Spinners: Chapter 1

Chapter One

In Which Bess Assumes the Tradition Role

 

“A bit high, it seems to me.”

Bess could hear it all from the kitchen, and knew exactly what was coming next.

“Well, now—“ the miller said slowly.

She pulled the cloth off her head and, dipping her fingertips into the water-bucket, smoothed her hair back.

“Bessie,” called her father, the miller.  She grabbed the ledger book and dusted off her waist and skirt, then sallied forth onto the mill porch, ready to do business.

“Farmer Harebank,” she said, and dropped a polite curtsy.

“Miss,” the farmer said, not seeming all that pleased at the sight of her.

“You wanted me?” She turned to her father.

“Harebank here,” the miller said uncertainly. “He thinks the bill might be too high.”

“Ah,” she said, meeting the farmer’s eyes directly, then, once he’d given ground, opened the ledger and ran her finger down the column of numbers.  “Here you are,” she said, frowning at the page.  “Let me show you, sir.”  But he waved that away as she had expected; not many of them knew one written number from another.  She quoted him the cost, reported the weight of his flour and did the figuring once more, right there in front of him.  “I’m afraid it’s quite right,” she concluded, smiling to take out the sting.

“It’s not the numbers I’m doubting,” the farmer said.  “It’s the cost.  At Three Rivers, they’d’ve done the work for half the brass.”

“Two thirds, maybe,” Bess said.

“Well, less is what I’m saying.”  He ventured a glance at her face.

“I know.”  And she was sympathetic.  “But at Three Rivers, they don’t pay the king’s rent.  Believe me, we feel it, too.  And he’s raised the rents again, just this last month.  If I were you, I’d take my grain over to Three Rivers and save the money.”

“You know we can’t do that,” the farmer said.  “It’s too far to haul.”

“I’m so sorry.” She closed the ledger.  “I wish we could charge you less.  But I will do this for you: if you feel uncertain of the bill itself, we’ll measure the flour again, stone by stone, and you can stay to watch.  Of course, we’ll have to charge you extra for the service if it turns out we’re right about the weight.”

“Na,” the farmer growled and crammed his hat back on his head—then muttered, “My wife is not going to be that pleased.”

“Not pleased that you’ve had such a fine, heavy harvest?  Not pleased that the flour is selling so briskly?” Bess laughed.  “If I were your wife, I’d be praising you to the skies.”

At that, the farmer looked directly at her, and just for a moment, flashed a ghost of a grin.  “No doubt, you would,” he said, and sighed, and sat down to count out the brass.  “But still,” he went on, “what happens when the flour finally costs too much?  There’s others has had their rent raised.  The baxter for one, and many another good-wife.  And when the flour costs more than they can spare?  Or the pies or the boots or the cloth?  Him up there with his little army and all his fancy visitors—” he cast a sour look at the castle.  “He needs all the veg and meat we can grow, but never wants to pay the price.”

“But he does pay.  And we’ll all surely make our own back again.  Isn’t that the way of it?  You pay rent to work, then work to pay the rent?”

The farmer looked up.  “There will come a day when the village will need to eat—out of more than the kitchen gardens and the sweepings. Just between us, I’ll tell you, there are some as aren’t happy with the way it’s going, and there’s been talk.  When the rent and tax takes it all, what will happen then?”

“The king could not be such a fool as that?” Bess said to her father after the farmer had left.  “He wouldn’t let it go so far?”

“The king is not a fool, my dear,” the miller said, working away.  “That, you may count upon.”

 

 

*          *            *

 

 

“I do not understand, Robert dear, why you will not let me help.” Bess was perched on a hill of hay, kicking her heels against it and pulling at the neck of her dress in irritation.  It was hot in the smithy.  Much hotter than it was outside—that early spring afternoon now spilling in through the wide open doors of the place.  “No one will see, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Brown Robert grunted and wrestled the big bay horse’s foot back down onto the ground.  “Devil,” he said, and smacked it on the hip.  The horse shifted violently at that, nearly knocking Robert off his feet.

“He wouldn’t have knocked me over,” Bess said happily.

“And he won’t.” Robert didn’t even bother to look at her.  “Because you won’t be putting a hand on him.”

Bess pulled a face at him.  “There’s too much for you to do alone just now, just you and Osbert.  And anyway, I know more about the job than Oz does.  He’s just a child.”  The boy in question, busy with a gray palfrey one stall down, made a cheeky face back at her.

Brown Robert put his hands on his hips, studying the recalcitrant bay horse.  “And the second you had your skirts kilted up and your face dirty, in would come Elsie, the old cat of a gossip, and it would be all over the village.  Don’t you have trouble enough?  And you do not know more than Oz does.”

“I do,” she muttered, and jumped up to pace.

“You don’t,” he said, and leaned down to ask very nicely for the off hind foot.  “And even if you did,” he said, now pinching the leg just above the hock, “it would hardly be a seemly bit of knowledge, considering your age and position.”  The black foot finally popped up—then, as Robert reached to catch it, slammed back down onto the earth.

“What was that I heard you mutter just now?” Bess laughed, delighted.

“Never you mind,” he said.  “Just go off and stop troubling me, or if you can’t find anything else to do, get yourself married and trouble somebody else.”

Bess flipped her braid back over her shoulder and glowered at him.  “Then why did you teach me in the first place?”  She flounced back to the hay, but didn’t sit—turning, instead, to consider the horse with the eye of experience.  “You need to sweet-talk him.”  She slipped by Robert and went to the horse’s head.  “He just needs to be tamed, that’s all.”

“Watch yourself,” Robert said as the bay threw its head to the side, eyes rolling.  But Bess was purring at the animal, and ran a hand down the inside of its front leg.  Then she straightened and offered her hand to the nose, palm out and steady.

“You know how good I am with them,” she crooned, looking as harmless as she knew how to be, her hand still out.  The horse unbent enough to take a brief whiff of her fingers.  “He’ll smell his own chestnuts,” she said happily, “and then he’ll like me.”

“If he doesn’t bite your hand off first.”  But the gruffness had gone out of his voice.  He kept patient hold of the hock, waiting.  As the horse allowed its nose to be engaged, the thick leg relaxed and came up easily under his hand.

“Yes, you lovely thing,” she said.  She stayed at the head—humming for the horse, and finally scratching the place between its eyes—until Robert had finished trimming the hoof.  “I can always tame them,” she said with satisfaction.  Then, “But why this work from up the hill, and all of a sudden? I thought they had their own smithy.”

“It’s all those visitors at the castle, I expect,” Robert said.  “Coming from afar, and putting wear on their horses’ feet.  Too many at one time for the castle smith, is all.  Oz—get me the rasp from over there—no, by the forge.  Good lad.”

“So many visitors, lately.” Bess stroked the broad nose. “I wonder what they’re up there for?”

“Setting up trade or courting the prince, poor boy.  Ask Sally’s cousin, Cass, when next she comes down the hill on her free day.  She’ll give you an earful if you’re all that interested.”  He put the foot down and straightened his back with a little grunt.

“See how tired you are.”  She left the horse and went to stand in the breeze blowing in through the doors.  “And don’t tell me I wouldn’t be a help.  It’s not for me, I’m offering—I have enough to do.  It’s for you, stubborn lunk.”

“Look, Bess,” Robert said.  At his tone, she turned to him, her skirt belling slightly in the fresh air.  “Girl darling,” he went on dourly, hands on hips and eyes focused somewhere over her head.  “I’ll remind you that I’ve been brother to you since your mother, bless her soul, left the earth and us behind—since the old days when you were as underfoot as a puppy.”  At that, he smiled, seemingly in spite of himself, and looked straight at her.  “Standing there in the light, full grown,” he said wonderingly.  Then shook himself and was back to business.  “There are things that need to be said to you straight on, and it’s time I had the courage to do it.”

She’d gone watchful, her eyes narrowed.  “I don’t need another father,” she said.  “I have one of those already, and that’s more than enough.”

“Not by half,” Robert said.

“Oh, he’s a dreamer and a tale-spinner,” she said bitterly, “but he’s got enough to say on the subject of me and what my life’s to be.”

“He’s a hard worker,” Robert said, “and deserving of your respect if that was all.  But whatever he has said to you, I don’t see too many signs of your heeding it.  And knowing him, there’s too much he’s left out.”

“And you’re so wise with all your great age and your tiny children,” she said, with a shift of the shoulder.

“Wiser than you and older than you.” Robert rebalanced, planting his feet squarely.  “And I don’t just speak for myself here, but for Sally as well.”

“Oh, fine,” she said, eyes flashing.  “The two of you talking about me and passing judgment behind my back?”

“Of course we do,” he roared, sending the horse behind him snorting away.  “We’re all the family you have, and love you dearly and always will.  If it were just us in the world, you could be whatever, and no trouble to us at all.  But it’s not just us, and the world is a harsher place than you think, my girl.  And I’m going to say what I have to, and you’ll stand where you are and hear it.”

She turned half away, hands on her hips and chin up.

“You’ll be seventeen in a month.  You’re a woman now, Bess, certainly.  And I’ll admit, I’ve made a mistake, letting you go like a hoyden for too long. God love you, I wouldn’t douse the spirit in you for all the world.  But even the best horse needs to learn to go with a bit, if she’s to be useful to her neighbors and treated well.  You may not be a lady, but you’ve got grace—and you’ve become a woman, no matter how you may rant against it.  You have certain duties now, Bess, and none of them’s mucking out stalls or cleaning horses’ feet or bathing in the mill pond or riding like a hellion up and down the roads.  You’re a miller’s daughter, and your dad will be getting on, and he’s going to need somebody to run that mill, or at least, to bring in some kind of trade and look after him when he’s old.”

“You mean I need to get married.”

“I do.  It’s well and past time, and you’ve had offers enough to put off most of the girls in the village, not to mention the mothers of the men you’ve passed up.  You’ve got to live here, girl—and it’s easier when you have the respect of those you live with.”

“I’ll take care of my father myself,” she said, still standing in the sun with her chin up.

“Not in that mill, you won’t.  You don’t have the brawn.”

“I can make my way.  You look at Jen.  When her father died, she kept the bakery going and makes a handsome living at it without a man around to help—and has for five years.”

“Well, I don’t see a trade in you—aside from your numbers and your business head.  No trade that would make you brass in this village.”

Now she faced him squarely.  “So now you’re saying that I’m to shackle myself to some man, just to keep food on the table?  Isn’t that what strumpets do?  You’re saying I’m to spend my life a little slave of a mouse, sharing my bed and bearing him children and keeping my mouth shut?”

He blinked at that, and dropped his shoulders.  “That’s what you think of Sally, then?” he said, quietly.

Her head jerked back a bit.  She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“No,” she said.

“Well, I hope not,” he said, and turned away from her.

She took in a sharp breath as he did.  He got back to the business with the horse behind him.  “But it’s you she chose,” Bess said.  “And there’s only the one of you in all the world.”

He laughed and shook his head.  “You’ll not get around me like that,” he said.  This time, when he bent to lift a foot, the horse let him do it.  He pulled his trimmers out of the pocket of his leather apron and began to apply them, leaving Bess to stand there in her huff alone.

She could never keep her temper off for long.  She came drifting back again and took her place on the hay.  She watched him carefully as he trimmed, following with care the angles and the depths of the cuts.  And when he set the hoof on the stand and took out the rasp, she watched that too, pass after pass, enjoying the rhythm and the art of it.

“There’s really nobody left, you know,” she said after a time.  “There’s the Tanner’s Tos and his weasel-faced friend.”  She laughed at the fierce look that put on Robert’s face, and waved it away.  “Don’t worry on that score,” she told him.  Then settled thoughtfully back on the hay.  “Nothing left but dull old widowed farmers.  But there really never was anybody in the first place.”

“Tom Carpenter was as sweet a man as you’ll ever find,” Robert said.

“I know he was,” she said softly.  “But he wasn’t for me.”  She picked up a stem of hay and bent it between her fingers.  “Tom took Anne in the end, and that was right for both of them.”

“Oz,” Robert shouted, carefully placing the finished hoof on the ground and going on to the last one.  “When Miss Bess here comes in to ride from now on, she’ll be riding Kishka.”

Bess was suddenly upright at that.  “Oh, Robert, no,” she said.

“She’s a proper little mare for a woman,” Robert said, moving the stand, and leaning over to ask for the hoof.

“She’s might as well be dead, that one,” Bess protested.  “There’s nothing interesting in her.”

“She’s dependable, willing and sweet-natured,” Robert said.  “She’ll take care of you.  I thought you were just bragging about how good you are with the horses.”

“She’s dull, plodding and has no imagination,” Bess answered.  “I’d die of boredom.  I said I’m good at taming them.  I’d rather have Sachem.”

“What?  That red colt of mine?  He has no training at all,” Robert said.  The big bay horse had gone back to playing coy.  “And too full of himself.  You’d break your neck.”

“I’d train him,” she said.

“I can’t decide,” Robert muttered, resorting again to a pinch of the hock, “whether that colt is a good horse with a bad streak, or a bad one with a streak of good.”

“He’s good,” Bess said.  “They’re all good.  You just have to know how to bring it out.”

The bay had lifted his foot, but with Robert’s hand on it, was now doing short little kicks, meaning to shake him off.

“And you’re the one for that,” Robert grunted, grimly keeping hold.

“I am,” Bess said.  “I can tame him if anybody can.”

The kicking had subsided, but the leg was tucked up tight against the horse’s belly.  “You great lummox,” Robert said, making tiny circles with the hoof and pulling down firmly with every one.  The hoof jerked up, then down, then began to surrender to the circling.  “There, now, idiot,” Robert said sweetly, “Just let me do this one, and you’re done.”  Another jerk.  Another surrender.

“Let me tell you,” Robert said between his teeth, “there are only two ways of taming.  You control a creature through fear.  Or you open a door.  The first way, you’ll eventually get your neck broken.  But with the second, you give the creature a chance to tame himself.  That’s the true way.  Offer the chance and let him decide—then understand that, if it works, it had little to do with you.”

Now, Robert had the hoof in hand, and held it steady for a moment, just to make a point.  When the leg finally relaxed, Robert took the hoof between his knees and began the trim.

“A wise heart,” he said slowly as he worked, “puts value on what’s good and steady and true.  Shhh, you devil, you.  Where, the young and feckless heart—“ he took the last snip off the inner side of the heel, put the trimmers down, and drew out the rasp, “is drawn to wildness, maybe taking it for adventure and romance—which is a dire mistake.”  He put the hoof carefully down on the stand, then had to put it back there twice again.  “’Interesting’ is only a matter of scale,” he went on, still bent over his work.  “Just keep in mind, there’s more than one mystery close to home.”

He took his time over the rasping, making too much noise with it to hear a word she might have said.  But she was not speaking, only glaring—and not even sure why.

He moved the stand away, took the hoof in hand, and set it softly back on the ground.  “There,” he said.  “You’re done.  And was that so bad?”  The big horse shifted away, blowing.  Robert straightened up and looked at Bess.

“And haven’t you got mill-work to do?”

 

 

The spring was so new that the paths and by-ways were running with mud.  It was a good road that came out of the village, wagon-wide, and in the dry times, packed hard and easy on the wheels.  The road ran past the smithy, then up over the stone bridge that spanned the spate, and then down past the mill lane, where it turned west and rambled on across the countryside, dwindling, at last, into a cart path.  There were lanes that turned off it here and there—never to the east—farmer’s lanes, the way to the dairy, and the tanner’s lane that took off to the west just before the bridge, following the bank of the river, and then angling off into the trees to the south.  The tanner’s was a long, long lane, as not many neighbors were anxious to share the scent of the tanner’s work.

A low stone wall ran to the west of the road, all the way down from the village.  The wall itself curved off with the tanner’s lane, but only for another dozen feet or so before it petered out to nothing but a hedge.  It might have been a pretty place, that little turning, but in past months had become less than attractive—for there it was that, what with too large a pub tab and too little to do, Tos, the tanner’s brawny son, and Mallo, his scrawny, sparse-haired friend, had taken up their afternoon residence.  The girls and women of the village avoided the place now, or only made the walk to the bridge early in the morning, or in male company—seemingly the only way to discourage cat-calls and vulgar observations.

But Bess had little choice in the matter.  Her life was conducted between the mill and smithy, and pass by the tanner’s turning, she must.  Robert rarely traveled north of the smithy and didn’t hear much of what went on before the bridge.  Bess had not told him about it, rightly afraid that he might come boiling down the road and put a stop to it all with a hammer.  But that was not the only reason she kept her silence; she did her best to ignore them, never listening to the vile things they had in them to say.  But she heard it all, nonetheless, and was less than eager to repeat the smallest part.  And then, there was always the smallest chance they’d tire of the game on their own, and go find some other horrible amusement without Bess having to make herself the middle of a fuss.

Now, with the road so wet and rutted, she had to lift her skirts high of the mud, hopping from dry place to dry place on the way home.  Her mind was busy with the recent conversation, angry over Kishka, frustrated by Robert’s evidently serious intent.  And, truth be known, more than a little bothered by some of his observations.  When voices called out to her just before the bridge, she was taken off guard and made the mistake of glancing back to see who it was speaking.

“Oh!  Don’t get mud on the lovely skirts,” Mallo fluted.  “You should pull them up a little higher, dearie.  Much higher, in fact.”  Laughter.

“There she goes,” Tos said, “the famous beauty of the village, unsullied and ripe as a plum.  Hey, miller’s daughter—“  But her foot slipped just then, and scrambling for balance, she missed the rest of it.

“Good day, dear,” Mallo called.  “Oh, she’s such a lovely girl.  Isn’t she a lovely girl?”

“Lovely to be sure.  And I’d love to see more of her.  What about it, Bessie-my-love? Maybe a little dip in the river?  There’s a moon tonight, and I’m the man to undo you.”

It was too much. She stopped and turned to rake them with a scathing look.  “There are more productive things to do in this world,” she announced, “than troubling innocent by-passers.”

Impervious to the tone, they collapsed in hilarity, embroidering broadly on the word “productive” in a way that brought heat to her face and sickness to her stomach.  But she kept her head up and turned her back on them, continuing on toward the bridge.

“Anytime you like—” Tos said behind her, his voice no longer facetious.

 

 

*          *            *

 

“Seventeen soon.  Seventeen years, Bessie.  You know what Susan the butcher’s wife said to me this morning?  About that.  About your age?  She said you’re getting old because you’re too strong minded.”

“You get old, Dad, because you keep staying alive,” Bess said, wearily.  She was giving the stew a last stir.  She still had her mill-floor cloth wound about her hair, and it was shedding bits of flour onto the stove.

“Well, I told her being strong minded was not a bad thing.  I said, ‘you have to consider that all my family is strong-minded, and we’ve done fairly well.’  Still and all, your blessed mother was sixteen when she had you, and if I’d known how short a time I’d have her, I’d have made it earlier still.”

“Mama died in childbirth.  It would have happened whatever her age.” Bess pushed the peal into the oven and pulled out a fat, flaky loaf.  Her father made no answer.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” she said, glancing back at him.

“It’s my saddest thing, Bess,” he said, sadly.  “My very saddest”

She slapped the peal down on the sideboard and covered the bread with a cloth.

Her father sat at the table, staring into his empty bowl.  He was still in his work apron, and there was a snow bank of flour around his chair. Bess looked down at this and sighed. She went to stand behind him, her hands on his shoulders, thinking that neither of them had the sense of a goose.  He patted one of her hands.

“Don’t forget to slip the bowl under the stove tonight, will you?” he said to her.

She squeezed his shoulders and laughed, then turned to go put her hand on the cloth that covered the bread. Too hot to cut.   “You know I don’t hold with any of that.  I’m a god-fearing woman, Dad.”

“Well, I don’t see it,” her father said, mildly.

“And what kind of thing is that to say?”  She pulled the pot from the fire and set it on the hearth.

He sighed.  “If you truly feared God, it seems to me you’d not be so quick to tell him what he can do and what he cannot.”

“I don’t boss God, if that’s what you mean,” she said, taking off her head cloth at last and going to the door to shake it out.

“You’ve decided there is no guardian under the stove, and nothing to the old ways and the old things.  It’s a betrayal, you know, of your eastern blood.”

“Magic and superstition,” she said, giving the cloth a last snap.

“That’s what I mean. Who are you to tell a god what’s real and what is not?  Weren’t there devils that sent the swine over the cliff to their deaths?”

“Of course there were,” she said.

“Well, then, there must be guardians under the stove to keep such things from happening.  And to keep young women from laziness.  So I say, whether it suits you or not, put the bowl down as you should, and I will sleep the better for it.”

So she took a bowl and filled it with milk and put it on the floor just under the stove without another word.

“And one on the porch, tonight, as well,” he said.  “I’ve had a feeling come on me.”

Bess sighed and did as he asked, even while she felt foolish about it.  And then she went back to serve up the stew.  “Let me ask you something, Dad,” she said, after a taste of it.  “What if I decide here and now never to get married?  Don’t you think we’d do all right?  Jen the baxter does fine for herself.  I’d just stay here and live my life out with you.  It’s a good life, isn’t it?”  She pinched some salt from the bowl and added it to the stew.

“But who would take care of you?” he asked.

“You would,” she said lightly.

He shook his head.  “You can’t depend on that.”

“You can’t depend on a husband, either.”  She set his full bowl down in front of him.  “I already have somebody to cook for me.”

“Sarcasm,” he said, shaking his spoon at her.

“But, Dad—”  She took her chair.  “Who on earth is there left?”

“Sturgiss,” her father said.

“Sturgiss, with his black faced sheep.  He has five children.  Sturgiss is old as the bridge.”

“Sturgiss has a good farm,” her father said, placidly. “He’s a good man, with a good holding and he’s asked after you.”

“Sturgiss is a nice man,” she conceded.  “But he can’t read.”

Her father put down his spoon, folded his hands and became very patient.  “Neither can you,” he said.

“I can, too,” she said.  “Enough.”

“Not books. You don’t even know anybody who’s got a book.  And what’s that got to do with marriage?”

“Something.”  Bess stabbed at a potato. “An open door.”

“I don’t believe I know anyone who can read,” her father murmured.

“Well, then,” Bess said.

“Of course, there’s always the prince.  Now, he might be somebody you’d think about.  I’m sure he can read.”

“I’m sure he can.”  She laughed.

“Well, he’s not married.”

“Isn’t that a coincidence?” she said, popping a bit of carrot into her mouth.

“It’s not such an unlikely thing,” he mused.  “You have the blood, and surely, he’d be drawn to that.”

“Oh, the blood, the blood.”  She threw up her hands and left the table to cut the bread.

“Hush, you,” her father warned.  “Don’t make light.  It’s in you—look at the color of your hair.  Not like the prince’s, but brighter than anybody else we know.  That eastern blood is where your magic comes from.”

Bess sighed.  “No magic, Dad.  Not in me.”  She took a cut of the bread.  But it was still too hot, and tore under the blade.

He turned to look at her, an odd, dark look.  “You bewitch otters,” he said.  “And think of your way with horses.  Think, Bess.  And you never know what else you could do if you wanted to.  What prince wouldn’t notice these things?”

“I can tell you,” she said, “that ours has not.”  She’d finished the awful cut, and now put the hunk of torn bread on the table with the butter.

“You never know,” her father said.

“No,” she conceded.  “But you can be pretty sure.”