Bradwell Manor, Lincolnshire
March 1337
Whole be thou Earth
Mother of Men
(Anglo-Saxon ploughing charm)
The snow and ice that had fastened on the earth for weeks on end, gripping too hard for ploughing, were gone. The frozen ponds and ice-fast beck were flowing free now. It was good to feel warmth in the air again, good to feel the tilth turn under the plough, know that spring was come again. The ploughing was late this year. Winter had lasted long. It had seemed that it would last forever, and the whole village in desperate need of food and warmth and sound roofs. Alfred had been as good as his word, and provisions had been despatched to Bradwell, though they were meagre. More substantial were the supplies sent from the manor adjoining their own, from Roger de Langton. A wagon arrived one day laden with sacks of grain and dried pease and flitches of salt pork. Edgar sent back messages of thanks. He had vague memories of his father’s friend, a jovial, sardonic man saddened by the death of his wife. A message came back: ‘You must visit me but not now. I am indisposed and the doctors tell me I must keep to my bed and rest. A tedious prospect but I shall do as they say. I hope you will find some use for the victuals.’ Some use! Edgar sent a messenger blessing the old man and wishing him a speedy recovery.
The fair at Welbourn was timely, held as it was that first week in March. He picked his strongest, fittest men to act as guard, mindful of the woodland gang. Eudo’s gang. He had a name for them now, though there had been no sign nor sound of them for weeks now. He hoped they had moved on, now John Reeve and Cedric Hayward were gone. A guard first, all the same, and after he had the men draw lots, see who would go to the fair. ‘And the next fair, those who don’t go this time are first in line for next,’ he promised. He was humbled by their excitement; this was a rare treat. ‘They are like children, Agathi.’
‘But of course, Edgar. They are not allowed to go anywhere without permission. Of course they are excited.’ She chose not to go, though she would dearly have loved to be free of the manor, just for one day. ‘I shall rest here, and Ellen and Hilda are to go in my place, husband,’ she said firmly. ‘They will know what cloth to choose.’ For she and Edgar had agreed that they would make a gift of new clothes to their villeins and sokemen in time for Easter celebrations. Rightly, it was the duty of the Lord of the Manor but Edgar could not see Alfred recognising it. Agathi watched the procession leave, the horses and carts and men, and women and children shrill with excitement. She watched them return, late in the evening when it was long after sunset, saw the flares of the torches that lit their way, and breathed more easily because they had come home safe, carts heaped with provisions and sleepy bairns. Ellen was starry-eyed, pink-cheeked, ecstatic. ‘Mistress, if only you had been there…’
‘Next time, Ellen. There will be next times. And other fairs in other places.’
‘Mistress!’ Other places? Maybe Stow Fair. Ellen had heard tell of the great Stow Fair. She’d never dreamed of going there. Ellen had never thought she would travel beyond the manor. The mistress, now, for all she was so young, she’d travelled across countries, across seas. Little wonder she was fearless.
There were still stretches of dirty snow in the sunless banks but the snow storms had at last given way to gales and torrents of rain that swept away the snow and ice but caused as many problems as it solved; the sodden land squelched underfoot, thick mud that sucked a man down knee-deep. The swollen beck overflowed, despite their efforts to clear it of weeds and debris. The water flooded the pasture and crofts, coming too close for comfort to the tofts. The storms brought down branches, both rotten and green, and trees were uprooted, some well grown. The best of the timber they could keep for working but the rest, well, good for firewood and God knew they needed all the firewood they could get in this shivering place. The great black poplars remained undisturbed along the edges of the water meadows.
Edgar remembered the first day of ploughing. They had an ancient custom here, surely of the old religion. He didn’t argue blasphemy though the priest, Father Emanuel, tutted. No, he liked this ceremony, this kneading of bread with milk and holy water, reluctantly given by the priest, and the whole laid under the first-turned turf.
Acre full fed;
Bring forth fodder for men!
Blossoming brightly,
Blessed become;
And the God who wrought the ground,
Grant us gifts of growing,
That the corn, all the corn,
May come to our need.
Seed in the earth, and seed of his in Agathi’s belly. Blossoming brightly, blessed become. God bring her safely to childbirth, and this land to harvest.
Now the fields were ploughed and harrowed and sown, and soon bright spears of barley and oats would push through the red-brown earth. The boys shouted and whooped at flocking crows and seagulls, defying them to steal the seed. They knew they were not allowed to kill the pigeons because these belonged to the lord and the church, but Edgar laughed and urged them on. ‘That’s our dinner, boys,’ he said. ‘Greedy creatures! Make your shots count.’ Their eyes glistened. Pigeon pie! And the Maäster said so!
The men worked together to sow all the fields, all working together, sokeman and villein, to make this year a good harvest, and the next winter bearable. Edgar promised the villeins help to tend their own crofts, if they would gift him more days’ work than they were bound to, and they agreed. Agreed, as well, to working on one man’s croft, then another’s, and another’s, one by one, until all were ploughed and harrowed and planted. Never before had they worked land in this way but the Maäster said so!
It was a different place from the one Edgar and Agathi had come to in January; different because its people were different. There was no more hostility and sullen reluctance to work. No sudden eruptions of anger and resentment. No fear of wrongful accusation and harsh punishment. No empty bellies and shivering nights. With the coming of the new young reeve and his gentle wife, the manor was once more well administered, even if the young couple had strange ideas. The trench latrine, now that was a good idea, they agreed, but bathing in great wooden cauldrons that were more like to cook them for pottage? The women lined up with the girls and very young children; the men and boys in another line, with the bathtubs housed in separate huts hastily built just for this.
‘Heathen,’ they muttered, but emerged from their soaking and scrubbing clean and pink and sweet smelling. Even their clothes, new-washed, were clean, lice-free and mud-free. And there were new clothes, the woollen cloth gifted by the master and mistress, to be kept for Holy Days. An early Easter gift. Doff an’ don, just like rich folk; clothes to put on and clothes to put by. Dyed cloth as well, in blues and yellows and a small quantity of madder that the women declared was for Ellen. The women preeked and preened. They combed each other’s hair, and plaited it and pleated it and wove ribbons in and out as the sokemen’s wives did. The children were rosy-clean, and the young girls shiny like new coins. Joan emerged with her hair copper-bright. Agathi found a green ribbon for her and fastened it round her glinting hair. It reminded her of Kazan, and that day at the ca’Ginstinianis, when they had looked at each other in the mirror and wondered at their changed selves, and the miracle of rich robes. Now little Joan looked and wondered at herself in a new yellow kirtle. Her eyes were the colour of catkins before they burst into yellow tails. ‘Pretty girl,’ said Agathi, and kissed her. From a distance, Oluf glowered in silence. Mazzled wench. Prettier than he’d reckoned. Who’d ha’ thought her hair so bright? He flexed skinny shoulders. He wasn’t so bad-looking himself, now he were cleaned up, and in clean clothes. Smelling sweeter than a tussie mussie. He swaggered across the yard in front of Joan. She didn’t poke her tongue out at him now, he noted with satisfaction, but the trail of notes on her elder pipe followed him across the yard, clear and bright in the spring morning.
This was a different life from that they had been used to, said the women. This strange young mistress with her outlandish ide
as…baths every week…well…this was one change they were happy to make. And their complaining men? They’d best get used to it. Stinking brutes.
‘Foreign,’ the men said, darkly, but they shrugged and carried out requests. That was one of the strange changes: no orders but requests that all were unwilling to refuse. Once, old Luke politely asked to speak privately with the Master. It seemed that he disagreed with something the Master had said, and the Master had listened, and bowed to Luke’s greater knowledge of the lie of the land, and told them so, publicly. After that, he referred to Luke in meetings and nobody thought any the worse of him for it. They were heartened by it.
Before the thaw, snow kept them from ploughing but, Edgar said, it gave them the chance to make repairs closer to home. There was threshing to be done, and what was left of the seed corn to be separated. There were repairs to be made to the villeins’ cotts. These were not as bad as feared; Edgar blessed his father for an honest man. He’d had the cotts built well. The thatching was blown and the earthen floors gouged and fetid. In some cotts, slimy damp smeared the walls but that was as easily dealt with as the floors. Thatching now, that was different. Old Andrew had taken a fall and his son was simple-minded. Couldn’t be trusted up the ladders, see, not on his own. Still, if he spared even one man to watch the boy, they could make a fist of it; and they did. One by one, the cotts were rembled and the families re-homed. Summer, may’appen, he’d hire a better thatcher, make the roofs right before the latter-end. He smiled to hear his thoughts falling into the pattern of the villagers’ tongue. Blue’s tongue.
All the tackle for the plough horses was checked for damage, repaired or replaced. The smithy was busy, its anvil ringing throughout the day, new hubs for wheels, the blunted, bent ploughshares good as new. Not only that, Jack Smith was here. The young, barely-apprenticed smith had been left on his own when the old smith died. Edgar found out where Jack Smith was eking out a living with his grand-daughter and brought them both to the manor. Young Jack Smith and Old Jack Smith, they called them, though the young man’s name was Mark. The young man and the grand-daughter were much taken with each other. A wedding in the air, come summer, and the master wanting no fee for arranging the marriage, though it was his right.
Father Emanuel was a happy man now, with order restored and regular worship in the church. He was promised a new thatch for the church this summer – perhaps even shingle – and candles lit for all the saints and martyrs, and black cloth for Lent. ‘I tried to do my best for these villagers but it was not easy. I did what I could for the comfort of their souls.’
‘They needed comfort for their bodies as well, Father,’ Edgar said. He thought, I sound like Dafydd. ‘Why didn’t you tell my brother there was trouble here?’
‘I should have spoken out, Master Edgar,’ the priest said, ‘but if I did they would have got rid of me. And what would have been the good of that to these poor people?
‘“They”?’ asked Edgar.
Father Emanuel dipped his head. ‘Maybe I should have said “she”.’ He sighed. ‘The new lady of the manor, Lady Philippa, she put her own men in charge,’ he said reluctantly. He shrugged. ‘I do not like to say these things. The good Lord says we should not.’
Edgar silently thanked the good Lord that it was not his brother the priest spoke about. ‘But I think you must explain if we are to have justice in this manor, Father. Tell me now.’
The priest sighed and folded his hands inside his sleeves. ‘Your brother’s wife comes of a good family,’ he said. ‘She wants only the best. That is well enough. But the best has to be taken from somewhere, and that is the problem. She doesn’t understand the land, Master Edgar. She thinks she can draw on it, and it is inexhaustible. You and I know this is not so but she will not listen.’
‘And Alfred listens only to her,’ said Edgar. The priest inclined his head. He was unwilling to commit himself in honest speech. Well, thought Edgar, so it always is. Timorous priests. God take the lot of ‘em. ‘Give me Thomas,’ he found himself thinking. ‘Now there’s an honest soul who wants to do the best for his fellow man. And he knows how hard the world can be.’ He laughed at his thoughts. Blue and Hatice and Niko here, part of their family, and Thomas their priest? What wild thinking was this? Add Dafydd and Kazan and Giles. And Rémi and Mehmi. Why not? Why not have them all here, safe in the manor, their company complete again? He paused inside the porch and the entrance to the church; facing him was the huge wall painting of St Christopher, the giant who wished to serve the greatest king in the world, the man who lived on the edge of a dangerous river. One day St Christopher crossed the river carrying not a man but a child who became heavier and heavier, as heavy as the world, and on the other side the child revealed himself as Jesus Christ. And so St Christopher was the saint of travellers. And of the unconfessed. Any sick man on the point of death, if he saw the image of St Christopher, this man would be confessed. And so the saint was painted large opposite the entrance so that he might never be missed.
Now, on this fine-and-blustery March morning, here he was, Edgar, stretching and bracing himself for his turn at the plough. It was good to be in his own country again, making a difference to his land and people. He sighed. If only they were his lands, his people. He had grown fond of his motley villagers, sokemen and villeins alike – and the cottars, the poorest of them all, every one of them eager to be of use, whether it be bee-keeping or swine-herding or – surprising them all – old Herbert who had learned reading when he was a boy and who now schooled the children, boys and girls alike, on Sundays. Edgar took the older ones, and any man or woman who wanted schooling. Agathi joined them. She could read and write but now she wrestled with this strange new lettering and strange new language. Not French. Edgar decided to follow Robert Mannyng of Brunne’s lead, the monk of Sempringham. Edgar had read ‘Handlyng Synne’ when he was at Croyland, astonished then because it was not written in Latin, nor French, but English. Better by far for these villagers and their children. Not that they were all eager to learn. Oluf was one of the reluctant and he only attended because Joan was a star pupil. He couldn’t bear to let a girl – and that girl Joan – better him. He wanted to be out in the woods, hunting down the escaped boar. Now it was coming on spring, there were signs of rooting and trampling. Perhaps it was true, after all, and there was a fierce-some boar loose in the Long Wood.
They had all stopped for a bite mid-morning, oatcakes and cheese, and Edgar crumbled the last of his oatcake. There was a robin flitting about the branches of thorn bushes that sang with hedge sparrows and was bright with blossom. He’d seen it earlier. He held out crumbs in the palm of his hand. The robin hopped closer, its head tilted. Bright, brave bird. Come on. Come closer. The bird hopped to a nearer twig. It regarded him with bright eyes, hesitated, then hopped on to his outstretched hand and pecked from his open palm. He stayed stone still though his mouth curved into a smile. The men about him stayed still as well, wondering at their master’s strange ways. ‘He’s one for the birds right enough,’ they told each other, but secretly they were amazed at the trusting robin and admired their master for it.
A messenger came from the manor abutting Bradwell with a summons from Roger de Langton. ‘Bring your young wife,’ he’d added. ‘I’ve a fancy to see you both.’
Agathi was working in the herb garden. Its woven hurdles were falling apart, no longer keeping out hens and dogs and cats, nor foxes; some plants had perished in the bitter winter, like the bay tree that should have been lifted at the first sign of frost and replanted in one of the many wicker baskets there for just that purpose. Other herbs had survived: bright green chive shoots were already poking through the earth; there was rosemary and rue, thyme and sage, wild garlic and borage yet to come; violets and celandines already budded; lemon balm and mint that were so good for strewing showing shoots above the earth. There was straggling lavender that Agathi was clipping into shape with a pair of precious scissors. Here were herbs for cooking, for strewing, for physicking.<
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Ellen and Hilda had chastised her: no digging or raking, they told her. Keep to the raised beds so there was no bending nor lifting. She had a bairn to think of now and, these first months, care was always needed. She had given in to them, wanting the best for the boy she was sure she was carrying. The two women had taken over the heavier jobs, wielding axes and spades and shears and heavy, clumsy wheelbarrow with the familiarity of long usage. Hilda knew the Nine Herbs Prayer, learned from her mam when she was a bairn, and her mam from her own mam. ‘The prayer tells of the best and most useful herbs for all complaints,’ she said. ‘Mugwort, plantain, shepherd’s purse, nettle, betony, crabapple, chervil, fennel…’ she ticked them off on her fingers as she recited their names. ‘And here they all be, working their magic over us.’ She half-sang, half-muttered the prayer in her throaty voice as she worked amongst the herbs: snatches of it came over the garden to Agathi’s ears:
nettle she is called
dashes she against poison
she drives out wretchedness
throws out poison
Agathi laid aside the scissors she was using when she saw Edgar. ‘By summer this garden will be very useful, Edgar, as well as a great delight.’
He smiled at her, kissed the palm of her hand, kissed her sweet mouth. ‘As you are to me, sweetheart.’
‘Husband!’ she said, reproachfully. ‘We are not alone.’
He glanced across to where Ellen was filling the wheelbarrow with wind-snapped branches of crab apple. Hilda was crouching over the bed where nettles and plantain grew.
shepherd’s purse this plant is called
she on stone grew.
stands she against poison
she drowns out pain
‘They are happy to see us happy, sweetheart.’ He tugged at the sleeve of the simple woollen kirtle she wore; her fashionable gowns were laid down in the great oak chest in the solar. ‘You’ll be needing your fine feathers,’ he said, ‘if they still fit you.’ He placed his hand on her belly, felt the smallest of swelling there. ‘We’re going visiting the neighbours. Sir Roger de Langton, who sent us provisions. He has invited us to visit.’ Summoned, more like, he thought with a quick chill of anxiety. No need to say so to Agathi. ‘Well, I hope it may be profitable. He knew my father. He bought the lands above the Long Wood, and all the South Wood and South Fields. Over a hundred acres of good land. I hope to persuade him to sell some at least back to us. What do you think, sweetheart?’
The Heart Remembers Page 15