by Alis Hawkins
Hob nods. ‘Course he did. And I’d lay money on her having a different name altogether if your father’d been taken with a different story.’
His words bring me up short. ‘No — she was like the saint in the story in every way — speedwell eyes, yellow braid, chestnut-coloured hair —’
Hob’s face tells me he thinks the peddler knew his job. But Hob judges everybody by his own standards. He took it for granted that I had stolen the saint from a church, now he will not believe that the peddler did not pass off a nameless image as the true likeness of Saint Cynryth.
On most days of the year, my father would likely have agreed with Hob; he was given to suspicion, saw deceit and self-serving where, often, there was none. But the little white-painted figure that was held up for our inspection seemed to melt something hard and cold in him. Admittedly, she was cleverly made, her features delicately painted, fingers outlined on each tiny hand, but it was not that which held him captive.
‘Don’t tell me your father bought her,’ Hob scoffs.
‘No.’ He did not buy her, he simply held her in his hands throughout the peddler’s telling of her life. ‘He carved his own image, later.’
‘Not that one?’ he jerks his head towards the saint.
I shake my head. ‘No. A smaller one. Buried with him.’
As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I regret them but, thankfully, Hob shows no interest in my father’s burial. ‘What was her name, again? ’ he asks. ‘Cynryth?’
‘Saint Cynryth, yes.’
‘She must be a saint from your parts, then, because I’ve never heard of her.’
I find myself defending the saint in the peddler’s own words. ‘She was a high-born lady betrayed — daughter of a fond father but a jealous king. Her story is from the time before the coming of King William and his Normans, before the harrying of the Danes — from the time of the Seven Kingdoms.’
He stares at me. ‘You know her life?’
Yes, I know her life. I am as well-versed in the tale of Saint Cynryth as any devoted anchorite; I could be catechised on any point of it and be found word-perfect. My father was no teller of tales and, when visitors to house or hut asked who the little saint in the shrine might be, his answer was always the same. ‘Ask our Martin. He’s got the way of it.’
‘Yes,’ I tell Hob, ‘I know her life.’
‘Then tell me.’
I shake my head. ‘Another time.’
Why do I find myself so loath to share Saint Cynryth’s story? Perhaps because she is no longer simply the object of my father’s wayward devotion but has become my own saint now, by her saving of me.
CHAPTER 12
The next day dawns bright and blue and windless. The ground has opened out into hills and hummocks and I am reminded of the Cotswold country where I lost my way. But chaseland or woods, marsh or manor, one thing is common to every yard of ground we cover: neglect. Crops that should have been harvested last autumn are rotting where they stand, the wheat mould-furred with grey in the damp air. Fallow land is tall with thistles. Winter acreage lies unplanted. Anybody who survives the pestilence seems likely to die of famine at this rate and I wonder whether peas and beans will be sown in spring. The ground is chill and unwelcoming as yet but, soon, the air will warm in the longer days and the sod will consent to give way to the plough. Or should do, as long as there are men to lean their weight behind the share and boys to lead the teams.
Halfway through the morning, we come to a stream that stands in our way. In summer, when the water is low, I can see that it would be a simple matter to pick a way across from stone to stone dryshod. Now, though the stream is running clear, it is well up its banks. One of us is going to have to doff his boots and hose and lead the mare through.
‘Why can’t we just sit in the cart and drive through?’ Hob wants to know.
‘It’s the mare. She’s always needed leading through water.’
He stares at me. ‘Well I’m not walking through that and freezing my bones.’
I bend down and pluck two stems of seeded grass. ‘We’ll draw straws.’ Nipping one off halfway along its length, I roll them to and fro between my palms so that neither of us can see which is which, then hold my joined hands out to him. ‘Pick.’
‘No. I’m not doing it.’
‘Pick. Knowing you, you have the luck of Old Nick and you’ll win anyway.’
He makes me wait a few breaths then draws the short straw. He holds it between us. ‘I’m not taking my boots and hose off, I’m telling you.’
‘And I’m telling you the mare won’t go through without somebody leading her.’
‘You’re too soft,’ he tells me. ‘I’ll get her through.’
He climbs astride and, as I sit safe in the back of the cart, he starts trying to urge the mare through the water, his heels thudding at her ribs, the reins laid on as a makeshift whip.
I do not turn around but I know the mare, I know what she will be doing. Her front feet planted on the pebbly verge of the ford, she will be leaning her weight back on her hocks. She will not go through, however much Hob belabours her.
‘She won’t go,’ I tell him, finally. ‘She’s always needed leading through water. You won’t persuade her otherwise.’
He does not know it, but his treatment of her has made an implacable enemy of the mare. Now, she will take any opportunity to nip at him, to whip her haunches round and knock him off his feet. She was the same with my father and none of his kicks and cuffs could dissuade her from stretching her neck to him whenever his flesh presented itself.
Hob does not like being bested and he swears and curses as he throws his boots and hose into the cart and stands in his braies. His long, sturdy legs show evidence of the sun and I wonder how often he’s worked, stripped to his linen, in the heat of the day. It suggests that he had to turn his hand to the most menial tasks — was he a youngest son, too? Or a landless servant?
‘Come on then, you bitch of a mare.’ He grabs the reins and tries to drag her into the stream but she tosses her head and pulls the reins back. Hob aims a kick at her belly but, being bootless, is not inclined to kick very hard. ‘Come on, damn you!’
Two punches and a kick later, I begin taking my boots off.
‘Leave off, Hob. I’ll lead her through.’
He takes my place as I strip my hose off and sits there, letting his wet feet dry in the air.
‘Only you could have such a contrary animal, Martin.’
‘She’s not contrary. It’s the only thing she won’t do.’
‘There shouldn’t be anything she won’t do. If you want her to go through water unled, that’s what she should do.’
‘Every creature has its limits, Hob. That’s hers.’
Dusk is settling when the mare throws a shoe on a stony ford. I can see straight away what has happened, she favours the shoeless foot as she comes out of the water.
I splash back in, stubbing a toe as I go, and retrieve the shoe from the icy water. It is thin and very worn; likely the other three are in the same condition.
‘We need a smith.’
Hob scowls at the thought of finding a village but he knows it must be done. If she is not re-shod the mare will be lame before we know it.
The thrown shoe causes her to peck in her stride and it seems a long time before Hob spies a village in the distance.
‘We should take the saint down,’ he says. ‘Before I knew better, I thought you’d stolen her. Others might think the same thing.’
It seems the sensible course and I lie the saint, blanket-wrapped, beneath the canvas. I cannot risk having her taken from me by some suspicious parson.
‘And we need to get rid of this too,’ I tell him. ‘It’s Lent.’
His eyes flick down to the hare he shot earlier. ‘They’ll feed us porridge, like you cook.’
‘Yes. Because it’s Lent.’
‘You know what Lent is, don’t you? It’s a penance dreamed up by priests to make other me
n as piss-weak at they are. To make sure they’ve got no lust for women or wrestling.’
His words are like a mirror and I see myself through his eyes — kneeling by the fire each evening, stirring pottage like a girl.
I turn away from him and cluck the mare into a dispirited onward limp.
At a meeting of tracks between the village’s fields, a fellow with an ox-cart hails us. It is clear, from the approaching smell and the remains in his cart, that he has been carting cow shit to spread on his land.
‘God be with you, friend,’ I call when we’re still a dozen paces away.
He responds in kind, then asks the question that has become a second form of greeting, now, in England. ‘Are you sick?’
‘No. We’re well. And we’ve seen nobody sick for days. Your village?’
‘Pestilence has taken a good number of us. But it’s three weeks since the last died. Everyone who’s left is healthy enough.’
I hear Hob release a held breath.
The village we are led into — ‘This here’s Tredgham, under the lordship of Sir Henry Falk’ — is bigger by far than Lysington and organised in a very different way. Where Lysington’s tofts are placed higgledy-piggledy, with paths winding between them, Tredgham is laid out almost like a market town, with houses presenting their fronts to the cart-tracks that run, each at right angles, through the midst of them.
Our guide nods along one of these tracks. ‘Along there’s Appledore. If our smith won’t oblige, you could try there.’
I nod and look along the track towards Appledore. A woodland loud with rooks lies between this village and that. I look for smoke but, if there are collyers within, there is no sign of them.
‘Better fetch the Reeve before you go near the forge, let him have sight of you.’
Tredgham’s Reeve — Geoffrey Levett — is a brisk man of about my father’s age. He greets our arrival, and our errand, with a swift regret.
‘Our forge is cold until we can find collyers to feed it. And Appledore’s too. The pestilence took all our coaling men and there’s not a lump of coal to be had in the village.’
Hob speaks up before I can utter a word.
‘Your luck’s turned, then!’ He puts an arm about my shoulders. ‘My friend here is Martin Collyer — he’s been charring coal since he learned to walk!’
Hob and Geoffrey Levett quickly reach an agreement. There is cordwood already stacked at the hearth in the wood, so I will burn a pit with the help of men he will choose to be the village’s new collyers. Then, once the first pit is successfully quenched and broken open, I am to watch my apprentices build theirs and stay with them through the week it will take to char and harvest. In return, we’ll be fed and re-provisioned for our journey and the mare will be given four new shoes.
I know I should protest that two weeks is too long, that I can only remain here as long as it takes to burn one pit of coal. I need not confess my fears for my father’s soul, I could simply say that we are honour-bound to deliver a letter to Slievesdon.
But I say nothing. I tell myself that a fortnight’s rest will be good for the mare. That, with things as they are, we cannot be sure of finding a smith elsewhere before she goes lame. I tell myself that my agreement with Geoffrey Levett is sound sense and has nothing to do with the comfort of being amongst my fellow-men once more, of sleeping without fear of attack, of eating fresh bread and drinking ale.
But unease sits on my shoulder, still, and I fear what our time in Tredgham may bring.
CHAPTER 13
Although being hearthmaster to a pair of apprentices is a novelty for me at first, I soon discover that the men I have been given to teach are neither apt nor avid to learn. Collyering demands care above all things and men whose heart is not on the hearth will never make good coal. Their neglect will lead to the fire consuming the wood instead of charring it and the result will be not fuel but ash.
The pair chosen by Levett are not careful. Of course, they are diligent enough at the outset, with the reeve at hand; they arrive with their stools and their bread and their ale and they show every indication of paying close attention. But, as soon as the reeve’s eye is no longer on them, their unwillingness becomes clear, along with their perfect ignorance of the craft.
‘Why does the door of the hut face away from the pit when that’s where we’ll be working?’
‘Because that’s where all the smoke will come from. If the door faced towards the hearth the hut’d be full of smoke all the time.’
‘What’s that stack of willow-hurdles there for?’
‘To screen the pit from the wind — it makes it burn lopsided if there’s a steady wind coming from one direction.’
‘Why do we need so many barrels of water?’
‘Because when the fire’s done its work, then water’s poured in to stop the charring.’
‘Doesn’t it make the coal wet and hard to burn?’
‘No, the water turns to steam — you’ll see when we break the pit open, the coal will be as dry as dust.’
I give them simple instructions for building the stack’s central chimney. They start well but then, instead of stopping when they’ve reached a sensible height to begin the bulking of the pit, they build and build as high as they can reach.
I show them how to place the staves around the chimney, thickest first; they nod as if they understand but then proceed to use only ells three inches in the round, leaving gaps I could put my hand in.
They pay no attention to what I have said about the slope of the stack, and soon the staves are falling outwards and all is chaos.
Hob pipes up which surprises me; until now, he has been as silent as the so-called apprentices. ‘Tom, Will — this is thirsty work!’ Trust him to know their names already.
The Tredgham men shuffle and drop their shoulders and nod. ‘Aye, Hob, it is.’
Hob. Despite the fact that I am set over them, they have been calling me ‘lad’ all morning.
We break to drink some ale and I watch Hob’s camaraderie with the two apprentices. I may have been put in charge, I may be the only one on the hearth who knows what he is doing, but it is Hob these men will heed, that much is clear.
By the afternoon of the second day, Hob thinks himself a master of the craft.
‘This collyering,’ he says, ‘it’s the easiest work I’ve ever done! Once the pit’s built, all you have to do is watch, poke holes, seal them up, and watch some more!’
I throw some riddled earth on to a patch where the bracken thatch has shifted, making the covering dangerously thin. ‘Yes, and what is growing corn, once the seed is sown, but months of watching it sprout and grow tall and ripen?’
But, easy though he claims to find the work, Hob has not taken to pit-watching, cannot master the attention needed. Once we run out of needful tasks around the hearth — mending the hut, repairing the hurdles, fetching quenching-water - he becomes bored and restless.
‘Let’s wrestle,’ he suggests. ‘Will, Tom — you’ll wrestle won’t you?’
Tom — the quieter of the two apprentices — whistles through his teeth. ‘You might find you’ve bitten off more than you can chew, there, Hob. Will’s a champion in Tredgham. There’s nobody can beat him.’
‘Is that so?’
Will folds his arms across his chest with a self-satisfied smile.
‘Well,’ Hob apes his stance, ‘I’m not afraid to wrestle with the best. What about you, Martin?’
‘I’m hearthmaster, I can’t be playing games.’
I know Hob will be the better wrestler. I know it before he and Will strip to their hose. I know it in the same way I know girls will always make sure Hob notices them before they give the eye to any other man.
At first, their bouts are entertaining and there are no underhand moves that would get a crowd hissing or cat-calling. When Will and Tom’s womenfolk arrive with food and more ale they are persuaded to watch.
‘You’ll have to teach Will how to do that, Hob,’ his sister
, Maud, calls when Hob throws Will neatly on to his back. ‘He thought he knew every wrestling throw there was — didn’t you Will?’
From the look her brother gives her, I hope she has a husband or a father at home to defend her from his vengeful fists when he leaves the hearth.
While Tom is as good-humoured as ever when he is thrown and pinned, Will is clearly determined to best Hob. He soon abandons fair play and hooks fingers at Hob’s eyes, aims punches at his throat. Despite the fact that this last trick could kill him, Hob seems unconcerned; he sidesteps and ducks, grapples and bests, clearly used to fighting men with more lust to win than skill to do it.
In the end, though, he tires of Will’s cheap tricks.
‘Enough,’ he says when the Tredgham champion squares up and declares himself ready for another bout. ‘We’ve fought ourselves out.’
‘One last bout,’ Will insists. ‘And this time, right to the end. No stays, no waiting for the other to get up. The bout ends when one of us admits the other is the better man.’
That kind of contest bears more resemblance to a fight to the death than a bout of wrestling. Hob could end up with broken bones or a blind eye; our stay in Tredgham is already set to delay us by a fortnight without any further hindrances.
‘Leave it, Will,’ I say.
But Will ignores me utterly. His eyes are fastened on Hob. ‘You don’t want your pretty face marked,’ he scoffs. ‘I saw you talking to my sister. You’re afraid she won’t look at you twice when I’ve finished with you.’
‘For pity’s sake, Will,’ Tom is losing patience, ‘sit down and stop being a fool. Accept it — Hob has bested both of us.’
‘That’s because he hasn’t seen what I can do when I’m not being polite to a guest.’ Will waits, but Hob does not stir. ‘So you’re a coward, Hob Cleve?’
I turn around to see Hob rising from the cordwood stack. ‘You’d better ask my pardon for saying that.’
