ENGLISH READING - OCTOBER

1ST DAY OF OCTOBER

            My father's clerk suffers today from an inflammation of his eyes, caused, no doubt, by his spying on our serving maids as they wash under their arms at the millpond. I did not have the mother's milk necessary for an ointment for the eyes, so I used the garlic and goose fat left from doctoring Morwenna's boils yesterweek. No matter how he bellowed, it will do him no harm.

            I can stand no more of  lady-tasks, endless mindless sewing, hemming, brewing, doctoring, and counting linen! Why is a lady too gentle to climb a tree or throw stones into the river when it is lady's work to pick maggots from the salt meat? Why must I learn to walk with a lady's tiny steps one day and sweat over great steaming kettles of dung and nettle for remedies the next? Why must the lady of the manor do all the least lovable tasks? I'd rather be the pig boy.
3RD DAY OF OCTOBER

            There are Jews in our hall tonight! On our way to London, they sought shelter from the rain. My father being away, my mother let them in. She is not afraid of Jews, but the cook and the kitchen boys have all fled to the barn, so no one will have supper tonight. I plan to hide in the shadows of the hall in order to see their horns and tails. Wait until Perkin hears of this.
THE HOUR OF VESPERS, LATER THIS DAY: Bones! The Jews have no horns and no tails, just wet clothes and ragged children. They are leaving England by order of the king, who says Jews are Hell-born, wicked, and dangerous. He must know some others than the scared and scrawny ones who are here this night.

            I hid in the hall to watch them, hoping to see them talk to the Devil or perform evil deeds. But the men just drank and sang and argued and waved their arms about while the women chattered among themselves. Much like Christians. The children mostly snuffled and whined until one woman with a face like a withered apple gathered them about her. At first she spoke to them in the Jews' tongue, which sounds much like horses talking, but then with a wink in my direction she changed to English.

            First she told of an old man named Abraham who actually argued with God and had great adventures in the desert. Then Moses, who I recognized from the Bible but forgot was a Jew. The woman said Moses led the Jews from a land of slavery to freedom, just as they were going to find freedom in Flanders, riding in tall ships with billowing sails, pushed on by the breath of God.

            Then she told a story about this man who was so stupid that he forgot how to get dressed in the morning. Where was his shirt? Did it go on his legs or his arms? And how did it fasten? Such trouble it was every morning. Finally he decided to hire the boy next door to come in each day and tell him, "Your shoes are there and your cloak is here and your hat goes on your head." The first day the boy comes in. "first," he says to the stupid man, "wash yourself." "That's all very well," says the stupid man, "but where is myself? Where in the world am I? Am I here? Am I here? Or am I here?" And he looked under the bed and behind the chair and in the street, but it was all in vain for he never did find himself.

            As she spoke, the children stopped their snuffling and chanted with her, "Am I here? Or am I here?" And then shyly they began to shove each other and giggle, wiping their runny noses on their sleeves and skirts.

            "Listen to me, my children," said the old woman. Know where you yourself are. How? By knowing who your are and where you come from. Just as a river by night shines with the reflected light of the moon, so too do you shine with the light of your family, your people, and your God. So you are never far from home, never alone, wherever you go."

            It was a wonder. She was like a minstrel, or a magician spinning stories from her wrinkled mouth. And then she pulled from the sleeves of her gown bread and onions and herring and boiled cabbage and they ate. One tiny little girl with soft eyes brought me an onion and some bread. Mayhap I wasn't hidden as well as I thought. It smelled like our food and I was hungry from hearing of the adventures of Moses, so I ate it. I did not die nor turn into a Jew. I think some stories are true and some stories are just stories.
4TH DAY OF OCTOBER

            I was unhappy to see the Jews leave this morning until I got it in my mind to travel with them and have an experience, mayhap even find my own way in the world and never return to old Spinning and Sewing Manor. I wore an old tunic and leggings of Edward's, stuffed my hair into a cap, swaggered and spit, and looked much like a boy, except that I was curiously flat between the legs. I had thought to stuff the leggings with straw but feared that would make it hard to walk, so I went as I was. I could hear my nurse Morwenna calling for me as we left, but she never thought to look at the boy in the wool cap.

            I walked with them all the way to Wooton-under-Wynwoode, hoping to hear more stories, but the old woman was silent. Instead I told her about my life and the boredom of sewing and brewing and doctoring and how I would rather go crusading like Uncle George or live with the goats like Perkin. Then, stroking my face with her rough hands, she said, "Little Bird, in the world to come, you will not be asked 'Why were you not George?'"or "Why were you not Perkin?" but  "Why were you not Catherine?"
What did that mean? She said no more, so finally, confused and more than a little sad, I left them for the Wooton harvest fair.




It was not much of a fair, but they did have a ribbon seller, an ale tent, a stiltwalker, and a two-headed goat.

          


     I had never been so far from home without Morwenna. It felt like a bit of an adventure.


I examined a wagon with copper-banded barrels, knives, ropes, and needles for sale, I watched two men argue the value of a cow who just looked tired and puzzled and ready to go home.


 I saw three small boys stealing mouthfuls of ale from a keg behind the ale tent, laughing and spluttering and pretending to be drunk.

           

          






          

    Down behind the horse auction was a small stage where a little wooden Noah and his wife danced on strings, while god ordered Noah to build an ark and Mrs. Noah, pulling angrily at her husband's coat, scolded him about finishing his chores and not expecting her to get on that flimsy boat.

    Finally Noah wrestled his wife, grown quite peevish, to the ground amid shouts of  
" Cry mercy, I say!" and "Never! I say nay!" until finally they lay in a heap of tangled strings.
Then came the grand procession of the animals- two by two-on a painted scroll, unwound by the puppeteer and his apprentice so the animals looked to be crossing the stage, full alive and lively, as Noah called,
Lions come in, and leopards, and dogs,
Barnyard creatures, goats and hogs,

  Chickens, turkeys, all feathered fowl,Hairy beasts that bark and that howl!

     When the ark was loaded, it rode out a silver gilt rain on a sea of blue-green satin until the dove descended on golden strings to promise land and life to all.

It was a glorious spectacle, even though I could see the puppeteer's apprentice throughout, pulling strings and banging pots and wiping his nose on the curtain.

It was then that William Steward, at the fair to purchase barrels, saw me and threatened to pull me by my hair all the way home. Being right hungry, I went with him most willingly, in exchange for his promise to say nothing about my adventure. On our way out, we passed baskets of cocks for the cock fight. Looking as innocent as I was able, I kicked the baskets over and the cocks escaped.             Deus! I thought I was Moses leading them to freedom and home to their wives and baby chicks. Instead, they flew at each other with their terrible sharpened claws, shrieking and slashing in a storm of feathers. 

     I had had enough of that fair and was ready to go home. I told my mother and Morwenna that I'd spent the day sulking in the dovecote. They believed me. It is something I would do.
    
5TH OF OCTOBER

            The cook's boy told me today of a miller's apprentice in Nottingham who can fart at will. That I think, is a useful and notable talent, to the Devil with spinning. I purposely ate too much at dinner and tried to see if I have this talent. I don't.
6TH DAY OF OCTOBER

            This being Saint Faith's day, Morwenna and I chased the cook out of the kitchen so that we could bake a Saint Faith's cake. I passed pieces of it through my mother's ruby ring and have hung the ring from my bedstead. Tonight Saint Faith will send a dream of who my husband will be.

I should be pleased if he is a prince or a knight with golden hair.

 Or a juggler in ruby silk tunic and purple tights.

 Or a wandering minstrel with music in his throat and mischief in his eye.

7 TH DAY OF OCTOBER

            Dreamed of the miller's farting apprentice. This morning I stomped the cake into the pig yard. I will never marry.
8TH DAY OF OCTOBER

            Searched the pig yard for my mother's ring until dark. Have definitely decided not to be a pig boy.
9TH DAY OF OCTOBER

            I am well pleased with the events of today and have celebrated with a handful of blackberries and the rest of the pork pie from supper. As I eat, I will recount the day so as to relive the pleasure. This morning, from the window of the solar, I could hear the villagers singing and shouting as they went about building a cottage for Ralph Littlemouse, who lost his in the Michaelmas celebration. Poor me, I thought .  Trapped inside again. Missing all the merriment. But then my mother, who was looking a little green in her face, curled up on her great bed and pulled the curtains close about her. And Morwenna went to the kitchen to argue with the cook about dinner. So down the stairs I went, skidding through the hall and across the yard, down the road to the village, tucking up my skirts and pulling off my shoes as I ran.

           

Already this early they had the framework
 of the cottage, up, and Joan Proud,
Marjorie Mustard, and Ralph's children
were weaving willow sticks through to
 make the walls.


 Nearby, in a hollow in the ground, my favorite part of building was beginning and I jumped right in, mucking about to mix the puddle of mud, straw, cow hair, and dung into daub for covering the walls. The slop felt delightful, squishing through my toes. The sun was shining, breezes blowing, the blackberries were ripe, people were singing "Hey nonny nonny" and "There was a maiden good and fair," and I had muck between my toes. Oh, to be a villager.
     Then I had my first good idea. I scooped up a handfill of muck and flung it in the air, watching it land plop and sloop on the faces, arms, and shoulders of my fellow muckers. Handfuls of the gray and sticking stuff came back at me and I had to fling more and they had to fling more until we all looked like plaster saints and not like people at all.    

            Suddenly everything stopped--no singing, no flinging, no weaving of willows. All eyes were on a young man standing in the road, holding the bridle of the most beautiful horse I've ever seen. The young man was beautiful, too, with golden hair and golden eyes and a tunic of gold and green velvet. No one spoke, but as I was right curious, I walked up to him.

            "Good morning, sir. Can I assist you?" I asked, very nicely for me.

            He stared at me long without speaking, while his forehead furrowed and his mouth grew small as a mouse's turd. Finally he replied, " My God, the stink! Is there no water for washing or scent for covering up in this village?"

            I said nothing. I didn't think he really wanted an answer.

            He went on, "Is that ahead the manor of Rollo of Stonebridge?"

            "What do you want with the lord Rollo?" I asked.

            "It be none of your business, maid, but I am inspecting the family with an eye to marrying the daughter Catherine," he replied, taking a piece of scent-drenched linen from his sleeve and holding it to his nose.

            Corpus bones, I thought. To be wedded to this perfumed prig with his mouth in a knot and a frown always on his face! That is when I had my next very good idea.

            "The lady Catherine," I repeated, trying to sound like a villager. "Oh, good fortune to ye, good sir. Ye sorely will need it."

            "I will? Is aught amiss with the lady?"

            "No, sir. Oh, no. she is a goodly lady, given that her wits are lacking and her back stooped. Mostly she is gentle and quiet, when she is not locked up. And the pits on her face are much better now. Truly. Please, sir, never say I suggested the lady Catherine was lacking. Please, sir."

            I  went then to grab his arm but he twisted away, leapt onto the back of the beautiful horse, and was off on the road toward the manor. Bones! I thought. He is still going on! But as I watched, the beautiful horse with the beautiful young man left the road, made a wide turn in the field, trampling the carefully seeded furrows of Walter Mustard, and tore off away from the manor, away from my father, and, thanks be, away from me.

            All during supper my father watched the door, finally pondering aloud about the whereabouts of someone named Rolf, which I of course did not know. So this is why I am pleased with today, and pork pie seems not great enough celebration for what I have saved myself from.
10TH DAY OF OCTOBER

            Just three days to the feast of Saint Edward, my brother Edward's saint's day. When Edward was still at home, we celebrated this day each year with feasting and dancing and mock battles in the yard. Now our celebrations include my father's face turning purple, my mother tightening her eyes and her mouth, and the cook swinging his ladle and swearing in Saxon. The cause of all the excitement is this: On this day each year, since Edward went to be a monk, my mother takes wagons full of gifts to his abbey in his honor. My father shouts that we may as well pour his precious stores in the cesspit (one day his angry liver will set him afire and I will toast bread on him). My mother calls him PinchFist and Miser. The cook boils and snarls as his bacon and flour and Rhenish wine leave home. But each year my mother stands firm and the wagons go: This year we send.

            460 salted white herring

            3 wheels of cheese, a barrel of apples

            4 chickens, 3 ducks, and 87 pidgeons

            4 barrels of flour, honey from our bees

            100 gallons of ale (for no one drinks more ale than monks, my father says)

            4 iron pots, wooden spoons, and a rat trap for the kitchen

            goose fat for the making of everyday candles and soap
              (lots of candles and little soap, I wager, seeing that they are monks)

            40 pounds of beeswax for candles for the church

            A chest of blankets, linens, and napkins

            Horn combs, for those who have hair

            Goose quills, down, and a bolt of woven cloth (black)
My mother longs to see Edward on this day each year. He is her favorite child. No small wonder. Robert is abominable and I puzzle that she had any more children after bearing him first. I would have exposed him by the river. Thomas has been gone so long with the king that we hardly know him. I am stubborn, peevish, and as prickly as a thistle. So by default alone Edward would be her favorite. And mine.
11TH  DAY OF OCTOBER

            Last night my mother lost the child she carried, the fifth I have seen die without ever having a chance to live. If God intends for me to be her last, I wish He would stop quickening her and then taking the baby away. She mourns so. I do not believe God means to punish my mother, who may not be learned or clever but is mostly good. I think he is just not paying enough attention.

            White-faced, she lies in her big bed in the solar white Morwena gives her goblets of garlic and mint and vinegar to cleanse her womb, and soothes her with "Oh my poor lady's" and clucking sounds. I must go with the wagons in her place and see Edward tomorrow--more learning to be the lady of the manor. Deus! The road is rough, the weather hot, the monks old and smelly. We leave after breakfast and hope to be well on the way before the sun finds us.
12TH DAY OF OCTOBER

No more sewing and spinning and goose fat for me! Today my life is changed. How it came about is this: we arrived at the abbey soon after dinner, stopping just outside he entry gate at the guesthouse next the mill. The jouncing cart did not stomach no kindness after jellied eel and potted lamb, so I was most relieved to alight.
 A tall monk with a big nose greeted us and led us from the guesthouse through the abbey gate, past kitchens and dormitories and vast storehouses, to the abbot's office behind the chapel.

      The abbot received us kindly and sent to my mother gentle words and a marvelous small book of saints, their feast days, and their great works. Today it says, is the feast of Saint Edwin, the first Christian king of Northumbria, whose head lies at York and body in the abbey at Whitby. I think there are too many words and not enough pictures, but since I read and my mother does not, I will try to seduce it from her.

           Brother Anselm, the big-nosed monk, then escorted me to Edward's desk in the writing room.


Women are not allowed in ordinarily, but I believe they think me not quite a woman yet.

            Edward works in Paradise. Beyond the garden near the chapel, is a room as large as our barn and near as cold. Shelves lining the walls hold books and scrolls, some chained down as if they were precious relics or wild beasts.

 In three rows sit fifteen desks, feebly lit by candles , and fifteen monks sit curled over them, their noses almost to the desk tops.

Each monk holds in one hand his pen and in the other a sharp knife for scratching out mistakes. On the desks are pens and quills of all sizes, pots of ink black or colored, powder for drying, and knives for sharpening.

      Some of the monks copy the words from one page to another. Others add fanciful designs to the first letter and decorations to the first page. Still others punch holes in the pages and sew them together between wooden covers. Never have I seen books so beautiful or so plentiful.

   

    The monks didn't even talk to me much or even listen to me much, but they didn't send me away. I visited Brother William who was mixing and gave him some good ideas for inks--a rose the color of a new born lamb's nose and the iridescent green you sometimes see in the film inside a fresh new raw egg. He said nothing ,  only snorted, but I am sure he was grateful for these suggestions.

            Another monk let me help prepare the vellum for the next day's writing , but I knew the skins came from our sheep and I was afraid I would recognize one. I have the same feeling when the cook stuffs swans and geese and lambs whole and sets them before us at special feasts. I preferred smoothing and powdering the vellum pages after they looked less like animals, even though the powder got into my hair and my nose and clothes.

    Edward's passion is for the letters and the words, which he inscribes lovingly on the soft vellum. But for me-- oh, the pictures! The birds and the flowers, the saints and the angels rushing up the side of the page, climbing over the capitals and down the margin, the knights riding snails into battle against squirrels and goats,  the many faces of the Devil as he scampers over the page, tempting the reader away from the holy words.



To spend the rest of my life making pictures instead of mending and weaving would be Heaven indeed!

That is when my life changed. I decided to run away to an abbey. This is how I will live, making pictures in the scriptorium, although I wish the place were livelier. I know it will be difficult, given that I am a girl, but I am also stubborn and clever. The abbey cannot be this one, as I would love to be near Edward, for they know me here and know I am no boy. I must find another, close enough for visits from Perkin, with a writing room and mayhap an aged abbot who doesn't see too well.
       Do brothers see each other naked? Who would know if a new brother were a maid and no brother at all? I must find out. Would Edward tell me? Tomorrow when I take my leave of him, I will ask

 Tonight we sleep at the guesthouse. It is near enough to the abbey so I can practice being a monk. I wonder what monks do.
13 TH DAY OF OCTOBER, Feast of Edward, King and saint, and my brother Edward's  saint's day

            A big difference between Robert and Edward is how they laugh at me. Robert laughs loudly, showing his big yellow horse teeth, pinching and slapping my cheeks. Edward laughs softly and kindly, but laugh he does. And did. He said that with these apples on my chest, I would not fool even the most aged of abbots. Deus! Last year they were but walnuts and I might have gotten away with it.

I thought mayhap to join a nunnery instead, but as the chief occupation of nuns is embroidery, it would be like falling from the spit into the cooking fire.
 		 I could grow turnips, but I have neither land nor seeds.
 Be a tumbler, but I do not tumble, except when I am trying not to.

 
A musician, but I do not play. I used to study music, since my mother said a lady must be accomplished, but the noise I made was so awful my father gave my lute to the cook.
 I could be a traveling spinner, but that is no escape.

  I am left with a beastly father, a life of chores, no hope, no friends, no escape, and a large bosom! Corpus bones! Is there no justice in the world?
14TH DAY OF OCTOBER, Feast of Saint Callistus, slave, banker, convict, pope, and martyr

My mother must give me the little book of saints. I am already making use of it to find how saints lived and died and what lessons I may learn from them.

On the way home from the abbey we stopped at Highgate Manor to bring greeting to the Baron Ranulf's family, who are visiting there until Christmas. Their daughter, Lady Aelis, and I were together at Belleford long ago, learning highborn manners and the duties of a lady, until my mother lost another of my unborn baby brothers and in sorrow called me home. What I remember most about Aelis is she liked to complain, said "Yes my lady" and "No, my Lord" but did as she pleased when no one could see and was more fun than anyone else.
She has been living of late at the French court. I watched her at supper. She looks to be a lady with her fancy French table manners and her yellow hair, but during the dancing she grabbed my arm and pulled me from the hall for a gossip. We tucked up our skirts and walked round and round the dark manor yard arm in arm, talking of who has rotten teeth and who married someone rich and ugly and who paints her face and stuffs her bosom.
We flirted with the guards and arranged to meet them later in a chamber, where we will send Aelis's old nurse and her sewing woman on some pretext. They will all have a surprise. Aelis told me she gets away with things because she looks so docile and innocent while she does just what she wants.

           She says she would like to be a horse trainer but knows she was brought home to wed. It appears that we are both in grave danger of being sold like pigs at autumn fair.

            We pledged to meet in seven days' time at the high meadow, it being but half a day's walk for each of us. Since I left Belleford I have not been much with other girls, and I long to tell her of my life and thoughts and wonderings and hear hers.
15TH DAY OF OCTOBER, Feast of Saint Euthymius the Younger; who lived three years on nuts and herbs.

            Home again. While hiding from Morwenna before supper, I watched the geese returning from the pasture to their shed in the yard, all in a line like plump little knights in feathers.


            I think I love geese more than any other birds because no one else does. They are not small and delicate like larks and sparrows, or swift and clever like hawks and falcons. They do not sing like nightingales and cannot be trained to talk or dance or do tricks. They are cunning, greedy, shortsighted, and stubborn--much like me, now that I think on it.

I have seen swans on the river.
They are much more beautiful and stately
than geese, but a little vain and not as smart.
I think my mother is like a swan.
My brother Robert is a rooster,
strutting here and there, crowing about himself.
Edward is a heron,
with his long nose and long legs.
Clever Perkin is a falcon,



 and my nurse Morewenna is a nuthatch, busy and brown and dumpy.
  My father of course is a buzzard, slow and stupid, the Devil take him.
 I think perhaps Aelis is a dove on the outside and a hawk within.
 And I am a plain gray and brown goose.


16TH DAY OF OCTOBER, Feast of Saint Helwig, who was unlucky in her children

          

Before I left the abbey, Edward showed me how to mix some colors and shape goose feathers into pens


so I too can make flowers and angels.		 The black ink is easy. We have walnut husks and an abundance of soot. I also found buttercups, sneezeweed, and moss for yellow and greens, but have no lapis lazuli stone to grind for blue.

 

  I make a paste from crushed bilberries that looks as blue as a robin's egg but grows sour and sticky that I must add a task the brothers never dreamed of -- picking bugs out of the heavenly sky or the Virgin's veil.
17TH DAY OF OCTOBER, Feasts of Saints Ethelred and Ethelbricht, sons of Ermenred, great-grandsons of Ethelbert, brothers of Ermenburga, nephews of Erconbert, and cousins of Egbert

            I had a sweet dream last night.  In my dream I was captured by a dragon that looked like my father.  My uncle George, wearing a cloak made of feathers, stabbed the dragon in the neck with a goose -quill pen.  Then George leapt onto his horse and , reaching down, gathered me up and lifted me to his lap.  We rode off together to be crusaders.  After I awoke, I kept my eyes closed for a long time so I could hold onto the dream.
18TH DAY OF OCTOBER, Feast of Saint Luke, writer of gospels, physician, and artist, who lived to be eighty four and died unmarried.

            In the village late last night, one of Thomas Cotter's chickens, hunting in the dirt of the cottage floor for bugs, scratched too close to the cooking fire and set her feathers aflame.  She squawked and flapped about the cottage, from bed to table to the bacon hanging from the roof beams, setting all on fire.  Chased by a naked Thomas, the chicken flew out the door and down the road toward the church, leaving little fires smoldering in her path, until Ralph Littlemouse threw a bucked of water on her, whereupon she lay down gasping in the road, bald and charred.  Thomas's family now sleep in our hall until a new cottage is built-all the family but the chicken, which they ate.  I try not to laugh when I see Thomas's family for they are sore grieved.  It is no easy task.

            The king, I think, should be informed of this event.  I can see him besieging the Scots by setting fire to hundreds of chickens and letting them flap over the Scottish castle walls.
19TH DAY OF OCTOBER, Feast of Saint Frileswide, virgin, though why that should make someone a saint I do not know

            While we picked bugs and burrs from the weaving wool this morning, Morwenna tried to make me understand why my father seeks a husband for me and why it is my duty to marry where he says.  I understand full well.  He is as greedy as a goat.

            I believe we have enough of things.  Those with many manors have to travel from one to another to take care of them.  More cows and pigs mean more dung.  More pots and bowls and tables mean more cooking and scrubbing.  But my father does not see it my way and seeks to improve our position through my marriage bed.  Corpus bones.  I have not even begun my monthly courses yet, so how can I be a wife?

            Later I told Morwenna my jest about the flaming chickens and she, traitor and carrytale,  told my mother.  I have now to embroider another cloth for the church.  They think I am not trying hard enough not to laugh.  Bleak.  All is bleak.
20TH DAY OF OCTOBER, Feast of Saint Irene, killed by a man because she would not love him.

           My Uncle George has come home!  He is tall and fair and funny.  Last night he told us wondrous stories of the places he has been.  The cities have names that whisper like the wind:  Venice,  Damascus,  Byzantium,  Samarkand.  I say them over and over to myself so I will not forget them before I can tell Perkin.

 I used to imagine Uncle George in the Holy Land, wearing a red cross sewn on his white tunic, nobly fighting for God and Christ and England. 

I could almost see the line of crusaders reaching from Jerusalem all the way back to London,

like a procession on a holy day or the arrival of foreign merchants at the fair, with snow-white horses and mules prancing in their bells and silks, ladies in coaches of gold and jewels gleaming in the sun like fire,
musicians with harps and timbrels and trumpets,
and little children scampering alongside throwing flowers in their path as they sing songs of praise to those coming to the march of the righteous into Paradise.

            I told Uncle George about my imaginings and he laughed and laughed.  He said I did get one thing right:  There were plenty of donkeys, but not all them had four legs. 

His years on crusade, he said, were more like Hell than the Heaven I imagine, with little cheering and singing but much dying of thirst, eating dead horses, and wading knee-deep in blood and broken bodies.  I must doubt this.


21ST DAY OF OCTOBER, Feast of Saint Ursula and her eleven thousand companions, martyred by the Huns

            Uncle George is teaching me-in Latin, Greek, and Arabic-what he says are the most useful phrases for a crusader:

            "Tell me the way again, more slowly."

            "How much for wine? Too much."

            "Have you herbs for my aching head?"

            You cheat. You lie. You son of a dog and a camel."

      Mayhap Uncle George will help me take up the cross and be a crusader. I won't ever have to bind my chest and pretend to be a man,

for it is well known how Eleanor, wife of the second Henry, mother of Richard the Lionheart and the terrible John Softsword, led her band of women on crusade. They sat astride magnificent white horses and, below their linen tunics, wore tight-fitting hose and red leather boots to the knee with orange silk lining.


I would walk to the Holy Land for red boots with orange silk lining . I will speak to Uncle George.


22ND DAY OF OCTOBER, Feast of Saint Donatus, an Irish man who was proclaimed a bishop when bells miraculously rang as he entered church

            Learned men in the East call this the birthday of the world, the anniversary of the Creation on this day four thousand years ago. So says Uncle George. I wonder who has kept the reckoning. Few of the villagers know even when they were born. They say it was the year the miller's barn caught fire or the new priest was driven from the village for lechery.

            Uncle George's baggage finally caught up with him and he has given us all presents-bronze knives and cooking pots, silk for my mother in shades of saffron and lavender, and for our stomachs ginger, cinnamon, cloves, figs, dates, and almonds. For me, something called an orange, shriveled and dry, with a brown musty smell. When I close my eyes, under the must I can smell just a hint of sweet hot sunshine. George says when they are new, oranges taste like water from the rivers of Paradise.

He also brought me a special gift, a popinjay

in a cage carved of ivory and sweet-smelling wood, to join the family of birds in my chamber. Since my father built the solar where he and my mother and any important guests sleep, I share a sleeping chamber only with Morwenna, my mother's serving women, any visiting girls, and my birds. With the popinjay, I have nineteen birds in cages hanging from the roof timbers. 
                     Linnets,                               skylarks, and
   
nightingales for their song,              magpies for their talk.
                               


    Now that I don't have to hear my father bellowing and snoring and spitting, I can hear their music. Last night I fell asleep smelling my orange and listening to my birds sing. I dreamed I was an angel.
23RD DAY OF OCTOBER, Feast of Saint Cuthbert, first man ever to shoe a horse

            I was finally able to speak to Uncle George about my idea of going on crusade to the Holy Land.  It is too late, he says. Their own greed, cruelty and stupidity defeated the crusaders, and the Turks have only to sweep them out like soiled straw.

            Sometimes George does not sound like one who has worn the Holy Cross. He says he stopped being a crusader when he realized God could not be pleased with so much blood, no matter whose.

            He makes me confused. My cheeks glow, my heart flutters like a hawk moth, and my dreams grow soft and swoony. I do not know if the turmoil of the liver I am suffering is because of George .....

or because I had two portions of eel pie for supper!

24Th DAY OF OCTOBER, Feast of Saint Maglorius, who chased a dragon out of Jersey

            I met Aelis in the high meadow, as we planned. She had lost the circlet that bound her hair, her boots were torn and muddy, and her nose was red from the sun. She looked much like me.

                                                    She told me more stories of the French king and his ladies,


of castles and tournaments
,

of the Lady Ghislaine who kept a tame badger,


 of Guillot of Lyons who farted as he bowed to the king and was sent from court for a year,
of her best friend Marie who married a ghost!

            I told her about my handsome, confusing Uncle George. She is eager to see him for herself, so I will have my mother invite her for my saint's day celebration.

Aelis thinks George must look like the archangel Michael.
 I told her he looks more like the Saint George who slew the dragon.


     In truth he is handsomer than either of those, for his green eyes are alive and change colors in the sun, at times a red blush flows across his cheeks, tiny drops of sweat shine in the little hairs about his mouth, and he smells of horses and spice and leather. No dead saint could be as beautiful as that.

I missed dinner and supper both, but I reached home before dark. I told my mother I was gathering sloes

for jelly for Morwenna.
Told Morwenna I was sent for rosehips for my mother.

Mayhap they will not compare stories until after I am asleep.
                                                      My uncle George is an eagle.

25TH DAY OF OCTOBER,

       Feast of Saints Crispin and Crispinian, shoemakers,
pricked to death with cobblers' awls

                                                                        

            I have mixed water and eggs with my writing inks to make paint for my chamber walls, where I am painting a scene from Heaven, with dogs and birds who look like me, angels with my mother's face, and saints with the faces of Edward and Aelis and George. Below is Hell, where poor souls with my father's face writhe in eternal torment. I gave God Perkin's face since Perkin in the wisest person I know, but Morwenna flew into a terrible fright, wailing about blasphemy and damnation, so I painted Perkin out and now God just has a sort of watery gray face.
26TH DAY OF OCTOBER, Feast of Saints Eata and Bean, which I think is very funny

Meg from the dairy and I sorted cider apples today. My mother makes the best cider in Lincolnshire.

She swears it is because she always includes a number of rotten apples in the mix.

  I was wondering if this could be true of people -- if the world needs a few rotten people to make the sweetest mix. This would explain the problem of God allowing evil in the world.

            Meg only giggles when I talk to her of these matters. She is, however, good to talk to about how to get a weakly calf to drink from a pail, what will keep fairies from getting into your eggs,

and whose wife threw him out of the cottage for taking too much ale!

Except for Perkin, Meg is probably my best friend on the manor, when I can stop her from curtsying and my lady-ing me.
27TH DAY OF OCTOBER, Feast of Saint Olran, over whose soul angels and devils fought

            The sun is shining, so I have thrown open the shutter in my chamber to let light and air in. I love my chamber when it is warm and sunny. In the middle is the bed I share with Morwenna, large and high, with curtains all around and a trundle under, where the serving maids sleep. At the foot is a chest, carved and dark with age, that looks as if it should be full of treasure but instead is stuffed with old clothes. On the right wall is my mural of Heaven and Hell. On the left wall are three pegs for my gown and cloaks. And straight ahead is the window, shutters open now, and a stool pulled up, so I can sit and write and look over the yard to the hills and meadows beyond.        

Rain tomorrow. It is certain always to rain heavily on the feast of Saints Simon and Jude.
28TH DAY OF OCTOBER, Feast of Saints Simon and Jude

            Sunny
29TH DAY OF OCTOBER, Feast of Saint Colman, as Irish bishop who taught a mouse to keep him awake in chapel

 Aelis has come with a load of puppies from her best hound, a gift from her father to mine, she says. I think she could not wait for my saint's day to see the beautiful George. She heard mass with us and stayed for dinner and dancing and gossip and supper and now must spend the night as it is too late to ride home. Aelis thought of everything.

  I have named the puppies.

The little male is Brutus, after the first king of Britain,

and the females
are all called after herbs:
Betony,

 Rosemary,

 Anise, and Rue


30TH DAY OF OCTOBER, Feast of Saint Marcellus the Centurion, killed for resigning from the army

    I tried after dinner today to get George to play chess with me, but he said he promised the Lady Aelis a walk to acquaint her with our manor. Corpus bones ! It is moat and muddy yard, house and stables and barn,

dovecote, privy,
and pig yard.
 She could see it all from the hall door.

    I watched George and Aelis from my window. When they walk together, she walks straight and slow and quiet. This is not the same Aelis from the high meadow. She looks at George as if he were the king and he looks at her as if she were made of Venetian glass. Seeing them gives me a pain in my liver.

I must doctor myself with wormwood
 and mint.

 
31ST DAY OF OCTOBER, Feast of Saint Erc, British martyr, and Allhallows Eve, when ghosts walk
     We sat up late tonight eating nuts and apples, watching the bonfires lit throughout the shire to drive off witches and goblins. Many people are afeared tonight of the dead who come back to visit the earth,but the only dead I know are my tiny brothers and sisters who died before they were born, and how could I be afeared of them? I wish the would come visit. It might ease my mother's grieving.

       As we roasted apples in the fire, Uncle George told us of the places he has been. I could almost see them as he spoke-the Gravelly Sea, all gravel and sand without a drop of water, which ebbs and flows as other seas do and is full of fishes; the nearby Isle of Giants, home to men thirty feet tall who sleep standing up; and the Isle of Pytar, where the people are tiny as elves and eat nothing, but live by the smell of wild apples. I especially long to see the beasts he described- unicorns, dragons snails so great men live in their shells, a splendid big beast called an elephant with a tail at each end ( this one I think my uncle's fancy), and the incredible whales, fish as big as houses, who could swallow whole a man or a bear or a horse.
                My uncle George has brought gaiety and wonder into my life. I will not give him to Aelis,

and satisfy myself with wormwood cordials!