by Ann Swinfen
We were all stiff from the journey, whether we had ridden or travelled in the cart, but the horses must be seen to first. Amidst the flurry of introductions, Edmond and his two half grown sons, James and Thomas, helped us remove their gear and lead them into the stable, where, by the light of a candle lamp, we carried in buckets of water. The mangers had already been filled with hay. I caught up a handful and buried my nose in it.
‘This season’s fresh cutting,’ I said, appreciatively. ‘Sweet as honey.’
‘Aye,’ Edmond said. ‘We managed the haysel by working past dusk every night, at the risk of slicing off our toes with the scythes, but I have lost more of my labourers since then, tempted away by the man Mordon and his London money. Even Jos Gidney and his two sons.’
I shook my head in disbelief. The Gidney family had worked for ours generation upon generation.
Edmond ran his fingers through his hair, which had streaks of grey in it which had not been there last year.
‘I would pay them more if I could, but I cannot. Prices at market are poor this year. Good weather means a good harvest, but low prices for what we sell.’
‘Well, I have brought you workers who do not need paying,’ I said, ‘at least your own barns will be full and your household well fed.’
The others were already heading toward the house as Edmond bolted the stable door and took my arm.
‘I am grateful to you, Nicholas,’ he said quietly as we crossed the yard. ‘When Geoffrey Carter brought us word that you were bringing friends to help with the harvest, Susanna sat and wept. You know Susanna. She will not weep if she burns her hand on the fire or wrenches her back lifting a heavy load. She has as stout a heart as any man. But she wept. That is how hard it has been since this new man bought the manor.’
‘There is more to this than paying the labourers higher wages,’ I said, looking at him shrewdly.
‘Aye, there is, but we will talk of it later. See, the women have unloaded your cart, and Susanna has a hot supper waiting for you.’
It was a fine farmhouse supper of roast pork with braised apples and onions, with a frumenty well flavoured with the juices from the meat, and followed by a dried apple and raisin pie, lavishly covered with thick cream. Even the children woke up enough to enjoy it, although their eyes were drooping toward the end. When they had been carried off to bed, sharing chambers with Edmond’s younger children, we were not long in following them, for farmers keep early hours. Susanna ushered her large body of guests to various corners of the rambling farmhouse, but I paid them little heed, taking myself off to the slant-roofed room up under the eaves, which had been mine since early boyhood.
I woke early the following morning, for I had left the shutters on the single window standing open, so that the first light of the rising sun fell across my face, already warm and promising a good day. The previous night Edmond had told us that he had, that very day, begun the first cutting of his wheat field. Today we would resume work there.
As I swung my legs out of bed, I groaned. I rarely spend a whole day in the saddle, and somehow the slow pace had proved especially trying to those infrequently used muscles which make themselves known after disuse. Still, I thought with an wry smile, wielding a scythe all day today would find out a whole new set of neglected muscles to complete the picture.
I looked out of the window over the back of the farm, where the dairy and hen houses stood. The large wheat field stretched out just beyond, the field to the right of it given over to barley this year. Further to the right, but out of sight from here, a smaller field, one of my grandfather’s assarts, was probably planted with oats, while the other assart, also out of sight, but to the left, would hold peas and beans. It had been the field of oats last year. The family vegetable garden was at the front of the house, near the barns and stable.
Down in the farm kitchen I found Susanna, Margaret, and Beatrice all hard at work, for Susanna, like my sister, baked her bread every morning. Edmond’s eldest daughter, Hilda, was helping, but looked as though she would rather be elsewhere.
‘Are the children awake?’ I asked generally.
Beatrice glanced at me as she slid a freshly baked loaf off the bread paddle on to the table. There was a smudge of flour on her cheek.
‘They have gone to let out the hens and collect the eggs.’
‘And the others?’
‘Master Edmond has taken Philip to look at the wheat.’
The outside door opened, and my mother stepped inside, carrying a basket of vegetables. With a start, I thought, She has grown so small.
‘Mother,’ I said, putting my arms around her, basket and all. ‘It is good to see you, after so long. You are quite well again?’ She had lost weight, and her hands looked frail, but her eyes were as bright as ever.
‘Aye, do not fuss, Nicholas. I am quite well. I have seen the children already, out by the henhouse. Margaret, take this.’
Margaret kissed her and took the basket from her.
‘You need not have given us your vegetables, Mother Bridget,’ Susanna said. ‘We have plenty.’
‘Aye, well, I have more than I can use in the cottage garden. And who is this?’
I introduced Beatrice and explained our arrival to help with the harvest.
‘Edmond has told me,’ she said briskly, taking an apron from the basket and tying it about her waist. ‘What shall I do to help, Susanna?’
‘Where are the others?’ I asked Margaret, as my mother joined Susanna in shaping the risen dough into loaves.
‘Jordain and his students are still abed,’ she said severely. ‘I hope they may not think they are on holiday. In university term time they would be at lectures by this.’
‘I will rouse them,’ I said, but as I reached the bottom of the stairs I heard the sound of their footsteps, so instead I went outside and joined Edmond and Philip at the wheat field.
‘It is a fine crop,’ I said, surveying the gold heads stirring in the slight breeze. The stalks were nearly up to my shoulder. ‘A good crop of straw as well.’
‘Aye,’ Edmond said. ‘We’ll keep the best of it for thatching the dairy and one of the barns, ’tis time they were done afresh. With the barley and oat straw, there will be plenty for bedding.’ He rubbed his hands cheerfully together. ‘Let us break our fast, if the women will allow us into the kitchen, then we may make a start. The few labourers who still work for me will be here soon.’
The kitchen was rich with the scent of baking, and all the women flushed and rosy with their efforts.
‘Do you aim to set up a bakery?’ I asked Margaret. ‘I see you have all been exercising your skills.’
A side table below the wide window was set out with loaves braided and slashed, fashioned into pyramids and spirals, sprinkled with poppy or fennel seeds. On the main table, where we had eaten the previous night, a heap of ordinary round loaves lay waiting for us.
‘Have you forgot the day, Nicholas?’ Susanna said. ‘’Tis Lammas on Thursday. These are the loaves baked from yesterday’s first cut of the harvest. And since the first of the wheat is already cut and ground, we will hold the Lammas feast this evening.’
‘Of course!’ I said. ‘I had indeed forgot. We have timed our arrival perfectly, then.’
A thought struck me.
‘And our mill is working well? Water enough in the stream?’ In a hot summer like this, sometimes the stream ran a little low to turn the wheel.
Leighton Manor owned the mill at which all the villagers were obliged to take their corn to be ground, but our family, owning our own land, had a small mill driven by a leat from the same brook that drove the manor mill. We ground our flour there. After the de Veres’ heir had appointed a steward to manage the manor, its mill had fallen into disrepair and Edmond had allowed the villagers to use our mill, charging a smaller portion of the flour than the manor used to charge.
Edmond and Susanna exchanged a look.
‘Master Mordon,’ he said grimly, ‘had the manor mill r
epaired in good time for this year’s harvest and demanded his right of multure. The villagers began cutting that field on the south slope last week, and when he heard some were bringing their corn to me, he had his servants dig a channel to divert the leat away from our mill. Now we cannot even grind our own corn, but must take it to him, where he is charging twice what Yves de Vere did.’
‘But–’ I gaped at him, shocked. ‘To cut off the stream that drives your mill? That is surely illegal?’
‘Aye, almost certainly, but by the time I have taken him to court, how many weeks – nay, months – will be lost? At the moment we have ground only the small amount we have cut new, for the Lammas loaves, but we will be forced to grind more when our stores of last year’s flour run out.’
‘And the villagers will suffer,’ Susanna said. ‘Those who have little land need every ounce of their flour to survive the coming year. They cannot spare more for the manor. And he ensures that he wrings every hour of service out of the villeins, working on his land. They will be fortunate if they are able to cut what little corn they grow themselves.’
We sat down to break our fast in somewhat sober mood after this, although the children – who had no interest in mills – chattered happily. Before we left for the fields, another thought occurred to me.
‘What court can you take the man to, Edmond? For surely he will himself have the right to hold the manor court.’
‘Indeed. I suppose I must await the next visit to Burford by the king’s justices in eyre.’ His face was grim, but he shrugged impatiently. ‘Come, let’s to work.’
No more than half a dozen labourers had gathered in the yard when we came out of the house, where once there would have been a score. And all of them were older men whom I had known since I was a boy, too loyal and too stubborn to be wooed away by the man Mordon’s bribe of higher wages. They all carried their own scythes, fitted and balanced each man to his own needs. Edmond’s sons carried a further collection of scythes out of one of the barns, and we gathered round to choose those which best suited us.
‘I sharpened all, day before yesterday,’ James said, ‘but there’s whetstones on the shelf, left of the door.’
Like the others, I pocketed a small whetstone to take with me into the field, to save coming back when the blade began to dull. There was a large grinding wheel in the barn, driven by a pedal, which would do a better job at the end of the day, but the small stone would serve while we worked.
Thomas showed Stephen, Alysoun, and Rafe how to plait straws to make a binding for the sheaves of corn.
‘You must make the plait as long as the distance from the sole of a man’s foot to the knee,’ he said.
‘But how can I measure that?’ Alysoun objected.
‘Well, then, from the sole of your foot to your waist,’ he said.
Rafe grew bored and wandered off, but the other two were soon able to make the plaits well enough to serve.
‘Hilda and I will take our sickles round the edges of the field,’ Susanna said, ‘if you, Margaret, together with Mistress Medford, will stook, with the children’s help. I think even Alysoun helped with the stooking a little last year.’
She looked dubiously at Beatrice. ‘Can Stephen . . . ?’
Beatrice smiled at her. ‘We shall not be walking fast. He will certainly be able to help with binding, if not with building the stooks. And please, I am Beatrice.’
Rowan, who had been running about the farmyard exploring its feast of new scents, ran between Edmond’s feet, nearly tripping him. He caught her up and tucked her under his arm.
‘We cannot risk this puppy with us. Either she will be sliced in two, or she will cause an accident. She must stay here.’
Alysoun looked rebellious as he started toward the house, but I shook my head at her.
‘Not in the kitchen, Edmond!’ Susanna warned. ‘The Lammas loaves!’
‘Aye, you have the right of it. She must stay in the barn.’
Rowan was soon incarcerated, and as we set off for the wheat field her mournful howls followed us.
At the edge of the field, Edmond tipped out the contents of a sack he carried, and a collection of rough gloves tumbled to the ground.
‘Help yourselves,’ he told us. Like all good masters, he had a care for his labourers’ hands.
In the months since last summer’s harvest I had not laid hold of a scythe, save for a brief time helping to clear the overgrown garden behind the Farringdons’ cottage in St Mildred Street, but it is a skill that once learned is never forgotten. There was no need for discussion as we spread out in a line across the near edge of the wheat field, Edmond, James, Thomas, Jordain, Philip, and I, together with the students Giles and Guy, and the handful of labourers. As we began to swing our scythes in the slow, easy way that a man may keep up all day long, I saw that Philip and the two lads had spoken truly. They all knew what they were about. Jordain, like me, came from country stock, though his family were poor tenants, and held their land partly through customary service on their lord’s demesne, so he too had wielded a scythe from the time he was tall enough. Probably, again like me, at the age of about ten.
As the men moved slowly up the field, not hurrying, Susanna and her daughter used their smaller sickles to cut the corn too close to the hedgerows for a scythe to be used. Behind us, moving more slowly, Margaret and Beatrice were gathering armfuls of the cut corn into bundles and securing the sheaves with the braids made by the children, before standing the sheaves, pair by pair, into stooks of six each. There they could dry in the sun before being carted to the farmyard for threshing and winnowing. Alysoun struggled to help. Binding the sheaves was too much for her small arms, although Stephen, who was a little larger, and whose use of crutches had strengthened his arms, could just manage. She and Stephen together were able to lift a sheaf into place in the stook.
The promised fine weather continued to hold, with a sun almost too hot for the work. Soon all the men were stripped to their shirts, and the two students even shed those, but I had no wish to burn my back to the colour of a roasted crab apple. I had even donned an old straw hat of my father’s. The brim was unravelling, but it gave some protection from the sun. The scent of the cut stalks is sweet, but not everything about harvest is pleasant. Biting flies rose up from the disturbed corn and feasted on us. Twice I saw an adder slither away in front of me, and I was glad that I wore shoes, unlike several of the labourers. Rabbits, too, fled before us, deeper and deeper into the wheat, before some burst out, making a frantic dash for the field edge. James brought down two of them with his slingshot, so there would be rabbit pie for tonight’s Lammas feast.
‘Does this Mordon fellow lay claim to all the conies in the neighbourhood?’ I asked Edmond, after James had retrieved the second one. ‘He might claim they all come from his warren, and are his by right.’
Edmond shrugged. ‘No doubt he might try, but there are plenty of them living wild hereabouts – aye, and eating our vegetables – so no one will be telling him about any we catch. Though I did hear he tried to fine Bertred Godsmith, who took a coney in his own croft, but there was a near riot in the village. That time he backed off. Another time, he might not.’
After a while, it became clear that our numbers were unbalanced. We needed more women for the stooking, so halfway through the morning, as we took a break for a drink of ale, two of the labourers walked down to the village to fetch their wives to help. After that, the women began to catch up, but there was still a good deal of cut corn lying when Edmond called a halt, and we all lent a hand to the stooking in the afternoon, until all that was cut had been set to dry.
‘About a third of the field, I think,’ I said, as we walked back to the farm behind the women, who had hurried ahead to begin the cooking.
‘Aye, near enough.’ Edmond slung his scythe over his shoulder and scratched at his insect bites. ‘Two more days should finish the wheat. About the same, three days for the barley. Maybe two days for the oats. Another two or three
for the beans and peas. We should manage it in two weeks or a little more, if the weather holds. It would have taken twice, three times as long without the help of you and your friends. We could not have done it. Half the harvest lost or spoiled, surely.’
‘It does us no harm to set our books aside for a time,’ Philip said, coming up behind us. ‘It is too easy to forget, living a pampered life in an Oxford college, how much hard labour and sweat goes into providing us townsfolk with food. I know I shall be stiff tomorrow, but it has done me good – despite the flies you breed here. As large as bumblebees!’
The women had all disappeared into the kitchen, and the children had set Rowan free, so that she was rushing about like a mad thing. The three farm dogs, well trained and quiet, lay with their chins on their crossed paws watching her in some amazement. We gathered, all of the men, about the well in the yard, and poured buckets of water over each other, which was some relief after the sticky heat of the day and eased the insect bites somewhat. Guy and Giles donned their shirts again, wincing a little as cloth touched sun-burned skin. Then we carried trestles and boards out of one of the barns, and set up the tables for the Lammas feast.
The labourers, who had gone down to the village, returned with their families and before long we were all gathered, seated on stools around three tables. At the centre of each table several of the elaborate loaves held pride of place, for as the custom is, the first cut wheat of the harvest provides the flour for the Lammas loaves, a thanksgiving to God for providing, of His bounty, bread for mankind, the staff of life.
We had been joined by the village priest, Sire Raymond.
I murmured aside to Susanna, ‘Is Sire Raymond not required to attend the Lammastide feast at the manor?’