by James Meek
Thomas thanked Cess for the ale and asked if she knew English.
‘She speaks it like to she were born here, which is of my hard work of learning her,’ said Softly. ‘It were best you keep your eyes on me when you ask your asks.’
‘May I speak to her?’
‘Whatever it likes you. But speak as if you asked me.’
Thomas gazed at Softly. His eyes were grey, his cheekbones high, his lips never wholly shut, so a gleam of gold always showed between them, like to he’d gulped down some hoard.
‘To Cess, then,’ Thomas said. ‘Is it right you be here?’
‘Who’s she to say what’s right?’ said Softly.
‘Let her answer for herself.’
‘Listen, brother,’ said Softly, ‘I’ll tell you what thinks her, for I know it better than she. Her father knew we English came, and it needed him to send his women away beforehand, or make sikur they were wed at least. Three and twenty winter and still a maid. Her father knew what kind of stir a kings’ war is, when fighting men are far from home for months on end without their wives and sweethearts, and whores are hard to come by. Why ne sent he his women away? Pride is why. He thought him he could shield his daughter with his walls and his little knificle.’
‘How may you know what he thought him? Did Dickle not end his life right away when you came in through the gate?’
Cess shuddered.
‘I know, and she knows,’ said Softly. ‘We were four, stronger than he and pined for lack of maids, and if it hadn’t been us, it were others. Look how fair she is. Thinks you no French gnof came beforehand to wive her? She owed to have been wed, she owed to have known a man already. Why wouldn’t he give her to be wed when she was twenty? He was tight is why. He had a fair daughter and wouldn’t lose her to a husband. Frenchmen aren’t free with their goods nor daughtren, and Englishmen are free. Well, he got his mede.’
‘I’d ask her how she sees it.’
‘Ask her! I ne hinder you.’
‘Cess—’
‘Only behold me.’
‘Cess,’ said Thomas, and beheld Softly while he said it, ‘seems it right what Softly says of your father, or was it another way?’
Cess wouldn’t speak.
‘She’s of my mind,’ said Softly.
‘I ne yield that Cess’s father was somehow guilty in your reft of this woman’s maidenhood. But even if he were, the greater deal of guilt is on you for the deadly sin of reaving it. Do you withsay this?’
Softly’s steven dimmed with bitterness. ‘I ne bade you be my guest that you ask what’s in my heart,’ he said.
None spoke for a handwhile. Songs, drumbeats and laughter came of the great play-field. A wind blew a whirl of dust into their eyes and hair and the cerecloth pall threw and wrapped against the timbers of the cart. The clouds had hidden the sun.
Softly said: ‘If the king of heaven cared about Cess’s maidenhood so much, why’d he work such lust in me? Why’d he not work some wonder to shield her, like he wrought for the holy Agnes? When I first had her I ne hurt her much, and as soon as I was done, I began to sorrow, for she was young and fair and cried so loud and bit our hands when we would shut her mouth. I bethought on my mother, God keep her. But they that know me know I’m a free man, and I mayn’t withhold of my even-bowmen a boon I’ve won. So Holiday must have his shift, and he’s not so kindly in the swive as I. Then Dickle, Christ love him, went wrong. When it came to Hornstrake I couldn’t bear it no more.’
‘It seems to me,’ said Thomas, ‘that Cess ne saw you sorrowed by the way you dight her. For after you’d slaked your wants, and let your friends have their shift, you stole her from her home. That’s not the deed of a rueful man.’
‘I took her as my burden, for I knew what’d happen if I left her there among her own folk, without no dad nor maidenhood,’ said Softly. ‘They’d deem her shamed, and throw her out, and no worthy man wouldn’t take her for a bride, and she’d fall to whoredom. Besides, Holiday or I might have got her great, and I wouldn’t that she bear an English get there, shamed and alone among the French.’
‘Those are her folk.’
‘You ne know how folk can turn against you in the wink of an eye. My mother wasn’t sixteen winter old when she bore me in Adam Fletcher’s house in Bristol. Some queed of a seafarer had her against her will behind the roping house, and she hadn’t barely begun to show when her folk told her they wouldn’t feed her and a child. She’d have storve or froze without that Adam Fletcher took her in and was a good hard father to me.’ Tears welled in Softly’s eyes and he wiped them with his sleeve. ‘She was in the street with nothing but the get she bore inside,’ he said. ‘She was used and thrown away. I’ll not let my Cess pined like that, never. Give me.’
Cess handed him a cloth and he dried his eyes.
‘I’m good to her,’ said Softly. ‘She wants for nothing. Clothes, food, all the gear it needs to cook.’
‘He says he’s good to you, Cess,’ said Thomas. ‘Why not be his wife?’
‘She won’t tell you,’ said Softly. ‘She won’t tell me. All she says is no. I ne know what more to do. In the beginning I beat her and storve her a little, that she know what it were like without me to shield her, but now I only bide and ask. And we live as man and wife in most ways out-take in the priests’ eyes. She fetched and bore fresh arrows for us at Crécy and learned to shoot in play. When I took her home to Bristol after Calais she helped in my other work. We go to the ships with the cart and see what small loads they can’t rid themselves of. She hucked in French with some Gascons at the staithe for a bale of woollens and got them for a penny each, all but shot-free. I’ll give you one. Cess, fetch him a woollen.’
Cess got up and clamb in the cart.
‘You’re kind,’ said Thomas, ‘but I have all the warm clothes it needs me, and the nights are mild.’
‘It likes me to be free with my goods,’ said Softly. ‘Take it.’
Cess brought the woollen and held it out to Thomas. Thomas kept his hands hasped together on his lap, and Cess laid it on the ground before him. It was grey, of rich, thick wool.
‘A Gascon ship?’ said Thomas.
‘In Bristol the ships come and go by the score each day.’
‘Who’d sell a twelvepenny woollen for a penny?’
‘It’s a gift, and my read’s not to spurn it, else you unworth me.’
‘I’m grateful,’ said Thomas. ‘Thank you. Maybe you’ll bear it for me otherwhiles in the cart, till we reach France.’
‘Cessy,’ said Softly, ‘knit the woollen to his saddle, that this learned man ne forget he has it.’
WILL WENT THROUGH dim narrow hollows of cerecloth to a teld floored with wooden tiles. In the middle was a copper tub. A great kettle stood over an unlit fire beneath an opening in the roof. On other sides were chests, corven with the likenesses of uncouth deer with much eyes, claws and feathers, where stood stops, bowls, flasks and heaps of folded cloth of churchlike whiteness. The smell in the air was like to the Melksham bath-house, but where that had been one yell of sweetness, this was like to a wood filled with birdsong, with many kind smells, each one other, yet woven in a whole.
Two women, their nebs hilled, stood there. They bade him strip naked and stand in the tub. ‘Ne be ashamed,’ they said. ‘We’ve seen it all before.’
‘I bathed on Thursday,’ said Will.
‘Then now you’ll be washed away to naught.’
He stripped and clamb in the tub. The women let thick sweet oil of a flask on his head till it dripped on his shoulders and ran down his back and chest.
‘Shut your eyes against the smart,’ they said. Will shut his eyes. Iron clunked on iron.
‘A cold bath’s good for the blood,’ the women said, and emptied a stop of water on his head. Will opened his eyes and gasped. One of the women showered him with water while the other scoured him with a long-handled brush. She leaned into the work like to she cleaned an ox’s hide for market. Soon the oil had sh
ifted to foam and Will’s skin shone red. The women took white cloths and dried each inch of him, combed his hair, scrubbed and clipped his nails and gave him his breech, gown and shoon again.
‘My right clothes are in the players’ tent,’ said Will.
‘So she saw you, so she’ll have you,’ said one of the women.
‘I’d be as she, to have them at my will, and leave them,’ said the other.
‘Were she a man, to do so weren’t no wonder,’ said the first. She rang a hand-bell and a bell answered out of sight. ‘Go on,’ she said, and showed Will the way out through another dim cerecloth hollow.
He found himself in utter darkness. A hand on his chest held him back and a man whispered to him to bide till he was told to go in.
A woman’s speech came through the cloth ahead of him.
‘Your tumbles pleased us,’ she said. ‘Have you ever considered jesting for money? It can be surprisingly lucrative.’
‘Pardon me, madam,’ came Laurence Haket’s steven. ‘Though my family be not grand, it is ancient, and though my state be modest, I would not so dishonour my name.’
‘Pity,’ said the woman. ‘We had a purse of gold here by way of encouragement on that journey. We shall, with regret, retain it.’ There was stillness a stound, and when the woman spoke again, she had something in her mouth. ‘I confess, your response surprises. We were under the impression that your appearance here was influenced by a desire to achieve some form of preferment.’
‘If I conveyed that false impression, madam, I apologise.’
‘Influenced, possibly, by the vicious and baseless rumour current in certain circles that the exalted patron of these revels employs them as a guise to recruit young men for her intimate pleasures, to their consequent material advantage.’
‘Madam! I promise ignorance of such a vile suggestion until the moment you expressed it.’
‘Then why are you here?’
‘For poetry. To do homage at the altar of Love.’
‘Impossible. You deceive us.’
‘Madam—’
‘Were Love the subject of your devotion, you would pursue the paramour who escaped a vile marriage to be with you, and who has now, thanks to your inattention, been recaptured.’
‘Recaptured? When?’
‘It ne serves your reputation that you ne noticed her disappearance. Of course we would not condone a demoiselle’s ravishment from her family by anyone, nor no secret marriages. But either it really is Love you venerate, in which case you must defy our discouragement to pursue your paramour, or you deliberately misrepresent to us your intentions, in which case our displeasure will be grave. Choose.’
There was a breach in the darkness ahead of Will. Laurence Haket came quickly of it and went by without no way to see Will was there. The one who stood with Will shoff him in the back and Will stepped forward through the opening.
WHAT LIGHT THERE was came of many small candles dight in glass balls hung of the teld walls, which were of some cloth that, though black, glew dully in the candleshine. Before Will, on high-backed wooden seats, sat Pavone, who played a gittern, and the short thick high-born woman in hunter’s boots who’d been with the lady Bernadine at the hop the night before. She ate of a bowl of cherries on her lap and spoke softly to a clerk who sat at her feet, writing in a little brass-bound book. Some way beyond them, too far to see clearly in the murk, a woman lay on her back on a small open bed before a great bed, framed by posts at each nook. Further yet into the shadows a line of folk stood still with their heads lowered.
Will bowed his head to Pavone, to the lady with the book and to the woman on her back, although her neb was turned up to the roof. He straightened. There wasn’t no shift a handwhile. Pavone ne let of his song, but gazed at Will, and the lady ne let of her talk. Will went down on his knees and bowed his head again. Against his eyes the tapet on the floor was a right snarled work of knots and threads of many hues all overthwart each other.
‘Madame, Venus est arrivée,’ said Pavone. ‘Elle s’incline. Il existe une certaine hiérarchie entre les reines.’
‘Stand, Venus,’ said the lady with the cherries. It was she who’d spoken to Laurence Haket. ‘Voulez-vous finir, madame?’
A deep, even woman’s steven came of the bed. ‘Vingt livres, c’est trop?’
‘C’est à vous de décider. Dix livres suffisent; douze, c’est libéral.’
‘Quinze, et un petit don. Qu’aimerait-elle?’
‘C’est une dame simple … rien de cher, quelque-chose d’inutile. Une capuche en laine.’
‘Ah, c’est moi qui la choisirai. Nous trouverons un marché charmant. Notre Venus, elle est belle?’
The clerk folded his book, rose and left.
‘La même Venus que celle que vous avez déjà vue et demandée, madame,’ said Pavone. ‘En plus propre.’
‘Alors, donne lui son texte. Why do we speak in French? Does she speak French? It’s absurd. Continue.’
Pavone set down his gittern, stood and came to Will. He whispered in his ear, ‘Say, in a good clear voice, what I tell you. “Your Highness, noble queen, mother to our most mighty lord the king of England, I, Venus, do humbly swear to do your bidding.”’
Will spoke the words, weakly, with a stammer, and even in the candlelight looked aghast.
‘Dread queen,’ said the steven of the low bed. The queen raised herself on her elbows. Two came of the back of the teld to help her and she sat upright. ‘I prefer “dread queen”.’
Pavone sighed as he sat down and took up the gittern. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Again, with “dread queen” instead of “noble queen”.’
Will spoke the words again.
‘This Venus ne pronounces it well. “Dread” is one of my favourite English words,’ said the queen.
‘Madonna!’ Pavone shouted, and struck the gittern with the flat of his hand. ‘I advised you, madam, this Venus wasn’t no proper player, but a common archer of the village. You insisted on the beau visage. Your majesty is at liberty to devise her revels without my aid.’
‘Then why would I pay you? Ne broil our humours with your bile.’
‘Did they tell you the king-mother summoned you?’ said the lady on the seat to Will.
Will shook his head.
She offered Will a cherry, and he took it.
‘You may spit the stone into that bowl,’ she said. She sucked the flesh of a cherry and spat the stone. It hit the tapet and Pavone played his gittern strings like to they mocked her. Will spat his stone into the bowl. It rang like a bell. The lady and the queen laughed and clapped.
The lady leaned forward and asked Will in a low steven for his true name, and Will told her he was Will Quate, of Outen Green.
‘Your lord’s manor has provided and given most of our entertainment and play today,’ said the lady. ‘You, your lord’s daughter, and your manor’s pig.’
The pig was Nack’s, said Will, their hayward.
‘Is he here too? Did the whole village come?’
Only he, said Will, and the pigboy’s sister, Madlen, and the lady Bernadine, who were both now taken to be brought home again, the one to be hung as a thief, the other to be wed against her will.
‘Poor Bernadine,’ said the lady. ‘I would that I might help and aid her, but I mayn’t.’
‘What d’you murmur about there?’ said the queen. ‘I can’t hear nor see. Conduct her to me.’
‘Mind and remember, she’s the king’s mother, and you’re nothing,’ said the lady to Will. ‘I would she ne wrought it as she does. Understand, our kind are given in wedlock and sent away when we’re but children. To love, to fight for one’s life and to play, all three are minged together. This isn’t but hard play here. Do as you’re bidden. Ne think you ill of her. She’ll be shriven afterwards and you’ll win.’
She stood and left. Pavone took Will by the elbow and led him to the queen.
‘On your knees,’ he said to Will.
‘Oh, let her sit by me,’ sa
id the queen. ‘It is Venus.’ She thacked a stead on the bed and Will sat.
‘Regard me,’ she said. ‘Look at me.’
The queen ne seemed old enough nor broad enough to have borne no king. Her skin was right white, like to it hadn’t never known the sun, and where Will’s mother’s neb was corven deep by lines down her cheeks and on her forehead, the queen’s was smooth, out-take about her grey eyes and the ends of her mouth. She’d reddened her cheeks and her lips. A net of gold wire held her nut-hued hair, in which there wasn’t no white. She wore a blue gown sewn with silver-white beads. The cloth rustled like to dry leaves with her every stir.
Pavone left them, went again to his seat, took up his gittern and began to play and sing softly, with his back to Will and the queen.
‘You demonstrated great mastery to inflame the Rose’s prison with a single arrow,’ said the queen. She stroked his wings. ‘Do I appear ancient to you?’
Will said he ne understood.
‘Do I seem old?’
Will shook his head.
‘Ne lower yourself. We’re queens.’ The queen laid her hand on Will’s leg. ‘Speak to me as an equal. Do you know “equal”? As my even-queen. Now, how do I like you?’
‘Fair,’ said Will.
‘I find you very sweet and beauteous. Beauteous is the same as “fair”. It pleases me, which is to say it likes me, that you aren’t proud, which I know because you blush when I pay you a compliment. I sense that our spirits are close. It is as though we’ve always known each other but have only now met. I hope you feel the same. I desire that you and I share a bed tonight. This is a desire I reserve for my closest companions, those whose closeness may approach, though ne replace, my closeness to my dear deceased lord Edward, my husband, the present king’s father, may the angels treat him as their own. We shall lie in each other’s arms, two queens, breast to breast, share secrets, and fall together in one reverie.’
‘Reverie,’ said Will.
‘I’m so pleased you’re in accord. My final note, before you offer your response, is that as close as I sense we are, there is a surprise in your appearance. I hadn’t anticipated that the very Venus would combine such masculine vigour with such femininity. Your frame is so powerful, you’re browned like a peasant, yet you possess the grace and gentle face of a demoiselle.’