Page 52 of The Armor of Light

When she got there Brian was cleaning the mud off his plough after a day in the fields. She asked if she could meet everyone in his barn, and as she expected he agreed readily.

Waiting for her friends to gather, Sal tried to collect her thoughts. She found it hard to imagine what her life would be like from tomorrow. Where would she go? What would she do?

When everyone was there she told them the whole story in detail. They muttered imprecations when they heard that Will had wished for Kit’s death; cheered when she told how she had knocked him to the floor; and gasped in shock when she revealed her sentence of banishment. ‘I’ll be gone early in the morning,’ she said. ‘I just want you all to pray for me.’

Brian stood up and gave an extempore prayer, asking God to look down on Sal and Kit and take care of them whatever happened. Then the questions began. They asked her all the things she was asking herself, and she had no answers.

Brian was practical. ‘You’ll have to leave with just what you can carry. We’ll store the rest of your possessions here in this barn. When you’re settled somewhere else you can come back with a cart to collect everything.’

His concern and kindness made Sal want to cry.

The scribbler Mick Seabrook said: ‘My aunt has a lodging house in Combe – it’s cheap, and clean.’

‘That could be helpful,’ Sal said, although Combe was two days away, an intimidating distance for someone who had rarely left Badford. ‘But I have to make a living. I can’t apply for poor relief – you only get that in the parish where you were born.’

Jimmy Mann said: ‘What about the quarry at Outhenham? They always need labour.’

Sal was doubtful. ‘Do they hire women?’ She had never been to Outhenham, but she knew all about men’s prejudices.

‘I don’t know, but you’re as strong as most men,’ Jimmy said.

‘That’s what bothers them.’

People wanted to be helpful, and they had all sorts of suggestions, but the ideas were speculative, and Sal and Kit could starve to death checking them out. After a while she thanked them all and took her leave, holding Kit’s hand.

Night had fallen while she was in the barn, but she found her way easily in the dark. Tomorrow evening she would be in a strange place.

Back at home she heated some broth for supper then put Kit to bed.

She sat by the fire for a while, brooding, then there was a knock at the door. Ike Clitheroe, Harry’s uncle, came in with Jimmy Mann. Jimmy was holding his three-cornered hat in his hands. ‘The friends had a collection,’ Uncle Ike said. ‘It’s not much.’ Jimmy showed her that his hat contained a small pile of pennies and a few shillings. Ike was right, it was not much, but it could be a crucial help in the next few desperate days. Homeless people had to buy food in taverns, where it cost more.

Jimmy poured the coins out on the table, a little stream of brown and silver. Sal knew how hard it was for poor people to give money away. ‘I can’t tell you...’ She choked up and started again. ‘I can’t tell you how grateful I am to have such good friends.’ And how miserable I am to be leaving them all behind, she thought.

Ike said: ‘God bless you, Sal.’

‘You too, and you, Jimmy.’

After they had gone she went to bed, but she did not fall asleep for a long time. People saidGod bless you, but sometimes God did not, and lately she had felt cursed. God had sent her good friends but also powerful enemies.

She thought of her Aunt Sarah, who had left the village voluntarily and gone to Kingsbridge to sell ballads on the street. Sal had always admired Sarah. Perhaps Sal, too, could prosper by leaving. Village life had never been what she wanted, before she met Harry.

Aunt Sarah had gone to Kingsbridge. Perhaps that was the place for Sal, too.

The more she thought about it, the better it seemed. She could get there in half a day, though the walk would be hard on Kit’s little legs. And she did know one person in the city: Amos Barrowfield. Perhaps she could continue to spin yarn for him. He might even help her to find a room where she and Kit could live.

She felt a little better having glimpsed some possibilities. She was exhausted and drained, and eventually sleep took over. However, she woke before dawn. Unsure what time it was, she moved about the house by the dim glow of the embers in the fireplace. She put together the few things she would take with her.

She had to take her mother’s spinning wheel. It was heavy, and she would have to carry it ten miles, but it might be her only means of making a living.

She had no spare clothes. She would wear her only dress, shoes and hat. She wished she had shoes for Kit, but he had never worn them before he went to work at the manor house. His coat was far too big, which was a blessing, for he would not grow out of it for years.

She would take her cookpot, kitchen knife, and what little food there was in the house. She hesitated over her father’s Bible, but decided to leave it. Kit could not eat a book.

She wondered whether she would ever have the money to hire a cart and fetch her furniture. There was not much of it – two beds, a table, two stools and a bench – but it had been made by Harry, and she loved it.

When the first hint of grey appeared in the sky beyond the fieldsto the east, she woke Kit and made porridge. Afterwards she washed the pot, the bowls and the spoons, and used an old piece of string to tie them in a bundle. She put the food in a sack and gave it to Kit to carry. Then they went out, and Sal closed the door, feeling sure she would never open it again.

They went first to St Matthew’s Church. There in the graveyard was a simple wooden crucifix withHarry Clitheroewritten neatly on its crosspiece in white paint.