Tidelands

Workingmen who declared themselves godly, who knew well enough that Sir William had sided with the king, reluctantly doffed their caps and nodded their heads to their landlord, then turned away. They disapproved of him, of the old order, and the old ways. There would be no corn dollies and dancing and bringing the harvest home for them. But those who liked the old ways, and who liked a drink and were looking forward to a feast, set up a cheer for Sir William, hoping that he would pay for the harvest ale. The women smiled and waved at Walter and curtseyed low to Sir William. They could not take their eyes from James Summer, high on his black horse, his profile like one of the carved stone angels in the old churches. Alinor took a sharp breath and looked away from him. She tried to smile at her son, but she found her cheeks were hot and she was painfully aware of the knee-high dust of the field on the hem of her homespun skirt and the damp stains at the armpits of her shirt.

“Mrs. Miller,” Sir William said pleasantly to the miller’s wife, who dropped like a sack of corn into a deep curtsey, “I’ll take a glass of your home-brewed ale.”

She bustled back to the house to fetch the best pewter tankard, while Mr. Miller stood at his landlord’s horse’s head, waiting for Sir William to condescend to dismount.

“Good harvest?” his lordship inquired, glancing at the granary and the piles of stooks waiting to be threshed, the clean-swept threshing floor.

“Medium,” the miller said carefully. He would have to pay a tithe from the harvest to his landlord and another to the church. There was no point in boasting.

“You will stay for dinner, my lord?” Mrs. Miller asked breathlessly, nodding to her daughter to pour the first of the harvest ale, handing her the precious tankard. “Your lordship, and of course Master Walter and . . .” The invitation tailed off as she took in the glamorous looks of the stranger and longed for an introduction.

“This is Mr. Summer,” his lordship announced generally. “A Cambridge man, my son’s tutor.”

There was a little ripple of interest. That he was a Cambridge man suggested that he was a godly man. Everyone knew that the heart of reform was Cambridge, while Oxford had been the wartime headquarters of the king. James Summer tipped his hat to acknowledge the attention and made sure that he was not looking towards Alinor. She was looking carefully down at her dusty boots tied up with string.

“All welcome,” the miller said grandly, overcoming his unease at what dinner for the gentry would cost him in the long run.

Sir William dismounted heavily and his groom took his horse. The miller’s lad, Richard Stoney, came forward and took the others and led them into the stables. Rob went to his mother and his sister among the gleaning women, kneeling for Alinor’s blessing and then bobbing up to hug her.

Alinor kissed him, conscious of her sweating face and dirty hands, and then curtseyed to Master Walter, his lordship, and the tutor. James glanced at her, but could not cross the yard to approach her with everyone staring at him.

“We’re just bringing in the last wagon,” Mrs. Miller said, pleased. “You can see it come in, your lordship. Mr. Summer, you must know that we grow the best wheat in Sussex here.”

“A middling good harvest,” her husband supplemented quickly. “A lot of blight this year from the rain . . . terrible rain. And that’s before the rats get at it.”

“So I see,” James said pleasantly, glancing through the granary doors.

“And Alys Reekie is Harvest Queen,” Mrs. Miller said begrudgingly. “The young people chose her. They wouldn’t have any other, though there were girls with better claims, God knows.”

James, looking at the beautiful girl with interest, could see that there was no contest for the title of queen of the harvest. With her regular clear features and her dark blue eyes, she was far and away the prettiest girl among the gleaners. They had taken off her modest white cap, and her golden hair was tumbled down over her shoulders. They had thrown an embroidered white smock over her working clothes, and placed a crown of wheat on her fair hair, gold against the gold.

“And Richard Stoney is Harvest King.”

“Are we ready?” Mr. Miller demanded as the last cart rumbled in. As the men hurried to unload it, Richard Stoney came from the stables and received a crown of plaited wheat on his brown curly head.

Mr. Miller ceremonially closed the barn doors, the young women gleaners, Jane Miller among them, and the young men reapers lined up before it, as if to block entry, and Alys and Richard went to their places on the far side of the yard with the lads catcalling and the girls singing out Alys’s name. His lordship, knowing the harvest games, waited for the young couple to stand side by side, and called to them: “Ready?”

“Aye!” Richard answered for them both.