Julian Rathbone - Kings of Albion

Meanwhile the weather worsened and all were grateful for my foresight in this as in other things. Each person's small cache of pearls was sold in the city of Dijon, the principal residence of the Dukes of Burgundy, and soon every great lady of the court, and many of the men too, were vying with the rest in the splendour of the pearl heads they wore as necklaces, rings and earrings. By creating a fashion we turned what might have been a glut into a shortage, and the consequence was that our whole party left the walled city clad in the richest of furs and woollens, and well shod too.

And so, without too much suffering or discomfort, we came at last, in the very depths of winter, to the shores of the sea again, but this time a cold grey sea, and the port of Calais. It was the month the Ingerlonders call January, approaching the turn of the years they number 1459 to 1460.

The following day I arrived at the usual time, and was shown in the usual way through a shady flagstoned passage to the pierced stone screen that separated the vestibule of Ali's house from the garden beyond. As usual the light glowed fiercely through the lacy Stonework and I could hear the tinkle of water and the chirp of birds beyond. The cedarwood door creaked a little as his gatekeeper, a huge black Nubian with pantaloons, a turban and scimitar, pushed it open and ushered me through with his usual exaggerated obeisance.

I climbed the two steps of black obsidian, the ferns brushed my shins, and I stood for a moment blinking in the hot sunlight before I realised that Ali was not in his usual place beneath the cardamom tree. I hesitated, but the gatekeeper urged me on. I crossed the flat, square stepping-stones and felt the welcome prick of coldness as drops of water fell on my feet, the furthest flung by the fountain. Ali's grey cat came out from under a bush and pushed herself against my hand as I stooped to tickle her behind her ear. Then I straightened and saw sheets of paper on the table where we normally sat. A jug of lemonade held them down, though indeed no air stirred to shift them. There was only one glass.

The top sheet was pure white rag and seemed to throb in my eye, so bright was the sun on it in spite of the fresh black writing; the rest, and there was quite a stack, were yellowed and curling at the edges. I took the top sheet and read:

M y dear Mah-Lo,

Today I am tired and it is too hot. About this time of year, although I know it will bring back my inflamed and swollen joints, I almost long for the monsoon. The heat brings on a dangerous flux from my bowels, a disease I first contracted in darkest Ingerlond and which recurs every three months or so. However, I would not disappoint you and I have asked Murteza to lay out certain documents for your perusal which will carry the story forward, They are copies, made by Chamberlain Anish, of letters sent by Prince Harihara to his cousin the Emperor. Not all the originals made it to V ijayanagara, but Anish, as his duties demanded, made copies before sending them, and these are what you will read here. If they do nothing else they will corroborate for you the veracity of what I have told you so far, and of what I hope, Inshallah, or anyway if this filthy flux leaves me before killing me, I shall be able to tell you when I am fit enough to take up my tale once more on my own account. Yours and so on… Ali ben Quatar Mayeen.

I took my place on the cushioned stone seat, poured myself a glass of lemonade, and began to read.

Dear Cousin

We have arrived in the Pale of Calais and it is time I began the letters I promised you to let you know how we are progressing with the various tasks we set ourselves for this expedition. I shall not take up your time, or indeed mine, with an account of the adventures we had on our way here, fascinating though many of them were, since they are not relevant to the purposes of our coming hither. They can wait for our return when, no doubt over many evenings, they will help pass the time between supper and bed.

Calais is like an onion cut in half by the sea. It has many skins. First there is the Pale, a fortified frontier, enclosing a semi-circle of land, the second skin. The town walls make the third, near what would be, were it a whole onion, its centre. At its greatest distance the Pale is some twenty or more miles from the city walls and the fields and pastures between produce enough to feed the population. The fortifications that make up the Pale include ditches in front of low turf walls surmounted with a paling fence, which gives the name 'pale' to the whole area, two or three large forts built to cover the principal roads in and out, moats, canals, and where the natural rivers run in appropriate directions, they have been turned into obstacles.

Inside the Pale but close to it, on the southern side, is a larger fortress called Guisnes, which lies across the road that links Calais with Paris.

The walls of Calais itself are, we have been told and, no doubt, shortly we shall be able to verify this, substantial and castle-like. Inside are the streets and a keep; and finally there is the harbour itself, two basins one within the other, enclosed and protected by moles from both storms and seaborne incursions.

This whole area is held by the Ingerlonders and indeed is considered by them to be a part of Ingerlond, but is at this time contested by two different factions of Ingerlonders who are at enmity with each other. The first faction has as its base the fortress of Guisnes, built to counter incursions from the Franks, whose king claims Calais. However, the Franks are more occupied at the moment with the Burgundians than the Ingerlonders and are therefore not a threat to Calais. So, this first faction can use Guisnes as a base from which they can mount attacks on the second faction, which holds the town and port of Calais.

This first faction is led by the Duke of Somerset. He is a cousin of the King of Ingerlond. The King of Ingerlond's wife. Queen Margaret, sent him to Calais to wrest it from the Captain of Calais, who is the Earl of Warwick. An earl is a noble of high degree but not as high as a duke. Dukes must have royal blood, I think. The Earl of Warwick is a friend and supporter of the Duke of York, who is also a cousin of the King, but an enemy of the Queen. Somerset has good reason for hating Warwick, who killed Somerset's father in a battle some four years ago. I know this is all very confusing, and I confess I am not confident that I have understood it all myself. Perhaps it will become clearer as time goes on.

Guisnes is some way from the sea and we have to cross the sea to get to Ingerlond. The only harbour from which it is safe to arrive in Ingerlond is the harbour of Calais. Either we must get into Calais, which the Duke of Somerset and his army have been trying to do without success for some months, or go back to a Frankish port to the south-west such as Boulogne or Dieppe and this we cannot really do because it is now dangerous for us to go back into Francia. When we were in Francia we promised the Frank king we would have nothing to do with the Ingerlonders who are his enemies. And, anyway, the Ingerlonder ports are closed to ships from Francia. So, you see. We do have problems.

They are not helped by what the people here call 'the weather". It is not easy to explain what weather is to someone who has not experienced it. I will try. though, since I fancy it is going to play a considerable part in our lives in the months to come. Apparently the "weather" is even worse in Ingerlond than Francia. Let me start with rain.

Here it may rain at any time of day or night, for hours or only minutes at a time, as heavily as it does at home or very lightly in what they call a 'drizzle'. And, believe it or not, this changeability is a feature throughout the year. Which leads me to consider the year as such and the seasons, two of which we have already experienced – autumn and winter. But no. This will be altogether too confusing. Let me stay with weather. I'll return to the seasons later, apart from saying that this is the cold season, which is not surprising as the nights are twice as long as the days, while in six months' time it will be the other way round and the season will be summer. I suppose that just as the weather is now unbearably cold, compared with our temperate clime, it will become unbearably hot in the summer. But just now, as I have said, the days are short, gloomy and cold.