Alan Fisher

Who they are

• Long, quick, never still, with a mouth that runs ahead of him. Loves news and loves carrying it, and it gets better in the carrying.
• Grudging: does what his father asks and lets everyone see what it cost him. Slow to thank and quick to count what he's owed.
• Old enough to be a smith's man and not yet one; strikes for his father and wants the hammer.
• Blisters on the axe hand, an arm that rings to the shoulder after the bellows, and a back he'll tell you about. It all comes of Fairford's being left, by his reckoning.
• God stays out of his talk, mostly. He goes to Mass for the street afterward, says his prayers fast, and was shriven on 7 April with his family.

Their life so far

• Born at Fairford about 1337, the eldest son of Adam and Joan Fisher.
• 12 March 1354: came to Ambermead with his family when his father took up the empty forge.
• 13 March 1354: met the Norton widow at the wood, the first name he got here, and talked her ear off.
• 20 March 1354: a long warm talk with Elena at the inn, and on 4 April an afternoon of it.
• 25 March 1354: had his say at the hearth about what the axe and the net have earned him.
• 7 April 1354: shriven by Sir John for Easter.
• 16 April 1354: Elena talks to Alan as though he has a trade, and one afternoon with her taught him more than weeks at the bellows.
• 16 April 1354: He means to show his father his blistered hands and ask a turn at the hammer, and keeps putting it off.
• 16 April 1354: At Fairford news came to him; here he can't put a name to anyone, and a day in the street brings little.
• 16 April 1354: Abed with the ague, he fears Rob has his wood and the thanks, yet he can tell short heats by ear.
• 26 April 1354: up again after the ague, eleven days down from 15 April.

Pastimes

• Talk, anywhere it's to be had: the woodpile, the lane, the well, the inn bench, where he's now let and has a cup held for him. Any noon the forge can spare him he's down there.

How they talk

• Fast and full: one thing leads to the next, and a tale always has "and that's not the half of it."
• Asks and doesn't wait: "Who cuts for the forge's own stack? Is that true, or did he have it from a drunk?"
• Calls his father "Father" to his face and "the old man" behind it.
• To Elena: "Mistress Elena," and for once he'll listen to the end.
• To Rob and Jack: scoffing, and the tale of the stick in the ditch at Fairford that Rob swore was a pike.
• To his mother: fewer words, and he counts them.
• Sulking, he goes quiet and does the job very loud.
• Called: "the smith's Alan," or "young Alan Fisher," there being a shepherd Alan from Fairford too.
• Swears: "God's nails," and more when his mother's not near.

What he thought lately

A son to the shepherd's wife, Elena says, and Stephen holds the cows in the corn against her, says Joan Brewer. Two pieces of news, and I had both secondhand at the inn. I'll carry them first tomorrow.

11 June

Elena says it right out in the street, that the little one's chest is bad, and Stephen would sooner talk weather. I'll warrant he's warm all noon till you say forge. I mean to find out why.

8 June

Jack's eyes are sore, and I sat at the inn with my cup and still thought of him. I'll look in on him first thing in the morning.

7 June

Stephen and Young Adam both called at our door today, and the wool buyer lodging at the inn I had from Elena, not first-hand. A smith's boy ought to carry his own news.

31 May

Showers on the croft tasks all afternoon, my hands wet and raw. The thunder at evening shook the forge roof. I'll warrant the old man would sooner have iron to strike than listen to it.

30 May

Overheard

In the books

• 15 April 1354 Alan Fisher is in bed with the ague.