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‘You do not want to talk. You want to twist me to your way of thinking. It will not work any more. By the Saint, Anne, I thought you would have stopped hanging on to my skirts by now.’
‘Mumma!’
‘That is a child’s word. You are not a child.’
I follow after her, for the last place I wish to go is Thomas’s house. My house. She looks down her nose at me.
‘Have you nothing better to do?’ she says.
‘Clearly not,’ I growl.
She sniffs, but does not shoo me away. As we walk, she takes my arm.
‘Come on, lass,’ she says with greater warmth. ‘If any woman can bring him round, it will be you. A man is an instrument and can be played. All he wants is to hear a sweet song, and a woman with her wits about her can sing it afresh every day. Even your father is this way, although I declare I am blessed with my Stephen, for he is the most agreeable of melodies. All you need do is find the tune to make this man dance.’
She pats my hand. I know she means to fortify me.
Stepping through the alehouse door is to enter a dream filled with delightful scents and sounds, and I am stabbed by a sensation that feels a lot like happiness. A cloak of laughed-out air lays itself soft around my shoulders, and I taste the moist kiss of Aline’s brew on the halloas that greet us as we step under the lintel. Mother goes straightway to my father. They embrace each other and he clears a space for her on the bench next to him.
I sigh, imagining Thomas’s sour expression when I return late to the house. It is hardly a sin for me to dawdle awhile and be merry for this one night. I resolve to stay.
The men are engaged in playing a game with a pig’s bladder, which is already the cause of much mirth. Joseph the drover puts his lips to the hole and blows, then lays it upon the bench with a great deal of ceremony. He strolls about with his thumbs hooked behind his back, whistling, inviting us to sit.
‘Come now, Mistress Aline,’ Joseph cackles. ‘Take the weight off your feet! You must be tired after a day making such a fine brew.’
He is interrupted by drinkers raising their cups and shouting huzzah. Aline nods her thanks and laughs.
‘Oh no, not me. All these thirsts to quench and rushed off my feet already!’
She winks at us: we cheer at her clever answer. He scours the room for a suitable fool and this time points at me.
‘You! Little Anne!’
‘Me?’ I squeak, and the folk roar at how tiny my voice is become. I clear my throat and repeat the word more resonantly, which, it appears, is even funnier.
‘Yes, you, my chick. A pretty bird like you should have a comfy nest on which to fluff up her feathers. Look! Here’s the very place,’ he cries, and points to the bench.
I search for a smart retort or I shall have to sit down and lose the game. I find nothing, shake my head and shrivel into the wall. I wait for him to coax me out of my shyness, but when I raise my head he is gone to the other side of the room and is chattering to Alice.
I am more disappointed than I expect. I wanted him to cozen me, so that I could make a big show of saying how I was too busy to play his foolish game. I have been denied the opportunity and it irks me. Alice bats her eyelashes and preens her hair with dainty gestures. Every gaze is upon her and she fair wriggles with the pleasure of it.
‘Oh la, sir!’ she pipes. ‘There are wolves in this very room.’ She looks about, stretching her eyes wide. One old fellow starts to howl, to the amusement of those gathered. ‘If I roost,’ she smirks, ‘one of them is sure to gobble me up.’
There is a thumping of cups and more huzzahs at her quick rebuff. My Da slaps me on the back.
‘Why didn’t you think of that?’ he chuckles.
Alice is casting coy glances at Geoffrey the cheese-man. He returns the look with a grin that lifts first one side of his mouth then the other; a smile that cannot believe its luck. I remember how he once set his cap at me; a short while only, for I looked down my nose at him and made no secret of it. I set my eye way above the head of a man who smelled of curds.
‘We should have Father Thomas here,’ declares Joseph. ‘He’s a man on his feet all day, wouldn’t you say so, Anne?’
At the sound of his name my heart drops.
‘He is not a man who takes much rest from his labours,’ I say as respectfully as I can manage.
This answer makes them roar lustily and I wish it did not.
‘I’ll bet our little Anne keeps him busy!’
‘Now now, he’s a man of God. Let’s keep it clean,’ chides Aline, to a volley of sniggers. ‘Haven’t you told him how good my ale is?’ she continues. ‘Father Hugo was always front of the queue.’ She gives me a look that has an edge of hurt.
‘Eager to get a bellyful, so he was.’
‘Father Thomas is not like Father Hugo,’ I say.
I look at her, raising my eyebrows and praying that she can hear what is behind my words, for I dare say no more. But Aline was never much good at riddles and does not understand my meaningful glances.
‘He’s a lot scrawnier, that’s for sure. Peaky, I’d say. You should feed him better, Anne. I’m not the only one thinks so. Have you got a headache, screwing your forehead up like that?’
‘Aline’s right,’ adds Joseph. ‘Fatten him up and tell him how good this ale is.’
‘You can’t keep him to yourself the whole time.’
‘What?’ I gasp.
‘A honeymoon’s a honeymoon, but you’ve had him cooped up over two months.’
‘You only let him out to go to church.’
My mouth falls open. ‘I do not—’
‘No need to be abashed, my love,’ chuckles Aline and plants a kiss on my brow. ‘I couldn’t let James out of my sight for a quarter-year, could I, now?’
The man in question grins lopsidedly as his companions slap him on the back and snort their congratulations.
‘That’s right. Let him out for a bit of fresh air.’
‘Bit of colour in his cheeks.’
‘And a pint in his belly!’
I consider explaining to them that Thomas would no more sit on a pig’s bladder and pour ale down his throat than he would bare his backside at the high altar. However, Aline would sooner believe that than believe in a man who does not drink beer. It occurs to me that I do not understand Thomas either.
I am surrounded by folk I have seen each day of my life, as much a part of me as my hair and my hindquarters. Yet it is as though I am hovering above their heads like a hawk. Like a glamour wearing off, I see them for the first time, small and terrified as voles, swilling ale to drown out their fear of the pestilence, which prowls around the village like a starved wolf.
I wonder if this is how Thomas sees us, and if he has made me like himself. Perhaps I am becoming used to him, and his coldness is rubbing off on me. It is not a pleasant idea. I shake myself like a dog shakes off water. Ma is right. I need a bit of fire in my belly. I have been doused far too quickly. Alice can have Geoffrey and his dripping cheeses. I have a man and I shall bend him to my will.
As I leave, Ma presses a jug of ale into my hands. ‘This’ll set Thomas right,’ she says, and winks.
She links her arm through mine and accompanies me back to the house. We splash through the ford, lifting our skirts and giggling like children, for the ale has made us clumsy.
‘That’s better, my little Nan. A smile on your face and this good brew. That’s all that’s needed.’
She squeezes my cheek. We reach the door, although it takes longer than it ought, and the latch is slippery in my fingers. At last I get it open and we tumble inside with much hushing of each other, so as not to waken Thomas.
‘What a quiet place!’ Ma says, in the sort of whisper that can be heard three fields away.
We kiss goodnight and she bustles away. However carefully I try to close the door, it slams so hard the house shakes. After she has gone the room seems emptier than it should. When I turn, Thomas is there, fingers laced over his privates.
‘I did not see you, sir,’ I say for lack of better greeting. ‘Were you asleep?’ I add, rather weakly.
‘I was,’ he says, with considerable weight upon the second word.
‘I beg pardon, sir. My mother saw me safely home.’
He makes a harrumphing sound, as though the idea is a foolish one. ‘Mistress,’ he says. ‘Must you have visitors so often?’
‘Often, sir? It was my mother. Not a visitor.’
‘Comings and goings. All hours.’
‘I beg pardon, sir. It is a little late—’
He continues as though I have not spoken. ‘Every day my house is …’ he ignores me and purses his lips, ‘… overturned.’
‘Every day?’
He raises his hand and flaps my words away. ‘Day, week.’
‘Or month, perhaps?’
‘Too often. I am a man of God. If it’s not your mother, tramping in and out in the middle of the night, then it’s your – sister, friends, silly women filling my ears with bothersome chatter. I have had enough of it.’
Dear Lord in Heaven, I think. Here he goes. I bow my head and let the sermon roll over the top of my head. To help pass the time I consider how I shall get up early tomorrow morning and set myself to sifting the barley to make a white porray. Every now and then I mutter, Yes, sir, to keep him happy. I swallow a yawn.
‘So we are agreed.’
‘Sir?’ I say with a start, for I was a long way off.
‘You will give proper notice of visits and seek my permission.’
‘Shall I?’
‘You shall.’
‘Very well.’ I bob a curtsey. I think quickly. ‘Sir, may I be permitted a visit from my mother in one week’s time?’
‘No.’
‘Then,’ I begin carefully, ‘in two weeks?’
‘No,’ he says, more loudly.
‘What of my sister?’
‘No!’ he cries.
‘Please, Thomas.’ I hear the plaint in my voice and hate it.
‘I said no, woman. And stop calling me Thomas.’
‘It’s your name, you fool.’
‘I am sir. Don’t you forget it.’
‘Little chance of that, sir,’ I sneer. ‘You can’t cut me off from my family. My sister has a new baby,’ I add desperately. ‘My nephew. I am his godmother.’
‘Very well. At the feast of Saint Eadburga.’
‘That’s past next quarter-day! He’ll be pushing a plough by then.’
‘Do not exaggerate. He’ll still be spewing up all over your clothes, I’m sure.’
‘What of it? I’m sure the blessed Virgin had her fair share of baby sick to wash out,’ I growl.
His face turns so pale I declare I could knock him over like a ninepin. I leave him to his spluttering and go to my pallet before he can gather his wits and call me a blasphemer. When Christ was a child he’ll have puked like one. And farted like one also, although I do not press my luck by drawing this to his attention.
‘Mistress,’ he calls after me.
I raise my eyes to the roof, for he is not done with me. I wait for the accusation of speaking against God, but instead he looks me up and down.
‘Why is your head covered?’ It is such an unexpected question that I gawp at him for a long and silent moment, wondering whither his brains have taken him this time. ‘You are unmarried,’ he continues. ‘You do not need to do so.’
I hold his gaze and say nothing. I stare boldly enough to earn a slap, or words of caution at the least; but after a while a red spot appears on each cheek. He lowers his head and scurries back to his bed. Perhaps if I had chased him then, if I had asked him why he blushed, demanded to know what he felt for me, perhaps things would have been different between us.
However, nothing is different, and everything is the same. I thought I would grow fat on meat in the house of a priest. But porray is my portion, day in and day out: green, white and red I eat it. I am not starved. I have enough to satisfy hunger, but nothing more. I am no glutton, but I ache with the tedium. So many turnips my belly aches for an onion to brighten my plate, let alone a bit of bacon, fried crisp.
A few days afterthe Feast of Saint Boniface, John the butcher brings a rabbit.
‘For Father Thomas,’ he says. ‘Once he tastes this he’ll send for my wares more often, eh?’
‘I wouldn’t set too much store on it,’ I sigh.
He coughs. ‘Thirsty morning, is it not?’
I bite my lip. ‘There is water,’ I whisper, my face so heated with embarrassment I can barely look at him.
He snorts. ‘Well, there’s a welcome. Have you been telling tales against me, Anne?’
