The Man and The Map

By Françoise Montgomery

Love is the most powerful force in the Universe.

It is a want and a need that connects every being on our planet.

It always has. It always will. Read The Man and the Map to understand how it works f

• Language: English
• Publisher: Maple Publishers
• Release date: Sep 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781915996701

Book preview

None of us can know for sure what life was like in medieval times.

Historians and researchers have done wonderful work but no one knows everything.

I am neither an historian nor a researcher although I have researched as much as I am able.

We were not there. We cannot know everything about our past. Much has to be left to our imagination.

This novel, then, is exactly that. A work of the imagination, a faction - a mix of fiction and facts as far as we can know those.

For learned information and help with interpreting the Mappa Mundi please refer to The Hereford Mappa Mundi by Gabriel Alington.

I am also indebted to The History Magazine, to Wikipedia and to Christopher Hibbert’s The English: A Social History 1066 - 1945

All errors are my own or of my imagination.

This book is dedicated to my wonderful family both living and passed on and with eternal thanks for my upbringing in Herefordshire with all its beauties and mysteries.

CONTENTS

Chapter One 5

Chapter Two 8

Chapter Three 16

Chapter Four 30

Chapter Five 35

Chapter Six 43

Chapter Seven 47

Almost The End. 61

Chapter One

They stood together, father and son, gazing at the ancient Mappa Mundi in its very own glass case on the wall of Hereford Cathedral. The father, easily bored, hardly saw beyond the glass; the boy peered through his new round-rimmed spectacles.

‘You, lad, are looking at the oldest medieval map of the world. Hundreds of years old it is. What do you think of that then?’

‘But where’s Manchester?’ the boy whined. ‘I can’t see Manchester, Dad.’

‘It’s not that sort of map, lad. No roads an’ all that stuff. No, it’s what they knew of the world then - what they believed like. That’s all it is.’

‘All it is? But why is it so important then? What’s all the fuss about? I don’t understand.’

‘I s’pose because it’s old. Come on, lad, your Mum’s waiting for us in the caff.’

‘But Dad, I want to stay here, there must be more to see in it,’ the child whined again. By now he was standing on tiptoe, his small nose almost pressed to the glass case, the museum attendant watching him closely.

‘Yeah, I guess they all wanted to see more. Can you even imagine how hard that was for them? No planes, no sat nav - nothing to all to to tell them more about the world. Only what they knew. A bit like us and space travel I guess. Early days, lots to learn. Come on now.’ And he tugged the child away, setting off towards the cafe.

There they found Mum, three plates of sponge cake already on the table in front of her. As they sat down she pushed two of the plates towards them.

‘So what did you think of it then?’ she asked the boy, her mouth already full of her own piece of cake. ‘That old map I mean. It all looked a bit of a muddle to me, squiggly sketches of castles, everything in the wrong place. Not worth paying to see if you ask me,’ she snorted, crumbs dropping out of her mouth. The boy pushed his plate to one side. The mother pulled it across the table towards her.

‘The lad liked it, didn’t you son?’ And the Father reached across to ruffle the child’s blonde hair. The child pulled back from him.

‘The Mappa Moody? Yeah. I really liked it. I want to know all about it - so that I can do it as my Show and Tell when we get back to school. So everyone can know about it. Can we do that, Dad?’

His parents chuckled, indulgently. ‘Alright lad. We’ll go out through the gift shop then. Get you a book or something. That’ll tell you all you want to know. Now eat up - oh, eaten all your cake already have you? Then let’s go. The sooner we find you a book, the sooner we can get to the swings. Maybe we can get an ice cream on the way out. What do you say?’ The boy said nothing but pushed his chair away from the table, stood up and turned towards his Father.

‘I’ll see you in the gift shop then, Dad. OK?’

‘Alright then, son. And it’s the Mappa Mundi by the way, that old map of the world, not Mappa Moody or whatever you called it, ’ his Dad called after him. ‘It’s the oldest map left in the world, son. Quite a treasure they say. I guess that’s why it’s in the glass frame in a room by itself. See you later then,’ he called to the boy’s departing back. A quick lift of his arm was all that the boy waved behind him in response.

The year is 1262.

In her bedchamber at Haldingham Manor - too small to be a castle, too large to be a house - Lady Haldingham leaned back into her sweat-stained pillows. Another child delivered, another son. The birth of her first born had been greeted with much celebration - feasting, drinking, singing for days. Then her second son was born, then her third, then her fourth and now this fifth son. The celebrations had become more modest over the years as the number of sons grew and the family’s fortunes diminished. It had already been decided that this child, should it be another son as seemed likely, would be sent to the Abbot at the nearby Lincoln Monastery as soon as possible. There it would be reared and educated and be of no concern to its noble parents from then on. It was to be called Richard, Richard of Haldingham.

Lady Haldingham waved away the midwife with a limp wrist. The poor woman drew back from the bed, confused, holding the newborn in her arms. Why embrace him at all, why hold him to her breast when he was to be taken from her in a few years, thought the babe’s mother, still weak from the birth? She already had four sons to concern herself with, now here was yet another. And with that one dismissive wave, Richard’s mother closed her heart to him. As the baby grew into a sweet endearing child with big blue