Brewer's Tale, The Read online

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Karen Brooks is the author of nine books. She is an associate professor and honorary senior research consultant at the University of Queensland, and an honorary senior fellow at the University of the Sunshine Coast. A newspaper columnist with Brisbane’s Courier Mail, she’s also a social commentator who has appeared regularly on national TV and radio (including a four-year stint on The Einstein Factor as part of the ‘Brains Trust’). Karen has a PhD in English/­Cultural Studies and has published internationally on all things popular culture, education and social psychology. An award-winning lecturer, she’s taught throughout Australia and in the Netherlands, and keynoted at many education conferences around the country. Before turning to academia and writing, she was an army officer for five years and prior to that dabbled in acting. For some reason, all her career choices started with ‘A’: acting, army, academic and author! Nowadays she has slowed down somewhat and finds her greatest contentment in studying history and ­writing — both historical fiction and serious social commentary.

  When not writing, she loves being with her family (husband ­Stephen and two adult children, Adam and Caragh) and her ‘fur kids’ — the dogs, Tallow and Dante, and four crazy cats: Claude, (Thomas) Cromwell, Jack Cade and Baroque — and spending time with friends, cooking, travelling, reading and dreaming.

  Karen currently lives in Hobart, Tasmania, in a beautiful Georgian house built in 1868, which has its own wonderful stories to tell.

  ALSO BY KAREN BROOKS

  Fiction

  The Curse of the Bond Riders trilogy:

  Tallow

  Votive

  Illumination

  Young Adult Fantasy

  It’s Time, Cassandra Klein

  The Gaze of the Gorgon

  The Book of Night

  The Kurs of Atlantis

  Rifts Through Quentaris

  Non-fiction

  Consuming Innocence

  The BREWER’S TALE

  KAREN BROOKS

  www.harlequinbooks.com.au

  This tale is for my wonderful agent and friend, Selwa Anthony, who is quite simply the best.

  It’s also, like all my books, for Stephen, without whom my life would be a very different story.

  Twenty thousand years ago, it was a goddess who gave life and abundance and it was the goddess who, out of a mother’s love and pity for her fallen children, gave the gift of brew to the women of mankind. The cup of bliss, the gourd of temporary forgetfulness was filled with beer …

  In all the ancient societies, in the religious mythologies of all ancient cultures, beer was a gift to women from a goddess, never a male god, and women remained bonded in complex religious relationships with feminine deities who blessed the brew vessels …

  Alan Eames, quoted in Stephen Harrod Buhner, Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers: The Secrets of Ancient Fermentation

  ‘If a venture prospers, women fade from the scene.’

  Joan Thirsk, quoted in Judith M. Bennett, Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World 1300–1600

  CONTENTS

  Glossary

  Part One

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Part Two

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Fifty-Seven

  Fifty-Eight

  Fifty-Nine

  Sixty

  Sixty-One

  Sixty-Two

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  GLOSSARY

  My intention was to make most of the unfamiliar medieval terms clear by creating context throughout the novel, but sometimes this hasn’t been possible, especially regarding the use of festivals and religious feasts to mark the passage of time as well as some of the dates used.

  Below is a small glossary I have compiled.

  Holidays and festivals

  Michaelmas: 30 September. This was the day upon which the last of the harvest was gathered. It was when rents were due and a time of feasting as folk prepared for winter.

  St Martin’s Day or Martinmas: 11th November and traditionally the day for slaughtering livestock.

  St Catherine’s Day: 25th November. St Catherine was the patron saint of lawyers, wheelwrights, rope makers, carpenters, lace makers and spinners. She was also the guardian of single women who, on this day, would often pray for a husband. Catherine wheels were lit, special cakes (cattern cakes) made and feasts planned. This day was more popular on the continent and slowly fell out of favour in England.

  Feast of St Nicholas: 6th December.

  Conception of the Blessed Virgin: 8th December.

  Feast of St Thomas the Apostle: 21st December.

  Adam and Eve’s Day: 24th December — Christmas Eve.

  St Stephen’s Day: 26th December.

  Twelfth Night or Epiphany: 6th January. Marks the end of the twelve days of Christmas celebrations and is said to be the day God revealed Jesus Christ was his son.

  Feast of the Epiphany: The last of the Christmas feasts.

  Hocktide: The second Monday or Tuesday after Easter. Rents were due on this day.

  St John at Port Latin Day: 6th May.

  Dates

  I use the terms ‘kalends’, ‘nones’ and ‘ides’ to mark days of the month as was done in the medieval period.

  Kalends: fell on the first day of the month.

  Nones: fell on the 7th of months with 31 days — namely January, March, May, July, August, October and December— and on the 5th of other months.

  Ides: fell on the 15th day of months with 31 days — namely January, March, May, July, August, October and December — and the 13th of other months.

  Time

  The passage of time followed in the novel is that used by the church and translates loosely as follows:

  Lauds was at dawn or even earlier.

  Prime was around six o’clock in the morning.

  Tierce was approximately nine o’clock in the morning.

  Sext represented midday.

  None was around three o’clock in the afternoon.

  Vespers was at six o’clock in the evening or dinnertime.

  Compline was approximately nine o’clock at night or bedtime.

  General terms

  Escheator: someone who dealt with ‘escheats’ or property that’s not entailed by a will and is ceded to the Crown. The role of the medieval escheator was varied, but he most ofte
n was someone who dealt with lands and acquisitions involving a royal licence (or those who attempted to evade one) and/or authority or with someone who committed a felony. In the case of felony or fraud, the property could be seized. The escheator was often assisted by a bailiff and clerks.

  Cucked/cucking: a popular punishment meted out to those who broke the law. It involved being dunked in or doused with water or, as in the novel, ale.

  PART ONE

  The Brewer of Elmham Lenn

  SEPTEMBER 1405–JUNE 1406

  A man that hath a sign at his door,

  And keeps good Ale to sell,

  A comely wife to please his guests,

  May thrive exceedingly well …

  From ‘Choice of Inventions’, quoted in Judith M. Bennett, Ale, Beer, and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing World 1300–1600

  ONE

  ELMHAM LENN

  Dawn, the day after Michaelmas

  The year of Our Lord 1405 in the sixth year of the reign of Henry IV

  A sharp wind slapped the sodden hem against my ankles. Clutching the cloak beneath my chin with one hand, I held the other over my brow as a shield from the stinging ocean spray and squinted to see past the curtain of angry grey mizzle drawn across the entry to the harbour. I tried to transport myself beyond the heads, imagine what lay out there; see with my mind’s eye what my physical one could not.

  Just as they had for the last three days, land and water conspired against me.

  With a protracted sigh, I turned and walked back along the dock, my mantle damp and heavy across my shoulders. Brine made the wood slick and the receding tide had strewn seaweed and other flotsam across the worn planks. Barnacles and ancient gull droppings clung to the thick timbers, resisting the endless waves. I marvelled at their tenacity.

  On one side of the pier, a number of boats protested against their moorings, rocking wildly from side to side, abandoned by their crews till the weather passed. Along the pebbled shores of the bay, smaller vessels were drawn high, overturned on the grassy dunes, their owners hunkered near the harbourmaster’s office at the other end of the dock, drinking ale and complaining about the unnatural weather that stole their livelihood, pretending not to be worried about those who hadn’t yet come home. I waved to them as I drew closer and a couple of the old salts raised their arms in return.

  They knew what dragged me from my warm bed and down to the harbour before the servants stirred. It was what brought any of us who dared to draw a living from the seas.

  I continued, lifting my skirts and jumping a puddle that had collected where the dock ended and the dirt track that followed the estuary into town began.

  To the toll of morning bells, I joined the procession of carts, horses and vendors trundling into market as the sky lightened to a pearlescent hue. The rain that hovered out to sea remained both threat and promise. Ships that plied their trade across the Channel were anchored mid-river, their sails furled or taken down for repairs; their wooden decks gleaming, their ropes beautifully knotted as captains sought to keep their crews busy while the weather refused them access to the open water. Some had hired barges to transport their cargo to London, while others sold what they could to local shopkeepers or went to Norwich. Closer to the town, abutting the riverbanks, were the warehouses belonging to the Hanseatic League, their wide doors open. Bales of wool, wooden barrels, swollen sacks of grain and salt were stacked waiting to be loaded onto ships that were already ­overdue — ours being one of them. The workers lingered near the entry hoping to snatch some news. Like us, these men, so far from their homeland, longed to hear that their compatriots were safe. Apart from the whinny of horses, the grunt of oxen, and the grind of cart wheels, silence accompanied us for the remainder of the trip into town.

  As our procession spilled through the old wooden gates, dirty-faced urchins leapt onto the path, offering rooms, food and other less savoury fare, tugging at cloaks, pulling at mantles. Avoiding the children, I steered around the visiting merchants and travelling hawkers who paused to pay tolls, and slipped past the packhorses and carts to head towards the town centre. Jostled by the farmers with their corn and livestock, apprentices wearing leather aprons and earnest expressions, the way was slow. Before I’d passed the well, the bells of St Stephen’s began to toll announcing the official opening of the market. Around me, shop shutters sprang open, their bleary-eyed owners waving customers forth. ‘Hot pottage!’, ‘Baked sheep’s cheek’, ‘Venetian silk’, ‘Copper pans going cheap’; their cries mingled and were soon drowned in the discordant symphony of market day. Catching a glimpse of our housekeeper, Saskia, among the crowd, I darted down the lane near St Nichols and increased my pace. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Saskia — on the contrary, as one of my mother’s countrywomen, a constant presence since I was a baby, I loved her dearly. I just wanted to enjoy a few more minutes of my own company, without questions or making decisions or, what I was really avoiding, the suffocating weight of the unspoken. I also wanted to make it home before Hiske knew where I’d been or the twins escaped the nursery. If she spied me, Saskia, with the familiarity of a valued servant, would suborn me to her will. I needed to dry myself and change my gown. More importantly, I had to erase the worry from my face and voice. Why I insisted on doing this, going to the seaside these last few days, I was uncertain. It was a compulsion I couldn’t resist. It gave me purpose, prevented me from feeling quite so helpless. I thought about what I’d tell the twins today, how I would distract them. I rounded the corner back onto Market Street, the main road that led to the gate at the other end of town. Walking against the tide of people, I drew my hood, quickened my step and entered the alley that ran beside my home. I unlatched the garden gate and squeezed through.

  Passing our scant vegetable patch, I hugged the outside wall of the old stables, plucking at the laces at my throat and pulling my cloak off my shoulders and my hood from my head, still hoping I wouldn’t be spotted from upstairs. I was relieved to note Patroclus and Achilles, our two wolfhounds, were absent. Adam Barfoot, the steward, must be walking them — a task he’d performed for years now, ever since we’d let go of the servants Hiske persuaded Father we no longer needed. I tossed the two bones I’d carried in my pockets as a bribe for their peace towards the kennels. The dogs could enjoy them on their return. Perhaps my early morning vigil would go undetected after all.

  Folding my cloak and hood over my arm and adopting nonchalance, as if it was always my custom to stroll in the gardens at dawn, I crossed the courtyard, passing the disused brewhouse.

  ‘God give you good day, Mistress Sheldrake.’ My hand flew to my breast.

  The chambermaid, Doreen, appeared carrying a basket of eggs over her arm. ‘About early again?’ Her sharp eyes looked me up and down, taking in my windswept hair, damp clothes and muddy boots. ‘And alone, I see.’ She sniffed her disapproval.

  With a sinking heart, I knew she’d report me to Hiske. If Hiske knew, so too would father. I sighed. There was no point denying what her eyes, the state of my clothes and my chest, heaving from rushing, clearly told her.

  ‘As you can see, Doreen, I am. Again,’ I added defiantly, my cheeks flaming, then swept past her, almost knocking the basket from her forearm.

  I entered the kitchen with as much equanimity as I could muster. The heat of the stove and the smell of baking bread made me aware of how chilled I was — and hungry. My mouth watered as I greeted the cook, Blanche, who stopped what she was doing and studied me, eyebrows arched.

  ‘Mistress Anneke, you haven’t been —’ she began, but paused as Doreen appeared behind me, ‘enjoying the fresh air and rain again?’ she asked with false gaiety. ‘I’ll have some hot water and a tray sent to your room, shall I? We don’t want you catching your death.’

  ‘Mistress Jabben is expecting Mistress Sheldrake to join her in the hall, Mistress Blanche —’ Doreen was getting bolder by the day.

  Ignoring Doreen, I turned to the cook. ‘Thank you, Blanche.’
My gratitude was in my smile. ‘That would be perfect.’ Avoiding Doreen’s pursed lips and cold stare, I scurried through the hall before Hiske, who was sitting at the far end, close to the hearth, saw me. Thrusting aside my dignity, I bunched my tunic and shot up the stairs two at a time.

  Walking through Tobias’s old room, I threw aside the curtain that divided our chambers and flung my cloak and hood across the chest that held my clothes and other belongings. Though I could have taken down the curtain and adopted my brother’s room as my own, giving myself more space, I’d chosen to maintain what I’d always had and keep Tobias’s bedroom as it was. Hiske disapproved, saying shrines were for God only and I was making a false idol of my brother. I wasn’t so foolish. Content with what I had, I was also happy knowing that Tobias had a place to lay his head should he ever require one.

  Opening the shutters, ashen light poured in, along with a cold draught tinted with more rain. Stripping off my tunic and kirtle, I stood shivering in my underclothes and undid my braid. Lifting a used drying sheet from the small table abutting my bed, I quickly towelled my body and then focussed on my hair, ears pricked for sound — for Hiske. How ridiculous that, at my age, I snuck about the house like a thief in the night.

  Blanche was true to her promise and the kitchen maid, Iris, arrived with a bowl of steaming water and a fresh drying sheet, taking away my used one. Minutes later, she reappeared with a tray holding a trencher of bread, a lump of yellow cheese and a beaker of small ale. Curtseying, she left me to tend myself as was my wont.

  Washed and dressed in a clean, dry kirtle and tunic, my hair tidied, I was picking at the cheese when I heard the clatter of boots and loud whispers. Karel and Betje burst through the curtain, followed by their apologetic nurse, Louisa.

  ‘Anneke!’ they squealed, as if they hadn’t seen me the night before. Dropping to my knees, I hugged them fiercely, inhaling scents of rosewater and lavender. Holding first Betje, then Karel at arm’s length, admiring their sturdy arms and legs, pink cheeks and gapped teeth, I released them and stood, laughing. How could anyone be gloomy with these two around? Sinking onto the window seat, I watched them taunt Louisa who tried and failed to prevent Karel jumping on the bed. Giving up, she attempted to tame Betje’s hair. A riot of silvery curls, it refused to remain in the plaits Louisa insisted upon weaving.