Will Sparrow's Road (4 page)

He kicked a stone along the road, hoping it would lead him to a town where he might pinch something to eat. Only a few kicks up the road, the stone skittered into a field and was gone. Will shook his head. Small things are so easy to lose, he thought: stones and apples and buttons. And hope.

Past stretches of woodland was a sunny meadow where sheep grazed. Sheep. Mutton stew, Will thought. And leg of lamb. With parsnips and onions, as they had it at the inn. In the home he had shared with his father they ate no lamb, no mutton, no beef, but only what Will could find or catch or steal—turnips and onions fallen from some farmer's cart, rabbits caught in snares of string, fish and frogs from the river, and an occasional chicken nipped from the neighborers. His belly rumbled at the remembering.

He walked through a field of purple and white flowers whose names he did not know and furiously beheaded them with a handy stick. Belike he should have stayed at the inn, where at least he ate somewhat regularly on what he could steal from the kitchen or pilfer from patrons, but then he remembered why he had run. Be a chimney sweep and cough his life away? He shuddered and kept walking, swinging the stick.

Off the road he saw a large house surrounded by a stone wall no taller than he, and up he scrambled. Below was a garden laced with paths, trees, rosebushes, and shrubs cut into fanciful shapes. A fountain spewed water into the air, where the sunshine turned the drops into rainbows.

Will studied the garden. Might there be such a thing as a cabbage growing in there? Or mayhap beans or greens or late-summer peas? He didn't see anything that looked fit to eat, but still his belly growled at the thought.

He stood atop the wall. Seeing no one around, he dropped to the ground within. The peaceful, herb-scented quiet was suddenly filled with furious barking and growling. Will froze. Dogs! Big dogs! He threw the stick in their direction and ran.

Growling and snarling, the dogs chased him up the path, past the shrubs, through the roses, and around the fountain. Finally he made for a tree and clambered up, scraping his legs and feet in the climb. "Go away!” he shouted down to the dogs, who jumped and snarled. "I hate you. I hate all hungry, hairy creatures!”

The dogs circled the tree, their teeth bared and glistening with drool. They did not look ready to depart anytime soon, so Will made himself more comfortable and examined his perch. Plums! He had climbed a tree heavy with plums, plump and purple and inviting. He chose one and bit into it. The sweet, soft flesh filled his mouth, and juice warmed by the sun ran down his chin. He found and ate the ripest fruit and threw the unripe at the dogs, muttering, "Choke on these, you nasty things.”

"Brutus, Arthur, Ambrose, come,” someone unseen called, someone with a light, musical voice, and the dogs stopped snarling and bounded away.

Nay, Will noted, peering from his perch—one of them still sat at the base of the tree, looking up into the branches and growling.

"Arthur!” the voice called again.

Arthur? The beast was named for the great warrior king who fought the Saxons? Will dropped an especially large green plum on Arthur's head.

"Arthur! Come!”

Finally Arthur stood. He lifted his leg and spewed a torrent against the trunk of the tree, shook himself, and bounded off.

Will sat in the tree for a while longer. His belly ached. Too many plums? Too much fear? Finally he climbed down, slowly, for his legs were sore and stiff. He found an easy foothold on the wall and over he went, finding himself away from the road on the farther side of the manor. Where he was he did not know, so which way he turned made no difference. He walked on.

He walked through fields where wheat swayed in the breeze and folk harvested the crops with great curved scythes and wooden rakes, hurrying to get the grain in before the rains came again. Crows hovered over hay-laden wagons and squabbled over the leavings in the fields. Will took great breaths sweet with the smell of new-cut hay.

At last he came upon a cluster of half-timbered cottages with roofs of thatch, where women sat at their looms in the sun or spun by the hedgerows. They looked at him with suspicious eyes, and he imagined how he appeared, with plum leaves in his hair, a torn dirty shirt, and a face that had not seen water in many a day. He washed his face in a puddle, found a clean shirt in the laundry some goodwife had draped over a holly bush to dry, and smoothed his hair down. He would attract less attention, he thought, if he did not look like a penniless vagabond. Although in sooth he was penniless and a vagabond. Nonetheless he squared his shoulders as he walked on.

Soon the cottages became more numerous, and Will saw ahead what might be an inn of soft cream plaster and timbers graying with age. He hurried closer. Aye, it was an inn. Over the entry late-summer roses grew, and the air was fragrant with lavender and other strewing herbs. A painted sign hanging over the door proclaimed the lion and the mouse. He would sup this day. His belly rumbled enthusiastically.

Will went first to the stables. At the inn he had run from, he had tended the visitors' horses. He had also searched their saddlebags for anything of value to nip. The innkeeper always took what Will found, but the boy had managed to keep back a few coins, which he hid under a floorboard in the larder. Due to the abrupt manner of his leaving, he had abandoned the coins, and he mourned them now. He could have bought a sausage or a bit of chicken or a mug of cool ale.

There were horses in the stables but also a burly stable hand, so Will only nodded to the man and backed away. In the inn yard, at a trestle table under a tree, sat a group of ruffed and booted young lordlings, boisterous and roistering. Suddenly they leapt up and ran toward him. Startled, Will turned to flee, but the young men ran right past him, shouting, "Race! Race! We must have a footrace!”

As they ran, they pulled off their hats and caps, doublets and jerkins, and threw them down on the grass near where Will stood. Off they went, cheering and jeering, calling to each other, "Out of my way, ye fly-bitten ruffians!” and "By heaven, I shall run ye into the next county!” and leaving a cloud of dust behind them. Pickled like onions they were, Will thought.

He scuttled over to inspect their table. Not a crust of bread nor a crumb of cheese, and the wine cups were drained. They had eaten and drunk everything, the greedy pigs.

The lordlings had not yet turned back for the inn, so Will examined the piles of clothing they had discarded. He plucked out a fine brown leather jerkin and a cap of chestnut wool.
For when the nights grow cold,
he thought. He pulled the cap over his head and shrugged into the jerkin, which reached his knees. Swaggering a bit in all his finery, he left the inn yard and turned up a road, hoping the lordlings would travel the other way, especially the fellows now without jerkin and cap.

"You, boy, look like a sausage in too much bun,” said a passing merchant with a glance at Will in the jerkin. Will scowled. Except for his empty belly, he felt like one of the lordlings himself and not like a sausage at all. He stood taller, stretching his neck, trying to look bigger than he was.

OF HOW WILL ACQUIRES A MAGIC EGG,
A PARTNER, AND A FULL BELLY AT LAST

T
HE ROAD
was rutted and rough with holes, and Will, hungry and weary, trudged, trudged, trudged. He passed a gatehouse flanked by stone lions guarding a tree-lined path leading to a fine manor house. 'TWas, no doubt, where the lordlings had come from. In such a house they would not miss one lowly leather jerkin, he thought as he smoothed it over his belly.

Finally in the distance he saw the towers and spires of a minster, reaching like fingers into the sky. A minster meant a town! Surely in a town he could manage to find something to eat. Something juicy, freshly roasted, and still steaming.

The rhythm of his walking inspired a chant:
Pork
and lamb and fat beef ribs. Cabbages, radishes, parsnips, and figs. Peach pie, fresh ale, and bacon from pigs.

While Will walked and murmured, the road grew crowded. Might one of these folks be after him? His shoulders tensed, and his heart beat faster. But certes, he convinced himself, the innkeeper would not have followed him this far, and he was no one anyone else would want.

With Will on the road were the customary beggars in rags, vagrant families seeking new homes, and those rogues called counterfeit cranks and Abraham men, shamming injury for gain. Cloaked and kirtled women carried buckets of milk, and men hauled sacks of grain. Packhorses laden with hides, with canvas, with bolts of woolen cloth in scarlet, blue, and saffron, trotted past wagons heavy with barrels and churns and wooden spades.

A metalsmith, with cooking pots and warming pans tied onto his donkey, clanked next to Will. "What town be this?” Will asked him, raising his voice to be heard over the clanking. "And why are all these folk hastening there?”

"It be Peterborough. Or Scarborough,” the metalsmith answered, "or mayhap Foxborough or Dogborough. 'Tis some borough, I believe. There be a market fair here, so 'tis where we go.”

Will's village had held fairs at times on market days, none so big that folk would travel far for them, but still fairs, so Will well knew that fairs meant food. His belly rumbled. Food like pigeon pies and roasted larks, apple tarts and gingerbread, spice cake and almond cake and hard-boiled eggs. Food ripe for the nipping by a clever, hungry young thief.

"'Tis a fine fair, I hear,” the metalsmith continued. "Three days long. Goods aplenty to buy for those with coins, and smells to smell for those without.”

The air thrummed with the shouts of hawkers, the cries of children, the bawls and bleats and brays of livestock, as Will joined the throngs heading over a stone bridge to a field. His eyes opened as wide as dinner plates, and he danced a few steps there on the road. 'Twas a fine fair indeed! The field was crowded with booths and stalls, some as small as carts and others nearly cottages, made of poles and boards and painted canvas, roofed over with branches or thatching or left open to the sky—more stalls, he thought, even than ... than ... than the number of apples he had lost to Nell Liftpurse, the foul hag.

Will's nose twitched. He smelled something, something savory and rich. He sniffed deeply. Roasting pork, it was, and—he sniffed once more—garlic. There was nothing in the world he loved more than roast pork, although in truth he had smelled it more often than he had eaten it.

He followed his nose into the center of the fair, past poulterers waving chickens by their feet and women with bark baskets of turnips and cabbages, to a booth where a whole pig was roasting. The porker was brown and crispy, dripping garlic-scented juices as it turned on the spit. Will stood and sniffed great sniffs while he wondered how some of that pig might find its way into his belly.

"Show me your coins or move away, boy,” said the man tending the spit. "You are breathing air better saved for those with money to spend.”

"Breathing is free, rude sirrah,” said Will, "and sniffing and smelling.”

The man came nearer, waving his carving knife, so Will had to be satisfied with sticking out his tongue as he moved along.

Merchants were busily arranging their stalls, setting out their wares, calling and cajoling passersby. "See walkers of the rope,” someone called, "in the west field near the church,” and another, "Wondrous feats of archery and wrestling and fighting with cudgels, hard by the leather stalls,” and a third, "
The Tragical Tale of King Richard,
with dancing and song, noonday at the priory.” Drums beat, lutes and fiddles played, ballad singers sang, but Will's belly called louder than any of these.

Up and down the narrow dusty paths between stalls he walked, past sellers of butter and eggs and cheese, fish fresh from the river, red apples and yellow pears. Here were leather stalls with fine, silver-buckled belts and carved saddles next to glovers, makers of rope, and scriveners writing letters for those who could not or would not. There, of much more interest to Will, was a pastry merchant who called, "Come get your nice gingerbread, your spice gingerbread. It will melt in your mouth and rumble in your insides!” At the thought, Will's belly growled loud enough to be heard by a fine lady standing near him, and she giggled into her hand.

Somewhere, Will hoped, there was a baker with his eye on his oven and not on his wares. Or a fruitmonger looking the other way. Or a roaster of meats too busy roasting to watch for thieves. Will walked to and fro, here and there, lingered and loitered, but saw no likely opportunity to pinch something to eat.

At an ale stall he saw a fat man with a fat purse bobbing from his belt. His attention was on his ale and his companions, not his purse.

Will watched him. Nell Liftpurse would have that purse in a minute. Could he? Certes his hands were as nimble as hers. He waggled his fingers a time or two and wished he had thought to ask her for some instruction. Edging up close to the man, Will waggled his fingers again. Then he leaned over and with his outstretched fingers touched, just touched, the purse.

Suddenly he was knocked forward and fell to the ground, the purse in his hand, as a flock of unruly geese bumped and butted and shoved their way to market. "What ho, ruffian!” said the fat gentleman, shouting to be heard over the honking geese. "You would steal my purse?” He put his foot on Will's back and pulled the purse from the boy's hand. "Bailiff! Bailiff! Here to me!”

Will's thoughts raced as he searched for the words that would save him. "Nay, nay, sir, I was but jostled by the passing geese and did reach out to grab something to steady myself, and the purse came loose into my hand.”

"Nonsense,” said the fat man, and the other drinkers murmured and nodded. "It could not have happened that way. I will have the bailiff and—” At that instant, the last in the line of geese blundered into the man. Reaching out to steady himself, he grabbed the pennant adorning the ale stall. The pennant came loose, the stall tipped and tottered, and the man fell, pinning Will to the ground beneath him. Mugs and tankards flew about like raindrops in a wind storm.