Mistress Meg and the Prigger of Prancers

by Miriam Bibby

  * * * * *

  The room was comfortable, clean and warm, with solid furniture and a recess bed with clean, fresh linen. An occasional gust of March wind blowing down the chimney caused the embers of the fire to blaze up slightly. This cast a red glow temporarily over the two occupants. A small chink of light penetrated the room through the curtains and there was a candle stub flickering in a holder on the mantel. There was a scent of old dried lavender and bedstraw. And something else ... a little sweeter, a little stranger, a resinous scent.

  The two were seated on benches on opposite sides of a worn wooden table. One, the older of the pair, had her back to the windows. The other was a young woman of sixteen or so. It was difficult to make out the features of the older woman, partly because of the dimness of the room, and partly because of the gauzy cloth or veil she had around her head and the lower part of her face.

  The pretty young women was sitting upright, her eyes and mouth both rounded as though she was startled. She was certainly on the alert, because every time the wind gave a particularly lusty bellow down the chimney, she jumped and looked around. She was dressed appropriately for her class and situation as the daughter of moderately prosperous country people. Her dress was discreet and plain; but like all girls of her age she had made the best of it, with her neatly combed hair let down on her shoulders. There was a bright ribbon fastened into it.

  Facing her, the woman with the veil was peering intently into an old wooden box. The wood was dark and gleaming and a definite scent came from it, dark and mysterious. The hinged lid of the box was lifted back. Inside there seemed to be nothing but complete darkness. In fact there was a mirror, but it was not of glass. It was of polished stone. The younger woman had heard of such things, but never seen one. This was surely a scrying mirror that was contained in the box, but all she could see was darkness, apparently infinite darkness.

  The veiled woman took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, spreading her hands in the air on either side of the box. There was a pause whilst the wind rattled the casement and timbers creaked in the roof. The girl shivered slightly.

  "Ah ... a young man ..."

  The younger woman leaned forward, suddenly interested. "You can see him?"

  "A very handsome young man ..."

  "So he is!"

  "With brown eyes and dark golden hair ..."

  The description might have fitted the girl equally well. The woman continued to stare into the depths of the box. "Very handsome. Ah. But sometimes a little ... lacking in ... ah ... understanding ..." The word was carefully chosen.

  "There!" said the girl, a trifle tartly. "That's him, to the life. Sometimes I would like to shake him. He never seems to notice anything. Well, anything but that Agnes ... oh, and his dog. He's always off hunting with the dog on his father's land."

  "Yes, I can see this other woman ..."

  "You can!" The girl sounded both interested and alarmed. "She's nothing to him, I swear. Red-headed b ..." She stopped herself quickly, and peered across at the other woman. It was just possible that the scarcely visible hair was reddish in colour. It was hard to tell in this light. "Anyways, she is trouble and always about when he is."

  "Hmmm." There was a pause. The younger woman, slightly agitated now, glanced at the other woman, who was calm and still. It was impossible to tell her age, her status or the condition of her emotions. Vaguely the young woman noted that her gown seemed to be of velvet, a dark blue, or perhaps even a greenish colour. It looked expensive though. She briefly wondered whether this was seemly, or indeed even legal, for the older woman's age and condition and then brushed that thought away. After all, everyone over the age of sixteen was old; let her wear what she wanted, in that case! Then impatience overcame her.

  "What can you see?" she urged. The veiled woman's head lifted slightly, and the younger woman felt, rather than saw, her eyes.

  "It is not what I can see. What you will see, that is important ..." The veiled woman's voice was soothing and gentle. The younger woman could not see clearly in the dim light, but she could hear the murmuring voice and it calmed her. The scent and warmth of the room, the voice and the darkness in the middle of the box merged together. Vague grey shapes floated across her vision. The blustering March day receded and time slowed down.

  "Look into the mirror ..." The girl shuddered slightly, then leaned forward and peered with wide eyes into the velvet dark depths of the box. She saw nothing, nothing ... and then ... suddenly as clear as day, she saw him walking, as if towards her ... but he made no sign of recognition. She could see the gleam of sunlight on his hair ... but he could not see her! She drew back despite herself.

  "Robert!"

  "Keep looking!" warned the veiled woman. Fascinated, the girl fixed her eyes down into the centre of the curiously scented box. It was as though he was closer now, in the middle of a swirling dark pool and though she knew he could not see her, he was smiling. Slowly and soundlessly, his mouth formed her name and his hands reached out.

  "Sarah ..." The picture was so clear and strong, but it was swirling, as though she was looking into a dark pool with a reflection in it, there was a barrier between him. She felt hot, as though it was a warm day; she seemed to sense that she was in the church yard. She wanted it to be true, to be happening now ... her hands reached out to meet his.

  The veiled woman held her own hand up in warning. "You are seeing what will be, not what is. He is not here."

  The young woman drew a breath, with difficulty. The picture began to fade and she felt first a sense of loss and then of pleasure as she remembered his smile and the hands reaching out to her.

  "You have seen what you came to see." Sarah was not sure whether this was a question or a statement. She nodded, still slightly breathless.

  "Now, listen to me. You wish my ... advice ... in bringing this about?" The word was very carefully chosen.

  "Yes, I do," Sarah spoke clearly. To see that picture in reality ... oh yes, she would do whatever was needed!

  "You will tell no-one." Sarah nodded.

  "You understand that I will give you no charm, nor spell, nor potion?"

  "I understand." Sarah was a little disappointed, but she was sensible enough to know the danger to both of them if either should be caught attempting to procure love by a charmed drink or magic words.

  "Good. Then listen to me. You see ... your Robert ..." (Sarah smiled at the idea of "her Robert") "... on some occasions during the week ..." Sarah nodded.

  "... and at Church on Sunday ..."

  "Yes." This was in fact one of the best opportunities for young men and women to meet and flirt, in a subtle way. So was meeting at the well. Some elders frowned on this but Sarah and her contemporaries took little notice.

  "... then for the next nine days ... mmmm ... no, a fortnight, you will take every opportunity to avoid meeting him."

  "To avoid him? A fortnight?" That was an eternity, and the tragedy sounded in the girl's voice.

  "A fortnight." The older woman's voice was firm. "Have I not helped you see what can be true? Then you must follow my .. advice ... if you wish to make it real."

  "But a fortnight ..." the girl's shoulders slumped and she pulled a face. Anything could happen in that time, especially with Agnes free to do her flirting.

  "There is more. Now listen." The girl straightened up again and listened.

  "If you should encounter him by accident, you will not look at him, but give him a curt greeting and carry on. If you see him at a distance, turn and walk the other way. If he should ask you any question, or walk beside you, you shall shrug your shoulders ... like this ... and say you are busy, you cannot be troubled, another time will have to do. If you are talking with another, any other, you will be merry and charming if he should see you by accident; and leave if he joins the conversation."

  "But ... "

  "Are you prepared to do this?"

  There was a long, long silence. The girl finally nodded, now a little unsure.


  "At the end of that time, he will come and seek you out and talk to you. Then you shall smile and look away and say that you have a pressing errand but that you will see him later. And you will come here and tell me. All's clear?"

  The girl nodded. Her hand went to her neck and brought out a small bag. She opened the strings and began to remove something.

  "No. There is no need for payment, now. When it comes to pass, then you can pay me."

  The younger woman sat in thought. "I trust you," she said finally, unaware of any irony in her remark. "I was told that everything you see comes to pass. That's what ..."

  "Never mind what others say," the veiled woman interrupted. "It was you who looked in the mirror. That is your future, if you will have it so."

  "Of course!" said the younger woman, intensely, hope coming back into her voice.

  "Then believe it. And tell no-one. No-one!"

  As she left the room, the girl saw a little black dog lying outside the room with its head on its paws and a basket in front of it.

  "Do not close the door!" called the veiled woman. "Let Brother Nose-all come in. Cornelius!" The little dog picked up the basket and was in the room in a flash. The latch closed and a key clicked in the lock.

  The girl put a kerchief over her head. For a moment she felt scared. Her stomach gave a lurch. There had been something uncanny about the beast. Sudden fears of what she might be doing assailed her with thoughts of hellfire. Was this witchcraft? She had been given no potion, no spell, no charm. She had just been told to do certain things, none of which seemed particularly unusual. And she had seen ...

  Ah. She had seen her future. Reassured and glowing, she set off down the creaking stairs.

  * * * * *

  Anyone entering the kitchen of the Goat in Chains might have thought that hell was not very far away. The massive fire was being whipped into even greater life by a strong draught of March wind from the door. Despite this draught, the kitchen was a fetid inferno of toiling, cursing figures. The largest - at least, the stoutest - was a woman in an apron and cap, wielding a basting ladle. The fat sizzled and roared as she lifted it from a tray and poured it over a goose, which was turning over the fire. The roast was turned on a spit by a tiny, short-legged dog running frantically in a cage. Occasionally he was given the "encouragement" of a poke with a skewer or the application of a hot piece of wood, salted with a few curses. On and on he ran; round and round turned the goose; curses and blessings on the goose rose from the woman whose face was the colour of the flames. The March wind gusted its approval.

  "Where is that idiot boy? Here, Davey, fetch the sage. Now, boy, now! Oh, by our ..." she paused. "I mean, by the Trinity - oh, Devil take it, I'll get it myself."

  However, the kitchen boy jumped forward with the herb and waited for his next order. He certainly felt he was in hell on days such as this. Only the turnspit dog was a lower being in the kitchen order than he was. There were two kitchen maids as well, but they had to serve the customers and help to look after the chambers. Most of the hard and dirty work fell to him, the youngest. When he was suddenly summoned to the common room where the servants and tradesmen and poorer travellers ate and drank, it was like rising from the innermost depths of hell to heaven; well, at least to one of the lower levels of purgatory.

  In this room, old and shabby, but clean, with herbs on the floor and vessels for spitting, he found the usual group of cronies huddled around the fire and a few servants refreshing themselves between errands, probably unknown to their masters or mistresses. The Goat in Chains had an excellent reputation for food and drink and servants and tradesmen ate there nearly as well as their masters. The room was busy today. He knew most of them by sight. There was one stranger, though, a youngish man with the unmistakable air of a horse coper or courser about him. There was just something about the clothes, his long light coloured hair and the oblique glances; he sidled up to people rather than walking up and his boots were good but shabby. He was cheerful and looked as though he wanted to be a good drinking companion, with plenty of smiling banter. Davey was lowly, the lowest of the low in the vast hierarchy of servitude; but he watched and learned a good deal. He had already recognised that the Goat in Chains was as good a place as any to study mankind.

  There was a good example of humanity to study sitting in one dark corner of the room. The man was an enigma; Matthew, the servant of the equally mysterious veiled woman in the upper room, whom the inn-keeper and his wife referred to as "Mistress Meg". Davey feared and admired Matthew in equal measure, though he didn't quite know why. There was nothing very extraordinary about his appearance. He was dressed modestly and cleanly and his straight black hair was short and neat. His face was beardless, brown and hard to read as he stared straight ahead, apparently noticing nothing. Smoke rose from his pipe and wreathed around his face.

  Davey didn't have much time to read anyone's physiognomy. He was quickly set to various tasks, collecting tankards and cups and cleaning the trestles and then dismissed to the kitchen again. But before he went, Jacob, the oldest son of the innkeeper (and principal drawer of the brews), gave him a long weak drink of beer and handed him another tankard brimful with something a bit stronger.

  "Here," he said. "Take this to the kitchen. That should sweeten Bess. Thanks for thy help, lad. Been busy today, eh?" He winked at Davey, who realised that part of the reason for his summons had been to give him a brief respite from the kitchen. He grinned back and darted off.

  "Jacob sent this."

  "Ahhhh." Her ruddy face split into a smile. Bess could drink with the best, for sure. Down went the beer, with much appreciation. Davey watched, open-mouthed. It was not the first time that he had seen Bess down her ale in one go, but it was always an impressive sight. Once it was gone, her face was even redder, but there was no more cursing of the roast, just coaxing as if it were some child or small pet animal. Not a turnspit dog, of course.

  The scent of roasting wound its way in to join the ale and gossip that were flowing freely in the room where Jacob was serving.

  "Excellent fish you serve here!" said someone with an appreciative wink at Jacob. He pretended not to notice, but couldn't entirely suppress a smile. Some of the tradesmen and servants rose to go to the kitchen and collect their dinners, which they had brought in to be heated. Others brought out bread and cheese in cloths and called for more to drink. One of the kitchen lasses brought in a tray with silver covers on it and looked around the room. The silent man rose from his seat in the corner, wrapped up the now cold pipe carefully and put it away, took the tray with a nod of thanks and left the room.

  The only person in the room without food was the stranger, the one who looked like a groom. That was what Jacob, watching from the serving trestle, had privately named him. He had of course noted that this man had only bought one small cup; he had managed, by telling some amusing - and occasionally filthy - stories, to obtain several more drinks from other customers. He had nothing to eat; and Jacob thought that he recognised the man's circumstances. He was without a master; a man without work; a man without a place. Under the terms of the law he was a risk at best. He could always gain a few drinks and a bite to eat by the telling of tales and the sharing of insider knowledge about horses, as he had been doing. The few words of confidential conversation that Jacob had overheard between the stranger and one of the regulars proved that he did genuinely have some knowledge.

  "Aye, well, nettle seed beaten in eggs with honey to make a drench will put a gleam on a horse's coat the like of which you'll not have seen ... put life in a dead one, too, that will. Put it in fine fig!"

  Now, as Jacob watched the stranger's eyes following Matthew and the tray, he knew he was also looking at a man who had not eaten for some time. He noted how loosely the clothes were hanging on his body; the slightly unkempt air; the attempt that had been made to clean mud from the boots that had once been quality, perhaps a hand-me-down from a previous master. After Matthew had left the room, the stranger's envy
and hunger got the better of him and he pronounced loudly, "He was a silent one, eh! Not a word out of him, sitting in the corner, smoking his pipe! Dommerer, is he?"

  One of the men eating at a table said, without raising his head or bothering to swallow the food in his mouth, "Moon-man!"

  Another disagreed, "Nah, nah! Frenchie."

  Yet another piped up: "Spaniard!"

  In fact, Matthew was not dumb; nor an Egyptian, or gypsy as they were coming to be known. He was none of these, but something far more exotic than the imaginations of the common room customers could make. He was born in the forests of the north-eastern seaboard of the New World; and it was a long time since he had seen it.

  Jacob watched the stranger, torn between sympathy and caution. He wished his father were here to advise him and was conscious of the weight of responsibility on his shoulders. Then another look passed over the man's face and his shoulders slumped slightly. He stood, looking out of the door as though somehow he could still see the tray or smell the food that was on it.

  "Here," said Jacob to the stranger. "Tell them in the kitchen that I said you could have some cheese and bread. You can work in the stable later for payment."

  "I have papers. Commendation from my master. My last master." The man began to reach into his jerkin.

  "Busy now. Show me when it's quieter. There's food in the kitchen."

  There was gratitude and something else in the man's face. Pride? Anger at his situation? Bitterness arising from some old memory or resentment? Who could tell? The look passed quickly, to be replaced by ... not gratitude, but relief. The stranger followed his nose like a dog to the source of the delicious cooking smell.