The Unwritten

By Claire Temple

Longlisted for the Exeter Novel Prize in 2021, The Unwritten is A Robin Hood tale in its true and original guise of class rebellion.

 

England, 1369. Nor Sawsham, a clever peasant woman born in the wake of the Black Death, is forced into an abusive arranged marriage that produces no children. She realises her father-in-law, the ambitious and cruel Bailiff, will not let a little thing like her life stand in the way of his and his son's advancement.

 

Escape is no small thing and in doing so she finds other misfits like herself. Together they must find a way to survive outside the bounds of common law. Nothing is certain. Meanwhile, her father-in-law will not give up his mission to make his son a widower…

 

This exciting historical adventure shows the working-class Fourteenth Century world to be, far from the staid feudal dullness of school history, as turbulent and diverse as our own.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Claire Temple
• Release date: Jan 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9781739769901

Book preview

Part One

Chapter One

A bruise the colour of sunrise. I examined my side at the edge of our strip in Top Field. There was a mist burning off the soil that the first red light had pierced and my flesh was the same colour as this haze. A crimson bloom on my skin. Droplets of dew wobbled on blackthorn branches in the grey air. I dropped my skirt and stepped away from where I had taken a piss. I was tired of expectations of me to know without being told. To behave myself. Already cold to my bones, my hip tingled as I walked, but my face was numb. And the decision was lodged in my heart like a hard seed.

Forgive me, a tale cannot begin in its middle. My name is Eleanor Sawsham, but I have only ever been called Nor. My kin said Saws Hamlet was long gone from our lord’s land, a Franklin, and no one remembers where it lay. Half a name and another from a village that has disappeared. I was born when The Great Pestilence went away, so my sister Maud told me. She was the one who would speak of it.

I would play with her and her friends in the two abandoned houses on the edge of our lands. Places where a whole family had died. We were not the generation that knew them. The older children laughed when I did not know a game and called me a poppet-with-a-cloth-head, although my big sister Maud would fight them if they got nasty. They said that here more than half our village had died and would try to scare me with tales of ghosts among the ashy remnants of homes. All of the empty houses were gone but for these two. Good timbers reused would be my guess. In my young imagination, I was alarmed to think of our fields so full of people, shoulder against shoulder as on market-day in town. They would have trampled all the crops like cattle untended. We knew that to get caught within the rotting and half-collapsed wattles would mean a whipping. Our father would do it for idleness, our mother because she believed the plague lived on in the empty rooms, now open to the sky where the thatch had been burnt.

Images crowded in my mind of that time of death and despair. A time mentioned by the grown-ups, but never spoken of. Maud would tell me stories when we sat alone, either hiding in those old cottages, or out of sight in the barn. I would ask her to tell me about our brothers. In the retelling, they grew more and more angelic. Once I was a little older, I realised that there could have been no golden-hair-shining-like-sunlight because there was none in our family. Maud’s is dark red and mine is black. But the boys were real. Were quick with life. One older and one younger than Maud. The younger still a babe that followed his big brother about everywhere. And their deaths were sudden. One late spring day they were all in the yard with two cows after milking and the youngest started coughing and fell on the ground (this is the part where I tried to push my sister for more details, but she would clamp her lips shut and say nothing until I promised to be quiet).

Our mother Alice rushed to the little boy, but also had the sense to push her daughter into the arms of our aunt who lifted Maud up and took her back to her house. She never saw her brothers again. She was but six or seven and drifted around her uncle’s home for days with little to do. Everyone was too busy to speak to her. Maybe afraid to give her awful news. Then, over morning ale, her aunt started to cough and staggered away from the table. All was commotion and haste. Our mother had gone and then she was there, a shadow at the doorway of the house. A house that went to a cousin. She moved from the bright light, picked up my tall sister (who I must remember was little then) and strode to the river.

The day was warm and Maud was happy to splash and play under the overhanging oaks and willows, pleased to be back with whom she belonged. And had water poured upon her that sparkled in the sun. But when she looked up, her naked mother, with a belly barely swollen with the child that would be me, was praying and weeping.

And so my father’s two boys were dead and he got no more sons by my mother. It made him bitter, but she filled us up with her love. She taught us. She was an angel back then. More than our tasks and our manners. Her stories and songs were the finest I ever heard. I liked to hear tales of Robyn Hood best, more than faraway princesses and knights. In our woods I could imagine him, the bold and honest yeoman who lived in wild sylvas and took what the people needed from the King’s and Lords’ forests, their hunting grounds.

More than these good things, our mother would scratch letters and numbers in the dirt with a stick and then connect them up into words and simple sums. Her and me found some charred sticks by the barn that produced nice black marks on the walls. There were no psalters, glosses or prayer books in our house. My mother would smile down at me and I would feel that here was a great secret I must keep. Maud never took to it. She was impatient to be with other children and not always at her mother’s skirt, but I was that much younger, and one day Mother looked up from collecting eggs and saw I was writing a word for myself. I can see my fingers blackened from the charcoal and how Mother towered over me, her hazel eyes bright under her hood. I do not remember what I wrote. A simple word. I heard her intake of breath and looked up, anxious in case I had made her angry.

‘Wait here,’ she said.

I hopped on one foot and then the other and wanted to chase the chickens around the yard. She came back with an old casket. Dark and carved, the wood smoothed and the impressions shallow. Mother said it was all she had from my grandfather, a master mason.

The letters that were in the box were my reading growing up. A lot of them were dull matters of account.

‘For the matter of fifty undressed stone and their dressing, by way of payment for purchase and labour as agreed upon Michaelmas last...’

‘Summa of works to be summed mending of porch window as agreed. Stone sourced and dressed to a fine colour, notwithstanding labour of building. Your lordships must yet seek a glazier before work would begin. If there be none fit to work hereabout...’

Mundane reckonings. Poor stories for a child, but that was all my mother had. One or two were Latin prayers and even verses from old songs copied out. Of course, that precious parchment was re-used. Most had the ghost of old words underneath my grandfather’s. A mystery hand leading me back to earlier times. A younger, more uncertain scribe had copied out some of the verses for practice and in yet another hand was half of a love letter, blotted and finished half-way through a word.

‘...and if yet you would seek permission...’

My mother never admitted that any of the writing was hers.

I was around seven years old and had the box open on our table once. The age Maud was when I was born. I held a spoon, ready to stir the pot, while Mother rolled up some dumplings. If there was ever chance to be idle in our house, it was best not to look so. My father Godwyn came storming in from the yard in a temper. There was no surprise in that. He snatched up the letter I was sounding out and took it to the fire. My mother gave a sharp intake of breath. I watched and in my mind saw the letter burnt and then the whole sheaf.

‘It is all I have.’ Mother was always meek towards him, but her voice rang through the house and seemed to echo off the beams, although it cannot have done.

My father stopped. His fists clenched to lash out. The letter crumpled between his fingers, but the page did not matter now. I looked down at the table, willing myself not to cry and provoke him more.

The injured letter appeared in front of my eyes. I snatched it from the table and smoothed it back into the box.

‘Do not fill their heads with old nonsense, woman. Schooling breeds disobedience.’

No doubt he meant the tutorage of girls. He never questioned the actions of his betters who would school their sons if they could. Father went back outside without a strike upon any of us.

There were days when widower John Laws and his children came. He pretended friendship to my father, but his eyes were always cold. His children followed his example and would behave as if our house was there for their inspection. Master Laws was Bailiff. I wonder now at what age his children knew of his power to condemn others. He took it upon himself to be more than the Franklin’s fist. The eldest, Sarah, was a little older than Maud and their enmity was well-known amongst us children. They would find ways to keep apart. Her pinched, white face always seeking something or someone to torment. Sarah’s younger brother, Abel, was around my age. The adults thought our matched years made us suitable playmates, but they were wrong.

A dinner so strained with politeness we might as well have been puppets was done. On a bright spring day. The time of year when my mother would stare off into the distance and be left alone. We knew she prayed more at this time for the boys she lost. Our platters and the best earthenware bowl were washed, and all of us had gone to amuse ourselves or work. The afternoon sun slanted through the window where the shutters were thrown open. I went to the corner where I kept my own few things. Here was the box of letters and on it a corn dolly my mother had made for me the previous harvest. Except the twist of straw was not there. I saw it in Abel’s careless fist, shredded. Everywhere he wrought destruction. He was like a wall moving inside a room where a wall should not be.

I ran out into the sunshine across our first field. I knew it would be no good to face him and I did not want him to see me cry. I did not look back and ran straight to my favourite place by the river where there were stepping stones. The water was high at this time after rain and frothed white and brown between submerged rocks. No one should swim here now with the river like this. You could hardly see the shallow, stony bank. My best place to throw things into the deeper part. The muddied flood water swirled high with force. I sat with my back against an old beech and flung pebbles so that they made a satisfying sound as they sank. Footsteps crunched on dry leaves and I stood up when Abel found me. He looked like a dog that has found its prey staring back and for a moment does not know what to do next.

‘I know why your father brings you with him.’ He said nothing over the rush of the torrent. ‘He does it to pretend that he does not need you to be working on his lands.’

Talking would be my method where strength was not equal.

‘I do work. You think you are clever, but I am schooled. You are a stupid girl.’

I was nearer the river. Abel towered above me and, as if fortune wished to put me in more danger, Sarah wandered through the trees with an amused smirk on her lean face and stood by him. I turned my chin up at them.

‘Tell me what you learn then. Tell me a sum.’

Abel picked up and brandished a fat branch.

‘You will feel this stick if you do not shut up.’

‘Ego piscator. Et navigantibus mare. Ego sum venandi. Equitare silvae.’

I am still not sure what I hoped to gain from my words. Sarah stepped forward and grabbed my dress high up near my throat. Close enough to breathe in the mushroom scent of her breath.

‘Who teaches you that?’

I realised I could not tell the truth and betray my mother. Sarah saw her advantage in my silence.

‘I think you spy on the boys.’

‘Nay.’

‘You want to be a boy.’

‘Nay.’

‘I can cut your hair off for you.’

She grabbed my messy half-loose plait and I was afraid she had a knife and meant to do it. I pulled away from her and saw Abel smile. I struggled then.

‘Let go. I will tell it was you. I will tell.’

Sarah was twice my age and must have thought my cries pathetic. She let go with a snort of disgust. I took some steps up the muddy bank, but perhaps Abel had a mind that I would head back to the house and carry out my threat. His body bowled me backwards and my feet ran under me. He did not stop until I was at the edge of the stony part of the bank. The ankle-deep water soaked into my boots and I had to hold onto him to keep my footing. Sarah laughed as she walked away.

‘Stop playing in the mud, Abel.’

His face was pushed up to mine and I saw a look of fury cross it. His sister might be far older, but she should not speak to him like that. Icy blue eyes, like his father.

‘You stay silent. No one tells around here if they want to live a long life. Understand?’

Now I can look back, I think what he said was a recitation he had learned from somewhere else. Did he give me a further shove or just let go of my arms? As he climbed back up the bank, I was so close to the deeper part the current caught my dress. I twisted my body as I slipped. Water crashed over to tear me downstream, but my hands found a rock. It knocked the breath out of me. The place to cross was almost gone, submerged in the flood.

My hands slipped on the water-worn stone, but I clung on with my arms. It took all the strength I had to resist the brown foam that wanted me for itself. My head ducked under once or twice and the sound of the rushing torrent filled my ears. I heard Abel’s voice, untroubled, above the noise.

‘Put your foot down.’

‘It...is too deep.’

The mossy branch he held before appeared in my vision. Was Abel trying to save me? He waved it from the safety of the bank. A little out of my reach. I knew at any moment the river might drown me or throw me to the sharp rocks below and break my bones. I was not strong enough to stretch out one hand and keep my hold. Perhaps Abel realised that. He waved the broken tree limb under my nose and in one quick movement I slammed my hand over it, back down onto the safety of the stone. I paused to gather my strength again. There were no words of encouragement and the water began to pull at my link to safety. I chanced a look at the bank. Abel had gone.

Little by little, I pushed the slimy wood along so that it was under both of my hands, but the moss was wettened, and the idea to brace the log behind the rock like a kind of yoke was too much. With my two hands on the branch, I was whipped away from that familiar bend in the stream to my doom. Children died all the time, and this would be my turn.

My wool skirt was heavy, but the beam floated. Before I could think what had happened, it jammed between two boulders and I slid underneath it. With all my small muscles taut I pulled until I got my armpits over the branch, my legs still drawn downstream. It had saved me despite Abel’s abandonment. What to do now? I reached out with my foot. My skirt was tangled round, but inch by inch I pushed with my ankle and with relief got a foothold on the left-hand rock beneath the water. The wood bowed as I pulled my way along it and by the time I hauled myself onto the saving slab my teeth chattered. Never had warmed stone been so welcome. From my resting place the river seemed more benign again until I heard the blessed limb snap and be carried away. I tried to undo my rope belt, but the water had sealed the knot tight. Instead, I lifted my dress up to my waist and bared my arms and legs to the sun until my shivers lessened.

Like all children would I started to cry when my mother saw me. My clothes dripped and my hair must have been a sight. My father and Master Laws were sat back at our table. They had spent their afternoon working their way through mother’s ale, then. I told her Abel pushed me in the oxen’s drinking trough and the men laughed.

I was not going to admit that I had been near the river where I was told not to go, but I also did not want Abel to be free of blame. My tale was all children’s games to the men and Abel was not punished.

Nay, it was I who was beaten the next morning. After my clothes had dried by the fire and I had long forgot my peril. Not for falling in the trough, or because anyone guessed where I had been. I was punished for asking questions. The day before, with a blanket over my shift, I sat at the table to eat a little bread. Mother was keen for me to sleep early for fear I might catch a fever. At first, the men found my innocence amusing, but they soon tired of it. Mother had made me into a curious person and I would not be tamed.

‘Why is it Mother who cooks and serves at table? Master Fowler is a cook at the manor house...Why can I not wear hose and a tunic like Abel? It is much better for running. (I did not say much better for not drowning in...)... Why do you not you let mother talk about money with Master Laws? You could learn how to cook, Father... Why did God make the world the way it is? Who says so?... But why?... But why?’

Chapter Two

I was luckier than poor Stephen, a boy chosen by Sarah and Abel for extra torment that summer. Before Sarah considered herself too old for playing. Many in the village said she was already a young woman and should have been better employed at home. I heard gossip when the women thought I was not listening that it was a pity she lacked a mother. Stephen was weak and limped from some affliction he was born with. His family were poor incomers. Poorer than us. After the time when death ruled, their labour was welcomed, but they rented no land themselves. They worked both the Lord’s demesne and for larger leaseholders like John Laws for their bread and ale. Not many were now fully bondsmen like them.

I do not know the offence that caused Sarah and Abel to think up such an elaborate plan, but it was my misfortune to stumble upon them carrying it out. In the far sylva, where wild herbs grew thickest, I collected what I could for the pot and for Mother’s remedies. The Laws children were in a clearing, bent over and looking down. I knew here was a ditch. They must have covered it as a trap and chased Stephen in to fall like a woodland animal. They were laughing hard at his cries of ‘My leg! My leg!’. I turned back to get help, but the undergrowth was too tangled for stealth and Sarah called out.

‘I see you, Nor Sawsham.’

I was still a good way off from the ditch and Stephen’s wails of pain. Sarah’s face was now solemn in the sunny patch where rank weeds grew. Framed by the shadow of the trees I stayed under.

‘One word and we find a dark hole for you too.’ She looked over her shoulder to her brother. ‘Pull him out now.’

Abel did not take his eyes from the trap he had created. His gaze was intense and showed no pity.

‘We said he would stay there till morning.’

‘But that was for sport. I will help.’

‘Nay.’ Abel faced his sister. ‘He stays.’

There was a pause before Sarah gave a half shrug and walked away by a different path to mine. I hurried away too, my heartbeat fast in my throat. I am ashamed now to admit I did not have the courage to speak of what had happened. Not even to Maud. As I pushed aside brambles and trod down ferns I realised I was very afraid, but not of Sarah.

In the night rain fell. I awoke to the patter of drops on the thatch above my head, being so close to it where we slept. I willed it to be a light summer downfall. I prayed for it to stop, to no avail. A wind picked up and threw spatters against the shutters like grains winnowed. I tried not to think of water filling the ditch, but my dreams sloshed and murmured.

The next day was clear and I saw Abel from far off, his straw hair stuck down and his clothes weighed with water, walking from the woods towards his house. He wore no expression and I do not know what excuse he gave to his father. Maybe he found a task to do outside till he dried. I do not know if Stephen managed to climb up from the ditch or whether Abel helped him up once he decided he had suffered enough. A few days later Stephen died from a fever. Mother said a cut on his leg went bad. No one looked for any reasons why he might have got such a wound. Children died all the time. I never saw Sarah play such games after that.

After harvest time, there was merry-making in our nearest marketplace. People came from all the villages while there was still good light and warmth. It was a small town, although I had no sense of that then. One church and a disused castle at the top of a hill. The curved market streets built close around the old broken bailey. There was much horseshit, noise and the rattle of carts. Keepers cried their wares from the front of their houses, each with a dark workshop within. Maud had scrubbed her dress clean and braided her hair tight and was away walking with my cousins. Sparks flew from a smithy and I huddled close to Mother, still not accustomed to the narrow streets.

As we entered the broad way where the jugglers and musicians were, I saw Abel by the fat stone pillars of the trading place. His father must have been inside haggling for the Franklin’s grain. Some of which I suppose we had grown and forfeited as rent. He looked around out of the corners of his eyes to guard his father’s covered cart. Perhaps there were no farmhands to spare. Mother chattered to me of all she knew of the town, but I could not listen. Abel’s hand never left his belt, ready to pull out his knife. And take on the law here? Could he carry out his threat? I felt a stab of fear that made my flesh cold. A feeling that made me put my head down as we walked by. I prayed that he would not notice me.

* * *

And so a winter and a summer passed. The Laws’ successes grew, but then John Laws was Bailiff. Mother would explain to me how he took all the taxes and seemed to grow almost as much as his master in wealth. Maud was scornful of her old enemy.

‘What does Mistress Sarah know? She gets no place at table.’

Given her father’s