by Karen Brooks
Before I could take a seat, let alone help myself, in swept Alyson carrying a basket on her hip. ‘Oh,’ she said, stopping in her tracks. ‘You’re still here.’
‘Alyson –’ Master Bigod raised a warning hand.
‘Nay, husband,’ I said. ‘It’s alright.’ It was anything but alright, but I made up my mind there and then I wouldn’t let this chit intimidate me. Mayhap, the villagers had it wrong – it wasn’t Fulk Bigod who was a bully but his daughter. Being the former steward’s girl and having certain privileges within the manor, I’d sometimes been a target for malice among the other servants. At first, I’d give as good as I got, but I slowly learned that sometimes the way to vanquish a bully was not by being a bigger one, but by trying to befriend them. It didn’t always work, and when it didn’t, I just gave the offender a bloodied lip. Don’t mess with a daughter whose father came from peasant stock. While part of me wanted to slap that smirk off Alyson’s filthy face, the more reasonable part of me – the godly part, some might say – thought to try and make her an ally.
I gave a small curtsey. She read something in my face, because as I approached, she took a couple of quick steps back, thrusting the basket between us. When she saw I wasn’t going to attack, she resumed her casual but hostile pose.
‘Truth be told, I thought you’d be gone before cock crowed,’ she said.
‘Truth be told, so did I. Instead, the King exiled him from my domain.’ I nodded towards Claude.
There was a guffaw behind me.
Alyson tried to stare me down. I stood my ground.
Closing the small distance between us, she hissed, ‘You know nothing about running a house, looking after Pa and the boys.’
I glanced over my shoulder; the men were pretending not to listen. ‘You’re right. I don’t. But then, I’m only twelve years old.’
‘Twelve?’ Alyson shot a disbelieving look. ‘I’ve six years on you. You sure you’re only twelve? You look older.’
‘So I’m told.’
‘You act older too, all uppity.’
‘Aye, been told that too.’
Was that a grin Alyson swallowed?
‘You had fancy clothes.’ Alyson jerked her arm towards my tunic and apron. ‘People say you carry the favour of Lady Clarice. She bore witness at your wedding, even though you’re a slut.’
If carrying my lady’s favour landed me here, she was welcome to it. ‘Mayhap. But I was, still am, a servant.’ I omitted the slut part. ‘You’re right, I don’t know the first thing about running a house.’ I hesitated. ‘I was hoping you’d teach me.’
‘Teach you?’ Alyson’s mouth dropped open.
‘Aye.’
‘What?’
‘What my tasks are, how I can help. I just want to do the right thing by you.’ I turned to include the others. Sensing something afoot, Hereward and Wake trotted over, thrusting their faces at me and Alyson, demanding petting.
‘Is that so?’ said Alyson, ruffling Wake’s head while I scratched Hereward’s. A sly look crossed her features. ‘Some of the work is dirty.’
‘I’m not afraid of a little dirt.’
‘It’s hard.’
‘Nor hard work neither.’
Putting the basket down on the table, Alyson made up her mind. She broke off some bread and ripped a piece of meat from a haunch. She shoved them in my hands. Over her shoulder, I could see Master Bigod grinning fit to split his face. I took the offering, trying to ignore the grime of her fingers.
‘That’s my girls,’ he said.
‘Well, eat up,’ said Alyson. ‘If you’re serious ’bout wanting to learn, I’ll show you. But you have to promise to do exactly as I say.’ The aggressive note returned and she frowned, daring me to back away from my commitment. I didn’t like where this was going, but I’d baited the hook, thrown in the line, I had to take whatever I caught.
‘I will.’
Alyson gave me, then her father, a smug look. After that, we ate in silence while the men discussed chores. There were sheepfolds to move, trees to prune and sheep to milk and check. The shepherds would meet with them at sext to discuss the flock, while Master Bigod had appointments in the afternoon, first with the monks, then with some merchants interested in buying wool. Before the men left, three others arrived, help Master Bigod hired over the season.
They left without introductions. Master Bigod nodded to me and whispered something in his daughter’s ear before leaving.
I felt strangely bereft when he left. Bereft and more than a little anxious about being alone with Alyson.
Rising, she picked up the utensils and took them to the kitchen. Gathering up the jug and empty mazers, I followed. The kitchen consisted of little but a bench, some sharp knives, other tools for dissecting meat, sacks of grain and legumes, a quern for grinding corn, vials of herbs, and a pile of wood. Above the bench hung rabbit and lamb carcasses, a decent sized hock, and bunches of dried flowers. Already, flies had settled on the rabbit. Maggots crawled across the surface. My face must have given away my disgust, for Alyson snickered. ‘Better get used to it.’ She strolled out.
‘Shouldn’t we fetch water and wash the mazers and such?’ I called.
‘We won’t be fetching water. I will.’
‘Oh. What should I do?’
A wicked grin appeared. ‘You’re going to clean.’ She indicated the far end of the main room. ‘All that shit. And, after you’ve done that, you can go outside and shovel up the cow, donkey, chicken and other shit as well. Papa wanted it done before you arrived. Since you’re so eager to learn what it takes to run this house, you can do what I didn’t have time for.’
She stood, arms folded, waiting for me to defy her.
I wanted to shout and rail and tell her she could clean the shit since she already smelled like she’d rolled in it. But I didn’t. Sweet Mother Mary. I bit my tongue, smiled and said, ‘Then tell me where the shovel is, and I’ll make a start.’
My only satisfaction was seeing the look of astonishment on that scummy, toady face. A face I swore that, one day, I’d make eat shit, if it was the last thing I did.
FIVE
Bigod Farm
The Year of Our Lord 1364
In the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Edward III
I spent each and every day thereafter trying to win Alyson’s regard by allowing her to order me about as if I was her servant. Though there were some tasks I’d never undertaken (threshing grain, baking bread, brewing ale and preserving meat, for instance), nothing was beyond my abilities – not that you’d know from the way Alyson bossed me about, speaking as if I was a child. My attempts were never good enough. Plain wrong, unfinished, had to be redone, tasted terrible, better tipped out, too bitter, too sweet, poorly constructed, too much, too little. On it went. I took her criticisms without complaint, my insides like a simmering pot all the while. In retrospect, pandering to her whims was the worst thing I could have done – it didn’t earn me anything but more contempt.
Not that the men ever saw this, as her manner altered the moment they came home.
Before none they’d stomp wearily inside and sit down to a bowl of pottage and some coarse brown maslin bread. One day Alyson even roasted a lamb Master Bigod had found dead in the field. It was delicious. We ate well, including the hounds and King Claude. The pigs and chickens not only had food scraps, but the draff left from making ale. Overall, Master Bigod kept a good table and we never wanted – not for meat, fish, eels, cheese, fruit or nuts, nor the bread Alyson made each day.
The only thing I surpassed her in was spinning. She could card, but then so could a tinker’s monkey. What she lacked was my deftness with the spindle, and was confounded as to how I could roam about outside or even in the house, one hand stirring a pot or shooing King Claude off the table, the distaff tucked under one arm as I worked the spindle. Little did she know it was a craft I’d mastered from the cradle.
When I finished turning a sack of wool into fine thread, I asked if t
here was any way we could weave it. Astonished I knew how to work a loom, as he only knew male weavers in Bath, Master Bigod determined to acquire one. The following day, he returned home with an old one in need of repair.
Out in the barn, I examined it. Possessed of a strong upper beam, it needed a new tension bar below. I explained what had to be added or replaced, and Beton cut some rods that could be used for the heddle and batten, as well as to tie thread and create the warp. Theo, wanting to be part of something so exciting, carved me a shuttle. Once these were complete and the loom working, it was simply a matter of carrying it inside and setting it near the hearth so I could take advantage of the light and thread it.
When I began to weave, quickly catching the rhythm once I’d overcome the initial problems of a foreign loom, Alyson was dumbfounded. She could mend clothes as well as any goodwife, and her spinning was slowly improving, but weaving was an altogether different proposition. When Papa and I first arrived at Noke Manor, he’d convinced my lady there was a market for cloth to be plundered. English cloth, he claimed, made from Cotswold wool, was a product he believed would one day compete with the fine material being produced in Flanders and Brabant. He persuaded my lady to hire a weaver or two and train some servants in the craft. I was among them. At first I’d resented it, but after I became skilled, I found it relaxing.
The evening I commenced weaving at Bigod Farm, they all sat around passing comments and admiring the pattern that emerged. Even Alyson forgot to snipe. Delighted with their attention I preened, suggesting I weave cloth so they might have new clothes. Fulk smiled warmly, pleased his wife was so clever. Theo and Beton began talking about how they’d wear their fine threads to church, encouraging Alyson to add her wishes. Part of her wanted to throw my offer back, while the other longed for something fresh, something pretty. I discreetly studied her reactions, trying not to show my joy in the men’s praise or resentment at her lack of it. Slowly it dawned on me that here sat someone who’d never allowed herself to want much. Mayhap, because, in the past, it had been lost to her. At that moment I began to see Alyson in a kinder light.
I occupied those first few weeks not only cleaning away the shit and refuse from around the house, making it look and smell almost respectable, but managed to persuade my husband to hire men to repair the thatch and walls and rehang the doors. I’d quickly discovered that far from appearances, which suggested a man of very modest means, my husband, as Mistress Bertha had intimated, was reasonably well off for a freeman. For certes, he kept a locked box inside the chest in the bedroom from which he extracted coins to pay the help. Though I couldn’t open it, I did weigh it in my hands and it was very, very heavy. Did Lady Clarice and The Poet know when they married me to this man? A man who still hadn’t tried, thank God, to exercise his conjugal rights.
Three weeks later, the outside of the house was transformed. The inside had been prinked as well. I’d replaced the rushes with fresh ones and found some rosemary, lavender and rose petals to scatter through them. The house and its surrounds may have improved, but the same couldn’t be said for me. I smelled like the shit I’d spent days clearing (and still did daily, after all, the animals were like eager parishioners, generous with their offerings). I also began to resemble the family of which I was now a part. My hair was lank beneath the stained cap. My apron and tunic, despite my efforts to beat them clean each night and air my linen shift, had become so dirty, it was hard to distinguish between them. The only positive thing to come out of this was I could no longer smell my husband, Alyson or the men.
When Alyson said I should accompany her to market the Wednesday after I arrived, I made an excuse not to go. I didn’t want to be seen. Likewise, when Master Bigod offered to take me to visit the manor when he’d business to conduct, I declined. While what had led to me being evicted from the manor and catapulted into this new life still rankled, it wasn’t the only reason. Call me childish for not wanting to face Lady Clarice (though I doubted she’d deign to see me), much worse was the thought I might see May, Joan, Cook, Mistress Bertha, Master Merriman and Father Roman. Or Layamon. I knew the servants would press me to tell them what Master Bigod was like. They’d be expecting me to add to the terrible tales about his uncleanliness, his bullying, the dead wives and disappearing servants. God forgive me, I wasn’t ready yet to defend him – but nor did I want to embellish stories I now doubted. Was I a coward? Was I disloyal? Aye, both those things. But I was also so very young. I hadn’t yet learned the power that can come from telling the truth and standing by it. Nor did I want my friends to guess the lengths I was prepared to go to in order to make a friend of Alyson – a woman who, to May, Joan and the others, was beneath their notice. Was I not her mistress?
Aye. But I was also her stepmother. How could I admit to that?
What finally caused a shift in my relationship with Alyson was the shit.
Things reached boiling point the week after I was finally satisfied the yard was clean and tidy. I’d dragged fallen branches from the brook, used some old barrels that were rotting at the back of the barn, a rusty wheel and other bits to form a makeshift fence – just enough to deter the donkey (whose name was Pilgrim, after the person Master Bigod bought it from), the sow and piglets, and any sheep that escaped, so they were confined to the rear of the house. The only exception was a rough path which directed them into the house or barn. I determined to persuade Master Bigod to relocate all the animals (Hereward, Wake and King Claude excepted) there one day soon. My idea was, if the animals were going to shit, then it was going to be where I could control it. So far, it was working.
I was admiring how golden the compacted dirt was, having enjoyed a good drenching from the rain the last two days before drying in the sun when, out of the corner of my eye, I caught Hereward and Wake chasing Pilgrim. Confounded by the fence, the donkey veered at the last minute and, instead of taking the path into the house, fled into the relative safety of the barn. The hounds, startled by Pilgrim’s manoeuvre, pulled up short and began barking. I ignored them, that was until they went quiet. Turning to see why, I was horrified to find them rolling in the pile of shit I’d made, a huge mound Theo and Beton were meant to have spread over the fields.
‘You filthy bastards!’ I yelled, half-laughing, half-wanting to weep as I ran towards them, brandishing the besom above my head. ‘Stop that!’ Both dogs leapt up, shook themselves, their tongues lolling and then, thinking a game was on, ran straight at me. They knocked me off my feet and began licking my face and, God’s arse, rubbing their shit-covered fur all over me.
I was shouting at them to cease, pulling their ruffs, when I heard someone screaming. Not at the dogs, but me.
‘What are you doing? Leave them alone, you bitch!’
Before I knew it, Alyson flung herself on top of me. Snatching the broom out of my hand, she threw it aside, and began slapping me. Hard.
Stunned at first, it took two blows to my cheek and a couple to my chest before I reacted.
That was it. A red veil descended, and the loudest of bellows erupted. It was enough to give Alyson pause as she sat upon my torso, straddling me.
I did what I’d wanted to do ever since she’d first spoken to me. I hit her back. First slamming my forehead into hers, I pummelled her arms, her shoulders, slapped her spiteful, ratty face.
Fists flew, screeches followed. We tugged and pulled each other’s clothes, trying to find a grip, rolling around, kicking, biting, scratching. I grabbed a hold of her greasy hair and yanked. She yelped. Reaching around, she caught hold of an ear and began to twist it. I yelled in pain. The dogs, wanting to join in, flung themselves on us. Alyson and I came apart and tumbled to one side and into the shit the hounds had begun to spread.
Horrified I’d landed in the stinking, rain-soft dung, I tried to lever myself up, but Alyson had other ideas. She picked up a handful and smeared it all over my tunic and then drew back her filthy hand and slapped me hard, streaking my cheek. My mouth filled with blood as I bit my ton
gue.
I let out a yowl of rage. It was so long and loud even the dogs gave pause. I was disgusted by what was on my clothing, in my hair and on my face. White-hot fury filled me. I lunged and, before she could duck, twined her greasy hair through my fingers and around my fist and, using strength I didn’t know I possessed, swiped her feet out from under her at the same time as I pushed her face deep into the shit pile. I held her there as she kicked the earth and scrabbled with her hands.
Aye. I made her eat shit.
When I was certain she’d gained a mouthful, I let her go, leaping away, eyes fixed on her, my chest heaving and heart beating faster than a soldier’s drums. I raised my fists like a pugilist, ready for another bout.
She lay face first in the muck, unmoving.
I was just starting to get worried when she stirred. Ever so slowly, she lifted herself onto her elbows. The dogs, perhaps sensing something, also retreated, taking refuge in my stinking skirts.
Already, I was beginning to regret what I’d done. I wondered how I’d explain this to Master Bigod, Theo, Beton. The thought of what Alyson would do to get her revenge made the heat of our encounter turn to frost in my veins.
She turned and blinked. Her face was coated in dark brown muck. Her hair was plastered to her forehead, to the sides of her face. Her mouth … oh dear God. I wanted to be sick just looking at her. The smell was already in my nostrils; the cause of that stench was quite literally filling hers. She spun to one side and spat, spat again, then retched a few times, loudly. She held a finger against first one side of her nose, then the other, and blew out sharply.
Gorge rose in me. Gorge and a deep, deep fear. I rested one hand against Hereward’s head. She whined. I almost did too.
Then, Alyson did what I never, ever expected. She took one look at me, and began to laugh.
