Compared with their hasty and terrified trip to Clydesmuir, life in the pilgrim train was comfortable. Compared to their old life, even for Katie who had thought herself hardy when she had compared herself with the other ladies in Brucemuir, life in the pilgrim train was as penitential as the sternest pastor might wish. They rode or walked all day, and then were expected to do various chores at the temples and kirks where they spent their nights, or at the camps they set up between towns. Katie had a new appreciation for what the crofters must go through. And they were doing only a part of the work that a crofter or a fisher would have to. After the first week or so, Katie found herself growing accustomed to the work. It didn't stop hurting, but she got used to being uncomfortable. Nonetheless, remembering to be reasonably polite to their fellow pilgrims was a more-or-less constant strain.
Trina still struggled. She found that the hunch in her back interfered with her breathing somehow, and she tired faster even than the other wellborn women in the train: a "half widow" to a sea captain and her cousin, taking refuge at the Temple as so many women did when their husbands could protect their reputations, but not much more, and a much younger lady, barely a lass, who was being sent to the Temple to be educated. The lass's governess was there supposedly to guard her charge's reputation, but seemed to have little interest in the lass or the Temple or anything else. The Governess spent much of her time sulking.
Katie had expected to find people like them among their traveling companions. Unweigh was a "women's saint," generally, thought to be helpful when men misused their power or authority. She was also known to be a favorite among the other sort of "half widow," the one who had been abandoned by a man who hadn't bothered to marry her first. Katie rather suspected that there were one or two of that sort in the train as well. But she hadn't expected so many other sorts of people. There was an honest-to-goodness knight and his squire, planning to petition the saint for help with a usurper to the throne of the Prince that the Knight served. This was the first time Katie had heard of anyone asking Unweigh for help with an actual Despot, rather than a despotic husband or father. There were several religious sorts from other Orders, planning to visit the Abbess or the Temple library, and with only a passing interest in the saint. There was a lacemaker from Mittelstein (and what was she doing so far from home?) who had been named for the saint (She was called Frieda in Mittlestein; a much more sensible thing to call a baby than Unweigh). And there was a customs-clerk escorting his sister, and a silversmith who had been commissioned to do some work at the Temple, and a dozen others.
For the first week, they had all been occupied with telling each other about themselves and where they came from. Katie said as little as possible and listened as much as she could, in hopes that she could keep her tongue in check and avoid offending any of her traveling companions. Sometimes it worked better than others; it was horribly difficult not to point it out when someone was being hypocritical, or took one of the good seats near the fire more than three nights in a row...
Keeping quiet was safer for them, too. People looking at Trina assumed that she was going to join the Order because no one else would have her. Katie definitely preferred that their fellow pilgrims come up with their own, innocuous explanations for their presence in the train, rather than having to give the real one, which sounded daft as anything, or a made-up one that would probably be worse. Besides, as Trina pointed out to her, "Telling pfeopfle they're wrong just gives them a reason tae argue with you." Katie began to hope that, except for the work, their time in the pilgrim train might be reasonably untroubled. Unfortunately, it turned out that not everyone in the train came up with the same explanation for why Katie and Trina had joined the train, and one of them looked to make a great deal of trouble indeed.
Brother Spurlin was a hedge-priest who joined the train on the third day out of Clydesmuir, as they camped outside a huddle of crofts that went by the unprepossessing name of Pigswell. Now, hedge-priests were not well thought of at the best of times. Everyone admitted, grudgingly, that it was a good thing that there were holy men who were willing to travel hard roads between tiny, poor hamlets and do services for folk who were too far away from the nearest kirk to go regularly. It was thanks to the hedge-priests that crofter babies got christened, and sometimes their parents got married on the same day, if it had been some months since the last time a hedge-priest came through. And then he'd shrive anyone who wanted shriving (which was almost everyone; otherwise your neighbors would talk), and take maybe a coin or two, if there were any in the village, or a little sack of grain, or a new pair of gloves if someone had the leather, and go on to the next little hamlet.
It wasn't exactly a rewarding life, even by kirksman standards, and the men who chose it tended to be as unmannerly and ignorant as the folk they served, and obstreperously self-righteous to boot. It took a certain kind of temperament, after all, to prefer life in a series of flea-bitten hovels, yet being the only holy man for miles around, to a life as one brother among many, with two good meals every day. Such a temperament did not make for an easy traveling companion.
Worse than that, Katie had an idea that Brother Spurlin might be the other kind of hedge-priest: the kind that turned his services into a kind of extortion, or maybe supplemented his income by attaching himself to a gang of bandits, offering absolution in exchange for a share of their loot. That sort would perform a marriage even if one of the couple had been tied hand-and-foot and knocked unconscious, and might have a whore pay her penance in trade. There was no way to tell by looking at Brother Spurlin if he was that sort, of course, but the Godmother's pin had turned black as wrought iron when he first brushed by Katie on his way to talk to the caravan master, and after he joined the pilgrims he seemed to attach himself almost exclusively to the younger women in the train. Including Katie.
It started barely half a day after they left Pigswell. The train had come to a stop to water the mules and horses. Katie had hopped down off Bright and helped Trina down off Spot, and Trina was tending to both beasts; they were easy-tempered enough that she could lead them to water without trouble, and it was one of the few needful things she could do. Katie had spotted a nice little cluster of edible shelf-mushrooms growing on a nearby tree and was gathering them, with the help of a knife she had traded her best garnet ear-drops for in Clydesmuir. And why I didnae think tae take a knife when I raided the kitchens at home... The knife she had bargained for was a good one, though, and it wasn't as if Katie had actually liked the ear-drops.
In a way, it was lucky that Brother Spurlin approached her from upwind, because she noticed the reek of musty cloth, onions, and sour ale before he spoke, and so was not startled when a friendly-sounding voice behind her said, "Your pardon mistress."
Katie finished the cut she was making and tucked the freed mushroom into a loop of skirt that she had tied off to form a rough sort of pouch, and then turned to see Brother Spurlin standing there, his eyes cast humbly downward. "Might you spare a few of those hazelnuts you carry with you?"
Mindful of the Silver Fairy's warning that she must share her magical supply of hazelnuts with anyone who asked, Katie had contributed three handfuls to the evening porridge the night before in Pigswell, and offered a few more to the village-folk as part of the pilgrims' fee for the use of their grazing lands. She had taken care to offer most of them from the larger sack Bright carried, rather than the little, magical one. Then, as she was loading Bright in the morning, she had pretended to refill her little sack from the big one, while actually sneaking a pair of handfuls from the sack that never grew emptier to the one that did. Sharing what she had was one thing, but she didn't want her new traveling companions to think of her as "the one with the uncanny pouch." However, she was not the only one of the pilgrims to miss having a midday luncheon as she would at home, and on the ride to Pigswell, more than one had drawn up to "Em with the hazelnuts" and begged a few to ease the road. And now here was the noisesome Brother Spurlin, doing the same.
"Aye, Brother," Katie said politely, and dug half a dozen from her pocket and handed them over.
Brother Spurlin took them with a little nod and a mumbled blessing, and then glanced sideways at the little bulge in her skirt where the newly collected shelf-mushrooms were. "I shouldnae hae thought one such as yourself would have any need tae forage."
Katie tensed slightly. She'd done her best, in their hasty flight from home, to make herself and Trina look as ordinary as possible. And Brother Spurlin could see for himself that the supplies on their mules wouldn't last them all the way to Shanterburn without help. But of course a hedge-priest would ken better than anyone what real poverty looks like. And a hedge-priest who gangs with bandits would ken where tae look for hidden wealth... But surely he'd not try anything too overt in the middle of a throng of witnesses? Hoping she hadn't been tongue-tied for too suspiciously long a time, Katie shrugged. " 'Tis a long way tae Shanter," she said, "And pilgrims are supposed tae live on the bounty of God."
Brother Spurlin attempted a warm chuckle. It came out a little gluey. "Most of them choose tae live off the bounty of their ain harvest, though. Even the lacemaker has a pack mule laden with oats and turnips tae follow behind her, but you twa do not. One might almost wonder if you were fleeing something." and he looked up at her, his face all innocent curiosity.
Is this fellow working for the sorcerer? Katie wished abruptly and heartily that she and Trina had fled no further than the Great Kirk in Brucemuir. Surely if the Temple was safe from dark magic, then so was their own kirk...
Katie risked a sideways glance at her cloak pin. It was still nearly black, but the stone remained clear. So the fellow was nasty, but not planning anything yet. Besides, if the sorcerer was looking for them, there wasn't much Katie could do about it except make it hard for him to take them away. There were enough holy folk in the pilgrim train to fight any new curses. Suppose he sends the constables after us in one of the towns? He could claim we've run from our indentures, stolen jewelry... That was a problem for later.
"I didnae mean tae frighten you," Brother Spurlin apologized.
Hah.
"I only meant tae offer a kindly ear, if you'd troubles you didnae wish tae share with the company at large," he insisted. His eyes dropped again. "After all, I am a man of God. And I think I can promise you that none of your troubles are things I've not heard before."
Aye, no doubt. But whether you made them better or worse after you heard them... Aloud, all Katie said was, "Our people ken where we're bound," or they would, when Trina's letter reached them, "but I dinna think either of my parents will ever be famous for thinking of everything." That was true as far as it went. Katie's stepfather, King Malcom, was shrewd, but Katie's father Ben MacLaird, by all reports, had been vague about anything but horses, and of course Queen Martha never seemed to think of anything.
Katie shook her head a little and glanced in the direction of the burn; she was relieved to see Trina just coming back. "My troubles are ordinary enough. I'm only here for my sister Kit's sake. I'll be seeing tae her, now she's seen tae the mules." And she made her escape as gracefully as she could.
Trina chose to walk for a while, which surprised Katie a little until they got a way down the track and Trina drew close enough to murmur, "Sister, you want tae watch that Hedge-pfriest. I didnae like him a bit."
"Nor did I," Katie agreed, "nor did the Fairy's pin. He kept hinting that we were something other than we seemed and trying tae worm something out of me about what. He lives among such poor folk that anyone with twa mules looks rich tae him, and he'll likely try to blackmail us. Or sell information about us tae someone. Or both."
"Or just steal shomething," Trina suggested. "I'd keepf that pfin on the inside of my cloak from now on, if I were you. Bvut that wasnae what I meant."
"Oh?" Trina was right about the pin, Katie realized with embarrassment. She should have thought of that ages ago. Wiping her forehead as if she were hot, Katie unpinned the cloak and tucked it about Bright's saddlebags, tucking the pin in her pocket at the same time. If anyone asked about it later, she'd say she'd sold it. Or just lost it.
" 'Twas the way he looked on you," Trina elaborated. "The whole time you were talking, he stared at your bvosom..."
Katie blinked, feeling her cheeks heat. She'd known he was looking downward, but it hadn't occurred to her that he was looking at...
"And bvefore he came upf tae you, he was watching you bvent over that tree stumpf, and looking at – at your..." Trina trailed off, blushing in her turn.
"I think," Katie said distantly, "the word you are looking for is 'arse.' Many of Father's friends used it, if you will recall, especially after the mead had gone 'round a few times, and so did the married women, if there werenae men about tae hear them."
Katie managed to stop herself before she began to expound in a scholarly manner on the most commonly discussed varieties, such as the Smooth, The Tight, and the Great Thundering, and wrenched her brain back to the real subject at hand: "Which is not tae say that Brother Spurlin looks tae be anything save twa kinds of nasty, at the least, and I am glad he has gone on tae talk tae Mistress Doone's governess. The old prune has been telling him all her troubles this past quarter-hour, and I wish them joy of each other."
It seemed the governess had not been profitable, however, because by midafternoon Brother Spurlin was back, plodding beside Katie while Trina rode, and reciting a doleful monologue about the weakness of women in the face of temptation, and the dangers travel posed to the souls of such a vulnerable lass as Katie. Katie made one or two attempts to look him in the eye, but his were fastened on, yes, quite definitely her chest. Trina, he ignored just as most folk did. Her ugly face seemed to consign her to the status of one more piece of baggage on the mule. Trina herself added to the impression by keeping her head wrapped in her shawl most of the time until nothing showed save her eyes.
Katie ignored the hedge-priest as well as she could. He was irritating, but so were the old blisters on her heels that had burst, and the new blisters on her toes that were forming because the bandages she had improvised for her heels had changed the way her shoes fit. And on top of that, her clothes felt like sailcloth: chafing her ankles as she plodded and clinging to her skin like a peculiarly heavy kind of glue. For the first time in her life, she found herself actually missing the stiff, starchy feel of newly laundered clothing. Though she had eventually grown used to putting aside last week's broken-in gown for a newly ironed, slightly shrunken and uncomfortable one every Sunday, never before had she truly understood what a luxury that discomfort was. 'Tis ironic, really. I'm working four times as hard and getting four times as dirty as I ever did at home, but now that my clothes actually need cleaning, 'tis out of my reach. At least they mostly smell of woodsmoke, and nothing worse.
"Mistress Em?" The wretched priest was right at her elbow, standing closer than even her dance partners at a ball.
"What!"
"Did ye not hear me? I was speaking of the ways a man might lead an unwary lass astray... I wondered if you'd had cause tae learn that first hand from one of your suitors?"
Katie surprised both of them by laughing. She'd been so afraid of him before it had set her flesh a-creep, wondering what he might winkle out, but it seemed the worst he could think of was that she'd had a lover! No wonder the wretched creature had decided to batten on the pilgrims, if that was all he knew of folk. Surely it took a better understanding than that to bully or charm one's living out of skinflint crofters... "Nay," she said, finally, "I never had a suitor yet. They all favored Kitten."
For the first time since he had started pacing beside them, Brother Spurlin looked up at Trina on her mule. Stared actually, watching as she took a sip of water from a flask. Trina had to tilt her head back like a bird's to keep it from dribbling out of the harelip, which made her shawl slip back, exposing her matted hair. The folds of shawl bunched up between her hunch and her neck, making her look less like a sheep than a turtle.
"Her dowry is much the larger," Katie added, calmly.
Brother Spurlin turned back to her, not at all calmly. "Woe betide you," he trumpeted, loudly enough to make the mules shy, "that you have so fallen intae wickedness that you would mock me. God will see that you pay for what you do tae His servant!"
"Aye, doubtless!" Katie snapped, "But you're not His bailiff. I'll thank you tae leave me tae travel my ain road, good or wicked. And leave off staring at my bosom!" she added, which remark was answered by a chuckle from someone up ahead of them.
The hedge-priest drew himself up. "Very well," he intoned, "if you'll not hear good counsel when 'tis given unto ye, than gang ye tae your just reward. And I'll pray the Saint can reach thy wicked heart where I could not. I forgive you," he added, and before Katie could respond to that outrageous statement, he went on, "for 'tis clear a devil has hold of thy tongue. If you ever wish tae come tae me humbly, and mindful of the wrongs ye have done, then ye shall have my blessing." And he strode away toward the head of the train, leaving Katie grinding her teeth over all the things she wished she could say and knew she had best not.
For the next two hours, until it was time to make camp, various of the other pilgrims who had heard Katie or heard Brother Spurlin's account of her, came to remonstrate with her. However repulsive the hedge-priest was, he was a Kirksman, and he had been attending on her soul. The nun from St. Croom's and the Brother from Our Savior of the Bog both used the same aphorism in their chiding: "You mustn't assume that God mislikes all the same people you do." Katie remembered that Pastor Scott had said the same thing to her, more than once, and wondered if it was written down somewhere. She had to admit that she was much better read in the matter of ballads and romances than she was in works of an improving nature.
She also had to admit that the kirksfolk had a point, though not the one they likely intended. Whatever Brother Spurlin had thought or hinted or threatened, he could have done much less to her had she kept her mouth shut and worked on earning the goodwill of her fellow-pilgrims. The stone in the center of the pin had indicated that he did not actively mean her harm when he had first forced himself into her notice. She could feel the pin now as a spot of heat in her pocket, and she didn't have to look at it to know that the stone was as red as fire. My evil nature is its ain punishment, she thought, and it seems it is still with me. Katie spent the rest of the day's hike going over the whole thing in her mind and thinking about what she should have said and done instead, and wondering just when she would have to apologize to the odious Brother Spurlin for losing her temper.
The first thing to startle her out of her despond happened when Frieda the Lacemaker spoke to her as they were both visiting a little spinney that had been designated as the Women's Necessary. "Dot vas so funny, vot you said to der nasty little priestlink," the other woman chuckled. "Ve manage Dese tinks much better in Mittelstein; our royal scholars have translated der Great Books in ter Frankische, for anyvun to read. Zo der churchmens, dey know dey are mens."
"Really?" That had led to a fascinating conversation over a pile of turnips that needed peeling, about how things were done in Mittlestein. The Grand Duke had set aside a fund to set up a dame school in every village large enough to have a church, and every family was required to send at least one child there to learn to read and cipher. Even the commoners prided themselves on being learned.
"It does lead to more arguink," Frieda admitted, "because evervun tinks dey are an expert. But alzo, ve haff become great inventors, in Mittelstein. Ve haff der most efficient sewers, der best seige veapons, der most accurate clocks... is very interestink place." Katie could only agree.
Even more welcome than Frieda's overture of friendship was a second visit, after supper was over but before most people were ready to go to sleep. Katie was trying to arrange a pile of springy twigs and bracken into something that would be more comfortable for poor Kitten to sleep on, when yet another voice hailed her out of the twilight: "Mistress Em-with-the-'ayzlenuts, innit?"
The person who walked up was the squire who served the exiled knight. Katie assumed he wanted more nuts for something, but his hands were both full: the left held two tin mugs with handles, filled with something that steamed. The right held a roll of thick cloth, and there was a lidded basket dangling from an elbow. "Squire Floyd," he introduced himself, as he plunked down onto his haunches next to the fallen log where Trina was sitting. "Oi've got summat for you. 'Ere – 'ave a sit-down by your crippled sister." The face and accent were pure Piktenberger – broad, cheerful, and lumpy as Katie's latest attempt at a mattress. He looked to be in his forties, at least, and that was surprising. Weren't squires a kind of apprentice knight? They were in Brucemuir.
When Katie sat, the man thrust one of the mugs at her and handed the other to Trina. "This 'ere's me famous Tenderfoot Tisane," he announced, "Willow bark, poppy paste, and a great whacking lot of dried bramble-berries and mint to 'ide the taste. Hain't nothing better for a good noit's sleep after a long day on the rowd."
"Thank you kindly," Katie said.
"I hain't done. This," Squire Floyd unrolled the cloth to reveal a set of gleaming blades ranging in size from a handspan long to barely larger than a needle, "Is me barber-surgeon's kit for draining those blisters the pair of you 'as got, and this," he dug in the basket under his arm and pulled out a box, "Is lint and cobwebs for bandaging up h'afterwards. Works a treat. Now. Off with those boots of yours."
Katie began to stammer something appropriately grateful, and Squire Floyd interrupted her again. "It's loike this, see," he said. "I've been a Squire for a mort o' years; never wanted to be a real knoight, naow indeed. Can you imagine someone writin' a Ballad of Sir Floyd? Me neither. So I just goes along on the Quests and things and take care o' the mules and the lodgings and all – more h'interestin' than bein' a caravanner and you 'ardly h'ever 'ave to do any foighting."
The monlogue was soothing, Katie found, an interesting story to listen to while she didn't think about what the man was doing to her feet. "So I've served along of four or foive different knoights now – one retired, two got 'emselves killed, one was just a narsty piece o' work and I up and left him 'alfway up a mountain in Cordeluz – and after all that toime, I reckon I know a Maiden in Distress when I sees one. So 'ere I be, all set to offer succor." He grinned.
"Well, thank you again!" said Katie, "I suppose had you killed a dragon or something, I'd likely feel more grateful than I do now, but I cannae imagine what that would be like. Kitten and I've a lot tae learn about life on the road."
"You do," Squire Floyd agreed as he moved on to Trina's feet, "but I'll see if I can give you a few 'ints now and again, if'n y'don't boite me head off loike you did with that Spurlin character."
"I'll do my best tae listen," Katie promised, "but I do get viperish now and again, and I cannae always stop myself in time." She sighed, "I suppose I'd better apologize tae Brother Spurlin. He's nasty, but he hadnae really done much of anything."
"Don't," the Squire advised. "He'll just think it's safe to bully you if you do. And there's this," he added, "I've been watching you two a couple of days, now, and you've never once whined to the caravan marster about not 'aving some comfort or other, you've not moaned about these 'orrible blisters you got, you've not beat your mule more than reasonable. The only toime you've really lost your temper was at someone what was pushing 'imself at you and loike to abuse 'is h'authority, and that's the sort of thing a bloke could give a fellow a clout on the 'ead for, and no one would think the worse of him. So it looks to me loike you moight be worth helping. Ol' gloomy-puss over there -" he jerked his head at the Knight, who did indeed tend to the melancholic, " 'e won't bestir 'imself for anything in petticoats save a proper damozel. Reads too many books in my opinion, and got 'is 'ead in the clouds, but that's wot 'e's got me for. There you are, lovey."
Squire Floyd turned away from Katie's feet, now much more tidily bandaged, and toward the pile of bracken. Then he looked back over his shoulder and winked: " And one more good thing about me bein' a squire: I ain't taken no knightly vows what mean oi can't hurt a priest what forgets 'imself."
