The Bow (22 page)

‘Ever think of marrying?’ asked Pieter as he glanced at the
women, and then turned his gaze to the top ‘yard.

‘I’m away to a wife in England,’ replied James.

‘Oh, aye! So ye are! So ye are!’

‘Aye, I am. And not quickly enough. Have you a wife awaiting ye in
Bruges, shipmaster?’

‘Ho! What me?’ Pieter looked surprised. ‘No! I’m nay married,
James.’ He chuckled, and turned again to look at the women who had
started to walk about the deck. ‘It’s braver men than me who take
a wife. Marrying is serious business. Ties a man down. Not for the
likes of me, a sailing man. All at sea!’ He laughed and spat
casually over the side.

James smiled and leaned over the rail, and watched the wake foam by.
‘A good woman draws a man home,’ he said.

‘Hah!’ shouted Pieter. ‘What did I tell ye? A woman needs to be
married, ‘cos she needs a man to look after her, especially one who
comes hurrying home no matter what.’

James smiled again. ‘It seems to me, Pieter of Bruges, that it is
the women not the men, who do the looking after.’

For a moment Pieter stared at James with a puzzled frown, then he
burst out laughing, slapped the tiller, and clambered away down the
stern-castle ladder to check the wounded.

At the tenth hour, the ship’s boy high on the mast cried out and
pointed: Cap le Havre, etched out in the fading light some miles to
the south west. Shortly after, the wind swung round and blew from the
north. As the waves began to skip, and the sail filled, the bow of
the John de Groen dipped, the rigging creaked and the old cog picked
up speed.

‘Perfect!’ said the tillerman, and he waved as Pieter came
scrambling back up the ladder. ‘A breeze sent from heaven,
captain!’ he shouted. ‘If it keeps up we’ll make Harfleur by
nightfall.’

Pieter shook his head. ‘It’s a good breeze, Jan, but not that
good!’ He shaded his eyes and gazed at the distant outline of the
cape. ‘We’ll round the point by sunset and make port by second
watch, God willing. Pray the harbour lights are well lit and we run
in on the tide, otherwise we’ll have to heave-to in the channel and
wait till morning.’

The tillerman didn’t reply, just shrugged and whistled for another
crew mate to come and help him take the strain as the wind gusted,
and the ship surged forward.

With night falling, they skirted the shoals near the cape, and sailed
into the great estuary of the Seine. The tide was with them. Along
the northern bank a scattering of lights showed farmhouses and one or
two small villages. Then suddenly ahead of them they saw a line and
then a cluster of torchlight, afar off, high against the shore.

‘Harfleur,’ said Pieter quietly. He turned and winked at James.
‘There’s a sight to make ye forget your bruises!’

Almost without thinking, James climbed down from the stern-castle and
made his way to the bow of the ship. Harfleur lay ahead of him,
perhaps by no more than a mile. It seemed to hang in the darkness,
but already he could make out the brightly lit watch towers that
guarded the entrance to the port. He knew they would have to pass
through that entrance and sail up the narrow channel to the town
itself. Even for an experienced crew it was a tricky manouvere,
especially at night. Moreover the winds were uncertain, and the tide
was soon to turn. Perhaps Pieter would drop anchor in the roads, and
ride out the ebb-flow until the dawn. He hoped not.

Someone appeared at his elbow, making him start. It was the young
bride-to-be from Ghent. She smiled and bobbed a curtsey, then pointed
at the lights. ‘Harfleur,’ she said.

Even in that single word, he heard the lilting Flemish accent,
floating, sad, and full of youth.

'Aye,’ he said.

There was a silence: only the slap of waves against the hull and the
muffled sound of crews’ voices calling in the background.

'I am come here to be married,’ she went on, her voice dropping
away as though she were talking to herself. ‘It is to a man I
neither know nor love.’

James shifted uneasily and kept staring straight ahead.

‘But I know it is a man whose money my father is in love with.’

The lights of Harfleur crept closer.

‘I am Greta van der Kemp and I am sold to an English shopkeeper.’

Slowly James turned and looked at the woman: little more than a girl.
Too young for such a marriage. He imagined the wool-broker her father
had chosen for her, the kind he so often saw lounging and strutting
about the streets of Harfleur: fat-gutted, loud, over-dressed and
old.

‘Your English is very good,’ he said.

Again, the quick smile. She bit her bottom lip. ‘I have a tutor in
Bruges. An Englishman from Ipswich. My father says if he cannot have
a son, he will have a daughter who will know everything a son
should.’

‘Including how to speak her mind.’

This time she threw back her head and laughed, but tears were
starting in her eyes. ‘No ! No! That’s what my mother taught me.’

‘And your mother agreed to this marriage?’ James felt himself
being drawn into something he did not want to discuss, but he was
somehow sorry for this girl. He could no longer dismiss her as a
spoilt, over-indulged daughter, more in love with her looks than her
obligations.

‘She fought for me behind closed doors,’ the girl replied.’ I
heard the shouting in the bedchamber. Long into the night. But she
gave up. In the end she gave up. It’s always that way. My father is
very stubborn. After that, she cried a lot, but into her sleeve and
kerchief. Then nothing but a silent house. You can’t hear a thing.
Except when my mother is cursing the servants and boxing their ears
because . . .’

‘I understand.’

A skein of river mist drew across the salt marshes and drifted over
the approaching town. The torchlights faded and the wind died away.
At the same time the cog’s sail billowed, flapped and hung slack
against the spar. Now, with the tide cresting, and the breeze all but
gone, the push of the great river roused itself against the bow of
the John de Groen.

They were still making headway, but slowly, and the crew knew that
they needed more than the tide to get them portside. With four more
men on the tiller they began to scull the cog. It was hard,
exhausting work, but they made progress, and the occasional friendly
gusts of wind helped them on as well. Even though the mist thickened
and the tide stilled, it seemed as if they might at last make haven.
The port walls loomed, and the harbour lights lifted and brightened.

But then the bow-watch cried out, and all at once the chance was
gone: the harbour chain, slung low between the two watch towers, was
barring the way. They were shut out.

The shipmaster swore, the tillermen laughed, and the mate gave the
order to make anchor. It’s iron palms hit the water with a dull
splash, and the cog turned its bow upstream. A stone drogue was
lowered from the stern, and they were anchored.

‘I should have known,’ said Pieter as he came to the fo’castle
and stood beside James and the girl. ‘The good people of Harfleur
would never leave their doors unlocked at night. Not with rogues like
us about.’

Someone hailed them from a watch-tower, and Pieter answered. Then
there was silence. ‘Well that’s that,’ he said. ‘Nothing more
to do, but go below and get some rest before the sun-up. Come, lass!
Ye’ll freeze if ye stay here, and I’ll bring ye coughing and
dying to yer man. There’s plagues in this river mist. Killed half
of Harry’s army before he took this town last year.’

The girl nodded and drew her fur cape across her shoulders. Her maid
appeared tut-tutting with another cloak, and shepherded her away.

All at once James felt very tired and very cold. He had been on deck
for more hours than he knew, and his tunic and jack clung damply to
his back and chest. The pot-helm seemed suddenly unbearably heavy,
and he snatched it off, so that the bracer fell at his feet. Pieter
laughed, bent down and picked it up. ‘Here, lad! It probably saved
your skull, so ye should treat it with more respect.’

James took it with a smile and stuck it in his belt. ‘It’ll be
good to lie down,’ he said.

'And hard to get up again,’ laughed Pieter. ‘Still we’ve a few
hours of shut eye before dawn and the custom-house boat. They’ll
come paddling out to us bright and early, just you see. This town
might have changed its master, but it surely hasn’t changed its
ways.’ He gave a cheerful wave and disappeared.

In the morning, the mist still hung heavy about the shore, and the
sail and rigging were lank and dripping with river-dew. Just as
Pieter had said, the custom-house boat came, bumping and scraping
along the hull, and calling for the ship’s master.

A burly, bearded official in an oversize cap hauled himself up and on
board, and stood wheezing in the chill of the morning. He looked
around, chatted briefly to Pieter and then checked the hold and
cargo. At length he scratched his chin, sucked his teeth, and called
out to his tally-man who was still in the custom-house boat. ‘That’s
two crowns and a noble for this lot, Matthew! They’ve had a brush
with pirates, but no reason to ask ‘em for less!’ He chuckled to
himself, and glanced at James who had just come up on deck, bow in
hand, and broadsword at his hip. ‘Ah! Back from the wars are ye
laddie? And ready to do service for our lord the Earl?’

James frowned, but said nothing. The official coughed into his hand
and turned away. He handed Pieter a scrawled sheet. ‘Right, then!
That’s yer ship’s pass. You pay at dockside, and the man there’ll
sight your pass and take it from ye. All right?’

‘I know the ropes,’ grunted Pieter, ‘Now away with ye, so I can
come in on the tide. There’s no wind yet, and I’ll not spend
another watch out here.’

Moments later the custom-house boat was gone, the cog weighed anchor,
and as the tide caught hold, and the tillermen sweated, the John de
Groen drifted into harbour.

The mist lifted as they arrived, and a pale sun broke through.
Harfleur was awake and a-bustle. Men and women crowded along the
dockside, unloading the merchant ships that had arrived the previous
day. Woolcarts and wine wagons lined the quay, and soldiers and
officials in civic livery worked hard to keep order. Labourers,
pedlars, merchants and passers-by jostled about the disordered rows
of provisions, merchandise and market stalls. And everywhere the
smell and noise of a new day.

James, keenly aware of his promise to deliver the letter to the Earl
was eager to be on his way, but Pieter had asked him to act as escort
to Greta van der Kemp and her maid. ‘It’s not far,’ he said.
‘Just to the Woolbrokers’ Hall. They’re expecting the lass. I
sent a lad ahead.’ He hesitated: ‘ I’d be more than obliged to
ye.’

With a grin, James took the shipmaster’s outstretched hand. ‘You
saved my neck out there,’ he said. ‘It is the least I can do.’

The shipmaster smiled. ‘Well, friend – and friend you are – ye
look after yourself out there, and get ye back home safely to that
good wife of yours, or it’s all been a waste of my time!’ They
shook hands again, clapped each other on the shoulder, and moments
later James was on the quayside, bow in hand, arrow-bag over his
shoulder and a nervous young woman and her maid at his side.

‘Come on!’ he said. ‘It’s this way. Stay close to me, and
don’t stop for anyone.’

They had just reached the corner of the main street that runs down to
the dock when a group of men stepped out of the crowd in front of
them.

Instinctively, James stopped, pushed the women back behind him, and
took his bowstave in both hands. ‘Make way,’ he said.

One of the men came forward. He was tall, dark, clean-shaven, and
wearing a black quilted jack, embroidered with gold thread in the
French style. An expensive, velvet-sheathed dagger hung at his hip,
and he wore a fur cap trimmed with the same velvet. ‘Peace friend,’
he said, and held up his hand.

‘And who might you be?’ asked James, still holding his bowstave
at the ready.

The young man gave a slight bow. ‘My name is Bartholomew Ralph. I
am a merchant of this town, though I hail from Leominster where the
wool of the Cotswolds and the Borders spins easily into gold.’

‘A wool trader!’

‘Aye. And the son of a wool trader come to claim his bride.’ He
smiled. It was a warm, confident smile. ‘And I believe you are
standing in front of her, sir bowman.’

James glanced over his shoulder. Greta was gaping, wide-eyed and
wide-mouthed. Her maid servant tugged at her sleeve, but seeing that
she still stared, stepped forward herself, and gave a low curtsey.
‘My lord,’ she said. ‘This is my mistress, Greta van der Kemp,
and we come seeking Master Ralph of Harfleur, wool merchant to this
town. Are you perhaps his son?’

There was a short, confused pause. The young man looked about, and
those with him nodded and grinned. ‘Ah!’ he said at last. ‘I
see! No, but yes. I am the son of my father, Christopher Ralph the
wool merchant, but he alas is dead some three years. The one you seek
is indeed myself.’ He bowed again, then looked beyond the maid to
Greta. She had at last composed herself, and had fled into a sudden
curtsey, sweeping back the veil of her headdress as she did so. She
almost stumbled, but reached out and took James’ arm.

‘My lord!’ she gasped. ‘Forgive me. I . . .’

‘Forgive you, forgive you for what?’ Bartholomew stepped forward,
and took her by the hand. ‘Welcome to Harfleur, my lady.’ He
glanced at James. ‘And welcome to . . .’

‘I am James Fletcher of Chiswick, bowman to my lord of Dorset.’

The young merchant laughed. ‘Then you need no welcome, James
Fletcher, for you are of this place as well as I. But you surely need
my thanks. I thank you for bringing my bride safe thus far.’

James reddened. ‘Twas not only myself. There were others sire. I .
. .’ He mumbled to a silence, and backed away a pace.