YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW?” ASKED GIFF, AND HE leered at me. He was sitting on the mangonel, facing the cup, which is as large as a rainwater barrel.
“Stones?” I asked.
“And stuff,” said Godard.
“Like what?”
Giff fingered the rope. “We chuck whatever there is.”
“Once, we chucked a corpse,” Godard said. “One of their own men. He’d fallen off the wall, so we threw him back up again.”
“I did fifty loads of dung,” said Giff, and both of them laughed coarsely. “I buried them in it. You can’t wait, can you, Arthur?”
“Sir Arthur!” Godard corrected him, and they both laughed again.
Giff and Godard and Milon’s men have loaded all kinds of Venetian siege engines onto the transport ship: mangonels, tormenta, ballistae.
“And these are just the little creatures,” Giff said. “The manglers and crushers. Once we get there, we’ll make the scaling ladders and the towers and cats.”
“What are they?” I asked.
“You’ll see,” said Godard, and then he chuckled at Giff. “You remember when we hurled back that head?”
All day the quay was packed with knights and squires, priests, armorers, stablemen, foot soldiers, servants, carpenters, sawyers, caulkers, sailmakers, ropemakers, oarsmen, and despite the cardinal’s orders, dozens of women, all loading our transport ships with open crates of salted mackerel and cod, smoked mullet and tuna, creels of herring, pails of mussels and whelks, oysters and cockles, limpets and barnacles, leaking prawns, knots of eels, flitches of ham, legs and sides and haunches of beef and mutton, dozens of rabbits and hares hanging on hooks, baskets full of unplucked chickens, white loaves, black loaves, trencher loaves, tubs of oats and barley, barrels of groats, eggs, small bins of grey salt, rounds of cheese, olive oil and walnut oil, jars of ginger and cinnamon and saffron and cloves, mace and galingale and grain of paradise, strings of shallots and garlic and onions, leeks, horseradish, spinach and parsnips and cabbages, broad beans, red carrots, mushrooms, and fruit of all kinds—peaches, apples, pears, plums, medlars and cherries, dried raisins, dates and sweet figs from Egypt, pots of honey, reed baskets of pistachios, pine nuts and almonds and hazelnuts, kegs of ale, casks of verjuice and red Venetian wine, pouring pitchers, pepper mills, ewers and linen napkins, clay ovens, pewter mugs and leather tankards, sacks of charcoal, tinderboxes, tripods, hooks, iron cauldrons, long-handled pans, stirring sticks and flesh hooks, clattering platters, pottage bowls, porringers, bundles of skewers, trays, serving dishes, shaggy towels, chopping boards and knives, ladles and wooden spoons, leather bottles, ashwood pails, costrels and flasks, mousetraps, swords in their scabbards, circular shields and shields shaped like hearts and hunchback moons, lances, war hammers, axes and daggers, longbows and crossbows, quivers of arrows, bracers, caltrops, staves, helmets, chausses and cuisses and coats of mail, aketons and fustian breeches, whetstones, spades and shovels, sledgehammers, chisels and claws, saws and pickaxes, augers, props, sheets of tin, iron-tipped rams, ladders, coils of stout rope, set-squares and planes, mallets, breast-drills, scalpels and saws and pincers, leech-jars and rolls of bandaging, pots of oil-and-ash soap, Milon’s wooden bathtub, large basins, cutthroats and polished steel mirrors, combs, bags of wormwood and lemon balm and marjoram, crocks of ointments, sacks and saddlebags stuffed with all kinds of clothing, tunics and doublets, hoses and belts, surcoats, caps, needles and waxed thread, a fool’s cap and bells, boots and rolls of hide, lasts, pissing pots, Bible boxes, psalters, ampullae full of holy water, reliquaries, crosses and altar cloths, patens, pyxes, incense burners, candles and vats of wax, prayer beads and holy oil, pairs of cymbals, handbells, lutes and citoles and nakers and tabors, rebecs and lutes, bagpipes and crumhorns and shawms, winding sheets and sacks, a hideous mask on a stick, parchment and quills and inkhorns and oakgalls and pumice-bread, a sundial with the four winds puffing their cheeks, rolls of canvas, barrels of tar, backgammon and checkers and chess boards, little boxes of dice, squares of leather, sheepskins, mattresses, woollen blankets, marten and squirrel and rabbitskin bedcovers, bolsters, pillows, as well as all the siege engines…and one or two things I can’t remember.
Yelling and whistling and milling and elbowing, shouldering and cursing, foul-mouthing and bawling, staggering, tripping: As I looked down from the deck of our transport ship, it was like looking down at an anthill. The crusaders were just as busy as ants, and like ants, they got in each other’s way.
I was waiting on the quay with Bonamy this afternoon when Shortneck suddenly neighed and bucked while Turold was leading him along the plank to the door in the side of our horse carrier. Maybe another devil-hornet!
They both plunged off the plank into the water between the ship and the quay.
Shortneck swam to the end of the quay and scrambled ashore, and I picked up a grappling pole and lowered it for Turold.
The first time I did so, I clopped him on the head by mistake, and he opened his mouth to yell at me and swallowed a gallon of water. But then, choking, he grabbed the end of the pole and I pulled him along to the landing stage.
Poor Bonamy! When he saw what had happened to Shortneck, he wasn’t at all eager. I tried to walk him to the bottom of the plank, but he dug in his front hooves and lowered his head.
“Ride him roundabout, sir,” Rhys told me. “He’ll calm down.”
At least the door in the side of our ship is level with the stalls. In some of the transports, the horses lose their footing on the steep ramps inside the ship, and slither and slide down them.
Bonamy’s stall is only a little wider than he is. There are leather straps hanging from a beam, and the stablemen belted two pairs of them under Bonamy so that he’s half-suspended and his hooves barely touch the deck. In stormy weather, when the ship begins to roll, he should swing with her, and be safe. But all the same, he’s not very happy.
Tomorrow we sail for Pirano and then Zara. So these are the last words I will write on Saint Nicholas, on the hundredth day since Lord Stephen and I left Holt.