Alys Clare - The Tavern in the Morning

A night of the dark moon, the bright stars concealed behind dense, low cloud heavy with chill moisture. A night of shrieking wind, blowing out of the north east, its steady howl bringing with it a phantom hint of snow-laden steppes, unimaginably distant. Unimaginably lonely.

The inn at Tonbridge had been busy since early morning. It was market day and obvious since first light that it was going to be a poor one. In such terrible weather, merchants and stall-holders had been more than ready to forego the possibility of further dealing — increasingly unlikely as folk headed home for the comfort of their own hearths — and, turning their backs on the early-falling darkness, make their way to Goody Anne’s tap room. Ah, but you could count on old Anne for a warm welcome! Nowadays, it came in the form of a tasty mug of her ale and a trencher of good fat bacon, or maybe a solid slice of hot, fragrant pie, oozing with gravy, bursting with chunks of rabbit or mutton. All the same, men had long memories, especially where their bodily comforts were concerned, and Goody Anne’s tap room housed many a fellow who recalled other, more intimate services that had once been on offer.

It was getting late now. The tap room was empty of customers, its tables cleared of mugs and platters, wiped cursorily and put straight, stools and benches tidied neatly beneath. The boy and the serving maid had finished their chores for the night. Finished what they were prepared to do of them, at any rate; they had both been on their feet since dawn, and, now that Goody Anne had turned in — if they stood still, they could hear her snores resonating from her room along the passage — neither of them saw any reason why they shouldn’t, too.

In a room in another part of the inn, the bitterly cold wind drove against a flapping piece of hide stretched across the small window, easily tossing it out of the way and filling the room with air as deadly cold as the night outside. It was Goody Anne’s guest chamber, fitted out with half a dozen narrow cots, all but five of which were at present stacked against one wall. The sixth was in use, fitted with a straw-filled sack to serve as a pillow and covered with two or three coarse wool blankets, much darned and none too clean.

Midnight.

As the boy and the serving maid snuggled down into their separate corners in the warm little scullery that backed on to the great kitchen hearth, gradually all sounds of life from the tavern ceased.

The wind strength grew, howling round the old building like an evil spirit, seeking access, blasting chill breaths into every gap. The rain that had finally begun to fall an hour ago turned to hail. The frozen droplets, as if they bore the stone walls a personal grudge, were being hurled against them with spiteful force, while, as a perpetual accompaniment, the wind howled its malicious song.

On the floor of the guest chamber, where he had half-fallen from the narrow cot, lay a dying man. He had come to rest on his side, the left cheek pressed hard against the thin rags that partially covered the floor. His legs and feet remained on the cot, tangled in the dirty covers.

In and around his mouth were quantities of brownish-yellow vomit, in which chunks of partially-digested meat and vegetables stood up like islets in a stream. He had been violently sick soon after staggering away to the privacy of this room, driven to seek solitude by the rapidly increasing feelings of unease that had been overcoming him … burning and tingling in the mouth, and a strange sense that every object in his sight had suddenly taken on a fuzzed outline. And his tongue had gone all numb, too, so that it felt like some fat foreign object in his mouth — how they’d laughed, when he couldn’t get his words out straight! To spare himself the humiliation of throwing up in Goody Anne’s tap room, he had crept away, hand pressed to his lips, moaning softly under his breath, stumbling down some endless, dark passage until he came to a door. And, beyond the door, this chamber. With a cot he could thankfully lay himself down on.

He had been there some hours now. The rapid breathing that had so alarmed him had slowed, and he was slipping in and out of consciousness, only spasmodically aware of where or who he was.

In one brief moment of clarity, he thought, I shouldn’t have stayed. Should have done as I planned, and turned for home soon as I’d sold my produce. Soon as the market wound up and trading finished, anyway. Shouldn’t have given in to temptation, and let the lads persuade me to come to the inn with them. Spent almost every penny I made this day, an’ all. Great merciful God, the ale I swigged! Greedy glutton that I was, I’m paying for it now. And that walloping great piece of pie, why, it were all I could do to finish it, me as can eat most other fellows under the table!

At the memory of his evening’s consumption, his stomach heaved again. But it was practically empty now, and the agonising, dry retching brought up little but a thin stream of yellowish bile.

Dear Lord, the man thought, tears of pain and weakness trickling down his cheeks, but I’m too old for this …

He lapsed into unconsciousness.

The slow breathing became more laboured as paralysis increased its grip on the respiratory muscles. As the relentless fist crept inexorably towards the heart, its beat weakened.

Within the half hour, the man was dead.

February, Josse d’Acquin thought miserably, was a wretched month for a journey.

He was nearly home, and he was experiencing in full the phenomenon of something unpleasant becoming far more so when one need not endure it much longer. The wind was coming steadily from the north-east quarter; into Josse’s mind sprang suddenly the memory of a fellow-soldier, a man he’d known years ago, who used to refer to a north-easter as the Snowmother.

The Snowmother was making Josse about as uncomfortable as a man could be just then, he reflected grimly. His cloak was soaked through — and it was his heavyweight one, too, guaranteed to keep you dry, curse that lying merchant — and his shoulders were aching with cold. His buttocks were sore, and his thighs were badly chafed from hours of sitting in the saddle with wet hose. He was hungry and thirsty — what inns there had been on the road that were open for business had had little to offer a traveller in the depths of a harsh winter — and his feet in the sodden, mud-caked boots burned with chilblains. Burned, anyway, where they weren’t frozen numb.

His horse was in little better state. ‘Poor old Horace,’ Josse murmured, slapping the big horse’s neck, ‘the things I ask of you, eh?’ The horse shook his head, and small drops of ice flew from his mane, spinning through the air and catching the weak light. ‘A thorough rub-down, a good feed, and tonight in your own stable, I promise,’ Josse added. ‘Another five miles, six at most, and we’ll be safe home at New Winnowlands.’

New Winnowlands. The small but stoutly-built manor house, once forming the dower house of a larger estate, had been given to Josse by King Richard Plantagenet, in grateful thanks for services Josse had rendered. Given, however, had apparently been open to question, by the King at least; even when awarding Josse his prize, the words ‘at a reasonable price’ had crept into Richard’s little speech. It had been only on the intercession of his mother, the great Eleanor of Aquitaine, wife to Henry II and beloved queen of the English people, that the gift had managed to stay a gift.