Mother Naked by Glen James Brown - exclusive extract
1
Friends! On this feast of Saint Godric, I must first say one thing. To the reverend Sacrist, his two esteemed guests at the head table, and all else gathered in this hall—I cry pardon. Shamed, I be, by the tardiness of the hour, and my sodden state. For the storm that still howls now at these glass casements did wet me through on my walk to Durham this day, and then, when following the Clerk’s directions to the nearest warm hearth, I cloddishly became waylaid once more. Lost as I was some tyme afore a Monk found me in the cellars, amid the kegs of wine and ale ye all now sup. But I took no drynke myself. No wine shall pass mine lips ‘til my task here be ended. Though, Sacrist, I pray the fine claret hath cushioned thine guests’ long wait for the evening’s entertainment.
Of which, friends, I bear ill news. Mayhap the Sacrist hath already noised to all here the message I relayed to his Clerk. That, alas, I be not the Gleeman Melchior Blanchfl—
…Friends!…
…FRIENDS! Ye be angered, aye, but hush as I tell of the particulars!…
…I thank you all for the silence. The truth be Melchior Blanchflower, that legendary Gleeman who was once part of the fifth King Henry’s court, and who was due to perform for ye this night, he hath been lain low by a sudden malady. In dede, I was with him this morning at Finchale Priory, when the pestilence struck so savagely—so swiftly—that it left the man unable even to hold a quill and provide word of his own situation. Instead, he bade me relay a message, which I do now. I quoth the man from memory.
To the Sacrist of Durham cathedral, his Cellarer, Master Mercer, and all attendant Mercery guild members—greetings from Melchior Blanchflower. Friends, I have travelled plenteous miles from the noble de Colton court of Westmorland, so that I might weave songs and tales for your exalted company. Yet I am thwarted almost within sight of Durham’s city walls. Aye, this regret shall be carried upon my funeral briar, alongside my corpse! As such, apology will not suffice— I must redress. Grant me leave, then, to offer my peer and friend in my stead. This man now speaking mine words is a Gleeman of long-standing and great skill. And though his psaltery is old and battered, the strings of that musical instrument coax the very birds from their boughs. So, I bid you all—venerate Mother Naked as you would me.
Aye, friends, your laughter sounds familiar. My name be strange, but I shall reveal its meaning in tyme. First, though, I thank dear Melchior! His praise be o’erkind! And while he speaks true of my ability, unlike him I was never attach’t to a noble house like that of the de Colton, much less the court of the King! For this reason, I cannot repeat Melchior’s tales of daring that make him a famous man in every corner of England.
For he, not I, was with King Henry during the Siege of Meaux.
He, not I, saw Charles the Mad vanquish’t at Harfleur.
And he, not I, trod the misted fields of Agincourt and Rouen.
Those tales be Melchior’s, and would sound false upon my own tongue. Thus, I be compelled to tell a different story.
But what could possibly rival warring ‘twixt Kings?
Friends, I believe I know. My story takes place much closer to hame than the blood-stomp’t battlefields of France. Actually, it unravelled right here, scant miles beyond Durham’s city walls…
…The sorrowful, tragic tale of the Fell Wraith…
…Ah, judging by your faces, I see the name be known to some! Yet for those still in befuddlement, this dread creature goes by other titles. At Raby, they whisper of the Red Rape. In Monkwearmuthe, the Jigging Ghost. Cestria speaks of Brok-Armed Annie. And only this past year, I heard a Priest in Shildon make this same monster the theme of his lesson after Mass, relaying the tale of the Segerston Wraith to his quaking parishioners. Segerston, said he, was a wicked village of idlers punish’t by that undead fiend for its slothful denial of God, and was thus struck down…
…The crops putrefied…
…The manor house burn’t to cinders…
…And the villagers butchered or else driven to frenzy, their minds smash’t forever…
…Aye, friends, Segerston was near razed from the Earth. And it just occurs that Segerston was one of thine manors, Sacrist, be that true? Aye, I thought so. And though the Fell Wraith’s name changes from town to town, the tale—the terror—remains the same. And where terror goes, balladry follows. Take this song I learn’t from a Gleeman in Jarrow. Allow me to strum my psaltery in accompaniment—
In heath and in gorse, barefoot moves she,
Gleeful ‘neath moonlight her terrible sallies.
For those whom misfortune bade them to see,
The crop-rotted fields her pestilence harries.
All life into death,
All death into fern.
Dance with her shadow,
As thy own manor burns…
…Friends, forgive the crudeness of verse! This doggerel be composed by rustics for rustics, so must grate your rare ears to hear. I sing it only to shew that, though dead, this creature—this rotting, walking ghost—be still very much alive in these Durham lands.
I acquired this knowledge at great cost to myself. As ye can see, I be an auld man of almost fifty. How much more tyme God grants me, I know not. Thus, I wish unburden myself of this story afore I die. Ye, wise friends, seem the perfect men to receive it.
But at yonder head table, the Sacrist now confers with his two special guests. Ye younger men feasting this night, ye might not recognise the eminent silver-haired fellow now in deep discussion with our host, but that be the Sacrist’s former Cellarer—once o’erseer of his manors. And as for the other man, well, I hardly need introduce Walter Attwell, the Sacrist’s own Master Mercer, and elder of thy very own Mercer guild!
Aye, friends, there be much consternation ‘twixt the three of them, the subject of which I can guess upon, so, Sacrist, if I may address thee direct—let me say I do not open auld wounds for mere frippery. What I tell be no base ghost story fit only for the frightening of bairns. There be a grander purpose, Sacrist, one you shall see in goode tyme. And look, the rain redoubles at the glass, and thine guests grow restless for entertainment. I shall speak to them—friends, do ye wish hear this terrible tale…?
…Aye, raise up your voices!…
…Sacrist, hear the cries of these Mercers! Three dozen men as parch’t for a story as for the wine and ale in their cups! And who can slake that thirst, if not me…?
…Thank thee, Sacrist. Thy faith in me shall be repaid. Now, with official consent granted, I beseech you, friends, refill your cups and settle down. I wish no man here to miss a word of what I say, for I assure it shall change thee evermore. And with a tuning of my psaltery’s strings, we begin—
This bloody tale we now shall wend,
From harrowed start to grievous end…
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…But was what that Shildon Priest said of Segerston true? Was it a sloven place whose rustics refused to work the land, and thus deserved the Wraith’s bloody wrath? Friends, I see many Mercer brows furrowing at what I say. Ye be thinking—how can a rustic reject land? After all, God made them for fieldwork, did he not? Well, a description of rustic lyf in those dim days may grant comprehension, for much hath changed ‘twixt then and now. This lesson be especially important for you younger Mercers—for ye were born into the new way of things and might not know that, forty years ago, rustics did not possess the liberties they flaunt in these modern tymes. And why should ye know it? Why should important men be expected to grasp the affairs of rural lowborns from afore ye even suckled the teat?
At this poynte, allow me to introduce my friend Pearl Eye into our tale. Like myself, Pearl was a wandering Gleeman and my auld touring partner of many decades. His queer name was due to his milky and blind left orb, yet the man witness’t more with one eye than most do with two. And so it was Pearl once pass’t through Segerston at the tyme our tale be set—in 1396—scant months afore the Fell Wraith brought murder to the place…
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…As he telt it, the day was the 23rd of June—the feast of Saint John. Pearl was going south to Derlyngton, for the July fayre held there, when, upon a whim, he bore southwest at Cestria along a minor road leading to Segerston. The village perch’t like a clutch of buzzard eggs upon a steep and elevated heugh of land, and though the sky was low-clouded, this height granted Pearl the sight of Saint John bonefyres being lit northwards across the land almost to Newcastle.
As we all know, Saint John’s towering fyres and feasting ought be a joyous occasion. But Pearl said Segerston that night was sombre. Many acres of wasted lands did he witness, choke’t with mud and weeds; the crumbling, empty cottages of the dead strip’t of timbers and iron nail by those still living. These souls, Pearl found in the heart of Segerston; folk devoid of gaiety as they lit their sodden bonefyres. Those of you white of whisker may recall the summer stormings of 1396—deluges to rival Noah’s flood, which wash’t away crops all across Durham. In dede, on his way into Segerston, Pearl saw hundreds of furloughs of rain-flattened wheat. The prospect of a ruined harvest had likewise flattened the spirits of the villagers, huddled ‘neath the common green oak, picking at a feast table of scant provision…
A sorry Saint John’s, was how Pearl Eye described it to me. The sorriest I ever witness’t. Thus I tarried some and played, for to lift their guttered moods.
So play Pearl did. And it comforts me that at least once in their hard, short lives, those rustics saw true greatness. See, I travelled with Pearl many years afore he died, and while I have long since tired of the routines of other Gleemen, with Pearl it was as if each tyme he strummed, the song was born anew. All who heard him play, they felt it here, sirs—deep in their breasts. And try as I might, I have never been able to replicate that feeling myself.
Yet even Pearl struggled to cheer those Segerston rustics that night, for their worries clung to them like thickest pitch. So that he might redouble his efforts to merry, Pearl took a cup of ale and went to warm himself as close to a damp, smoking bonefyre as he might get without swooning. And it was while gazing into the crackling pyre that he notice’t the boy. Not ten years auld, Pearl telt me. Lurking at the threshold of heat and light.
Come closer, said Pearl to him.
Warily, like a leveret emerging from its warren to take its first sneckful of air above ground, the lad did. He crept nearer, the polish’t stones of his eyes fix’t upon the psaltery lying ‘twixt them.
Take it up, said Pearl.
Again, the lad did.
Friends, it was the very psaltery I now hold in mine hands. See its age, the scars wrought upon the frame. But see, too, the exquisite workmanship, the intricate carvings and channels once inlaid with gold. This instrument hath a long and sorrowful history, which Pearl thought sounded in the very notes it made. And he telt me he detected some glimmer of that understanding in the lad’s eyes as he turned the instrument in his hands. Then, just as Pearl was about to instruct him which strings to pluck in harmony, the boy strummed the most mellifluous stream of notes into the night. When they faded, he turned to Pearl Eye, apprehensive of the Gleeman’s judgment.
A natural, said Pearl.
The lad’s smile faded as had the notes.
Ask’t Pearl, What troubles thee, lad?
The childe’s fingers lay against the psaltery strings.
How might I become a Gleeman?
That, said Pearl, be a question with many answers. Tell me, lad, be you a freeman?
Nay, villein.
Pearl sighed. Then I deliver ill news. Gleemen must be free to wander place to place. A villein be unfree and cannot leave the manor without his Lord’s blessing, or else pay him a purse to purchase his freedom.
How much, the purse?
Princely, said Pearl.
Now the boy sighed. He held the psaltery up to the bonefyre, inspecting the way the strings slice’t blackly the flames there.
I thought so, said he. Father Bell says we villeins be born upon the Lord Sacrist’s manor, and shall die here. He says we must first work the Sacrist’s demesne lands to profit, and only once that task be done, can we tend our own holdings with whatever tyme remains.
Father Bell be Segerston’s Priest?
The boy nodded.
Pearl sip’t his ale. Then Father Bell speaks true.
He—Pearl Eye—telt me he wish’t he could swallow back those words. Not because they were lies, for they were not. Nay, he simply did not want to crush the boy’s spirit any further by speaking of his slim prospects to attain his freedom. Seeing the lad’s melancholy expression, the Gleeman offered another solution.
Mayhap you could flee? ask’t Pearl. Did you know if you remain away from thy manor, uncaptured, for one year and one day, you become a freeman by law?
Nervous, the boy look’t about himself, in search of eavesdroppers.
Fleeing be an evil thing, the childe said. All say that.
Why do they say so?
For when a villein flees, his work must be done by those who stay.
Then I cry pardon for speaking it, said Pearl. Thy heart be true, lad. You do not seek to escape thy shackles by putting them onto thy neighbour.
The boy said naught, though his mucky fingers never stop’t stroking the psaltery.
Go on, said Pearl. Play again.
Fresh notes fluted into the night. This tyme, the lad sang an accompanying melody—soaring like a hawk high o’er the snapping flames. Fain stunned, Pearl listened until the childe finish’t and look’t once more for the Gleeman’s comment. Pearl telt me he agonised whether to speak his mind, for given the boy’s villein status it might hurt more than help. But speak it he did.
Childe, said Pearl, though you must work the Lord Sacrist’s acres thy lyf entire, know that you also stand at the summit of a mountain most clamber their whole lives only to be buried at its foot. In dede, many know not which mountain to climb, and so waste their years tackling a false peak.
Seeing confusion upon the childe’s face, Pearl clarified his remark.
Most die without ever knowing what they were goode at.
Like who? ask’t the boy.
Like the brewer of this ale, said Pearl, taking a final grimacing sip afore tossing the nasty liquid into the fyre. The boy stood to leave but Pearl bade him halt.
What be thy name, lad?
Payne, said he…
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…The Payne family. The principal characters of this bitter tale. Friends, does the name chime your wits? For in some tales of the Fell Wraith’s slaughter, the Paynes be named amongst the monster’s victims. Alice Payne was wyf to the villein Henry Payne, and together they had four bairns, though only the eldest lad and the youngest—the boy Pearl spoke with at the bonefyre—still drew breath. Together, they lived in a cottage rented from thee, Sacrist. One with a toft and outhouse in front, and a croft of crops in back. Two oxen they owned, and a dray horse. Pigs, chickens, capons. From and of these things, the Paynes scratch’t at survival.
Their private holdings were a scant twenty acres, split into furloughs amid the three one-hundred-acre open fields. Twenty acres was scarcely enough to furnish the Paynes with enough to eat, sell, and sow the following year; and the labour obligations owed to work the Lord Sacrist’s demesne—to plough and sow it, to harrow and harvest—reduce’t still further the tyme available to tend their own crops. Each day when they were not expected to work for the Sacrist, Henry and his eldest lad—some tales give his name as Christopher—work’t their own acres ‘til it was too dark to see, and their backs screamed agony.
At night, their work finally done, Henry and Alice would whisper together upon their sleeping pallet, fretting o’er the summer rains of 1396, and what it meant for the harvest. Privation was an unwelcome neighbour to rustics then, and the Paynes knew a failed reap would cast many into vagabondage —beggars drifting through hamlets, pleading for crusts, their rag-clad corpses found in some ditch, snuff’t out by starvation and elemental exposure.
So, worried Henry and Alice Payne—would that?
No doubt it was this question which inspired Alice to brew ale as means of bringing in more coin. With her youngest boy’s help, Alice malted a sack of wheat. She then ground the grains at the Lord Sacrist’s mill, afore mashing, drawing, and fermenting the wort. There be something alchemical to the production of ale—the transformation of one fundamental into another—and to Alice’s delight, she found she had a sure touch when, a week later, there stood in her hame a barrel of delicious, sweet, foamy ale…
5
…But what of it, eh? What of it? Friends, I see it plain on your faces, ye all be thinking—why does this doltish Gleeman speak of ale? Be this a woman’s tale? When do the guts start flying? Well, we shall arrive at the steaming viscera directly, for Alice Payne was not the only brewer in Segerston. The other was Joan Deepslough. Like Alice, Joan was a villein woman, but married to a blunt villein man named Ralf, her partner in both bed and certain Wraith songs, such as the following—
First sicken grain, then sicken man,
Both of them dying back to the loam.
Yet still be buried according God’s plan,
As she had not, thus did she roam.
Hark! Hark! Segerston cries!
Help us! howled Stephen,
Forgive me! wept John,
I be weak! whispered William, and dying anon.
I beg thee! cried Ralf,
Spare us! begged Joan,
Nay, nay, nay, came the Fell Wraith’s dread groan…
…Afore the Wraith came for them, the Deepsloughs were amongst the more prosperous villeins in Segerston. Ralf had inherited some sixty acres from his father, and had, during his own tyme, added double that as collateral upon loans others could not repay him. Such an amount of land would be a crippling burden to most villeins, but Ralf had three stronge sons of age to work it to surplus. This gave Ralf ambition, which in some men does result in arrogance.
Mayhap this was why his wyf, Joan Deepslough, had for some years task’t herself with one of Segerston’s most important services—brewing the ale. Doing so offered obvious prestige, but also less apparent benefits because her hame became the tavern de facto, the centre of supping and idle chatter. It was thus Joan’s privilege to be within earshot when ale-loose tongues spill’t their gossips, while also granting her perfect opportunity to noise about certain rumours of her own.
But alas, Joan’s problem was the taste of her ale—like a Frenchman’s bathwater. Mayhap, it was some issue with her malting? Or her barrel had once held some repugnant substance, the residue of which still clung to the wood? Whatever the culprit, the disagreeable brew haunted the gob long after it went down the gullet, as it had Pearl’s when he flung the foaming filth into that Saint John bonefyre.
Having endured Joan Deepslough’s foul concoction for so long, we can only imagine what pleasure Alice Payne’s sweet brew brought to Segerston’s hardworking rustics. They flock’t to Alice’s cottage, which anon did fill with merry drynkers each night. This, of course, embittered Joan greatly. The woman began defaming Alice Payne to all who would listen—that Alice had Scottish blood on account of her red hair. That she had been born ‘neath the malevolent sign of the Scorpion, and practice’t heretical sorcery upon her youngest childe, so that forbidden creatures of divination—Demons, mayhap—would appear inside his thumbnail. These slanders caused great tension ‘twixt the powerful Deepslough faction, and those others wishing simply to enjoy what scant tyme they had to themselves, with ale that did not taste of unwash’t feet…
6
…Anon, this tension spread from tavern to field.
During that summer’s ploughing of the Lord Sacrist’s fallow field, Ralf Deepslough work’t an oxen team with his three burly sons. Nearby, Henry Payne and his grown lad did likewise. As it had all summer, the rain battered down, turning the weedy acres to quagmire. When the Payne and Deepslough ploughs pass’t within hailing distance, injurious words were spoken.
Thy wyf be a usurper, cried Ralf.
Alice does not want Joan’s crown, Henry replied.
Then why does that brazen whore brew?
Stow thy tongue, Deepslough.
When thy wyf stows her ale. Joan hath always been brewer in Segerston.
By law? We need the coin, and folk be willing to pay.
During this dialogue, Ralf had closed the distance ‘twixt he and Henry. Now they were almost sneck to sneck.
Alice hath a succulent arse, smirk’t Ralf, so if more coin she be aft—
Henry struck Ralf a blow. Tumbling to the thick muck, the two men wrestled together as Ralf’s three sons began beating Christopher. The quarrel attracted an audience of other toiling rustics, one of whom was that year’s Reeve, a villein whose task it was to marshal and maintain order amongst those working the Sacrist’s lands. But while goode with tallystick and calculation, a robust Reeve he was not. Unable to prise the two men apart physikally, he resorted to puny commands—
—Stop this fooling!—
—As Reeve, I command thee both!—
—Return to thine oxen!...
…Feeble entreaties, all of which were lost in the sheeting rain and the grunts of more powerful men than he. In truth, Henry and Ralf might have killed each other, if not for the Reeve’s superior—the Bailiff himself—who was then passing upon his horse.
At that tyme, Segerston’s Bailiff was named Peter. He had been installed by thy predecessor, Sacrist, and had o’erseen the village’s previous thirty harvests. By all accounts, Peter was a hard man, but fair in his judgments. He knew a decent harvest was impossible when a Lord’s villeins were too busy cutting each other’s throats to cut his wheat. This knowledge had served him well for many decades, and did so again when he climbed down from his horse to put a stop to the ructions ‘twixt the Deepsloughs and Paynes.
Riding whip in hand, Peter threatened both families with fines at the next hallmote should they not cease their tumult. He bade Ralf and Henry’s boys split apart, which they did, and for the two fathers to clasp hands in peace. This they also did, though fewe could ignore the lingering malevolence. Nor how Ralf, nursing a bloody sneck, hiss’t words ‘neath his breath.
Vengeance I shall take upon thee, Henry Payne…
7
…Certainly, his threat would not hath come to pass had Peter lived. An intelligent man of long service and authority, the Bailiff would hath settled Ralf Deepslough’s grievance afore he made goode on his promise’t revenge. But alas, Sacrist, as you shall recall, auld Peter died not a month later, and was buried in the village church beside the Paschal Sepulchre—a great honour befitting his decades of tireless duty.
Peter’s death could not hath come at a worse tyme for the village. The reap was upon them, a reap already teetering upon catastrophe, for the ceaseless rains had rotted much of the crop to slop. Some folk may think it understandable that, face’t with ruin, the unfree villeins chose first to save their own crops, and forsook their duty to reap the Lord Sacrist’s demesne— I do not think it, friends, not me—thought I do pity that poor, ill-starred Reeve. This same weak man who had failed to stop Henry Payne and Ralf Deepslough battling, now had to remind Segerston’s entire villein population of their ancient obligation, and so drive them onto the Sacrist’s land each morn afore their own. As ye all might guess, this task was beyond the Reeve. Everywhere he look’t, he saw flagrant disregard of custom, and a collective fear took hold that he was powerless to quell. For in each outhouse were the same empty grain barrels and drooping sacks, and all rustics saw in them the bleakest future. Ruination’s black fist tightening around their guts…
…their souls…
…squeezing…
…Until, finally, their worst fears were realised and the harvest failed. As the poor Reeve read out the year’s Reap Roll, dread filled all who listened. For their stores already wax’t scant, and what had been reap’t would barely see them through the year.
And there was more disquiet for the Paynes when, during the final day of September, the hallmote jury—weighed down with the man’s kith and kyn—elected Ralf Deepslough to the position of the coming year’s Reeve…
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…Friends, how would ye feel with your enemy as your master? To ye guildsmen—all men of urban refinement—the question be alien. But the Paynes were villeins, which be a cruder breed. Thus, they dreaded the viciousness Ralf might unleash upon them. What evil would he enact? And when? Alas, it did not take long for a situation to present itself…
…It was as Pearl had suggested to the youngest Payne boy the night of the bonefyre. One night a villein—some say his name was Muckle—fled with his family, taking with them all they could carry. But we be more concerned with what they left behind—some forty acres of land and one hundred days labour obligation to work the Lord Sacrist’s demesne.
The question was, who would work it?
The law was clear. Blood should shoulder the burden, with either the next of kyn, brother or cousin being compelled to swear fealty to the Lord—to thee, Sacrist—and take o’er land and labour. But Muckle’s entire family had fled. He had no known relatives about, so a session of the hallmote court was held in the parish church to decide what ought be done. A juror by the name of Denis Daunt—a Segerston elder of long standing—rap’t his fist upon the head table to quiet the gathered villagers.
The coward Muckle hath abandoned his acres and obligations, but also the upkeep of his rented cottage and attendant outbuildings. By decree of the Lord Sacrist, all land, property, and demesne responsibilities must be taken o’er by a villein here this day.
A nervous hubbub amid the villagers. When it died away, Denis continued.
First, be there any person present who wish claim it?
Silence in the church.
Then we jurors vote on who shall take it.
As they deliberated, Segerston’s rustics fix’t their eyes upon the stone floor, whispering prayers to God they would not be chosen. Though it was not Our Heavenly Father who brought an end to things, but the new Reeve. Ralf Deepslough spoke up to say who he thought should take Muckle’s burden.
I vote for Henry Payne, said Ralf.
Seconded, said Denis Daunt.
Relieved to have been spared, Segerston’s villeins moved away from Henry Payne, until he stood isolated with his wyf and bairns. Shaking, Henry gathered his voice.
We cannot manage! cried he.
You wish shirk thine villein duties? ask’t Ralf. Put them onto thine neighbours? Fie!
I seek only fairness, replied Henry.
To the remaining jurors, Ralf said, Ye be all in agreement?
Aye, said the jurors in unison.
To the Clerk, Ralf said, You hast witness the jurors’ decision?
Aye, said the Clerk
Turning to his fellow villeins, Henry said, Will nobody share this load?
All avoided his eye as Ralf instructed the Clerk to mark the court roll.
The vote carries, said he. Henry Payne receives the additional forty acres, plus the attendant one hundred days labour obligation upon the Lord Sacrist’s demesne. Come hither, Henry—grasp the rod and swear fealty…
His wyf and children looking on, Henry hid his face in his swollen red hands. The Clerk reach’t for his quill, and with the inking of that parchment, Ralf secured his revenge…
Glen James Brown was born and raised in County Durham. His first novel, Ironopolis, was shortlisted for the Orwell and Portico prizes.
