The Dirty Duck

By Kaela Street

As a young girl, Victoria lived with her sister and family in a hut by a forest, on land owned by the Lord of the Manor. Following the death of her father, she is given the opportunity of working in the local inn. Victoria's honesty and ability to read and write, led her to become the Landlady of the village inn. War and pestilence visit the village and shape her memories, while the Blacksmith grounds her in reality. A simple short story from the time when things were simpler, and shorter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9781326943127

Book preview

The Dirty Duck

The Dirty Duck

Telling the simple story about the youth and education of a young girl who lived in times gone by. Her life and times are chronicled in this work to recount the struggle of life in early England and of those who lived by their wits, strength and courage.

Written by: Kaela Street.

Dedication

Dedicated to my dear sweet Femina, for without her guidance and concern for my own health, this work would not have been created. Thank you darling. I love you.

Copyright © Kaela Street

The right of Kaela Street to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All Rights Reserved

ISBN 978-1-326-94287-8

Chapter 1 The Silver Coin

The small fire was already starting to glow and the old woman that shared our house was busy making hot water for the chores of the day. I lay still a moment, my younger sister still sleeping next to me. Half the room hidden by a curtain and therein slept two men, and they were waking. I could hear them yawning, stretching and cursing their backs. My older brother, in his twenties now and bent from the work in the fields, and still suffering from the wounds given to him by a wild boar in the woods nearby, complained the day was cold and raining again. I listened and could hear the dripping of the light rain as it seeped through the thatch and dripped down one of the uprights that kept the roof in place. But inside our house, the smoky air gave us warmth and an envelope of warmer security.

My father, for that’s what he tells me, donned his soft boots and made the same noises as he did every morning, like tying his long waxed laces was some kind of ritual. He was the only one to have real boots; the rest of us made do with bare feet, and that meant we were able to keep them cleaner. I chuckled as I listened to his unseen antics. My younger sister started to stir and cuddled me for warmth, not that she was cold, but waking from sleep always found her looking for comfort. Like me, she was probably hungry. We were always hungry.

The old woman poured some hot water into a wooden mug, infusing some leaves and some sweet root into it and set it on the hearth by the fire. I watched her pull her shawl closer about her face, tucking in wisps and traces of silver hair. She was bundling up to go outside in the rain and I knew I would not see her until I returned from the fields with the others. I tugged on my sister, cajoled her to start the day with the rest of us, she stretched and yawned and sat up with me, still holding my hand. I told her it was raining and she had better go outside and do her toilet before getting dressed or she would be wet all day long. She slipped from the bed and pushed the curtain aside to go out; the dull daylight entered the room and split the smoky air with a damp shaft of cold morning light.

She returned moments later, wet and shivering, I pulled her to me as I got out of bed and tried to dry her as much as I could while gathering her long hair into a bun on the top of her head. She was talking, chattering about this that and the other. I wondered where she could find so many words first thing in the morning, but it made for an entertainment that I looked forward to. My father pushed through the curtain with my brother in line and he took from the hearth the wooden mug, sipped it and sat down picking up a piece of bread that was on the small table by the fire.

My brother took a sip from the cup to wake his senses, and then he gloomily turned to the doorway, pulled aside the blankets covering the door and disappeared outside to start his day.

Eating his bread, father told me that he was thinking we might have to move back to the village nearby for the winter. He said the ground we had was too small and too far away, but it was the only ground we had to grow the potatoes, the leeks, and the greens we need. Without them we had nothing to eat. He reminded me that it was time to collect as much wood as I could these coming days, for soon, the winters cold will reach in and take the warmth from our bones, and if we did not have a fire, we would all freeze in our beds.

My sister, all bundled up went outside to feed the chickens in the pen beside the house, with scraps from the day before and anything she could find nearby to keep them going. We had not seen an egg from these birds in a long time and my father kept threatening to sell them in the