Extract from The White Ship

Des Dearlove

The smell of wood smoke and stewed herring permeated the castle keep. Rocque gave me no time to gather my thoughts, shoving me towards a heavy oak door, which he rapped upon with a large knuckle. 

‘Enter,’ came the command.

The captain opened the door, his hand planted firmly between my shoulder blades and his bulky frame blocking any way back. ‘The scribe, my lord.’ 

The chamber was dim, and I could see little to begin with, but as I became accustomed to the gloom, the shadows parted to reveal three men seated at a long banqueting table laid with wooden trenchers for plates, Pandemayne bread, goblets of wine, and a freshly cooked trout upon a platter. Above it, on the wall, the head of a stuffed wild boar stared out, tusks glinting yellow and eyes glazed with death.  

On one side of the table sat my master, Guy Saint-Orbeir, the king’s sheriff. Balding and growing paunchy, ordinarily I knew him to be a confident man, but today he appeared ill at ease, glancing between his two companions as if he needed to see their expressions to set his own.

The man seated across the table from my master was dressed in the ecclesiastical robes of a cleric. On one finger he wore a ring with a purple amethyst gemstone. There could be no mistaking Odo Corneille, Bishop of Oxford. Corneille was said to have the longest face in England, and I could see why; his receding forehead and pointed chin gave him the appearance of a bird of prey. He was known as a fierce inquisitor for his ruthless pursuit of heretics. In his hand, he gripped a knife so tightly that his knuckles showed white. My arrival had interrupted their meal, and the bishop looked ravenous, yet made no move to continue eating. 

At the head of the table, the most elevated of the three diners put down his blade. Square-shouldered, with greying hair cropped at the back, Robert D’Oilly, master of Oxford Castle, sat facing me across the platter of food. 

‘This is the scribe you spoke of?’ 

Saint-Orbeir inclined his head. ‘Yes, my lord.’ 

‘He is younger than I expected.  How old are you, boy?’

My throat tightened. ‘I will have seen nineteen summers at Christ’s Mass, my lord,’ I said, my voice higher than usual. 

I felt my hackles rise under the penetrating gaze of the bishop. His thin lips twitched with scorn. ‘You would send a boy on a man’s errand,’ he said, ‘and a Saxon boy at that?’ 

Saint-Orbeir directed his reply to D’Oilly. ‘My lord, with respect, he is a first-rate scribe, the best in my service. And he has other qualities, he has a rare gift for uncovering the truth.’

My cheeks glowed at his praise. But I also felt a sudden danger. Saint-Orbeir put my talent down to hard work rather than anything unnatural, but the bishop might have other ideas. I regarded the knife still clutched in his fist. 

Corneille looked up. ‘I daresay he can read and write well enough, but that does not equip him for the task we have in mind.’ He coughed. ‘And besides, I heard the boy had an ungodly start. His mother…?’

My stomach clenched. I was seven years old when the soldiers came for her. She had brought most of the village children into the world, yet none spoke up for her when she was accused by the priest. Brother Athelstan, my old tutor and mentor at Battle abbey where I grew up, took me to the gaol where she was held so I could say my final farewell. A wretched place, full of human misery, it was the last time I had seen her alive, apart from the day she died – that day was etched in my mind, an open wound that refused to scar over. The memory smouldered inside me, fed by all the injustices I had witnessed since, but I knew better than to let it show. 

‘What is this about his mother?’ D’Oilly asked. 

My stomach tightened another notch. 

‘She was burned as a heretic,’ said Saint-Orbeir. 

‘Her crime?’ 

‘Witchcraft. She spread malicious rumours that the king would die in an accident.’ 

I felt my blood rise and had to cast my eyes down.

‘The king is very much alive,’ grunted D’Oilly. ‘And if spreading rumours were a capital crime, half of England would have burned by now.’

Saint-Orbeir smiled grimly. The bishop of Oxford lowered his gaze, a flash of pale scalp showing like a secret in the middle of his black hair. 

 ‘Your master tells me that you hope to become a scholar when you are older,’ D’Oilly said, softening his voice. ‘I am patron to a group of philosophers in Oxford. A cleric called Robert Pullen is their leader.’ 

My pulse quickened. I knew about the scholars at Osney and Saint Friedswide. Brother Athelstan had spoken of them, and about Robert Pullen who taught logic and had started a community in Oxford. 

‘I understand that Pullen gives lectures in the city,’ I answered. 

D’Oilly looked pleased. ‘That is so. And if you complete the task I have in mind for you to my satisfaction, then I will introduce you to Pullen himself.’ 

Though less radical than some of the other philosophers Athelstan had introduced me to, I was nevertheless fascinated by Pullen’s teachings. There was much that I would like to ask him. 

D’Oilly caught Saint-Orbeir’s eye. In that moment I realised that his offer was a baited hook, and I the fish. But I was in no position to refuse him; he was lord of Oxford castle, and I no more than a servant, and a Saxon one at that, which meant I was of less importance to him than his hunting greyhounds. 

‘I would be honoured, my lord,’ I replied. ‘What is it you would have me do?’

‘I wish you to question a man and record his testimony.’ 

I let out my breath in relief. ‘That is all?’ 

‘All?’ D’Oilly struck his fist forcefully on the table. ‘By Jesus, that is enough! The man of whom I speak is a cunning rogue and you will need all your skill to tell the truth from his lies. But your master says that is precisely your talent?’

I glanced at Saint-Orbeir, who forced an encouraging smile. My intuition for the truth had served me well in my work, but I dared not reveal where I feared it might come from. If my master detected the slightest hint of anything otherworldly, he would disown me and hand me over to the witch hunters, and the most zealous witch hunter in England, the bishop of Oxford, was seated across the table.

‘I have been lucky, my lord,’ I said, thinking again of my mother and the need to distance myself from her. 

D’Oilly’s lips spread in what on a less grim man might have been a smile. 

‘Let us hope your luck holds.’

I felt Corneille’s eyes upon me. I took a deep breath before I could reply, for my heart was thumping against my ribs. ‘Yes, my lord, who is the man you would have me question?’ 

The bishop of Oxford answered, not with a name but with a question. ‘What do you know of the White Ship?’ 

The hairs on the back of my neck rose. The mention of the shipwreck stirred childhood memories from my time at the abbey. At vespers, I had heard the monks whisper that the young nobles were washed up on the shores of Normandy for weeks afterwards. When I tried to sleep at night, I saw them naked on the sand, bellies bloated, fine robes robbed by the tides, and their pale, dead eyes staring like creatures from the deep, but I knew it would be unwise to speak of my boyhood nightmares here. 

‘It is the most infamous shipwreck in the whole of history,’ I replied. ‘All of England and Normandy mourned her loss.’ 

‘Yes, yes,’ said the bishop dismissively. ‘But what do you actually know of it?’

I hesitated, and then answered, carefully. ‘Only what the monks at the abbey spoke of.’

Saint-Orbeir mistook my hesitation for ignorance. ‘The king’s son set sail from Barfleur on the White Ship,’ he said. ‘Accompanying him were many young nobles from the royal court.’ 

His voice was level, but even after so many years it strained with suppressed emotions. ‘The ship was so strongly built that her shipwright pronounced her unsinkable. But before reaching the open sea, she struck a rock and broke apart, taking 300 souls to the bottom of the ocean…’  He paused and took a deep breath. ‘…my own son among them.’ 

I knew of the sheriff’s loss, all at the abbey did, but I had never heard him speak of it before. I felt the pain of a wound so deep that it could never be healed. I knew how that felt; I had my own hurt that would not mend. 

‘Many of the drowned were never recovered, including the Ætheling… and my son,’ Saint-Orbeir continued. ‘I was not able to give him a Christian burial.’

I bowed my head. ‘I am sorry. The monks said that all those on board perished.’ 

D’Oilly and Corneille exchanged glances; their look told me the monks were mistaken.

Saint-Orbeir met my eyes. ‘There was one survivor, a man called Berold, a common butcher from Rouen. This Berold clung to the ship’s mast all night, while all around him the flower of Henry’s court drowned or perished from the cold. The butcher alone survived because the ram skins he wore protected him from the freezing water, and he was rescued by a fishing boat the next morning. It is his testimony that you are to record.’ 

The hairs on the back of my neck prickled again. Why were they pursuing this now, so long after the event? What was to be gained by raking over cold coals? 

‘But it is many years since the shipwreck, my lord.’

‘Yes, and in all that time the king has not sired another son,’ said D’Oilly. ‘And now the butcher’s lips grow slack. Rumours flow from Berold like shit from a pig! Whispers have reached the king of a plot to drown the Ætheling, and he would rather believe in the evil of men than countenance the alternative.’

I swallowed hard. ‘The alternative, my lord?’ 

The bishop of Oxford made the sign of the cross. ‘That God took his son as punishment. And not just his son, a ring given to his father, King William, by the Pope to bless the conquest of England. King Henry had entrusted it to the Ætheling to keep him safe on the voyage. The ring was lost with the prince. Henry fears that God has forsaken him.’ 

My foreboding turned to fear; it rose in my throat like bile. A king was ordained by the Almighty. It would be treasonous for anyone to question his right to rule, but for a king to question his own God-given authority…? It went against the natural order of things. 

‘The butcher grows careless, and he speaks unwisely,’ said D’Oilly.

‘I see,’ I said, quietly. ‘And where is this Berold now?’

‘In Rouen,’ answered Saint-Orbeir, ‘where he is drinking himself to an early grave.’

A pained expression crossed D’Oilly’s face. ‘This wretch, Berold, is like a popinjay that sings a different song for each new paymaster. I fear that he will be the cause of much unrest.’ 

‘A noose would put an end to the problem,’ said Corneille, eyeing the food on the table, with no flicker of pity.

D’Oilly shook his head. ‘No. If there is even the slightest grain of truth in what he says, then we must know of it.’

‘What is it that the butcher has been saying?’ I asked.

‘Nothing, directly – he is too cunning for that. But he hints at a plot to kill the Ætheling.’

I felt my jaw tighten. ‘But there must be others more highly born who could perform this task?’ I demurred. 

‘Yes,’ said D’Oilly, ‘but it is you who will untangle the truth from the scurrilous butcher’s lies.’ 

‘But my work on the Book of Winchester… There is much to do.’ I looked imploringly at my master to confirm that I could not be spared from my duties, but he looked away.

‘Your master is willing to release you from his service until the task is completed,’ said D’Oilly.

‘The errand is urgent and requires your special talents,’ said Saint-Orbeir.

My heart sank.

‘The fate of England may rest upon it,’ Robert D’Oilly added, his cold look lingering on me. ‘Any explanation for the shipwreck other than God’s disfavour would be welcome.’

‘And any word of the ring would also be most welcome,’ added Corneille. ‘It is very dear to the king.’

‘Let us pray that what you discover can relieve Henry’s torment’, said D’Oilly. ‘The royal physician says that the king’s nightmares are terrible to behold, that they unman him.’

Corneille grunted. ‘His Majesty is overly fond of dining on rich food,’ he said. ‘The quantity of lampreys he consumes would give anyone nightmares.’

‘The king’s suffering is in his soul not his stomach!’ D’Oilly retorted sharply.

 ‘I only repeat what his physician has told His Majesty,’ Corneille replied. ‘It unbalances his humours. We may not understand the ways of the Lord, but it is God’s will that the king must suffer.’ 

D’Oilly slammed his fist on the table once more, making the trenchers jump. ‘By Jesus, the king has suffered long enough! And I suppose it was God’s will, too, that your cousin Stephen of Blois should have been spared by disembarking the ship just before it sailed?’

‘By the Lord’s mercy,’ replied Corneille. 

I sensed the bad feeling between the two men and wondered what common purpose had driven them together. More than that, I wondered what cruel twist of fate had placed me at the centre of this storm.

D’Oilly glowered. ‘I would cut my way to the heart of this mystery with my sword if I could, and cut out the butcher’s tongue for good measure, but more subtle means are needed if we are to sort the truth from the lies.’ 

He picked up his knife and severed the head from the trout on the table, helping himself to its flesh.  

I felt his gaze on me again. ‘You will go to Rouen in secret,’ he said. ‘There is a sea captain in the port of Winchelsea called Giraud who can be trusted to keep his mouth shut, and he will take you. You will sleep here tonight, and in the morning, you will leave for Normandy and return with the butcher’s testimony before the king comes to Oxford for Eastertide.’

*

Rocque showed me to the barracks, to a small heap of soiled straw near the door where I was to spend the night. Although I was tired from the long ride to Oxford, I was too preoccupied to sleep straight away. I changed into my spare tunic and considered what I had heard. The thought that I might meet Robert Pullen and study under him had stirred my imagination. If I could acquit myself well, then there was hope of advancement and a better life. But something else nagged at the back of my mind, some deep-seated dread. There was danger here. The thought of crossing the Narrow Sea, with its inherent dangers, troubled me, but it was more than that. Something dark and foreboding had crept into my heart that I could not name or put my finger on.  I dearly wished that I might confide in Athelstan as he might help ease my mind. 

There was much else to ponder but we’d ridden all day in the biting wind and now my body demanded rest. Wrapping myself in my cloak, I took a sip of Athelstan’s sleeping drought and fell into an uneasy slumber.

*

I woke shivering under my cloak to the sound of the cock crowing. The air was chilled, and the harsh cold caught in my chest making me cough. I raised my head and in the first light saw what I imagined to be tiny spirits dancing in the yard. 

Rubbing my eyes, I looked closer and realised that what I had taken for spirits were snowflakes swirling in the wind. I pulled my cloak tighter and closed my eyes. 

The next thing I knew was a sharp pain in my back. For a moment I lay still, unsure of the cause. The pain came again, a hard blow under my ribs. 

Rocque’s grizzled face leered down at me. ‘Now you’re awake, Saxon!’ 

Instinctively, I rolled out of range and sat up. He aimed another kick, but I was too quick, evading the blow and jumping to my feet, my hands clenched into fists. A mistake, for I had attracted an audience; the soldiers of the garrison were watching, hoping for entertainment. I felt my heart quicken and the rage that I tried so hard to keep hidden threatening to surface.  

Rocque was eyeing me with obvious delight. ‘So, the little scribe thinks he is a man!’

I glanced around, taking my eye off the captain for a moment. That was all it took, he lashed out with the back of his hand, the blow catching me squarely in the face, knocking me to the ground. I tasted blood. Before I could regain my wits, Rocque kicked me again, hard. 

I scrambled to my feet, clutching my ribs. 

‘Come on, then, boy!’ He roared. ‘Let’s see if those soft hands can make a fist!’ 

I took a deep breath, my ribs pained by the effort. My mouth was dry, and the chamber thick with expectation. I put my hand to my lip, which was split and stung at the touch of my finger. Roque watched me with a predatory eye.  

As if I’d conjured him, at that moment Robert D’Oilly strode into the chamber. Taking in the scene, he dismissed the other soldiers and then turned to Rocque. 

‘What is the meaning of this?’

‘I came to rouse the Saxon.’

‘And I see he’s awake now,’ D’Oilly replied, brushing a flake of snow from his shoulder. ‘You are to accompany him to Rouen.’

‘Yes, my lord,’ Rocque said, and I caught a glint in the captain’s eye. 

My heart sank at the prospect of Rocque’s company. I had made an enemy of him and now would have to live with the consequences. Normans like Rocque regarded all Saxons as little more than vermin. There was nothing I could do about it except try not to provoke his wrath. And yet I could not extinguish the anger that burned inside me.

‘I do not need an escort, my lord,’ I said, addressing D’Oilly. ‘I’ve travelled alone many times.’

 ‘Perhaps you have,’ he replied, ‘but you are not familiar with Normandy – or its people. Captain Rocque knows Rouen well, he fought there with King Henry.’

I’d sensed that Rocque was trouble when I’d first met him, and my split lip and bruised ribs were proof, but I had no choice in the matter and nodded my acquiescence. 

‘Here is a letter with my seal and some money to pay Captain Giraud for the crossing and some more to persuade the butcher to speak,’ D’Oilly said. ‘If the silver does not loosen his lips, then Rocque can be very persuasive, but try the butcher’s greed first.’

I took the coins and put them in the small leather pouch my mother gave me, which I always keep around my neck, and slipped the letter into the pocket inside my cloak. Then I began gathering my meagre possessions together, my other tunic and hose, parchment and writing materials, my grandfather’s dagger I carried for protection, and my sleeping draught. I placed them all in my satchel. 

D'Oilly turned to take his leave but then he turned back, and removing a gold ring from his little finger, he held it out.

‘This ring is proof that you act for me. Keep it safe for it is a family heirloom and I will hold you responsible for its return.’

He placed the ring into my open palm, and I felt its weight. It bore the D’Oilly coat of arms, a shield on a laurel.  Tucking it away with the coins inside the moneybag, I resolved to never let it out of my sight. 

In that moment he seemed to notice my bleeding lip. 

‘Captain Rocque,’ he said sharply. ‘This scribe is on a mission for me – and that is the king’s business. See that he comes to no harm in your company. I will not tolerate any more of your foolishness.’

The captain bowed his head. ‘Yes,’ my lord. ‘But shouldn’t we wait for the weather to improve?’

‘It will pass,’ said D’Oilly. ‘You can spend the night at Reading Abbey. The abbess is known to me and will see that you are fed and have shelter. Now make haste.’

*

We left as soon as the horses had been readied, my empty stomach rumbling knowing that with Lent upon us it must wait until the evening for any real sustenance. The blizzard had slowed but, still, large flakes fell silently on the frozen courtyard. 

The snow was settling, making the road from the castle slippery underfoot, so we led the horses through the streets. Oxford was shrouded in white, a blank page upon which I hoped one day to write my own story. The possibility of meeting Robert Pullen and joining his community of scholars had roused my spirits, but for now my path led away from here and I had no way of knowing when I might return. It was with reluctance that I left the confines of the city, glancing back at the frosted dwellings in the early morning light. 

Passing over the causeway at Grandpont, we began to head away from Oxford. Outside the city wall, the countryside was silent, the snowdrifts muffling the sound of our horses’ hooves. Hoar frost covered the trees and grass, and cartwheels had cut deep ruts into the mud track, which had filled with rainwater and were now frozen, making it treacherous to ride the horses, so we continued on foot, making painfully slow progress. 

I silently cursed my thin boots and lack of gloves. Soon, my toes were completely numb, and my hands were faring little better, even as I switched them between pocket and harness. Touching my swollen lip, which was already chapped from the cold air, I glanced sideways at Rocque trying to read him as he laboured in the cold morning air. Something about him brought my father to mind. The back of his hand, perhaps, and a lack of compassion for others. I hadn’t seen my father for many months, not since we had quarrelled. He had wanted me to pay for a pilgrimage he was making, and I had reluctantly given him money. Blood money he called it because it came from my work updating the Book of Winchester. I pushed the memory away.

By noon, forested countryside had given way to rolling hills, with the occasional copse punctuating the landscape. We had now been travelling for several hours and were cold and hungry yet had covered barely four leagues and ahead the snow lay deep and virginal. I forced my trembling hands to break hunks off a loaf of black bread, permitted during Lent, which I ate with a mouthful of dried herring, lifting my spirits a little. 

After another hour or so, we passed through the town of Wallingford, where Stigand, the Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury, had submitted to King William in the winter of 1066, ending all meaningful resistance and bending the Saxon knee to the Conqueror. The town was quiet and snowbound as we crossed the stone bridge that spanned the Thames and continued south, passing through more hamlets, lying blanketed in their white robes. 

In the afternoon, the road became easier, so we were able to ride at a walk, and made better time. For the rest of the day our horses laboured in the cold.

By nightfall, we were approaching Reading Abbey. It was too dark to see the magnificence of its stonework, but the shadows from its towers stood out from the gloom, solid and unyielding, a testament to Norman power and the sanctitude of the Almighty. All was quiet. Rocque slid stiffly from his horse and hammered his fist on the gate. 

A rustling from within was followed by a rattling of a bolt as the watchman opened a small spyhole. He raised his lantern, and a pair of rheumy eyes peered out. 

‘You’ll raise the Devil himself with all that noise. Who goes?’