The Midwife's Apprentice
Karen Cushman
1.
While they ate their bread-and-bacon supper, while Alyce helped Edward
mound up straw in a corner of the kitchen, while she sat by watching for him
to go to sleep, all the while Edward talked of life on the manor. He told her
of the silken-robed lords and ladies who came for feasts and rode out to hunt
and danced like autumn leaves in the candlelit great hall,
of the visiting knights who clanked their swords against each other as they practiced in the
school yard, of the masons who slapped mortar and bricks together to build a
great new tower at the corner of the hall that looked to stretch near all the
way to heaven. He described the excitement of buying and selling at the
great autumn horse fair, the nervous preparations accompanying the arrival
of some velvet-shed bishop or priest, and the thrill of watching the baron's
men ride out to confront a huge maddened boar who had roamed too close to
the village. And he complained at his lot, doing all the smallest tasks, not
being allowed to help with the threshing and ploughing, being teased for
being so little and frail and tied to Cook's skirts and fit for nothing but
gathering eggs. Finally as his eyes looked near to closing, he said, 'Tell me a
story, Alyce."
2.
'I don't know any stories.'
'For sure you do. Everyone does.'
'Well, Jennet told me that one night a visiting mayor fell out of bed, hit his
head, and thought he was a cat, so he slept all night on the floor watching the
mouseholes.'
'That is no story, Alyce. Cook tells me stories. A story should have a hero
and brave deeds.'
'Well then, once there was a boy who for all he was so small and puny was
brave enough to do what he must although he didn't like it and was
sometimes teased. Is that a story!'
'Close enough, Alyce.' And he closed his eyes.
3.
When the moon shone through the misty clouds and two owls hooted in
the manor yard, Edward and Alyce slept, each comforted by knowing the
other was safe and warm and sheltered and not too very far away.
The next day being the day the woolly black-faced sheep were washed
before shearing, Alyce and Edward ate their bread-and-beer breakfast down
by the river to watch the great event.
Edward finished his breakfast first. 'I'm still hungry, Alyce, and there is
nothing about here to eat but grass. Do you know if grass is good for people
to eat!'
'Try it.'
He did. 'It be good for exercising my teeth and making my mouth taste
better, but it tastes like.., grass, I would say.'
'Then do not eat it.'
'What is the best thing you ever ate, Alyce?'
'Hot soup on a cold day, I think.
'Once long ago a monk gave me a fig. It was a wonderful thing, Alyce, soft
and sweet. After that I had nothing to eat for three days but the smell of the
fig on my fingers. Are you ever going to finish that bread, Alyce!'
And Alyce gave him her bread, which is what Edward wanted and Alyce
intended all along.
4.
Part of the river had been dammed to form a washing pool. Men stood in
the waist-deep water while the hairy shepherds, looking much like sheep
themselves, drove the woolly beasts into the water to have their loose fleeces
pulled off and then be scrubbed with the strong yellow soap. The river was
noisy with the barking of dogs, the bleating of sheep, the calling and cursing
of men, and the furious bawling of those lambs separated from their
mothers. Edward soon took on the job of matching mothers and babies. He
snatched up the bawling lambs and ran from mother to mother until he made
up the right pail; whereupon they would knock him out of the way in their
hurry to nuzzle each other.
As the day grew hotter the river looked cooler, and finally Alyce tucked
her skirt up into her belt and waded in. The weary men were glad of another
pair of hands and soon had Alyce helping. First she held the woolly black
faces while they were scrubbed, but one old ewe took offence at Alyce's
handling and, standing up with her front feet on Alyce's chest, pushed the
girl into the water. Alyce, coughing and sputtering, traded jobs with the man
who was lathering their backs. Fleeces clean, the sheep swam to the bank
and scrambled out of the water, nimble as goats and hungry as pigs.
5.
By mid afternoon they were finished. While Edward and the shepherds
drove the sheep to their pens across the field, Alyce stretched and wiped her
wet hands on her wet skirt. What a wonder, she thought, looking at her
hands. How white they were and how soft. The hours of strong soap and
sudsy fleece had accomplished what years of cold water never had - her
hands were really clean. There was no dirt between her fingers, around her
nails, or ground into the lines on her palms. She sat back against a tree, held
her hands up before her; and admired them. How clean they were. How
white.
Suddenly she sat forward. Was the rest of her then that white and clean
under all the dirt? Was her face white and clean? Was Will Russet right -
was she even pretty under the dirt? There never had been one pretty thing
about her, lust skinny arms and big feet and dirt, but lately she had been told
her hair was black and curly and her eyes big and sad and she was mayhap
even pretty.
6.
Alyce looked about. The washing was done and the sheep driven to the
barn to dry off for tomorrow's shearing. The river was empty but for great
chunks of the greasy yellow soap floating here and there. Alyce found a spot
a bit upriver from the befouled washing pool, pulled off her clothes, and
waded in. She rubbed her body with the yellow soap and a handful of sandy
gravel until she tingled. Squatting down until the water reached her chin, she
washed her hair and watched it float about her until she grew chilled.
Alyce stood up in the shallow water and looked at herself. Much cleaner
although a bit pink and wrinkled from her long soak. And pretty? Mayhap
even that, for she had all her teeth and all her limbs, a face unmarked by pox
or witchcraft, and perhaps, now, more of happiness and hope than of sadness
in those big eyes that even the midwife had remarked on.
She washed her clothes, pulled them on still wet and drippy, and ran for
the kitchen to dry a bit before the fire.
Too soon it was time to bid Edward goodbye. 'Be assured I will not be far
from here, and I promise to come back for Christmas and Easter and your
saint's day. And to see when that front tooth grows in again.' Edward
grinned. He had enjoyed the day, done a man's job, and been carried home
on the shoulders of a giant of a shepherd called Hal. He was satisfied with
his place at the manor, the devotion of the cook, and the friendship of Alyce.
He suddenly felt not so small.
7.
Alyce gave him a hug and a smack and felt that tickling in her throat and
stinging in her eyes that meant she might cry again, now she knew how to do
it. She went down the path from the manor stopping every few steps to turn
and wave until finally the path curved and Edward was lost from sight and
all she could see was the way ahead.