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the sign of the cross over her chest.
    The bearded man leaned in eagerly. “Was he a soldier?”
    I shook my head. “We…we were wandering musicians.”
    “Musicians!” exclaimed the gray-haired woman, one eyebrow lifted. Then she smiled. “Truly?”
    The man holding the sword lowered it a bit. “If you’re a musician,” asked the man who had been playing the harp, “how did you come to be in a battle?”
    I said, “When my father and I came off our wrecked ship, free soldiers fell upon us. They forced us to join them.”
    “Those soldiers are hateful,” agreed the younger woman. “All they do is murder and plunder.”
    A silence, broken by the snap of the fire, followed as they continued to study me. Of the five, only the dirty-faced boy had not spoken. He just stared at me, his mouth agape, now and again wiping his runny nose with the back of his hand.
    One of the men called out, “You call yourself a musician. What instrument do you play?”
    “The recorder.”
    “Excellent! Show it to us.”
    I made an ungainly bow. “Forgive me, masters. It was lost at sea.”
    “A musician without his instrument,” said the gray-haired woman, “is like a priest without his cross.”
    “And makes,” I beseeched, “for a hungry soul.”
    She smiled. “Have you nothing, then?”
    I held out my empty hands. “By blessed Saint Anthony, all I had was lost. What you see is,” I said, struggling to suppress the tightness in my chest, “is…. all I am.”
    The woman glanced at her companions. They may have communicated something with a nod, or a look, which I did not see—or perhaps the woman made up her own mind. She turned back to me and said, “My name is Elena. Of London, England. This is my family. We too are wandering musicians. You’re welcome to share what food we have. Perhaps God sent you. We lack a recorder player—and,” she said with a quick glance toward the others, “if you prove honest—we might find a use for you.”
    “Blessings on you for your welcome,” I said, struggling to speak even as relief brought tears to my eyes.
    “Come then,” said the woman. “Give us your name again.”
    “Crispin.”
    “Crispin, then, without shoes,” she said, turning to the others. “These are my two sons, Rauf and Gerard.”
    Rauf, the one who held the sword, appeared to be the elder of the brothers. Squat and broad shouldered, he had a heavy, black-bearded face. Dirty, matted hair stuck out from under an old red cloth cap, which he wore low on hisforehead. He had a distrustful cast to his half-lidded eyes, as if peeping out from behind some ill-fitting mask. On his brow was a scar, new enough to be red with mending. It matched his surly, ill-tempered look. He walked, as I would discover, with a limp. It was he who had been playing the bagpipe.
    His brother, Gerard, was as great a contrast to the angelic instrument he held—the harp—as one might ever see. Somewhat taller than his brother, but not so big in bulk, he too had dark hair, with a rough, pock-marked face and a smile that showed large teeth. His eyes shifted often, as if seeking approval from the others for what he said. More than anyone, he looked to his older brother.
    Elena continued. “Rauf’s wife, Woodeth.”
    Woodeth was a buxom woman, short and thick, with fair, if dirty, hair and a weathered, coarse face that had suffered a broken nose. She kept her lips tightly compressed, perhaps to hide the gaps in her teeth. The mandola was in her lap.
    “Our servant boy, Owen,” concluded Elena, indicating the boy.
    This boy was small, younger than I, with dark curly hair, a pinched, filthy face with thin lips, and large, watery eyes that stared at me timidly. The torn clothing he woredid not hide the bruise marks on his arms. It was to this Owen that the little fur man clung.
    Even as Elena introduced Owen, Rauf leaned over and slapped the boy on the head. Whether it was meant to be playful or not, the boy winced and shrank away, eyes