Kings of Albion

by Julian Rathbone

  When I had done so, with examples and figures, he finally said, 'Ali, with your tale of tubes that suck in sustenance and push out shit you fathomed the distant past. Now, with your man going to market with twenty yards of linen, you have unravelled the future. So go to sleep.'

  'Wool,' I said. 'Cloth. Twenty yards of cloth not linen.'

  'Funny,' he said, 'I could have sworn you said linen.'

  The next day we set off in a north-westerly direction with serious intent to get towards Macclesfield, or Manchester, but still keeping to the byways and smaller places. The next night, I recall, we were given shelter in a barn in a bed of what was left of last year's hay. I remember it because when we stopped on the outskirts and looked around us there was a moment of evening stillness. Then a blackbird opened its throat and sang from the top of a willow tree, and round him, through the evening mist, we could hear all the birds, for miles around, singing their hearts out. The place was called Adle's Trap.

  By now the bushes whose leaves had provided such tasty salads, and which served often in that area to make hedges, had burst into profuse bloom, which arched down over us, thousands of small white flowers in clusters so they looked like spray tumbling over the crest of a wave, the green surf that thunders against our coast here in Malabar. I know the comparison sounds far-fetched, but it was further justified by the fact that the ditches below these hedges were now filled with even tinier clusters of white flowers growing up in plate-shaped circles so it looked like the swirling of the wave before.

  The first flowers, the ones on the bushes, had a heady fragrance, slightly sweet but somehow animal as well. Mah-Lo, I don't think I shall embarrass you by telling you what it smelt like. But for a man, and for some women, too, I daresay, it's the most exciting odour in the world. No wonder these flowers that bloom in the month of May are called may, which is one of the names Parvati or Uma has in those parts.

  All of which led me to think with some nostalgia, indeed a little longing, for all I was even then a quite old old man, of our Uma, and to wonder where she might be and how she was faring.

  Next day we passed through one of many towns in Ingerlond called Stratford. Peter said it was famed in those parts for the quality of the gloves it produced, which brought it some prosperity but nothing on the scale of that of the weavers and spinners in the hills we had left behind us. We crossed a river called Avon – there are as many Avons as there are Stratfords – and admired the swans that were building a big nest downstream in the rushes, which grew beneath a slanting willow in the churchyard. Then we pressed on a further hour or so up the Coventry road to a hamlet called Snitterfield.

  Here a peasant called Shagsper took us in, showing some faith in Peter's robe for he needed help and guidance of the sort he felt a Franciscan might provide. The midwife hail gone into Stratford for the day and his wife was in labour and bleeding. Two or three women of the village, of the sort who make a profession of mourning and laying-out had already gathered at Shagsper's door anticipating the worst – or, from their point of view for they were like crows gathering about a corpse, the best.

  Peter immediately made several infusions in which both fresh young raspberry leaves, willow-bark, valerian and rosemary figured, and, between her groans and screams, persuaded Mistress Shagsper to take them. Then he got his patient off her bed and on to the birthing stool, which her husband had been loath to do without the presence of the midwife. Presently she brought forth a thin-boned and wrinkled little boy. Peter hastily christened him John, thus ensuring that if he died he'd go straight to heaven.

  However, the baby fed well from his mother's breasts, and the blue colour of his skin receded, became a healthier pink, and presently, hilled by his mother's singing, he went to sleep. 'Never harm, nor spell, nor charm, Come our lovely baby nigh,' she sang, probably making it up on the spot. 'Lulla, lulla lullaby.' Not the most moving or penetrating of lyrics, but it served.

  As we left Snitterfield we passed two villagers trimming a hawthorn hedge where its branches had grown over the track enough to be a nuisance to passers-by. One was hacking at it with a small axe; the other trimmed it with a pruning knife.

  'Oi rough-hews 'em,' said the first, as we passed.

  'An' oi shapes their ends,' the second concluded.

  'What philosophers these men are,' cried Peter.

  'Whatever do you mean?'

  'The irresistible forces of nature, as witnessed in the causes and effects that create species, rough-hew our destinies. And accumulated wealth employed reproductively shapes our ends. History in a mouthful.'

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  he roads were filling up now. Every day we saw men in armour, often on horseback, heading towards Coventry, and three times a cannon-train: mules pulling these cumbersome weapons along roads too narrow for them or too rutted, or which crossed fords too deep. Since we knew that the King and court were in Coventry it was not difficult to guess what was happening. He, or, if he was as mad as people said, his affinity and connections, especially the Queen, were preparing for the arrival of the Yorkists, both those with the Duke himself, expected any day from Ireland, and those from Calais led by his cousin, the Earl of Warwick. I recalled that one of these was Eddie March and how Uma had bedded him with so much pleasure to both that they had nearly been caught by Lord Scales. Only my quick intervention with his horse had saved him. It seemed not impossible that if she was still alive she might have sought to join him again and, indeed, perhaps Prince Harihara and Anish might do the same since they had employed March as their guide in Ingerlond. With this in mind I was not entirely loath to postpone our trip into the north-west to search out the Brothers of the Free Spirit – at least, until I had news of my friends' and employer's whereabouts and fortunes. Moving towards the area where the King's army was collecting seemed as good a plan as any since, no doubt, the Yorkists would do the same if they wanted a battle.

  There was lots of fresh food now, much of it the same or like the foods we Arabs eat, such as beans and later peas and many green-leafed salads but lacking the interest our spices and herbs give them, apart from mint and parsley. Indeed, the whole-countryside would have been a sort of paradise if it were not for the crazy weather.

  But what I remember most, and it would have pleased the Hindus of these parts, were the fields held in common by all the local community, often by riverbanks, where the grass grew thick and lush with hundreds of smaller herbs and (lowers amongst it, and cows munched their way through it. Most families had a cow, and each village had common land all could share. The cows were not as big as ours, had smaller horns and dewlaps, but huge udders; throughout this Middle Ingerlond, cream and butter, cheese and milk were abundant.

  What our Hindus would not have liked – and Prince Harihara and Anish must have been disgusted by- if they had come across it – was the eager, even greedy way these people feasted off beef. The bullocks were separated from the heifers and mostly killed and eaten before they were two years old, often roasted over huge fires at fairs and festivals. It didn't bother me, and once I had the taste for this Inglysshe beef I sought it out whenever I smelt the rich odour of burning flesh drifting across a meadow filled with stalls, pedlars and the common folk. On account of the abundance of green, fresh grass, and water too, these animals never had to walk more than fifty or a hundred paces in a day, so their meat was tender and rich with fat.

  The one thing they did not grow in Ingerlond was hemp, which grieved me. I would not touch their stronger beers or mead, an alcoholic drink made from honey. Although I now counted the Prophet's interdiction useless superstition, the avoidance of strong drink was so deeply ingrained I could not even smell it without a slight feeling of nausea. But bhang or hashish I would have given my soul for, supposing I have one and anyone wants it.

  The fairs were an excuse for rural sports, which were often both absurd and dangerous. Men shot arrows at bird carcasses whirled round on the ends of ropes in simulation of flight or at distant targets made up
to look like the heads of Saracens. Although it was many decades since anyone had been on a crusade, which is what the Christians call a jihad, they were still remembered. Oddly enough, no one hit on my dark visage as a sign that I might be one. Or perhaps they weren't bothered whether I was or not. By and large the Inglysshe are tolerant and easy-going – the old Inglysshe, that is, not the Normans – so long as their bellies and tankards are full. The men also sat on greasy poles set across brooks and tried to knock each other off with bags filled with sand; they ran races wearing armour; they split wood with giant axes; they wrestled in a variety of styles. Often we saw broken limbs, bloodied noses, and bruised faces worn with pride by winners and losers alike.

  All these were one man against the rest to find the best, but we also came across, and particularly on Midsummer Night's Eve, a contest between all the men of one village against those of another. The object was to get an inflated bladder into the centre or some other agreed point in the opposing village. Simple. Indeed, very simple, for there were no rules except against the carrying of actual weapons. Teams seemed to divide themselves into those who relied on brute force and those who expected to win through cunning. The first, having obtained the bladder or ball, simply bunched around the man carrying it and in a solid block attempted to push their way through all opposition to their goal. The second used decoys and fast running to jinx their way through, often drawing most of the opposition after a runner carrying a similar but not genuine bladder, while the real bladder was carried or kicked by byways and round the back. Because of the nature of the bladder it was possible to kick it over quite long distances, up to a hundred paces, to get it over the heads of opponents to men of one's own side. Kicked, it travelled further and straighter than when thrown. Men who had this kicking skill were especially valued and honoured by their team-mates.

  My companion had a strange liking for this sport. When we watched it he would quickly identify himself with one of the participating villages, buy or borrow the favours their supporters wore, such as ribbons in special colours or scarves, then run about cheering their successes and groaning or even using uncouth language when they failed, and shouting catchphrases and snatches, lie explained that before taking orders in his early twenties but while still a student at Oxenford, he had been an adept and turned out for the student hall where he lodged.

  At the end of the day the losing village played host to both communities and round a giant bonfire plied each other with beer, or cider made from apples nine or ten months earlier and now unbearably tart on the tongue, no sweetness left, which they nevertheless consumed copiously since it made them drunk even more quickly than their beer. Meanwhile they danced, they danced to bagpipe, flute and drum, strange maze-like dances, or dances in which they banged sticks together. Many had bells attached by ribbons to their bodies. And suddenly, through this cacophony, prancing, grotesque capering, I heard and saw something quite different, the whirling sword dances of the Moors in Granada, and the circling arms and stamped feet of the Moorish women. This may have been illusion, though I later learnt that it was believed these dances were first brought to Ingerlond by John of Gaunt, great-grandfather of the present King, who had fought campaigns in Spain.

  Towards midnight all who were still on their feet jumped through the flames, those who were not on their feet but awake copulated with the girls, but many just snored through a senseless stupor until dawn.

  As I have said. Brother Peter was much taken with the bladder-game, which he called 'footie', and a fortnight or so later suddenly revealed what may have been his purpose all along in taking us south and east instead of north and west: there was annually held, round about the tenth day of July, a particularly watchable contest between two villages on the banks of the river Nene a mile south of a town called Northampton. These were Sandyford and Hardingstone, which was a further mile or so to the south. We arrived on the site late on the evening of the ninth, wet through after two days of continual rain, and almost immediately ran into a picket of armed men on horses guarding the ford.

  'Ah,' said Peter, 'these will be constables placed here to ensure that no members of either team will break the prescribed bounds of the contest by crossing the river and thereby stealing a march on the others.'

  'Maybe,' I said, looking down into the swirling, rushing water, 'but believe me, no one is going to cross here without a boat.'

  For fordable though it may have been on an ordinary day, on this day, on account of the rain, it looked deep and fast-flowing,

  We walked on through the gathering dusk and presently came to the road to the south, the highway. Between the river and the undulating plain it crossed a low rise.

  'This will be a capital vantage-point from which to follow the course of tomorrow's contest,' Peter exclaimed with glee, and we followed it to the top.

  A gang of twenty or so men, in half-armour and supervised by another horseman, was dragging a large cannon up the hill from the river to join four more that were already deployed across the crest. They protected the approach to the town, whose towers and spires loomed through the murk a mile or so behind us and on the other side of the river.

  'No doubt,' Peter continued, 'these men belong to the Sandyford team and are here to defend the extremity of their territory.'

  He seemed not to have noticed the cannon, or chose to ignore them. It was then that I noticed something abnormal about his appearance.

  'Peter,' I said, 'do you realise you are wearing your spectacles? Normally you only have them on when you are reading.'

  A moment later, while Peter was still fumbling with his lenses and peering about him with ever-increasing signs of surprise, the supervising horseman accused us of being Yorkist spies and ordered his men to tie us to a gnarled and lichened apple tree that grew on the top of the rise.

  'You can jolly well stay there,' this unpleasant youth added, in the accents I had learnt to associate with the Norman tribe, 'until we've seen your beastly friends awff. Then we'll take you deown to the teown and find out what colour your insides are.'

  On top of everything else it rained all night.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  I woke, yes, woke, although I was tied upright, facing outwards, my wrists to Peter's wrists, my ankles to his, with the trunk of the tree between us. A bough of tiny immature apples bumped my forehead, a patch of piss was running down my inside leg, and the sound of a skylark shrilled in my ears. We were both intolerably stiff, aching in every joint and muscle, but as we stirred the sun rose over the plain to the east and a few moments of warm sunshine eased the pain.

  Around us and below, the gunners were also stirring, lighting fires and cooking a breakfast in which, from the smell of it, bacon and black pudding played a considerable part, smells both of us found disgusting for a time though soon even in my Muslim soul and Peter's Franciscan one they wakened hunger. Presently a sergeant-gunner, a barrel of a man with long yellow hair, a huge moustache of the same colour and a week's growth of beard, dressed in brown studded leather, a mail skirt, a breastplate and rimless helmet took pity on us and made one of his crew give us some bread, which, of course, he had to hold for us.

  From his side of the tree, Peter asked me what I could see of what was happening.

  Since I was facing east and south I had to screw up my eyes against the sun, still low in the sky beneath a bank of black cloud. 'Well,' I said, 'the slope is uneven but gentle, and loses itself in a plain that is yet not completely flat. There is common land, pasturage, a couple of villages, one of which I suppose is Hardingstone, with fields about them. Beyond them is the forest. The road winds down the slope, between the villages, and loses itself amongst the trees.' 'Is there much in the way of activity?'

  'Quite a lot. A hundred yards away the men are trying to adjust the position of the cannon under the direction of the bastard lordling who put us here. But they are having a lot of difficulty since during the night they have sunk almost to the axles of their small wheels in the clay. Ou
r young friend is growing very bad-tempered about it.'

  ‘I can hear him.'

  'No doubt you can hear, too, a monotonous hammering noise, wood on wood. This is because many more men, armed and armoured, are coming into the scene and are hammering stakes into the ground with sharpened points angled upwards, digging a ditch and throwing up a rampart, stretching three hundred paces or more on either side of the road, in a line at right-angles to it. That's about it. No. I'm wrong. Suddenly they are all excited and I can see why. Coming out of the forest and heading up the gap between the villages is a long column of soldiers carrying lances on their shoulders, and here and there in the column groups of fifty or more men in heavy armour on big horses

  'How far away?'

  'A mile or so.'

  'And you can see them in that much detail?' 'My one eye is better than your two.'

  A moment of silence from my friend, possibly a touch of chagrin. I sought to mitigate any offence I might have given. 'And what can you see on your side?'

  'Not a lot. A large camp of soldiers. Tents. The King's standard. No sign of footballers, though, But it's early yet.'

  The morning wore on. More and more men came up from the river and formed up behind the stakes, many of them archers with those vicious longbows. There were horses, too, clad in plate armour and carrying armoured men. Whenever they got into a declivity or a marshy patch – there was one such over to my left where a stream meandered through fields to join the Nene, which was out of my view – the combined weight was too much and the horses sank to their knees, whinnied and neighed in distress and panic and threatened to unseat those of the knights who had not already dismounted. But most were foot-soldiers, also in full armour and carrying billhooks with axe- or mattock-like blades, and heavy swords at their sides.