The Merchant's Partner Read Free Page A

the people around go in terror of her.
    In any case, she valued her solitude. Her life had been full enough. Peace was attractive in the evening of her life, and she was happy to be left alone with her thoughts; especially now she was in a new country. But she could not contain her annoyance when people triedto avoid her. They knew they needed her—they were always keen enough to take her advice or her medicines, like the poultice for Sam Cottey’s bad arm, the mixture for Walter de la Forte’s cow, and the potion for Jennie Miller to reduce her back pain.
    â€œHello Agatha.”
    The voice, low and steady, soft but assured, came from her left, between her and the road, and at the sound she stiffened, her eyes searching from bough to bough, trying to see who had spoken.
    A slim figure tentatively edged away from the cover of a large chestnut tree, and Agatha saw a woman, tall and slim, face covered by the fur-lined hood. “Agatha, I need your help,” she said softly.

-2-
    I n the late afternoon of the Saturday, under a leaden sky in which gulls wheeled, the wind blew up from the gray sea in a series of gusts, disturbing the branches of the trees at the shore and cutting through the clothes of the man standing on the foredeck like arrows of ice. Until the old ship was secured he must stay here, but the coldness of the middle of winter made him wish he could leave this duty to another and make his way below, to his cabin and a warm pot of wine.
    It was rare for him to be sailing this early in the year. As the master of the cog Thomas, he tried to keep the old timbers out of the sea during the freezing cold of the winter so that the clinkered hull could be retarred and sealed, but these last few years had been so hard that any cargo of food could bring high profits, and even though the Thomas needed maintenance, the old ship was good for a few more trips over to France and the English ports of Gascony.
    From here, the master could see most of the old town. His lip curled into a disdainful sneer, twisting the podgy face into a glower of loathing under itsthatch of graying brown hair, his hazel eyes flitting over the port area with near disgust. This was not what he and Thomas had become used to over the years.
    Usually he would try to make for the wealthier Cinque ports, or for London, where the people had money and the towns were used to entertaining sailors, but not on this trip. The Cinque ports were getting too silted, making it difficult and dangerous for a cog the size of Thomas to maneuver into the harbor, and London was far too busy at this time of year. He sighed to himself. But this was such a miserable place!
    In London there was a cheery bustle, with merchants, seamen and wharfingers shouting and swearing at each other, and the occasional fight when a curse resulted in the drawing of sword or dagger. Here was very different. Four scattered villages lay to the east of the sound, and he could just make out the Benedictine abbey that owned most of the area. Apart from that the whole place looked dead. On the docks there were a couple of men splicing heavy coils of rope, but for the most part the master could well imagine that his was the first ship seen here for months—or years. It seemed as if the place was deserted after long years of desolation.
    Not, he reflected, that it would have been too surprising if it had been left long ago by its inhabitants. The French pirates, long competitors of the Cinque ports, had for some time spread their carnage to other southern ports. Now even the smaller places like this, Plymouth, were being attacked and fired more often and, with so many tiny villages and towns on the coast, it was easy for the murderers to attack with relative impunity. After all, there was no organized navy, so the country could hardly be defended in so many places.The only answer was for each man to look to his own protection, and generally that meant helping the village or