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upright. Then the wheel slipped treacherously on a stone and the whole reeking load slid from the overturned barrow. Elias fumed. Fists clenched, he kicked the wheel in futile rage. Hearing a man chuckling, he was about to swear when he saw it was a monk. Elias carefully watched till the figure had disappeared through the Abbey’s great gate before letting out a hissed oath. He didn’t want another fine.
    It was almost dark by the time he had completed the eighth trip, and when he got back to the alleyway he groaned. The pile looked as large in the diminishing light as when he had started. He wiped a hand over his The Abbot’s Gibbet
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    brow. “Tomorrow. I’ll finish it tomorrow,” he muttered, too tired to carry on. He was hungry, but his belly craved beer. His attention was drawn up along the road, to where he could see the bush hanging out over the street to advertise the tavern. The alewife had brewed four times her usual quantity of ale in preparation for the fair, and Elias knew she would be happy to let him taste some for a reasonable amount. He hefted the barrow’s handles and shoved it up the alley, round to the yard behind his shop. Then he made his way to the tavern, thrusting the door open with his shoulder and striding through the curtained screens into the room.
    This tavern had been a farmhouse once, but over many decades it had been altered. Where a farmer would have sheltered his flocks and oxen, now customers sat at trestle tables on rough benches, while the alewife’s girls circled, halting momentarily at tables to dispense ale, then moving on to the next, like butterflies sipping at flowers. A fire glowed in the middle of the packed earth floor, ready to be kicked into life as the temperature fell.
    When he walked in, the place was already crowded. Men and women stood talking, one or two children were asleep, wrapped in cloaks by the walls, and a pair of hounds scavenged for scraps among the rushes. He could see Lizzie in the far corner, and thought that after that afternoon she might serve him, but when he tried to catch her eye, the girl didn’t notice. There were few seats left, and Elias hesitated in the doorway before seeing someone he recognized: Roger Torre.
    “Move on, Roger.”
    “Elias? Take a seat. This is a friend of mine, friar. He owns a cookshop.”
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    Michael Jecks
    “Peace be with you,” Hugo hiccupped happily, sliding up the bench to make space.
    “And you, brother,” Elias answered automatically, waving to Agatha, the alewife.
    “So, friar,” Torre said, continuing his conversation.
    “If the Abbot wants to demand money from me, is that right?”
    Hugo had drunk several pints of good ale, more than he was used to, and was filled with good humor. He tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially. “Abbots and bishops don’t deserve your money, nor anyone else’s. Many don’t even deserve respect. Take the Bishop of Durham—he can’t read. He fumbled over his own consecration: couldn’t pronounce the word metropolitanus, and muttered, ‘Let’s take that as read!’
    And when he presided over an ordination, he swore when he came to aenigmate, that is, ‘through a glass darkly,’ saying, ‘By St. Louis, whoever wrote this word was no courteous man!’ When we have prelates such as he, how can anyone respect the holy calling?”
    “So you think I shouldn’t pay, friar?”
    “I think . . . I think I have drunk enough!” Hugo stood unsteadily and climbed over the bench. “I need the privy.”
    “Where did you pick him up?” asked Elias, watching the gray-clad cleric stumble round the room to the door, one hand touching the wall all the way for support. But Torre was distracted before he could answer. As Agatha hurried over and thumped a mug before Elias, Torre motioned to the doorway. “Beware of them, mistress.”
    The alewife tutted. “The watchmen from Denbury?
    They don’t trouble me.”
    Torre affably lifted his ale to the one called “Long The