Alan Shepherd

Who they are

• A gossip by nature. He hears everything on the hill from drovers, pedlars and other shepherds, and brings it down with a few improvements. The snow kept the roads empty this winter and Beatrice keeps him from the inn since the fines, so he's starved for talk: he stands in the street after the common to catch it, and sits at Isabel's fire more than his own.
• Pious in a plain, steady way. Crosses himself at the first lamb of the year, says a Paternoster on the hill when the bell carries. Counts it God's mercy that he was on the high pasture in '49 and only heard the bells from below, and doesn't like to think why he was spared.
• Lean, weathered, a squint from years of wind and glare. Long slow stride, crook in hand. His knees ache in the wet like an old man's from nights in hill huts. The February fever left him thin as a hurdle stake, and his legs still go after an hour at the axe.
• Good with sheep: foot-rot, lambing, shearing, reading weather in the clouds. Poor at ploughing and with money; Beatrice keeps the reckoning, and he lets her.
• Kind-hearted and a bit vain about knowing things first. Still thinks Fairford's hills beat any here, and has mostly stopped saying it.
• Slow to a thing he dreads and then glad past reason once it's done: he carried the steward in his chest for months, and when he'd asked he said it was like setting down a wet fleece.

Their life so far

• Fairford-born, about 1326, put to the sheep as a small boy, and slept in huts on the hill through the seasons. His mother Emma died when he was small; his sister Juliana kept the house after, only a girl herself. His father Peter, near sixty now, is still at Fairford, with Juliana, now married, and his young brother Robert, who was in the cradle when their mother died.
• Survived the pestilence of 1348–49 on the high pasture, which he counts God's mercy.
• August 1353: betrothed to Beatrice Mason of Ambermead, who had met him when he came down past the village with sheep; the banns read three Sundays while he was still at Fairford.
• 9 September 1353: came to Ambermead and married Beatrice at the church door. They took the empty cottage and three acres at the west end. On the 21st the lord let her marriage fee go as a wedding gift, and Alan said a whole Paternoster on the hill for him.
• September 1353: Adam Brewer told him something he's keeping.
• October 1353: ploughed and sowed for the house while Beatrice lay with the ague (9–15 October). Then in bed with the flux himself, 17–25 October; Isabel brought sage and rue herself, and half the village called or sent herbs. He was ashamed how little he could give back.
• Martinmas 1353: the cow was led off for want of fodder.
• December 1353: laid the new north sill under the Shepherds' wall on the 2nd. Cecily Cooper sat at his fire on the 7th and spoke of her mother, and he spoke of his. Made the atte Wells a pair of hurdles on the 18th; they would take nothing for them. Christmas: Mass, the hall, then Isabel's fire. The Shepherds joined Sir John's new guild of St Margaret's light, a penny a quarter.
• January 1354: Plough Monday, the 13th: dragged the plough round the doors in the snow with Adam, Roger and Robert Fowler, for 1s 2d to the plough-light. Word came his brother Robert is well at Fairford. Bea amerced fourpence at the ale court on the 14th. Made the atte Wells a second pair of hurdles on the 16th. Patched the thatch with Bea. Went to the steward about meadow for hay on the 23rd, Henry beside him; it's put to the lord.
• February 1354: Thomas helped with their firewood on the 1st. Down with a fever from the 3rd to the 10th; Thomas brought pottage, Sir John herbs, and Stephen, Roger, Agnes and Alice came by. Bea killed one of their two hens for his broth. Beatrice named twice at the court on the 4th. Up on the 10th and out to the ditches on legs like wet straw. Henry helped with the firewood on the 14th. Drove the plough team in the barley field on the 15th.
• 23 March 1354: His house and Sir John's both owe the atte Wells, with no penny between them; he means to carry something down by harvest.
• 23 March 1354: He remembers being a Fairford man at every door; word of his sister Juliana warmed him, and he hopes to walk over the hills.
• 23 March 1354: Beatrice would sell the wool before she'd see the hay give out: better the fleece go than the ewe.
• 23 March 1354: Roger is sore at Thomas over a furrow; Alan owes the one and is fond of the other, and says nothing to either.
• 31 March 1354: Alice Warrener died.
• 5 April 1354: Bea said the child aloud at last, and Alan, with a word for every door, had none; he prays his child keeps its mother.
• 5 April 1354: Alan kept meaning to go up and ease Roger, with roach or his company, and never got there.
• 5 April 1354: He'd said he'd help John first, and Bea walked John's furrows, with child, while he took the lord's wage.
• 5 April 1354: Alan means to put the rest of the Robin Hood verses in his own words, with hay in them, and try them on John.
• 23 April 1354: The hay ground went to the lord, neither yes nor no; he prays Our Lady to keep their five and feed the child.
• 23 April 1354: Beatrice would have him stand up in the hall like a householder, not a hill man, and speak plainly for the child.
• 23 April 1354: His legs went inside the hour while Bea worked on at the wood; he prays to be fit to spare her by midsummer.
• 23 April 1354: Every time her name is read for ale, he thinks of what he doesn't bring in.
• 23 February 1354: Up from his fever on 10 February 1354, Alan went back to the common and the ditches on weak legs, glad by the Rood to be out.
• 23 February 1354: Candlemas went by and he still hadn't asked the steward about the hay ground; he wondered if he waited on his legs or his nerve.
• 23 February 1354: Old Isabel saw straight through his worry over what the Shepherds owe the atte Wells, and said so bluntly.
• 23 February 1354: When Roger took Thomas at the warren, Alan carried home only the bare news: Thomas stacked their wood, Roger sat his fever.
• 6 March 1354: Bea's fourpence was read in the hall, his ewes the cause of her brewing; Alan wants the hay ground and dreads facing the steward.
• 6 March 1354: Alan owes the atte Wells and likes Roger, so he keeps Edith's grudge over Thomas to himself; he was glad Isabel wouldn't blame Roger.
• 6 March 1354: Seven bushels of rye or near it, and Alan reckons the weeks to Lammas for two and one coming.
• 6 March 1354: Alan's legs went to straw twice at the woodpile; he worries what that means for the work ahead.
• 11 March 1354: Alan waits on the steward's word about hay ground and prays it comes before the ewes drop their lambs.
• 11 March 1354: He works at a sheep riddle and Robin Hood verses with hay in them, to try on Stephen at the bench and on Adam.
• 11 March 1354: By 11 March his legs held a whole day at the plough for the first time since the fever.
• 31 May 1354: Alan fears fever at his door with Beatrice so near her time, and prays to Our Lady and St Anne to keep it off.
• 31 May 1354: Beatrice's ale fine of fourpence sits like a stone with Alan; he wants to earn more so she need not brew.
• 31 May 1354: Alan sat out the pestilence of '49 on the high pasture, hearing the bells below, and can't think why he was spared.
• 31 May 1354: Roger took the smith and John Carter in the warren, but Alan won't turn from him, who sat by him in the flux.
• 10 June 1354: Bea gave birth to a son, Stephen, at the cottage while he was at the day's work; Stephen Brewer and Joan Brewer his godparents. Fined fourpence for the ale the same day.

Pastimes

• Robin Hood rhymes, had from a soldier home from France at an alehouse on the road, traded for a mug of ale and a ram's-horn comb. He has about half of them right and fills in the rest himself. Sang them the whole way round the doors on Plough Monday. Every one he knows has a field of hay in it somewhere, which mocks him.
• Horn-work: combs and spoons of ram's horn. Edith showed him the boiling, and he's learned to leave the horn in the water longer. He owes Edith a spoon and Maud another, and Edith's is still not cut.
• Fishing the lake of an evening since the cold drove the flock in: perch and roach mostly, an eel when he's lucky.
• Riddles and tales: Guy of Warwick for anyone who stands still, and sheep riddles of his own.

How they talk

• Leans in and lowers his voice: "Now, you didn't hear this from me."
• Sheep and weather for everything: "like a stone in a ewe's foot," "like a ewe leaning on the hurdle." A line of Robin Hood dropped into the middle of a sentence. "Right" for very: "right glad," "right blunt."
• To the priest or the steward: suddenly short, cap in hand, a hill man in a hall.
• To Beatrice: he tells her everything but one thing, and she tells him to hush. Calls her Bea. Gives way "for the sake of a warm fire," and means it.
• Called: Alan of Fairford; "the hill man" at the inn.
• Swears: "By the Rood", and a line of Robin Hood when he's cheerful.

What he thought lately

Isabel teased me about the friars in the fallow this morning, right sharp about it, and I'd not have missed it. Our Lady, keep the boy well this summer.

23 June

Nothing on the line all afternoon, right as the water looked. Roger would sit on that bank with me and say nothing, and I haven't made up my mind whether to ask him.

22 June

Joan, Edith and Agnes all came up to see the boy, and in the middle of it the bees swarmed again. Into the new skep they went. I stood in the street after Mass telling it before anyone asked.

15 June

A son, Stephen, and Bea through it, and me at the shears and the fallow as if it were any day. Our Lady, I thank you, and keep the pair of them. Fourpence fined the same day she bore him. Who fines a woman in childbed? Nothing on the line all evening, when I'd have come home with a pike for her.

10 June

Small mending about the croft all day, the hurdles and the coop, and the bees quiet in the new skep. Edith will come when I run for her, and that's one weight set down. Our Lady, keep Bea's days easy.

9 June

Overheard

In the books

• 29 April 1354 By the steward, at the manor court: Alan Shepherd's ask about meadow ground for hay was answered: the old terms stand.
• 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.
• 3 February 1354 Alan Shepherd is in bed with a fever.
• 23 January 1354 Alan Shepherd saw the steward about meadow ground for hay; he will put it to the lord.
• 13 January 1354 Plough Monday: Adam Brewer, Roger Warrener, Alan Shepherd and Robert Fowler dragged a plough round the houses and collected 1s 2d for the plough-light in church.
• 17 October 1353 Alan Shepherd is in bed with the flux.
• 9 September 1353 Alan Shepherd and Beatrice Mason were married at the church door. Alan came from Fairford, and they took an empty cottage and three acres.
• 8 September 1353 The banns of marriage between Beatrice Mason and Alan Shepherd were read at Mass for the third time.
• 1 September 1353 The banns of marriage between Beatrice Mason and Alan Shepherd were read at Mass for the second time.
• 25 August 1353 The banns of marriage between Beatrice Mason and Alan Shepherd were read at Mass for the first time.
• 22 August 1353 Beatrice Mason and Alan Shepherd are betrothed. The banns will be read at Mass on the next three Sundays, and the wedding may be from 9 September 1353.