The man laughed. ‘Aye, I know.’ He patted the empty seat. ‘Jump up. I’m going to collect a load of wool from a farm near here. The goodwife’ll feed you, I’ll be bound. A good-hearted, if sharp-tongued soul who’ll be glad, I reckon, to see a pedlar.’
I mounted to sit on the board beside him, placing my pack at my feet. My companion gave his horse the office to start and we began to move forward.
‘Are you a native of these parts?’ I asked.
‘Born and bred within the walls of Southampton.’
‘Do you know the countryside about here? The woods around Chilworth Manor?’
The carter shook his head. ‘I stick to the beaten tracks, although I know Sir Cedric Wardroper. I cart his wool to the spinners and weavers. Why do you want to know?’
‘I wondered if you’d ever heard of a deserted shrine in the woods near here. I stumbled across it, quite by chance, this morning.’
The man scratched his head. ‘Can’t say as I ever have. But then, as I say, my home’s Southampton. But you could inquire at the Catchside farm when we get there. One of the workers might know something of it. Or Master Catchside and his wife. You can but ask, if it’s important to you.’
At this point we turned off the main road and rattled over a mile or two of rough track before arriving at the farm. It appeared to be of sufficient hideage to support a family and its dependants in comfort, boasting a plough and four oxen, hens, cows and a flock of sheep which had recently been sheared, and whose fleeces the carter had called to collect. Most of that particular day’s activity was therefore centred on the barn, where the wool was being packed. The women were rolling the fleeces, their smaller fingers dextrously pulling and smoothing as they did so, and securing each neat bundle with a narrow cord of fine twine. In the centre of the barn a huge sack was suspended almost at floor level by ropes from the beams. Two men stood in the sack, packing and treading down the rolled fleeces as the women passed them in, the wall of wool rising higher and higher until it reached the top, when the men sat astride the sack and sewed it up. It was then lowered to the ground and knotted at each corner in order to ease the handling of such a cumbersome object.
I watched, fascinated, my hunger temporarily forgotten, until the carter hailed the eldest of the women, whose tendency to direct operations rather than participate in them had already marked her down in my mind as likely to be the mistress of the house. I was not mistaken.
‘Goody Catchside, here’s a chapman I picked up on the road, who’d be glad of some dinner.’ The man chuckled. ‘He missed his by getting lost in the woods.’
The farmer’s wife clucked in a motherly fashion.
‘You’d best come with me then, lad,’ she said, ‘and bring your pack with you. There’s one or two things I’m short of, and if you have them it’ll save a journey to Winchester at this busy season. Come along! Don’t loiter!’ She bustled ahead of me, but paused at the barn door to fling an admonition at her husband. ‘Andrew! Make sure the men put aside enough wool for our own use before they go loading up the cart. I know him,’ she added in a grumbling undertone as I followed her in the direction of the house. ‘He’ll sell far too much for the sake of an extra shilling or two and then where does that leave us? Short of winter garments and forced to buy. A false economy, chapman! A false economy.’
I was given bread and cheese and ale, together with a bowl of fish stew, which reminded me that it was Friday. I remembered guiltily the collop of bacon I had eaten at Chilworth Manor for breakfast. I must have grimaced at the memory, for the goodwife asked sharply, ‘What’s the matter? There’s nothing amiss with that soup. I made it myself with fish caught fresh from the stream this morning.’
I hastened to reassure her and explained the reason for the face I had pulled. Mistress Catchside snorted in disapproval.
‘I’ve always suspected that the Wardropers were lax in their religious observance. A flighty woman, Lady Wardroper, far too young for Sir Cedric. And young Matthew, as I remember, was never a reverent child. One might have hoped that his years in Leicestershire, or wherever it was, would have improved him. But since his return home I’ve seen him talking and walking about at the back of the nave during Mass in a very disrespectful fashion. However, I’ve no time for gossiping. Let me see what’s in your pack and then you and the carter can be going. We need to have our wool on the way to the weaving sheds before nightfall.’
Yet again I laid out my wares, and while the good wife picked them over I asked her if she knew anything of the shrine in the woods. Her answer was decisive.
‘I’ve never heard anyone mention it,’ she said, ‘and I’ve lived in these parts all my life. Indeed, this was my father’s farm and his father’s before him. Catchside,’ she added, seeming to feel that some explanation was called for, ‘was from the city.’ She shrugged. ‘But there, I was a plain girl and had to take whoever offered. And Andrew had money which he was prepared to put into the farm. My parents thought him a good enough husband for me, at all events, and so I married him.’ She pulled herself up short, turning an uncomfortable red and obviously annoyed at herself for confiding in me. ‘Hmmph! I’ll buy this set of spoons, for mine are worn so thin the edges cut my mouth. How much are you asking for them?’
‘And you’re sure,’ I urged, when the transaction was completed and I had knocked a little off the price to pay for my food, ‘that this woodland shrine is unknown to you? You’ve never heard it spoken of by anyone?’
‘Oh, as to that, never is too final a word. I may, I suppose, have heard it mentioned at some time in my life. I’m past my fortieth birthday.’ She frowned, realizing that once again her tongue had betrayed her into an unnecessary confidence. ‘But no, not that I can instantly recall. Young man,’ she added with asperity, ‘I don’t know what it is about you, but you have a disarming habit of making me say more than I intended and I suspect that that applies to other women. You must learn not to take advantage of us poor, weak females.’
I laughed. ‘I should never be so ungallant, even if it were true. But you overestimate my powers to charm and your own weakness, I do assure you.’
Goody Catchside said ‘Hmmph’ again, but made no further comment, anxious not to hold up the proceedings any longer. We returned to the barn, where the last of three sacks of wool had just been loaded into the wagon. I clambered up beside the carter, thanked my hostess most heartily for my meal and was driven away along the track.
‘Did you find out what you wanted to know?’ the man asked me after we had gone a short distance.
I shook my head. ‘Mistress Catchside was unable to recall hearing the shrine talked of, but admitted that her memory might be faulty. However, someone has been there lately and been at trouble to cut a path through the undergrowth to reach it and lay flowers at its base.’ I sighed. ‘Ah well! It’s of no importance, I suppose. Do you continue towards Winchester now, or return to Southampton?’
‘I have one more call to make and shall lie at Winchester tonight, at a hostelry just outside the city where they know me. I can therefore take you as far as the suburbs.’
‘Aren’t you afraid of thieves,’ I asked, ‘while you are sleeping?’
The carter roared with laughter. ‘Who’d be able to move one of those great, cumbersome things?’ He jerked his head backwards in the direction of the wool sacks. ‘And if you split one open all the contents’d come bursting out. No, no! Wool’s the safest cargo anyone can carry.’
I accompanied the carter to the second farm and, when the wagon was full, helped him cover it with tarred canvas, but not too tightly. (For as my friend instructed me, wool must be kept dry, but never overheated.) By this time the city bells could be heard ringing out over the surrounding countryside for Vespers and we took leave of one another. I made my way to the Hospital of Saint Cross where free ale was always available for travellers, a great consideration with me, as you might imagine. And as I sat in the late-afternoon sunshine sipping my ale, my back against the warm stone of one of the almshouses, my mind went back over the events of the past two days.