Kate Sedley: The Wicked Winter

'How do you know that?' I asked him.

For answer, he put out a hand and brushed my sleeve.

Then, holding the rushlight closer, he showed me the tips of his fingers which were lightly powdered with flour. On another occasion he said, 'Your wife dead.' It was not a question, and once again I demanded how he came to his conclusion.

He smiled his faint smile. 'You speak of child. Daughter. You speak of mother. Not speak of woman. Why?' He shrugged his thin shoulders. 'Because dead.'

It was, I suppose, something that anyone might have worked out for himself, but in Ulnoth I had not expected such powers of deduction, for he mingled hardly at all with his fellow men. This was plain from the way he shrank back into the farthest recesses of the house and waved me to silence whenever any traffic passed on the road. It was very light at that time of year, but only that morning, we had already heard the slap of shoes on the iron-hard ground and, a little later, the clop of hoofs as someone rode by in the opposite direction.

He lived on small animals and birds which he trapped in the woods, but he attended to his snares and filled his water pots at the rill very early in the day, before anybody else was about.

But when he was forced into company, as he had been into mine, he revealed a kindliness and sweetness of disposition often found lacking in a lot of people who have more to be grateful for than he. He did not forgo companionship because he doubted others — on the contrary, I thought him if anything too trusting — but because solitude was his way of life. I managed to prise out of him that his parents had died 'long, long time gone'; probably, I surmised, when he was still a child. There was no means of telling how old Ulnoth really was, and it was likely that he was younger than he looked. Nevertheless, he had spent many years on his own, and it was only natural that after all that while he should prefer it.

Before I said my farewells I asked for directions to Lynom Hall. Ulnoth led me outside and pointed back along the track, the way I had come four days earlier.

'Road,' he said, pointing to the right, and I recalled that other track which, as I approached the boulder house, had branched off to my left. 'There along.'

I thanked him for all he had done, my gratitude the deeper because he had refused to accept any payment from me, eitherin money or in goods from my pack.

'What need?' he had asked, spreading wide his skeletal hands. And indeed, I could see that by his standards he wanted for nothing. Nature and his own ingenuity provided everything, including homemade needles and thread.

I embraced him, hoping that I might perhaps claim him as a friend; but I had gone only a yard or two along the track when, turning to glance over my shoulder, I found the road behind me already empty. Ulnoth had not waited to see me on my way, but scuttled back into his house like a frightened coney into its burrow. I smiled to myself with a little shake of my head, then set out, my left ankle as strong as ever, to discover Lynom Hall.

It was as cold, if not colder than it had been on Friday, and I was thankful not only for my thick, hooded frieze cloak, but also for my leather jerkin, lined with scarlet, which a widow woman had parted with some years earlier in exchange for necessaries from my pack.

I retraced my steps to that other, south-bound track and turned the corner, searching the landscape ahead of me for any sign of habitation. But the last in a range of hillocks obscured the view, causing the path to swerve first right and then left as it curled around its base. Once this double bend had been negotiated however, a broad plain opened up in front of me, and the sharp, salt tang of the sea was borne inland on the wind. In the near distance I could see the outbuildings of what promised to be a sizeable building and which I thought must certainly be Lynom Hall.

And so it proved. A moated, stone-built house with a large undercroft and surrounded by bakery, dairy and laundry, chapel, stables and byre could be no other. A wooden drawbridge, wide enough for the passage of a large wagon, spanned a moat which I discovered to be very deep and filled with brackish water. Two men, who were busy carrying hay from the undercroft to the stables, gave me a cursory glance as I crossed it.

'Is your mistress at home?' I called.

One said, 'She is, but you'd best not disturb her, Chapman, at this present,' and looked at his companion and sniggered.

There was plainly some significance in the remark.

'Then maybe I can see the housekeeper or the cook or one of the maids,' I suggested. 'Any woman of the household will do. I've plenty still in my pack to interest her.' The man who had so far not spoken put down the sheaf of straw he was humping.

'I daresay the old lady 'ud be glad to see you,' he admitted, and his fellow nodded in agreement.

'Always glad to see anyone, she is. Finds the days hang heavy. Well, they do when you're old and confined to the house I reckon.' He eyed me up and down, his head tilted consideringly to one side. Wisps of red hair protruded from beneath his hood. 'You're a big, stout-looking lad. Give us a hand with this hay and we'll introduce you to the housekeeper ourselves, with a recommendation that she takes you up to see Dame Judith. What's your name?' I told them, and in return learned that the red-haired man was called Hamon and the other Jasper. I laid down my pack and stick, seized a bale of hay and carried it easily enough into the stables. A fine red chestnut with a pale mane and tail fixed me with a beady eye and blew gustily through its nostrils as I entered.

'Better leave Belle Amie to us,' Hamon said over his shoulder. 'The mare's Mistress Lynom's pride and joy, but to my mind she's a nasty nature. Feed the cob and Jessamine there.' He indicated a raw-boned grey. 'They're both quiet and gentle.'

'What about him?' Jasper demanded with a jerk of his head towards a big handsome black with white stockings and a white blaze on its forehead. 'Did we ought perhaps-?'

'Nab!' Hamon interrupted decisively. 'Why should we waste our winter fodder on a stranger? He'll have hay enough waiting for him in his own stable. Great overfed brute!'

'The mistress might expect it,' Jasper demurred. 'How long's he going to be here?'

Hamon gave a ribald chuckle. 'How do I know? As long as his master, and how long's that? In such circumstances, there's no saying.' And they both laughed immoderately, nudging one another in the ribs.

I made no inquiries as to their meaning, judging it wisest to remain ignorant, but half guessing at the truth. Had not Joanna Miller informed me that I might meet Sir Hugh Cederwell at Lynom Hall? 'Gossip has it that the widow is his mistress.' But if that were indeed the case, the less I knew about this illicit liaison the better. I hoped, the weather holding, to travel as far as Cederwell Manor.

When the horses had been fed, Jasper dropping a little hay into the black's manger while his companion wasn't looking, and I had again taken up my pack and cudgel, the two men led me around to the back of the house and into the kitchen. In contrast to the extreme cold outside, the heat in there was almost overpowering, emanating from a huge fire on the central hearth and a number of ovens set into the thick stone walls. A big woman in a gown of grey burrel and a linen coif and apron, wielding a large ladle as if it were her wand of office, as in a way I suppose it was, dominated the room and sent the kitchen-maids scurrying in all directions to carry out her orders.

'What are you two great oafs doing in my kitchen?' she demanded, when she saw Hamon and Jasper. 'Out, before you carry the muck from the yard and stables all over my swept and scrubbed floor!'

'Here's a chapman,' Hamon said sulkily, 'come hawking his wares. We thought the old lady might be glad of his company.'