"Am I never to get back my father's lands, then?"
She could have hit him with a stick. Did he really still think that was going to happen? How foolish could he be?
She tried to make her voice as gentle as possible. "It's twelve years since you were disinherited," she said. "In that time Ralph has become more and more powerful. And there's never been the least sign that he might mellow toward you. What do you think the chances are?"
He did not answer that question. "Where would we live?"
"They must have houses in Outhenby."
"But will Ralph let us go?"
"He can't stop us. We're laborers, not serfs. You know that."
"But does Ralph know it?"
"Let's not give him the chance to object."
"How could we manage that?"
"Well..." She had not thought this through, but now she saw that it would have to be done precipitately. "We could leave today, from here."
It was a scary thought. They had both lived their entire lives in Wigleigh. Wulfric had never even moved house. Now they were contemplating going to live in a village they had never seen without even going back to say good-bye.
But Wulfric was worrying about something else. He pointed at the hunchbacked bailiff, crossing the square to the chandler's shop. "What would Nathan say?"
"We won't tell him what we're planning. We'll give him some story--say we want to stay here overnight, for some reason, and return home tomorrow. That way, nobody will know where we are. And we'll never go back to Wigleigh."
"Never go back," Wulfric said despondently.
Gwenda controlled her impatience. She knew her husband. Once Wulfric was set on a course he was unstoppable, but he took a long time to decide. He would come around to this idea eventually. He was not closed-minded, just cautious and deliberate. He hated to make decisions in a rush--whereas she thought it was the only way.
The young man with the blond beard came out of the Old Oak. Gwenda looked around: none of the Wigleigh folk was in sight. She stood up and accosted the man. "Did I hear you say something about twopence a day for laborers?" she said.
"That's right, mistress," he replied. "In the Vale of Outhenby, just half a day southwest of here. We need all we can get."
"Who are you?"
"I'm the plowman of Outhenby. My name is Harry."
Outhenby must be a large and prosperous village, to have a plowman all of its own, Gwenda reasoned. Most plowmen worked for a group of villages. "And who is lord of the manor?"
"The prioress of Kingsbridge."
"Caris!" That was wonderful news. Caris could be trusted. Gwenda's spirits lifted further.
"Yes, she is the current prioress," Harry said. "A very determined woman."
"I know."
"She wants her fields cultivated so that she can feed the sisters, and she's not listening to excuses."
"Do you have houses at Outhenby for laborers to live in? With their families?"
"Plenty, unfortunately. We've lost many people to the plague."
"You said it was southwest of here."
"Take the southerly road to Badford, then follow the Outhen upstream."
Caution returned to Gwenda. "I'm not going," she said quickly.
"Ah. Of course." He did not believe her.
"I was really asking on behalf of a friend." She turned away.
"Well, tell your friend to come as soon as he can--we've got spring plowing and sowing to finish yet."
"All right."
She felt slightly dizzy, as if she had taken a draft of strong wine. Twopence a day--working for Caris--and miles away from Ralph, Perkin, and flirty Annet! It was a dream.
She sat back down beside Wulfric. "Did you hear all that?" she asked him.
"Yes," he said. He pointed to a figure standing by the tavern door. "And so did he."
Gwenda looked. It was her father.
"Put that horse in the traces," Nate said to Wulfric around mid-afternoon. "It's time to go home."
Wulfric said: "We'll be needing our wages for the week so far."
"You'll be paid on Saturday as usual," Nate said dismissively. "Hitch that nag."
Wulfric did not move toward the horse. "I'll trouble you to pay me today," he insisted. "I know you've got the money, you've sold all that timber."
Nate turned and looked directly at him. "Why should you be paid early?" he said irritably.
"Because I shan't be returning to Wigleigh with you tonight."
Nate was taken aback. "Why not?"
Gwenda took over. "We're going to Melcombe," she said.
"What?" Nate was outraged. "People like you have no business traveling to Melcombe!"
"We met a fisherman who needs crew for twopence a day." Gwenda had worked out this story to throw any pursuit off the scent.
Wulfric added: "Our respects to Sir Ralph, and may God be with him in the future."
Gwenda added: "But we don't expect to see him ever again." She said it just to hear the sweet sound of it: never to see Ralph again.
Nathan said indignantly: "He may not wish you to leave!"
"We're not serfs, we have no land. Ralph cannot forbid us."
"You're the son of a serf," Nathan said to Wulfric.
"But Ralph denied me my inheritance," Wulfric replied. "He cannot now demand my fealty."
"It's a dangerous thing for a poor man to stand on his rights."
"That's true," Wulfric conceded. "But I'm doing it, all the same."
Nate was beaten. "You shall hear more of this," he said.
"Would you like me to put the horse to the cart?"
Nate scowled. He could not do it himself. Because of his back, he had difficulty with complicated physical tasks, and the horse was taller than he. "Yes, of course," he said.
"I'll be glad to. Would you kindly pay me first?"
Looking furious, Nate took out his purse and counted six silver pennies.
Gwenda took the money and Wulfric hitched up the horse.
Nate drove away without another word.
"Well!" said Gwenda. "That's done." She looked at Wulfric. He was smiling broadly. She asked him: "What is it?"
"I don't know," he said. "I feel as if I've been wearing a collar for years, and suddenly it's been taken off."
"Good." That was how she wanted him to feel. "Now let's find a place to stay the night."
The Old Oak was in a prime position in the market square, and charged top prices. They walked around the little town looking for somewhere cheaper. Eventually they went into the Gate House, where Gwenda negotiated accommodation for the four of them--supper, a mattress on the floor, and breakfast--for a penny. The boys would need a decent night's sleep and some breakfast if they were to walk all morning.
She could hardly sleep for excitement. She was also worried. What was she taking her family to? She had only the word of one man, a stranger, for what they would find when they reached Outhenby. She really ought to have sought confirmation before committing herself.
But she and Wulfric had been stuck in a hole for ten years, and Harry Plowman of Outhenby was the first person to offer them a way out of it.
The breakfast was meager: thin porridge and watery cider. Gwenda bought a big loaf of new bread for them to eat on the road, and Wulfric filled his leather flask with cold water from a well. They passed through the city gate an hour after sunrise and set off on the road south.
As they walked, she thought about Joby, her father. As soon as he learned that she had not returned to Wigleigh, he would remember the conversation he had overheard, and he would guess she had gone to Outhenby. He would not be fooled by the story about Melcombe: he was an accomplished deceiver himself, too experienced to be taken in by a simple ruse. But would anyone think to ask him where she had gone? Everyone knew she never spoke to her father. And, if they did ask him, would he blurt out what he suspected? Or would some vestige of paternal feeling cause him to protect her?
There was nothing she could do abo
ut it, so she put him out of her mind.
It was good weather for traveling. The ground was soft with recent rain, and there was no dust; but today was a dry day with fitful sunshine, neither cold nor hot. The boys quickly grew tired, especially David, the younger, but Wulfric was good at distracting them with songs and rhymes, quizzing them about the names of trees and plants, playing number games and telling stories.
Gwenda could hardly believe what they had done. This time yesterday, it had looked as if their life would never change: hard work, poverty, and frustrated aspirations would be their lot for ever. Now they were on the road to a new life.
She thought of the house where she had lived with Wulfric for ten years. She had not left much behind: a few cooking pots, a stack of newly chopped firewood, half a ham, and four blankets. She had no clothes other than what she was wearing, and neither did Wulfric or the boys; no jewelry, ribbons, gloves, or combs. Ten years ago, Wulfric had had chickens and pigs in his yard, but they had gradually been eaten or sold during the years of penury. Their meager possessions could be replaced with a week's wages at the promised Outhenby rates.
In accordance with Harry's directions they took the road south to a muddy ford across the Outhen, then turned west and followed the river upstream. As they progressed, the river narrowed, until the land funneled between two ranges of hills. "Good, fertile soil," Wulfric said. "It'll need the heavy plow, though."
At noon they came to a large village with a stone church. They went to the door of a timber manor house next to the church. With trepidation, Gwenda knocked. Was she about to be told that Harry Plowman did not know what he was talking about, and there was no work here? Had she made her family walk half a day for nothing? How humiliating it would be to have to return to Wigleigh and beg to be taken on again by Nate Reeve.
A gray-haired woman came to the door. She looked at Gwenda with the suspicious glare that villagers everywhere gave to strangers. "Yes?"
"Good day, mistress," Gwenda said. "Is this Outhenby?"
"It is."
"We're laborers looking for work. Harry Plowman told us to come here."
"Did he, now?"
Was there something wrong, Gwenda wondered, or was this woman just a grumpy old cow? She almost asked the question out loud. Stopping herself, she said: "Does Harry live at this house?"
"Certainly not," the woman replied. "He's just a plowman. This is the bailiff's house."
Some conflict between bailiff and plowman, Gwenda guessed. "Perhaps we should see the bailiff, then."
"He's not here."
Patiently, Gwenda said: "Would you be kind enough to tell us where we might find him?"
The woman pointed across the valley. "North Field."
Gwenda turned to look in the direction indicated. When she turned back, the woman had disappeared into the house.
Wulfric said: "She didn't seem pleased to see us."
"Old women hate change," Gwenda commented. "Let's find this bailiff."
"The boys are tired."
"They can rest soon."
They set off across the fields. There was plenty of activity on the strips. Children were picking stones off plowed land, women were sowing seeds, and men were carting manure. Gwenda could see the ox team in the distance, eight mighty beasts patiently dragging the plow through the wet, heavy soil.
They came upon a group of men and women trying to move a horse-drawn harrow that had got stuck in a ditch. Gwenda and Wulfric joined in pushing it out. Wulfric's broad back made the difference, and the harrow was freed.
All the villagers turned and looked at Wulfric. A tall man with an old burn mark disfiguring one side of his face said amiably: "You're a useful fellow--who are you?"
"I'm Wulfric, and my wife is Gwenda. We're laborers looking for work."
"You're just what we need, Wulfric," the man said. "I'm Carl Shaftesbury." He stuck out his hand to shake. "Welcome to Outhenby."
Ralph came eight days later.
Wulfric and Gwenda had moved into a small, well-built house with a stone chimney and an upstairs bedroom where they could sleep separately from the boys. They got a wary reception from the older, more conservative villagers--notably Will Bailiff and his wife, Vi, who had been so rude to them on the day they arrived. But Harry Plowman and the younger set were excited by the changes and glad to have help in the fields.
They were paid twopence a day, as promised, and Gwenda looked forward eagerly to the end of their first full week, when they each got twelve pence--a shilling!--double the highest sum they had ever earned. What would they do with all that money?
Neither Wulfric nor Gwenda had worked anywhere but Wigleigh, and they were surprised to find that not all villages were the same. The ultimate authority here was the prioress of Kingsbridge, and that made a difference. Ralph's rule was personal and arbitrary: appealing to him was hazardous. By contrast, Outhenby folk seemed to know what the prioress would want in most situations, and they could settle disputes by figuring out what she would say if asked to adjudicate.
A mild disagreement of this kind was going on when Ralph came.
They were all walking home from the fields at sundown, the adults work-weary, the children running on ahead, and Harry Plowman bringing up the rear with the unharnessed oxen. Carl Shaftesbury, the man with the burned face, who was a newcomer like Gwenda and Wulfric, had caught three eels at dawn for his family's supper, as it was Friday. The question was whether laborers had the same right as tenants to take fish from the Outhen River on fast days. Harry Plowman said the privilege extended to all Outhenby residents. Vi Bailiff said that tenants owed customary dues to the landlord, which laborers did not, and those who had extra duties should have extra privileges.
Will Bailiff was called upon for a decision, and he ruled against his wife. "I believe the mother prioress would say that if the church wishes people to eat fish, then fish must be provided for them to eat," he said; and that was accepted by everyone.
Looking toward the village, Gwenda saw two horsemen.
A cold wind gusted suddenly.
The visitors were half a mile away across the fields, and heading for the houses at an angle to the path the villagers were taking. She could tell they were men-at-arms. They had big horses, and their clothes looked bulky--men of violence generally wore heavily padded coats. She nudged Wulfric.
"I've seen them," he said grimly.
Such men had no casual reason to come to a village. They despised the people who grew the crops and cared for the livestock. They normally visited only to take from the peasants those things they were too proud to provide for themselves, bread and meat and drink. Their view of what they were entitled to, or how much they should pay, always differed from that of the peasants; so there was invariably trouble.
Within the next couple of minutes all the villagers saw them, and the group went quiet. Gwenda noticed that Harry turned the oxen slightly and headed for the far end of the village, though she could not immediately guess why.
Gwenda felt sure the two men had come to find runaway laborers. She found herself praying they would turn out to be the former employers of Carl Shaftesbury or one of the other newcomers. However, as the villagers came closer to the horsemen she recognized Ralph Fitzgerald and Alan Fernhill, and her heart sank.
This was the moment she had dreaded. She had known there was a chance Ralph would find out where they had gone: her father could make a good guess, and he could not be relied upon to keep his mouth shut. And although Ralph had no right to take them back, he was a knight and a nobleman, and such people generally did as they pleased.
It was too late to run. The group was walking along a path between broad plowed fields: if some of them broke away and fled, Ralph and Alan would immediately see them and give chase; and then Gwenda and her family would lose whatever protection they might gain from being with other villagers. They were trapped in the open.
She called to her boys: "Sam! David! Come here!"
They did not
hear, or did not want to, and they ran on. Gwenda went after them, but they thought it was a game, and tried to outrun her. They were almost at the village now, and she found she was too tired to catch them. Almost in tears, she shouted: "Come back!"
Wulfric took over. He ran past her and easily caught up with David. He scooped the boy up in his arms. But he was too late to catch Sam, who ran laughing in among the scattered houses.
The horsemen were reined in by the church. As Sam ran toward them, Ralph nudged his horse forward, then leaned down from the saddle and picked the boy up by his shirt. Sam gave a shout of fright.
Gwenda screamed.
Ralph sat the boy on his horse's wither.
Wulfric, carrying David, came to a stop in front of Ralph.
Ralph said: "Your son, I presume."
Gwenda was appalled. She was afraid for her son. It would be beneath Ralph's dignity to attack a child, but there might be an accident. And there was another danger.
Seeing Ralph and Sam together, Wulfric might realize they were father and son.
Sam was still a little boy, of course, with a child's body and face, but he had Ralph's thick hair and dark eyes, and his bony shoulders were wide and square.
Gwenda looked at her husband. Wulfric's expression showed no sign that he had seen what was so obvious to her. She surveyed the faces of the other villagers. They seemed oblivious to the stark truth--except for Vi Bailiff, who was giving Gwenda a hard stare. That old battleaxe might have guessed. But no one else had--yet.
Will came forward and addressed the visitors. "Good day to you, sirs. I'm Will, the bailiff of Outhenby. May I ask--"
"Shut your mouth, bailiff," said Ralph. He pointed at Wulfric. "What is he doing here?"
Gwenda sensed a slight easing of tension as the other villagers realized they were not the target of the lord's wrath.
Will replied: "My lord, he's a laborer, hired on the authority of the prioress of Kingsbridge--"
"He's a runaway, and he's got to come home," Ralph said.
Will fell silent, frightened.
Carl Shaftesbury said: "And what authority do you claim for this demand?"
Ralph peered at Carl, as if memorizing his face. "Watch your tongue, or I'll disfigure the other side of your face."
Will said nervously: "We don't want any bloodshed."
"Very wise, bailiff," said Ralph. "Who is this insolent peasant?"