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the next, and I did not have to be told that we had left the river.
    We had reached the channel, and every misery I had suffered was now multiplied. Winter Star was reeling, trying to rear up, and as carefree as the sailors were, they stayed well away from the stallion’s hooves. I crawled back to my place at Winter Star’s side, and with a bow and a smile a sailor provided me with a four-legged stool. The seaman gave me a long, kind-hearted, utterly foreign discourse on the nature of sea and wind.
    Rannulf and Nigel stood silent, faces hidden in the dark hoods, but Wenstan spoke with the helmsman, a grinning, bearded fellow, who from time to time would lever the tiller out of the water and look back at it, water dripping off the broad steering oar. Sometimes a crook of seaweed was tangled there, and the helmsman would shake it free.
    â€œWho are these men?” I asked Sir Nigel, declining a taste from his goatskin of wine.
    â€œThese are Cornishmen,” said Nigel.
    â€œAre they taking us all the way to Jerusalem?” I asked. I knew that the Holy City was so far away that people who journeyed there returned, if they came home at all, white-haired and wasted.
    Nigel chuckled. “They are taking us to Normandy.”
    This news meant very little to me. The second, and finest, map of the world I had ever studied had been spread out on Father Joseph’s table. I had stopped by that afternoon to deliver a just-repaired chalice. Father Joseph saw the look in my eye, and explained, saying, “This is a true map of Earth under Heaven.”
    â€œWhere is London?” I had asked.
    As usual, Father Joseph punctuated his speech with a belch. Most men I know are troubled with wind, being fond of windy foods, cabbage and red meat. He said, “London is an unimportant place, Edmund, a speck of stone and humanity, compared with the Holy City.”
    All of England was a little crumb off to the west of a mighty hill. On the summit stood a castle, with towers from which grew fruit trees. “Jerusalem,” explained Father Joseph reverently, “is the center of the world.”
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    Perhaps it was the sin of envy I experienced, watching Hubert rabbiting from stem to stern. Envy is sorrow at the prosperity of others, and Hubert prospered in his great health. But I did not wish him sorrow, and took no joy when he slipped on the wet deck and had to sit down for a while, blinking thoughtfully at the small rain that drifted down.
    Just when I thought I could not endure another moment, the lookout gave a cry.
    The actual words meant little to me, but I understood.
    â€œLand,” I whispered to Winter Star. The horse pricked up his ears, shook his head. “So soon!”
    But it was merely a scow awash with flounders, so full of the silver-bright, still-flapping fish, that the squat vessel could not swing out of our way. Long poles were used to fend off the fishing boat.
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    My first sight of Normandy was the following dawn.
    When the ridge of white sand appeared above the leaden water I took little notice, fearing another disappointment. But Winter Star snorted at the scent of fields, and the sailors worked the sweeps, the long oars, out through the oarlocks, and shortened the sail.
    I did not want to give myself over to happiness. Not yet.
    At last I saw footprints stitching the beach, clear, definite shapes, and saw a fisherman spreading his net. A peasant stood in the sunlight and emptied his bladder, an amber arc of blessed human piss.

chapter THIRTEEN
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    We sat around a table at an inn and the landlord served a platter of young lamb, gold roasted, plaice in jelly, and stewed figs made with honey and cinnamon. A carver served out the food, ladled it onto trenchers of wheat bread. One taste of lamb brought tears to my eyes.
    A riverman had spied a ghost, a woman who had been raped and cut to pieces by traveling knights. She was said to haunt the reeds along the