To Calais, In Ordinary Time. James Meek

Чтение книги онлайн.

      TWO MORE BOWMEN, Holiday Bobben and Hornstrake Walt Newent, came into the light, sat down and began to play at dice. The dice belonged to Hornstrake, yet it was Holiday who won most throws. Hornstrake was a lank freke, shaved in patches and bald in patches, whose clothes hung loose, and who sat bent, with his head lower than his shoulders, and sniffed and rubbed his nose.

      ‘Hornstrake bought a set of weighted dice,’ said Holiday, ‘but they cheated him. The sellers were so false the dice they sold him were true.’

      All Holiday wore was of the newest and best, like to a rich young knave from a much town, out-take that his kirtle was sewn with hooks and straps and slit with leather mouths for hidden bags. One leg of his hose was red, the other black, and he’d oiled his hair. He had fat whirled cheeks and sharp quick eyes.

      ‘A Player must play,’ said Holiday, showing Will the dice. ‘I’ll lend you sixpence against your first week’s fee if you lack the silver to lay on a game. Or would you be read to from a book?’

      ‘Have you truly a book?’ asked Will.

      Holiday reached inside his shirt and drew out a bundle hung from his neck on a cord. He brought it up to the light. ‘I keep it for Softly,’ he said.

      ‘I can’t read bookstaves, but Holiday learned himself,’ said Softly. ‘It likes me to hear of a saint’s deeds with my ale.’

      Will asked to see the book, and Holiday took the cord of his neck and gave it him to hold.

      It was made of dry, stiff leaves of thin calfskin bound together, with bookstaves written in, and likenesses of men and fowls and worms of many hues around the hem. One hem was burned black, like to it had been pulled of the fire, and the first leaf was spotted with brown.

      Will stroked the first page with his fingertip. ‘I ne know how a man might get words out of these little black bookstaves,’ he said.

      ‘Each staff tokens a littlewhat of a word. The first staff, that’s like to a snake, tokens “s”, as the hiss of an adder. The second, like to a house on two floors, tokens “a”, as comes of your mouth when you fall of the upper floor. The third is “i”, like to a shut eye, the fourth, “n”, like to the house on two floors, but it lacks floors, and the fifth is “t”, like to a crossbow, and like to the sound when the bolt is let. T-t-t. And next comes an empty spot, that tokens the end of the word. Now you read it.’

      Will spoke the letters in their turn. ‘Sss-a-eye-ne-te,’ he said.

      ‘Go at them quicker, like an arrow through five rooks on a branch,’ said Holiday.

      ‘“Saint”,’ said Will. ‘“Saint!”’ he said again, and his face was lit with mirth, and he looked blithe from neb to neb around the light.

      ‘“Saint”,’ said Holiday, ‘and the word after it is “Agnes”.’ He could read it, he said, but the pith and marrow of it was that Agnes was a holy young Christen maid in Rome who wouldn’t take the hand of the knave that would have her, and the knave’s father, that was constable there, stripped her naked to shame her in front of the townfolk, but God made the short hair on her head grow long, so all her limbs were hidden from their eyes. So the constable put her in a whorehouse, and bade the men of Rome have their will with her as them liked. But God filled the house with light, that none might see her, and when the knave came to reave her maidenhood, he dropped down dead. And Agnes was dight saint.

      ‘There it is in the book,’ said Softly. ‘See you we know God’s ends better than Hayne?’

      Will showed by his stillness he ne understood.

      ‘There was one,’ said Hornstrake, ‘on whom no hair grew, and there wasn’t no light from our Maker, and God ne stirred himself to kill the reavers. So it was reft, and she wasn’t dight saint.’

      All three men looked on Will, like to they bode some words of him in answer, but he sat still and beheld the flicker of the candle in its horn.

      ‘I told you he’d be of Hayne’s mind,’ said Holiday to Softly. ‘Now Hayne’ll have five, and we but four.’

      Softly said, in his low sweet steven like to a busy beeskip, that it was the hour for Holiday and Hornstrake to go to bed. The two of them nearhand ran from the board, and Will and Softly were let alone, out-take that at the nigh end of the cart, Cess sat and sewed a glove in the moonlight.

      Will yawned. Softly took a woollen from the cart. He nodded at Cess.

      ‘Would you have her tonight?’ he asked Will.

      Will beheld the ground and ne answered.

      ‘You’re right,’ said Softly. ‘I ne sell her cunt to no one. I’m bound by oath to gut the man who lays a hand on her. I might have left her there but now she’s my burd and burden for ever.’

      Cess murmured something, and Softly bade her go in. ‘There’s nothing worse than pride in a maid,’ he said when she’d gone. ‘It’s the first thing to take of them.’

      He held out the woollen. ‘Take it as a gift,’ he said.

      ‘I mayn’t. It’s too dear,’ said Will.

      ‘I bought them to great cheap of a ship in Bristol,’ said Softly. ‘Take it.’

      ‘It’s warm,’ said Will. ‘Now’s harvest weather. I ne need it.’

      ‘Come winter you’ll sleep in a cold Calais harbour. Take it. If a man withsay a gift a third time, the giver might think himself unworthed.’

      Cess cried out in French from the cart, and Softly turned. Will took the woollen, thanked Softly and went to bed.