Название: To Calais, In Ordinary Time
Автор: James Meek
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Историческое фэнтези
isbn: 9781786896759
isbn:
The stir woke their mother, who saw Will and buried her neb in her hands.
Will left them, clamb the hill and sat in the top meadow, looking down on the town under the moon. All had lit candles in the likenesses they’d bought, and filled them with holy water, and from one end to another the town sparkled with the bright falling tears of the Holy Mother.
Feet trod on the cropped grass behind him.
‘I know you, Hab,’ said Will, but he ne turned.
A mouth breathed on Will’s neck, a side crowded his back, and a hand reached inside his shirt, where it lay against his chest.
‘How may you know I’m Hab, and not Hab’s sister Madlen, or some other?’ came a whisper.
‘I know your walk, and your steven, and the feel of your hand.’
‘Hab and Madlen are brother and sister,’ came the whisper. ‘You mayn’t know which I am.’
‘It’s one of two?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You haven’t no sister.’
‘Likes you my hand on your skin?’
‘It ne baits me.’
‘My hand may hold your pintle.’
‘Ding you bloody if I feel it.’
‘Yeah, were I Hab. And were I Madlen?’
‘I’m betrothed.’
‘You wouldn’t ding me if I were a maid?’
‘It ne likes me to ding no maid.’
‘Let there be such a qualm as the priest says, and all die out-take you and I, and we be the only folk left in the world – would you take me then, as you say you would take Ness?’
‘Never, so long as you be Hab.’
‘And as her sister, the fair Madlen?’
‘Look!’ said Will, showing the sky and the town with his finger. ‘Like to the town be a great lake, and all the Holy Mother’s tears the folk have bought the likeness of the stars come again of the water. I would see the sea at night. Dad said the sea’s so great the light of all the stars come of it again.’
‘You speak as if the thing you yearned for more than any other were to leave this town. And yet you didder about with Ness and deeds of freedom like to you lack the strength to have your will.’
‘Ness said freedom was dearer to me than she.’
‘She’s right.’
‘I wouldn’t hurt her.’
‘Then stint at home. But if you would go and know the world and the sea, you must hurt her, and it were better you hurt her hard and quick than long and steady.’
‘I would not.’
‘It’s more kindly. Have her and walk away without a word, if you’re bold enough. Let her deem you a wretch, that she ne care so much you’re gone.’
MARC, EVEN IF this is not humanity’s final hour, it is improbable that you and I will survive the imminent calamity. If these texts have been transmitted to you, it signifies that I have expired; as I perscribe it, you may already be entombed. We here in Malmesbury – the clerics, if not the common people – accept that the pestilence has devastated Avignon, and Provence, and Italy, and must inevitably perflow to this insular location. In the event that I succumb and you survive, transfer these commentaries to the library at Senanque. All other post-mortem instructions are to be invented in my final testament, located in the signed scrine in partition vii of my analogium.
PS Examine my Latin for errors of syntax and vocabulary and make the necessary corrections. Reject the temptation to edit.
PPS Purge my debt to the fishmonger – iii sols, as I remember, or the equivalent in candles if he has perished – and apologise to him or his heirs for my intemperate assertions on the quality of his sardines.
My regards to your wife. I have a presagitation that Judith is secure.
Thomas
ON MONDAY, THE holiday, it seemed to us Will had lost everything, for we heard he’d fallen out with his betrothed and his kin, and no word had come from the manor about his proud ask. Folk said Sir Guy would withdraw his offer of land. It seemed Will’s pride would leave him worse off than before, without a bride, without acres, without the speed of a fare to France. He’d lost the freedom he’d always had, in his fellows’ eyes at least, by seeking to get a clerk to write it down.
All liked Will, but we were glad to see him lowed. We would not that he got his deed. Most of us that were free hadn’t no deed to say so; got he one, would that make us less free than he? And what of the bondmen? Got Will a deed, were it like to he deemed all bondmen worthless churls that they ne durst ask for one themselves?
Will ne looked ever so alone as in church, for Ness ne seemed to mind him, but kept her eyes to the ground and her fingers knit together with a string of beads. The Muchbrooks ne looked at the Quates, and the Quates ne looked at the Muchbrooks, out-take Will, who turned his head her way at the saecula saeculorum.
After mass the priest led us out of church and downhill. We bore the likenesses of St George, St Andrew and St Michael, and Rob the deacon bore the oaken rood with the likeness of our Maker nailed to it, and Whichday and Cockle and Tom the smith and Bob Woodyer bore the likeness of our Clean Mother in her blue kirtle with her fair white face shined with wax and lambswool and lips hued red. The knaves rattled sheep knuckles in boxwood cans and we sang
Domine Maria I have in mind
Whereso I wend
In well or in woe
Domine Maria will me defend
That I ne stand
For no manner foe
We came up to the bonefire and the priest bade us kneel and hold up our hands to heaven. The priest stretched his fingers over us and spoke in Latin and then a bead in English asking Christ to ward us of ferly death.
Then Nack came forward and un-knit the cloth around the horsepanthing and set it on the pole pitched in the middle of the heap of bones. No smith of Outen Green hadn’t made no horsepanthing СКАЧАТЬ