Tale of Gwyn (19 page)

Tad didn't look up.

“Or I'll box your ears until they ring for three days,” she promised him. She had no patience for his laziness, no sympathy for his youth. “It's past time for you to do your share.”

He still didn't move, but his eyes were on her face and his knife was still.

“Unless you'd rather do the pastry,” Gwyn said, adding nastily, “but you know what it'll taste like and Mother will be angry, even at you, if the pies prove bad.” Her fingers worked as she talked, rubbing against the chunks of lard, breaking them down and mixing them in with the fine flour.

Tad shook his head.

Gwyn wiped her hands on the cloth she had tied around her waist. She would have him do one piece of honest work, and if she had to club him to do it well, she'd do that too. He knew that, and he was frightened. She knew he was frightened and that pleased her. “There's nobody to hear you if you cry, so you'd better make up your mind, Tad.”

“But I can't. You know that. I'll spill and burn myself. I'm not big enough and you know it and if you make me . . .” He didn't finish the threat.

“If I make you—and make no mistake I plan to—what will you do? Yell for Mother?”

“I'll burn myself. I always slop water from the bucket, because I'm not big enough.”

“I was carrying those buckets when I was much younger. You're just soft.”

“I can't help it,” he said, his voice sulky. “It's not my fault.”

He sounded like he really would wail, so Gwyn put her hands back into the pastry and tried to explain things to him. “Look. You don't fill the bucket to the top, that's one thing. And you take off your boots and stockings, because it's the way stockings hold the heat makes a bad burn, so you work barefooted.”

“But Mother—”

“Mother will know nothing about it. Honestly, Tad, anyone would think you didn't have any brains at all. Anyone would think you were just a baby.”

His cheeks flamed. “Am not.”

“Then why do you act like one.”

“Do not.”

“Do too,” she told him, enjoying the quarrel, letting off her bad temper.

He jumped up and removed his boots, then peeled down his stockings. He took a jug, to ladle steaming water into the waiting bucket. Watching him, Gwyn saw that he really did think he would manage to spill boiling water on himself. How could he be so foolish? How could he think that something everybody else could do was beyond him?

Just before he bent to pick up the bucket he told her, “It'll be your fault.”

“Roll up your trousers,” was Gwyn's only response. She deliberately did not watch him go into the barroom. He'd yell loud enough if anything hurt him. She could count on that.

The flour coated her hands and her fingers moved in it, sifting through to find the chunks of lard, her thumb rubbing the softening fat against her fingers. The quarrel with Tad had made her feel physically better, at least. The dough was almost fine enough, she thought, digging her hands down along the sides of the bowl, lifting them up to mix the dry pastry, letting her fingers do their quick work. You had to work quickly or the fat softened too much and the pastry would not bake up as flaky as it should. She heard no howls from the next room and felt a grim satisfaction at being proved right. That boy would just grab at the excuse to get out of work.

She heard him sweeping for a while, then he came back for more water. He would cover the floor with water, then sweep the water and dirt off together, out the door to the yard. She watched him refill the bucket. This time, he picked it up without hesitation, and at his first quick step some water slipped over onto his leg. She waited. He waited. Nothing happened. The water ran down his leg. He looked quickly up at her, but she had her eyes on the flour by then. Of course, she thought, he would not say a word, to admit he had been wrong. She heard him begin sweeping again.

Gwyn worked cold water into the dough and then let it rest while she set out the molds that she would line with pastry. The filling waited in another bowl—mixed pork and onions and potatoes, seasoned with salt and dried herbs. She took the rolling pin down from the shelf and started to roll out a handful of pastry. The texture felt just about right, she thought.

“Gwyn?”

His voice sounded panicky. What had he done now? She went to the door to see.

Tad had swept himself into a corner, the farthest corner from the door. He stood there, his pants rolled up, the bucket beside him, the square of dry floor under him. His hand held the broom upright and a film of dirty water lay over the boards. “I don't know—” he started to say.

Gwyn burst out laughing.

At first, Tad didn't want to join in, then he couldn't help himself. “But what do I do?” he asked her.

“It won't bite you if you walk through it. It's a little shallow for drowning in.”

“But my feet'll get dirty.”

“Nobody will know if you get your stockings on fast enough.”

“But Mother'll know from my stockings.”

“Maybe she will, but what can she do when it's already been done?” Gwyn asked him. “She never noticed in mine though, so I wouldn't fret about that if I were you. I'd fret about getting this dirty water out the door before Da and Burl try to bring up the ale.”

He put his broom to work immediately. She watched him for a minute, paddling in the water, sweeping it toward the door. The floor looked clean enough.

And Tad looked pleased with himself. She continued her thinking as she went back to rolling out pastry dough. What was there to look pleased about in cleaning a floor, she wondered. Nothing, she answered herself, nothing at all; anyone could do it. Except Tad seemed pleased that
he
could.

No wonder, she thought, with everybody telling him he couldn't, that he would hurt himself or catch cold. He probably thought he wasn't given chores because everyone knew he couldn't do them.

Gwyn filled the pies and set them in the baking oven, built into the stones at the side of the fireplace. She was seeing her family now as if they were strangers. That wasn't surprising, since she felt like they
were
strangers—or was she a stranger? She was more critical now, no doubt about it, although, for another change, she never gave voice to her thoughts. But she could see that her mother's bitterness was never allayed, not even by Tad over whom she clucked and worried so much. She could see that Da's patience and carefulness came from a desire to soothe his wife, and she wished Da would govern his wife more. But why should her mother be so bitter? And why should Da be reluctant to govern her?

Gwyn felt as if she could see through the masks people put on, and she didn't much care for what she saw underneath.

In the barroom at day's end, too, serving mugs of ale and plates of pastry to the men, she wondered why—in this hungry time—they spent any of their precious coins at the Inn, while their wives and children waited. Their talk was conducted in angry tones, but she could see the fear behind it. Rumors flew, as thick in the warm air as the smells of the room, wood smoke and ale, the tallow from burning candles. The Lords were raising the taxes to half of what a holding would earn, to three-quarters, the men grumbled. The Lords were going to be short of pay for the soldiers, so they were going to seize the holdings from men who couldn't pay taxes; these would be given to the soldiers instead of pay. Any day now, Messengers would ride into the villages to announce the new taxes, which must be paid before the Spring Fair.

“What I'll do,” the men said, one to the other, “I don't know.”

“I'll not plant a crop for another man to harvest.”

“Let the soldiers kill one another off, and the Lords too; I won't weep a tear.”

They talked with their heads close together, worrying over the rumors like a dog worrying at a bone. Their voices grew loud and angry.

“What do the Lords care, as long as they can live fat.”

“It's our bones, and the bones of our children, that their houses are built of. We're the meat they grow fat on.”

“No wonder there's no way for a man to approach a Lord with his complaint—how many Lords would be alive at the end of a day, think you? If a man could get close to them.”

Some of the rumors gave them satisfaction. “If the battles in the south rage long enough, that's where I'll take my crops to market. Starving people pay higher prices, now, don't they?”

“There's a highwayman coming to be journeyed here. As I hear it, he'll be hanged in the north.”

“A man can choose where he's to make his last stop, if he's journeyed.”

“I'd have myself hanged right outside Hildebrand's door then, and let him see what he's done.”

“And do you think he'd even notice you, man?”

“It's been a long time since I've seen a good hanging. Aye, I'll thank the man for a holiday, if he chooses a spot near enough that I can go watch.”

Occasionally, someone tried to draw Gwyn out, but she refused to answer their questions about how much gold was in the sack, how much of it she would keep for dowry. She did not respond to their teasing. They were speaking to make one another laugh and not for her pleasure; behind their eyes a secret greed shone as bright as a star, and she knew that if she were to answer any one of the unmarried men seriously then he would ask for her. The widowers had the same gleam, but they sat back, waiting. She didn't blame them, not really, any more than she blamed the bitterness of the women in the Doling Rooms; there was land to hold and families to feed and if gold was not good for that, what was its use?

So she held her tongue. Da would make the announcement, because he had said he would. He was probably waiting because she might change her mind. Mother was at her day and night to do that, and even Rose—but Rose could imagine no greater happiness than being a wife.

The snow was melting now, under rains and warmer air, until the hillsides were washed almost clean of it. Brown patches of ground showed, and the woods held only hidden pockets of snow. It was not spring yet, no little green leaves showed; but spring was coming. The days lasted longer, now, and every day melted more of the snow. Gwyn felt caged in. When Old Megg died, Gwyn welcomed the chance to go to the burning, just to see different faces. She felt ashamed of that thought, true though it was. But she felt like a horse kept too long in its winter stall, and even while she admired Rose's miniature stitching along a hem, she longed to kick with her legs and kick herself free.

O
N THE DAY WHEN THE
village bell rang out to summon them, people gathered quickly. Only Da and Gwyn went from the Inn. They were fairly sure they knew why they had been called so there was no need for everybody to go. There were more than fifty people gathered around the well when the Lord read the announcement, sitting high on his horse with four soldiers close behind him. He was Hildebrand himself, the people murmured, but Gwyn didn't think this was so, because Hildebrand would be a man of years and this Lord was too young, and he kept close to the soldiers as if he was unsure what would happen were he to ride alone. Hildebrand would not have been unsure, Gwyn thought.

The Lord, whoever he was, unrolled the paper and read out the news: The taxes for that year would be a quarter of a holding's crops and earnings. Then he added something unexpected: Lord Hildebrand was offering one gold coin for every unmarried man who would become his soldier. The coin would be paid to the man's family. Men who wished to take advantage of this could report to the Steward at the Doling Rooms, or the Bailiff when he came to gather the taxes.

When he had rolled the paper up again, he turned his horse and rode away, with the soldiers close behind him. Nobody spoke until the sound of hoofbeats had faded entirely away.

“Osh aye, and I didn't know where the tenth was coming from,” one farmer said.

“At least you've got three sons,” the Weaver answered him.

“Osh aye, and what if they had taken a half?”

The people agreed that a quarter wasn't as bad as it might have been.

Hearing that, Gwyn turned away. If she were a Lord, she would have put that very rumor about, just so that the people could take some comfort when the taxes were not as great as rumor had numbered them. She suspected that the Lords had done just that, to keep the people quiet.

That night in the barroom, several men took Da aside, leaving Burl to fill the mugs and take the coins. Gwyn watched these conversations. Once the Innkeeper nodded his head and shook the hand offered to him. The other times he shook his head and the man went back to his table to bury his face in his ale. The Innkeeper's holdings would increase this year, Gwyn thought.

Most of the men had left by the time the Fiddler entered. The Fiddler was an old man, as thin and bent as his own bow, who played for the dancers at the fairs and eked out the coins that fell into his cap to keep himself in his little house through the rest of the year. His clothes, shirt and trousers, were so patched that even the patches were worn threadbare. He was a timid man who avoided company except when he was among them to play. But when he put his fiddle under his chin and drew his bow across it, the music danced out bold and glad.

Out of charity, Da gave him a mug of ale and told Gwyn to serve him a slab of pie. The Fiddler didn't even sit down at one of the tables, but stood at the bar to drink and eat. Then he spoke his reason for the unexpected visit. “It's the taxes. A half, as I've heard, Innkeeper.”

“Only a quarter,” Da told him.

“That's as much trouble to me as a half. And I was wondering.” He did not have the voice to continue the question.

Da shook his head. “I've no use for your house, man.”

“It's only one silver coin I need. Even the Bailiff knows how little my value is.”