Chapter 7: Help

(Lady Alwen Archer of Oaklea, pregnant wife of Will Archer, narrates)

Hearing news that Bartown is locked up in isolation from its surroundings has me worried about both of the important people in my life. I am concerned for my husband, lately summonsed from his leave of absence and about to be shut into a town with a silent killer for a bedfellow, if he has not already returned. I worry also for my dear brother and son Robin, so keen in the practice of his archery, that surely Will will allow him to proceed with his tour, rather than face the risk of catching the sickness in town. But Robin will be alone, with only Henry to care for him and, big as Henry is, he cannot take the place of my William Archer.

I speak to Father Andrew several times during the day. He is a comfort as the only one who understands this business. Thrice I toiled up that hill, and once he came down to me, sitting in my brew house sampling the goods while I worked upon the next brew!

It helps to keep busy during the day.

I meet with Allyce, the wife of my new estate steward Geoffrey, and her young child. They are settling in. She is so grateful for this chance of a new life, and she loves her cottage already. To me it is small, one room downstairs and two upstairs. The walls are timber framed with wattle and daub and lime plaster on top, with cow hide windows. The roof is thick bundled straw but we are gradually replacing the straw with oak tiles held with wooden pegs in other homes on the manor. Meanwhile, the smithy and bow workshops are roofed with Welsh slate. Allyce tells me that their last home was made of straw bales stacked one on top of the other and only one room high. There were no windows, and fitted with a simple sloping roof covered with a thin layer of straw that let the rain in!

I am so lucky, to have been born and brought up in a well founded and well run inn. We were always comfortable, with lots of paying guests coming and going, so we were rarely short of food and drink. When my mother died and my father sank into a stupor over what he had done to us, it was as if I had to play Mother to both my father and baby Robin. I was still only a child myself, and had just lost my dear mother and darling daughter. I had no time to go weak with grief over the loss of my mother or my dearest baby Alice. I had no time to worry about anything. I had a sick father and a poor baby brother, born so early in his hatching, that he was tiny, too tiny to survive, the midwives said. Yet look at him now!

I had been aware that my mother had run the household side of the business on a rigorous routine of breakfast, clean, wash, lunch, dry and iron, dinner and clean up. We had a lot of maids and cooks and cleaners, a cooper for the brew house and men to look after the horses, and re-shoe them as necessary. The brewing she did once a week, in what is now my much extended brew house at the back. Everyone said she made the best ale in the area. Even other ale wives would ask her the secrets and the recipes, but she would never tell. When she taught me her recipes, she said it was two simple things, the quality of the well water and cleanliness of the brew house, so the ale wouldn’t spoil too soon before it was coopered and sold. I made mistakes at first, but I stuck to her routine and I stopped making mistakes, I honed my skills. My mother taught me to read, write and reckon numbers, to know the price of everything, work out the waste and add a margin; to do the books every day and see that no one cheats you, because they will if they can.

I laugh at some of my thoughts. And those thoughts always go back to my William. He taught me an early lesson of trust, that not everyone cheats and takes from the weak, not everyone. I never told Mother that Will gave me the six pence in silver coin that he was paid to wed me. He stood there at the wedding in the doorway outside the church. He was tall and strong, his thick black hair too tight and curly to put even a comb through its natural unruliness. He took my tiny hands in both his and gently stroked the back of my hands with his thumbs. Father Andrew said words in blessing, but his presence really wasn’t needed, there was just the two of us, boy and girl. I could hear and feel him breathe. I looked up and he looked down, with a small smile on his face. I heard the slight gasp in his voice as he really looked at me for the first time. I, too, had only taken peeks at him when he thought no one was looking at him. He leaned forward and I hesitated. I had seen weddings before and there was always a kiss, always. I was with child, but I had never been kissed by any man other than my family. And now William was my family, though I knew he would be snatched away from me to live the life he had chosen on the road. I prayed he would take me with him, and I prayed that he would stay. Our lips touched gently for just a moment and I felt a shock, like you get rubbing silver and leather together vigorously. And while I was still in shock over our kiss, during which we both kept our eyes on each other, not willing to misswitness our joining. Will had pressed something into my hand, during the kiss, which I automatically clutched to my chest, but then William Archer, my bridegroom, was gone.