Chapter 03
30 min read
Elias woke when his mother opened the shutters. Light fell across his blanket, and for a moment he lay with his eyes closed, hoping she had come to fetch something from the chest. Then he heard the scrape of the milk pail against the doorframe.
“The cow’s been seen to, but your father’s waiting for you to help with the beans. Get something to eat before you go out. I haven’t time to warm it again.”
Anne left the door open behind her. He could hear her pouring milk through the cloth in the kitchen, then setting the empty pail down harder than she needed to. He remembered the first bell and his intention to rise when it finished. Somewhere between the last stroke and now, he had lost a considerable part of the morning.
He sat up, found his stockings beneath the blanket and pulled them on. One had a hole at the heel. He turned it so that the worn part would sit above the place his boot rubbed, a small adjustment he had learned to make without thinking. At seventeen, he had outgrown nearly everything in the room except the bed, and Thomas had already moved its footboard once. His mother kept the cloth she had cut from his old trousers because it was sound enough for patches, though there was little of it left without a patch of its own.
In the kitchen, Anne was lifting the skin from the milk. Two bowls stood on the table, and Elias reached for the fuller one before recognising yesterday’s scraps beneath the porridge. He changed his mind quickly, but his mother had seen.
“Leave that for the dog. Yours has been waiting since your father went out, and if you’d come when I called, you could have had it hot.” She scraped the cream into a little pot and covered it. “Take him some bread when you’ve finished. He said he wasn’t hungry, which means he was thinking about the gate.”
Elias sat and stirred the cold porridge. Through the doorway he could see the gate leaning against its post, held shut by a length of rope. He had repaired it three days earlier. At the time, the crosspiece had seemed sound, and he still thought it might have lasted if the cow had not learned to push against that particular corner.
“I’ll put a thicker piece on this afternoon. There’s some wood behind the barn I can use, if Father hasn’t promised it to someone.” He wiped a drop from the table with his thumb. “I meant to get up. I heard the bell.”
Anne brought the bread over and cut a piece for him before wrapping the rest for Thomas. She had flour on the inside of her wrist and a loose strand of hair caught beneath her collar. Elias would have liked to point it out, but she was still considering his explanation.
“Then tomorrow try putting your feet on the floor while it’s ringing. Once you’re standing, there’s a better chance of something happening.” She set his father’s bread beside the bowl. “And take the hoe with the sound handle. I’ve had enough splinters out of you this week.”
He ate while she worked, breaking his bread into the porridge to make it last. The kitchen smelled of smoke, milk and the damp cloth drying on a peg by the hearth. It had smelled much the same for as long as he could remember. On winter mornings he had dressed here as a child, turning towards the heat while Anne hunted for his stockings. Now he had to move his knees whenever she passed behind him, and she sometimes rested a hand on his shoulder to steady herself as she reached for the shelf.
Before he left, he lifted the milk pail and carried it outside to rinse. Anne called after him to scrub the seam at the bottom. He had already put his hand into it, but he answered that he would and took care to do it properly.
Thomas had started at the lower end of the strip, where the weeds grew thickest beside the ditch. Elias found him kneeling between the beans, loosening the soil with his fingers. His father accepted the bread, inspected what was inside the cloth and ate half before speaking.
“I’d like this finished before you go to the mill. Your mother’s tied up the grain, and there’s a hinge by the door that wants taking to Hobb. Ask whether he’ll straighten it. Don’t agree to a new one without finding out what he wants for it.” He brushed crumbs from his beard and pointed along the row. “Start there. Keep the blade shallow near the stems.”
Elias set to work. Dew soaked the leather over his toes, though the lane above them was already dry. Their holding lay in strips among the other tenants’ land, with pasture beyond and the lord’s meadows following the stream. Thomas knew each boundary by a stone, a change in the ground or something that had happened before Elias came to live with them. Once, when Elias was small, his father had spent an entire walk explaining how a neighbour’s plough had taken part of their land. Elias had imagined a great expanse of stolen field. When Thomas finally showed him, he had been afraid to admit how little he could see.
He had learned since then what a furrow could produce. He knew which end of the strip stayed wet after rain and where the beans came up poorly whatever they did. He liked seeing the rows emerge behind him as he worked, clear earth around the stems, though by the time the sun reached his back he was beginning to wish there were fewer of them.
Thomas followed, pulling the weeds the hoe could not reach. When he stopped to ease his back, Elias worked on without looking round. His father disliked being watched at such moments. There had been a time when Elias tried to lift everything Thomas lifted, determined to prove that he could. Now he took the heavier end when there was one and tried to make it seem accidental.
A cart rattled along the lane. Two men in the manor’s brown coats walked beside it, one carrying a leather case under his arm. Thomas stood to watch them pass, his unfinished bread still wrapped on the bank.
“They’ll be posting the days for the meadows. Have a look when you’re in the village, and see whether they’ve named us both. If it’s Wednesday again, we’ll need the lower ditch cleared tomorrow.”
Elias leaned on the hoe while the cart passed behind the hedge. Last week the notice had named Thursday, and Thomas had rearranged the work twice before the weather made both arrangements useless. He asked whether the ditch could wait until after the cutting, but his father shook his head and showed him where water was gathering along the roots.
Lord Veyne’s meadows would be cut first. Elias had worked there every summer since he was old enough to carry a rake, at first beside Anne and later among the men. He knew where they left their water jars, which overseer let them rest in the shade and which counted a man as idle if he stood long enough to sharpen his blade. Their own hay had to be fitted around those days. So did the beans, the repairs and everything else Thomas listed to himself when he thought nobody was listening.
Elias had seen Veyne once, riding through the village after rain. What he remembered most clearly was the horse, taller than their neighbour’s cart mare, with a plaited mane and water shining on its flanks. The lord had worn pale gloves. Elias had looked down at his own hands afterwards, because he had spent that morning cleaning the ditch and there was dirt beneath every nail.
Mostly, the lord’s business came through his reeve. The reeve sent men to measure the harvest, entered missed labour in his book and decided whether a broken fence was neglect or misfortune. Thomas always took off his cap when speaking to him. Anne did too, though she would sometimes have a great deal to say once the man was beyond hearing.
By the time they finished the row, Elias’s shirt was sticking between his shoulders. Thomas sent him home for the sack and stayed to gather the last weeds. Elias left the bread within his reach before taking the hoe back.
Anne had put the grain beside the kitchen door with the bent hinge and a cloth containing bread and cheese. The household tally lay on top, wrapped separately. She made him put it inside his shirt while she watched.
“Ask Mara to check the extra mark before they measure anything out. Your father says the winter payment cleared it, and I don’t want another portion taken because nobody thought to ask.” She tightened the sack’s knot, though it was already secure. “If there’s a dispute, bring the tally home. Don’t leave it for someone to look at later.”
He promised, bent under the sack and settled it against his shoulder. As he turned, she caught his sleeve to inspect a tear near the collar. Her finger passed through it; she sighed and let him go, telling him to leave the shirt with her that evening.
Will was at the stile with a basket of broken tools between his feet. He had been helping his uncle mend a roof farther up the lane and had escaped to the village on the understanding that the tools were urgently needed. From the way he had settled himself on the rail, Elias doubted that urgency was troubling him.
“I thought you’d already gone past. Uncle wants these left with Hobb, and I said I’d help you with the grain if I found you.” Will climbed down and tried the weight of his basket. “We can change over at the ash tree. I’d sooner carry one heavy thing than have this lot striking my knees all the way.”
Elias agreed, chiefly because the ash tree was not far away. Will fell into step beside him and began describing the roof, where his uncle had discovered rotten wood after agreeing a price. The owner said the damage must have happened when they lifted the old thatch. Will had spent much of the previous afternoon sitting on a ladder while the two men argued below, unable to come down without attracting one of them to his side of the dispute.
Elias had known him since they were seven. Their friendship had begun badly, with a shove into a ditch, but Will had returned the following day offering to show him a dead fox. Elias had never seen one close enough to touch. By the end of the afternoon they were both filthy, the fox had proved disappointing and Anne had made them strip at the door before allowing either inside. Afterwards, Will came often enough that she stopped asking whether his mother knew where he was.
At the ash tree they changed burdens. Will took the sack with more effort than he had expected and adjusted it twice before finding a comfortable place. Elias carried the basket by both handles, keeping it ahead of his knees.
The fair was to be held in the town beyond the eastern valley. Will had been working out how they might go, and he laid out his arrangements as they walked: an early start, bread brought from home and a place to sleep with someone his uncle knew. He had not yet asked the person about sleeping there, but seemed confident this was a minor part of the undertaking.
“If we finish the manor work on Thursday, we could leave before light the next morning. Mara says the wrestling’s on the first day. I’d like to see that, even if we haven’t money for much else.” He moved the sack away from his neck. “You ought to ask Thomas before he finds something for you to do.”
Elias pictured his father considering the ditch, the gate and the henhouse roof. He wanted to go badly enough that he had already counted the walk several times, trying to make it shorter.
“I’ll ask when the gate’s hanging properly. He might listen then. But I’d need to be home the next day, and you’d have to come when you said you would. Last time I waited for you, your uncle had to fetch you out of the alehouse.”
Will explained that he had been helping carry barrels, which was true for part of the time. Elias let him finish. A cart approached from the village, and they stepped into the grass to give it room, the driver raising two fingers without slowing.
Beyond the turning, the upland track disappeared between trees. Somewhere over that slope lay the mine. Elias seldom had cause to go that way, and from here there was nothing to see but foliage and the pale line of the road.
For years he had expected his memory to return. He had imagined recognising a face in the market or waking with the name of a place he could tell Father Martin. As a child he had sometimes offered things he had dreamed, and the priest had listened carefully enough that Elias felt ashamed when he could not say whether they were real. Eventually Father Martin stopped asking. Elias still remembered cold, a borrowed coat and the effort of trying to answer questions, but he had no way of reaching anything before them.
Other children had been interested for longer than he liked. Will had once hit a boy for calling him something about the mine, then complained that Elias had failed to help while the boy’s brother sat on him. By then Elias had learned that any account of the fight would require explaining how it began. He had helped Will wash the blood from his nose and told Anne they had fallen.
Now Will was talking about Mara, who apparently knew someone who might get them through the town gate without paying. Elias pointed out that her brother owed the gatekeeper money. Will considered this while they walked, then admitted they had better keep a penny aside.
The mill yard was crowded when they arrived. Sacks lay along the dry wall, each tied differently so its owner could recognise it, and two carts blocked the entrance. Behind the building the wheel turned steadily, water falling from its boards into the race. Elias could feel the machinery through the loading step when he put his foot on it.
Mara stood above him with a board under her arm. Flour had settled in the dark hair escaping her headcloth, and somebody had left a white handprint on the back of her skirt. She directed Will towards the shed before looking at Elias’s sack.
“Put it beside Bess’s, where the red cord is. We should get to it before noon if the manor doesn’t send anything down.” She held out her hand for the tally. “Your mother said you’d be coming yesterday. Has she enough meal left?”
He explained that there was enough for tonight if he brought this home, then told her what Anne had said about the extra mark. Mara compared the tally with her board. He watched her thumb stop beside the notch and knew from the way she checked again that it was still there.
“My uncle’s kept it against the loan. He says the winter payment didn’t cover all of it.” She turned the tally so Elias could see. “I can’t take it off myself. Thomas will have to come in, or your mother can bring whatever she’s kept from the payment.”
Elias had been thirteen when they borrowed the grain after the wet harvest. He remembered Anne making the first loaf from it and how everyone had eaten without speaking much. He could not remember the amount, though he knew Thomas had brought it home in their largest sack. Since then, portions had gone out of other sacks, and every time he believed they must have reached the end of it.
“He told me it was finished. We set that grain aside before we kept any back for ourselves.” Elias heard his voice carrying farther than he intended and lowered it. “Could your uncle look now? I’d sooner wait than take it home and be sent back.”
Mara glanced through the mill door. Inside, her uncle was arguing with a carter over the order of the sacks. She waited until a burst of machinery noise had passed before answering.
“He’ll tell you what he’s told me, and he’ll make you wait while he does it. Bring the payment tally next time. If the marks match, I can put them in front of him.” She rested the board against her hip. “I know it’s your grain, Elias. I still have to account for what comes through here.”
He looked away towards the sacks. It was unfair that she had to explain this to him in front of people who knew them both, and worse that he had made her. He gave her the grain and waited while the mill’s portion was measured out.
At threshing, six shares of every ten went onto Lord Veyne’s carts. Thomas said some of that was owed to the king. Elias had never seen the next division; he knew only the four shares left on their side, from which they kept seed, fed the animals and tried to carry the household through to another harvest. The mill took its due when they brought grain to be ground. Grinding at home was forbidden. A family near the southern boundary had lost its handstones and paid a fine large enough that Anne still mentioned it whenever someone claimed the reeve could be reasoned with.
Mara returned the tally and told him to come back after noon. He tucked it inside his shirt, careful to wrap it as Anne had done. Will had finished at the shed and was waiting near the gate. For once he had nothing to add, and Elias was grateful as they crossed the lane to the forge.
Hobb examined the hinge in the doorway, where there was light enough to see what Thomas had done to it. He turned it over, tested the bend against his thumb and named a price Elias could not pay. When Elias suggested putting it on the account, the smith went to fetch the piece of wood on which he kept Thomas’s marks.
“There’s the plough iron still, and the two hooks. Your father said he’d settle after the calf went, but I haven’t seen him.” He set the account on the bench beside the hinge. “I can straighten this. I need paying for the work, same as anyone.”
Elias knew about the hooks. One held the pot over their fire; the other was in the barn. He had forgotten that Thomas had not paid for them, and had no idea what had become of the calf money after it came home.
“I could shift something for you, if there’s work that needs doing. Father wants the gate back on today, and I’ve got to wait for the meal anyway.” He glanced towards the rear of the forge, where sacks were piled under a lean-to. “Would you take an hour for it?”
Hobb went to inspect the lean-to. By the time he returned, an hour had become clearing the old timber out, stacking it where the rain would not reach and moving the charcoal sacks away from a leak. Elias followed him round the back and began with the timber.
Will stayed until his uncle came looking for him. He was useful when something needed lifting between two people, though he complained about the dust and was relieved to be called away. Elias worked alone after that, carrying sacks against his chest and trying to keep their coarse seams away from his neck. When he had finished, black powder had worked through his shirt and into the crease of each elbow. He washed at the trough, but the water ran clear before his skin did.
Hobb brought the repaired hinge and watched him wrap it in the bread cloth. The smith had eased the bend and cleaned the eye where it had been catching.
“Tell Thomas to pack it properly behind the plate. If he pulls it crooked against that post, he’ll have it back here before the month’s out.” He looked at the scrape on Elias’s forearm, then towards the cleared lean-to. “There’s water inside if you want a drink before you go.”
Elias accepted. He drank two cups, thanked him and took the hinge back across the lane, holding it away from the bread until the last of its warmth had gone.
The manor wagon had arrived while he was at the forge. Its sacks were being unloaded ahead of those already waiting, and Mara’s uncle stood beside the driver with his cap in his hands. Elias looked for his own grain along the wall, found it untouched and went round the back of the mill.
Will was sitting beneath the willow. His uncle had gone to the alehouse to discuss the roof with its owner, leaving him instructions to remain nearby. He moved over as Elias sat and asked about the hinge. Elias showed him the repair, then unwrapped the food. He divided the bread while Will washed his hands in the race.
Mara joined them a little later, bringing a small knife and the explanation that their sack would go through as soon as the manor’s was finished. She sat on a root, cut the cheese into three portions and gave Elias the largest. He wondered whether she had noticed how little bread there was, or whether it was because of the argument. Either possibility made it difficult to thank her without sounding awkward, so he passed her the cloth to keep the crumbs off her skirt.
Across the stream, grass grew high beneath the alders. They had swum here since childhood, first in the shallows and later in the deeper water against the far bank. Elias could remember Mara hauling him out by the back of his shirt when he slipped, furious because he had frightened her. She was only a year older, but for a long time she had made considerable use of it.
Will returned to the fair as soon as he had eaten enough to speak. He was now proposing to walk back through the night, which would avoid the difficulty of finding somewhere to sleep. Mara listened while pulling a burr from the hem of her skirt.
“You can do that if you like, but I shan’t spend a whole day walking and then turn round before I’ve slept. I’d need shoes before I tried it, anyway.” She lifted one foot to show them where the sole had separated. “My aunt says there’s a cobbler near her cousin’s house who might have a pair someone hasn’t collected. She’s going to ask when she goes into town.”
Elias knew which cousin she meant. There was a possible place in a baker’s household, something Mara had been speaking about since spring. He had assumed it would disappear among all the things people hoped to do once work eased or money came in. Now she was talking about shoes for the journey.
“Has your uncle agreed to let you go? Last time you said he couldn’t find anyone to take your place here.” He picked a crumb from his trousers and pressed it between his fingers. “You’d want to know before you spent what you’ve saved.”
“He hasn’t agreed, but my aunt’s speaking to him. If the baker wants me, there’s the manor’s permission to get as well. I’d sooner have the shoes ready than lose the place because I couldn’t walk there.” She laid her foot back on the root. “I could learn the baking properly. Here I carry sacks and count what comes in, and Uncle still checks the count as though I’ve only just learned.”
Elias had watched her settle disputes that left grown men red-faced and silent. He could see why she wanted something of her own, though he disliked imagining the loading step without her on it. He asked whether she knew the baker, and she told him what her aunt had heard: the household was busy, the wife kept the accounts and there would be a bed above the kitchen. She would receive food as well as wages, if the arrangement was what they had been told.
Will began asking about the town. He wanted to know how far the bakery was from the market and whether its workers were allowed to take home what had not sold. Mara admitted she had not thought to ask the second question. By the time they finished the cheese, the three of them were trying to work out how early a baker rose, and Elias had stopped thinking about the tally.
The noon bell brought Mara to her feet. She gathered the cloth, shook the crumbs into the grass and told him she would look for his sack again. He watched her pick her way up the bank, favouring the shoe with the loose sole.
Will waited until she had gone before speaking. “You could sound pleased for her. She’s been talking about that place for weeks, and every time she tells you something, you find another reason it might not happen.”
Elias started to object, then remembered his question about her uncle. He had thought it sensible. It was sensible, but he could see how it must have sounded after the others he had asked.
“I don’t want her spending everything to get there and finding it’s different from what they promised. She doesn’t know them.” He folded the cloth around the hinge again, making a neater bundle than it needed. “I’ll speak to her when I collect the meal.”
Will seemed prepared to accept this. He lay back on the bank, one arm beneath his head, and began describing a pie he had bought on his last visit to town. Elias listened until the account became so elaborate that he accused him of inventing half the filling. They were still discussing it when someone called from the mill.
The labour notice was up beside the church when Elias passed with the meal. Several men had gathered round Father Martin, who stood close to the paper with his spectacles low on his nose. Elias waited at the edge of the group while the priest read out the households required to provide two workers.
Their name came near the middle. Wednesday and Thursday, both full days, with tools brought from home. Elias settled the sack more securely on his shoulder and listened for anything about postponement if it rained. There was nothing. A man near the church door asked Father Martin to read his entry again, then walked away before the priest had finished. Elias knew his wife had been ill. The extra day beside his name would be for one he had missed in spring.
When the others began to disperse, Elias moved closer and read the notice for himself. Father Martin waited, making no attempt to help when he slowed over a word. The priest had taught him in the kitchen behind the church, with Mistress Bell working around them and objecting whenever ink came near her clean cloths. At first Elias had loved the lessons because they kept him indoors in bad weather. Later he discovered he wanted to know what the next page said even when the sun was out.
Anne had insisted he keep going. Thomas had objected most during planting and harvest, though once Elias could read the headings on an account, he began bringing things home for him to look at. His father still said there were days when a book had to wait. There had been quite a few of those lately.
“They’ve named Father for both days,” Elias said. “His back’s been troubling him. He can work our strips because he can stop when he needs to, but they had him on the wet ground last summer, and he could hardly straighten by the time we got home.”
Father Martin took the spectacles off and folded them into their case. Without them, the marks they left on either side of his nose were plainly visible. His hair had thinned, and there were brown spots on the hand that held the case, but he still listened with the same patience Elias remembered from being small.
“If he’ll let me, I can ask for him to be put on something easier. Speak to him at home first. He won’t thank either of us if the reeve hears he’s unwell before he’s had a chance to say so himself.” The priest stepped aside to let a woman approach the notice. “Tell him I’ll come by if he wants me.”
Elias said he would ask. He could already imagine Thomas’s answer. The reeve had questioned another tenant’s ability to keep his holding after an injury, and the man’s sons had worked every day they could to prevent anyone questioning it again. Thomas had talked about that over supper for a week.
At the top of the notice was the royal crest. Elias knew it from coins, demands and the board outside the reeve’s office. The king himself was a face on money worn nearly smooth by the time it reached them. Father Martin’s books described cities and ports within the kingdom, places where streets ran farther than Elias could walk in an afternoon, but it was difficult to picture them while standing in the churchyard with flour working through the sack against his neck.
He shifted his weight. Across the green, a small boy was sitting on the lower beam of the stocks while his mother bought thread. The wood had been replaced in winter. Elias remembered carrying water to a man held there for cutting beyond the common boundary; Anne had filled the cup herself and told him to come straight back. Rain had begun while the man drank, and Elias had held the cup awkwardly because there was nowhere dry to set it down.
Father Martin asked after Anne, bringing his attention back. Elias remembered the dish she wanted returned and passed on the message. The priest looked towards his house with an expression that suggested he knew exactly where it was and had been hoping she would forget.
“Come in and fetch it before you go. Bell will know which one it is.” He began walking with Elias towards the gate. “And find an evening for your reading. You haven’t been for three weeks. I can keep the place for you, but I’d rather you were here to keep it yourself.”
Elias wanted to say there had been work, then thought of the evenings he had spent by the stream and the time he had gone looking for Will after supper. Father Martin would not ask him to account for those, which made the excuse feel worse.
“I’ll come after we’ve done the manor days, if we’re back in time. I’ve forgotten some of what we read. You’ll have to let me go over the last page before we start.”
The priest said they could go back as far as he liked. At the house, Mistress Bell wrapped Anne’s dish in an old cloth and fitted it under Elias’s free arm. She had questions about his feet, his shirt and whether Anne was eating properly, and he answered them while Father Martin steadied the sack. By the time they let him leave, he had been given a small packet of dried herbs for his mother and instructions to keep the dish upright.
Thomas met him at the gate and took the meal from his shoulder. Elias followed him into the kitchen, setting the dish down with relief before showing him the hinge. His father examined the work and asked what Hobb had charged. When Elias explained about the lean-to, Thomas tested the iron with his thumb and said two hours was fair enough, provided the smith had not put anything more on the account.
Anne untied the meal sack while Elias told them about the notice. At the mention of two days, Thomas looked through the doorway towards the fields. He had washed before coming in, but a line of soil remained along the edge of one wrist.
“We’ll need to begin the ditch at first light. If we can get the water moving, the rest can wait until we’re through the mowing.” He reached for the bread Anne had left on the table. “Did they say which meadow?”
Elias told him there was nothing on the notice, then repeated Father Martin’s offer. He tried to make it sound practical, keeping his attention on the hinge as he spoke. Thomas listened to the end before answering.
“I can do the work. If Martin goes asking, they’ll want to know why, and I’m not having the reeve up here deciding what else I can manage.” He broke the bread and gave Elias half. After a moment, he added, “You can take the lower ground if they put us there. It’s bending to clear the blade that troubles me.”
Anne brushed meal from the sack’s seam into a bowl. She did not intervene, though she asked Thomas to sit while he ate. He remained standing for a little while, then took the stool nearest the door. Elias ate beside him and let the conversation turn to the gate.
They spent the afternoon replacing the crosspiece. Elias measured the wood twice and still cut it too generously, leaving a corner that kept the frame from sitting square. Thomas made him take it off again. For a few minutes Elias was certain the piece could be forced into place without harm; then he saw the strain it put on the repaired hinge and fetched the saw.
They worked more easily after that. Thomas held while Elias drilled, and Elias braced the weight while his father fixed the plate. As a child he had wanted the tools Thomas used without understanding the judgement that went with them. Even now, knowing his father was right did not always make it pleasant to be told. He concentrated on keeping the gate level and was rewarded when it swung clear on the first try.
Thomas opened and shut it several times. The dog came through, sniffed the shavings and lay down where they needed to stand. Elias pushed him aside with his knee while gathering the tools.
“I’d like to go down to the water before supper. I’ll fill the buckets and see to the hens first, and I can finish smoothing that hoe handle when I come back.” He waited while his father checked the latch once more. “Will and Mara should be there.”
Thomas looked at the sun, then told him to be back before Anne had to send someone. Elias carried the tools away before another job could occur to either of them. He filled both buckets to the level his mother liked, checked the hens and went inside to tell her where he was going. She made him wash the charcoal from behind his ears before she let him leave.
Will was already in the stream, standing where the water reached his waist. He called that it was warm, but Elias had known him too long to believe that. He undressed on a flat stone and entered slowly, feeling his way over the slippery ground. By the time he reached Will, the cold had tightened his stomach and made every breath seem too large for his chest.
Mara sat on the bank with her skirts drawn clear of her ankles, repairing her shoe. She had a length of thread between her lips and did not speak while Will described Elias’s progress through the water. Elias waited until his friend turned towards her, then caught him round the middle. Will’s foot slipped before either of them had decided what to do next, and they went under together.
They came up coughing. Mara lifted her work out of reach of the spray and told them that if they soaked the leather she would make them hold it by the mill fire until it dried. Will began to explain that he had been attacked, but swallowed more water when Elias tried to stand on the same stone. By the time they reached the shallows, both were laughing too hard to argue.
Later, Elias swam across to the alder roots and rested with one hand round a branch. From there he could see Will lying on the warm stone and Mara bent over her shoe. The current tugged gently at his legs. His shoulders still ached from the morning, but the stiffness had eased, and for a while he was content to remain where he was, listening to their voices carry over the water.
When he returned to the bank, Mara had finished the seam. She asked to see the scrape on his arm and told him to wash it with soap when he got home. He had been about to say that he had just been swimming, but she was already examining the black dust caught along its edge. He promised instead.
Will went upstream to look for a stocking he was certain he had left on a stone. Elias sat beside Mara while his feet dried. She tested the repaired sole against her palm, then set the shoe down carefully.
“I hope the baker takes you,” he said. “I meant to say that earlier. I kept asking about everything that could go wrong.” He picked up his shirt and found the torn place near the collar. “I suppose I thought you’d still be here by winter. I’d miss seeing you when I came down.”
Mara let the shoe rest between them. For a moment he wished he had stopped after the first sentence; then she smiled, and he was glad he had managed the rest.
“I haven’t gone yet. My uncle may keep us arguing until winter whether the baker wants me or not.” She folded the remaining thread around her fingers. “I’d miss you too. I’d like you both to visit, if I get there. You could see the town properly instead of following your father round the cattle market.”
He said he would like that. She asked whether he would speak to Thomas about the fair, and he told her the gate was finally hanging, which ought to improve his chances. They talked about the journey until Will returned with one wet stocking and a lengthy explanation of how it had come to be downstream when he had been looking above them.
Elias dressed while Mara put away her needle. Before he left, he apologised for the argument over the tally. She told him to bring whatever Anne could find and she would see that her uncle looked at it. Then she reached to turn his collar out where it had folded beneath itself, and he stood still until she had finished.
Anne had put nettles and onions into the pot with the last of the barley. Elias washed at the basin, using soap on the scrape as promised, then took his place at the table. Thomas was already eating. His boots stood by the door, one tipped on its side, and there was a damp cloth draped over his knee where he had spilled water washing.
They went through the next day’s work over supper. The ditch would take most of the morning if its lower end had collapsed. Anne needed ground turned in the garden, but she could begin the easier part herself. Thomas wanted to borrow their neighbour’s cart before the manor days, and Elias offered to go over after breakfast to ask. Each arrangement depended on another; he listened while eating and tried to remember what he had agreed to do first.
When Anne asked about the mill, he took the tally from his shirt and explained what Mara had said. His mother held it near the lamp, checking the mark before placing it beside her bowl.
“I’ve kept the winter one in the chest. I’ll find it tonight, and one of us can go down with both.” She turned to Thomas. “You were there when he cut it. Was it the miller himself, or his brother?”
Thomas thought back, working through the day aloud: the cart they had borrowed, the rain on the way home, someone waiting by the mill door. By the time they finished eating, he was certain it had been the miller. Anne asked him to tell her again once she found the tally, and Elias carried the bowls to the basin while they discussed how much grain had gone.
Later, he held the lamp for his mother while she repaired his shirt. Thomas was outside checking the animals. With the dishes put away, the table looked larger, though Elias’s knees still caught beneath it when he shifted his stool.
Anne worked the needle through a doubled edge, drawing the cloth together without puckering it. He remembered those hands fastening his clothes when he was small. There was a scar beside her thumb from a knife that had slipped, and the knuckle of her first finger had begun to swell in cold weather. He moved the lamp a little nearer so she would not have to lean towards it.
“Mara’s aunt is asking about shoes for her in town,” he said. “It sounds as though the place at the baker’s might happen, if her uncle agrees.”
Anne asked what Mara had been promised. Elias told her about the bed and the wages, finding that he remembered nearly everything. His mother listened without interrupting, then tied off the thread and tested the seam between her fingers.
“It would be good for her to learn something she wants to do. She’s worked hard enough for her uncle.” She spread the shirt over her lap to look for other damage. “Her aunt will ask the right questions. She’s been in service herself.”
Elias had forgotten that. It eased something in him, though he still wished the bakery were nearer. He told Anne he had said he would visit, and she asked whether he intended to bring back bread. When he began working out how much he could carry without crushing it, she smiled down at the shirt. He realised she was teasing him and felt foolish for a moment, then found himself smiling too.
Thomas came in with a strip of leather for a harness repair. The dog followed and settled across Elias’s feet, heavy enough that he would have to wake him to move. Anne handed over the mended shirt and went to the chest for the winter tally while Thomas measured the leather against the old piece.
Elias brought the hoe handle to his stool and waited for the knife. When Thomas had finished, he showed him where to begin, turning the wood so the blade would follow the grain. Elias took off a thin shaving, felt the place with his thumb and tried again. His father moved the lamp between them. Across the room, Anne was sorting through the chest, setting aside folded cloth and the little things she kept because they might be useful. When she found the tally, she brought it to the table beside the newer one, and Elias brushed away his shavings to make room for them both.
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