More and more he followed the progress of Margery among the tables. She seemed to give off a kind of dark glow as she passed back and forth among the generally more fair and ruddy villagers.
The dance they were playing ended. Nemain, in the moment of relative quiet, leaned toward him.
“I’ve heard some of the folk of the place say that ’twas their mother they took their looks from, the lasses and Matthew, and she having dark-fairy blood.”
Hob blushed to be caught out so easily. But as they began once more to play, he found himself looking for Margery again. She seemed more enchanting the longer he watched her. He found it hard not to stare.
A young village wife, her face flushed and her gait unsteady, sat down near the players. She held a baby on her hip, and now drew a fold of her garments aside and began to nurse.
The room grew louder as the drink flowed. Several times one or two of Osbert’s sons broke up quarrels; the two shire-reeve’s men did not even trouble themselves to notice, for everyone knew that Osbert’s Inn kept its own peace.
At one point Osbert himself came to a table that had gone from angry voices to tense silence, where two men were braced to rise, knuckles white on their knife-hilts. He leaned over and placed his two hands upon the table as though resting while he admonished the two hotheads. He spoke so quietly that Hob could not hear what he said, though the table was the next over. Osbert’s forearms were almost as big as Jack’s, and he let the would-be antagonists contemplate his arms, his heavy-bellied mass, and the sax sheathed at his back, and all the while speaking, first to one and then to the other, with the blandest of expressions. The men eased back on their benches, and Osbert straightened and signaled to Parnell to bring more ale. He nodded pleasantly to the villagers and went off to his other duties. Hob kept an eye on the table. The mood there was sullen for a bit, but as the strong drink asserted itself again, good humor gradually returned.
Close by Hob a housecarl appeared with a great wooden bowl and ladle and, wrapping his hand in a rag, swung a simmering cauldron on its iron dog away from the fire and into the room. Now he could the more easily fill the bowl from the cauldron. When he’d finished he took the bowl in both hands and hurried away; he left the cauldron projecting somewhat into the room, between Hob and the nursing mother. It simmered quietly, shedding a perfume of pea and lentil and mutton fat. Hob, cranking the symphonia vigorously, began to eye the cauldron, and despite his recent meal began to wonder if he might induce Osbert’s servers to give him a small bowl.
The young mother’s eyelids were drooping. The baby’s mouth slipped off the nipple and the little creature began sliding off her lap, across her thigh, toward the cauldron. Hob had just time enough to realize the danger, and to begin to rise to his feet, when here came Margery from behind Hob’s bench. She deftly snatched up the baby. The mother roused with a start. Margery put the baby on its mother’s shoulder, took the woman’s shawl and wrapped it as a sling about the baby, tied a careful knot, kissed the woman on the cheek, and was away down the room.
Scarcely four breaths had elapsed. Hob resettled himself. A kind of exalted admiration filled him. Nemain, clapping, swiveled toward him, so that the reports loudened in his ear and returned him to himself. He set his fingers to the keys and tried to find his place in the gallop of the dance again, but he no longer cared whether Nemain teased him or not. He played, but he looked out over the room, watching to see Margery pass by.
AFTER THEY HAD PLAYED several dances, everyone sprawled at ease on the benches, breathing hard and calling for Parnell or Margery to hasten before they perished of thirst. Osbert beamed at the procession of bumpers that streamed from the pantry to the great room, and made sure Molly’s party never went dry. Molly quaffed off another pint of barley beer, and sent Hob out to the big wagon to fetch in the ring-and-stick.
Hob returned with a short ashwood pole and a weight. This was a crude ring of iron that had been weighed at ten pounds, and Molly handed it around to be hefted, announcing that she would match whatever they cared to wager that they could lift it as Jack did. Some of the young men from the village tossed it from hand to hand, teasing and daring one another, boasting. Molly had not been here in three years, and some of these young men had been striplings at that time. The older men warned that it was less simple than it appeared, but in their new strength all the farm lads wanted to try. Forwin and Matthew were placing bets on their hero Jack and grinning behind callused hands.
As with innkeepers all along the pilgrimage routes, Osbert was beginning to take on some of the functions of a banker: translating foreign coin into local produce, holding objects against a traveler’s return, and the like. Here he marked the value of small coins the villagers wished to wager against their tally sticks, and when they lost, as was usual, he paid Molly in coin and collected in produce or labor from the local folk through the year, with a small increase for his service.
There was a short length of thong tied to the iron ring, the free end of the thong ending in a loop. Jack now laid the ash pole, an inch in diameter and three and a half feet in length, across the table. About a half inch from one end was a shallow notch cut in the wood, and about a half foot from the other end was a scorch mark.
When all had examined the iron ring to their satisfaction, Jack put his hand on the pole, on the six inches between the end and the burn mark, and Molly slipped the loop of the thong about the pole’s other end, so that it settled into the notch. The iron ring now hung down on one side of the table and Jack stood at the other side, the end of the pole in his right hand.
There was a pause, then Jack’s forearm muscles rippled up in a low swell, his breath hissed through his teeth, and the pole lifted slowly and smoothly, parallel with the tabletop, six inches. Jack held it there while one might count slowly to six, then lowered it steadily.
Molly held the end of the pole at the ring end while Jack turned his back on the table and took the pole again, this time in his left hand with reversed grip. He gave a little grunt and lifted the pole once more, the pole stretched out behind him. This time he bent slightly from the waist to help with the awkward angle, and the pole rose again, still straight and level with the table. Again he held it for a short while, then lowered it easily to the table.
Now Molly challenged the company: let him who could lift the stick level with the tabletop, and hold it for three breaths, and lower it smoothly, step forward and try; and double the bet for the reverse lift immediately after. A clamor arose among the local stalwarts, farm boys mostly, and one of the shire-reeve’s men and even Ernald, who had failed at the attempt the last two times Molly’s caravan had come by. His brothers cheered him on with good-natured malice, and then raised their bets on Jack.
Two carters, strong of body from the constant loading and unloading of cargo, placed their bets with Osbert and stepped into the line that formed by the table. Carters were often at the inn: Osbert traded his hospitality—lodging for cartmen and their beasts, security for their wains and cargo—in exchange for free transport of goods needed to supply the inn.
One by one the young men stepped up to the table. Now they discovered that ten pounds held close to the body is not at all like ten pounds a good English yard away. They grasped; they strained; usually the bar rose not at all, but sometimes it began to rise, faster at the end nearer the lifter, and wobbled, and the head sank quickly back to rest. Ernald managed to clear the table for a moment, only to have the weighted end dip and dive back downward, to hit the table edge with a sharp crack, while his faithless brothers hooted and slapped one another on the shoulders. One of the carters lost his hold entirely, and the weight and stick thumped to the rush-strewn floor on the far side, narrowly missing one of the deerhounds that lay beneath the tables. The hound bounded to its feet and scuttled aside, then turned a look of reproach on Nemain, who stood nearest the fallen weight: plainly it thought she had thrown it.
As the first contestants tried and failed, the men toward the end of the
line jeered, and the first two lads looked surprised and ashamed at the difficulty. But as more and more of them struggled and huffed and cursed and failed, and laid down their copper piece before Molly or went to Osbert to borrow a coin against a mark on his tally stick, the first to lose began to recover their good cheer. That so many had not succeeded in even clearing the table demonstrated the difficulty of the feat, which had appeared so easy just a short while ago. The last few grasped the handle with a kind of grim resignation, and grunted, and joined the rest in defeat.
SO THE EVENING PASSED. The villagers left in two groups, one shortly after the other, and Hob wandered out after them into the cold night air to see the gates swung back by the dog handlers. They swung the gates outward, forcing the dogs back into the run, until the edge of each gate touched the outer wall, making a safe passage through the run. The outer gates were then opened, and the crowd of folk from the farms and from Bywood Old End set forth, several men bearing torches. They walked to the road and turned to the right, and were out of sight behind the trees, although for a brief time Hob could hear their calls to one another, some ragged attempts at song, and once a general burst of laughter.
The outer gates were swung shut and locked, and then the inner, which once again allowed the dogs to circle freely around the ring. Hob scurried back to the inn, glad to return to the fire’s warmth. But Molly sent him right out again, along with Nemain, to return the musical instruments and the weight and stick to the wagons.
When they returned, Hob managed to wheedle a bowl of peas and lentils from the cauldron—an easy enough task, for Osbert was in a mood to coddle any of Molly’s people. Molly and Jack sat drinking; the pilgrims, by twos and threes, retired for the night; after a while Molly sent Nemain and Hob off to their beds in one of the dorters.
THE DORTER, one of three sleeping rooms in the compound radiating out from the inn proper, was laid out in the old Saxon style: a fire pit ran down the center of the room, and along each of the long sides of the room was a raised platform of earth floored with wooden tiles. This platform was divided into sleeping booths, each booth closed off from its neighbors by a partition, with wool hangings across the front for privacy and warmth. Each booth was furnished with a straw pallet bed.
Osbert furnished bedclothes for an additional fee, and took no great notice of what transactions went on there between guests and the women of the village—some said even between guests and his own daughters—so long as there was no blood spilled. To scandal he turned a blind eye, and his custom increased. His wealth and influence in the region were such that no reeve molested him, and though the village priest was known to grumble bitterly, nothing more than that came of it.
With three such rooms, there were booths to spare even with the pilgrim band to accommodate. Molly and her people Osbert put at one end of a half-empty dorter, with linen bedclothes, all at house expense.
Hob had the very last booth all to himself; next to it was Molly’s booth, then Nemain’s, then Jack’s. Despite the low fire in the pit, the air inside was chilly. He crawled into the booth and drew the curtain. He undressed and got under a blanket and threw his sheepskin coat over that. He raced through a Paternoster, yawning twice in the course of the prayer. After a while the air inside the booth grew warmer, if a bit stale. He was deeply tired; soon he drifted away into incoherent thought, then into dream.
He had slept only a moment, it seemed, when he was awakened by the thrashing of heavy bodies in the next booth. Molly had brought Jack into her bed. The boy lay in the booth and looked into darkness relieved only by two thin lines of faint orange light from the dying fire, creeping in at either edge of the curtain. The disorganized bumps and sighs, punctuated by Molly’s murmurs, settled into a rhythmic thumping that rose slowly to a powerful galloping finish, wringing plangent half-hushed cries from Molly; her deep splendid voice echoed hollowly in the wooden booth. Jack, that silent man, was hardly heard from, save for a terminal grunt or two.
Hob, quite used to this nighttime music after so many months, found it if anything comforting, and as the nearby couple began to subside into quiet shiftings of weight, the rustle of blankets, whisperings, he grew drowsy again. But now he became increasingly aware of a pressure in his bladder. He burrowed down determinedly, but to no avail. At last he threw off the blanket and drew the curtain partway. In the half-light of the fire pit he dressed hastily, only partly awake and thereby clumsy. The knots that fastened his woolen hose to the front of his braies kept perversely coming loose. He threw his legs over the side of the sleeping platform and sat for a moment to pull on his shoes.
Hob stood up and struggled into his coat. He made his way down the long room, through the errant shoals of gray-blue smoke, to the door at the far end. This led to the courtyard. If the air within had been chilly, this was cold to snatch at the breath, especially to one warm from the bed. Hob scurried across the iron-hard dirt to the privy.
When he emerged, he realized that he was alone in the wide clear yard, visible only in the untrustworthy light of the rising gibbous moon and what small illumination, glowing through the scraped oiled hide that covered an interior window, came from fire and candle in the inn’s main hall. Osbert must put his faith in the dogs, and feel no need for human sentries. This thought led Hob, cold as he was, to veer on his way back to bed, so that he might peek through the grilles in the yard doors at Osbert’s gang of wolf-fierce guards on their night patrol.
The boy came up to the big doors. Already he was shivering a little as the cold slipped under his clothes. He looked through the grille, but the moon at this angle did not reach into the narrow gap between the walls; he could see nothing in the blackness beyond, unless it were a faint gleam.
Even as he bent closer, the gleam resolved itself into a dark and glinting eye, almost on a level with his own; an unseen lip lifted, revealing long curved fangs that caught the moon’s rays through the grille, and a low rumbling growl of inexpressible menace came from just beyond the bars. He scrambled backward, shocked. He spun on his heel and half walked, half trotted back to the dorter, turning in a circle twice as he walked to make sure that the gate held against that terrible, just-glimpsed threat.
Back again in the comparative warmth of his bed, as his breathing slowed, he began to grin ruefully at himself. What a buffoon he must have looked! It was well for him that someone bound for the privy—what if it had been Margery?—had not crossed the courtyard at that moment. He had jumped backward like a puppy who, brashly digging at a promising hole, surprises an angry badger in its sett. What a white-liver he had seemed! He snickered a bit at his own expense; he sighed; he wriggled into a more comfortable position.
Then he sprang up, his back pressed to the rear of the booth, the hairs on his neck prickling. That brutal snarl, echoing with savage hatred, tore the darkness. By the sound of it the wolfish dog must be right outside the curtain—the gate had been open, then, and it had followed him into the sleeping hall, and in a moment would leap through the curtain. To think of those gleaming dagger-bones at his throat!
Did he dare to rap on the partition to wake Jack?
Jack! The next moment he had buried his face in his hands, unsure whether to weep or laugh, or perhaps both, as he recognized Jack Brown’s thunderous snarling snore. He threw himself back down on the pallet, and lay on his back staring up into nothingness. Now he was completely awake. He lay and listened to the snores; the scent of the smoky fire pit drifted in. He thought of this and that; he thought of the evening just past, of the wonder that was Margery, of the dogs circling in the frozen night.
Perhaps it was the snoring; perhaps it was the scent of the smoke. Eventually his thoughts came round to last summer, and the camp in the clearing, and the copper still, and the uisce beatha, and Molly’s tale.
CHAPTER 6
LAST YEAR, AT THE BEGINning of June, Molly had gotten a load of barley beer from a nearby farmer, another of her admirers, and set up her still in a woodland glade near a lake fed by
two brooks. There they had spent a few weeks, swimming and fishing and working at the task of making the uisce beatha, the lifewater that Molly drank and sold and used in her medicines. Molly had them feeding the fires, and watching the great copper pots that traveled slung from the third wagon, and putting the thrice-distilled fierce clear liquid up in small casks. Then more fishing and swimming, foraging for firewood, distilling and redistilling: so the weeks passed.
The animals grew fat, lazing about on long tethers with little work to do. Jack and Hob turned brown and Nemain turned red, her nose peeling, and Molly stayed out of the sun when she could, with incomplete success.
Now on this day, with June three-quarters gone, they were well established in the forest glade: cloth awnings stretched from the roofs of the wagons to tent pegs and a permanent campfire was ringed with stones from the brooks and the lake shore. Hob had been fishing by himself at lakeside, using what Jack had given him: iron-forged hooks, a couple of lengths of nettle-hemp line, and a stone weight for a sinker. He had caught a fine string of fish, which he swung now on a line threaded through their gills. As he passed through the bars of sunlight slanting into the clearing, the fish scales twinkled: a metallic glistening, then dark again. Nemain sat sewing a little cloth bag. She looked up, startled at the flash of fish scale; when she realized what he had caught, she dropped her sewing and clapped her hands, grinning.
Hob squatted by the small fire and began to clean the fish; Nemain finished her sewing and put the little cloth bag into her pouch. A muffled gasp made Hob look around; across the clearing he saw Molly’s big wagon begin to sway from side to side. Molly’s graceful forearm, all silky white, lay along the window bottom beneath the edge of the leather shade; her hand, strong and comely, gripped the sill hard. The whole wagon was soon rocking, and Molly’s throaty cries were only slightly muffled by the wagon walls. Hob handed Nemain a few of the cleaned fish, and she put them beside her on a tray of leaves.
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