[Roger the Chapman 06] - The Wicked Winter Read Free Page B

reversed, and while I watched, the 'enemy' managed to recover several of its own side and take captive a couple of their opponents as well. I smiled to myself, recalling the many games of camping played in my youth, but I could not wait to see which side was victorious. With sufficiently skilful players the business of capturing all the other team might last for hours.
    The goodwives of this isolated community were as warmly welcoming as their sisters had been elsewhere, and so overpowering was their hospitality that I eventually found myself forced to refuse some of the food and drink being pressed upon me. I wondered briefy if I were sickening from one of those ailments so common in winter months, but there are, after all, only so many oatcakes and so many stoups of ale that anyone can eat and drink within a certain time. And after an hour or so I had reached my limit, reluctant as I was to say so.

    The last place I visited was the home of the miller and his wife where I lingered unduly, eventually allowing myself to be persuaded to stop to dinner. I had intended to press forward while the weather held, for several of the village greybeards, country-wise in all such matters, had predicted snow within the next few hours, and before that happened I wished to find shelter where my presence would prove less of an embarrassment were I to be holed up there for many days.
    These people were poor, and the addition of an extra mouth to feed for more than a single meal would quickly deplete their store of winter provisions.
    But the miller and his wife had a daughter, a pretty, dark-haired girl with sparkling black eyes and a buxom figure who, I was certain, must attract the local youths like bees to heather. She was the most attractive young woman I had seen for quite a while, and although there could not possibly be anything between us - apart from the accidental brushing of hands and touching of feet beneath the table - it was nevertheless a pleasure just to sit and watch her eager face bent over the contents of my pack. She fingered the ribbons longingly and tried to cajole her mother into buying one, but the goodwife was adamant in her refusal.
    'We can't afford it, child, and that's a fact. And it's no good appealing to your father,' she added as the miller, dusty with flour, came in from the mill, ravenous for his dinner. 'He'll tell you the same.' And she glared threateningly at her husband, daring him to gainsay her authority.
    The miller tousled his daughter's head regretfully, but tried to make the best of things.
    'What occasions do you have, lass, for the wearing of such finery? I doubt if that great lout, Mark Wilson, will think you any the prettier for a ribbon in your hair. He's besotted enough already.'
    The girl looked so crestfallen that I pushed the bundle of ribbons towards her.
    'Here, choose one,' I said. 'It will pay for my dinner.' Her delight, and the more restrained but no less warmly expressed gratitude of her parents, amply rewarded me for the loss of the ribbon's value, even though she selected an expensive one of dark red silk which I had purchased from a Portuguese merchantman, anchored in the Backs, before I left Bristol. Moreover, the two bowls of fish stew (it being a Friday) which I ate, washed down by several cups of homemade ale, made up for any regrets I might have harboured for my impulsive gesture.
    The two women were anxious for news of the outside world, and the information that I had been in London as late its last September was greeted with breathless inquiries regarding anything to do with the court. Had I ever seen the King? Or the Queen? Or any member of the royal family? What were the latest London fashions? Was it true that the women there painted their faces with white lead? At this point the miller snorted and remarked thickly through a mouthful of stew that much good it would do either of them to know the answers to such questions, but that did not deter his wife and daughter. The