Andrew’s uncle gave a small sigh of relief as if he had been willing me to raise the subject that courtesy did not permit him to broach.

“My niece needs care, much care, but she refuses to come home. She insists she must stay at the church and that is impossible. No other church will take her; we have tried… But we thought that she might be persuaded to come here, since you and she are of the same mind. Servant Martha, will you give her shelter here?”

There was such weariness in his eyes that I knew he must have spent many hours arguing with Andrew or pleading her case with others. On the pretext of pouring more wine, I moved away from his beseeching gaze.

Andrew here? It was out of the question. Our very purpose, our whole way of life, was the exact opposite of hers. How could we give shelter to an anchorite, a woman who demanded to be shut away from the world, who made such a public pronouncement of her great piety when we strove to keep ours private? What did he imagine we would do with her here? If she was so absorbed in her own meditations to the point of not even speaking, how could she possibly live the life of a beguine? Did they think we would build a cell for her on the side of the chapel and wall her up in it? It was against everything we stood for to have a woman in our midst attending to nothing except her own soul, contributing nothing, expecting to be waited upon and fed by others.

Yet the Church, whom she had served so faithfully, had abandoned her. How could they treat her so, when they had been the ones to encourage her in her life of piety? That priest, her confessor, who had tried to make us all believe he was so concerned about her welfare, where was he to defend her now?

I stared at the lime-washed wall of the room, dazzling in the burning sun, seeing not the whiteness of that wall, but the shadow of a single word carved above the gateway in Bruges-Sauvegarde-the place of refuge. Whatever Andrew was, we had a duty to provide such a place for her. We could not close our gates against her.

Three pairs of eyes watched me anxiously

I forced a smile. “If Andrew has no other place to go, she will be welcomed here.”

lILY-LIVERED VERMIN! Lice of Satan!”

Merchant Martha had been muttering furiously ever since we’d left the Bartholomew Fair. I was sure she must have exhausted every insult possible for the Weavers’ Guild, but it seemed she hadn’t. “They’re all bloodsucking leeches, every single one of them, except leeches do some good in the world.”

The cart rattled along in the sun-baked grooves worn by so many other wheels, tilting precariously as we swerved around a man trudging with his milch cow up the track. He shook his fist at us as our wheels and horse’s hooves enveloped him in a cloud of choking dust. Even when she was in a good mood Merchant Martha hated to be stuck behind anything; fury did not improve her driving.

Pega sat beside her, gripping the edge of the hard wooden seat with both hands as we bumped over the ruts and potholes. I crouched in the back of the cart behind the bundles of cloth and wool, watching the track retreating behind us. Though my teeth were rattling in their sockets, at least I didn’t have to look at the bends and travellers approaching us and saw the perils only when they were safely passed.

Merchant Martha had every reason to be in a foul mood. Our cart should have been loaded with the food, wine, and grain we badly needed to see us through until the harvest, but instead of returning with provisions, we were returning with every single bale of cloth and wool we’d taken to the Bartholomew Fair.

We’d set off at first light and after three bone-breaking hours on the road had arrived at the fair only to be told that on the Abbot’s orders we would not be granted a licence to sell at the fair. A small group of men had gathered a short distance away, listening as Merchant Martha stood arguing with the steward. They grinned and nudged each other, their smiles becoming broader as Merchant Martha grew more angry, but in the end there was nothing she could do.

“Go easy, woman,” Pega warned sharply as the cart gave a great lurch over a stone. “You’ll not make matters better if we’ve a broken wheel to mend n’all.”

Merchant Martha glared at her, but she let the reins slacken a little and the horse’s pace steadied. The motion was making me sick. I tried to kneel up to ease the pain in my cramped legs.

“Merchant Martha!” I called feebly.

But neither of them turned round.

Pega shifted her broad rump uncomfortably on the too-narrow seat. “I reckon this’ll just be the start of it. It’s my betting the Owl Masters are behind this. They’re trying to drive us out by making sure no one’ll trade with us. I’ve been waiting for something like this, ever since they left their sign at our gate.”

Merchant Martha stared at her. “How do you know about that?”

Pega didn’t answer. I don’t know why Merchant Martha bothered to ask. How Pega found out about anything was a mystery, but she always did. Though if Merchant Martha had also heard about the dead owl, then it must have been discussed in the Council of Marthas. That was typical of Servant Martha; she’d discuss it with the chosen ones, but not bother to utter a word to rest of us about the danger we were in.

Merchant Martha gave a shake of her head. “The blame for this lies solely with the Weavers’ Guild. We sell better cloth and cheaper too. They’ve always hated us. You saw those men standing there smirking-those were Weavers’ Guild emblems they were wearing, every one of them. The Abbot can’t afford to fall out with the Guild, not with the vast flock of sheep he has on his lands. It’s the Guild that puts plump capons on his table and gold in his coffers, so he’ll hitch up his skirts and dance whenever they start piping.”

“Aye, we all know whose tune the Abbot dances to,” Pega agreed. “But that doesn’t answer the question-why now? Guild’s been against us from the start, but they’ve not bothered with us up to now. We don’t trade enough wool to be any real threat to them or the Abbot. Way I see it, someone’s got to them, and by my reckoning it’s got to be the Owl Masters. They don’t leave their sign at the door and then do nothing. If one of the Owl Masters is a member of the Guild or they have a hold over one of the Guild members, then it’d be easy enough to get them to stand against us. And if the Owl Masters have got the Guild in their pockets, it won’t just be the Bartholomew Fair we’ll be turned away from. We’ll not be able to sell at any of the fairs or markets round these parts.”

“Is that so?” Merchant Martha retorted grimly. “Well, I’ve a trick or two up my own sleeve. They’ll not get the better of me, that I can promise you.”

Now that the horse’s pace had slowed, the cart set up a steady swaying. A wave of nausea rose up in me. I felt as if I was suffocating down there among the bales of wool. I clambered precariously on top of one and perched there, clinging onto the sides of the cart with both hands, and struggling to concentrate on the landscape slipping away behind us.

In the water meadows, scarlet poppies swayed among the purple corn cockle and oxeye daisies. The grain in the field strips was ripe now. It had been agonisingly slow to turn from green to gold. It was late, but at least the ears were plump from the rain. The villagers and Manor had not yet begun the harvest, but ours was already cut and stooked in the fields. Another day or two of this hot sun to dry it and it would be ready to thresh.

It was the first good harvest we’d had since we came. We had all prayed earnestly these last few years, five times a day as the Pope had ordered-frigiscente mundo-“as the world grows colder,” yet over and over again the harvests had continued to fail. But this year, at long last, God finally seemed to have heard our prayers and the days were turning warm again.