The Breath of Peace

The Breath of Peace Read Free

Book: The Breath of Peace Read Free
Author: Penelope Wilcock
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much-loved goat brought with her from St Alcuin’s. He spread fresh straw in her stall, in the pig sty, and in the palfrey’s stable, when he fastened them in for the night. The animals had no need of mucking out. At the beginning and end of the short months of summer – in May and in September – they cleaned out the animal housing, but through the long cold months of the northern winter the build-up of litter on the floor offered a valuable source of warmth, and made the food go further – a cold animal is a hungry one. The goat’s housing and the stable smelt sweet; the odour of their dung was not offensive. William felt less sure about the fragrance of a pig.
    The trips across from the hay barn and the straw barn made extra work. Madeleine had wanted to store some bales in the goat shed and above the stable, but William had adamantly refused. There had been an argument about that as well, he recalled.
    â€˜No,’ he had said: ‘absolutely not. The hay cannot be stored in the same building with the straw, and neither one in the same building with the beasts. And the hay store cannot even be near the straw, or the beasts, or the house. It only takes one bale, just one damp bale, to combust, and we lose the hay, the straw, the beasts and the house if they are all cheek by jowl. It must be separate. No, Madeleine! It must be.’
    â€˜William, you’re being too particular. It’s not a great farm! And anyway, we won’t be buying damp hay, we’ll be choosy, we’ll check. It’s just so much work traipsing back and forth all weathers to lug it in.’
    â€˜I am not being too particular. If we inadvertently roast that goat something tells me you, for one, won’t be able to face eating her for supper. And we rely on the milk. Yes, we have enough money on deposit if we live frugally. We can hope to build up and increase what we have here, and we shall prosper. It would take only one fire to dash our hopes and dreams, and set back by several years everything we’ve planned. I’ve known barn fires, and seen the wind take them across the thatches of one building after another, wreaking devastation. We can’t make ourselves safe against everything, but not doing what we can is just madness.’
    â€˜I still think you’re making a mountain out of a molehill. I’ve husbanded animals all my life and always kept a few bales in with the beasts. It helps keep them warm, for one thing. I’ve never had a fire, not once.’
    He looked at her. ‘What are you talking about? Your house burnt down.’
    Irritation twitched her face. This thrust annoyed her intensely. ‘Aye, and yours did too, wherever you kept your dratted hay! That’s not the point.’
    And so it had continued, back and forth, for the best part of an afternoon: but he would not budge. When they moved in, he had not the skills to build and thatch a hovel for storing hay, so a precious portion of their money had been spent on hiring a handy neighbour to do that for them. The incident had made William feel suddenly defenceless and lonely. The shared skills of a monastic community of men had made for great strength and security. Leaving that behind at the age of fifty with very little experience of mending and building made him very vulnerable by comparison with everything he had known so far, even if they had inherited an income as well as a house. This was what made him so adamant about the hay store. This house and money that had been left them represented the chance of a lifetime. It would not come again. He knew he would never be able to live with himself if he stood watching impotently as flames reached the thatch of his home, and he with no means of fighting it but himself, his wife, a well and a small stack of leather buckets. He refused to take the risk.
    â€˜Nobody ever thinks they’re buying damp hay,’ he insisted. ‘Nobody goes to the farm and

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