A Gathering of Ghosts

by Karen Maitland

  The stoker came storming out, railing at the miners. ‘Spit-frogs! Nugheads! Suppose you think that’s funny, do you? If I’d not seen what this codwit was up to, his dross would have ruined the firing and it’d have had to be done all over again. Fuel doesn’t come cheap, you know. Master Odo would have taken the cost from all our wages.’

  ‘He will anyhow,’ one man muttered darkly.

  ‘Can’t expect us to watch Todde like a babby,’ another called up. ‘He said he were old hand at tinning.’

  ‘Well, you’d better make sure he learns to be and fast too, else we’ll all be going hungry.’

  Give him his due, Todde swallowed his humiliation and was learning. His arms were strong, and though he’d still a way to go afore he matched the skill of the experienced tinners, he was the last to set his hammer down when the horn blew at dusk and the first to lift his shovel at crack of day. The tinners began grudgingly to nod their approval behind his back.

  At night, after we had gulped down the few mouthfuls of our meagre supper, I had taken to wandering up to Eva’s fireside to get warm. Most days I was lucky if I could gather enough kindling and dung to keep the cooking fire alight long enough to heat the pot. Neither Todde nor I had time to cut and dry peat on the moor, which most of the tinners’ wives burned, for we had to spend what hours of light there were trying to earn money. The dried mutton Gleedy had given us was now no more than a lingering flavour in water that contained only herbs and a handful of dried peas I’d borrowed from Eva. She was a good soul and I’d often catch her slipping a piece of meat or dried fish into the hand of one of the small children who’d creep up to her hut after the tinners had gone in the hope of a bite. It was a pity she had no bairns of her own, for she’d have been the best of mothers.

  She would glance up when I hesitantly approached, jerking her head towards a place close by the fire, as her way of saying I was welcome to share it. Mostly we sat in silence for, unlike the women I’d known back in the village and the tinners’ wives, she never gossiped about others. Neither did she talk about her own life or worries. She spoke only when she needed to, as if words were precious coins that should not be wasted on fripperies.

  But I reckon she did have troubles, for when she was passing by my hut, a day or so after we arrived, I noticed a great purple bruise on her cheek. I asked her if she had slipped in the mud, but she shrugged and trudged on up to her cooking fire by the ruined wall.

  A tinner’s wife watched her until she was out of earshot, then nodded towards her retreating back. ‘I’ll wager a man gave her that. It’s not the first time I’ve seen her with a black eye or a cut lip. Cook their suppers and warm their beds for them, and that’s the payment you get.’

  I wasn’t surprised by the bruise. Father had given them to Mam often enough. It was what a man did once he’d got a woman to wed him. She was his then, to use as he pleased, like a beast he’d bought at market. But all the same I was puzzled. I wondered which of the tinners who gathered around Eva’s fire she’d taken as her lover. I scrolled through their faces in my head. I couldn’t think of one I’d want in my bed, not that any man would want me, as my father had constantly reminded me. But I wondered why Eva put up with such treatment, if she wasn’t married to the man. There were plenty of others to choose from in the camp.

  While Eva never grudged me a share of her fire I felt bad that I’d nothing to offer in return. Then one night, after the tinners had gone back to their own huts, she settled down to pluck a few snipe she had snared. I picked one up, wedged the carcass between my knees, and swiftly ripped out the feathers with my good hand, neither tearing the skin nor leaving any shafts. I caught Eva watching me out of the tail of her eye. She said nothing, so I took up another bird and worked on, silently plucking and handing them to her to be gutted and dismembered ready to be dropped into her pot. Later, as I walked down to my own hut, I heard hurrying footsteps behind me. I felt something soft and cold thrust silently into my hand. It was one of the plucked snipe. I turned to thank her, but she had already vanished into the darkness.

  Each night after I dragged myself away from the warmth of Eva’s fire, I had to return to the misery of the cold, wet hut I shared with Todde. He was usually snoring by the time I crept in, for I tried to stay out until I thought he would be sleeping. I did not feel completely at ease sharing a hut with him. Sometimes, I’d wake in the night and listen to him breathe, watching his chest rise and fall. Once his fingers had lingered when they’d accidently brushed mine as I was handing him a bowl. I’d snatched my hand away and he’d dropped his gaze, staring at the ground as if he’d never seen it before, his face flushed. I still didn’t know what to make of him.

  Shivering, I wrapped myself in one of the damp, stinking sheepskins Gleedy had given us. My legs ached with the cramp, and my toes swelled and itched for my feet never seemed to get dry, but in spite of that, sheer exhaustion always dragged me into sleep. I dreamed of black mud and grey water.

  Even trapped inside the mire of those dreams, I knew I must find the woman who had called to me. I was desperate to hear her voice again. Every night I begged her to speak to me. But she had fallen silent and I couldn’t rouse her, couldn’t reach her. Some nights, I was sure she was hidden just out of sight along the track. If I could reach the next bend in my dreams I would find her, but my feet were gripped fast in the mud and, as I struggled to free myself, I was jerked awake into another ash-grey dawn by the shrill blast of the ram’s horn echoing across the valley.

  Don’t leave me here in this valley. Speak to me. Show me how to find you!

  The sun was sinking behind the ridge above the tin workings and a dark tide was seeping up the valley before the ram’s horn sounded the two notes to signal the end of the long day’s hard toil. The bairns were the first to throw down their tools and escape. Older children began plodding up to their parents’ huts, carrying the little ones, who were already falling asleep, utterly exhausted after a day of fetching and carrying, filling buckets and sorting through gravel. But all who wanted to eat had to work.

  I rinsed the grime from my face and hands in the puddles left in one of the wooden leats. I’d soon discovered that they were cleaner than the river into which all the dirt from the gravel washings and the filth from the camp were emptied. Using my teeth, I pulled off the mud-soaked rag wrapped around my fingers and dangled my hand in the icy water, sucking in my breath with a hiss as it touched skin rubbed raw and weeping from the rope handle of the bucket. I’d always thought the skin on my right hand was as tough as tanned cow’s leather, but I’d not spent long days at home lugging heavy buckets full of wet earth and stones.

  ‘You best stir yourself else it’ll all be gone,’ a woman called, over her shoulder, as she scurried by.

  I glanced up. A straggling procession of men and women were making their way along the valley towards the blowing-house. The whole camp seemed to be on the move. I hurried to catch up with the woman, trying not to slip in my haste.

  ‘Where they all going?’

  She frowned at me, as if she thought I was mocking her. She glanced down at my withered hand, and her frown lifted. ‘Course, you’re the woman came with the squab. Don’t you know what day it is?’

  I shook my head and she gave a weary smile.

  ‘Aye, well, can’t say as I blame you. One day’s same as another here. But it’s Saturday, when old Gleedy doles out our wages and opens his stores so we can buy what we need for the week, seeing as how we can’t get to market. But flour and beans have been real scarce lately, so you’ll have to hurry if you want any.’

  I scrambled after her as she toiled up the muddy track, my spirits lifting. At last I’d receive some money for my toil and, best of all, buy something to put in the pot, a good measure of beans or peas, flour to make flatbread, perhaps even a little meat. My belly ached for solid food after the watery soup I’d been eating. I remembered the excited gleam in Todde’s eyes that night in the drovers’ hut when he spoke of the merc
hants flocking to sell to the tinners. They live off the fat of the land, those tinners do. I’d seen precious little fat since we’d arrived, but perhaps tonight we would eat well.

  The choking smoke and metallic stench from the blowing-house billowed down to meet us, wrapping itself around us in the damp air. The door was open and a heavy, scorching heat blasted out into the chill night. A fiery glow lit the inside, turning the faces and clothes of all blood-red, as if we were staring into the maw of a roaring dragon. Outside, a great waterwheel churned, pumping the giant bellows for the furnace. But the tinners and their womenfolk were already hurrying past it towards a lower stone building, hidden from the valley below by the blowing-house in front. Two huge hounds had been chained to one side of it, and were straining at their spiked collars, leaping and barking savagely at all those coming towards them, though their leashes were too short to allow them to reach anyone. I fervently hoped their tethers were strong.

  I edged in through the open door and found myself gawping like the village mooncalf at the sight inside. Gleedy was standing towards the back of the long building, surrounded by more kegs, boxes and sacks than I’d ever seen, even on market day. Sheepskins were piled on shelves next to cats of salt. A tower of buckets teetered precariously next to a stack of shovels. Bundles of rope and cord swung from the hooks on the beams beside several ladders, a swathe of axes and barrels of every size.

  In what little free space remained, men and women had formed a straggly line in front of a broad oak table. A hunched, pimple-faced youth was perched on a stool behind the table. A ledger, a small brass-banded wooden box, a guttering candle and a dish of ink and quills were crowded so near to his elbows it was a wonder he didn’t send them all flying when he moved. As each person came forward, he consulted the ledger, then slowly counted out coins, which he laid in a row close to him, as if he feared they’d be snatched away before he’d finished. Only when the person had made their mark in the ledger on the spot where he pointed did he slide the coins towards them.

  Eva was hovering near the table, and the men I’d seen eating at her fireside on the first night each handed her a few coins as they passed. She looked more cheerful than most of the men and women, who scowled as they scooped up their paltry wages and hurried towards the stores. A couple of men argued with the lad, insisting he look again at the sum written in the ledger, but he jerked his head in Gleedy’s direction and shrugged. Still grousing, but under their breath, the men made their marks.

  Gleedy seemed too busy to notice the dark looks he was getting from the men near the table, or maybe he was indifferent to them, for those tinners he was dealing with seemed equally disgruntled. He was emptying a measure of withered peas into a small sack held open by one of the women. The coin she proffered vanished instantly into the deep leather pouch dangling from the belt around his hips. He beckoned to another woman and two rushed forward together, shoving each other in an effort to be served first. In the time it took to say a paternoster, he’d sold half a dozen salted sprats from a barrel, a handful of iron nails, a battered cooking pot, a length of rope, some dried beans and a small measure of rye flour to different customers, without once pausing to think or search for anything. Several times, though, he shook his head, showing empty barrels and sacks, and I realised my neighbour had been right. There might be plenty of nails and shovels to be had, but you can’t fill a belly with those. I would have to make haste to claim what I was owed and buy whatever food I could.

  But before I could join the queue in front of the table, someone began shouting and my belly lurched. I recognised the voice only too well.

  ‘All the graffing and crushing I’ve done, and you’re saying that’s all I have to show for it!’ Todde bellowed. ‘Don’t you think you can cheat me, boy, just ’cause I’m newly come.’

  He reached across the table and seized the lad’s jerkin, hauling him up off the stool so that his toes were barely grazing the floor. The boy struggled to prise the great fists off. Todde dropped him and he tumbled backwards over the stool, letting out a high-pitched yelp, like a kicked puppy.

  Gleedy strode across, elbowing people aside. ‘What’s all this?’

  Todde rounded on him. ‘This lad of yours is trying to get me to make my mark in that book to show I’ve had all that’s due to me. Means to fob me off with a tenth of what I’m owed and he’ll slip the rest into his own purse. I know his sort. Just ’cause he can read, he reckons he can gull us. But I wasn’t hatched in a goose’s nest. Here!’ He brandished a notched stick in Gleedy’s face. ‘I’ve got the tally of every bucket I’ve fetched to the blowing-house and I’ve been keeping my ears and eyes open. I know exactly what they’re worth.’

  Gleedy took the stick and counted, then pulled the ledger towards him. ‘See for yourself. What’s written in the ledger exactly matches your tally, every last bucket.’

  ‘Then why is this little arse-wipe only giving us this?’ Todde pointed to the few coins that now lay scattered across the table.

  ‘That’s what’s due to you after what you owe has been paid.’

  ‘Owe? I owe no man.’

  ‘Sleep out in the open on the moor, do you?’ Gleedy asked.

  Todde frowned in bewilderment, but I caught the looks the other men were exchanging around him, and before Gleedy had said anything more, I suddenly understood what Eva had been trying to warn me about that first night.

  ‘You sleep in a snug cottage, isn’t that right? So there’s rent to be paid for it, not to mention the sum you owe for the dried mutton and onions you’ve been stuffing your belly with and those sheepskins keeping you warm. Then there’s the hire of the buckets, picks, hammers and shovels you’ve been using and wearing out. And there’s taxes to be paid to the King on every ingot of tin that leaves here, afore it can even go to market. Fact,’ he said tapping the ledger. ‘What you owe Master Odo comes to more than twice what you’ve earned this week. So, by rights, the lad shouldn’t be giving you anything. But I told him to pay you enough to buy a bit of food for your pot. “Can’t work if they’re starving,” I says. You can pay the rest off each week, till you’re clear.’

  Todde had turned scarlet with rage. ‘You thieving bastard! You never told me that!’

  Gleedy shrugged. ‘Only a fool would think he’d could use another’s man’s tools to work another man’s land, then keep all the profits.’

  ‘And it takes a bigger fool to think I’d stay,’ Todde retorted. ‘You can tell Master Odo he can work his own land. I’ll not pay him for the pleasure of doing his work.’

  Gleedy grimaced in the mocking way the mummers do when they’re pretending to be sad to make a crowd laugh. ‘I see now I should have explained to you how a free man earns a living. You being a villein, you’ll not have worked for wages afore.’

  The blood drained from Todde’s face and his eyes bulged, as if Gleedy was pressing his hands round his throat. ‘I’m no serf,’ he spluttered. ‘I was born a freeman. I’m a tinner!’

  ‘You are now and living under the King’s protection. Long as you remain a tinner, your old master can’t touch you. But if you was to leave here with no tools to prove your trade and no claim on any land, the lord who owns you would have you dragged back at the horse’s tail. And if you are the villein they’ve been hunting, he’ll have you hanged for a thief too, ’cause you didn’t run empty-handed, did you?’

  Todde was shaking his head violently, but couldn’t utter a sound.

  Gleedy patted his shoulder. ‘But don’t you go losing so much as a peck of sleep over it. Long as you stay here, you’re as safe as if the King’s own guards were standing watch over you. You’re in good company too. Half the men and women here are runaways. But they know their old masters can’t touch a hair on their heads, leastways providing they don’t make trouble and get themselves thrown out.’

  I felt as stunned as Todde looked. I’d realised from that first night in the camp that Todde had never seen tin-workings before, much less been a tinner. B
ut most men boast of skills they don’t have. It had never occurred to me that he was a runaway, a bound man. Men who flee their manors and masters usually run with little or nothing. He had had tools and the donkey! There would be a price on his head, and anyone in the land could claim it whether they delivered his head with or without the rest of him. My face must have betrayed my shock, for Todde looked anguished as he caught sight of me.

  ‘I swear there’s not a word of truth in it, Sorrel,’ he protested. ‘That bastard’s tongue is as forked as a viper’s. He’s been lying to us from the start. It was no chance meeting we had with him on that track. He was waiting for those outlaws to rob us. He probably pays them to do it.’ He pointed towards the stores. ‘It’s how he gets all that. I reckon if you searched back there you’d find all my tools and your pot too.’

  Fury gathered in his face and he twisted round to face Gleedy again. ‘I’m right, aren’t I? Those outlaws, they are in your pay!’

  Two men were edging up behind Todde. Gleedy’s eyes flicked towards them. I could see what was coming.

  ‘Todde, leave it!’ I pleaded, but he ignored me.

  Gleedy laughed. ‘Mine? You think cut-throats like that’d answer to me?’ He pulled a comic face, exaggerating his squint. ‘Rob me blind they would.’

  The tinners laughed far more heartily than the feeble joke deserved. Gleedy sauntered away, as if the matter was settled. But Todde hadn’t finished. With a bellow of fury, he launched himself at the retreating back, but had taken no more than a pace before his arms were caught by Gleedy’s two henchmen, who pinned him against the wall. One drew back his fist aiming it at Todde’s belly, but a burly tinner caught his arm, shaking his head.