To Calais, In Ordinary Time. James Meek

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      SOON AFTER THE sound of the horse’s hooves had faded, Will heard song. Four men came down the road from Gloucester in breech, shirt and thick shoon. They were white of dust, with packs and bowstaves on their backs. The singer sang in Welsh and wore a straw crown webbed with reed, pitched with stalks of pig’s parsley. He had long black hair in rings, and a nose like an axe-blade, and a string of onions hung of his belt. Beside him came a short freke, thick of body, with a deep wem aslant his neb, like to his head had been cloven and put back together; and the third was a sweaty man, crooked of his burden, his mouth hung open and his eyes turned down.

      The fourth was a giant, as long as two of the others together, in a hide hat under which brim his neb was shaded. Hung from his neck by a thick silver chain was a great rood bearing a likeness of the Lord of Life nailed up. The likeness was hued so wonder like a man, the pale flesh sucked in between the ribs and blood that oozed of his wounds, it seemed Christ might ferly stir and call out to them for help.

      They went by Will and ne stinted. Will went after them. He asked was one of them Hayne Attenoke.

      ‘I,’ said the giant, and his steven was like to thunder in the womb of a hill. His neb was as a rocky hillside, with eyes set deep within it like coves.

      ‘I’m the man you look for,’ said Will. ‘The bowman of Outen Green. I’d be of your score, and go with you to Calais.’

      They ne shortened their stride. It was like to they ne heard him.

      ‘I’m a free man,’ said Will. ‘Strong, heal and I shoot well.’

      The bowmen ne stinted. ‘We shan’t take you,’ said cloven-head.

      ‘Why?’ said Will. The bowmen ne answered but strode on.

      ‘I’ve seen one band of bowmen go by already, and I shan’t miss the second,’ said Will. ‘I shan’t go home again but if you show me to be no bowman.’

      ‘What band of bowmen was the first?’ said cloven-head. Will told them and the Welshman laughed.

      ‘He mistook the players for us,’ he said. ‘Maybe you were better as a player than a bowman. You’ve the face for it.’

      ‘I’ll show you I shoot true, and not in play, if you let me,’ said Will.

      ‘Have you arrows?’ said cloven-head.

      ‘I ne brought none,’ said Will.

      ‘The moon,’ said Hayne, who ne slowed, and ne beheld Will.

      Still ne stinting, cloven-head strung his bow, took an arrow of a cocker on his back, nocked it, found a mark to his left and shot, all in one swift stir. The arrow hit an oak stump two hundred feet away in the sheep field above the road.

      ‘Fetch that arrow,’ said cloven-head to Will, ‘and if Noster ne shifts your mood, and you may shoot the arrow and hit the moon so it spins about, you can be of our fellowship.’

      Will began to run toward the stump, and while he ran called out ‘How can I hit the moon?’

      The bowmen ne turned and ne answered, and by the time Will had gone up the field, fetched the arrow and come again to the road, all the bowmen were gone, out-take the sweaty man, who sat on a stone, drank from a flask and cursed.