At the Edge of the World

by Avi

  “How do you know?”

  “I see it in him,” she said.

  “I think you’re right,” I agreed. “At times he’s almost told me. But I didn’t want to hear.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want to think any less of him. Do you know what troubles him?”

  “Something he regrets.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I see it.”

  “Is it very bad?”

  “He thinks so.”

  I sighed. I said, “Someday I will get him to talk about it.”

  When I had a chance, I took to wandering about Rye alone. It was not that I did not wish to be with Bear or Troth, but I enjoyed my freedom.

  Rye was not nearly as big as Great Wexly, and its state of devastation had reduced it further. The very smallness of the town allowed me to see the whole of it, to find my way with increasing ease. The rubble from the attacks was slowly being cleared. Repairs were being made. Houses were starting to be rebuilt. Even the church began to be cleaned. There was talk of a town wall for defense.

  And for the first time, I came to meet with other boys. In my village of Stromford, more often than not I was shunned. It was rare for anyone to befriend me. In Rye, the boys knew nothing of me, save what they saw. Echoing Bear, I claimed York as my home, and that I was traveling with my father and sister as a performing minstrel.

  Not knowing what to expect, at first I was uneasy, but the boys took me at my word—the more so as I often helped them in their labors. What’s more, they envied my juggling. On my part, I took great pleasure in being with them.

  Some had been on ships and had traveled to distant places. Others were apprentices learning trades: bakers, masons, and others. Others complained of hard masters and harsh parents, while some had only words of kindness for the same.

  All had tales of the attack, speaking with bitter anger of the killing, looting, and cruelty. Family losses were great and awful to hear. Many swore revenge upon the French and Castilians.

  But despite their doleful recollections, sweetest to me was their irrepressible, raucous sense of life; their boisterous, braggart ways. Despite their losses, these boys found ways to joke and tease among themselves and did the same to me. To be among them made me feel older, wiser, smarter. I was keen to learn. To have what are called friends, to have boys my age greet me by my true name—with pleasure—was a whole new joy for me.

  I even made a particular friend, Geoffrey by name, whose father was a mariner. Geoffrey told me many tales about ships and the sea. Once he confided—bragging I would say—that his father had served on a brigand ship attacking French ports.

  Not to be outdone, I told him that my father—Bear—had been in a secret brotherhood, but having left it, we needed to be on the watch for them. Such secrets sealed our friendship.

  One day Geoffrey took me in a little boat and we went out onto the waters. How amazing to float, to see the land from offshore. When he let me cast a line I caught a fish. As I hauled it in, I could not keep from laughing with delight. That night, Benedicta cooked it and it was fine. My being swelled with pleasure.

  I did not let a day pass—sometimes with Geoffrey, sometimes alone, sometimes with Troth—without looking to see what ships had come in. As I learned, before the French and Castilian attack, many vessels had come. Now, though fewer, enough arrived for me to study them.

  There were smaller boats used by fisher folk. And once I saw a huge hulc. But the ships that drew me most—perhaps because of their colorful sails and mariners speaking so many tongues—were the cogs, which were the seagoing horses of the coastal fleet.

  These cogs were some seventy-five feet in length, twenty-five at the widest. They were built of huge beams with smaller overlapping boards—“clinkered,” as it was called—for a hull. A single tall mast—thick and forty feet in height—set somewhat forward of midship, bore a cross spar from which hung a great, square canvas sail. Rough oak planking made for a deck.

  The front of the boat—they called it a bow—was sharp and poked up. The rear of the boat was higher and called a “castle.” At the castles highest point was a great steering oar—a rudder they named it—so heavy it took a strong man to shift it.

  A cog could carry all manner of goods, mostly in barrels—they called them tuns—for trade. They carried people, sometimes soldiers and horses. The attacking soldiers had come in cogs.

  Not only did the ships hold my fascination, they fed my fancy of becoming a mariner.

  One evening Benedicta told us about the death of her husband in France. “It was at a siege,” she said. “Or so I was told. I don’t know where. Nor how.”

  Bear said he had taken part in more than one such siege, which was something I had not heard before. “For the most part they can be tedious,” he said. “But then they turn brutal.”

  “Like the French?” asked Benedicta’s son.

  At a loss for words, Bear ruffled his beard and shook his head. “I don’t like to say.”

  The room was filled with a painful silence, after which Bear stood up and left the room.

  Later that night, when I realized Bear had not come to sleep, I went outside. Bear was sitting with his back to a wall, staring up at the star-filled sky.

  “Is something wrong?” I said.

  “No,” he said curtly.

  “Bear,” I said, “why don’t you say what happened when you were a soldier?”

  He did not respond.

  “Why won’t you tell me?” I asked.

  At first he did not speak. Then he said, “It is hard to tell myself”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Crispin, war is another world. To be a soldier is to be another person.” He was breathing painfully, as if it were hard to speak. “I sinned much. In my heart I cannot even ask forgiveness for what should not be forgiven. I can only pray that my Lord will have mercy on me.”

  “What did you do?” I asked, much troubled.

  “Go to sleep, Crispin,” he said with weary irritation. “I don’t wish to speak of it.”

  I returned to the room where we slept. As I lay down I heard Troth say, “Crispin, is something the matter?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, and told her of my conversation. After she had listened, Troth said, “Aude used to say there are places in people we can’t see. But they are there.”

  I thought for a while and then I whispered, “Troth, once, when Bear was ill he talked about a chained bear that was kept in captivity—as if the links of the chain were his sins. He told me he took his name from that bear. And another time he said, ‘To love a man, you must know his sins.’”

  “Crispin,” she said, “you know Bear. You know he’s good.”

  Lying there in the darkness, I thought: is that what it is to be older—to know there are things you are afraid to know?

  22

  WHILE BEAR WORKED at the inn with Luke, Troth and I spent much time together. We often wandered about Rye, looking upon its world.

  Troth was like a chest that had become unlocked. There was so much she wished to know. For her, Rye was a vast place full of new things. I marveled at what she noticed, wondered, and asked about. Though I wanted to appear knowledgeable, I could not always supply answers. “Ask Bear,” I often had to say.

  As we wandered, there were times Troth hid her face—for people would stare, point, and even call her names—which made her shy. She was never so with me. My friends soon accepted her.

  In the evenings, back with Bear, who talked expansively to Benedicta and Luke, Troth and I found in exchanged glances all the talk we needed. Sometimes we communicated with the hand signs that had become our secret language.

  I talked freely to Bear—or at least tried to—but since that time when he would not talk, I was much aware there were things in him he did not want me to know. It grieved me to see how he had changed: no longer the boisterous believer in his own bigness, when even his rebukes made one smile, when his jes
ts taunted all, when his very being could embrace the whole world.

  But when Troth and I talked, we were equals. I could say anything to her, and she to me.

  “If God could give you what you most wished,” I once asked her, “what would it be?”

  “Aude.”

  “And if not her?”

  “To be with Bear … and you,” she replied.

  After a moment she asked me the same question, and I replied, “To be with Bear and you.”

  “Then it’s the same prayer,” she said, “and therefore perhaps the stronger.”

  Then I asked, “If you could be anything you desired, what would it be?”

  She replied: “Ordinary. And you?” she asked.

  “A man.”

  A man. “Like Bear?”

  I was about to give a quick yes, for I did so admire and love him. But I found myself hesitating and unsure of my words, except to think, I was not him. I must be myself, Crispin.

  “No,” I said quietly, cautious to speak so. “I think … I want to be different. Perhaps a mariner.”

  So it was that as often as I could, I took her to look upon the sea, sitting on the high bluff near the large castle tower that survived the attack. Most often we sat in silence and did little more than stare upon the sea’s great expanse.

  Once she asked, “Crispin, what lies beyond the sea?” She was pointing to the farthest line of ocean—where water and sky met,

  “In faith, I don’t know.”

  “Is there anything? Or is that the edge of the world?”

  “I suppose what you can’t see,” I replied, “is always the edge. And fearsome to look over.”

  “Aude often spoke of the edge of the world.” Then she said, “Could it be Nerthus’s world?”

  “Which is?”

  “The land beyond. Where … I hope Aude is. Crispin, shall we stay in Rye?”

  “I want to be free to see the world.”

  “Even to the edge?”

  “Aye.”

  She said, “I’d go with you.”

  “I would like that.”

  It was some twenty days or so after we arrived, on a late afternoon, the dark already descending, when Benedicta sent me to the miller for some flour. As I was wont to do, I took the long way about to the highest point, near the castle, so I could look upon the sunset sea which I found endlessly beguiling.

  “Crispin!” I heard.

  Taken by surprise, I turned. It was my friend Geoffrey, who had run up. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” he called. His face was flushed.

  “Is something the matter?”

  “That brotherhood,” he burst out.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You told me your father was being pursued by some brotherhood. Three men have come to town. They have been asking for your father.”

  I thanked him then fled back to the inn and found Bear, Benedicta, and Luke hauling a beam upon their shoulders. Fearful of speaking too openly, I ran to find Troth. She was in the courtyard, sweeping with an old straw broom.

  “Troth!” I cried, “they’ve come.”

  She turned pale. “The men from Chaunton?” she cried.

  “No, ones seeking Bear. You must gather our things.”

  She dropped her broom and followed as I ran back to Bear. In the interval the beam had been set it its proper place.

  “Bear,” I said. “I must speak with you.”

  “You’re free to do so.”

  “I … I think it best,” I stammered, “that it’s only for your ears.”

  “Come now, we have no secrets from our friends.”

  I looked from him to the innkeeper. Deciding there was no time to argue, I blurted out, “They’ve come.”

  “Who’s come?” said Benedicta.

  “Ball’s brotherhood.”

  Bear’s face stiffened. “How do you know?”

  “A friend told me three men have come to town and were asking for you. I did not see them”

  “Sins of Satan!” Bear swore. He slumped against the wall, defeat in his face. It was shocking for me to see him so, but it confirmed what we had to do. “I was hoping it would be otherwise.”

  “Bear,” I said, “we must leave.”

  He shook his head. “Crispin, they would only follow,” he said.

  “We can take a boat,” I said. “Sail away from England. Go to one of those places of which you spoke.”

  Bear bowed his head. “Let them come, Crispin. We’ll be done with them.”

  He looked up at me with weary eyes. To my dismay I saw him willing to accept defeat. “Bear,” I pleaded, struggling to find a way to move him, “there are three of them. If you can’t fight them off, what would become of me? And Troth?”

  That touched him. He looked at Benedicta, as if he was asking her.

  “Rye is a small place,” she said. “It will take only a short time before you’re pointed out. Crispin’s right. You best go.”

  “There are two cogs on the quay,” I quickly said.

  Bear turned to me. “How do you know?”

  “I look every day.”

  Bear studied his hands as if to measure their strength. Then once again he turned to the innkeeper.

  “When it is safe,” she whispered, “you can return. I’ll be here.”

  Bear took in a great breath. “God grant it. Very well. Crispin, gather our things.”

  “Troth has them,” I replied.

  Benedicta turned to Luke. “Go with him,” she said. “I’ll stay here, and deal if necessary.”

  “Can you?” asked Bear.

  “As God knows, there’s little fear left in me.”

  She and Bear embraced one another. As we were leaving, the innkeeper handed Bear some coins and a bullock dagger. “Trust in God and this.”

  “Can you spare it?” asked Bear.

  “I can.” She turned back to Luke. “Take them down and around the western cliff,” the innkeeper advised. “Are you sure there were cogs?” she asked me.

  I nodded.

  “Make sure you bring them to the one that’s leaving soonest,” she said to her son.

  Luke nodded his understanding. For a moment Bear and Benedicta gazed at one another. There was great sadness in their faces.

  “Bear,” I cried, “we must go!”

  Thus we quit the inn, all but running.

  23

  THE SOUTHERN CLIFF that fronted Rye was rocky and steep, but more steplike than not, so that we could climb down with ease. Moreover, Luke knew a path that in the growing darkness we would never have found on our own. With him going first, followed by Bear, Troth, and finally me, it took moments for us to reach the rocky base.

  “Keep close,” Bear whispered.

  Going as quickly as we could, we picked our way over boulders and stones until we turned the bend of Rye’s bluff Coming round we saw a large fire burning on the beach. By the gleaming firelight, I saw the two cogs I had seen earlier. They had been hauled up on the beach.

  I looked to Bear. “There, you see.”

  “We can but try,” he said and turned to Luke. “We’d best go on alone. Your mother may need you. In any case, if we can’t leave by boat, we’ll leave by another way. I’ll send word. Many blessings on your kindness.”

  Luke had no desire to linger. “God give you grace,” he said and hastened away, running back the way we’d come.

  As soon as he left, we three continued along the beach. Drawing closer, we could see that while there were two cogs, just one had people about—four in number. By the light of the fire we could see they were brawny fellows, working in pairs to load a host of barrels. Once the barrels were on the ship they wrestled them down a hatch to the hold. On the beach were some sixteen more tuns.

  “Keep a look about,” Bear warned.

  That said, we advanced upon the cog.

  “God mend all,” called Bear as he approached. Troth and I held back some steps.

  The men paused in thei
r work. Once they saw who we were, they went on with their labor.

  “Might I speak to the ship’s master?” asked Bear.

  One of the men standing on the beach, who was just bringing a barrel forward, called out. “I’m here.”

  He was a squat, bulky man, whose flat, weathered face featured bulging eyes, a high forehead, and small nose. Curly hair encircled his head like a fuzzy halo. His bare arms were thick and well-muscled.

  “Godspeed,” said Bear with not the slightest hint of urgency. “Peradventure, would you be sailing soon?”

  “Aye. When we load.”

  “Where might you be sailing to?”

  “Flanders.”

  “Bringing wool?” said Bear, with a nod to the barrels.

  “We are,” said the man. “Is there some matter here for you in all this? I’ve no time to gossip. We must sail at dawn.”

  Bear advanced a few more steps. “My name is Bear, and I, along with my children”—he gestured back toward us—“are—may God grace our way—seeking passage to Flanders.”

  “Are you now? For what reason?”

  “I’m a weaver,” said Bear. “I’m seeking employment there.”

  “And I’m short two men, and eager to load, but the attackers destroyed the machinery. You look strong enough. If you lend a hand I can offer a voyage for a shilling. With luck we should take no more than a day or two. But I’ll want to sail with the morning’s tide. A good wind is promised. If we catch it, we’ll make fair speed.”

  “We’re more than willing,” said Bear.

  Bear offered the coins that Benedicta had given us, and then the three of us took to rolling the barrels into the cog, which, I hoped, would take us to safety.

  I was very tense as we worked, fearing those who sought Bear would appear at any moment. If Bear felt the same, he did not show it, but turned to the task at hand. I don’t know what aid Troth or I provided, but we pushed and rolled by his side, one heavy barrel at a time.

  Once all the tuns had been lowered into the hold, a lid was placed over the hatchway and hammered in with bits of rope stuffed in the cracks. “To keep the seawater out,” Bear explained.

  “Will none get in?” asked Troth.