might have been married already! At least Lord Godfrey’s a young man. Many a poor lady has to marry a greybeard old enough to be her father. I don’t hold with that. Winter marrying spring, I call it. January and May should never wed, but with you and Lord Godfrey it will be like May marrying June!”
Nest picked viciously at the cushion, tugging out a loose thread. She didn’t feel a bit May-like. If she had to be a month, she thought it would be a very early, chilly March, with frost on the ground and ice on the puddles. But it was no use saying that kind of thing to Angharad, because Angharad never listened. She could go on for hours, wondering aloud whether Godfrey was tall or short, sporting or bookish, plain or handsome — until Nest had to bite the insides of her cheeks and twist her ankles around each other and clench her fingers in her lap to stop herself from flying to pieces.
Down by the fire, Angharad twitched and let out a soft snore. Nest decided to risk it. Plucking up her skirt she tiptoed quickly downstairs. In the pool of light cast by the fire, the rushes covering the floor glowed a bright, summery green. They were clean — swept out and replaced every week — and gave off a faint, fresh scent. Nest dropped her cushion, sat on it, and kicked off her leather shoes. She wrapped her arms around her knees and pushed out stockinged feet to the blaze.
The hearth was octagonal, flat, with a border of old roof tiles sunk edgewise into the earth in a herringbone pattern. The big logs burned on an iron grid, dripping bright flakes on to a dragon-hoard of glowing embers. The heat played on her skin. Her face baked, and the folds of her green woollen dress were soon almost scorching. The last of her shivers died. It was glorious.
In the warm drift of ashes at the edge of the hearth something stirred — something the size of a very big tomcat. It shook off a snowfall of ash, sneezed, and said in a wheezing voice like a leaky bagpipe, “Come down for a bit of a warm, have you, young missis?”
“It’s Lady Agnes to you!”
“That’s right,” the thing went on, ignoring this, “you wiggle them pretty little toes.” It stretched a horny hand towards her feet, as if to rub them.
Nest pulled her skirt over her toes. “Oh no, you don’t!”
“Ho ho!” It clicked its tongue annoyingly and sniggered. “Standoffish, eh? You’ll have to be nicer than that to Lord Godfrey, when he comes. What’s the matter? I’ve known you since you was a babby. Don’t you like me any more?”
“I don’t approve of you,” Nest told it crisply.
“What for? Just acos I’m a bwbach — a poor old hearth-hob?”
“Not because you’re a hob,” Nest said. “Because you’re so lazy. We had a hearth-hob at Our Lady’s In-the-Wood, and it was always busy. The nuns used to say they didn’t know what they would do without it. It swept and cleaned and polished, and it would leave sweet little bunches of flowers for Mother Aethelflaed to put in front of the shrine of Our Lady, just as if it was a Christian.”
The hearth-hob made a rude noise with its lips, but it saw that Nest wasn’t listening. Glassy tears swam in her eyes and looked in danger of spilling over. She hugged her knees tight and bent her head.
“I wish I was still there,” she said, muffled into her skirt.
“Oh, I dunno,” the hob said awkwardly. “Can’t have been much fun, stuck in a convent — eh?”
“Oh, it was!” Nest sniffed. “It was so civilised. Every evening we would sit, and Mother Aethelflaed or one of the sisters would read aloud, and then we would converse—”
“What d’you call this?” said the hob. “We’m conversating now, ain’t we?”
“Oh, but about interesting things,” said Nest passionately. “About stars and planets — about saints and miracles — about beasts and birds and far-off lands—”
The hob coughed. “There’s a rat’s nest in the pantry, I knows that,” it offered.
“Don’t be stupid!” Nest lifted a wet face and glared at it. “That’s exactly what I mean. Nobody here can talk about anything but wolves and dogs and horses.”
“Rats ain’t exactly—” the hob began, but Nest swept on.
“And there were lots of books there, and music — we would sing together. Play harps. I wanted to do something great, hob.”
“Er?”
“I don’t know what.” Nest stared into the smoky heights above the fire. “Write about a saint’s life so that everyone could read it, perhaps. Or become the abbess of a holy house and inspire people and save souls. Or go on a pilgrimage to Rome or Jerusalem.”
She dropped her face back on to her knees. “But I’ve got to get married.”
“That’ll be all right,” the hob encouraged her. “You’ll have lots of lovely bouncing babbies, right?” It gave her a sly glance. “I loves babbies. Cunning little things — dribbling and burping and crying…”
Nest shuddered. She screwed her eyes shut. Sweet blessed Saviour, she prayed into the folds of her skirt, I know that I must get married, but let that not be all that ever happens to me. Send me a miracle. Let me have some wonderful work to do for You.
“Oh well.” The hob crooked a hairy elbow to scratch its back. It grunted and strained, trying to reach the bit in the middle, gave up and yawned, showing a lot of blunt yellow teeth. “What’s for supper tonight? Roast pork and crackling?”
“It’s Friday,” said Nest, wiping her eyes.
“Is it?” The hob’s face fell. “No meat,” it grumbled. “Fasting on a Friday. Who thought that one up? What’s the point?”
Nest sat up. “Fasting brings us closer to the angels,” she said coldly. “Angels never eat. They spend all their time praising God.”
“Only cos they ain’t got stummicks,” the hob muttered. “Go on, then, what’s for supper? Herbert’s not the worst cook I’ve ever known. We won’t starve. Fish, I s’pose? A nice bit of carp or trout?”
“At Our Lady’s,” Nest began, “the hob was perfectly satisfied with a simple bowl of gruel…”
She stopped as the hob sat up. Its hairy ears pricked and swivelled. Nest tilted her head. Beyond the thick walls and shutters, from far over the staked and defended ramparts and the deep ditch, horns were blowing. Then, loud and near, an answering blast from the gatehouse, and the shouts of the porters as they ran to swing back the heavy gate.
“They’m back.” The hob gave her a wink. “Don’t forget the fish. Not the tail. A nice juicy piece from the middle, with just a spoonful of sauce: Herbert does a good sauce. No need to finnick about with the bones; I eats ’em.” With a flurry of ash it burrowed out of sight.
“Greedy thing.” Nest clicked her tongue in irritation and stood, dusting ashes from her skirt. The big Hall door creaked open. In ran Walter and Mattie, dark rain-spatters on their clothes. They wrestled the door shut against the night wind, and with a nod and a curtsy to Nest, began setting up the Hall for supper. Scrape! Crash! They dragged the benches out from the walls and lowered the wooden table tops on to the trestles. Old
