World Without End (20 page)

While Mattie talked, Caris was moving about the kitchen as freely as if she were at home. She put a mixing bowl and a vial on the table. Mattie handed her a key, and she opened the cupboard. 'Put three drops of essence of poppies into a spoonful of distilled wine,' Mattie said. 'We must be careful not to make the mixture over-strong, or he will go to sleep too soon.'

Gwenda was astonished. 'Are
you
going to make the potion, Caris?'

'I sometimes help Mattie. Don't say anything to Petranilla; she would disapprove.'

'I wouldn't tell her if her hair was on fire.' Caris's aunt disliked Gwenda, probably for the same reason she would disapprove of Mattie: they were both low-class, and such things mattered to Petranilla.

But why was Caris, the daughter of a wealthy man, working like an apprentice in the kitchen of a side-street medicine woman? While Caris made up the mixture, Gwenda recalled that her friend had always been intrigued by illness and cures. As a little girl, Caris had wanted to be a physician, not understanding that only priests were allowed to study medicine. Gwenda remembered her saying, after her mother had died: 'But
why
do people have to fall sick?' Mother Cecilia had told her it was because of sin; Edmund had said that no one really knew. Neither response had satisfied Caris. Perhaps she was still seeking the answer here in Mattie's kitchen.

Caris poured the liquid into a tiny jar, stoppered it, and bound the stopper tightly with cord, tying the ends in a knot. Then she handed the jar to Gwenda.

Gwenda tucked it into the leather purse attached to her belt. She wondered how on earth she was going to get Wulfric on his own for an hour. She had glibly said that she would find a way but, now that she had the love potion in her possession, the task seemed nearly impossible. He showed signs of restlessness if she merely spoke to him. He wanted to be with Annet any free time he had. What reason would Gwenda give for needing to be alone with him?
I want to show you a place where we can get wild duck eggs.
But why would she show him and not her father? Wulfric was a little naïve, but not stupid: he would know she was up to something.

Caris gave Mattie twelve silver pennies - two weeks' wages for Pa. Gwenda said: 'Thank you, Caris. I hope you'll come to my wedding.'

Caris laughed. 'That's what I like to see - confidence!'

They left Mattie and headed back to the fair. Gwenda decided to begin by finding out where Wulfric was staying. His family was too well off to claim poverty, so they could not stay free at the priory. They would probably be lodging in a tavern. She could just casually ask him, or his brother, and follow up with a question about the standard of accommodation, as if she were interested to know which of the town's many inns was the best.

A monk passed by, and Gwenda realized with a guilty start that she had not even thought about trying to see her brother, Philemon. Pa would not visit him, for they had hated one another for years; but Gwenda was fond of him. She knew that he was sly, untruthful, and malicious, but all the same he loved her. They had been through many hungry winters together. She would seek him out later, she resolved, after she had seen Wulfric again.

But before she and Caris reached the fairground, they met Gwenda's father.

Joby was near the priory gates, outside the Bell. With him was a rough-looking man in a yellow tunic, with a pack on his back - and a brown cow.

He waved Gwenda over. 'I've found a cow,' he said.

Gwenda looked more closely. It was two years old, and thin, with a bad-tempered look, but it appeared healthy. 'It seems fine,' she said.

'This is Sim Chapman,' he said, jerking a thumb at the yellow tunic. A chapman traveled from village to village selling small necessities - needles, buckles, hand mirrors, combs. He might have stolen the cow, but that would not bother Pa, if the price was right.

Gwenda said to her father: 'Where did you get the money?'

'I'm not paying, exactly,' he replied, looking shifty.

Gwenda had expected him to have some scheme. 'What, then?'

'It's more of a swap.'

'What are you giving him in exchange for the cow?'

'You,' said Pa.

'Don't be silly,' she said, and then she felt a loop of rope dropped over her head and tightened around her body, pinning her arms to her sides.

She felt bewildered. This could not be happening. She struggled to free herself, but Sim just pulled the rope tighter.

'Now, don't make a fuss,' Pa said.

She could not believe they were serious. 'What do you think you're doing?' she said incredulously. 'You can't sell me, you fool!'

'Sim needs a woman, and I need a cow,' Pa said. 'It's very simple.'

Sim spoke for the first time. 'She's ugly enough, your daughter.'

'This is ridiculous!' Gwenda said.

Sim smiled at her. 'Don't worry, Gwenda,' he said. 'I'll be good to you, as long as you behave yourself, and do as you're told.'

They meant it, Gwenda saw. They actually thought they could make this exchange. A cold needle of fear entered her heart as she realized it might even happen.

Caris spoke up. 'This joke has gone on long enough,' she said in a loud, clear voice. 'Release Gwenda immediately.'

Sim was not intimidated by her air of command. 'And who are you, to give orders?'

'My father is alderman of the parish guild.'

'But you're not,' Sim said. 'And even if you were, you'd have no authority over me or my friend Joby.'

'You can't trade a girl for a cow!'

'Why not?' said Sim. 'It's my cow, and the girl is his daughter.'

Their raised voices attracted the attention of passers-by, who stopped to stare at the girl tied up with a rope. Someone said: 'What's happening?' Another replied: 'He's sold his daughter for a cow.' Gwenda saw a look of panic cross her father's face. He was wishing he had done this up a quiet alley - but he was not smart enough to have foreseen the public reaction. Gwenda realized the bystanders might be her only hope.

Caris waved to a monk who came out of the priory gates. 'Brother Godwyn!' she called. 'Come and settle an argument, please.' She looked triumphantly at Sim. 'The priory has jurisdiction over all bargains agreed at the Fleece Fair,' she said. 'Brother Godwyn is the sacrist. I think you'll have to accept his authority.'

Godwyn said: 'Hello, cousin Caris. What's the matter?'

Sim grunted with disgust. 'Your cousin, is he?'

Godwyn gave him a frosty look. 'Whatever the dispute is here, I shall try to give a fair judgment, as a man of God - you can depend on me for that, I hope.'

'And very glad to hear it, sir,' Sim said, becoming obsequious.

Joby was equally oily. 'I know you, Brother - my son Philemon is devoted to you. You've been the soul of kindness to him.'

'All right, enough of that,' Godwyn said. 'What's going on?'

Caris said: 'Joby here wants to sell Gwenda for a cow. Tell him he can't.'

Joby said: 'She's my daughter, sir, and she's eighteen years old and a maid, so she's mine to do with what I will.'

Godwyn said: 'All the same, it seems a shameful business, selling your children.'

Joby became pathetic. 'I wouldn't do it, sir, only I've three more at home, and I'm a landless laborer, with no means to feed the children through the winter, unless I have a cow, and our old one has died.'

There was a sympathetic murmur from the growing crowd. They knew about winter hardship, and the extremes to which a man might have to go to feed his family. Gwenda began to despair.

Sim said: 'Shameful you may think it, Brother Godwyn, but is it a sin?' He spoke as if he already knew the answer, and Gwenda guessed he might have had this argument before, in a different place.

With obvious reluctance, Godwyn said: 'The Bible does appear to sanction selling your daughter into slavery. The book of Exodus, chapter twenty-one.'

'Well, there you are, then!' said Joby. 'It's a Christian act!'

Caris was outraged. 'The book of Exodus!' she said scornfully.

One of the bystanders joined in. 'We are not the children of Israel,' she said. She was a small, chunky woman with an underbite that gave her jaw a determined look. Although dressed poorly, she was assertive. Gwenda recognized her as Madge, the wife of Mark Webber. 'There is no slavery today,' Madge said.

Sim said: 'Then what of apprentices, who get no pay, and may be beaten by their master? Or novice monks and nuns? Or those who skivvy for bed and board in the palaces of the nobility?'

Madge said: 'Their life may be hard, but they can't be bought and sold - can they, Brother Godwyn?'

'I don't say that the trade is lawful,' Godwyn responded. 'I studied medicine at Oxford, not law. But I can find no reason, in Holy Scripture or the teachings of the Church, to say that what these men are doing is a sin.' He looked at Caris and shrugged. 'I'm sorry, cousin.'

Madge Webber folded her arms across her chest. 'Well, chapman, how are you going to take the girl out of town?'

'At the end of a rope,' he said. 'Same way I brought the cow in.'

'Ah, but you didn't have to get the cow past me and these people.'

Gwenda's heart leaped with hope. She was not sure how many of the bystanders supported her, but if it came to a fight they were more likely to side with Madge, who was a townswoman, than with Sim, an outsider.

'I've dealt with obstinate women before,' Sim said, and his mouth twisted as he spoke. 'They've never given me much trouble.'

Madge put her hand on the rope. 'Perhaps you've been lucky.'

He snatched the rope away. 'Keep your hands off my property and you won't get hurt.'

Deliberately, Madge put a hand on Gwenda's shoulder.

Sim shoved Madge roughly, and she staggered back; but there was a murmur of protest from the crowd.

A bystander said: 'You wouldn't do that if you'd seen her husband.'

There was a ripple of laughter. Gwenda recalled Madge's husband Mark, a gentle giant. If only he would show up!

But it was John Constable who arrived, his well-developed nose for trouble bringing him to any crowd almost as soon as it gathered. 'We'll have no shoving,' he said. 'Are you causing trouble, chapman?'

Gwenda became hopeful again. Chapmen had a bad reputation, and the constable was assuming Sim was the cause of the trouble.

Sim turned obsequious, something he could obviously do quicker than changing his hat. 'Beg pardon, Master Constable,' he said. 'But when a man has paid an agreed price for his purchase, he must be allowed to leave Kingsbridge with his goods intact.'

'Of course.' John had to agree. A market town depended on its reputation for fair dealing. 'But what have you bought?'

'This girl.'

'Oh.' John looked thoughtful. 'Who sold her?'

'I did,' said Joby. 'I'm her father.'

Sim went on: 'And this woman with the big chin threatened to stop me taking the girl away.'

'So I did,' said Madge. 'For I've never heard of a woman being bought and sold in Kingsbridge Market, and nor has anyone else around here.'

Joby said: 'A man may do as he will with a child of his own.' He looked around the crowd appealingly. 'Is there anyone here who will disagree with that?'

Gwenda knew that no one would. Some people treated their children kindly, and some harshly, but all were agreed that the father must have absolute power over the child. She burst out angrily: 'You wouldn't stand there, deaf and dumb, if you had a father like him. How many of you were sold by your parents? How many of you were made to steal, when you were children and had hands small enough to slide into folks' wallets?'

Joby started to look worried. 'She's raving, now, Master Constable,' he said. 'No child of mine ever stole.'

'Never mind that,' said John. 'Everyone listen to me. I shall make a ruling on this. Those who disagree with my decision can complain to the prior. If there's any shoving, by anyone, or any other kind of rough stuff, I shall arrest everyone involved in it. I hope that's clear.' He looked around belligerently. No one spoke: they were eager to hear his decision. He went on: 'I know of no reason why this trade is unlawful, therefore Sim Chapman is allowed to go his way, with the girl.'

Joby said: 'I told you so, didn't - '

'Shut your damn mouth, Joby, you fool,' said the constable. 'Sim, get going, and make it quick. Madge Webber, if you raise a hand I'll put you in the stocks, and your husband won't stop me either. And not a word from you, Caris Wooler, please - you may complain to your father about me if you wish.'

Before John had finished speaking, Sim jerked hard on the rope. Gwenda was tipped forward, and stuck a foot out in front of her to keep from falling to the ground; then, somehow, she was moving along, stumbling and half-running down the street. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Caris alongside her. Then John Constable seized Caris by the arm, she turned to protest to him, and a moment later she disappeared from Gwenda's sight.

Sim walked quickly down the muddy main street, hauling on the rope, keeping Gwenda just off balance. As they approached the bridge, she began to feel desperate. She tried jerking back on the rope, but he responded with an extra strong heave that threw her down in the mud. Her arms were still pinioned, so she could not use her hands to protect herself, and she fell flat, bruising her chest, her face squelching into the ooze. She struggled to her feet, giving up all resistance. Roped like an animal, hurt, frightened, and covered in filthy mud, she staggered after her new owner, across the bridge and along the road that led into the forest.

Sim Chapman led Gwenda through the suburb of Newtown to the crossroads known as Gallows Cross, where criminals were hanged. There he took the road south, toward Wigleigh. He tied her rope to his wrist so that she could not break away, even when his attention wandered. Her dog, Skip, followed them, but Sim threw stones at him and, after one hit him full on the nose, he retreated with his tail between his legs.

After several miles, as the sun began to set, Sim turned into the forest. Gwenda had seen no feature beside the road to mark the spot, but Sim seemed to have chosen carefully for, a few hundred paces into the trees, they came upon a pathway. Looking down, Gwenda could see the neat impressions of dozens of small hooves in the earth, and she realized it was a deer path. It would lead to water, she guessed. Sure enough, they came to a little brook, the vegetation on either side trodden into mud.