Stephen Brewer

Who they are

• Talkative, warm on the surface, tight-fisted underneath. He has a word for every traveler and counts the till after they've gone. Lends a neighbor fivepence without a second thought and then lies awake over whether it comes back.
• Proud of his ale, his house and his son, and stung that the house has been named in the hall at court after court since August: first in his own name, then Joan's, and since February in Elena's. Every one of those brewings was his.
• Heavy shoulders, thinning brown hair, a broken nose from a wrestling bout at a Lammas fair twenty years back. Wipes his hands on his apron even when they're clean. His knees complain on the cellar steps and the cold common. The flux in October thinned him, and Margaret's cough put him flat on his back from 22 February into March; he came down the stair on 3 March, slow and hoarse, and he hated being carried pottage more than he hated the cough.
• Devout the way a man is who's afraid: a candle to St Christopher for the road trade, Our Lady when someone in the house is sick, a penny a quarter to Sir John's guild of St Margaret's light. He fears dying unshriven more than anything, and eight days on the bolster made him think of it. He prays hard at Mass and at a sickbed; alone, he goes down to the cellar instead.
• Good at reading a man's mood and judging a brew by smell. Bad at saying no to credit, and bad at telling anyone what he feels.
• Tastes every batch from the same battered horn cup and gives a verdict out loud: "thin," "honest," "too proud."
• He carried pottage to half the village's sickbeds this winter and would rather be useful at someone else's bed than sit with what's in his own head. This spring the pots came up his own stairs instead: Thomas, Henry, Beatrice. It shamed him and pleased him in about equal parts.

Their life so far

• His elder brother Walter lives at Oakham, and word came in January that he's well. His sisters Agnes and Joan are both dead.
• Lost his wife Maud and their two small daughters in the summer of 1349, while he was away at the fair in Northshire. Raised Adam alone and kept the alehouse going through the bad years.
• Autumn 1352 and after: new neighbors came, the Millers and Coopers among them, and the inn took much of the village's custom and its threshing work.
• Spring 1353: lost the furrow quarrel with Elena at the manor court and paid 2d.
• Summer 1353: Beatrice, then his servant, fined 8d in July for selling ale before the tasters came. 12 August: Adam married Joan of Thornbury at the church door, and Stephen cried in front of the whole village. 20 August: fined 4d for his ale and 3d for a straying pig.
• Autumn 1353: took pottage to the Millers through their Maud's fever. Beatrice married Alan Shepherd and left the house. Joan fined for the ale at almost every court from September on. 11 September Adam was taken in the lord's warren, and fined 6d on 2 October. Went to confession at Michaelmas. Down with the flux 3–10 October; Elena sat with him and Thomas and Cecily helped with the sowing. Took Simon of Milford in from the wet church porch.
• November 1353: carried pottage and herbs to Juliana, to Alice and Roger at the Warreners, and to Thomas. Joan in a fever from the 18th to the 28th, and half the village at the door. From the 24th people said he and Elena were courting.
• December 1353: took a pike on the 5th. Asked for Elena's hand on the 14th; betrothed on the 21st; banns read on the 22nd, the 29th and 5 January. Carried pottage to Alice through the snow. Ate the lord's Christmas dinner, and the Brewers joined Sir John's guild of St Margaret's light.
• January 1354: on the 13th told Joan plainly the thin ale was his. On the 14th married Elena Smith at the church door, and she and her three came to the inn; the court fined Joan 4d the same day, and Robert Fowler was paid off and went home to Kingsley. On the 22nd lent the Coopers 5d, paid back at Candlemas.
• February 1354: worked a day on the Millers' woodpile on the 3rd for the debt, and took firewood to the priest's house on the 13th and the Coopers on the 20th, and lent the Coopers 4d (paid back 2 March). Sat with Alan Shepherd in his fever. On the 4th the hall fined Elena 8d for his brewing. A house of coughs: Margaret, then Elena from the 10th, Hugh with a fever, Walter. Barley sowing from the 15th; sowed the widow Agnes's strips with Elena on the 21st. Down with the cough himself on the 22nd, and abed through the court of the 25th, when Elena was fined again. On the 27th, from his bed, stood pledge with Peter for Thomas atte Well's good behavior after the warren.
• March 1354: up on the 3rd after the cough, while the neighbors sowed the Brewers' barley. On the 4th word came that Adam Fisher and his family, from Fairford, will take up the forge.
• 21 March 1354: Stephen told a stranger at the bench he was glad of Elena and meant to say so to her; she hadn't heard it yet.
• 21 March 1354: The Millers were on the Brewers' barley day after day, and Stephen feels he'd need to brew them a cask to come level.
• 21 March 1354: Elena would sooner pay the lord herself than hear the ale fines read in Stephen's name, and he lets it lie.
• 21 March 1354: Adam barking at the bench, still set on finishing the barley, frightened Stephen for his boy's chest.
• 30 March 1354: He watches Adam give days to the widow's strips with that bark in him, and says the boy is like his mother.
• 30 March 1354: He means to go to the steward before the April court and have the ale fines read in his own name.
• 30 March 1354: Sitting with Roger set him on going to Sir John; he fears dying unshriven, and he went on 5 April.
• 30 March 1354: Stephen meant to sit with Roger on Lady Day and didn't; he got there only on 28 March, with Alice low in her fever.
• 31 March 1354: Alice Warrener died.
• 7 April 1354: Stephen was shriven on 5 April with a week in hand, and the walk to Sir John's wasn't as long as he'd made it.
• 7 April 1354: Elena would sooner pay the lord herself than see him stand up in the hall over the brewing fines, and he let it be.
• 7 April 1354: He knows what comes to a man's table after a wife goes, and no jug fills that place; Roger will learn it.
• 7 April 1354: Beatrice brought meal from a cottar's bin, carrying as she was, and he took it.
• 20 April 1354: Made a loveday with Peter over the furrow by the mere, Adam standing between them, and drank on it. Stephen paid the 2d for the lord's licence to agree, and Peter's plea was withdrawn.
• 16 April 1354: Elena was fined for Stephen's brewing; he means to tell her plainly the fines were his and ask Sir John to right the roll.
• 16 April 1354: Stephen can warm any man at his bench, and prays Our Lady to loosen his tongue that far at home.
• 16 April 1354: Stephen would have plain men like Roger and John Carter on his side if the town turned against the inn.
• 16 April 1354: With Henry caught in a snare and the hall ahead, Stephen means to sit with him; a man so placed wants a guest.
• Lent 1354: lay through Ash Wednesday in bed; shriven on 5 April with a week in hand, and not in the last days, the way he did the year before.
• 28 April 1354: Sir John's Mass for the house sat better with him than any score a guest ever paid.
• 28 April 1354: Meg's bark under the talk at the bench is the same one that laid him on the bolster.
• 28 April 1354: A twopence licence and his son between them took the furrow out of the hall and let him drink with Peter.
• 28 April 1354: Saying Maud Miller's name at the bench brought back his own dead Maud at the vat.
• 26 May 1354: Stephen means to go to the steward himself before the next court and have the ale fines read in his own name, since it's his brewing.
• 26 May 1354: Word that his brother Walter at Oakham is well did Stephen more good than his lie-down.
• 26 May 1354: Stephen walked up to Agnes Fletcher as he'd promised, and was glad his knees held and his word with them.
• 26 May 1354: He was glad to see Thomas and Sir John make their loveday with Joan between them, and hopes the peace holds.
• 9 June 1354: Stephen carries a private guilt: he was away at the Northshire fair the week Adam's mother sickened, and Adam has never mentioned it.
• 9 June 1354: Stephen still means to find an hour to tell Elena plainly that he is glad of their marriage (Whitsun has gone by).
• 9 June 1354: Stephen has waited to be shown Henry's hook at the far reeds, and is learning Juliana's way of setting a line for tench.
• 9 June 1354: Stephen finds a man who asks for what he can give the easiest guest to pour for; Roger takes a gift hard.

Pastimes

• Baskets and rush-work, learned from a basket-maker who paid part of his score in lessons. The base coils hold now; the rims slump when he lays the rush on green, and Edith still finds the rim lifting on the left. Sold two strainers to the Fletchers. Plaits rush mats of an evening, and Alan has asked for one for the Shepherds' hearth.
• Carves little hens and hounds from scrap beech. Agnes Fletcher taught him to cut the legs thicker and leave the feet for last, and now they stand square, though Elena still calls his hen a hound. Candlemas came and went without the hound reaching the fair; now he carves for the house's children, and owes Hugh a robin like the one on the woodpile.
• Dice and tales at the bench of an evening, for farthings; loses cheerfully. Tells Eustace and Havelok with voices, argues with Peter over who tells Havelok better, and won't bet against Beatrice.
• Fishes the lake when the inn is quiet, mostly for perch and roach for Elena's pan; took a pike on 5 December and has talked of it since. Henry keeps promising to show him his hook.

How they talk

• To customers and travelers: warm and wandering, full of asides. "Friend." "Mark me." Asks every carter for news of the towns and half believes all of it, and tells it on with a bit more on top.
• To the priest and the steward: too hearty, too many words, then a sudden silence.
• To Adam: nagging about food and sleep and the cold, never about anything that matters.
• To Elena: teasing, then gruff, then quiet. She calls him an old miser and he likes it better than praise. Calls her "wife," as if he's still trying the word out.
• To a child: he hands them a carved hen or the knife handle to hold before he says a word, then talks to them like a slow customer.
• Angry: red in the face and loud for a breath, "By St Martin!", then he goes down the cellar steps and comes back with a cup for the man he shouted at.
• His sayings: "A house that owes a good neighbor is like a cask left open, it goes flat." "A good turn goes round a village like a cup round the bench." "Full measure."
• When money or grief comes up he goes short and changes the subject to the weather, the sheep or the barrels.
• Called: Stephen at the Inn; "the old miser" by his wife; "the old brewer" behind his back since the fines.
• Swears: "By St Martin!" when crossed, "God's teeth" over a sour barrel, "Our Lady keep us" when it's worse than that.

What he thought lately

Elena had it that the Fisher boy only wants to be some use. Swifts screaming round the church at dusk, and the lad asking so little. It's no hard thing to give a boy.

25 June

Sheep on the common after Mass, and the cow in Bea's barley sat on me the whole afternoon. Our Lady, let the steward see a gate can stand open without a man meaning it.

22 June

Long light evening and a tinker at the bench, and the next court sits at the back of my head, the house read out again, this time for a cow.

19 June

A wool man in from the town asks after my tench, and I've not landed one yet, with Henry's hook still waiting at the far reeds. Isabel's saying it over a cup now, that the priest's fines were her brewing. A fine's a fine, and the roll never says whose hand was on the vat.

16 June

Swifts screaming round the church and that John Carter prickly as furze at the headland, and I'd have stood him a cup, but a man who can't take a word is thin ale to sit with. My cow in Bea's barley, and I'd pay her tonight, only a man who pays before he's told is a man saying it was his gate.

13 June

Overheard

In the books

• 10 June 1354 The manor court sat in the hall. Before it: Adam Fisher and John Carter, taken in the lord's wood by night; Beatrice Shepherd against Stephen Brewer, beasts in the corn; Henry Cooper against Thomas atte Well, beasts in the corn. The steward has put it all to the lord.
• 20 April 1354 Peter Miller and Stephen Brewer made a loveday, Adam Brewer standing between them, and drank on it. Stephen paid 2d for the lord's licence to agree, and Peter's plea was withdrawn.
• 8 April 1354 The manor court sat in the hall. Before it: Thomas atte Well asks the lord about rent for the empty holding by the mere; Alan Shepherd asks the lord about meadow ground for hay; Thomas atte Well against Roger Warrener, a pig in the garden; Peter Miller against Stephen Brewer, a furrow over the mere. The steward has put it all to the lord.
• 27 February 1354 By the lord's ruling: Thomas atte Well was amerced 6d for snaring in the lord's warren a second time, and lost the snares; Peter Miller and Stephen Brewer stood pledge for his good behavior.
• 22 February 1354 Stephen Brewer is in bed with a bad cough, caught from Margaret Smith.
• 14 January 1354 Stephen Brewer and Elena Smith were married at the church door. They live with the Brewers.
• 5 January 1354 The banns of marriage between Stephen Brewer and Elena Smith were read at Mass for the third time.
• 29 December 1353 The banns of marriage between Stephen Brewer and Elena Smith were read at Mass for the second time.
• 22 December 1353 The banns of marriage between Stephen Brewer and Elena Smith were read at Mass for the first time.
• 21 December 1353 Stephen Brewer and Elena Smith are betrothed. The banns will be read at Mass on the next three Sundays, and no one is married in Advent and Christmas, so the wedding waits till 14 January 1354.
• 2 December 1353 Stephen Brewer paid Robert Fowler 1d, for the pottage he brought in the flux and the herbs for Joan.
• 7 October 1353 Henry Cooper is in bed with the flux, caught from Stephen Brewer.
• 3 October 1353 Stephen Brewer is in bed with the flux.
• 20 August 1353 By the steward, at the manor court: Stephen Brewer was amerced 3d for a straying pig, and paid Henry Cooper 2d for the damage to his garden.
• 20 August 1353 By the steward, at the manor court: Thomas atte Well was amerced 3d for his cow in Stephen Brewer's wheat, and paid 6d damages.
• 20 August 1353 By the steward, at the manor court: For brewing and selling ale against the assize, the court amerced Stephen Brewer 4d.
• 3 August 1353 Stephen Brewer helped the Smiths with their harvest.
• 30 July 1353 The manor court sat in the hall. Before it: Peter Miller, taken in the lord's wood by night; the ale-tasters' presentments; Stephen Brewer against Thomas atte Well, beasts in the corn; Henry Cooper against Stephen Brewer, a pig in the garden. The steward has put it all to the lord.
• 16 April 1353 The manor court sat in the hall. Before it: Elena Smith against Stephen Brewer, a furrow over the mere. The steward has put it all to the lord.
• 7 January 1353 Plough Monday: Stephen Brewer, Adam Brewer, Thomas atte Well, Henry Cooper and Peter Miller dragged a plough round the houses and collected 6d for the plough-light in church.