Crispin_ At the Edge of the World - Avi [1]
By midmorning, when our exuberance had all but ebbed, I said, “Bear, I think we need to find a place for you to rest and eat. And some decent clothing.”
“Easier to say,” he replied, “than do.”
I held up our sack. “Bear,” I said, “we have the quarter-penny to spare.”
He shook his great, red-bearded head. “Crispin, we can’t rest. Not yet.”
“Bear, we’ve won our liberty.”
“I’m afraid,” he growled, “the most lethal of all sleep potions is success.”
“What does that mean?”
“We’ve escaped. But don’t doubt it, we’ll be pursued. I’m as easy to find as a cardinal in a flock of ravens. And there are many now who would like to catch me.” Bear had been a spy for John Ball’s secret and illegal brotherhood, which sought to regain people’s ancient liberties. It meant he had many enemies.
I did too—for different reasons.
Bear’s words so reined in my good spirits that I looked about with apprehension. We were traveling on a deep-rutted, muddy track that ran as straight as any arrow. “Made by Caesar’s great legions,” Bear had told me. To one side lay thick forest. The other side was open, hilly land. Bear’s warning made me wonder if those who wished us harm might crest the horizon at any time.
True, we had passed many a plodding peasant and footsore pilgrim, with scallop badge over heart and staff in hand. There had been fat merchants aplenty too, on thin horses, likely heading to the fair at Great Wexly. Though I had spied no one who alarmed me, quite naturally, they had gazed upon Bear. For God had made Bear a huge fellow with massive arms and legs and a great belly before all. His bald head was equally striking to behold, with great red beard, fuzzy eyebrows of the same hue, large nose and mouth, if small eyes. To see Bear was to know why he bore the name of beast—and yet, most surely he was a man, and one not likely to go unnoticed.
We had come upon some scattered houses, cottages, huts, and even an old, abandoned church. Perhaps a village had been there, but time or sickness had turned it to all but naught.
As I looked about, I spied a house from which a broom hung. I recognized it as an alestake: those within had brewed more ale than they could keep and the broom was set out as a signal to tempt passersby to purchase. My hope was that there would be bread as well.
“Bear,” I said, pointing to the alestake, “look! The food and drink should be cheap. It will do you good.”
“We’re still too near Great Wexly,” he cautioned.
“It will take only moments,” I coaxed.
Bear considered, and then said, “As you wish,”—words, no doubt, called forth by his exhaustion. So it was we turned our steps off the road.
The house was large, a half-timbered structure with a few small and shuttered windows, its roof thick-thatched. Noting the tilled fields just behind, I supposed a free yeoman dwelled within. In the foreyard, geese strutted, clucking and hissing at one another. An old wooden trestle table had been set out, along with benches suggesting the dwellers offered food with some regularity. Just the thought made my stomach speak with hunger.
Upon reaching the house, Bear dropped heavily on a bench set to one side of the door. Right off, he shut his eyes and set his face toward the warming sun. It was, I realized, the first time since he’d been arrested in the city that he had been at ease.
Glad of it, I went to the split front door and rapped upon it.
In answer to my summons, the top part of the door opened a crack. A dark eye peered out. I must have been judged no threat, for the next moment the door swung wide.
The man who revealed himself was a broad-shouldered, powerfully built fellow of middling age, with long, ill-sheared black hair. A few days’ growth of beard made his scowling mouth appear grim. Over his kirtle he wore the leather vest of an archer. The first and second fingers of his right hand were extra muscled and callused from—I assumed—pulling a bowstring to his ear. He looked vaguely familiar, but I was unable to claim him in my memory.
“Good morrow to you, boy,” he said, although his voice carried little