Winter of Discontent

singing, the pageantry and aura of holiness- and what you can’t understand is all the more impressive for many people. Bishop William himself presided over the service with several Canons doing most of the work. He noticed Alan at the altar when he was receiving the Host and gave him a baleful look.

Alan had come to enjoy his trips to London as they were something of a holiday from the duties that usually beset him, running his manors, training soldiers and dispensing justice in the Hundred- although he disliked the squalor and overcrowding of the city. It was a pity that looking over his shoulder for an assassin took the edge off his enjoyment. Still Alan was content to spend time quietly at home, in the Abbey library or wandering the city and enjoying its bustling nature, the range of arts and crafts represented by the various guilds and the incredible variety of goods available.

Anne’s advancing pregnancy somewhat restricted the shopping trips that she so loved, but meant that she had ample time to deal with the trading and shipping business she ran. The goods that had been in the warehouse in Fish Street on their last visit were long gone- sold, replaced and sold again. Her small fleet had begun to ply the seas for the season in early April after the spring storms had abated. At the moment the Zeelandt, captained by the Norwegian Bjorn, an elderly red-bearded man of immense experience, courage and good-humor, was sitting at the London docks unloading its cargo of fine Bordeaux wine. On its return trip it would carry ingots of copper and tin from the mine in Devon now partly owned by Anne, barrels of whale oil and salted or dried fish from Norway, barrels of Stockholm tar and bales of English cloth and wool. The goods from Norway and the Baltic had been brought south by another of Anne’s ships, the Birgitta.

Of the other ships in the small fleet, Birgitta traded with the Baltic and Norway, exchanging cloth and wool for preserved fish, whale oil and tar. Stormsvale plied back and forth between Haarlem, Ipswich and London, trading the other items in the inventory for dyes, fine lace and a variety of other continental goods. Apart from exchanging goods, each voyage also resulted in a profit of close to fifty percent. Anne was enjoying the additional time and the convenience of not running a manor ‘in the middle of nowhere’ and using this to best effect to have her business run like a machine. She’d taken the opportunity to employ as her business manager Jacob the Jew, formerly employed in Malachi’s business, and spent long hours with him at the office in the Fish Street warehouse attending to the books of account and establishing lines of credit for the transfer of funds. She’d made it clear that she expected to see him each Quarter Day for a full accounting, either at London or at Thorrington.

Sunday dawned warm and clear and the days were now becoming longer, with sunrise at half past four in the morning and sunset at half-past seven in the evening, giving nearly fourteen hours of sunlight. Alan had hired a punt to take them upriver for a pleasure cruise, just the two of them and the poleman. Being Sunday, they attended at the early morning service at the local Church of St Edmund at Prime and then departed from the stone steps by the river bank at Queenhithe about two hours later. They were leisurely polled upriver past Baynard’s Castle, located in the south-west of the city precinct, then past Westminster and into the relative quiet of the river beyond. Chelsea and Battersea passed slowly by. The river was flowing quite strongly and even close to the bank the boatman had to exert himself.

Anne was sitting at the rear of the boat facing forwards, wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat that Alan had insisted she don to protect her fair skin from the spring sun, and trailing her hand in the water. For much of the distance the river was lined with willows now in full leaf, and in places the woodland came down to the water’s edge. Anne exclaimed from time to time as she saw deer, and once a fox with a long red tail, coming to the water to drink, causing Alan who was sitting opposite her and facing backwards towards the boatman, to have to turn and look. Swans and ducks swam at the water’s edge or could be seen resting on the riverbank. On the occasional mudflat, or in the several swamps caused by low-lying land, wading birds could be seen.

They paused in the early afternoon for the mid-day meal at Putney, after a journey of five miles, leaving the punt to partake of the fare at a local tavern, washed down with ale in Alan’s case and apple juice for Anne. The return journey took much less time with the boatman mainly steering and allowing the current to carry them along. They arrived back at the Queenhithe steps just after five in the afternoon and, as Alan handed Anne out of the punt, it swayed alarmingly as they stepped out. He then he pressed into the boatman’s hand the agreed fee of three pennies. Anne gave Alan a kiss and thanked him for a wonderful day.

They walked past the Bishop’s palace, incongruously nestled between the two fish markets, where fortunately the fishmongers had already cleaned up for the day, and then up Bread Street to call in at a bakery as Anne was tempted by the sight of cream-cakes on display, along Chepe Street and out of Newgate to walk the short distance to their home at Holebourn Bridge.

Anne had arranged for Bjorn, the captain of the trading cog Zeelandt, to dine with them that evening as he was due to sail the following day and she was anxious to hear from him how his first voyage of the season to Bordeaux had proceeded. The old Viking was always a font of wonderful stories once his mind and tongue were lubricated with several quarts of ale.

Bjorn was a big bear of a man. Hairy, aged but still immensely strong, and as Alan could attest still very swift with an axe. His weather-beaten face was dominated by a large red nose and the bluest eyes Alan had ever seen, surrounded by wrinkles caused by years of staring into the sun. He was sitting waiting for them in the Hall, with the maid Synne sitting on his lap and seemingly enjoying his attentions despite the fact that the Viking was old enough to be her father. He released the woman with a sigh of regret, but received a look that promised an interesting night before Synne walked out of the room with a swing of her bottom.

Alan raised an eyebrow to Anne before he greeted their guest. “God Hael! I hope we find you well, Bjorn,” said Alan formally.

Bjorn rose from his seat, embraced Alan in a bear-hug and patted his back, and then turned to Anne. With more gentleness he also embraced her and then gave a kiss, a pat on the bottom and, after a step backwards, a pat on the belly. “Growing fat!” he commented with a smile. “Due late summer? I thought so!” he gave her another kiss, Anne giggling as the whiskers of his large red beard and moustache tickled. Bjorn clearly had a relaxed attitude of dealing with his employer, treating her like a favourite niece.

“Just a moment,” said Alan, as he quickly went to his office and returned with an earthenware quart crock and three small cups. As they sat down he bid Bjorn to down the small portion of ale remaining in his quart pot, and poured into a small cup which he set before Bjorn. He filled it and then poured a thimble-full into his own cup and the same into that of Anne. “From Finland. Aqua Vitae- ‘The Water of Life’,” he explained as he took a careful sip and winced. Just then Osmund wandered in and took a seat at the table.

“Thor’s balls! I haven’t had that for years! Drikke!” exclaimed Bjorn taking a deep pull that drained half of the cup at once. His face immediately turned red. Anne took a sip from her cup, blinked as tears appeared in her eyes and gave a small cough. “Good stuff!” continued Bjorn, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Alan hoped he wasn’t going to drink the whole jug, as even with Bjorn’s capacity it would put him into an alcoholic coma and he was due to sail next day. Bjorn filled his cup back to the brim, offered the jug to Alan and Anne, both of whom shook their heads, and to Alan’s surprise he then put the stopper back into the crock and placed it firmly on the table out of his own reach. Clearly he had drunk Aqua Vitae previously and respected the fierce spirit.

“How went the journey to Aquitaine?” asked Anne.

“Well enough,” replied Bjorn. “It was a little stormy on the way there, and the return took longer than I’d like. We were stuck in Lorient for over a week waiting for the wind so we could get around Finistere. Your Factor in Bordeaux is doing a good job. He’s importing spices and other luxury goods directly from the Moors. There are five- pound sacks of grains of paradise, saffron, ginger and cumin. There’s turmeric from further east for curries, together with black pepper, cinnamon and cassia. Nutmeg and mace. Damned expensive stuff. Costs nearly the same as gold, but that is the Factor’s worry not mine. I’m just transport. Not to worry! I store them ‘high and dry’.”

“Some of them are actually worth more than gold, particularly the saffron,” said Anne in a quiet voice.

“Do you know, we actually ate gold at a party last year,” commented Alan. “One of the dishes of food was gilded with gold leaf. How stupid can you be, to be that ostentatious just to impress people with how rich you are? It’s not as if it has any flavour.”

Bjorn shook his head in amasement at the antics of the nobles. “Just give me a good smoked pork hock to chew and a jug of the Aqua Vitae!” he replied.

“Any problems with pirates?” asked Anne.

Bjorn waved a dismissive hand. “No. After we sank that one last year using the big cross-bow and the fire- arrow, when they come out from Brest, Guernsey or Alderney they take one look at us, recognise who we are and