‘These self-appointed healers are meddling more and more in our business,’ he complained. ‘Most are what we know as “cunning women”, though there are some men as well. I have lost customers to them and that means money lost. They charge far less, but provide nothing but ridiculous charms and spells, which are nothing more than attempts at magic.’
Richard Lustcote smiled indulgently. ‘Many of the things that we sell are little more than attempts at magic, brother! We rely heavily on the faith our customers have in us, so that they feel we are doing them good. In reality, we keep them occupied while we wait in hope that God and time will alleviate their sicknesses.’
Walter Winstone looked shocked at this cynical, if realistic view of their noble craft. ‘You cannot really believe that, Richard!’ he brayed. ‘We have been trained and have studied the precepts of others learned in the art, from Galen onwards. These interfering impostors are charlatans, casting their spells and gibberish, little better than witches!’
His indignation made him gabble and flecks of spittle appeared at the corners of his mouth.
Lustcote tried to soothe him a little. ‘Come now, Walter, there is room for all in trying to do good for the sick and distressed. We have no quarrel with the monks at St John’s Hospital and St Nicholas — nor with the good sisters at Polsloe Priory. Beyond a few miles from our city walls, we have no patients — and they have no apothecaries, so they must fend as best they can. Name me a hamlet between here and Totnes or Tiverton that boasts an apothecary’s shop?’
Winstone would have none of this argument. ‘I give not a fig for those peasants in far-flung villages. I am concerned with this city and the few miles around it, where we are increasingly losing business to what is little better than irreligious witchcraft! It is a danger not only to us, but to the sufferers, who are exposed not only to God knows what harmful potions, but to forces of the Devil, which is what some of these harridans rely upon.’
His eloquence deafened the sound of his own hypocrisy, considering that he had been feeding Robert de Pridias the poisonous sugar-of-lead for weeks on the pretext of treating the ache in his chest.
They argued the matter for some minutes, although Robert turned back to his copper dish, which had gone off the boil, while they spoke. He was a mild-mannered man and played down Walter’s fears, saying that he had not noticed any falling-off of his trade. Furthermore, he thought that the clientele that could afford the services of an apothecary, was generally unlikely to seek the more dubious offerings of cunning women.
However, his colleague from Waterbeer Street continued to rant about the iniquities of common good-wives interfering in their noble profession. ‘It should be a matter for the law!’ he snapped. ‘The guilds were strengthened by old King Henry and they should be looked on as a monopoly, exclusive to those trained in the art. Think what would happen if some damned peasant masquerading as a mason came and offered to build a cathedral on the cheap! Or a goldsmith or draper usurping the established companies. There would be a riot and the guilds would drag such an impostor away and hang him! So why should we be different, just because we purvey medicinal knowledge, rather than stones or gold rings?’
The even-minded Richard had to admit to some logic in this and finally he reluctantly agreed to bring the matter up at the meeting of their tiny guild to be held the following week — and also to discuss it with one of the portreeves. These were the two prominent burgesses who ran the city council, though there was talk of replacing them with a mayor, a new idea imported from the Continent, which had already been adopted in London four years earlier. Both of them were wardens of their own guilds and were knowledgeable about such matters.
With that Winstone had to be satisfied and he eventually left, still muttering under his breath about unfair competition.
Later that morning, a pale-faced young woman turned off Fore Street, just down the hill from the Carfoix crossing. She entered a short lane called Milk Street, which crossed the head of Smythen Street, noisy with the banging and hammering of the smiths’ forges. There was no mystery about the name of Milk Street, as the dozen huts and cottages were almost all occupied by dairiers, purveyors of milk and cream. Halfway along, she hesitantly approached a lopsided hut of wattle and daub, crowned with a tattered thatch roof. In the dozen square yards of dung-strewn earth that formed the front yard, she saw a patient donkey chewing on a pile of cut grass, with two large churns slung across its back, formed of dented and tarnished copper. They were empty now, but the handles of two ladles stuck out of each container.
The young woman, dressed simply in a patched linen kirtle bleached by innumerable washings, had her hair swathed in the usual linen head-rail, tucked closely around her face and under her chin. She appeared nervous as she went up to the open door in front of the windowless shack and tapped on the scarred boards, the bottom few inches of which were frayed with dry rot.
There was no response from the dark interior and after a few moments she plucked up enough courage to walk around the back of the dwelling. Here she found a larger yard backing on to the buildings at the upper end of Southgate Street. Although in the centre of one of England’s major cities, it seemed full of cows, bony dun-coloured beasts with great udders. There were at least eight of them filling the small area, tethered by ropes to a ramshackle fence, munching away like the donkey at piles of freshly cut green grass. Beyond the side fences, the visitor could see similar groups of cows in the adjacent properties.
In the middle of the yard, squatting on a tiny stool, was an elderly woman, pumping away at a cow’s teats as she directed a stream of warm milk into a leather bucket gripped between her knees, her head jammed against the beast’s flanks. Alongside, a small calf cowered against its mother’s legs.
The new arrival watched for a few moments, fascinated in spite of her own troubles by the almost artistic flourish of the milker’s hands, as the little fingers spread upwards and outwards at every stroke.
The jets from the udder gradually diminished and with a grunt, the old lady pushed back her stool and stood up, becoming aware of the spectator.
‘Looking for me, dear?’ Her sharp eyes peered out from beneath the grimy helmet of felt that covered her head, its front soiled from rubbing against her cows.
‘If you be Avelina Sprot,’ answered the woman, diffidently.
The good-wife nodded, then pointed to the bucket half full of milk that she had in her other hand. ‘Let me just give this to the orphan first.’
She waddled bent-backed across the yard and poured the milk into a trough made from a hollowed-out log, placed in front of another, larger calf tied to the fence.
‘Primrose has too much milk, she needs some taking off her that her own babe can’t drink. This one needs it more, since its mother died.’
She came back towards the hut and dropped the bucket, motioning the woman to come to the back door of the cottage. As they went into the dark interior, Avelina asked what had brought her visitor here. ‘Is it the usual, my girl?’
The meaning was clear, but Gertrude shook her head, two spots of colour appearing on her pale face. ‘It is quite the opposite, good dame.’
When her eyes grew more accustomed to the dimness after the bright summer sun outside, she saw that there was just one room beneath the thatched roof. A wicker screen partitioned off one end, where straw mattresses lay on the floor. The other part was occupied by a circular fire-pit in the centre, ringed with stones embedded in dried clay. Beyond this was a wide wooden tray on legs, filled with milk which was settling so that the cream could be skimmed off.