Something Red

by Douglas Nicholas

  He looked up at her; the relief from fear he felt was so immediate he almost stumbled: it was as though a wind he had been walking against had ceased. She patted him a few times and he moved to the ox’s head, his spirits bounding up. Behind him he heard the pilgrim resume happily.

  “. . . and anyroad tha mun give it afterward a wash wi’ copper salts, brings out t’ blue, or iron salts for t’ black, or tin salts as brings out t’ red, sithee, and t’ salts sets t’ colors stronger as well.”

  They came upon a small knot of pilgrims who had paused beside a roadside shrine, the crudely made cross in a little roofed box fastened to a large oak just off the trail. There was a simple wooden bench on which to kneel, and two of the group were just rising, signing themselves with the cross. They had left some small items of devotion at the foot of the shrine, coins and ribbons, little crosses the pilgrims fashioned for the purpose from withes, done beforetime in the long evenings wherever they rested for the night.

  Hob halted the ox and Molly set the brake as they came up to the little group of pilgrims pooled in the way. Hob looked up at Molly and she nodded. He went and knelt by the shrine and said three Aves and three Paternosters. He prayed that they would finish the journey unmolested. After a moment Aylwin knelt beside him and bowed his head into his hands, silent for once. Molly remained up on the wagon seat. The other pilgrims were already beginning to stream away into the forest, and Hob got back to his post. They waited for Aylwin, and when he crossed himself at last and rose, leaving a coin at the shrine, Hob clucked to the ox and they moved off with a squealing of axles.

  Hob looked back as he walked. Nemain did not even slow at the shrine, and Jack merely crossed himself as he drew abreast.

  Hob set himself into the rhythm of march. The chatterings of the band of pilgrims ahead, and the scarce-heeded drone of Aylwin’s expositions, became a pleasant background as he swung along through the trees. Now that the fear had gone he was able to enjoy the chill freshness of the air, the play of sunlight through the branches.

  Tomorrow, late in the day, they should come to the inn that was their next destination; it was to be the last protracted stop before they drove south through extensive forestland. There was a faint unease in his heart only because this night they were to camp among the trees. Still, Molly had said there was nothing.

  The day was clear; the threat of snow had abated, though the wind was now picking up and causing the bare branches to rub against one another, a doleful sound.

  Aylwin passed him, flourishing his staff jauntily as he hurried on ahead to find a suitable campsite. The wagons toiled noisily on; every so often they would have to slow to squeeze between twisting ancient tree roots or moss-grown boulders that had narrowed the path. Hob could just see the last few pilgrims ahead, and just hear their chatter, trailing to a murmur.

  THAT NIGHT THEY CAMPED in a clearing. Five fires, arranged in a loose ring, spat and crackled. Hob lay fully dressed even to his shoes, a wool throw over his sheepskin coat, between one of the fires and the wagons drawn up outside the ring of flame. The women were all within the wagons, at Molly’s invitation, and Jack Brown and some of the younger men were taking turns on watch, walking around at the edge of darkness, where the trees and the black aisles between them began.

  The woodland to the immediate north was royal forest; six knights served it as king’s regarders, and the measuring of the regard or preserve, undertaken each three years, had been done this autumn past. The movement of the knights and their retainers through the woodland had driven the two or three resident outlaw bands to the south, and this stretch between Monastery Mount and Osbert’s Inn was, according to all current reckoning, fairly safe. Nonetheless, Jack’s instinct and experience had led him to organize sentry duty, showing the pilgrims what he wanted, mostly by gesture and example, but occasionally with a translation by Hob or Nemain of his thick rusty speech.

  Now Hob watched Jack move about the rim of the camp, occasionally stepping out of sight behind a tree that his eyes might adjust to the shadows, the better to see any who approached. Hob’s belly was full and he was tired from the day’s march. He listened idly to the pilgrims’ chatter, but much of it was gossip from the tanners’ community at Carlisle, difficult to follow if one did not know those involved: the conversation ranged over advancements and declines of fortune, squabbles and maneuvering for position within the guild, modifications of technique planned or accomplished.

  Suddenly he was aware that the fires were lower, and that Jack sat nearby—how had that happened? Jack Brown’s ungloved hands were folded on the butt of the war hammer, beak-down in the dirt, and his forehead rested on his hands. He seemed asleep, but lightly, and the weapon was under his hand. Hob rolled onto his side and watched Jack through eyes that would not open fully. Something was different. . . . Hob realized that Jack was silent. He was used to the bone-rattling snores of the soldier, echoing through their tiny camps. Even as he looked, Jack lifted his head and scanned the clearing.

  Across the nearest fire, two young men—Hob recognized the sickly woman’s sons—paced quietly about the periphery, hefty staves in hand. Jack let his head drop once more, and Hob closed his eyes.

  After what seemed a moment Hob opened his eyes and Jack was again on his feet and stalking the edge of the clearing. The fires were gray ash, with here and there a golden ember; down all the aisles of the trees to the east stole a thin gray-blue light. A chill breeze rose up. Morning was at hand.

  THE PARTY BROKE CAMP quickly and were soon on their way. Near the end of the next afternoon the road dipped into a dell, through pools of shadow cast by the ridges around; the trees above were still lit by the declining sun, but here in this hollow there fell an early twilight. Hob found himself leaning back against the slope as the monks had done on Monastery Mount.

  Clumps of gorse rose to either hand; as the travelers descended into the damp little valley, birch and hazel gave way to alder and willow. Ahead the track curved out of sight around a stand of snow-sodden pines, but Hob could hear the leading pilgrims exclaiming; an excited hubbub arose.

  As the ox plodded around the turn, the way widened somewhat; the high banks to either side fell away; the declining sun fell brightly on open land. A broad trail swung in from the north and ended at Hob’s left hand. On his right, set back a bit from the road, nestled into a forest clearing, now appeared the massive log-built sides of Osbert’s Inn.

  Part II

  THE INN

  CHAPTER 5

  OSBERT’S INN WAS COMPOSED of three buildings that nestled against one another and a stalwart high wall across the north front, forming a square with a large courtyard in the center. Midway in the north wall were wide double doors; these doors now stood open, and within Hob could glimpse the first pilgrims looking about eagerly at the night’s accommodation.

  Osbert’s grandfather, Forwin atte Well, had been a prosperous householder—Osbert still had his tunic, dyed a forest green and trimmed with squirrel—farming his three virgates of land, on which was the excellent well that gave the family its name. Forwin had supplemented his family’s substantial wealth, as many villagers did in those times, by providing hospitality to travelers and pilgrims in his own house. Osbert’s father, Ernald, had made the inn the focus of the family’s efforts, although the seventy-two-acre farm still supplied much of the inn’s produce.

  Ernald had built the inn of great logs to make a secure dwelling for the night; the more usual wattle and daub walls were in danger of being tunneled through. In Bywood Old End, the tiny village that lay perhaps a quarter mile from the inn, some of the outlying cottages had suffered the depredations of roving bands of thieves called housebreakers, who would break through a dried-mud cottage wall with a plowshare used as a ram, take what they might, sometimes injuring or killing those within, and disappear southward into the forest.

  The inn doors were closed these days at sundown and opened only for departing villagers, and with caution, in the hours of darkness.
Osbert had a fair amount of custom from these villagers; whole families would spend the evenings there, especially in winter with its long nights and idle days. Folk arrived in small groups at dusk, but left in one large band, with drunken quarrels and snatches of song echoing through the trees, whoops and whistles floating back to the inn, fading with distance, the noise falling off as each family turned in at its own dooryard.

  Now Hob hastened toward the inn, his arm stretched behind him: the ox, usually so eager to reach the comforts of a stable, had decided to assert some small degree of independence, or perhaps just cross-grainedness, by refusing to be hurried. Hob noticed that the ground had been cleared of trees and high bushes for a score of yards around the walls. Someone had taken care not to leave cover for bandits approaching with stealth. And now, as he came near, Hob realized that what he had taken for the side of the house was a log wall about six feet high, and that it ran all the way around the compound, with gates set in it and another set of gates in the true wall behind. Between the two sets of walls was a narrow alley about ten feet wide. Hob had never seen a similar arrangement.

  He led the ox through the outer gate and then the wide inner gate beside the main building, gates that led into a capacious courtyard. And now, pushing through the pilgrims who were milling about the courtyard and straggling into the inn itself through the inside door, here came the host to greet Molly, his face alight with much the same expression as Brother Wulfstan’s had had.

  “God and Mary with ye, Mistress Molly,” said the innkeeper, coming up to the wagon and taking Molly’s outstretched hand in both of his. “Welcome to my house. Which it’s a merry night we see, whensoever ye come to us; we will have music!” And dropping his voice: “And the fill of the house of these fat-purse pilgrims ye’ve brought us, God be praised, else yon Jack would beggar me at table, him and his hunger, pack o’ wolves ’ud be kinder to my larder. Left us barren he did, Egypt after t’ locust ye might say, t’year before last.” But he was beaming at her, and even Hob could tell his words were meant to have no sting, and he still clung to her hand, and gazed on her. Molly was a friend to him, but beyond that, Molly, stout and well-proportioned Molly, grandmother or no, was good to look upon, and Osbert was no child himself.

  A few months’ faring with Molly’s troupe had taught Hob that she was never asked for payment for their lodging. If anything, she would come away with some fee or reward, in coin or in kind, for the music they made or the healing she performed. Sometimes gifts were pressed upon her just for her advice, or her mediation in some village quarrel, for everyone trusted her. She was wealthy not only in their equipage and the little purses of silver and gold stored here and there within the wagons, but in the web of friends and patrons she retained, scattered along the roads of England, and one of these was Osbert of Osbert’s Inn.

  “A blessing on your house and all within,” said Molly. “It is my delight entirely to enter here.”

  Osbert atte Well was a large bald man inclined, as is the way with innkeepers, to portliness. A sand-colored beard worn in the old style framed an expression that managed to be both calm and wary, as if he expected some type of misbehavior from his guests, but knew himself equal to quelling it when it arose. From the outsize leather belt about his waist dangled a mostly clean linen cloth, somewhat stained at the bottom where he wiped his hands.

  In keeping the peace in his house he was aided by three stalwart and jovial sons and a few housecarls. Forwin and Ernald resembled their father somewhat: fair-haired and great of body. But the third son, Matthew, favored Osbert’s late wife, as did Osbert’s handsome twin daughters, Parnell and Margery: all three were short, dark, lean.

  FORWIN AND MATTHEW came up with a couple of housecarls to help the little caravan settle in. The two brothers were polite and even deferential to Molly and Nemain; Jack was greeted boisterously, with raucous jests about “oor Hercules, sithee,” and much slapping of his back—the young men were plainly admirers. Hob was introduced, and Molly and Osbert wandered off toward the inn proper, deep in conversation.

  Although Molly’s little clan had not passed this way in the eighteen months that Hob had traveled with them, Nemain had told him of Osbert’s Inn and its infamous mastiffs, who gave tongue only in the daylight hours. Now, over the noise of the pilgrims’ chatter and the rumble of the wagons, Hob could hear a hubbub of barking and howling from the kennels at the southwest corner of the courtyard; soon came shouted rebukes, and a gradual cessation of the clamor.

  Forwin showed them where to place the wagons, drawn up against the logs of the blank north wall, just inside the gate. With Osbert’s sons and the two retainers helping, the wheels were soon chocked and the animals unhitched. Forwin led the way to the stables, and Hob and Nemain and Jack trudged behind, leading the three beasts. Osbert had good accommodation for man and mount, clean and well built.

  After they had the three animals settled down and fed, Nemain and Jack and the brothers made their way back across the hard-packed ground of the inner compound to the inn. Hob wandered about by himself, all eyes; this was one of the most interesting places they had come to and he was eager to see it.

  The size of the courtyard surprised him. Along the south side was the storehouse, divided into the pantry and the buttery and the well house; the inn proper, with its satellite dorters inside the courtyard, formed the eastern wall of the compound; the west wall included the kennels, stables, and pigeon cotes—the inn’s pigeon pie had a kind of fame all its own—and along the front or north wall were various sheds and booths and a privy. To his disappointment the kennels presented blank walls to the courtyard, and the housecarls shooed him away: it was too dangerous to allow guests within.

  He entered a door in the southeast corner, between the inn and the storehouse, and found himself in a short enclosed walkway where brooms were leaned in a corner; from wooden pegs hung coiled rope and a tattered cloak. Three wide doorways led from this passage. To his left must be the inn: a din of voices sounded just beyond, and now and again he could hear Molly above the talk and laughter.

  Two doorways led to the right. He poked his head into one and found himself in the pantry, an Eden of tempting fragrance. A spacious counter ran thwartwise immediately inside the door, barring entrance to the rest of the long room. The pantry took up a good part of the storehouse. One of Osbert’s elder retainers served as pantler, with two of the younger housecarls as prentices. The pantler nodded pleasantly enough to Hob, but after a bit, Hob realized that one or the other of Osbert’s pantry crew was keeping an unobtrusive watch on him.

  Hob stood just inside the doorway and looked down the room at the bunches of dried herbs and bags of spices, some grown locally and some that Osbert traded for. Smoked hams and mutton legs and cheeses swung from the roof beams. The walls, of roughly dressed logs chinked with clay, were lined with barrels and bins stretching away into the shadows.

  He had to step in and move to the side as cook’s mates came hurrying in, one after the other, from the inn’s main room, where cooking was done in the great fireplace. A flurry of urgent requests, and the younger pantrymen began bringing meats and grains and spices to the counter to be taken away, while the pantler kept account with tally sticks.

  After a hectic few minutes, the cook’s prentices were gone; the pantler came up to the counter and leaned on his elbows. Hob said, looking about, “Is all this Master Osbert’s, then?”

  “It is indeed, cock. Tha’s just come wi’ yon pilgrims, hast tha? But surely tha’s young to be away on pilgrimage?”

  “Away on— No, sir, I’m with Mistress Molly’s people.”

  “Is Mistress Molly come in again, then!” He spoke over his shoulder. “Perkin, Daniel! Here’s Mistress Molly’s lad, her what eased my little Hildelith of her fever.”

  After that, nothing would do but that Hob would be shown about the pantry and given a glimpse of some of Osbert’s riches, with Tilred the pantler as proud as though they were his own.

  He wav
ed a hand at sacks and wooden bins. “Theer’s thy anise, ginger, an’ t’ small cask is pepper; yon quarter-bushel cask is salt. Look tha aboon: theer hangs thyme, rosemary, and t’ wee sacks are of mustard seed. Thae bins are turnips an’ onions an’ garlic, sithee, an’ theer by t’ wall be casks o’ salt meat, an’ we put up t’ dried peas an’ beans an’ oats an’ such in yon butts.”

  These last were barrels almost as big as Hob himself, stacked in two-tiered rows. His eye followed them as the pair marched deep into the pantry’s recesses. In the back wall he could just make out a doorway into a large room, where even greater barrels loomed in the shadows: the buttery, where the butts of ale and wine were stored. “Yon’s t’buttery, which young Master Forwin has in charge, sithee.” To one side of the buttery entrance was a staunch well-made door, its bar secured with a cumbersome cylindrical lock. Osbert was reputed to have a store of silver coin; some said golden coin as well.

  “. . . and remember Tilred to thy mistress, lad,” the pantler was saying. He plunged a broad hand into an open sack and poured a fistful of almonds into Hob’s cupped palms.

  Hob thanked him and wandered back into the passageway. He put most of the almonds in his pouch, then knelt and cracked a few with the hilt of his knife. Water splashed nearby; voices echoed hollowly from wooden walls. Hob, his mouth full, went to the third doorway, off to the courtyard side of the passage.

  Here he discovered a small octagonal outbuilding, attached to the storehouse; this housed the deep handsome well, sturdily built of fitted stone, that had given the family its name. It had originally been outdoors, but then Osbert’s enterprising father had seen fit to enclose it, and now water drawn up by winch and bucket could be poured into stone troughs that ran through the walls, in this direction into the adjacent inn, in that direction into the adjacent stables. Now none need haul large buckets of water across a courtyard slippery with slush, or break a skim of ice on troughs that watered the livestock.