Crispin_ At the Edge of the World - Avi [27]
The man went on: “Happily after two days, the abbot of St. Martins—his name is Hamo—led a force to drive them away.”
“And all this took place—when?” asked Bear.
“Seven days ago,” said the man. “And with news of the sacking, the traders have shied away. But perhaps some—not knowing of our plight—will yet arrive. Was there somewhere you wished to sail?”
“Not us,” Bear said.
“You’re strangers. Where do you come from?”
“York,” said Bear, who had clearly been prepared for this question.
“Did they attack elsewhere?”
“We don’t know,” said Bear. “We have been traveling.”
“Then travel on to France or Castile and slay them all for me,” said the man, who, with a final shove, beached the little boat upon a shingle of gravel and sand.
On the shore, heaps of burnt and half-burnt wood lay about at random, no doubt dragged there to rot. They stank mightily. Whatever docking or lifting machines had existed, were destroyed. It was also there that I first saw a cog, the sort of boat Bear told me about, that carried most goods to other ports.
Above us stood the town of Rye, situated on a hill behind the town’s portal called the Landgate. The gate itself had escaped destruction.
Once we entered Rye’s grid of streets, we lost the rich tang of sea, to be enveloped by the stench of the town, the normal stink of offal, ordure, and slops. There was also the reek of destruction. Many a house had been burnt, with a fair number still smoking. Most houses were without roofs, mullioned windows destroyed, shutters aslant. Indeed, no wood structure was left unharmed. Charred wood was so common that the acrid smell of burn and smoke stuffed our noses. Everywhere was the chaos of destruction: the litter of countless broken things, clay, cloth, and wood. Stone structures fared somewhat better.
In two places we saw the charred and stinking bodies of fly-encrusted dogs, and even, to my horror, a foul human not yet claimed.
Hardly a wonder, then, that the survivors paid scant attention to us. The people of Rye moved slowly, faces taut with bewilderment and suffering. Some must have been in great pain, for they were bandaged, or limped, showing hurt in many ways. For others, the grief must have been contained within. When children looked at us, they did so furtively, clinging to their elders’legs.
“Why did the French do this?” asked Troth.
“We did the same to them,” returned Bear quietly. He seemed much disturbed.
The town being on a hill, we trudged upward along its narrow, winding streets, toward the top. No rumble and uproar of people as in Great Wexly. No flashes of joy as we had seen in even smaller towns. No chatter or light laughter such as one normally hears. Here, only destruction to see and terror to sense, broken now and again by the thud of what must have been hammers attempting to set things aright—or perhaps in making coffins.
At the town’s crown we came to Rye’s church—or what had become of the church. Doors had been wrenched away. Windows were broken. Shards of colored glass lay about on the ground—as if a rainbow had fallen from the sky and shattered.
When we looked within, all was smashed, much of it buried beneath the mangled remains of a collapsed and still-smoldering roof.
“Was it the infidels who did this?” I asked, shocked by the desecration of such a holy place.
“There are no infidels in France,” said a grim Bear, as he turned away. “Just Christians. Like me.”
We went forward and there I had my first look upon the great sea.
What I saw astounded me: a vast plain of flat and endlessly empty gray, which was overwhelming. The word forever was thus made real, the boundaries of my world turned infinite.
Thus it was that in one brief time I saw the hand of God’s creation as thrice awesome—and the hand of man’s destruction, frightening three times more.
21
THAT NIGHT, Bear found us a place in an inn. At least what remained of one. Like the rest of Rye it was much despoiled, though the innkeeper—a woman named Benedicta—and her son Luke were laboring