Sharon Penman: When Christ and his Saints Slept

The man gaped at him. “Jesu, is it as bad as that?”

The ship’s master gave him a hard, quailing stare. “You’re less than two miles from Barfleur, close enough to make it safe to shore. But go now. You understand? Save the king’s son.”

William had never experienced a nightmare so vivid, so intense, so endless. Groggy, dazed, and disoriented, he found himself scrabbling about in darkness, entangled in suffocating folds of collapsed canvas. Then hands were reaching for him, pulling him free. His head spinning, his stomach heaving, he decided he must still be dreaming, for now he was being roughly pushed and shoved, his ears filled with screams and curses. He stumbled and fell forward into a boat; at least he thought it was a boat. Trying to recover his balance, he cracked his head and slumped back, groaning, wanting only to wake up.

Opening his eyes, he gasped as a spray of stinging salt water doused him in the face. He struggled to sit up, and voices at once entreated him to “Keep still, my lord, lest you tip the boat!” And as he looked about him, William sobered up in the time it took to draw icy sea air into his constricted lungs, for he was adrift in a pitching open boat in the middle of a black, surging sea.

“What happened?”

“The White Ship…she is sinking, my lord!”

“That cannot be!” William twisted around to look, causing the boat to rock from side to side. “Christ Jesus…” For it was indeed so. The White Ship was listing badly, and he could hear the despairing wails of its doomed passengers. Mahault, Richard, Lucia, all his friends, his father’s steward. “We’ve got to help them, cannot let them drown!”

The men continued to row, and to bail, for water was sloshing about in the bottom of the boat. “They’ll be in no danger, my lord, once they get off the rock. This was but a safeguard, for you are the king’s only lawfully begotten son and your life is precious to the Almighty.”

William so wanted to believe him. But it was then that he thought he heard a woman’s voice, high-pitched and shrill with fear. “Will, do not leave me to drown!”

“My sister! We must go back for her!”

“My lord, we dare not! We cannot put your life at risk!”

William was deaf to their pleading, to all but Mahault’s cry of terror. “I am to be your king and I command you! Obey me or I’ll have the lot of you hanged, I swear it!”

They were appalled by the order, but obedience had been bred and beaten into them from the cradle, and even now they dared not defy a royal command. As they strained at the oars, William yelled, “Mahault, we’re coming for you! You’ll have to jump into the water, but we’ll pick you up! We’ll send help back for the others!”

As they drew closer to the stricken ship, William half rose and had to be pulled down by one of the sailors before he swamped the boat. Peering through the darkness, he sought in vain for his sister midst the panicked passengers clustered along the starboard side. Shouting until his throat was raw, he began to tremble with cold and fear. None of this seemed real. Surely God would not let the White Ship sink? Mayhap the men were right and the ship in no danger. But then the screaming intensified, taking on a new frenzy, and the sailor closest to William said in awe, “Oh, sweet Jesus, she is breaking up!”

“We’re too close, she’ll drag us down with her!” Desperately manning the oars, the men struggled to draw away from the sinking ship. It seemed to be splitting in half, water gushing into its smashed hull, washing people overboard. “The mast is coming down!” More screams. The masthead lantern was swinging wildly, then went out. Their boat was wallowing in the swells, water breaking over the bow. They heard splashing in the darkness, the surface churning with flailing bodies. One man managed to reach their boat, pleading for help, too weak to heave himself up over the side. A sailor grabbed his arm, sought to pull him in. But then others were floundering toward them, clutching at their oars, clinging to the sides. Realizing their danger, they tried to repel these drowning, plucking hands, to save themselves. But it was too late. Their frail craft was being buffeted by the surging waves, caught in the undertow of the dying ship, and then it was going under, and William was flung into the water, opening his mouth to scream and swallowing salt water, with no one to answer his choking cry for help, for they were all drowning, the passengers and crew of the White Ship.

Berold’s lungs were bursting, aching for air. It was too late now for prayer. He’d been too petrified when there’d still been time, huddling in the stern, whimpering each time the ship lurched, paralyzed by fear. And then the deck seemed to fall away, water was flooding in, and he was swept over the side, sure that he would die unshriven, lost to God’s Grace. But he continued to fight instinctively for life, kicking and clawing his way back to the surface.

All around him people were struggling, splashing, snatching at floating debris. Not far away, a wine cask was bobbing, and Berold plunged toward it, managed by sheer luck to catch one of its trailing ropes. Nearby, he could hear a woman sobbing to the Blessed Lady for deliverance, but the sea was pitching and rolling as the White Ship went under, and he could see nothing but waves rising against the sky. The hugh cask was unwieldy; try as he might, he could not get a secure grip. Clinging to its rope, he was waging a losing battle to stay afloat; swells were breaking over his head, and he sputtered and gasped for air between submersions. And then the cask thudded into something solid. There was a jarring thump, and he mustered his dwindling strength, grabbed for this new lifeline. For a time, he just concentrated upon holding on, upon breathing. Gradually his numbed brain began to function again. Shredded canvas and crossed wooden beams-the White Ship’s yardarm and mast. That realization gave him his first flicker of hope. Clenching his fists in the rigging ropes, he slowly dragged himself up onto the spar.

He was not alone. Other men were straddling the mast, clutching at the sail, hanging on to the yardarm, and these fortunate few were the only ones to survive the sinking of the White Ship. They clung to their precarious refuge and listened as their shipmates drowned. It did not take long, for the water was very cold. Soon the screaming stopped, and an ominous silence settled over the bay. Berold saw one of the men securing himself with the rigging rope, and he, too, groped for the halyard, fumbled until he’d knotted it around his waist. No one talked; they were saving their strength for staying alive. But the boy took comfort in knowing they were there, sharing his fate. Shivering, he squeezed his eyes shut and began to pray.

Never had Berold been so cold. But his heavy sheepskin cloak shielded him from the worst of the wind. As wet and wretched as he was, he was still better off than the other men, and as the hours passed, the cold began to claim victims. One by one, their grips loosened, their wits started to wander, and they slipped silently off the mast, disappeared into the dark, icy sea.

At last there were but two, Berold and the young man who’d lashed himself to the yardarm. Berold watched him sag lower in the water and pleaded with him to hold on, not to die. He got no answer, for the youth had no breath for talking. When he did speak, his teeth were chattering so violently that Berold could hardly understand him. “I am Geoffrey Fitz Gilbert de l’Aigle. Tell my family, tell them…” After that, he said no more, and Berold began to cry, silently and hopelessly, for he was alone now on this tossing spar with a dead man, and there would be none to know when death came for him, too.

During the night, fog swept in from the west, patches of ghostly grey lying low along the horizon. Sometimes he slept. Or did he? His thoughts were rambling, confused. He could not always remember where he was, or why he was suffering so. Why could he not recall the patron saint for sailors, for those in peril on the sea? Why was the Almighty taking so long to bring him home?