by James Meek
‘Hayne ne told you his laws. He let you find them as you broke them,’ said Softly to Will, who sat on the grass half witless. ‘I’ll tell you my law. It’s one: Do as I bid you.’
Will got to his feet.
‘Now we may fulfil the behest of our first meeting,’ said Softly. ‘Do as I bid and we win together. Softly and Player will be the freest of men.’
He clapped Will on the back with his hand. Will gasped.
‘Get your burd to dight some grease on that,’ said Softly. ‘Go, ne make the captain bide.’
WILL HADN’T NO time to do aught but let that he was heal, for Laurence Haket had bought two horses and harness cheap of folk who’d got them after their kindred’s qualm death and lacked the means to keep them. The captain would that Will and Madlen rode them as far as the sea at least, to get there quicker. The horses were no gift, he said, but a loan, and the fees to feed and house them would come of silver they had yet to earn.
The sun was two fingers of the brink of the world when they rode out of Heytesbury, Laurence Haket, the lady Bernadine, Thomas, Will and Madlen. Drops of dew lay on every leaf and mist stood thick as milk in the hollows. Sheep’s fleeces glew gold of the morning and the cattle stinted to graze and beheld the riders going by as if the days of Adam’s kind were long gone and they hadn’t never seen no man before. The riders went by hollow ways through dim woods where the birds sang loud as children achatter in the church, and by fields of ripening corn that hadn’t been weeded a week, bright with red, yellow and blue blossoms. They came of their horses and led them on foot down the steep road into the dean of the Wylye, between still, sleeping towns without no smoke nor bells, and up a wild road on the far side onto high green downs, nearer to the sun, thick with bees and butterflies, where the grass grew so rich the horses trod without no sound. By mid-morning they came to the top of a hill that looked down on Mere, with its mighty castle, and beyond the town a great wold that glimmered with the water of the Stour, and beyond that, blue and far, the downs of Dorset, so Thomas said.
‘THE ESSENCE OF the matter is,’ Laurence remarked to Thomas as they descended towards the castle, ‘marriage is imperative. Once married, do I perish, she inherits the property; does she perish … of course one can’t be sure, but it is reasonable to have esperance of an heir. Of all the problems I anticipated in choosing the course of ravishment, the general extermining of the clergy just when their services are most in demand wasn’t one.’
‘A priest is ideal,’ said Thomas, ‘but in the most recent cases I’ve heard argued, not essential.’
‘Berna!’ called Laurence. ‘He says we ne need no priest.’
‘There was a scholar in Paris,’ said Thomas. ‘Lombard. His ideas have been generally adopted by the canon lawyers. He maintained that a marriage is acceptable if each of the two parties, without compulsion, says to the other “I will marry you.”’
‘That’s it?’ said Berna.
‘The presence of spectators to confirm the voluntary nature of the arrangement were desirable. And in your position some form of testimonial document, which I would be delighted to provide, by way of a marriage present.’
‘That’s all?’
‘There must then be consummation.’
‘Will! Madlen!’ shouted Laurence. The archer and the servant rode up.
‘The ecclesiastical authorities may still punish you for this,’ said Thomas, ‘but none may say you aren’t married.’
Accordingly, Bernadine Corbet and Laurence Haket exchanged their marriage promises on the hill in front of the proctor Thomas Pitkerro, the archer Will Quate and the maidservant Madlen of Outen Green.
Laurence took a golden ring of his grandfather’s of his finger and put it on Berna’s. They kissed, and Madlen crowned each with a chaplet of daisies. They rode on to the castle, crossed the moat, and discovered that the great door was open. They passed through into the castle courtyard, dismounted and searched for a person to accept their request for hospitality.
THE COURTYARD WAS immense, haunted by pigeons, invaded by weeds erupting of the pavement, encumbered with ruined and half-repaired and half-constructed objects, blanched with the ordure of the birds. The heaped material was placed so closely that although the entrance to the stables was visible it was difficult to trace a way for the horses past the wheel-less cart with the five-level pigeoner attached, the pile of half-mended troughs, the sheaf of rusted lances fixed to a cratch, and the ploughs with barrels joined to the handles, barrels that for some reason leaked salt. Rusted gaffs, saws, mallets, chains and pincers lay on the ground, alongside mounds of blocks, traves, pulleys, bars, cases, cages, hutches and kennels, the old and the damaged mixed with the fresh and the unused. In one part of the courtyard, lines of dead trees in basins stood in perfect array, their leaves brown, the soil in which they were planted parched.
A small door, the lower edge scraping the stones of the pavement, was opened with a series of kicks. An old man emerged carrying a pot of grain. He had a disorderly beard and was negligently clothed in a once-expensive purple velvet tunic now blemished by wine, paint, grease and the necessaries of pigeons.
He moved rapidly towards them, dispersing grain as he went and exclaiming excitedly how fortunate it was they’d arrived. Each gesture of distribution summoned a furious tempest of competing birds and the detail of his expressions of joy ne might be comprehended until he stood among them. He set down the pot, now void of its contents, and clasped Laurence’s hands.
‘My liege lord,’ he said, ‘I ne doubted you’d relieve me. I urge you to order your people to commence charging the carts immediately. The French army lies concealed not far of here and they outnumber us. I’m informed they have war engines in their train, and elephants of India.’
‘Our business is with the castellan, father,’ said Laurence.
‘I! I! I am the castellan!’ said the old man, jumping in place and jabbing his chest with his finger.
‘Sir Walter?’
‘I! I!’
‘It’s Laurence Haket.’
‘Of course you’re obliged to pretend,’ said Sir Walter, pressing his hand on Laurence’s shoulder and lowering his voice. ‘If the French knew a member of the king’s family were here they’d assault the castle immediately.’
‘You’ve confounded me with another,’ said Laurence. ‘I’m no relative royal. I’m Laurence Haket. I shared a chamber with your son at Berkeley.’
‘Pay attention, sir. My sons aren’t loyal to your line.’
‘Surely that’s false. I was in combat with Lionel against the French on the Crécy campaign.’
‘He’s a traitor. All my family and servants are traitors. They abandoned me. I mayn’t defend the castle unaided. We must move the armaments and the royal property north, to a safe place, where we may reassemble our forces and give battle to the enemy.’
Laurence turned to Thomas, then said hesitantly to the castellan that he doubted the presence of an enemy army in the vicinity.
‘Why would my pigeons lie?’ said Sir Walter.
‘There’s no sign of war in England,’ said Laurence.
‘No sign? Corpses on every side! Each day I hear the bell toll in the village. Of that high tower’ —he pointed to the castle’s highest turret— ‘I espy how they must dig a pit to inter the soldiers, the mortality is so severe. Why would my servants and family abandon this castle if they ne feared the assault of a foreign army? What might this be save signs of war?’
‘Signs of plague?’
Sir Walter’s mouth turned down at the corners and he beat the air dismissively with his hand. ‘People of vile habits are always subject to vile diseases. This idea of a plague universal was imagined by the Pope to deceive the enemies of France.’
‘Do you know me, sir?’ Thomas said to Sir Walter.
‘Of course,’ said the castellan impatiently. ‘My lord archbishop.’
‘As you say, our position is grave,’ said Thomas. ‘The king is rallying the
barons near Oxford.’
‘Excellent.’
‘He will hardly may without these potent armaments. Do I perceive a vehicle for the transportation of your pigeons? An engine of your own devising?’
‘Aha!’ cried the castellan, winking furiously and tapping the side of his nose. He regarded the cart with the pigeoner mounted on it and appeared momentarily uncertain. ‘I suppose your people will be able to reattach the wheels.’
‘Certainly,’ said Thomas, ‘but our baggage train is delayed. Our fifty carts won’t arrive till Vespers.’
‘Fifty?’ said Sir Walter in disappointment.
‘Did I say fifty? I intended one hundred and fifty.’
‘Aha! Possibly sufficient.’
‘Until then, I regret that my companions and I are too tired for reasonable discourse. Have you places where we may retire to rest and refresh ourselves?’
‘For you, sir, and your consort,’ said the castellan, indicating Laurence and Berna, ‘the chambers royal, on the first floor, where the lion rampant is portrayed. And for you, my lord Norfolk, and your consort’ —he turned to Will and Madlen— ‘the chamber rose, on the second floor. You’ll see the flowers. My lord archbishop in the chaplain royal’s chamber. As for your servants— Where are your servants?’
‘We outpaced them,’ said Thomas. ‘I only pray they’ve not been captured.’
Berna regarded Madlen, and appeared to be on the verge of demanding some service, but Laurence seized his bride by the wrist and drew her towards the door.
‘Consider yourself at liberty for the present, until I should summon you,’ called Berna to Madlen over her shoulder. The newly married pair disappeared into the castle. Thomas went to recall them, to remind them of the necessity to prepare a marriage contract in advance.
THERE WEREN’T NO grooms, and Will saw to it that the horses were put in stalls and watered and hayed. Madlen took a bundle of her horse and she and Will went into the castle and through a hall scattered with deerhides and horns, sheets of calfskin thick with writing pinned to the horn-tips, and as they walked they must heed their feet, that they ne overturn no cans of ink with feathers pitched in them, all but the ink was dry. Along one wall was a great heap of shields, swords, spears, axes and helms, all broken and blunted and rusted, driven together hab-nab like leaves in a yard. Another wall was hung with calfskins stuck together to make much sheets, inked on with the likenesses of gins throwing bolts at castles, or shooting fire, or snapping ships atwain, each strike against the foe drawing a cloud of pigeons to swoop on the eyes of the fallen. The hall stank of stale bread and ale and other fouler, slower-rotting things.
On the far side of the hall they found the bottom of a stairway that clamb to a long dark narrow way with doors leading of it. The doors stood open, and as they went by they looked inside. Some rooms were bare. Others were stopped with gear, the dear, the badly made and the broken all minged together any old how; here a heap of gitterns without strings, there folded horse-cloths laid one upon the other, with a set of horse-helmets on top, the eye-holes empty like skulls. There were reed baskets filled with clapperless hand-bells and dented horns, headless stone likenesses of men and women on their backs on the cold floor, a maypole corven into firewood, a table stacked with pewter plates, a score in each stack, and on one plate, a chewed old sheep bone busy with flies.
At the end of the narrow way was a shut door that bore the likeness of a gold lion on the wall above it, stood on its hind legs, its mouth open and its great red tongue wagged out. Another stairway led further up. Will and Madlen clamb the stair and came to a doorway framed by the likenesses of red roses, with their green stems, leaves and thorns.
They went into the room and Will shut the door behind them. There was a bed like to the king-mother’s bed in Edington, with a ragged old cover that had once been dear, sewn with the likenesses of babies with bows and arrows and naked maids stood with their hands hiding their tits and cunts. The room smelled of dust and gillyflowers.
Madlen went to the bed and stood with her neb to Will. Will took her head between his hands and kissed her till their chests hove and their limbs shook. Will thud the floor with his foot, broke his mouth of hers, took the hem of her gown and lifted it of her head. They fumbled with their own and each other’s clothes, shivering like to they sicked, until they were naked and held each other’s hard pintles in their fists and kissed again, Will with his free hand gripping the back of Madlen’s neck. Will came first, on Madlen’s hand, and she licked it clean while Will looked on her with bared teeth, then shoff her on the bed on her back and took her pintle in his mouth and sucked it and tongued the knob till her seed gushed into his mouth and he swallowed it and looked at her and laughed.
Madlen lay quaking, breathing hard. ‘Who learned you that?’ she said.
‘None. It seemed right.’
Madlen sat up and leapt to him on the bed on her knees. She found his whip-wounds, and cursed Softly, and hunted about till she found a flask of foggy green glass with a greasy sweet-smelling oil inside. She smeared it on Will’s wems. When she was done she took his limp pintle in her hand, kissed it, dight it between her lips, ran her tongue around it, let it fall long enough to say ‘I’d know the smack of yours,’ and took it in her mouth again.
‘FEOFFEE,’ SAID THOMAS, his pen suspended over the line he wrote. ‘It signifies one who benefits of a fief.’
‘“With all appurtenances and easements”,’ chanted Sir Walter of the rear of the chamber, where he endeavoured to cut open wine bottles with a sword.
‘But what of the dower?’ said Laurence.
‘The dower only matters if the decedent leaves an heir. This instrument supersedes the dower. “Sans”,’ muttered Thomas, ‘“encumbrances”.’ A pigeon settled on his shoulder and Berna shooed it away.
ON A WOODEN stand in the rose room stood a bowl of green ore with a hole in the bottom that led by a pipe to a hole in the floor. Over the bowl hung another pipe in the shape of a firedrake’s head of whose open mouth trickled a steady stream of clear water, like wine of a tap in a barrel.
‘How may it run?’ said Will. He drank of the water. ‘It’s sweet and cold. How may it run up so high?’
Madlen ne answered. She stood and looked at a moth-eaten cloth hung on the wall that bore the likeness of two high-born young men. One showed, with his hands, a rose bush, while the other kneeled beside it. To one side stood a smaller figure, a maid with wings in a red gown, drawing a bow nocked with an on-blaze arrow.
‘It’s you,’ said Madlen. ‘How might they know so long ago when this was made that you would go about in a red gown with wings, and fire an on-blaze arrow?’
Will splashed water on her bare skin and she ran to the bowl and fetched water to cast at him. They ran around the room and laughed till they were wet and out of breath. They went to stand at the small window, barely bigger than a head, that overlooked the fields of the vale of Stour. The sun shone in at the window and lit Madlen’s neb, and Will stood tight behind her, left arm across her chest, his right hand on her pintle and her bollocks, his pintle tucked in the cleft of her arse.
‘Would you see Hab again?’ said Madlen.
‘Only were Madlen there too.’
‘That can’t be.’
‘Then let him bide wherever he be, if it’s not too hard for you.’
‘Are you afeared to die?’ said Madlen.
‘No,’ said Will.
‘I will be,’ said Madlen. ‘I will be afeared to die, do I live. But I’m not afeared now, in this room, with you.’
‘I too.’
‘When we were small, before they bishoped us, they said were we good we’d go of this world to the next when we die.’
‘Yeah.’
‘But it’s like to there’s another world, of us here in this room. It were lighter to die than to go of being with you, and you alone, in this stead, to that world of other folk where we used to live till a handwhile ago.’
‘I’ve
had more bliss in a stound with you than I’ve known my whole life. Ne shadow it with your thoughts of going down the stairs again.’ He wiped a tear of her cheek and led her to a lesser room that led of the much one, where rich clothes lay in chests. They too were moth-eaten and smelled of damp winters but must have been right dear when they were new.
‘Choose me some clothes,’ said Will. Madlen chose him breech and a coat of deerhide dyed black, and a belt of soft red cloth, and red boots once fit for a lord.
‘Now you’re ready to hunt with the king,’ said Madlen.
‘I wouldn’t go without you.’
‘You’ll bring me a fresh haunch of deer meat. Now you choose for me.’
Will clothed Madlen in a gown blue like to the sky, hemmed with black and gold and sewn with black and gold bees the muchness of pennies. Will asked how it liked her, and Madlen said it wasn’t for her, but for him, and Will said she looked so fair he wished she could see herself. Then they found at the back of the room a looking glass three foot long with enough glass unbroken that they might see themselves together. They stood a while to stare in wonder at these two, who looked so like the high-born folk who came to bide with Sir Guy at the manor house in Outen Green. Afterwards they took off the clothes and shifted them so each wore the other’s. They wore many other clothes, some women’s, some men’s, and stinted their play to kiss and feel each other, until Madlen wearied of the game and stripped naked again, and bade Will do likewise.
‘These clothes are of the world below,’ she said. ‘Let’s swive again. Fuck me, loveman. Fuck me as you fucked Ness Muchbrook.’
‘I mayn’t, for you haven’t no cunt. But I may fuck you as the king’s father once fucked the king-mother.’
‘I wish you did.’
‘They told me if I breathed a word of what happened in the queen’s teld I’d be killed, but I ne care.’ Will lifted Madlen and lay her neb down on the bed and bade her raise her arse in the air. He pitched his finger slowly in her arsehole. ‘Would I be the first?’ he said.