Epic Historial Collection (258 page)

That was bad news. Gwenda had never known Perkin to come home from the market with so much unsold produce.

Annet seemed unworried. She held out a hand to Wulfric, who helped her down from the cart. As she stepped to the ground, she stumbled, and fell against him with her hand on his chest. “Oops!” she said, and smiled at him as she recovered her balance. Wulfric flushed with pleasure.

You blind idiot, Gwenda thought.

They went inside. Perkin sat at the table, and his wife, Peggy, brought him a bowl of pottage. He cut a thick slice from the loaf on the board. Peggy served her own family next. Annet, her husband Billy Howard, Annet's brother Rob, and Rob's wife. She gave a little to Annet's four-year-old daughter, Amabel, and to Rob's two small boys. Then she invited Wulfric and his family to sit down.

Gwenda spooned up the broth hungrily. It was thicker than the pottage she made: Peggy was putting stale bread in, whereas in Gwenda's house the bread never lasted long enough to go stale. Perkin's family got cups of ale, but Gwenda and Wulfric were not offered any: hospitality went only so far in hard times.

Perkin was jocular with his customers, but otherwise a sourpuss, and the atmosphere in his house was always more or less dismal. He talked in a disheartened way about the Kingsbridge market. Most of the traders had had a bad day. The only ones doing any business were those who sold essentials such as corn, meat, and salt. No one was buying the now-famous Kingsbridge Scarlet cloth.

Peggy lit a lamp. Gwenda wanted to go home, but she and Wulfric were waiting for their wages. The boys began to misbehave, running around the room and bumping into adults. “It's getting near their bedtime,” said Gwenda, though it was not really.

At last Wulfric said: “If you'll give us our wages, Perkin, we'll leave.”

“I haven't got any money,” Perkin said.

Gwenda stared at him. He had never said anything like this in the nine years she and Wulfric had been working for him.

Wulfric said: “We must have our wages. We've got to eat.”

“You've had some pottage, haven't you?” Perkin said.

Gwenda was outraged. “We work for money, not pottage!”

“Well, I haven't got any money,” Perkin repeated. “I went to market to sell my apples, but no one bought them, so I've got more apples than we can eat, and no money.”

Gwenda was so shocked that she did not know what to say. It had never occurred to her that Perkin might not pay them. She felt a stab of fear as she realized there was nothing she could do about it.

Wulfric said slowly: “Well, what's to be done about it? Shall we go to the Long Field and take the seeds back out of the ground?”

“I'll have to owe you this week's wages,” Perkin said. “I'll pay you when things get better.”

“And next week?”

“I won't have any money next week, either—where do you think it's to come from?”

Gwenda said: “We'll go to Mark Webber. Perhaps he can employ us at the fulling mill.”

Perkin shook his head. “I spoke to him yesterday, in Kingsbridge, and asked if he could hire you. He said no. He's not selling enough cloth. He'll continue to employ Jack and Eli and the boy, and stockpile the cloth until trade picks up, but he can't take on any extra hands.”

Wulfric was bewildered. “How are we to live? How will you get your spring plowing done?”

“You can work for food,” Perkin offered.

Wulfric looked at Gwenda. She choked back a scornful retort. She and her family were in deep trouble, and this was not the moment to antagonize anyone. She thought fast. They did not have much choice: eat or starve. “We'll work for food, and you'll owe us the money,” she said.

Perkin shook his head. “What you're suggesting may be fair—”

“It is fair!”

“All right, it is fair, but just the same I can't do it. I don't know when I'll have the money. Why, I could owe you a pound come Whitsun! You can work for food, or not at all.”

“You'll have to feed all four of us.”

“Yes.”

“But only Wulfric will work.”

“I don't know—”

“A family wants more than food. Children need clothes. A man must have boots. If you can't pay me, I will have to find some other way of providing such things.”

“How?”

“I don't know.” She paused. The truth was, she had no idea. She fought down panic. “I may have to ask my father how he manages.”

Peggy put in: “I wouldn't do that, if I were you—Joby will tell you to steal.”

Gwenda was stung. What right did Peggy have to take a supercilious attitude? Joby had never employed people then told them at the end of the week that he could not pay them. But she bit her tongue and said mildly: “He fed me through eighteen winters, even if he did sell me to outlaws at the end.”

Peggy tossed her head and abruptly began to pick up the bowls from the table.

Wulfric said: “We should go.”

Gwenda did not move. Whatever advantages she could gain had to be won now. When she left this house, Perkin would consider that a bargain had been struck, and could not be renegotiated. She thought hard. Remembering how Peggy had given ale only to her own family, she said: “You won't fob us off with stale fish and watery beer. You'll feed us exactly the same as yourself and your family—meat, bread, ale, whatever it may be.”

Peggy made a deprecating noise. She had been planning to do just what Gwenda feared, it seemed.

Gwenda added: “That is, if you want Wulfric to do the same work as you and Rob.” They all knew perfectly well that Wulfric did more work than Rob and twice as much as Perkin.

“All right,” Perkin said.

“And this is strictly an emergency arrangement. As soon as you get money, you have to start paying us again at the old rate—a penny a day each.”

“Yes.”

There was a short silence. Wulfric said: “Is that it?”

“I think so,” Gwenda said. “You and Perkin should shake hands on the bargain.”

They shook hands.

Taking their children, Gwenda and Wulfric left. It was now full dark. Clouds hid the stars, and they had to make their way by the glimmer of light shining through cracks in shutters and around doors. Fortunately they had walked from Perkin's house to their own a thousand times before.

Wulfric lit a lamp and built up the fire while Gwenda put the boys to bed. Although there were bedrooms upstairs—they were still living in the large house that had been occupied by Wulfric's parents—nevertheless they all slept in the kitchen, for warmth.

Gwenda felt depressed as she wrapped the boys in blankets and settled them near the fire. She had grown up determined not to live the way her mother did, in constant worry and want. She had aspired to independence: a patch of land, a hardworking husband, a reasonable lord. Wulfric yearned to get back the land his father had farmed. In all those aspirations they had failed. She was a pauper, and her husband a landless laborer whose employer could not even pay him a penny a day. She had ended up exactly like her mother, she thought; and she felt too bitter for tears.

Wulfric took a pottery bottle from a shelf and poured ale into a wooden cup. “Enjoy it,” Gwenda said sourly. “You won't be able to buy your own ale for a while.”

Wulfric said conversationally: “It's amazing that Perkin has no money. He's the richest man in the village, apart from Nathan Reeve.”

“Perkin has money,” Gwenda said. “There's a jar of silver pennies under his fireplace. I've seen it.”

“Then why won't he pay us?”

“He doesn't want to dip into his savings.”

Wulfric was taken aback. “But he could pay us, if he wanted to?”

“Of course.”

“Then why am I going to work for food?”

Gwenda let out an impatient grunt. Wulfric was so slow on the uptake. “Because the alternative was no work at all.”

Wulfric was feeling that they had been hoodwinked. “We should have insisted on payment.”

“Then why didn't you?”

“I didn't know about the jar of pennies under the fireplace.”

“For God's sake, do you think a man as rich as Perkin can be impoverished by failing to sell one cartload of apples? He's been the largest landholder in Wigleigh ever since he got hold of your father's acres ten years ago. Of course he has savings!”

“Yes, I see that.”

She stared into the fire while he finished the ale, then they went to bed. He put his arms around her, and she rested her head on his chest, but she did not want to make love. She was too angry. She told herself she should not take it out on her husband: Perkin had let them down, not Wulfric. But she
was
angry with Wulfric—furious. As she sensed him drifting off to sleep, she realized that her anger was not about their wages. That was the kind of misfortune that afflicted everyone from time to time, like bad weather and barley mold.

What, then?

She recalled the way Annet had fallen against Wulfric as she stepped down from the cart. When she remembered Annet's coquettish smile, and Wulfric's flush of pleasure, she wanted to slap his face. I'm angry with you, she thought, because that worthless, empty-headed flirt can still make you look such a damn fool.

 

On the Sunday before Christmas, a manor court was held in the church after the service. It was cold, and the villagers huddled together, wrapped in cloaks and blankets. Nathan Reeve was in charge. The lord of the manor, Ralph Fitzgerald, had not been seen in Wigleigh for years. So much the better, Gwenda thought. Besides, he was Sir Ralph now, with three other villages in his fiefdom, so he would not take much interest in ox teams and cow pasture.

Alfred Shorthouse had died during the week. He was a childless widower with ten acres. “He has no natural heirs,” said Nate Reeve. “Perkin is willing to take over his land.”

Gwenda was surprised. How could Perkin think of taking on more land? She was too startled to respond immediately, and Aaron Appletree, the bagpipe player, spoke first. “Alfred has been in poor health since the summer,” he said. “He's done no autumn plowing and sown no winter wheat. All the work is to be done. Perkin will have his hands full.”

Nate said aggressively: “Are you asking for the land yourself?”

Aaron shook his head. “In a few more years, when my boys are big enough to help, I'll jump at such a chance,” he said. “I couldn't handle it now.”

“I can manage it,” Perkin said.

Gwenda frowned. Nate obviously wanted Perkin to have the land. No doubt a bribe had been promised. She had known all along that Perkin had money. But she had little interest in exposing Perkin's duplicity. She was thinking of how she could exploit this situation to her advantage, and get her family out of poverty.

Nate said: “You could take on another laborer, Perkin.”

“Wait a minute,” Gwenda said. “Perkin can't pay the laborers he's got now. How can he take on more land?”

Perkin was taken aback, but he could hardly deny what Gwenda was saying, so he remained silent.

Nate said: “Well, who else can cope with it?”

Gwenda said quickly: “We'll take it.”

Nate looked surprised.

She added quickly: “Wulfric is working for food. I have no work. We need land.”

She noticed several nodding heads. No one in the village liked what Perkin had done. They all feared that one day they might end up in the same situation.

Nate saw the danger of his plan going awry. “You can't afford the entry fee,” he said.

“We'll pay it a little at a time.”

Nate shook his head. “I want a tenant who can pay right away.” He looked around the assembled villagers. However, no one volunteered. “David Johns?”

David was a middle-aged man whose sons had land of their own. “I would have said yes a year ago,” he said. “But the rain at harvest time knocked me back.”

The offer of an extra ten acres would normally have had the more ambitious villagers fighting among themselves, but it was a bad year. Gwenda and Wulfric were different. For one thing, Wulfric had never ceased to long for land of his own. Alfred's acres were not Wulfric's birthright, but they were better than nothing. Anyway, Gwenda and Wulfric were desperate.

Aaron Appletree said: “Give it to Wulfric, Nate. He's a hard worker, he'll get the plowing done in time. And he and his wife deserve some good luck—they've had more than their fair share of bad.”

Nate looked bad-tempered, but there was a loud rumble of assent from the peasants. Wulfric and Gwenda were well respected despite their poverty.

This was a rare combination of circumstances that could get Gwenda and her family started on the road to a better life, and she felt growing excitement as it began to seem possible.