At the Crossing Places (27 page)

I
NEVER KNEW IT WOULD BE LIKE THIS.

In the dark, what was it? Hand-clap, screech, the whistle of ripping cloth. The west wind blowing through the copper beech at Caldicot. Thunder prowling round the far horizon. Or a giant trumpeting and clearing his throat.

Salt on my upper lip when I licked it. The smell of tar and slime and sodden ropes. Rotting fish.

But this morning!

The whole world of the sea was bucking and prancing and flashing. The white sky seemed to be fizzing and somehow lifting into itself.

I walked along the beach beyond the stone jetties and watched the waves. The really big ones leaned forward and hung right over themselves, and I could see inside them before they collapsed. Then they burst into foam. Seething and spitting, they rushed up to my feet, and little pebbles hopped inside them like midges.

For a long time I kept watch, and I thought the sea was a huge army on the move against England, growling and jostling and silver. I thought it was tender as a new mother…

The pebbles here are like frozen sea tears. Charcoal, dawngreen, hoarfrost, purple-veined, and fawn. My pockets are sticky and heavy with them.

P
OOR PEOPLE!” CRIES THE MESSENGER. “PEOPLE WHOSE
only weapons are nets and sickles and knives. For seven years the giant has helped himself to their children. He murders them and eats them.”

Arthur-in-the-stone stands up.

“There's only a handful left. And now he's grabbed our duchess while she was out riding, the wife of your own cousin. Sir Howell couldn't stop him. No one could. A whole troop followed them back to the Mount, but none of them dared go anywhere near him.”

“Shame on them!” shouts the king.

“You are our king,” the messenger says. “Put an end to this outrage. Protect your people!”

“As I have sworn to do,” Arthur says. “Where is this Mount?”

“Beside the sea,” replies the messenger, “where Normandy and Brittany meet.”

“Sir Kay!” the king calls out. “Sir Bedivere! We've got work to do.”

Now, in my stone, I can see three horsemen cantering through the shadows to the foot of the Mount. The sun is setting over it.

“I'll climb up and spy things out,” Arthur tells his brother and Sir Bedivere. “You keep watch here.”

At first the slope is very steep, and Arthur has to find finger-and toeholds. But halfway up it eases, and on a little level there's a
bonfire and an earthy bundle sitting on the ground: an old woman rocking to and fro beside a newly dug grave.

“Sshh!” she whispers. “If he hears you, he'll roar down and rip you to pieces.”

Far below, Arthur can hear the sea, slicing and slitting and tearing at herself.

“What are you doing here?” the woman asks. “You must be mad.”

Arthur stares at the grave. The raw earth.

The old woman sniffs. “With these hands,” she says, “I scraped it all out. I buried her.”

“Who?”

“The duchess.”

“Dear God!” the king whispers.

The bundle grabs his right arm. “Who are you?”

“I've come with a message for the giant from King Arthur.”

“Pff! He doesn't give a fig for kings, or anyone else. Though if you'd brought Queen Guinevere…he'd lap her up like a bowlful of cream. He'd rather have her than half of France.”

“King Arthur,” the king repeats.

“He's already murdered fifteen kings,” the old woman growls. “He plaited his cloak from their beards. If you must talk to him, do it while he's busy eating his supper.”

The giant is lolling beside a fire on top of the Mount, wearing nothing but a baggy pair of drawers. He's tearing at a man's leg with his teeth.

Across the fire, three young women are turning spits, and four babies are threaded on each of them.

I can hear the king sobbing. “You filth! You ghastly, grisly—Let the devil destroy you!”

The giant snorts and throws away the man's leg.

“Babies!” howls Arthur.

The giant reaches out for his iron club. All at once he rolls over and up, and whacks Arthur's shield right out of his hand.

With his sword the king slashes at the giant's midriff. The giant roars. He hurls away his club as if it were some stick, and grabs Arthur, and crushes his ribs.

The three young women are screaming; they're calling on Christ to save the king.

Arthur and the giant teeter and topple. On the ground they wrestle. The giant's on top, then Arthur's on top: Locked together, they start to roll down the side of the Mount. Down and over the little ledge, down again.

The giant reaches for Arthur's throat. Arthur reaches for his dagger. He has it. He has it! He jerks and works his right arm half-free; he drives the dagger right into the giant's chest.

The giant howls. Arthur can smell his vile breath. He gives a deep sigh and his body slackens, but still the king cannot loose himself from his embrace.

Down they roll, down until every bone in their bodies is bruised. Down to the foreshore, where Sir Kay and Sir Bedivere are waiting.

Each man grabs one of the dead giant's arms and pulls it away from the king. Sir Kay and Sir Bedivere unwrap Arthur and pull him to his feet.

For a while the three of them look up at the Mount, at the
wisp of smoke curling from the ledge, the white plume up on the crest.

“May Heaven swallow it!” says Arthur-in-the-stone.

“Amen,” Sir Kay and Sir Bedivere reply.

“Climb up!” the king tells them. “Both of you. Comfort the old woman and the three young ones. And bring me back my shield and Excalibur. There's treasure up there, rubies and emeralds. We'll share it amongst the poor people—servants, shepherds, cowherds, and fishermen—each woman who has lost her own sweet child.”

“We'll bring it all down, sir,” Sir Bedivere says.

“All I want for myself is the giant's iron club,” Arthur says. “That and his plaited coat. And I will have a church built here, in the name of Saint Michael, guardian of fighting Christian men.”

My stone grew dark. It lay heavy between my hands. My whole body was aching.

When I fight the cruel Saracens, when I hear them howling, will I be able to be brave?

T
HE WEST WIND OPENED ITS MOUTH AND BELLOWED;
waves hurled themselves at the jetty. We had to wait in Sandwich for three days before we could set sail.

On the first day of October, we left as the sun rose away to port. Ahead of us the sea was brown as newly turned earth in the misty autumn sunshine. The huge clouds rolling across the horizon were like spirit galleys.

At one moment the water seemed to be tugging our groaning boat apart, but the next, it buoyed us up and carried us on its back as if we were riding on a sleigh over snow. And all the while, the canvas sail kept whirring and flapping, as though there were a strange sea monster aboard, ravenous for wind.

Two of the shipmen trimmed and fed the sail while the third man steered. I was afraid, and my teeth began to chatter when the waves slopped over the gunwales, and it was impossible to stand without holding on to something.

Bonamy was tethered to the mast and he was nervous as well. He kept rolling his eyes, and when he felt his hooves slipping, he tugged and whinnied fiercely, and I was unable to reassure him.

The shipmen just laughed, though, and told me it takes everyone time to find their sea legs…but even after we had disembarked, I kept swaying around inside my own head and missing my footing.

After the crossing, we traveled south and east through Picardy during every daylight hour. On the first evening, we reached the abbey at Saint Omer after dark, and we stayed the second night in a pilgrims' tavern, I can't remember where. Then we rode to Coucy and stayed in the manor where the Lord Enguerrand told us he plans to build a large castle. We crossed into Champagne yesterday and reached Soissons soon after noon.

If Winnie wants to know what Picardy is like, I'll tell her the landscape is flatter and more dusty than in the March. The track through some manors was lined on both sides with tall poplar trees: Their leaves tremble and gossip, and you can't be sure whether they're pale green or silver.

But the real difference is that almost no one speaks English here.

On the second day, we were short of water, and Rhys said our horses were thirsty as well, so Lord Stephen sent me out into a large field to see what I could get from five villagers. But when I asked for “ale” and “water,” they just shook their heads.

I pointed to my mouth and threw back my head and slurped.

That did it!

“
De la bière. Vous voulez de la bière. De la bière!
”

All around me, the warm air swarmed with strange syllables. And then one women brought me a gourd.

“Bee-air…” I said carefully, and everyone laughed. The woman gestured me to drink, and when I'd done so, she held out her hand as if she expected me to kiss it. Then she sucked her lips noisily, and the men slapped their thighs.

I didn't notice that Lord Stephen had ridden up behind me.

“You seem to be doing very well for yourself,” he called out. “Are we going to get anything?”

In front of the church at Coucy there are steps, and sloping away from them a little square where people buy and sell. In the sunlight, the marl was glossy, almost silver.

In the middle of the square, there was a cot, and a long-limbed man was lying on it, propped up on cushions. The moment I saw him, I grew quite breathless, because he looked like Jesus come back to earth: his white skullcap and straggly black hair, and the huge dark pools of his eyes. His skin was sallow—sallow, but pearly grey.

Three women with floating hair and flowing dresses were looking after him—adjusting his cushions, shading his eyes, gently talking to him. We dismounted, and Lord Stephen talked to one of them.

“She says the man is dying,” Lord Stephen said. “They've brought him out to die. Into the marketplace. That's what he wants.”

Lord Stephen and I both crossed ourselves.

“Who is he?” I asked.

“Salman,” said Lord Stephen. “She says his name is Salman. A Saracen.”

“A Saracen!” I yelped.

The woman put her fingers to her lips, then smiled forgivingly.

I could hear Oliver's voice in my ear: “You can be sure hell's mouth is wide and waiting…They worship a false prophet…Saracens are infidels.”

Then I realized the Saracen was looking straight at me. He smiled and said something.

“He says he hopes Allah always goes with us,” Lord Stephen said. “He says he has a son much your age.” The Saracen coughed into a scrap of cloth, and I saw that he was spitting blood.

“A son of your age,” Lord Stephen repeated.

“Where?”

“In Granada. Near Granada.”

“Where's that?”

“In the south of Spain.”

Lord Stephen and the young woman talked quietly for a while.

“She says he's a trader. A good trader and a fine storyteller! He has come here several times before, and now he will die here.”

The man said something softly.

“He thanks us for pausing on our journey, and asks us to pray for his soul. He says he feels fortunate to have met us.”

“Fortunate!” I said, “He makes me feel fortunate. Meeting him.”

“Yes, Arthur,” Lord Stephen replied. “Both of us. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.”

The man smiled faintly and murmured to the young woman.

“He says,” Lord Stephen told me, “that wherever you turn, there is the face of Allah.”

Here in Soissons, we're staying in another abbey. Before I went to Wenlock, I'd never been inside one, and now I've stayed in four! What I like most here are the bells. They're not tethered but swing freely, so they all sound at the same time, and the air quivers.

This afternoon, we went to meet Milon de Provins in his large town house. Lord Stephen says he's extremely rich and owns three large estates and as much land as the earl of Hereford. His father
was the marshal of Champagne and almost as powerful as the count.

Milon isn't a big man, though he's taller than Lord Stephen, but he's strong as a fist, strong and friendly. He knows what he thinks, he laughs, but not overmuch, and speaks dreadful English.

He caught me grinning and playfully punched me. “You titch me,” he said. “You titch me.
Oui
?”

Milon was very glad to see Lord Stephen and told him Count Thibaud will be able to lead a crusade numbering more than thirty thousand men.

“But no much English,” Milon said.

“Not yet,” replied Lord Stephen.

“You
ambassadeur,
” Milon said to me.

“My father,” I told Milon, “Sir William de Gortanore, he's a crusader.”

That's the second time I have spoken up for Sir William, and I know Lord Stephen was looking at me.

“He served Coeur-de-Lion and King Philip,” I explained.

“
Tel père, tel fils!
” Milon replied.

“Like father, like son,” Lord Stephen translated, and he raised his eyebrows.

Milon told us that in three days' time he and Count Thibaud and Lord Geoffroy, the marshal of Champagne, will be meeting to lay plans.

“To discuss where the crusade should head for,” Lord Stephen explained to me later.

“But—”

“I know what you're going to say,” Lord Stephen said. “Jerusalem!
Yes, of course that's our destination. But that doesn't mean we'll go straight there. One way of fighting a monster is to bleed his gut.”

“But where then, sir?”

“As I was saying, that's what has to be discussed—that, and where all the ships are to be built, and when the crusade is to begin. Crucial decisions! I know you! If you had your way, we'd set off tomorrow and sail straight to Acre and the kingdom of Jerusalem.”

Milon says he has arranged for us to be received by Count Thibaud the day after tomorrow, at noon, and that is when we will take the Cross.

“And before that,” Lord Stephen said, “I must teach you the words to say when you make your vow. You know, Thibaud is only nine years older than you. Young enough, really…”

Lord Stephen tailed off…What was he thinking? That Count Thibaud is young enough to be my brother? Young enough to be his own son? Tonight, in this chill cell, I've thought about the father I've never had. My crusader-father.

The sounds of the bells lapped around me and washed me. I thought of the gentle Saracen trader with eyes like Jesus, and of his son waiting in Spain.