King of the Middle March (2 page)

I
T IS DIFFICULT TO WRITE IN THIS TENT
.

At Holt, almost no one came into my room, and I could leave my parchment on the window ledge. And at Caldicot, I could sit in my window seat with my ink-perch at my elbow.

I had beetles and spiders for company there, and sometimes a slug or a squirm—that's what my foster sister Sian used to call them. But here there are hordes of flies, whining and buzzing, and they bite the back of my neck, and the backs of my knees, and my knuckles.

There's no table here and no window ledge. So sometimes I prop myself up against my saddlebag and stuff a cushion between my knees and use that as a table; and sometimes I stretch right out, and kick up my heels, and write lying on my stomach. But each time, I have to pack my parchment away again as soon as the ink is dry and I've polished the page. I know I'm meant to use a boar's tooth, but before I left, Winnie gave me one of her teeth and that works almost as well.

I've brought plenty of oak-apples, and acacia sap, and green vitriol in a glazed bottle, but it's not easy to make ink here because there's no fresh rainwater and also, if I'm not careful, grains of sand get into the mixture.

On the way here, most of my quills were wrecked. Turold bent
them in half when he jammed his hammer into my saddlebag. When I went to the scriptorium at Wenlock, Brother Austin told me the outer pinions of geese and swans make the best quills, but the only feathers here are those of herring gulls. Their insides are furry, but at least they're strong and shave easily.

Lord Stephen and I had so much to do before leaving that, although I've often looked into my stone and stepped into Camelot, I haven't been able to write anything at all for months. There wasn't even time to write about my betrothal to Winnie. But I do want to write down everything now.

When we embark on our galley, and sail south, slicing through the water, my pen will hover, then swoop, and mew, and scream.

I
WAS ACROSS THE TABLE FROM MILON AND BERTIE. HIS FULL
name is Bertrand de Sully, and he's Milon's nephew as well as his squire. He's as stocky as his uncle, but small as a shrimp.

“Arthur!” exclaimed Milon.

I bowed to him.

Milon pursed his lips. “I forget, you think,” he said.

“No,” I replied carefully.

“Yes,” said Milon, “I not forget I knight you.” Milon turned to our Venetian hosts. “Arthur bravee!” he said in a loud voice.

Milon had just begun to explain to the Venetians how in Soissons I stopped a man from knifing a woman, when the first course arrived.

On my platter were three creatures that looked like very juicy white worms, white tinged with pink; they wore plate armor and had long whiskers.

Lord Stephen's eyes gleamed. “No time for faint hearts,” he said under his breath.

Milon and Bertie were tucking their napkins under their chins, and the four Venetians laid theirs over their right arms, and then they all munched their worms as though they hadn't eaten since last week.

One of the Venetian councillors, Gennaro, raised his glass goblet. “Welcome back!” he said. “Our friends in God. Our partners!”

Then we all tapped the table with our knuckles, and raised our goblets.

I'd scarcely eaten a mouthful before a servant brought in a platter piled with strange black and yellow and green gobs and nuggets, like the nose-pickings of giants.

“Oh dear!” said Lord Stephen. “You're spoiling us.”

But that didn't fool the Venetian sitting next to me. “Sea snails,” he said. “Out of their shells! You like?”

They tasted disgusting, but it didn't matter. I felt charged with such excitement.

When I entered service with Lord Stephen as his squire, I supposed we would be joining the crusade at once. But that was two and a half years ago, and since then I've chosen Bonamy and trained him; I've been fitted out with a suit of armor and practiced my fighting skills; I've learned to speak French; I took the Cross from our young leader, Count Thibaud, before he suddenly died.

We met the old Doge when we traveled here before, sixteen months ago. He's at least eighty-four, the same age Saint Luke lived to. His eyes are bright and clear, but he's stone blind. He waves his arms like a baby, and never stops talking.

Milon and the other envoys told him there's no sea power to compare with the Republic of Venice, and asked the Doge to build the ships to carry the crusaders and their horses.

“You are asking a great deal of us,” the Doge said, but in the end he agreed to build ships for more than four thousand knights and
the same number of horses and nine thousand squires and twenty thousand foot soldiers, so every able-bodied man in the city has been boat-building for the last fifteen months. Not only that. The Venetians promised to feed us and our horses for the first nine months as well.

I managed to wash down one of the worms and three of the nose-pickings with more wine, and then the servants brought in the next course. Alive!

“Magnifique!”
exclaimed Milon.

“Bellissimi!”
exclaimed the four Venetians.

“What are they?” I asked.

“Lobsters!” said Gennaro, laughing.

The eight lobsters were blowing out vile sea-spittle, and they peered at me in a kind of sunken way.

The servants carried the lobsters away to be boiled, and brought us blobs of matted blood and glossy brown balls on a silver platter.

“Oh!” gasped Lord Stephen.

“Cows' eyes,” I said. “I'm sure they are.”

“Ceriglie e cipolle!”
said one of the councillors. “Cherries. Onions!
Marinati!
” They all shook their heads and laughed.

Milon and the other French envoys agreed on a price of five marks for each horse and two for each man, and then they borrowed five thousand marks from Venetian moneylenders, and gave them straight back to the Doge so that work in the shipyards could begin. They swore to make full payment as soon as we've all mustered here, while the Doge promised all the ships would be ready to
sail by the Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. That's the day after tomorrow.

I had to eat my lobster with a long metal pick and crackers.

“This enemy you must defeat with weapons,” said one of the Venetians. “First the lobsters, then the Saracens, yes?”

It tasted quite sweet. More like meat than fish, really.

Next, the servants came back with white wine and a huge bowl of fruit: pomegranates, grapes, cucumbers, lemons. There were oranges as well, and dates, which look like a badger's droppings and have stones in them.

“From Egypt,” said Gennaro.

“Saracen fruit!” I exclaimed. “Like the fruit Saladin sent to Coeur-de-Lion when he caught the red fever.”

The councillor smiled. “Trade,” he said.

“So then,” said Lord Stephen, “the Saracens have numbers in their heads and dates in their mouths.”

“And stars in their eyes,” I added. “Sir William told me the Saracens have written books about astronomy.”

“We are ready now,” Gennaro said, “but are you?”

Milon nodded. He picked a piece of something from between his teeth and flicked it onto the floor. “I am ready,” he said, and he shrugged. “But everyone not here. Everyone bring money.”

The councillor leaned back in his seat. “We wait,” he said.

“Men from all over Europe,” Lord Stephen added. “Provins and Picardy and Champagne, Anjou and Burgundy and Germany and Italy. Even a few from England! All in this one place and all at one time. It's not easy.”

“Not easy to build ships,” said Gennaro. “Galleys. Horse transports. Two hundred ships in five hundred days.”

“Incroyable!”
exclaimed Milon.

“We wait,” said the Venetian coolly. “You give us money, we give you ships.”

“Our new leader is on his way,” Lord Stephen added. “Marquis Boniface.”

W
HAT I HAD MEANT TO DO WAS SAY SUNSET PRAYERS
for my mother. But as the soft light filtered into our tent, I began to think about Oliver, our priest at Caldicot. And then I heard us arguing.

“No, Arthur. You're wrong. Suffering scarcely matters.”

“It matters if you've got nothing to eat,” I exclaimed. “How do you think Gatty likes going to bed hungry? And with every bone in her body aching?”

“My dear boy,” Oliver said patiently, “you're a foolish child of God. I've told you before: Poverty is part of God's will.”

“How can it be?” I demanded.

Oliver drew in his breath sharply. No! It was the wind sucking the cheeks of our tent. And then I heard someone calling me. Far off, and repeated, and high-pitched.

“Arthur! Help! Arthur!”

I picked up my jackknife and dived out of the tent. Bertie was in the water up to his chest, and four squires were poking him with quarterstaffs and laughing.

I ran across the beach as fast as I could, but two of the squires saw me coming and waded out of the water to meet me.

They jeered at me, and one grabbed my right arm; the other made a dive for my right leg.

“Watch it!” I yelled. “I've got this knife!”

I waved the knife; I kicked my left leg. But the two of them dragged me into the water, and one of them put his foot on my chest and held me under until I was choking.

The water rushed around me, and right into me. My ears were blocked and bubbling, but I could still hear them laughing. I kicked. I twisted. I was drowning.

They let go of me then. I got onto my knees, retching, and coughed the salt water out of my nose, my throat. I rubbed my stinging eyes. Then I saw the other two squires were holding Bertie under as well.

Still kneeling in the water, I raised my left hand. I drew back my knife.

The squires jeered. They taunted us. Then they made off, hooting.

Bertie struggled to his feet. He too was fully clothed.

“What were they saying?” I croaked.

“Water rats!” said Bertie. “Lily-livers!”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“You said something.”

“They gave me a chin-pie.”

I looked at Bertie's red chin. “Why? What did you say?”

“Only what they are. Sausage bladders! German slime!”

“Bertie,” I said, “you shouldn't pick fights. You know what my father said when I was thirteen and told him I wanted to go crusading?”

“What?”

“‘Shrimps don't last long when they get washed out to sea.'”

“I'm not a shrimp,” Bertie said angrily.

My father. Sir William de Gortanore. I give thanks to merciful God each day that he decided not to come on this crusade. He does believe Christians and Saracens are equal in God's eyes, and that's more than Oliver does, but he's sixty-seven now, and completely blind in his itching left eye, and half the time he's in a rage.

I hate my father. He has stopped me from finding my mother. And he murdered her husband, Emrys—either that or he had him murdered—and he beats his wife, Lady Alice. The first time I talked to him as my own blood-father, he warned me, “When people start digging, they may find their own bones.” His right eye glittered.

I know it's dangerous to go behind my father's back, but the strange thing is I think he's somehow nervous of me. Maybe he's worried because he's not sure exactly how much I've found out.

Bertie and I waded out of the water. “What about your father, then?” I asked him. “Milon told me he's half-English.”

“He is.”

“Where is he?”

“At home. His whole body's shaking, and his hair has fallen out. He can't even hold a knife or a spoon.”

“What about your mother?”

Bertie flopped down onto the wet sand. It was quite hard, and rippled like the clouds above us. He splayed the fingers of his right hand and stabbed the sand, and then he just bunched himself up like a miserable wood louse.

“Is she dead?” I asked.

Bertie didn't reply; he just nodded, and I squatted down beside him.

“My mother had to give me away when I was two days old,” I said. “I still can't bring her to life again.”

Bertie went on staring at the sand. “What do you mean?”

“You're shivering,” I said. “Go and get some dry clothes on. I'll tell you sometime.”

I stood up and tramped back across the foreshore to our tent. No one was there, so I delved to the bottom of my saddlebag, and checked my seeing stone was safe, and then I pulled out the little screw of grey cotton. I unwound it and the inner wrapping of floppy cream silk. I took out my mother's glowing gold ring. The tiny engraving of baby Jesus in his mother's arms. I slipped it on.

When Thomas, my father's servant, gave it to me, I promised I wouldn't tell anyone about it, but I'm hundreds and hundreds of miles away from England and Sir William now.

I'm going to tell Lord Stephen how my mother secretly sent it to me, and ask him whether it is all right to wear it.

My mother's ring on my right hand. My betrothal ring on my left. I'll be well armed!

I got down on my knees. In the tent's quiet vestry-light, I said sunset prayers for my mother and Winnie.…

Which is what I was going to do before Oliver interrupted me.

T
HEY'RE SO PURPOSEFUL. EACH GAZING ACROSS THE
water, openmouthed; each tethered by its stern.

Soaring maypoles with rigging gently chittering; yards festooned with sagging sails; giddy sky-cages like rooks' nests in a dry year; chains and iron beaks; an array of swaying sea-castles; a whole kingdom of quiet hulls and squeaky decks and booming holds and chambers and walkways and ladders and oarsmen's benches: I don't know exactly how to describe the ships, but I couldn't take my eyes off them.

Silvano, the Master Shipwright at the Arsenale, showed us around the dockyard. He told us the biggest ship is almost two hundred feet long and will hold one thousand crusaders. She's called
Violetta.
I thought it would be better to call her
Sunflower
, or even
Gog
or
Blunderbore
or something like that, but Silvano shook his head and gave me a wink.

“My wife!” he said. “Violetta.”

The oak hull of each galley is made of two hundred and forty different wooden parts, but they're all set on just two huge frames. So complicated. So simple. No wonder everyone says the Venetians are the most skillful boatbuilders in the world.

“Where does all the wood come from?” I asked.

“Not Dalmatia!” said Silvano, and he stuck out his lower lip. “City of Zara people rebel for twenty years.” He waved his arms.
“Foresta Umbra,”
he said. “Forest of Shadows in far south Italy. Very difficult. Very expensive.”

“So everything's ready!” Lord Stephen said. “Down to the last shaving.”

“Pronto,”
Silvano replied. “Two hundred ships.” He rubbed his right thumb and forefinger. “Now money!” he said.

Lord Stephen smiled that wistful smile that just flickers around the corners of his little mouth. “Well, all these ships are young and impatient, aren't they, Arthur? We mustn't keep them waiting.”

“When you pay?” demanded the shipwright. “We Venetians keep our promise. You crusaders break yours.”

Before we left the dockyard for Saint Nicholas, one of our boatmen lit a torch and set it up in the stern. The water around us soon caught fire, and turned itself into flashing daggers and stars.