I bowed, as common people did. “I came not by it, master,” I said. “It came by me. I was on the road, and it came up and nuzzled the sack I carry. When I told him I had no grain, he cared not but bid me ride anyways.”
“That’s Miller Sedgebrook’s horse,” said one of the huntsmen. “Miller’s been dead over a year.”
“Him and all his house,” said another. “But one son who’d gone away.”
I marked down that the miller had a son who’d gone away. Named Havoc, most likely. “Me,” I said. “I’ve come back.”
“Likely the beast was wandering,” said the first huntsman. “Lonely for humankind.”
“He seemed lonesome indeed,” I said, looking at my feet.
“Did no one teach you to take off your cap before your betters?” the lord asked. “And what happened to your face?”
“Aye, s-s-sir,” I stuttered, “but I’ve got my supper in it, and a man beat me, sir, and robbed me.” Which was true enough. He had stolen my virginity and my best friend and all my peace. He had robbed me well enough.
Though I had spoken without thinking, what I had said made me cry and them laugh. They felt amused and sorry for me, both at once.
“Get up on old Sedgebrook’s horse and come with us, then,” the lord said. “You can have a bite of supper that’s better than you’ll find under your cap, at least, and a place to sleep while you heal.”
I gestured at the ruined abbey. “The old one there told me to stay far from people, sir, lest I die.”
The lord nodded. “Ah, and well enough he’d have told you last year, boy, or the year before. But there’ve been few deaths this last twelvemonth, and we’ve hopes the thing is done with.”
“The Black Death, he said?” I wanted confirmation.
They gave me curious looks, and I thought I’d better say less and listen better. Evidently the matter was so well-known it occasioned no comment.
“It seems to have been everywhere,” I added, hastily.
They agreed it had indeed and bid me again to ride off with them, which I did, though well behind as was respectful. If I was to keep up my boy’s disguise, I’d need to cut my hair shorter or braid it up tightly. The men wore theirs almost to their shoulders, but if I’d taken off my hat, mine was down my back so I could sit on it, which was what had betrayed me first to Jaybee. If they’d seen that, they’d not have long accepted me as a boy.
The place they took me was Wellingford House, a goodly manse set some distance from Wellingford village and with no walls about it. Papa had always called the lords of Wellingford plain fools to have no defenses, but from what was said on the ride, they had survived the Death better than most other places. When I saw the place, I thought I knew why. Whether I’d heard of the Death or not, everyone in the twentieth knew that rats and mice and fleas carried disease, a thing unknown in my own time. Wellingford House was as clean a place as I have seen in that time. Since there were no close walls to hold it in, the stables, kennels and barns were well away from the house with much clean garden between. The house had no rushes on the floor, and maids were kept busy sweeping morning and night. In most lordly places, even some parts of Westfaire, the floors were a midden of old rushes, bones, dog offal and droppings, and other, even more disgusting, dirt. Janet, the chatelaine of Wellingford House, would have none of that, and I saw only one rat the whole time I was there, and that was near the granary.
Janet was a termagant against fleas, as well, with much beating and sunning of clothing and much fleabane strewn in the presses. As a result of all this cleanliness, few of them at Wellingford had died. I was not introduced to those who were left, but I was sent to the kitchens, which is as good as an introduction. Never was a cook yet didn’t like to talk, so I’d been told by our cook at Westfaire, and in the Wellingford kitchens I found out a good deal about the people, especially after the woman there had seen my battered face and come to feel sorry for me.
The lord was Robert of Wellingford, eldest son of the old earl who’d died some time before. His lady was Janet, and they had four children living, the youngest only three. Robert’s two younger brothers lived on the place as well, the youngest, Richard, in the manor itself and the middle one, Edward, in the Dower House, which was some distance away across the park. There was some shaking of the head and pursing of the lips when they talked of Edward, “Naughty Ned,” they called him, “One For The Ladies,” who was always “Setting A Bad Example For The People.” Janet had told him he must go out of the manor house to the Dower House, where he could have his doxies out of sight and mind.
I nodded and slurped my soup and dipped my bread and begged a bit of meat for Grumpkin and a swatch of hay for the old horse, which was really my horse if I was the miller’s son, and asked questions about the countryside. Wellingford village and East Sawley, it seemed, were still there, though the latter was much depleted by the plague. All around the countryside places were in ruin, and there was nobody left to build them up again.
“Sir Robert’s been looking for masons and builders for over a year now, to put the abbey back together, but there’s no men
