Page 123 of The Armor of Light

On deck, Joanie turned to face the shore and the watching crowd. Kit wondered how she could be so still and quiet, just looking. She was leaving her family and the place where she had spent her whole life, and going to somewhere new on the other side of the globe; the thought was so terrifying that Kit tried to push it out of his mind.

The current took the barge downstream rapidly. Sue’s screams diminished. The crowd stopped clapping.

The barge turned around the first bend in the river and disappeared from view.

PART THREE

The Combination Act

1799

19

AMOSBARROWFIELD GOT UPat four o’clock. He was alone in the house: his mother had died two years ago. He dressed quickly and left a few minutes later, carrying a lantern. It was a crisp spring morning. Despite the hour, he was not the only one awake. There were lights in all the poorer dwellings, and hundreds of hands were already trudging through the dark streets, heading for the mills.

Amos noticed two men standing guard outside the militia headquarters, and he thought sourly that the red cloth of their uniform coats had been woven by Hornbeam.

Kingsbridge had lost its air of prosperity. People could not afford to repaint their front doors or repair broken panes of glass. Some shops had gone out of business and others had drab window displays and low stock. Shoppers bought the cheapest, not the best. Demand was slack for the high-quality clothes that Amos specialized in.

It was the war. A coalition of Britain, Russia, the Ottoman Empire and the kingdom of Naples was attacking the French empire over much of Europe and the Middle East, and getting beaten. The French suffered occasional reverses but always bounced back. For the sake of that pointless war, Amos thought, we’re all struggling to make a living. And the hands just get angrier.

Moonlight glinted off wavelets in the river. He crossed the bridge to Leper Island. There were lights in Caris’s Hospital, he saw. The second span of the bridge took him to the suburb called Loversfield. There he turned left.

On this side of the river Hornbeam had built long rows of houses, side by side and back to back, with a water pump and a privy in the middle of each street. The houses were rented by the hands who worked at the nearby mills.

In the hilly country north and east of the town, the river and its tributaries flowed fast enough to turn mill wheels and at the same time supply unlimited water for fulling and dyeing. There was no street plan here: buildings, millponds and mill races were put up where the water flowed.

He walked upstream to his mill. Nodding to the sleepy-eyed watchman, he unlocked the door and went inside. He was lighting the lamps when Hamish Law arrived, in riding boots and a long blue cloak.

Hamish now did the job Amos had had before his father died: touring the villages and visiting the cottage workers. Hamish was always well dressed, and went out of his way to be friendly with people. However, although good-natured, he was also tough enough to stand up to ruffians on the road. In short, he was a younger version of Amos.

Together they loaded the packhorses and talked about the places Hamish would visit today and the craftspeople he would deal with. Most spinning was now done at the mill, on machines, so there were fewer hand spinners to visit; but weaving was still a manual skill, and weavers worked either at home or in mills.

‘You’d better warn them there may be no work next week,’ Amos told Hamish. ‘I’ve got no more orders and I can’t afford to stockpile cloth.’

‘Perhaps something will come up in the next few days,’ Hamish said optimistically.

‘We can hope.’

The hands began to arrive, eating bread and drinking from earthenware mugs of weak ale, chattering like sparrows in the morning. They always had plenty to talk about. They worked so hardand so long that it seemed miraculous to Amos that they had energy for conversation.

At five o’clock the work began. The fulling hammers thudded, the spinning jennies bumped and whirred, and the looms clacked as the weavers threw their shuttles from right to left and back again. The banging and clattering was melodic to Amos. Cloth was being made to keep people warm, wages were being earned to feed families, profits were accumulating to keep the whole enterprise going. But soon his worries returned.

He sought out Sal Box, who was the unofficial representative of the workforce. She looked well, despite the hard times. Marriage suited her, although her husband, Jarge, seemed a bit of a thug to Amos.

The spinning engines were now driven by water power, so spinners did not have to turn a wheel by hand. This meant that an experienced spinner such as Sal could supervise three machines at a time.

They had to raise their voices to talk over the noise.

‘I haven’t got any work for next week,’ he said. ‘Unless I make a sale at the last minute.’

‘You ought to get military orders,’ Sal said. ‘That’s where all the money is.’

Many clothiers would take offence at advice from their hands, but not Amos. He liked to know what they were thinking. He had just learned something important: they imagined he had not bid for Shiring Militia contracts. Now he had a chance to set the record straight. ‘Don’t think I haven’t tried,’ he said. ‘But Will Riddick gives all the orders to his father-in-law.’

Her face darkened. ‘That Will Riddick should hang.’

‘It’s impossible to break into the business.’