World Without End Page 0,397

necessarily. Higher wages might attract some of those who at present do no work at all - outlaws, for example, or those vagabonds who go around living off what they find in plague-emptied villages. And some who are now labourers might become tenants, and work harder because they're cultivating their own land."

He banged the table with his fist, and she blinked at the sudden noise. "You've no right to change the old ways!"

"I think I have."

He grabbed the front of her robe. "Well, I'm not putting up with it!"

"Take your hands off me, you clumsy oaf," she said.

At that moment, Brother Thomas came in. "You sent for me - what the devil is going on here?"

He stepped smartly across the room, and Ralph let go of Caris's robe as if it had suddenly caught fire. Thomas had no weapons and only one arm, but he had got the better of Ralph once before; and Ralph was scared of him.

Ralph took a step back, then realized he had revealed his fear, and looked ashamed. "We're done here!" he said loudly, and turned to the door.

Caris said: "What I'm doing in Outhenby and elsewhere is perfectly legitimate, Ralph."

"It's interfering with the natural order!" he said.

"There's no law against it."

Alan opened the door for his master.

"You wait and see," said Ralph, and he went out.

Chapter 67

In March that year, 1349, Gwenda and Wulfric went with Nathan Reeve to the midweek market at the small town of Northwood.

They were working for Sir Ralph now. Gwenda and Wulfric had escaped the plague, so far, but several of Ralph's labourers had died of it, so he needed help; and Nate, the bailiff of Wigleigh, had offered to take them on. He could afford to pay normal wages, whereas Perkin had been giving them nothing more than their food.

As soon as they announced they were going to work for Ralph, Perkin discovered that he could now afford to pay them normal wages - but he was too late.

On this day they took a cartload of logs from Ralph's forest to sell in Northwood, a town that had had a timber market since time immemorial. The boys, Sam and David, went with them: there was no one else to look after them. Gwenda did not trust her father, and her mother had died two years ago. Wulfric's parents were long dead.

Several other Wigleigh folk were at the market. Father Gaspard was buying seeds for his vegetable garden, and Gwenda's father, Joby, was selling freshly killed rabbits.

Nate, the bailiff, was a stunted man with a twisted back, and he could not lift logs. He dealt with customers while Wulfric and Gwenda did the lifting. At midday he gave them a penny to buy their dinner at the Old Oak, one of the taverns around the square. They got bacon boiled with leeks and shared it with the boys. David, at eight years of age, still had a child's appetite, but Sam was a fast-growing ten and perpetually hungry.

While they were eating, they overheard a conversation that caught Gwenda's attention.

There was a group of young men standing in a corner, drinking large tankards of ale. They were all poorly dressed, except one with a bushy blond beard who had the superior clothes of a prosperous peasant or a village craftsman: leather trousers, good boots and a new hat. The sentence that caused Gwenda to prick up her ears was: "We pay two pence a day for labourers at Outhenby."

She listened hard, trying to learn more, but caught only scattered words. She had heard that some employers were offering more than the traditional penny a day, because of the shortage of workers caused by the plague. She had hesitated to believe such stories, which sounded too good to be true.

She said nothing for the moment to Wulfric, who had not heard the magic words, but her heart beat faster. She and her family had endured so many years of poverty. Was it possible that life might get better for them?

She had to find out more.

When they had eaten, they sat on a bench outside, watching the boys and some other children running around the broad trunk of the tree that gave the tavern its name. "Wulfric," she said quietly. "What if we could earn two pence a day - each?"

"How?"

"By going to Outhenby." She told him what she had overheard. "It could be the beginning of a new life for us," she