“I hope so.”
“Let’s drink a cup of wine together to seal the bargain,” she said. “I’ll just pay the carter.”
The ox cart was empty and the wool stacked neatly. Philip and Francis stepped outside while Aliena settled up with the carter. The sun was going down and the building workers were walking back to their homes. Philip’s elation returned. He had found a way to carry on, despite all the setbacks. “Thank God for Aliena!” he said.
“You didn’t tell me she was so beautiful,” Francis said.
“Beautiful? I suppose she is.”
Francis laughed. “Philip, you’re blind! She’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. She’s enough to make a man give up the priesthood.”
Philip looked sharply at Francis. “You ought not to talk like that.”
“Sorry.”
Aliena came out and locked the barn; then they went into her home. It was a large house with a main room and a separate bedroom. There was a beer barrel in the corner, a whole ham hanging from the ceiling, and a white linen cloth on the table. A middle-aged woman servant poured wine from a flask into silver goblets for the guests. Aliena lived comfortably. If she’s so beautiful, Philip wondered, why hasn’t she got a husband? There was no shortage of aspirants: she had been courted by every eligible young man in the county, but she had turned them all down. He felt so grateful to her that he wanted her to be happy.
Her mind was still on practicalities. “I won’t have the money until after the Shiring Fleece Fair,” she said when they had toasted their agreement.
Philip turned to Francis. “Will Maud wait?”
“How long?”
“The fair is three weeks from Thursday.”
Francis nodded. “I’ll tell her. She’ll wait.”
Aliena untied her headdress and shook out her curly dark hair. She gave a tired sigh. “The days are too short,” she said. “I can’t get everything done. I want to buy more wool but I’ve got to find enough carters to take it all to Shiring.”
Philip said: “And next year you’ll have even more.”
“I wish we could make the Flemish come here to buy. It would be so much easier for us than taking all our wool to Shiring.”
Francis interjected: “But you can.”
They both looked at him. Philip said: “How?”
“Hold your own fleece fair.”
Philip began to see what he was driving at. “Can we?”
“Maud gave you exactly the same rights as Shiring. I wrote your charter myself. If Shiring can hold a fleece fair, so can you.”
Aliena said: “Why, that would be wonderful—we wouldn’t have to cart all these sacks to Shiring. We could do the business here, and ship the wool directly to Flanders.”
“That’s the least of it,” Philip said excitedly. “A fleece fair makes as much in a week as a Sunday market makes in a whole year. We can’t do it this year, of course—nobody will know about it. But we can spread the news, at this year’s Shiring Fleece Fair, that we’re going to hold our own next year, and make sure all the buyers know the date. ...”
Aliena said: “It will make a big difference to Shiring. You and I are the biggest sellers of wool in the county, and if we both withdraw, the Shiring fair will be less than half its usual size.”
Francis said: “William Hamleigh will lose money. He’ll be as mad as a bull.”
Philip could not help a shudder of revulsion. A mad bull was just what William was like.
“So what?” said Aliena. “If Maud has given us permission, we can go ahead. There’s nothing William can do about it, is there?”
“I hope not,” Philip said fervently. “I certainly hope not.”
