females who flicked at the ends of their braids. My face asked the question.
‘I am Anne’s mother, Joan.’ She aimed a broad thumb over her shoulder. ‘These two are her gossips, Alice and Isabel.’
‘Greetings, Mistress Joan. Ladies.’
They pressed their way past me and walked directly to the hearth. They peered into the butter-pot one after the other, held up the frying pan and tested its weight, counted out the knives, the dishes, the pitchers and the pewter plates, banged their knuckles against the great pot on its hook over the fire.
The two maids sighed, scowling at each item as though it was wanting in some way I could not comprehend. Joan strode into the solar and stared at my bed awhile, mercifully without comment. She flipped up the lid of the chest as though it were only the weight of a penny, and straightway began filleting the sheets folded within.
‘Good linen,’ she clucked, ‘what there is of it. Surely you have more?’
‘It is stored. I have little need for—’
‘Good, good.’ She peered at me, from my uneven tonsure to my clogs. ‘Your glebe, Father.’
I realised it was a question. I had the uncomfortable feeling of being a clerk standing before a strict schoolmaster and not knowing the answer.
‘I have an orchard,’ I gabbled. ‘Apples and medlars, six cherry trees besides. Fifteen healthy ewes at the last count, tended for by Edgard. A tup-ram, a milk-cow and calf, many fowls for eggs. A mare in her own stable. My Lord Bishop is generous.’
She hummed and swept back into the hall, dragging us in her formidable wake. She kicked at the reeds on the floor, clicking her tongue at one of the maidens, who nodded and said in need of fresh rushes to her companion. She tapped at the oilcloth set into the window, tested the shutters.
‘No glass?’
‘It is warm enough. There is much vanity—’
‘With the shutters open it is too cold. With them shut it is too dark,’ she said as brisk as you would to a boy. ‘How can a woman see clear to bake your bread?’
I had not thought that far ahead. One of the maids sniggered: Joan quenched the sound with a glare.
‘I will pay for a glazier,’ I gulped.
‘And curtains?’
‘Yes. I have some. Stored with the linen.’
‘Fine?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. A tapet for the bed?’
I had no idea why she wanted my bed to appear grander than it was. It was an indelicate question, but I let it pass, for rustic folk have odd notions.
‘I shall not stint,’ I said.
‘That is a fine thought, Father. And for the feast?’
‘The feast?’
‘When she shall come to you. It is our way.’ She patted my hand. ‘There must be beer; the good brown, nothing sour.’
I felt myself suddenly in the sharp angle of a small room, its walls pressing hard upon my shoulders.
Ground almonds?
Green cheese and hard cheese?
White porray with saffron?
Wheat bread? Of sifted flour?
A dozen rabbits?
I quacked out agreement after agreement until I believe I could have given my assent to anything. Raisins. Lemons. Hot wine caudle. Nutmeg. Mace. Custards. A sugar-loaf. They were no longer requests but statements.
‘Eels and herrings for yourself. Two new lambs to roast.’
‘Two?’
‘Two. You shall not stint.’
I was dizzy with talk of pies, and spices, and boiled chickens, and stock-fish, and clapbread and havercakes and so much honey my teeth ached. At last she stopped; held out her hand. I fetched coins from my safe-box and counted them into her palm until she clicked her tongue a final time and closed her fingers.
Anne was brought to my house fifteen days later, on the Feast of Saint Perpetua, her mother eager to bring her before Lent. There was a fine dampness in the air, as barely noticeable as breath. Maybe this was the day the rain would cease.
Just before Prime the women arrived with my dishes, now filled with the food I had paid for. They looked to be bringing it the whole morning, so I took myself to the church and did not return till after Terce. As I walked down the path I heard laughter, the bleating of a pipe.
Her hair was glossy as an otter. It had been combed through and sheaves of it looped up in plaited trenchers over her ears, threaded through with sprigs of mayflower. She fluttered with a girdle of coloured ribbons, wound about her so tight it was a marvel she could guffaw so loudly. As they reached the ford she was hoisted like a log and carried on the shoulders of two young men who hung onto her knees. She kicked out her feet and showed red slippers.
One of her bearers began to sing, ‘I tell of one so fair and bright’, and all bawled the refrain, ‘Oh, bright and fair!’ She grinned and swung her head about to be so praised; but I saw her slap the lad’s fingers as he clutched her thigh too tightly, and knew her for a virtuous maid.
I was at my door to welcome them as they trod their last few steps. All were wet halfway to the knee save Anne, and there was much merriment as the women wrung out their underskirts and the men squeezed out their hose and came in bare-legged. They patted mud from their tunics, knocked dirt off their clogs. I resolved to be a cheerful host and not draw attention to this rudeness.
‘Welcome,’ I said. ‘Welcome all.’
I barely knew my own house. While I had been in the church it had been wreathed about with ivy and may, as though the Feast of Saint Lucy was come round again. The trestle shone with bright linen, and a great heap of logs glowed in the hearth, the embers studded with seething pots of green and white porray. The very air was foreign to me, thickened as it was with tickling spice. There was a roar as the ale was brought in.
‘It is the very finest,’ said Joan. ‘Made by our own Aline.’
The ale-wife dropped to her knees as I thanked her, drowned out by thirsty bellowing. Each man dug out a beaker from inside his shirt and polished it on his stomach, ready for it to be filled.
‘Good Aline!’
‘Happy woman and happier husband!’
The man spoken of cawed like a rook. ‘It is the spring!’
‘It is near!’
‘It will be a good spring,’ I said.
‘It will, God willing,’ a man declared, and ducked his head at me.
‘God is good,’ I continued, and they raised their cups in agreement.
‘And so is Anne!’ cried one voice, to answering cheers.
‘My death I love, my life I hate,’ sang one fellow. ‘All for a girl so fair; she is as bright as day is light, but she won’t look at me.’
‘So fair she is and fine,’ boomed another. ‘I wish to God that she were mine.’
‘Oh, Anne is a fine girl indeed,’ whispered Joan, close to me.
‘Fair was her bower,’ cried a third voice.
‘What was her bower?’
‘The red rose and the lily flower.’
The company laughed.
‘My turn now,’ cried a voice thick with ale. ‘When the priest