The Servant's Tale

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THE HOUSE SAT on the muddy track beyond the village church, drawn back with its two neighbors from Prior Byfield’s single broad street. Like the other village houses, it was framed in heavy, square-cut timbers, roofed with thatch, walled with wattle and daub thinly plastered. The doorsill of its single door sat nearly flush to the ground, with a single slab of stone in front of it against the wear of feet and coming dirt.

Meg’s first task every morning since she had come as Barnaby’s bride had been to scrub or broom the sill and stone; it hurt now to see them scabbed with mud and realize she was simply too tired to bother. Instead, she stood in the doorway, staring into the inner shadows, waiting for her eyes to grow used to it, glad for just this small respite from doing.

It was Christmastide and cold with a damp, spoiled blackness that sank into the bones. In a few days it would be New Year’s, 1434, though some said the year did not begin until March, and some few others that it began with the winter solstice just past. At any rate, it was the tenth year of King Henry VI, not that it really mattered to her. One year and then another, and each worse than the one before, no matter what she did or how hard she tried, so what was the use of trying?

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