Tidelands Read online

  “Ours. St. Wilfrid’s.”

  “Well, what a catch for you!” she said with unintentional rudeness. “The Stoney boy! And that beautiful farm. Just as well she inherits your looks, as you’ve got nothing else to offer.”

  “I think they’ll be very happy,” Alinor said repressively. “It’s a love match.”

  “Best sort,” the man said.

  “I daresay Mrs. Stoney’s not too pleased. She’s had a rich match in mind for her boy from the day he was born.”

  “She was very welcoming,” Alinor said, praying that Alys, in the back among the sheep fleeces, could hear none of this. “We’re all very happy.”

  They got to Chichester within the hour and jumped down from the wagon with thanks.

  “Ridiculous old woman!” Alys said, smiling and waving as the wagon rumbled away from them on the cobbles. “And now I stink of sheep.”

  “Hush,” Alinor said.

  Alys laughed. “Who cares what she thinks? Shall we buy lace first?”

  “No, first I’ll sell my oils.”

  Alinor led the way to a stall specializing in dried herbs, crystal stones, oils, ointments, and charms. She knew the stallholder well and he greeted her with a leering smile. “Ah, Mrs. Reekie, I was hoping to see you today. Have you brought me something good?”

  “A dozen bottles of mixed oils,” Alinor said.

  She put her basket on the stall and looked at his stock while he lifted out each bottle and read the handwritten label. “Very good, very good. I didn’t know that you had wolfsbane? You’ve never brought me any before.”

  “I found some growing wild,” Alinor said. “And I thought I’d make some oil. It’s a useful physic, but I doubt that there’s much call for preventing wolves on Tidelands!”

  “It’s a very potent poison,” he remarked. “Strange to see a wisewoman selling poison in the broad light of day!”

  “It’s a cure for fever too. One drop in a big beaker of ale is a mild treatment against fever. And you can use it on a scorpion bite.”

  “We don’t suffer from many scorpions in Chichester,” the man said sarcastically.

  Alinor shrugged. “I’ll take it back home if you don’t want it. I can use it for treating fevers.”

  “No, no, I’ll buy it. It’s good to have it in stock, even if there is little call for it. What shall I give you for the water of aconite and the other oils?”

  “Six shillings,” Alinor said boldly.

  “Now, now, I have to pay rent on my shop, and a servant to keep the shop. I can’t spare that. But I will give you four shillings for them all.”

  “Six shillings,” Alinor insisted. “For the twelve bottles. And the bottles and corks returned to me.”

  “You drive a hard bargain,” he conceded. “As a beautiful woman may do.”

  Alinor unpacked the bottles onto his stall and he produced empty bottles from a basket at the back.

  “Here, I’ll give you a couple of extra bottles and corks,” he said. “For the wolfsbane.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Bring me some more next monthly market,” he said. “And I’ll buy dried herbs by the ounce, also.”

  “I have some drying now.”

  He leaned towards her. “Can you make me something to restore manhood?” he whispered. “I have a customer who would be glad of it.”

  “I don’t have a recipe for that,” she said, discouragingly.

  “You will have, I know you will have. It’ll be horny goatweed and bull pizzle, ginger and something like that, boiled up together.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t have a recipe. I can’t get hold of such ingredients and if I could, I would not,” she said. “I don’t do anything of that sort.”

  He snorted disbelievingly. “Don’t tell me that you turn away good business?”

  “I do,” she said steadily. “I make the herb remedies because I know what they do. The goodness, the God-given goodness, is in the plant, a gift from God Himself. But anything with charming and special words is halfway towards magic. My mother’d never have anything to do with it, and neither will I. She taught me to use the herbs that we all know, and not dabble in things that are mysteries—if they work at all.”

  “And you a midwife!” he said nastily. “I don’t see why you would put yourself above the act. You pull the baby out, why don’t you help the father to put it in?”

  “Because I need my license,” Alinor said. “And if the bishop ever comes back, he isn’t going to look kindly on some woman from Sealsea Island selling love philters and casting spells. I am a midwife and a herbalist, and I do nothing else. I have to guard my reputation: it’s my fortune.”

  “Hardly a fortune, my dear. Your reputation is hardly a fortune! Look, I’ll get you the ingredients myself and pay you to come to my stillroom and make it up for me. You needn’t tell a soul. It can be just between you and me. Our little secret. I don’t believe that you’ll turn down five shillings.”

  Alinor had a pang of guilt thinking of the five shillings towards Alys’s dowry, but she could not rid herself of a fear of anything that looked like magic. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “But I only work as a herbalist, with the herbs that I know. I don’t dabble in mysteries.”

  He laughed to conceal his irritation and she realized at once that the remedy was for himself. He had the edgy laugh of a man without confidence; his bullying tone came from his weakness. All the talk about a customer was a blind for his own need. “Oh! If you want to turn down good business from an established customer. . . .”

  “I am sorry,” she said kindly. “But I can’t help you.”

  “It’s not for me,” he said quickly. “But I could sell it a dozen times.”

  “Then you will surely find someone to make it for you,” she said.

  He grimaced. “Your herbs are so good—they’re the best. I wanted yours. People always ask for the oils from the pretty witch of Foulmire.”

  “I hope they don’t call me that,” Alinor said coldly.

  “Only in jest.”

  “It’s no jest to me.”

  “So you say, so you say. I’ll give you good day, and if you have the sense to change your mind you can come back to me.”

  Alinor accepted her dismissal, pocketed her money, and lifted her basket from his stall. He waved her away, and Alinor gritted her teeth, smiled, and said good-bye. He did not bother to reply but turned to a customer and let her go without another word. Mother and daughter made their way through the crowd to the north side of the Market Cross, to the wool merchant.

  There was a little crowd around his table, women bringing back wool that they had spun and collecting their payments, women buying sacks of raw wool for spinning. Alinor bought a shilling’s worth of fleece in a small sack. He took the money with a word of thanks. “Good day, Mrs. Reekie. I can fetch the yarn from you myself, if you work quickly. I am coming to Sealsea Island next month.”

  “I’ll leave it with my brother at the ferry-house,” Alinor promised him. “And if you’ll take the price of another sack off my wages and leave it for me, I’ll spin more.”

  “Working hard?” he asked with a wink at her. “Saving up for something?”

  “Nothing in particular,” Alinor said discreetly, though Alys smiled and blushed and looked down.

  They turned from the stall, trying not to bump people in the crowded street with the bulky sack.

  “What now?” Alys asked.

  “I have to buy some salt, for salting down the fish,” Alinor said, looking around.

  “What’s wrong with the salt that we make?”

  “I can’t make enough for a barrel of fish,” Alinor said. “And it’s such hard work, stirring the boiling pans and keeping the fire in all day, for such a little result.”

  She led the way to the stall where two rough men were shoveling from sacks of salt into smaller bags. “I’ll take two,” Alinor said, and handed over the pennies.

  As she took the bags and tu