===OO=OOO=OO===
For some way south of London the road was good enough, passing through the fields that fed the capital, now brown and bare. The sky had settled to a still milky white and the weather held. At noon we stopped for dinner near Eltham, then shortly afterwards we crested the North Downs and saw laid out before us the ancient forest of the Weald, bare treetops dotted with the occasional evergreen stretching to the misty horizon.
The road became narrower, set beneath steep wooded banks half-choked with fallen leaves, little trackways leading off to remote hamlets. Only the occasional carter passed us. By late afternoon we reached the little market town of Tonbridge and turned south. We kept a sharp lookout for robbers, but all we saw was a herd of deer foraging in a lane; as we rounded a corner the silly creatures clambered up the bank and disappeared into the forest.
Dusk was falling when we heard the tolling of a church bell through the trees. Turning another bend, we found ourselves in the single street of a hamlet, a poor place of thatched wattle houses but with a fine Norman church and, next to it, an inn. All the windows of the church were filled with candles, a rich glow filtering through the stained glass. The bell tolled, on and on.
'The All Souls' service,' Mark observed.
'Yes, the whole village will be in church praying for the relief of their dead in purgatory.'
We rode slowly down the street, little blond children peeping suspiciously from doorways. Few adults were about. The sound of Mass being chanted reached us from the open doors of the church.
In those days All Souls' Day was one of the greatest events in the calendar. In every church parishioners met to hear Masses and say prayers to help the passage through purgatory of kin and friends. Already the ceremony was stripped of royal authority, and soon it would be forbidden. Some said it was cruel to deprive people of comfort and remembrance. But it is surely a gentler thing to know that one's kin are, according to God's will, either in heaven or hell, than to believe they are in purgatory, a place of torment and pain they must endure perhaps for centuries.
We dismounted stiffly at the inn, tying our horses to the rail. The building was a larger version of the others; mud and wattle with the plaster falling away in places and a high thatched roof reaching down to the first-floor windows.
Inside a fire burned in a circular grate in the middle of the floor in the old manner, as much smoke filling the room as escaped through the round chimney above. Through the gloom a few bearded ancients peered curiously at us from their dice. A fat man in an apron approached, keen eyes taking in our expensive furs. I asked for a room and a meal, which he offered us for sixpence. Struggling to follow his thick, guttural accent, I beat him down to a groat. Having confirmed the way to Scarnsea and ordered warm ale, I took a seat by the fire while Mark went out to supervise the stabling of the horses.
I was glad when he rejoined me, for I was tired of being stared at by the clutch of old men. I had nodded to them but they turned their heads away.
'They're a hard-eyed bunch,' Mark whispered.
'They won't see many travellers. And no doubt they believe hunchbacks bring bad luck. Oh come, it's what most people think. I've seen men cross themselves at my approach often enough, for all my fine clothes.'
We ordered supper and were served a greasy mutton stew with heavy ale. The sheep, Mark grumbled, was long dead. In the course of the meal a group of villagers arrived, in their best clothes, the Hallowtide services apparently over. They sat together, talking in sombre voices. Occasionally they glanced over at us, and we had more nosy looks and hostile faces.