Harvest

The Queen and all her subjects have taken to the threshing barn and are too busy when I arrive with Mr. Quill to want to stop and hold a conversation with our inquiring visitor. The flail ca

Mr. Quill and I stand away from the great open doors and downwind from the wi

I hurry Mr. Quill away. He’s smiled enough, I think. But he is in such a considerate mood he will not leave the barn until he has said farewell to everyone. He is not rewarded with replies. The one or two who break their labor and lift their chins to look at him are only baffled. What is this stranger getting at? When no one plans on going anywhere today, what is the purpose of farewell?

We find ourselves at last back in the lane which will take us past the blackened timbers of the stable and the ashes of baled hay and toward the turret of the manor house. We’ve brushed the dust and chaff from our shoulders, heads and beards, though Mr. Quill’s waxed wedge is still not clear of barley waste. We’re deep in somber conversation. It has been a restful and a pleasant walk, despite the weight of what I’ve learned. Yet I feel as if I’ve made a conquest and also been beguiled. I like the man. And I’ve recognized an opportunity in him, a way to turn these changes to my benefit.

It is not until we near the church ground that I realize I’ve hardly given any thought today to Mistress Beldam or her men. I feel uneasy, suddenly. Disloyal. Indeed, I’m doing what I can to not catch sight of the wooden pillory. And I succeed. Or I succeed until we have very nearly reached the orchard, where the lane-grass is bouldered with fallen fruit. I start to kick the largest apples down the path. I’m in a restive mood, of course. And with good cause. But Mr. Quill has spotted Master Kent. From where we are, we can see only our mounted master’s head and shoulders, his best high hat and lemon sash. He’s circling the cross and talking loudly to himself. His voice is splintered and alarmed. He’s rocking to and fro in the saddle, beating his thighs with his fists. And, as he has many times before on this piece of prospective holy ground, he is reciting obsequies and intercessions for the dead.

5

HE YOUNGER EDMUND JORDAN HAS not traveled here before. He alerted us to his arrival with six blasts on a saddle horn as soon as he and a party of five — his steward, a groom, and three sidemen — gained first sight of our valley this afternoon. But they descended through our lanes and ways without encountering a working hand. I think Master Jordan must have counted on something busier and grander. Certainly he was dressed for that. At least he expected to be welcomed at the manor house and given time to rest before attending to matters of estate. But he was greeted not by offers of stabling and refreshments but first by the remains of a newly burned-out barn and then by the sight of his host and cousin-in-law, Charles Kent, at the head end of a mutilated corpse. Mr. Quill, his fixed smile now signifying his revulsion, was at the other end, while I, still excused from carrying because of my injury, followed on, leading Willowjack. They must have looked the strangest pair in their yellow gleaning cloths, their hands and breeches black with blood, their shoulders sagging from the weight as they finally reached the courtyard of the manor house and hoisted the body onto the long stone bench in the porch before an audience of these mounted visitors.

I don’t know why we thought we could revive the man. Clearly he was dead and had been dead long enough for someone’s loose pig to chance upon the corpse and tear out pieces of his foot and calf. One leg was so badly damaged that Mr. Quill had to lift the body from the knees and tolerate what remained of the gnawed limb banging up against his own. But at moments such as this it would take a heartless man not to at least attempt some healing. Besides, once the three of us had gathered at the foot of the pillory and comprehended what had happened to the eldest of the newcomers, we were quickly in a hustle to escape the curses of the younger man. I have never seen such anger and such despair. His state was all the worse for his still being fastened in the pillory. His wrists and throat were purple with bruising. It looked as if he’d tried to pull himself free and didn’t care whether or not he left his head and hands behind.

None of us had the expertise to make repairs, although we knew we had to be the first … to what? To make amends? So we did what little could be done — mostly wiping off the blood, closing the wounds enough to hide the gri

This is my calculation, shaped once more without recourse to any constable or magistrate. Or any doctor, priest or undertaker, come to that. Yes, it’s just as well — again — that we are so far from civil practice, because a constable or magistrate would have the will and power to lay bare the causes of this man’s loose head and disfigured limbs. Here’s what took place. Sometime between my sodden visit to the pillory last night and Master Kent’s encounter with the two punished men this morning, when the younger was so manically uncivil, the elder man slipped or toppled from his stretched toes and snapped his neck. It might have been the rain that made him fall. Let’s hope his accident was sudden and he was sleeping. Or, God forbid, it could have been his living efforts to fight off a hungry hog that made him flail his body to and fro until his bones were split. Of course, it might have been a stopping heart. I hope it was a stopping heart. Or something unexceptional. Whatever happened, it is clear that the father did not fail to lift his head for Master Kent this morning as an insolent rebuke but because he was already dead.