World Without End

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 A

Caris gave Mattie twelve silver pe

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 were 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 i

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 travelled 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, pi

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 judgement, 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 labourer, 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.