To Calais, In Ordinary Time. James Meek

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      WILL WAS WOKEN by snorks and cratches outside. He got up and went to the window that looked out on the orchard side of the guesthouse. Enker dug there at the roots of an apple tree.

      The other bowmen ne stirred. Will did on his shoon and went out into the yard. The first cock nad sung and the sun wasn’t but a fallowing of the darkness on the dogs asleep and on the wakeman who slumbered at the timber-haw gate, his cheek pillowed on his fist. Will came through the gate and went round the back to see Enker come out through the gap he’d made in the orchard hedge.

      He followed the boar out of town and into a wood, till the first light of morning glimmered in a ridding. There he found Madlen in the lady Bernadine’s gown, sat on a tree stump, at work on her fingernails with a little knife. She looked up when Will came towards her and bent to her nails again.

      ‘Why won’t you let me alone, but follow wherever I go?’ she asked.

      Will sat at her feet in the grass and looked up at her. ‘You’re so like to Hab, God’s bones I’d swear you were he, had I not put my hand in your gown and found tits instead of moss.’

      ‘You nad no right to grip a maid there without her leave.’

      ‘You were full of high French words when we met before. Who learned you?’

      ‘A maid learns by listening,’ said Madlen.

      ‘Where were you when Hab and I were children?’ asked Will. ‘Where were you when we swam in the bourne and caught fireflies?’

      ‘I was there, but you ne saw me,’ said Madlen. ‘Would you keep me with you now?’

      ‘I’m still betrothed to another, and a sworn bowman, and you still wear a stolen gown. Bury it and go home.’

      ‘Is that your last word?’

      ‘Yeah.’

      ‘You’d truly go to the ends of the Earth alone, rather than have me with you?’

      ‘I have my even-bowmen.’

      Madlen stuck out her lip and plucked at the silk flowers on her barm. ‘Then I’ll leave you for ever,’ she said. ‘But first, while the ridding’s heavenish, and the birds sing and there are pearls on the grass, tell me what kind these bowmen are you go among.’

      ‘The leader Hayne is a giant who barely speaks, who wouldn’t take me to France and ne worths me. Yet it was he bore me the last mile to Rodmarton after I’d drunk a flask of strong Scotch wine and went asleep witless, when he could have left me in the wood. And Hayne’s first underling is a free handy gome called Softly John who seems to be my friend, yet keeps against her will a maid he stole in France.’

      ‘Is she fair, the French maid?’ asked Madlen.

      ‘It was too dark to see.’

      ‘Oh.’

      ‘One of my new fellows learned me to read words,’ said Will. ‘Of a book.’

      ‘How nimble you are!’ said Madlen.

      ‘He learned me a bare five bookstaves, but it was enough to read a whole word.’

      ‘Shut your eyes,’ said Madlen. ‘Bide a handwhile and open them and I’ll be gone.’

      ‘Light as that?’

      ‘Shut your eyes.’

      Will shut his eyes. The grass rustled and feet trod the earth. ‘God be with you,’ Will said. ‘I’ll see you next year.’

      He opened his eyes. Madlen’s eyes stared into them from six inches away.

      ‘It wouldn’t be right for me to go,’ she said. ‘You ne sold me to our lord, when you might have done it lightly, and won of it. This tokens that in the dern hollows of your heart, you care for me.’

      ‘I wouldn’t never sell no man to nobody,’ said Will. ‘That’s my own worth I love, not you. You showed yourself too late to get love of me.’

      ‘Without me, you won’t have no kin to tell of the wonders you see.’ She came to sit by Will and laid her head on his shoulder.

      ‘I’ll come home again and tell everyone,’ said Will.

      ‘You won’t come home again. The priest said so. All will sicken.’

      ‘I told you, the qualm’s a priest’s tale to win silver,’ said Will.

      ‘Oh, loveman,’ said Madlen, and held his cheek in her hand. ‘I ne durst leave Outen Green but that I believe the qualm will slay us, every one. When all must be quelled I ne fear no gallows, for you and I may love and die and go on to the next house together.’

      ‘It mayn’t be.’

      ‘Two nights ago, my brother asked if you would take me, were you and I the last folk left on earth. You ne forsook me.’

      ‘I ne said yeah.’

      ‘You ne said no.’

      The first bell rang in Rodmarton.

      ‘I’m a soldier now, and must go,’ said Will. He freed himself from Madlen’s arms.

      Madlen caught his wrist and bade him give her one kiss before he went as token, but Will wouldn’t. Madlen looked in his eyes, dight her head at his neb like a cat on a mouse, and smote him on the mouth with her lips.

      ‘When you understand,’ she said, ‘I shan’t be far away.’

      ‘I would you were.’

      ‘On the far side of Malmesbury, Hab and I will cleave to you and your bowmen.’

      ‘Ne dare.’

      ‘I’ll wear a cloth on my neb and use French words and make a show that I’m the lady Bernadine.’

      ‘I’ll tell them otherwise.’

      ‘If you do they’ll send me back to Outen Green to be hung as a thief.’

      ‘Won’t you let me be?’

      ‘I may only let you be with me.’