid, beauteous, candid, with the frigidity of marble and the calor of blood, with the mysteries of his benignity and purpose. Rarely have I been in such proximity to one so unlettered and ignorant of universal matters who offers such capacity for alteration. The servile rural existence inclines towards the completion of a man when he is barely adolescent, to sate him with violence, crudity, primitive prejudice and practical agricultural doctrine and to occupy whatever remains with labour such that there is no space for intellectual discovery. After they are fourteen you may introduce them to Canterbury, Oxford, Paris, Rome, romance, power, law, but the magnificent social structures, the captivating possibilities of ideas, will be invisible to them; they will only be stupefied by magnitudes of gold and ornament. Will is different, unfinished; the nature of his ignorance is not of mental capacity already replete with hostility, acerbity and complacency before his twentieth year, but of a liberal vacancy for future occupation by the cognitive sciences – or by a more depraved form of meditation.
Our minor local authorities now contest for Will. Superficially it is his corporeal attributes they desire – Madlen his vitality, Bernadine and Laurence his resistance to the pest, Softly his strength. But from my position under the tree on the riverbank, my spirit emerging into the light from the obscuring enclosure of my carnal self, I perceive that what they most require is his capacity for transformation into a more potent and significant creature. Softly desires a companion in malificence not, to be charitable, that he might cause more damage or even acquire more lucre, but to dilute the singularity of his culpability, to make his perversions more acceptable to himself by the certainty they are duplicated in an attractive companion. Laurence and Bernadine would exploit Will’s honesty and his capabilities for the acquisition of new disciplines to induct him into the sphere of administration – as much their social inferior as presently, but equipped with letters and arithmetic, and better clothes. Madlen’s intention, I suspect, is the most radical: to accept the inevitable mortality of all humanity, to transmute all Will’s potency into the materials of young love – dulcet verdure, incandescent flame – and to consume it with him in the numbered hours before they, like me, succumb.
Judith, I wish it were possible for me to offer my imminent demise as an alternative to your own. My best effort at a true and final confession to you is that I came to Avignon a fugitive from my inability to love the place and family into which I was born. In attempting to recreate in France the conditions of domesticity I abandoned in Scotland, I ascribed the abandonment to the place and the family, rather than to my inability to love. I request your pardon for this. I hear your voice informing me that the pardon I require is not yours or Marc’s, but another’s.
I shall care for you to the end.
With all my love, Thomas Pitkerro
THEY STINTED A mile short of Sturminster, where the road went nearby Stour stream and they might fetch water for themselves and the horses. They set Thomas under the shade of a willow, where there was a break in the reeds that otherwise grew thick along the bank. He lay on his side on a horse-woollen and wrote. Cess made food for the bowmen, but Softly wasn’t hungry. He went to sit in the shade of his cart with his back against a wheel and drank alone. He had a great can he drank of, and it was full, and he lifted it to his mouth, and it shook, and most of the ale spilled on his new red coat. He cursed, drained the leave and fell asleep.
There was a hot sleepy stillness in that stead, where the bees hummed in the blossoms, the horses cropped the clover, spoons tapped against the sides of bowls, and Bernadine murmured to Laurence. Madlen, in a dull blue gown Bernadine had chosen for her in the castle, went down to the river to fetch more water, and Will went after her, saying they might find time to talk. But Madlen was wrath and ne would speak to him.
The stillness was rent by Cess, who screamed for help in Softly’s cart. With her screams came a sound like to the roar of a dog, a roar of which man might know Holiday’s steven, yapping that Cess was an outcome witch and owed to die.
Softly leaped up, reached into the cart, drew Holiday out with one hand and drew his bollyknife with the other. Holiday flew of the cart, struck the ground with his shoulder and lay there writhen in the shape he’d fallen, his eyes closed and his neb atwitch.
‘He would kill me, were he not so weak of his sickness,’ said Cess. ‘He took the butcher’s knife.’
Softly came to where Holiday lay.
‘You overstep, my friend,’ he said.
‘How else might she live and I die, had she not some craft against us?’ whispered Holiday, like to his steven trickled through chines in a wall. He opened his eyes, but ne beheld Softly. He coughed. His hand rose to hill his mouth but lacked the strength to go so far and his blood and spit were sprinkled in the dust. Will, Madlen and Cess beheld from the shade of the carts a few yards away. The lady Bernadine looked out of the teld of the cart she was in with Laurence, and drew her head inside again, like to the weather were foul. The new bowmen beheld all with empty cheer.
Softly bent down, gripped Holiday’s shirt and lifted him to his feet.
‘Stand and look me in the eye,’ he said.
‘I’m sick,’ said Holiday.
Softly let go and took a step backward. Holiday swayed and stackered. The flesh had fallen of his bones, his cheeks were sunken and his skin was as dry and thin as last winter’s leaf.
‘She bewitched you,’ he said. ‘You owed to leave her behind like the others.’
‘You won’t take what’s mine.’
‘I wouldn’t take her, but rid you of her,’ said Holiday. He drew back his lips and showed what was left of his teeth. ‘I mayn’t stand no longer. Buy me a mass. Buy me a mass in old Augustine’s, with some sweet singers and a heap of candles in my name. Make it worthy.’
‘Hush,’ said Softly. ‘I’ll heal you.’ He pitched his knife deep in Holiday’s belly. When it was in up to the hilt he took it with both hands and reared Holiday of the ground till the life was gone of him.
MADLEN CRIED OUT when Softly slew his friend, and she took grip of Will’s arm. Will swallowed his spittle. Their nebs fallowed, yet they couldn’t take their eyes of the mark that grew over Holiday’s guts. Cess knit her arms fast, bent her head, turned and went quick inside the cart. Softly let the dead man fall, cleaned his blade on the grass, pitched it in his belt again and dragged Holiday to the stream, where he threw him in the brown water. He shoff him out away of the bank till he floated neb-down among the lilies.
Will had followed a few steps behind Softly, one arm half held out, like to he ne knew whether to help his leader or hold him back. He stinted short of the stream and when Softly cast Holiday’s body away his mouth worked, but no words came of it, and his body twitched, but he went no nearer.
The brim of the water wasn’t smooth again before a long, narrow boat came swiftly down the middle of the stream. It was white, with eyes and a prow and sides hight in the likeness of a swan, and rowed by six oarsmen in black, with white coats bearing the tokens of an o
wl and an oak leaf. In the stern of the boat, in an open coffin wrapped in clean white cloth that shone in the sun, lay the body of a man in armour, his hands folded over his chest on the hilt of a longsword. At his feet sat two young knaves in long white shirts who sang sweetly in Latin. The steersman was a long fair freke in rich gear of gold and red. As he went by, he turned to the bowmen and called to them, ne seeing the hump of Holiday, who’d become a new step for frogs hopping of one lilypad to another.
‘Bow your heads!’ called the steersman. At the sound Berna looked out again. ‘Sir Lionel de Hammoon goes home to his people! Sir Lionel, the hero of Crécy! Pray for his soul to find everlasting peace in the love of our Lord Jesus Christ! Pray for him!’ The boat sped on and was soon out of sight behind the reeds at the next bend in the stream.
WHEN THE BOAT was gone, Softly seemed to wake and turned to Will, and to Madlen, Fallwell and Miredrum, who’d come up otherwhiles.
‘You’re witnesses,’ he said. ‘He’d kill my Cess.’
He sat on his haunches, kneaded his eyes with his fingers and shook his head. ‘My friends aren’t true,’ he said in his old soft steven. ‘Why won’t they follow me? Why do they begrudge me a woman of my own?’
He rose and turned to Will. ‘Would you worth me were I a giant like Hayne?’ He gripped the rood about his neck, his fist dark around the pale flesh of Christ’s legs. ‘I’m stronger than any. I ne ran, and I ne sicked. I’m true. All I ask is that you follow me and worth me and let me keep my woman.’ He grinned. His teeth shone bright in the sun. ‘Thinks you Holiday’s dead? He’s well. He won’t die so lightly.’
Softly went to the stream’s brink and slipped into the water. It came up to his shoulders. He began to go, half walking, half swimming, to where Holiday floated.
‘The bottom’s soft,’ he said. ‘The Dorset streams are full of filth. I wouldn’t eat no pike of no Stour.’
He came to Holiday, laid his hand on his back and shook him. He called his friend’s name and bade him wake. He trundled him over on his back, pulled a lick of weed of his neb and thacked him on his cheek. Holiday’s body drifted a little but otherwise ne stirred. All his middle was dark of the wound of Softly’s knife.
Softly took the book of saints’ lives of his friend’s neck, left the body and came to the bank again. He hove himself up, then fell back, and Will helped him out onto the grass. Softly stood. He shivered and his gold teeth clacked together.
‘You need a woollen,’ said Will. ‘You’ll catch cold.’
‘In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum illum; redemisti illum, Domine, deus veritatis. Amen,’ said Thomas, on his elbow under the willow tree.
Softly came up to him and asked what he had said.
‘“I give that soul into your hands, Lord; redeem him, God of truth.”’
‘How fare you?’ said Softly.
‘I’m sick, as you.’
‘I’m heal.’
‘It’s hot, but you shiver.’
‘The water is cold.’
‘Your eyes are red.’
‘I weep for my friend.’
‘You lacked the strength to climb of the stream without help.’
‘I’m weary of the fare.’
‘You staked all to go to France with Hayne, and you have lost. You won’t see Bristol again.’
‘I shall see it. God shields me. If God would hurt me, he would have sent me the pest in Bristol, when my Cessy sickened of it, but he ne sent it. If God would hinder me, he would have helped Cess when I took her two year ago, like he helped the maids in this book when the heathens would have them against their will.’
‘Now you’ve slain your friend, you mayn’t read that book no more.’
‘I mind it, every word. How God broke the wheel they’d pine St Katherine on, and hid St Agnes in light that the gnofs mightn’t reave her maidenhood. I ne need no book.’ He bent down and took the calfskin Thomas wrote on. ‘I’ll burn your words,’ he said. ‘You’re Hayne’s hire and now he’s gone we ne need you. You’re too sick to ride and I shan’t have you in my carts.’
‘We owen’t to leave him,’ said Will.
Thomas looked fearful. ‘The captain and his wife are my friends,’ he said.
‘They haven’t no carts,’ said Softly. ‘You bide here and rot. You aren’t no Englishman and you aren’t no priest. You’ve no stead in this world. You’re not but a lawyer’s harlot.’
‘I ne make myself out to be no priest,’ said Thomas.
‘You go about in black. You’re always there when one of us is near his end. But instead of hearing all our sins, like a priest owes to, you’d only hear of one. You’re a tell-tale. I ne need you. God loves me.’
‘You ne slew Holiday for harming Cess. You slew him in your pride, that it be by your will he die, and not of the pest. For if you let Holiday die of pestilence, it were as much as to say you will too. And you can’t bear that truth. You’d be false to yourself a little longer and believe yourself beloved of God.’
Softly threw himself on the proctor, who curled up with his hands hilling his head, as he’d done in Chippenham. But Will Quate took hold of Softly’s shoulders and dragged him away.
Softly turned to Will, amazed, and took his knife again.
‘Truly?’ he said. ‘Would you? Truly?’
Will bade him let Thomas alone.
‘I’m sorry I must carve your fair neb open,’ said Softly. And he swung his knife-arm at Will’s throat. But by the time his blade reached it, the throat wasn’t there, and Will’s strong hands gripped him. In a stound, the foreboding that Will would be speedily hurt or slain shifted, and all could see how Softly had weakened. With that grip, Will’s first, Softly was beaten, and the mastery went to Will. Softly would fight back, but he barely had the strength of a small girl. In the wink of an eye, Will laid Softly mild-heartedly down on the ground like a mother putting a fretful child to sleep.
Softly shut his eyes in shame. ‘Why won’t you help me?’ he called to Miredrum and Fallwell. They ne heeded him.
‘Thomas and him to the carts,’ said Will to Miredrum and Fallwell. ‘Thomas first.’ Softly lay still as stone on the grass. Will took Softly’s knife and cast it into the Stour. He took the rood in his hand, then turned and saw that Madlen beheld him. He set the rood back on Softly’s chest.
‘You may be master yet,’ he said, and went to help bear Thomas to a stead in one of the carts.
THEY STOWED SOFTLY in Holiday’s stead in the old cart, and Thomas in the cart Miredrum drove, so each cart bore a sick man. Will went to Cess and told her she was free. ‘I shan’t let Softly hurt you no more,’ he said. ‘If you will, you may take Softly’s horse and go where it likes you. Or you may bide with us, and fare with us to France, and we’ll see you on your way back to your kin.’
‘A woman alone mayn’t be free in this world,’ said Cess.
‘Will you drive the cart?’ asked Will.
‘Yeah.’
‘And help Softly in his sickness, for now?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Only if it be your will.’
‘Yeah.’
Cess ne gave no thanks, and her neb ne tokened no feeling of blitheness that she was free. She kept a hard stern cheer, and her gaze wouldn’t meet Will’s. It was like to she hated him.
They drove on. Some towns along the road had set watchmen to keep wayfarers out, and Bernadine, Will and Madlen between them had to use nimble speech to shift them. They ne hid that they had sick folk with them. Then and then, outcome townsfolk helped them. Otherwhiles they weren’t trusted, or were feared, and help came grudgingly, or with some new law these folk had made, like that if a pot were used by a sick man it ne owed never to be used again, or that no wayfarer come within ten yard of any doorway. In one town they were bidden to wear blindfolds, and were led through to the other side. In another, an old man bade none of them sneeze or cough, or he’d kill and burn them, though he looked like he lacked the strength to harm a mouse, never mind a ma
n.
In the towns where the pest was worst, folk were most reckless, and barely heeded them.
When the sun was hottest, they saw a great hill. Miredrum said it was Bulbarrow, and marked the beginning of the Dorset downs. They must follow the road up to the downs, fare a few miles west, and they would come to Cerne. They broke their journey there to rest, near a bourne that ran through a wood.
Madlen went to fetch water and Will followed. They came to a spot where the bourne ran fast. It fell of rocks, and beyond the rocks, hidden from the road, was a deep pool, golden green on top and black below. Will kissed Madlen and reached under her gown and held her pintle in his fist. They swived there quickly, like to knaves who do a small wrong they know they’ll be beaten for if they’re caught, which is half the mirth, then stripped and dived into the pool. They followed each other underwater, grabbing at each other’s heels, and floated neb to neb, keeping in their stead with sweeps of their arms.
‘You left the others,’ said Madlen. ‘I thought me you were leader now, and must vex yourself about carts and horses and what those other bowmen do, and look to Laurence and the Frenchwoman.’
‘Softly’s still leader.’
‘I feared him before. Then when I saw how lightly you beat him it was you I feared.’
‘What’s to fear?’
‘That we shan’t die soon. That you’re drawn to leadership and husbandry and I lessen in your life and we grow old. I mayn’t be your old woman, or you my old man.’
‘You look too far ahead.’
