Mark Lind-Hanson's Blog, page 6

Coming Soon: CALTROP!

     Professor Guillaime Caltrop is a man with problems. He’s surrounded by people who continually bombard him them with issues of their own- seeming friends and colleagues willing to stick the knife in where they can, old warriors from the psychedelic era rampaging at heedless bureaucrats, students who can’t see straight concocting plots to blow up the classroom, rednecks with a grudge out to blow up him.  Will his worthiness as a thinker stand up to the scrutiny of the alphas who run his college and hand him his meal tickets? 

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THE PEWTER EYE

The Pewter Eye was the first saloon in Judas Gulch. From the earliest point, when all he had was a wagon with six jugs of whiskey and a flap awning thet propped itself a little half-cocked along the sideboard, Ole Ollarud the barkeep was quite the popular man. Within a month of his opening shop, as they termed it, and sleeping on a mat inside where he’d rearranged things “just so”, Ole had been able to get some “critters” together to help him build a right an’ proper saloon hall. Didn’t matter that the front of it stuck up a good six feet over the real ceiling—he were the man of the hour, and his aqua vitae was the next nearest thing to mother’s milk for the weary, the teary, and the beery of Judas Gulch, fresh off the strike with coins to blow. Ollarud kept a scale behind the bar too in case he had some customers didn’t think to get their dough converted by the assyers first (this was ackshully a common condition—the nearest assyers was in Marysville or Hangtown or Sackaminnow, and many of them being as weary and teary and beery as they were, were in hardly the shape to get all the way to one of these places by the time they pulled up at Farplay, which warnt thet far as it were.Outside, the Pewter Eye was a common storefront, except it had the swingin’ doors common to saloons and its sign hung dolorously over the slat boards making up the front walk. From the sign beamed down ominously the very mystic Eye of the Republic— the same indeed that graced the back of ever’ Uncle Sam dollar—and reminded ever citizen of Judas Gulch that someone, whether it was God or the Govamint, was always watching everything they did, and every move they made. It helped old Ollarud sometimes just by its being there to keep some common civil manners between one customer to another. Maybe it helped Sheriff Neatness, too, in its own way. But on the other hand, there was plenty of fellows who saw the Eye of the Pewter Eye as nothing but blind to earth and heaven, a paper tiger, a useless threat, a symbol of nothing so much as ignorant bliss yet a place where the welcome mat was always out, and where good company (or worse) could always be found.
Beginning in October of Forty-Nine, the rains of winter hinted first but a few days precognition of what might come later. Rain fell two weeks early in San Francisco, breaking the idyll of Indian Summer a bit too soon. Normally the squash harvest might have taken place first— now the squash lie in the muddy fields, their bottoms turned white and began a slow mildew to accompany the ripening. Half of them would need be thrown away— hard luck for miners who had barely seen vegetables nor fruits for much of summer- partly due to a lack of supply, but also, what supply there may have been was rendered dear by scarcity.These few rains were accompanied in the gold country and Sierras by much larger systems, of course. It always seemed that’s how they came. The four days of rain San Francisco saw was doubled at Judas Gulch, and there was even the start of a snow pack on the Sierra. Then a false grace, while nature regathered her breath, and when she returned the first week of November it was with a vengeance rarely seen until the end of the century.Thirty-three inches of rain for San Francisco, and near to a half-that and more at Judas Gulch. Those miners attempted to remain on the Columns found shambles where their Toms had been left at the banks. Splintered remnants of sluices and rockers and uprooted claim stakes. The river rose a good eight feet, sweeping all evidence of activity, as if the banks themselves were a fallow field, and the river a scouring plow. Men took shelter as they could. Those who had not been able to gather and construct cabins made pitiful canvas tenets of duck and attempted a vain waterproofing with cans of paint or shellac. Where men had means or a ken to, they nestled together in bunches of four and five, huddled out of the rain, or wasted against the trunks of trees, they shivered in their damp work clothes. The first use of a blanket would not have been warmth but to keep out the wet. The relentless endless wet, that rotted the flesh on the feet and left them riddled, pickled, and brined.  Beyond the need for shelter there was the problem of getting here or there. Streets that in summer ran with clodden dust now turned to streams of mud— ever-present, thick, deepening mud, made soup like by the tread of horses and carts and stages and wagons, and the man who could still claim his boots wore a shine was a liar. No foot escaped. Some boots were even sucked off by the mud. In San Francisco men took stocks of ruined tobacco and threw the tins into the knee-deep mud to construct attempted sidewalks, but even these were not enough, without ripping precious planking from the very shelters, or sideboard walls of the few real wooden houses, to make walkways.As the rain, snow, hail and sleet fell across the northern mountains and foothills, it packed itself into tall and deep drifts which were bound to swell the now raging white waters even fuller. Not until April would come a relief on the riverbanks. Those who held claims worked out means of holding on, for to be absent one’s claim for a week was to invite parsimony, and new claimants on one’s hard-bitten land. If men were honest, it was an honesty born of  the dolorous pleasantry of six-shooters and threats of what might come about should one be anything but. And yet still the lure of the mines deepened, beckoned, brought more and more tenderfeet to be broken to the laws of luck and risk and prospect and chance.
One day I helped Nicletto git his stuff on down to Hangtown m’self. Twas about two pounds in all  o’ dust he’ saved up an’ kept it in a little tea caddy til he had what was a might fine and hefty sum. He says, I wanchoo t’ come with me, Sardo, an’ you take yer pinto and I’ll take Jezebel muh mule, and we’ll go down t’ the assyers and I’ll git this dust cashed in, and have a roll. A course I thinks I needja with me so I kin be  safe. Ain’t no tellin’ what’s out thar on the roads.Was true, was no tellin what dainjer might face a man, specially a man all laid up and burden down with gold. I figgered in that there 2 pounds that Nicetto must have had some two hunnert fifty dollars— ain’t a lot but its sure enough fer some men to thank about makin improvements.So I agreed I would help him git guarded on his way to Hangtown, ef he would buy me a shot of Wise Ass at the saloon when we gits thar. He nodded and we set out then on a Saturdy afternoon.Was a real pleasant like Saturdy too, an’ thar wuz hawks a flyin up thar in the hot blue sky an’ the sun pour’n down like silver gold, and everthing was like it was just orter be. I dunno eff any of you peoples can imajin what them days was like, before thar wuz trains or horseliss cairjus nor no stuff like that, but thet road to Hangtown wuz dusty, hot, an’ culd be outright miserble, even eff it were a pleasant and beautiful drive t’ git thar. Which we did, a course, and we decidet t’ stay at the Hotel Flea Bag when we got thar an’ come back on the followin mornin’, since who could resist a Saturdy night in Hangtown? I reckon not too many redblooded men.When we got ‘ the assy office we found the Assyer about to close up, but he gladly took us in. The gold was set in the scale, and Nicletto kept a sharp eye was no dust fallin’ in the cracks or flyin’ away with a sneeze or nothin’. Yep, it was jest like I said, he would git his two hunnert fifty dollers. Ackshully Nicletto bein’ of the old school he took it in mostly Spanish Reals, and he gimme one jest for comin along.Then we headed for the real biness, and that was the Firewall Saloon which were next to the Flea Bag. Inside it were like a real hoedown goin’ on. I guess it were one of Ninefinger Ned and Johhny Spondino’s little wingdings, but there they wuz, playin on their git-tars, and Hog Wald blowin his harmonicer and they even had Pearl Genull settin’ in with them, and of course, Pearl bein’ the great attraction she wuz, all them mens inside wuz hollerin’ and screamin’ an’ carryin on in as much a ruckus as Pearl.Boy I tell ya there warn’t no other woman ever could sing like that girl Pearl. Some said “that ain’t singin that’s screamin!” But she could carry a tune good and she put her heart and tit into everthing and that were no exaggerations. She belted out a tune about a pore girl in love with a ball an’ chain shackled round her pore little heart, and dang if Ninefinger Ned didn’t play his git-tar behind her like to make you fit to cry! Hog Wald blew his harmonicer with the wind of a wizard, an behind them playin’ the drums wuz Crustyman, who I guess wuz rather new to the goldfields, since he wore his har rather shorter an’ dressed like a pinky dew sailor right off the Chilly boat. I dint mention it none but thar was English Edward, too, over in the corner but pumpin on the pianner and makin’ everone jes’ go crazy.Cuz when Pearl sang, you jest had to smile, and feel your little Willy go all hard up inside and make you want to send yer brains war yer imagination only could travel. Especially with no other wimmins around! Yep, she had her har done up in a boo-font and wore sum painted fethers around her neck an’ Mardis Gras beads an’ highheel slippers.When they would finsh a number, Jonny Spondino, Ned, and the drummer would sneak off into a corner and smoke the Messican cuerda, and then they’d all come back laughing, and set up for another tune. It was kinda funny but I don’t think I ever saw them two togeher they wasn’t hyped up on that Messican weed. I heared that even the Messicans was a feared of Ned, wth is fearsome reputation as a consumpter of that wicked stuff, but eff you knew Ned you knew it were but a big bluff (and a goo one) cause it kept the interlopers off his case.We set thar and Nicletto got me the drink o’ Wise Ass he promised me and we heard about seven or eight more tunes, most of them with Pearl singin’, but a couple of ‘em was sung by Hog. Hog could be fierce to look at, but like Ninefinger Ned, it were his image only, and it kept the botherers from be-botherin’ him. He wore his har long like a Injun and had a funny mustache like a Chinee, an’ he wore a vest was designed with a hole in the arms frayed on the edges, and all kinds of buttons and ins from strange organizations, like the Masons and the Odd Brothers and much more all pinned over it. He wore thick boots too, with straps across the tongue, and tucked his duck trowzers into that. He looked to lots a people liked he coulda use a bath, but then so did everone else up har in them days, and weren’t no Aunt Sally round to give him no grief for it.Hog Wald played a kinda music I guess them Suthrun and Jamjob boys mighta called it “nigger music” but it were very soulful and he learned all the tunes down south himself he like to tell us. I guess there were no gainsayin the voic e of experience, and what the hell did Suthrun and Jamjob know about music anyway? (So Nicletto said, when I broached upon the subjeck in our conversation.) I swore as I sipped my Wise Ass that, yep, when you wants an original rendition of a great old traditional tune, Hog Wald sure could play the blues.Well then, it were only headed into the first munths of summer but Cakey tole ever one he had made his pile and set to take off now back fer the Sanwich Islands. He tole me et were a good time I should git down to Frisco too afore the winter an’ all an maybe I culd see bit more of the place. We set out fer Sackaminnow with hiz dawg Scratch besides us and dang if when we it ta Scakaminow but he takes thet loyl ole dawg an’ sells him to sum Chinaman. Don’t feel much like thinkin bout thet dawg much any more, cuz it real jes makes me shudder... We catcheted thet ferryboat tho and come down the Delta agin. I seen from the marsh plants even they wuz startin ta turn a bit yeller. I wondered a bit whut it musta bin like fer the Injuns round hear afore the white man come. Cuz it were mighty spooky on thet Delta, when alls you kin see is about ten feet in front of you, then thet ole fog jes covers the world.
When the rains came, the rivers rose, and there was little work anyone could do (once one had seen to saving one’s life from a sudden drowning) until the spring, when the trickles of snowmelt tapered down to a reasonable level, and the banks of the rivers could once more be panned for fresh nuggets, swept down from their lode-veins by the inexorable dripping waterfalls, streams, creeks, and freshets. Gold-leaved oaks that had been shed in the fall put out new green thorny leaves, puffballs hung precariously over moss-carpeted branches, madrones and mountain laurels and ponderosa pines freely bent to the calmer breezes which swept east from the Pacific and brought with them the morning fogs which departed when the sun had risen no higher than ten... All along the river banks, if men had not moved their sluice gear and rocker-boxes, the wrack and flotsam from upstream lay smashed or scattered in crazy heaps as though giants had been playing with tinker toys, and thrown delicious tantrums. Huts or tents which had not been placed a good ten feet above summer’s waterline would be swept along themselves, and often, one man’s shack of last year made the roof of another’s for the new one. Veterans of prior winters snickered at the bad luck of newcomers who hadn’t taken the time to site themselves proper to the whims of the waters. Sardo Pat was one of those who had placed his own shack in a good spot, for once he had seen the river running full and strong, he knew that there could be but one safe spot for him- up the hill behind the town, and he could walk to his claim in the morning, he didn’t mind the budging, because the coyote hole was high enough above the waterline it could be worked at any time of year and it kept him busy, and he kept bringing out the scales.The sweet air always seemed to be singing with sounds of birds he knew and didn’t know, but they all made pretty music, and the dew was always sparkling in the early sunlight.


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PAT'S CLAIM

Gold! It was really nothing so special before 1848. That is, it was never “just then discovered” in California. There had been gold found early on in the Spanish Settlements. Lumps of it, in fact, were still being picked in hand from straight off the surrounding land, or with a little seeping away of topsoil, prised from the red dirt. But in colonial Spain, all gold was property of the King. There were conquistadores and galleons to carry it away back home. Coronado invaded the great Southwest in search of El Dorado, one of the seven cities of Cibola... rumored to be paved with the stuff. Pizzaro had run roughshod over the very Inca for every bit of it he could milk out of Peru, and set the Inca on fire atop a heaping pile of the stuff (or so it was said). But the friars who stayed to tame the California Indians from their “savage” state of grace were good subjects, and passed it back along up the chain. Even when it became free Mexico, gold found on the land belonged to the state. What was different about 1848... well, an American being a King All In His Own Right, he could keep that gold, and maybe if he found enough of it, he could retire. So it was that when James Marshall found a big hunk of it in his boss’s millrace, Mr. Sutter asked him to keep it under his hat. Word is that maybe he did, or maybe he didn’t, but word somehow got to the biggest mouth around, Sam Brannan of the San Francisco newsrag California Star, and after cagily finagling a large stock of prospecting gear he sold out of the paper’s store front, Sam Brannan brandished a vial of gold dust and walked up and down the streets of the city, yelling “Gold on the American River!” and that, as she said, was that.Sardo Pat came west in the first bunch of Easterners known as the Forty Niners. The very first batch that could (and the economy must have been tanking pretty bad back east, to uproot men from their wives and families and businesses, and send them two thousand miles away on journeys that more often than not took thousands more miles to complete)... Pat took a boat out of Boston to Limon, Costa Rica, sweated his way for two weeks across the jungle to the Pacific, and then, hopped on a mail boat out of Puntarenas headed to San Francisco, and by so doing, cut himself a good hundred days or so off the usual “round the Horn” journey so many who followed him ventured. “The yellow rock that makes white men crazy”, as the Indians called it, had worked its effect on him as surely as it had the rest of America. The new “Manifest Destiny” nation needed to grow. And anything and everything, and anyone and everyone that stood in its way would soon come to acknowledge there was no stopping the white man in his madness, it was indeed all-consuming, and on the banks of the Cosumnes, one of thousands so infected, Pat staked his claim to a bit running up the south bank.
I gots to tellin you about my claim. Yeh, I knowed, I coulda but I didn’t, right?OK. As I said, Transom was one of the firset guys with me took out one on this here bend in the river. He took one side of that big rock overhang and I took the other. When the others of the company come in, they began workin’ the other sides of us, so there could be complete harmony in the work, and alla us could work both sides of the river, and it weren’t long afore each of them found somethin, too.My claim like I said runs back from the banks a good thirty feet, and Nicletto he’s on the other side of me from Transom. Nicletto sure is a funny feller. All day long he sings songs outta operas while we work. I must say it’s sometimes nice to have the pretty music, though there ain’t nothin purty about Nicletto’s voice. Transom likets to joke that back in Italy, Nicletto he was a hurdygurdy man, an’ strode about the streets of Milan singing his fool head off, grinding that organ, maybe he even had himself a little monkey or somethin’, though I sorta doubts that, ‘cause he ain’t have no monkey all the time I seened him here. Transom though he said that the monkey died on shipboard when Nicletto set out for ‘Merica, and they had to bury him at see. Makes sort of a funny sight, in the eye of the brain, don’t it? A little monkey getting set into the sea on a little gangplank board, wrapped up in a little pillercase or somethin’, poor Nicletto standing there with tars in his eyes, a dozen sailors snuffling into their wrists.Anyhow! That claim pumps out some good money for us, and we see about keepin it protected, yes we do. Oncet we had some Injuns come and demand us give money for “their” land, but Nicletto set them straight, tellin’ them that ever since Crist’fer Columbus came this ol’ country been property of the white man, an eff them Injuns don’t like it no more, why don’t they come back where they came from. Them Injuns looked at Nicletto like he was crazy (which in fact, I kinder think he is) and gets up on their ponies and hightails it back to wharever they come from— up in the hills out past Auburn, I gesset. After that day, Nicletto, he sometimes gets all puffed up about it, but truth is, them Injuns wasn’t even armed or nothin’, they must have maybe had a lil too much whisky themselfs, or somethin, because even I can’t see how a little stud like Nicletto scares anybody. But maybe that’s jest cause I’m Irish.When alla us put our money together an’ founded this here company, our first an’ most bigges’ investment was our Long Tom. It were long enough to stretch down each man’s claim- a good sixty feet! Cakey helped build it, cause he seen and knows how it were done, and he had that thing up and in good shape inside o’ two nights. We diverts river water down one end o’it so keeps the sluice full, an’ every man he’s got his own riffle box, he dumps it all in, so he can pick from the riffle box stuff he wants to pan and strain finer for. Like I said, at the end o’ the tom, which comes at Suthrun’s pickin’s, there’s a good riffle box on the end too catches whatever wuz too fine to get caught in all the other spots. That dust, we all split, with one small fraction goes to Cakey. We all doing good though on most days.Everone’s got their own coyote hole, too, right along one side o’ the river or the other. Mine ets on the South bank, Suthrun and Jamjob, they gots there’s on the North. I put mine right there in the hollow of the big overhangin’ rock, and dang if I don’t work it once in a while cause there’s some white quartzite in there actually has something. I knows the best days are yet to come, but I sorter gotta keep my tongue quite about it. Transom, he snuck his coyote hole on the other side of the overhangin rock, a course, and he prolly has his own share of the same vein. Ain’t neither of us gonna even talk to each other bout it, lest it stirs up any trouble with the other fellers. But I know he knows, and he knows I knows. Jes’ one o’ them things I guess.Now I tolje early on how we had a guy name Piney with us. Whale I sure should say, we did have a guy name Piney, he conestogied his way har, but it war the very week I gits har he drownded and drownded dead as a dornale rat thar near the claim. It heppened like this:You see, Piney were a big one fer doin’ a bit of unnerwater prospeckin. an the Cosumniss is a mitey fast river in this har place, war we iz. He seened something down thar uner a big rock musta looked to him like a big old placer, and he gits uner the water thar an all with his crowbar, but, on account o’ the water so quick, he’s workin on pryin this thang out, and durn but he never come up, cept, we found him laid out on the rocks lain face down about fifty yards downstream.We said some prairs an’ dug a hole and berried him up on the hill above our spot with a nice Crischun cross an’ all, an’ all of us felt sore and sorry cuz nobody knewed who we must or mite write to ta tell them the sad condolences. Yep, it were sad, and I never got to know Piney too good, and I gesset now I ain’t a gonna, neither.
Somewhere far far back in the creation, yet not so far back as to precede the formation of the galaxies, numerous stars began collapsing under gravity at some point. Some collapsed so far they formed neutron stars— objects so intensely heavy that one tablespoon of one would weigh over five billion earthly tons... On occasion these were formed from binary stars, pairs of stars which managed upon all odds to collide, and in the process formed hundreds of thouands of tons of new matter: heavy elements such as lead, uranium, platinum, and most rare, gold... Atomic particles of all of these scattered willynilly  and flew aimlessly on in any direction until reaching gas clouds contracting again under gravity... and gold atoms collide, compound under the pressure of the formation of planetary crust, and fluctuate within the hot magma centers of planets... leaking upward into fissures and cracks in the superhot liquid flux, igneous and metamorphic granite... most often, finding their way to pair with crystals of tetrahydal silicon oxide otherwise known as quartz. By bits and flakes it is washed away by rains— the winter rains which sit over California like dull grey airborne manta rays, rinsing free topsoil, granite stone, tumbled in the rivers, hiding in the riverbed under larger accomodating lignites, until one day its sparkle catches the eye of a mill carpenter and reveals itself to a nation and world of men full of ambition, hope, or desperation
Then it were that I got some time an a invitation from Teasdale hisself ta come over an give his great house a toor. The missus, Meana, a coarse, had everthing good an’ sparklin’ clean— warn’t not even a hang o’ dust noplace t’ be seened. I come in the front door, a coarse, an’ removes my hat, a coarse, an’ looks around in the parler.She had doilys an’ lace table cloths everwar, but thar wuz also sum great candle sticks that wuz not the uzual Californee lampstick. Thar wuz nice furnicher, a coarse, all of it trucked across the county in the back of prairie schooners at wut musta been high expense fer Mister Teasdale.The missus she come at me with a plate of cake an’ a cup of tea. I said thankee ma’am an’ had me a set in one of them fancy furnicher chairs, had arms up to the gonads on it, it did. Mister Teasdale excused hisself ta see after dinner, which the missus had been a workin’ on all afternoon— wuz severl ducks, antelope roast, an’ extra speshul fer me, cuz I’m Irish, potato stew made with real rabbit. Thet were something else, thet stew, when it did get to me. But fer now I set thar with the missus an’ we discussed life out har in Californee. She saw me fer wut I wuz, I  am indeed a Forty-Niner, but I is from New York which ain’t after all so far from Boston. She sed she culd har it in m’ voice. I guessed I couldna outrun it anyhow no matter how far west I ever come. She sed when they got out har wuz only Ollarud’s Pewter Eye (thus she puts the lie to ole Mster Teasdale’s claims he were first of em all ta set up shop) and ever body got their everthing from Brannan’s in Sackaminnow or Stockton. She sed the price of sum thing is still far too high fer Mister ta stock up an sell at discounts, but thet she unnerstoood the minders needs some things and less dear than their payin fer.I sed, “Me, I jes want a decent egg oncet in a whiles.”
She tole me thet she offin thought that herself. Maybe next year when their cuzzins come out from Misery they’ll be bringin some chickens to be their layers. Until then we’s all stuck a coarse, payin out the cheek fer an egg a doller or more.You have been tuned to Grand Jatte, an independent and autonomous
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JUDAS GULCH

Judas Gulch, that’s the name of my town. Course I can’t tell you its really my town, only is, that’s where I been living these last fifteen-sixteen years or so, most of the time. It’s one of them places only got up on its hind feet and going once the Niner miners started comin’. Like some of them I was here, if not first, I’se one of the first and lucky ones.It sets on the junction of the Consumness River and Big Injun Crick like a little bunch of prairie dog burras. Back when it started up, was not much more than a few little cabins, and then a few Forty Niners came up and started millin’ the waters. Evenchally they needed a laundry and a saloon, cause nobody wanted to hafta ride all the way to Hangtown jes to git a collar pressed. When I came it was about twenty houses with the saloon and jail and no post office (yet). But it did have the store, and that war a good thing itself.The main street was muddy and warn’t no side walks, ‘cept for some two by fours that the saloon owner Ollarud set down. Warn’t no women, ‘cept the First Hore, Millie—that’ be Millicent Vermouth Tabener, to you. Millie Vermouth was a crack shot for a girl. She could take down the wash off Old Swede Hensen’s line with her one hand tied behind the back, draw a bead on a clothes-pin and shoot off his trousers from the line in a eye blink. I knows because I seed it, twice. Guess old Hensen wasn’t too good on keepin’ up his payments to her— Millie didn’t allow for no credit after her first year in town.The Saloon, which Ollarud called the Pewter Eye, was a two story affair. Downstairs is where we all came for our water, whisky, and wine, and sometimes if we was lucky Ollarud would have some steamed beer sent up the rivers from Frisco. Boy howdy you shoulda seen the place when the steamed beer was in! Cats lined up down the block for a chance to have a glass of that stuff. Rumor was, Ollarud had big stocks of it stashed underneath the saloon for “speshul occasions” but those were rare, and few, and maybe I’ll tell ya about one or two by the time I gets done.Them little cabins mainly belonged to some of the other guys what worked the River claims with me. There were Cakey, Jamjob, and Suthrun, and there were MacDavish, Transom, and Nicletto. Nicletto were an Eyetalian and he made some good grub for us when it were winter and nobody had nothin much but a big side of sowbelly we carved bacon offa and coffee we biled in little pots, to each his own. Them was my compnee. I had me a claim of my own— hell we all had one, but we made our compnee up cause after some while minin’ placer alone, a man gets rather worn of one spot, and six men runnin their dirt through a sluice, hell that’s more ‘speedient than one man tryna build his own sluicebox. Everone had his own lil section and it had a sluice screen and all so nobody lost out— whatever come out in dust at the end, why we poured into the compnee kitty. It were a good way t’ make money, and cause we all shared that, weren’t nobody felt too left out.Anyhow. I was tellin you about their cabins! This was afore most of the tenderfoot crop came through, this woulda been like Fifty to FiftyTwo, when there was still fish in the river and a man could et them If he wanted to too.  Cakey, he was the best fisher of us. There were days when Cakey caught enough fish that we could all eat, and then some! What he couldn’t eat, he gived to his dog, Scratch. Scratch were a big yeller feller, all too friendly, if you was a friend of Cakey, and none too much if you weren’t.Nicletto he had maybe the best lil’ cabin, but that was cause he thunk to bring his pots an pans with him. Half the others had nothin, some of them cooked in their sluice pans, but hell, once a sluice pan been used for fryin fish then all gets gummed up on the sides with awl and grase and ain’t fair good for much.. they learned. Nicletto he had it down though, had all his own pots and pans, and sepert from his mindin’ gear. He had a little frilly brocade thing he hung on his winder to make like a shade, an’ everyone said “Dang that is down right purty, Nicletto!” He would smile with pride, and then he would invite you in to set a spell, at his little card table what had an awl lamp burnin whale awl all day and night and he had him some books too. I never seen much use in books, m’self, an’ I told him so, but he just laffed at me.That was Nicletto’s place tho. Transom, he had himself a little bed had a b’arskin rug, gotten when he kilt a grizzly b’ar and skint it alived, he said, anyhow, and I never had no real reason to doubt it. His bed was tucked back in a corner, underneath a shelf had hung all his minin’ gear, like picks, shovels, pans, and then there were his hat, his bandanner, an’ his dungaree jeans. I never took up dungaree jeans, but everone else said they was sure the thing. Me I still wears my woolen cuffed trousers, cause they looks better with my fancy jacket when I goes down to Frisco.There was MacDavish— his cabin had a farplace, and he done most of his cookin’ there. Get him a deer or a big old hog or a side of cow, why he would run a big old spike through it and set it on a rack, an’ turn it once in a while till it were good an’ toasted. Might take him half a day or more, but when it was done an’ if he shared it out, you was happy he had.
If anything, food supplies in the mining country were hard to come by, dear to the price, and in many cases, superfluous to the way of life many men took up. Hunting and fishing accounted for a great part of their fare, and minimal stocks of flour, lard, grits, and molasses were the most often procured. Those who were in, or came from, or went into the grocery field did land-office business bringing expensive and overpriced items such as eggs, oysters, tobacco, pork bellies, and steaks to the miners. Often as not a miner would eat in a bar or catch a meal and fry it up in a skillet wherever he was. The Brannans and Sutters and others who made their fortunes in the gold fields did not do so by the sweat of their brows, but by their own abilities to arrange transport and profit off wholesale purchase of commodities. Food was often something on the minds of the miners— and variety was often sought after, but rarely found.
Jamjob came along and took it over oncet they had built their own cabin and Jamjob, he keeps it mighty neat he does. Some of us wonders war he keeps his gear and duds, but I thinks he jest happened to luck out on some farniture and hides everything real good inside o’ them cabinets.Cakey, he ain’t got much, not even a cabin, even if he been up here mostest of us. All he got is a little she-bang made of tent and some madrone branches. But he says it do him just fine, even in the rain. When the rain and the now come, why, all he do is rough it up some more with more madrone branches outside but these he leaves all the leaves on, see, and piles them all around the place. He ain’t got no cabinets or stove, so I guess that’s why we often finds him askin one of us if he can cook his grub on our fires— but only in the winter.
Most of the year, the golden hills of California’s Sierra foothills burn with the warm sun— spring, summer, and fall. For a few bright weeks immediately after the first rains come, bright green shards of new wild grasses poke up through the humus and tumulus, granting food to the foraging beasts and the cattle, sheep, and horses that the valley ranchers see fit to turn loose under a trusting sky. Then winter falls, and it falls usually with a few sudden, sodden downpours. Out from the north come the strong arctic-borne winds, and with them, the first rains, ice and sleety hail and snow fall in the mountain passes, blocking all travel east or west for weeks on end. Snow falls in great clumps and drifts well over a man’s head in placs, and in the high regions, it remains most of the year, gradually giving way to melt once the planet’s axis has providentially turned once more at the equinox. For those months of November through March, however, the snow of the hills translates into rain over the valley and coastsides— rain if not to rival that of Oregon to the north, then certainly to laugh at the lack of it shown to the southern half of the state.Under these rains, the streets of towns like Judas Gulch turn to mud, churned well by the hooves of horses, the wheels of stages, and the boots of men who crawl out from their shanties looking for companionship, of whatever human form so long as it be friendly. Men like Ole Ollarud and Ling Lu the laundryman take days like this in stride, for not soon after, they know they’ll get their fill of men seeking a hot coffee or a cold whiskey, a clean set of ducks or a mud-free slicker. Mud and dirt come as no strangers to the men of Amador county, the Mother Lode itself one long stream wallow of mine tailings, gravel, mud, slime, brackish sloughs, and twice-combed ore. The Cosumnes travels its way to the brackens and mystically dissolves itself into the Mokelumne, and the Mokelumne into the San Joaquin near the Sacramento delta,where mystically it too vanishes into marshes and tule fields. The Sacramento, river of life, brings news and supplies up from the harbor port of San Francisco, and distributes them like cells in capillaries into the many towns that are the miner’s sole connections to whatever they had left behind. The San Joaquin, however, not being much fo navigation, acts as a huge drain for the miners and their dross—including a fair amount of toxins, which will one day work themselves into the groundwater in places, and coagulate in the sediments of the Carquinez Straits and San Francisco Bay.
That was what I had to say fer our compnee. Now for the rest of the town.Teasewater’s generl store, now thet’s been here bout as long as Ollarud’s Pewter Eye. If you want to fine a good way to get a fight started, you just asks the two of them which one got here first, and each will say, “Why sir, I did!” Teasewater, he’s a nester outa Boston, like so many of us, and maybe I guess so many of the ones comes after me. I might be “a Boston” but then agin I likes to say I’m a New Yorker, there’s a difference, but ain’t so much as peoples pay much attention from that. Teasewater and his little wife—Meana, thas’ what she’s called too, and she likes to joke on you “Thar ain’t nobody Meana!”— they come up here in summer of 48, and decidet that weren’t no better way to bring in the gold, than to sell whatever they could to the miner. That were right smart of them but, still Mr. Teasewater he’s got to head to Stockton to resupply those things. Sometimes (and maybe like once a month, if they are lucky?) the resupplies come to them, on top of a stage, or in a wagon cart. Things like duds, and canned oysters, them is in high demand, and they try and keep them in stock, but ain’t no better than this than a miner has to head to Stockton or Sackaminnow hisself if he wants anything. Prices is cheaper anyhow in Stockton, cause old Brannan has the fort in Sackaminnow purty well cornered and fenced in and marketed, he does. I was lucky I got my pick and shovel in Stockton not Frisco nor Sackaminnow, because Cakey he dun give me the good advice on prices.All the same I still thinks old Teasewater and Meana is fine peoples, for nesters. That store there is prolly the best sized building on Main Street.But there store, that’s one thing. What’s more remarkable is the house that Teasewater built. It got built by Chinee an Injuns, so Teasewater did not have to pay them white man wages, and it sorta looks it, too, cause all the had for a white man on that job was the foreman, Old Swede, before he got to be the town drunk. Old Swede probably couldn’t hang a frame plum if you set a compass on his nose, and dang if that house of Teasewater’s don’t tip northwards by about ten degrees from the rear. But if it’s allright for Teasewater and Meana, well, that’s there their problem. It’s got some kewpolas, fancy pants winders, and even a portico-minded porch, but only times I seen either of them on it is in the hottest of summer.You can’t say much about our Post Office. Letters take a coupla months to even get back east, and maybe who knows how long to get replies. If your carrier weren’t scalpt on the way, or robbed by bandits, and if they had good horses, an’ made the stage stops reggerly, perhaps yer letter had a chance. I know Jamjob he’s had the durnedest bad luck sending his mail all the way to Carolina and back. Suthrun too, they both complains about it a lot.But I suppose the very best of the buildings there on main street is Ollarud’s Pewter Eye. I’ll have more to say about that in a bits. Guess maybe I orter first tell you bout an insidint took place first week I got har. It were them Teasewater brats and the bizness they got up to around Kanaka Joe an’ Old Swede Hensen. Now, Swede Hensen, of course I alreddy tolja, he war the man Teasewater contracked to bild his house. An’ Teasewater he did pay a handsome some, fer what he got, many folks said, well, that war way too much for the slipshod job. But warn’t too many other carpentirs up har jes yet, and sorta like, eff Teasewaer wanted it dun, he better take who was on hand. Which war Old Swede, and his accompanist, (in crime?) Kanaka Joe. Kanaka Joe, he war another Sandwich Islands boy been har as long as Cakey. Like Cakey Said tho- he hadda name was so hard and long I I think the way you cirreckly spell is “Lonolupupuulimonaaeweikanimapalamanapa”.  Cakey explained it means “He who fishes with a sharp shark’s tooth in troubled waters” but then agin, I don’t think too many people put a lotta stalk in what Cakey ever sez, even if Cakey offin as not is tellin’ the truth—or “the honest humbug”, like he calls it. Since everone figgers thass all too much of a mouthful, we all jes’ calls ‘im Kanaka Joe.But ennyhow. Back when the Teasewater manshun wuz ben’ bilt an’ Kanaka Joe war the fust assisstent, he set himself up his own lil’ shack nearby war he could make a shrine to the Shark God— like Cakey sez, all good Kanakas prey to the Shark God. And he sackerfices a part of his food—whatever he’s a gonna set to et that day, to this Shark God, an’ he chants a spell so he kin have more to eat an’ sech. I’ll learn ya that in a minnit.Them two Teasedale boys Jimmy and Pawl (Jimmy’s the elder an’ the one with the branes, and mebbe he’s the one thinks up these kinda shennanigans) iz about eleven an’ nine, respeckively. Swede he war handlin’ shingles an’ sech, an’ it war lunch time fer Kanaka Joe.The big one, Jimmy, he sets to creepin’ around an’ lissenin’ in on Joe, and he hears the pagan chantin’ and sees the blood sackerfice an he gits skeered. He tells his brother Pawl thet thar’s something goin on thar not zackly Crischun. “Kanaka Joe be worshipin the devil an’ idle worshippin too!” he declairs. “Pawl we gotta think up sumpin, quick!”So they set down an’ began a figgerin’ stuff.Now neither one of these boys will admit to it these days ,but I still thinks et were Jimmy the eldest, got this consumption in his mind, he is gonna show Kanaka Joe what the rewards fer idle worship rilly is. And so he gits a jar, like the kind thet his momma uses fer makin preserves, and he heads over to a big ol far ant pie, an he starts a scoopin up the dirt an the far ants an makes thet jar all fulla far ants. When the lunch time is over, see, Kanaka Joe goes back ta work on helpin with the shingles, and so, Jimmy an Pawl they creep ever so sneaky inta the shack an’ war the sackerfishel food is, an’ lays about thet dirt and the far ants, so thet the far ants gits the idear, and soon they is all over the food, and maybe even diggin a new nest out unner it.
When Kanaka Joe gits back, a coarse, why them far ants is everwar an iz ettin his sackerfishel food. He scoops some of it up tryin’ ta wipe em off but thar is too many far ants! They is now crawlin’ all over Kanaka Joe, an’ on his arms, an’ gittin inta his face too, an’ soon he’s yelpin’ an’ a hollerin’ thet these far ants is makin his life hell, an’ puts a Shark God curse on whoever dun did this to his Shark God Shrine.Them two kids though, they was plenty funned by all this. They heard the hollerin an’ come a runnin, but keep theirselfs hid, a coarse, an’ had ta see how Kanaka Joe was farin with the far ants.Lemme tell you a little sumpin bout Kanaka Joe. He warnt no stranger ta far ants. Back in the Sandwich Islands thars plenty far ants, an’ they makes there homes in hot red dirt, almos’ as red as a far ant itself. When he was a lil’ cakey (that’s the word in Kanaka fer child) he set on a far ant nest not jes once but two times, jes ta show his brothers how tough he rilly wuz. While Kanaka Joe had a hard time on this particklar day with these particklar far ants, wuz a lot less the cuss it mite have bin fer some other minders, whut never knowed a far ant, and what never had ta pass a test of braviry fer their bruthers.Kanaka Joe sets to thinkin, who done this? Who in the worl’ might have a beef on him? Wuz it one of the Gospel Sharks that cruises the minds lookin fer minders what needs more of Jesus than Minin? Wuz it Teasewater, Who maybe be did it cuz he wuz a Chrischun an’ not so fond of annythin’ pagan? Er- wuz it... Wait a minit, sez Kanaka Joe- Meybe it war Teasewater’s little cakeys done this to him! Shorely it warn’t no mennihoonys (thet’s a Howeyean elf) an it warn’t no takkamony (thet’s a Injun elf). Yeh, he decidet, it war them Teasewater brats, alright, an’ when he catcheted them, he was gonna pound them like poy!So, he decides wut he is a gonna do an’ gomes up with a good old plan and sleeps on it. He makes like ta pretend ain’t nothin happened et all. The next day he gits up, goes ta work fer Old Swede, an’ when cums time fer his lunch, he takes exter speshul care ta look about him. He makes his sackerfice, and he chants this lil Kanaka chanting song:Kepau A’u Lono, a lau kumu’ia ame pua’aHekau ko’u pahi a’me ihe ololu amake nui mea’a’iHekau A’u kipona makau nau ko’u hoa kauaA’me kaunu nau ko’u hoa pili...
[Lead me Lono, to many sharks and many pigs,make my knives and spears kill much foodMake me feared by my enemiesand loved by my friends.]Now I gesset you already gesseted this but a coarse them two Teasewater boys wuz hidden in the bushes agin, watchin’ an’ a hopin’ thet Kanaka Joe mighta been all skeered outta shape an’ maybe he’ll give up his witchcraft sumtime soon.Only thet were not about ta happen, as you will soon see.Late in the day the day before, Kanaka Joe went a creepin around the Teasewater place tryin ta find the far ant nest. When he found it, he did a real sneaky thing, Only it were as sneaky as wut them boys did ta him. He got hisself a jar like they dun and he filled it up with far ants— so many far ants, in fact, they way out numbered the dirt in the jar, this time.And he goes an does his sacekrfice to the Shark God, an’ he knows, see, them two boys is sumplace closeby. He hears a russlin’ in the bushes an’ he knows it’s them. So he pops his head out, and he takes thet jar, and sprinkles far ants all over them boys! Yep yessir- both of em!Lord alive you never heered sech screechin’ an’ hollerin, cuz little boys screeches and hollers lots louder than growned mens, and they commence ta run off — direckly to thar Mom and Pop!Now, see, Mr and Missus Teasewater, bein’ polite an’ civil type of Bostons, they don’t cotton to much nonsense outta there boys, no sir, they don’t. So when they come inta the kichun all yellin screamin’ an hollerin’, do you think they git much simpathy from ol Meana Teasewater! No sir!But she sets down and lissens, once they is all finished with the skwallerin’.“An thet Sandwich Island man, Kanaka Joe— he did this ta us! He pored the far ants outta us! He’s pracksing witchcraft in thet lil shack et lunchtimes, Ma!”“Now lemme git this straight!” sez mean ole Meana Teasewater. “You boys gotcherselves inta some troubles, on account a Kanaka Joe? Why, he might be a pagan, boys, but he’s a bildin’ us this fine house we’re all goin’ ta be livin’ in, an’ as sech wut he deserves is yer respeck, not your deeveeayshuns!”“But we wuz not bein deveeayshuns! We wuz jes watchin in on him.”Meana Teasewater tho new her two boys a bit better than thet tho. She hed heard this kinds lies outta Jimmy before, an’ so much sass. She had a speshul bar of sope jes fer Jimmy, who liked to talk tuff and uncivil a lot anyways. She sez, “I’m a gonna go have a talk with that savage Sandwich Islands man, and git ta the bottom of this. Now you boys ain’t gonna git no supper til I do, ya hear”And thet makes them cringe and cry , cuz they is two growin’ boys an settin’ them fer the day with no supper wuz gonna be hard and mean. Wuz not but fer this sorter justice she wuz called Meana. But I is digressin.Miz Teasewater knocked at the winder (wuz no winder, wuz rilly more like a hole) of Kanaka Joe’s shack.“I hear there’s some trubble with muh boys, Kanaka Joe... You wanna tell me wut this all here is?”“Ah, yes, Miz Teasewater. Dem boys of yours make big wreck of my Shark God shrine. Cover all sackerfishel food with dirt, and far ants too! I come in an’ try make all shrine clean and new, an’ far ants is everwhere. I could not think who might done this but not you, an’ not Mister Teasewater, You fine kind wahine, he good strong hones’ kane. Even if you Crischuns you respeck my right to have shrine, I thank you for dat. And so I find boys and give taste own medicine. Shake far ants all ova dem. Dem all holla “murder, Momma!” cuz I know all dey knew about dem. Dass all what happen’. I tell honest humbug.”“Sounds like you have done thet, true, Kanaka Joe. I knows what a lar and sneak an’ trubbelmaker my Jimmy kin be. And so I am gonna say thank ya fer helpin. In yer own way. Because theMister and me we gots enough trubbels har in Judas Gulch tryin ta git stablished and all. I’ll git them boys some proper dissaplin, you don’t worry no more.”“Dats fine and da kine good, Missus Teasewater. I like work for you and Mista an Old Swede. Makes less trouble than hafta work on river! Bless you.”An’ Kanaka Joe took a shark tooth offa his necklace and give it ta Miz Teasewater an’ thet war the start of a fine friendship rat thar.
              


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HOW SARDO PAT CAME TO CALIFORNIA

Call me Sardo Pat. Everbody else does, why not you? You know what sardo is, doncha? It’s that special bread they bake down in Frisco. Folks claim the air got some special magical yeast in it or sumpin, makes it all so taste salty an’ tangy. Anyhow, my real name is Patrick Menahee Machlachglenahee and I was borned in Ireland. Came to 'merica when I was two. My pappy he worked on the Eerie Canal. You heard of that, aintcha? Lived in Skanecktidee. Came out west with the Rush I did, got me a claim on a placer on the Consumniss River, and my main drag is the town of Judas Gulch.I gots to tell y’all a little sumpin bout how it all came about, too, how I come out here, becuz I am oner those them like to call “Original FortyNiners”— That is, I made it out here while there was still somethin’ good about it, an’ I had a chance to make me an ackshul bit of money. Nowadays with all the hydrollicking goin on, there’s lots of land get washed through but lots less gold fer the pickin’! When I com here a man could still work his own damn claim, didn’t need no help or none.But that’s all different now. Takes me my six pardners and me together workin’ a sixty feet sluice together to get what little we gets. Oh its still somethin, usually bout two ounces a day I supose, but it aint like the old days when you could jest find them nuggets willy-nilly sometimes.I come from Skanecktidee New York, like I said, ain’t all so much back there ‘cept my folks and little brother, and I ain’t been back, an’ I don’t care if I don’t, neither. I left Skanecktidee and got myself on a boat outa city of New York called the Curij. The Curij she were jest a two-master, culdn’t take the trip round the Horn, you know, and so I had me passage to Limon in Costa Rica, down there in jungle land. Took me a week of hard travelin’ through them rustic vines and tangles, with a cupple Injuns as my guides, with twenny others, hackin’ and hewin’ our way to the Pacific. But we got there, and we got to Puntarenas.I was lucky, some of them other fellers took ill off malaria cause they got killer skeeters down there, an’ a couple of cholera, because ain’t no good water, I was lucky I had this here special large canteen carried my own so sip by sip I slipped across the Isthmus. Soon as we gets to Puntarenas we all catched a schooner headed up Frisco way. Ackshully it was headed to Portland Oregon, but had a stop there.Frisco! Man what a place. Folks told me that when I got there was about started to get hoppin’ and it’s been hoppin’ ever since! I only stayed enough time to get me a map and an outfit- for me that meant a pickhammer , a shevel,and a pannin’ pan and a fryin’ pan, and a good hat. That lucky hat’s been with me all along, too! And I headed up this here way to Judas Gulch, and put down my claim on my little place on the Consumness. Made me a couple of friends there, them is now pardners in the minin’ comp’ny, too, Piney and Transom. An’ Cakey. Cakey’s sorta like our man Fridey, he’s frum th’ Sandwich Islands, he is. In fact, Cakey were the first actual man I met that first day on the street of Frisco. I was just to set about gettin’ my land legs when this feller comes up to me- he’s got dark skin like a Nigro but more tan- an’ he asks me if I would be going up to the mines.I said, “Why, yes, what man here ain’t?”He proceeds to tell me he will make me an excellent guide, for a small fee. He is Cakey Kowakowa, from the island of Owahoo, an’ dang if he ain’t already been up thar in the gold fields and has his own claim goin’. Says, I will need some good advice as to how to go about things, this I cannot argue with, and he says, again, for a small fee, he will guide me to a good panning river, the Consumness, and he will help git me an outfit (that war the shevel and pick and pan and a little rocker) an’ we would both git two mules, and I can strap my gear on the back of one.Now I happent to have brought me a blanket, and that were a good thing, since that would have cosset me some fifty dollars there if I got it in Frisco. The shevel and pan and pick war bad enough, that war a whole thirty. By the time I had bought us both lunch and paid for the supplies and paid the rent on two mules, I had about spent near seventy whole dollers, and I had left only about a hunnert, for whatever else would need come up.Cakey said, though, that up thar a man must rely on his wits, slim supply, must make his shelter, must have good strong clothes, “much also he must have good strong back, because mine is hard work.”I weren’t afraid of no hard work, that is so.So anyhow I must also pay for the ferry for us both. My ticket was thirty and Cakey’s was thrityfive dollers on account of his Kanaka color, but we got the ferry, and left Frisco that same afternoon.Now there were some troubles going on, and which I had of course no sense of the meaning, though Cakey seemed to. “We get out of there just in time, Pat” he says, looking back over his shoulder at the town of Frisco as it diminished behind us on the water.“Big bad fight happen. Sidney Ducks and Frisco Hounds making big trouble for Chillytown minders.” “Chillytown? Frisco Hounds? Sidney Ducks? Me no savvy,” I says, intersted in the paticulars.“Chillytown. Make homes there in tents, many Spannards from Chilly. Come up to work mines with sons and wives. Sidney Ducks- bad news operators. With Frisco Hounds, get paid to watch docks, and drag sailors back to boats. Unlucky sailor cannot leave his ship to go mines! Bad.”“Sidney Ducks, Frisco Hounds, back there, they raging on Chillytown. Say, men from Chilly have no pay tax on mines. I pay tax on mines too! Yes, twenny dollah! Twenny dollah for year for man work mines not white American man. But Hounds mad that many, so many, too many Chillyman here in Frisco. So fight. Big fight go on, we leave it behind us. Big trouble. Where we go, not so bad. Lots of kanaka, lots of Chillymen, lots of Chinaman, lots of Injuns. But many men friends. You see. Gold work magic!”I had to let this sink in for a whiles, but what I would find, of course, would be nothing like he described things.When the ferry docked at Sackaminnow, he said it would be good for us to rest the night. We held the mules with a livery man at a hotel. Weren’t much of a hotel, just a little tent with five or six partitioned made out of drop cloth just like the walls. But they charged me and Cakey three dollers each to sleep thar. In the orning we rustled grub- was not so bad cept it were a dollar apiece, again. He still had not given me a price for his “good honest fee” but I was hanging on (if I could) to every cent I had. Still, it were tough. Not so tough as the steak we ate for breakfast, though!We got up in the mornin’ and saddled the mules, and riding on mine were not much fun withtht rocker behind my butt, but somehow I managed and so did the mule.Cakey was leading me onward, to the fated camptown of Judas Gulch.
So when Cakey get me up there into the hills, and after we had passed through Sackaminnow and I seen that fer what it was, we pulls into Judas Gulch on our old mules and goes up a hill where’s his place. Now I seen from the way he were livin’ weren’t much to advertise and that I wanted my own cabin right aways, jest as soon as I could make one. Cakey said “Oh fine, das right, I help you make house, you no worries!” First things I gets offa the mule, he sets me down in this llittle hutch of his. I don’t know what else you’re gonna call it, causeit aint more than a roof and a wall, and on three sides mostly open to the are. He pinned back canvas around the edges. It was not til winter I seen him double back up them canvas flaps and make it almost a proper house, but that’s all it was, canvas flaps bent round some posts. And the roof, well, it were only a piece of grass really, flowers and all growing on the top of it.Anway he sets me down an’ asks me what I’ll have ta drink.“I don’t know, watch you got?”Cakey says he gots whisky, but I passed on that, I figger I can see whisky enough once I gets my strike, and then have more reason ta drink it. He says he gots coffee so I says, “OK, fine”He pulls some coffeebeans outta a big old sack and pounds them with a hammer on a stump-head, and scrapes them off into a pot, throws water on, biles it, and there, that’s a cup of coffee. Weren’t no nothing to it. Of course I was gonna set him back on his tail oncet he seen the cofee grinder I buys when I gets flush but fer now this were luxury.Then he asks me eff I’m hongry, and of course I am, since we ain’t et nothin since this mornin when we lit out of Sackaminnow, and pulls a can offa his wall. He musta had twenty more these cans up there on a shelf and they all says the same thing- “Mr. Cook’s Two Finger Poi”. I never heard of this none. He says maybe I will like it. He opens up a can and I looks in and it’s the mos’ ugly looking purple slop! He laughs, and pours it inta a skillet, grabs a jug of molasses and mixes it around, stirs that gloop like it were a regular soup or somethin’. Once its hot he says “Give a while cool down” then once it looks like it is, why, he takes his forefingers and dips it in, pulls up a hunk of it on ‘em, and slurps it right down! I says, “Don’t you got a spoon for me?”Cakey laughs and says if I needs a spoon, I be’s no good in Sandwich Islands, but he hands me one, and so I tried to start anyway, eating the glopaguss.“It go so much bettah with fish. I show you nex’ time.”RIght now I guess he ain’t got no fish, so I sat myself there and stared into the wiggly face of the glopaguss and I et what I could. Which weren’t all of it. ‘Cept for the molasses that were some purty rank stuff. Half sar, and that were probly cause it were sar to start off with! Without that molasses I can’t see none how anyone let alone Kanakas could want to tech it. Mus’ be a quired taste.When I et my full of his “poy” I asset him where he got it, seein’ as were a Sandwich Island dellikasy.He said he got a whole case of it brung to Stockton secure and custom, when he made his first strike. Tells me once a man makes his strike well it’s lots like the gates of Heaven opens. All kinds of things is used and useful and comes to him easy like, much never thought of before. I was talking to him this way when he takes that thar empty poy can and flattens it and throws it in a bucket full of other poy cans, similarly skwarshed. I assed him what he was saving them all fer and he says, “ I melt down latuh. Make small pile tin and iron. Sell again.” This were a unique conception to me of how to get ridda the trash. I made me a mental note about it.“Now,” he says “Let’s see the river and the claim!”I reckon I had no other reason to be there to begin with and he leads me on a path heads up a hil then down again and we are now walkin in what I sees as a reckonizable river valley. He brung along a gold pan with him, since he wanted me to see I was not bein’ led astray none- this were a bonafidee good claim, and all I needed to do was set myself down and start washin’.When we gets down to the river is when I meets Jamjob and Suthrun. They are workin in the sun, Jamjob is loading the rocker, and Suthrun is trickin’ the sluicebox. On the flat side of a big old rock there is sparkly nuggets drying in the sun- first I seen the Californee gold! But it were real.“Howdy Suthrun!”— all happy bright says Cakey.“Howdy, Cakey! Who’s the Boston?”I gesset and gesset right that the Boston were me, since there were none other in the presence.“This hea Mista Pat— how he say- Micklockhagenahee- Dang his name almos’ bad as  Kanaka Joe’s!”Them other boys they laughed and interduced themselves. Suthrun been workin’ there best part of the year, and Jamjob, he were but three weeks ahead of me. Already they said they had their own cabin made up and I were welcome to sleep in tonight, if I would have none of Cakey’s little grass shack. And that were it, of course. When I had set there watching them, Cakey were in the crick himself, and he brought that big old gold pan over to me and showed me some of what he had washed out of it. Sure enough, that was gold thar, in that pan, and all of it came from the river gravel, and if I would like to get my feet wet now, well, I could start working on my own pile!That sounded purty good. So for the next thre hours, while them other boys sat on the river bank and did their little fill and wash and sort and preen, I did my own bit of pannin’.  It took me a bit to get the hang of it, and Cakey showed me just zackly how you angle the pan and dip it so slightly for more water and to let off the sand or dross rock, but I did get the hang of it, and dang if I did not at least take a half-ounce of gold, home with me all wrapped up in my little bandanner! That were real good for a first day, Cakey says.“Now you see I no Gyp you, I telling you honest humbug!” he said.Yep, it were honest humbug, and I knew I had found the answer at least for now what I come all this way for.Them other two boys takes me in to their cabin and sets me there and then I succumbed to their request to share their homemade whisky, which I insist, were perty good- smooth, clear, sets down the throat all smooth and syrup like and soon enough, you’re setting there and singin. Cakey come over after an hour or so with a little pint size git-tar he calls a ookoolaylay and plays and sings while we set there, sometimes we’re singin’ ourselves, sometimes it is jest him. And the moon starts rising big and full over the large mountains on the Eastern side, and them crickets commence their serenades, and all is fine, and that were the honest humbug.
The Cosumness River runs roughly east-west from the Sierras and empties in marshlands off the San Joaquin. It is one of about forty tributaries of the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers which madeup the bulk of the gold rush digging known as the Mother Lode— Names such as the Tuololumne and Mokelumnee, the American, the Feather, and the Stanislaus are all a part of the great network of Sierra Nevada watersheds which come to a due conclusion in the waters of the great San Francisco Bay. In Sardo Pat’s day all of this was virgin and unspoiled territory—men were just only now beginning to ply up the delta in steamships, bringing daily hundreds of gold seekersup from San Francisco- or Frisco, as everybody called it then.If things had been left to the work of individuals and even companies comprised of same, perhaps it may not have ended as it had to— perhaps the evidence, a century and a half on, might not have been quite as obvious. Yet greed was the currency in common all men that came to the Mother Lode shared. Greed took many forms but most often, it morphed itself into the shape of larger and larger collective enterprises and took more and more technological forms until the great waters had been stuffed back into artificial flues which stretched for miles up and down each river and stream, and great hoses capable of knocking a man down at a hundred paces were plied against the hillsides, that the hillsides themselves transformed into mile after mile of pulverized piles of dusty earth... which still remain, evidence for all of the complete ecological ignorance of 19th C. Man.

When I first started workin’ it, I started with the riverbank of course. Must have gotten eighty ounces out of it, that first summer. People asket me war didja hide it all! I ain’t a tellin them but I’ll tell you- when I had it all assyed an’ converted into Samuels I hid it all up in a coffee can under a floorboard in my cabin, is war it is, and unless you’re a damn fool, you won’t get any ideas yerself about comin to steal it from me, cause now I gots a Colt, and I can use it too.Anyhow I said eighty ounces, that was a lot of money, yeh and I went back to Frisco that October once I had it and once winter come on cause who is gonna tryin’ be the big fool and mine the Consumness in winter? I come back to Frisco and musta blown a good half my wad then. I stays away from Sydney Town of course, and I stayed away from a lotta things, but I had me a ‘stablishment I prioritized and it were good fer whisky and decent card games and sometimes even a good decent breakfast, with eggs and bacon and ham and some beer. Piney, he come from Caroliner, all the way hisself in a Conestoga wagon, the hard way to the stars crosset Injun land from Misery. Misery ain’t got much to recommend it, he says, but the Mississip, and Saint Louie, but nothin there but trail vultures, he says, and the ones led him out here was nearly well that too. Had him a few Injun scrapes, and I guess nobody amongst us hates Injuns now more than old Piney. He’d be ready to shoot one and scalp one ifet one even stuck up a feather over the edge of the rocks beside the sluice run!Transom, now there is a characer. He come from Phillidelphy and he uset to be a solid citizen and all, but when he heard the word the gold was out here, he took off from his wife an little ones like you never seen a man do for want of it, and he sold half of his land right out under them and bought a ticket round the Horn. Him I met in that little stablishment I was talkin’ about. He was just headin up here and I was goin’ back, so I took this gentle tenderfoot aside and told him some of the facts of life, which he was thankful for, because after our first spring together, Piney and Transom and then Nicletto ganged up on me and forcet me to begin the company with them. I can’t say twas a bad decision, cuz we have darn near made six times over together what I did myself end of forty nine, but still, somtimes I get hungry for the old days, when you didn’t need to split nothin with nobody and you were always sure then of an even Steven, cause weren’t no Steven!Me and Transom though we did get along, and amongst all them other fellers there, he seemed to be earnest even if he was a tenderfoot. I asket him why he was fool enough to sell out his land underneath a wife and kids, and you know what he said? He said, “Pat, if you had one chance to make the world a better place for them wife and kids, and you knew that you could do it, and you knew there weren’t no hope in the grocery bizness like it carries on in Phllidelphia, and that if you could make it in Californee and ship yerself back soon enough, who wouldn’t try and do it? D’you think you could? Specially if you loves that woman and kinders like I do.”I looked at him long and said “Well, it musta been some gamble, cause now you been out here two year already and you ain’t doin yet half as well as you figgered! Why doncha go on back, now?”“Because, Pat, them is goners to me, now. Yeh, oncet I been out here a while it was the girl got the old itch and began lookin’  round fer someone sensible. Like a lawyer. Sent me a letter one day said she had got herself one, and a deevorse, and now she was take up with him too! So now I gots nothin to go back for, Pat, and I jest mine fer myself and my own dreams.”“Seems like you bout lost all you had to get what you didn’t need to me, son.”“I reckon it too.”That was last year when I had that talk with Transom. But let’s go back again because I got to keep on tellin’ you about how I come up here! I did not finish really I jumpet the claim on yer story.I built this here cabin in the winter of forty nine and that was a good thing. It has a stove, yep, genuwine Franklin, and it has a farplace, yep, and I does my cooking either way. Has me a little feather bed and pillers to rest my head, and a rockin chair, and an awl lamp, yep, and each new day I gets up and sweeps out the dust and shakes out my special carpet, was a soovenir from my first Frisco trip, too. Folks told me it was stupid expense, but I thought it was good to have at least one purty thing in my house, and this rug be it. On the wall I keeps all my surplies—a can of lard, cans of beans, bags of sugar and flar, can of pepper, sack of grits, sack of coffee beans. A sack of Injun popcorn, too, that’ll come in good in a pinch, by crackee. A keg o’ gunpowder an’ some pistol balls, an’ another one o’ terbacky, so’s I can smoke my own cigartees. Sometimes though I likes a pipe instead, it’s more homey, and sometimes, you jes aint got the cirgartee papers. Yeh I got me a good coffee grinder too, got that offa Teasewater runs the store down in town, cosset me thirty bucks. I make do with what I eat cause I catches fish, I snares rabbits, I shoots squirrels and other varmints, and deers, when I can. I got tard of tryin’ to keep horns fer trophies, though, I don’t want a bunch of clutter, so I gives most of the heads to the other guys, they are happy to hang um on their walls.I hardly never see no eggs, cause they cost about a whole doller just for one, but if you go down to town you can get them, if you wanna pay an arm, leg, or foot t’ get some. I keep happy with hunks off my side of sowbelly, I buys one every season, that’s good enough, with a little beans, makes a tasty meal. I makes hortcakes with muh flar and sugars them over, and with my coffee ever mornin, it’ s breakfast. Any day a man can get up and make his coffee, ets a good life and a good day t’ die! I don’t care.I grows me taters, too, on the sunny side of the cabin, got a whole wall side deddicated to nothin but taters. Takes so little to get so many, you only hasta set down a few good starters, and in half a year boy, you got enough taters last ya through as much time again! Taters is might good with that bacon and beans. Course me being Irish I cannot do without my taters and neither would you.I come up, partly on the riverboat, the Sitka, an’ partly on the stage. The stage dumpeded me an’ Cakey off and I took on up toward the river. I was gonna git me a good spot, I was, and weren’t nobody here this side o’ Sodom was gonna tell me they was thar on the river firset on me. Cause I was! An’ was I ever lucky cause most of the other boys thought war I chose were none too smart- was way too much heavy boulderin’ thar, was not a lot of sandbar either, an’ besides, they said it was on the wrong side of the river bend for it to have any good placer. Well I reckon them boys all figgered wrong, cause the first week I brung out of there a mighty whole ten ounces and that were well enough to stablish me amongst the eyes of all the citizens here in Judas Gulch that I was, at least, one lucky Irishman, and I ain’t really looked back since, ‘cept to tell y’all this.Yep, I had some luck. Me and Transom eventually decidet we needed to pardner up, and there war other pardners, and I guess I’m a gittin a little bit ahead of m’self, but Transom were a good guy to meet, regardless. I reckon his natrual honesty were better than most of the boys up here, who may as well been created liars right outta the fire, because Transom, when he set his own claim, he made sure that he left me that overhang of rock on the bend the overlapped his, if you reckon by a plum line, that was mine, aright and I’m glad he knew it, ‘cause the next year when I blowed that rock aprt I found a nice quartzite seam inside her was less pyrite than gold enough, and that boulder set me up for another twenty ounces all itself.Now days when they come up and do all the highdrollickin’ like to see fit to wash all the hills into the durn sea, you can find sums like that lots quicker, if you set yer jets right and you happen to have a good vein to mine. Lots of people got claims that were nothin but a whole wash— lost lotsa money on them hose and pumps, lost lotsa money on their sluce runs, lost a lotta time cause they never had the sense to test the sedimentry layers fust. I tell you even smarties like Transom come out here, alls they ever knowed about gold is what they read in books, but some of them find that nothin’ out here is quite like they found it to be in college books, nope, cept it is true, that gold runs in quartzite, and so do mica and pyrite, and a man’s got t’ have a good eye t’ tell pyrite from gold on sight anyhow. But I ain’t ever been fooled. Even gold flakes is heavier than pyrite kind, and you kin tell jest by turnin’ it in the sun if it’s black on one side, was pyrite anyhoo, might as well hand up the pan and filler up agin.I gots my coffee grinder, like I said, from the store here. Old Teasewater runs the place, he’s another smartypants college boy, says he went to Wesley in Massachoosits, has him a brood of little brats and a wife of course he hatched them all with. They are some fierce little terrors, and some of the boys say they is even worset than Injuns, for all the troubles they sponsible for sometimes. Them boys of the group loves to play pranks specially if they think they can get their Dad some money by means of doing so— I tell ya, one of them little varmints near broke up part of our sluice run just so McDavish would need to buy more railing from his Dad! Things like that happen up here, though. That coffee grinder, anyhow, it’s my only concession to what them folks back home might call “civilized.” Otherwise, me and the rest of the company, we’re right True Barbarians.Suthrun is one of them sort come up outta the South, which is why is his name Suthrun. Him and Piney get along real famous. But you orter hear them two talkin. Sounds like they hardly knows a word of English. I’ll bring that into it later. But Suthrun, he come from Georgia, some say he escaped and has a bounty on his head, but he don’t seem to act none like a crim’nal to me any. Mostly he stays up in his little shack- and I mean it, his place ain’t even a cabin proper, just a little lean-to that he made ‘reiginally out of a tent and some post beam, then when he got good and ready, he mad a little roof from a dilapidated river raft, and hung it up on to. He ain’t got much of nothin but a moss bag to sleep on, and a lamp, o’course, and he do all his cooking on a fire. On rainy days he is plum outta luck so he eats down at the Eye. It’s good for that, too, yes it is. But I likes to save my dough, not spend it, so I eats at home mostly. A lot more than Suthrun do at least!McDavish, he’s a Scotsman. I reckon I gets along with him partly for that, and cause he was borned over there too, and come around the same time as my Pappy did, around the same age s me, too, ‘cept a little older. He’s got the red har and the temper, t oo, and if you pore him a mite of whisky, well, that would just wet his whiskers, he’d soon be at ya fer the whole bottleful. That’s why I never drinks with him, on account of trying to stay friends. Hard to stay friends with a man if you drinks too much with him, I thinks.An then the last one of our company, Jamjob. He’s a sartin piece of work he is. Ain’t nobody ain’t a white man he’ll even speak to, not even a white woman, outta what he thinks is courtesy. Otherwise again if a feller ain’t white, I knows he hates ‘em. I never seen such a skirtscairt pigeon in all my days as that man. Why one day I seen Millie talking with him, and he kept his hat on his chest like to be handled, and backed away from her so fast... Everone at the Eyeball laffed at that. We found out later that Jamjob has a wife back east too, just like Transom, only he’s tryin to be a good little boy and then someday (maybe) he thinks he’ll be able to order her up and bring her to Frisco. Jes’ like that! I knows it’s a ‘saster jes’ waitin’ to happen.Now Cakey Kowakowa, he’s been up har since before even the word came out about the First Strike. He’s from Honnalooloo, an’ fust he war a sailor, but when the Strike hit, he took off like a jackrabbit fer the Gold Country here. Lucky I found him, too, I spoze, and he was lucky I was all green and all like I was, cause I needed somebody to larn me the way this is all spposed to shake out, you know? I might not a got the hang of pannin’, nor even reckoned with no idears about a Long Tom or a Company, eff I hadna runned into him. He’s been a good soul, too, not a streak of savage in his heart, even if he does like eating pounded goop. He ain’t a full pardner, on account of him not being a white man, but we do give him chancets to take his own cut, and he swears he’s savin’ his dust for a trip back to Honnalooloo sometime soon. Arcadia Cosmopolitan Mining Company we calls ourselves, and that we are, cause we is cosmpolitian—Why what else can ya call it when you gots an Irishman, a Scotman, an Eyetalian, a Boston, a Suthrunner or two, an’ a Kanaka? “A right mess!” says MacDavish, an’ I reckon he ain’t far from wrong.
The summertime fog of morning hangs like the hand of a lunatic monk over the land west of the Sierra Nevada, above the sleepy little town of Judas Gulch, above the sleeping heads of Sardo Pat and his partners— Transom, McDavish , Nicletto, Suthrun, Jamjob, and Keiki Kalakaua. Great piles of cumulus are lumping up above the mountains now, pregnant with the first storm of autumn. From the valley foothills, they appear like rough clumps of cake frosting, sculpted into high forms the height of the mountains themselves and more, shaded in tinges of grey, blue-grey, and white. As dawn arrives the cumulus are now colored with the back-light of the sun, which as yet may not break through, and perhaps, over the mountain towns of Truckee and Nevada City, may not break at all today. For the storms often remain a day or two. They got off easy this summer— few rained any if at all, and the cumulus had remained white. But now with the onset of winter, the wind out of the Oregon lava beds had added a northern chill to their makeup, and lofted them much higher than summer’s, and they settled over the mountain passes like men who meant business.
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FAREWELL TO ANSELM

 Something felt wrong. I do not know what made me think it, really, although you could sense there was something out-of-sorts about the day... I went about the morning as usual, by calling out Will to take care of the horses and the stable, and by walking Panoptes along the strand. When I came back to the tavern, we had already opened, and Pamela was bustling about, with the trays of bread from upstairs all hot, and laying them out on shelves in our kitchen. There were not many guests yet, but I looked out in the hall and there were at least four men, weary looking, and obviously they had arrived from the war in Wales, for they wore mail, and two of them were bowmen, who had their weapons with them.I greeted them with an offer of ale, which they accepted, then one asked if they could each have a loaf of bread, and surely so, I said, and brought them back both a large pitcher of ale and a loaf of bread for every one of them, Three farthings each, and they were satisfied.But there was not one among them who seemed cheerful, and relieved to be let go from the battle. I asked them, for I could tell, there really was something wrong.“Don’t you know? We are back from Wales. Our Baron Anselm is dead!”Dead! The man to whom I owed my loyalty, my rents, and the entire beginning of my venture here- dead!“Anselm, dead?”“Quite so, sire.” He did not speak any more, but he bit off his bread, and chewed bitterly.“How then did this happen?”“It was two weeks ago at the battle of Stalling Down. Anselm was leading a party to charge on the Welsh, but he took an arrow in the cheek, and another in the neck, and then one to his chest. It was terrible. He lived but a few minutes, before he coughed up lung and died. Right there amongst the host of us.”“Anselm did fall, and at such a price! Prince Henry has released us from his service to return home. We marched through Cardiff to the jeers of the Welsh villein. And Trewidden will now be another home for Lord De Courtenay. This was also granted by the Prince, as Anselm left no wife nor child to whom it can pass. As De Courtenay rules Cornwall, so he shall now take Trewidden.”He saw the look on my face, and grimly patted me on the shoulder.“I know this is hard to take, lad. But These things do happen in war.”I could hardly think of what to do. My first thought was to close the tavern for the day, but then, I would lose any business, and this would not be a good idea. The most I might do for now would be to hang Anselm’s coat of arms from a prominent place on the wall.“Do not be surprised, then, sire, if Lord De Courtenay himself comes to this place to sup. He will be traveling back from Wales soon, and overseeing the changes to the castle. And he will bring man in his train that will also eat here. Business will be good for you.”This was hardly any consolation. My good friend Anselm, dead! For that was how I thought of him, now. I needed to get my mind around this, and it was hard. In the last year then I had lost to war the most favorable adults in my life, my benefactors, Richard Stephen’s father, and Anselm, my patron and landlord. I would have to tell Mary. I would need to tell the entire group of my employees, and Clarence and Ranulf, too.The men continued to munch on their loaves, drank from their pitcher, and then they asked for a chicken, spitted, that they could share among themselves. I nodded, and went back into the kitchen.Pamela was fixing a large tub of salad, when I came through the door. She saw the look in my eyes, she must have, for all she said was “What is wrong, Julian?.”“Pamela, it is terrible, the Baron Anselm is dead. He was killed in Wales. He will only be coming back to Trewidden to be buried. The castle has now passed to Lord De Courtenay.”This news took her aback as well. There was a pause, a silence, and into it, Mary walked.“Julian, what ever is wrong?” she asked “I can see it in your eyes. You never are like this, unless something is wrong.”“Mary, Anselm is dead. He died in Wales a fortnight ago.”She brought her hand to her mouth in an expression of shock, and began to cry.“That is truly hard.”“Anselm was one of the few men here we could trust. Even as he fought Henry he kept an ear out for us and the cause. Now De Courtenay will have Trewidden. The dregs who rule the castle will now be our new landlords. And we must now be oh so careful about our speech! Even more than we were before.”“Julian, now what? I had the ale ready for Anselm, we were going to bring it up to him in two more days.”“I think for now, we can ignore the order for the castle. And until De Courtenay comes to call on us, let us just continue on, as though the castle and Anselm are no longer there. For they aren’t, any longer, for us to consider as any kind of refuge.”Now Pamela and Mary were both crying. I had never been in the presence of crying women before, so I hardly knew what to do. Instead, I told Pamela to see to the chicken for the soldiers, and Mary and I went out to the bowling lawn with the dog, to sit on the bench. She held my hand and fought back her tears.I did not know what I could do, but in my sorrow, when it came to the end of the evening, I took Wilmot aside, and had Ranulf beside me as well, and we played a dirge meant in memory of Baron Anselm. Wilmot’s vielle sobbed long, drawn out cries while Ranulf’s pipes evoked what I felt was maybe the very spirit of Anselm himself, beside us. Perhaps he was there, as we played for our pain and grief, and the people who sat at the tables all were silent while we played, obviously thinking of what they had lost as well.For what we had lost was not only our lord and liege, and someone who kept our faith and secrets, but we had all lost a friend, someone who had used his power with care, and wisely, who had ruled kindly and well, and had never given cause for any of us to hate nor despise him, for he had been fair and evenhanded, and nothing like the new men who now took his place. If there were such a thing as a scourge by brimstone, it would be fair to say, I felt, that the people listening to us as we played would have preferred Trewidden be burnt to ash with it, than to know it had fallen to the hands of such cruel despots. But that was how things truly were, and when we finished, all three of us had tears in our eyes, so did many of the people, and they called out a hearty “three cheers for our late Baron, Anselm of Newlyn! May his memory live long beyond him!”
Mary and I had an afternoon to ourselves, at long last. With Clarence, Wilmot, Pamela and Deprez taking care of the tavern, we decide to make our own day out of it, and made preparation to have our afternoon supper in a refreshing way.Mary put all the ingredients for our meal into a large basket she covered with a light cloth. There was bread, cheese, half a hen well-roasted, there were pickled beets and strawberries and a small jug of wine, which we would both share. There was a place I knew— up on the heath before the Glen of Trewidden— which was grassy, and not grazed nor plowed, but wild as the ancient hills, and from this spot we might overlook all of Newlyn, Penzance to our left, the sea, the Mount, and of course, we had an eye to our own cypress tree line, and how it led to the beach.I held her in my arms and told her how I felt very happy we would be a family.“At long last, we will need to think of more than ourselves,” she reminded me.“Oh, it has been a while since I even gave myself much thought,” I answered. “It has been difficult making our idea for the tavern work. That has taken so much of my attention, I have probably failed people like Ranulf in remembering theyneed to eat too. It has been horrible what we have seen the castle become while Anselm has been away. And it is sometimes frustrating just getting the things I need from the shops or the market fair. But we have done fair.”“I think we should have to do better.”“I feel I should by certes do better, toward those who are my friends. But we give Stephen our money for honey, we give Albertus money for wine, we help Wilmot and Jack of Rowe and others like them (and Ranulf) someplace they might make some coin. Soon we shall have one more mouth to feed, and they will answer us with no fair amount of noise, if we cannot deliver. But one day... one day, those new little hands will be along here to help us as well.”“So I know, yes, Julian, so I know. Listen, I have no doubt we will succeed. We are succeeding, are we not? And each week we hear new tales of people that tell us how far and wide our place is become known. I am glad for this. Aren’t you?”“True, it makes me smile. But only when those that tell it make it a point to come back.”“I feel for Stephen and Roger. Now that they have left again for France, one hopes their trips will be assured of safety. Now that the French are stirred against England, Albertus may have an even harder time than he did in the spring, being assured of a port, or of any sort of landing.”“Well Albertus did bring us that good wine. Did you know, Julian, there is much wine which was taken at sea by English raiders, and that in Dartmouth they have been selling it at a huge profit?”“I had not heard that.”“Well, this is something my friends have told me. And we could have some of that, if you were...”“No, I have already sealed my deals with Albertus, he will be my main supply, now that we cannot count on Anselm, and that the castle has all but locked up their stores.”“It is said that at the castle, they have brought some of that captured French wine too, and it is a glut upon them.”“Much is a glut upon them, This I would not be surprised to hear. And anyway, they have allies on that side of the Lizard, even if they do not have many here.”The dippers were singing in the trees, and our little shady spot had begun to catch more of the direct light from the sun, but between cups of wine and bites of food, Mary made me feel back where we were when younger in Cheshire a year or two ago, when we had rolled ourselves silly in the hayfields of May, and all was radiant about her, as though she not only carried my child, but a secret of the universe inside her. I was grateful for those moments, whenever I might find them, for those were the moments when I was assured by my soul that time is endless and wherever we are in our lives, there is so much more beyond ourselves and yet we are that as well, there is never a need to feel real fear, when you have this peace of God. And that we too were part of this great chain of being stretching out beyond us into the lives of our children and theirs, and that all things were as they should be, and there was naught to argue, but for the inconveniences of men.That was my state of mind. As the sun grew hotter we moved closer toward the trees and the shade, and our dog Panoptes sat panting beside us. I put my attention upon him, and tossed to him a stick, and he made a game out of going to catch it, further and further away each time.And we lay there talking, the sky above Cornwall quite blue, empty of cloud, bees buzzing in the tall clover, jack-in-the-pulpits winking purple and green at us, the high grass—waist high where we yet had to tamp it down. In our basket the meal she had made up for us.Mary’s kiss brought me to my senses, an refreshed it, again and again. For now, a few hours at least, I was no longer “Julian of the Fallen Lady,” but traveling minstrel Julian in my Chester-dress holding the Queen of the May in my arms, her kiss soft, sweet, wet, and fulfilling.    It were not long ‘afore the desire within us both caught flame, burst forth, and we sweating couple together upon the blanket we had brought. Conclusion gave us both another chance to begin whatever conversation we’d neglected. But there was no need to talk.It was only a man and his wife, lying beside each other on a hot summer’s day. The calls of a heron could be heard echoing up from the glen, and of course the dippers, clappers, and divers, all the water birds raucous and declaring the bounty of River Coombe as their own.“Was Deftwulf of Ravenglass really a French spy?” was the first thing Mary asked me, when she had at last recovered the mood of speaking.“Was he? I never asked.”“Ranulf thought he was.”“So he told me. Even if he was, I have made up my mind— I shall have no part in anyone’s troubles. Even if it be on behalf of our cause! I have lost my dear friend, again. It hurts me sore. And what if he were a spy, and Aleuderis too, and what if Clarence, Wilmot, Claire, and even Pamela- what if all of our friends were spies? It matters not a whit to me! For all I wish to do is keep on loving you, dear Mary. Our love surpasses what is here of this world— which hangs like dross upon the great tapestry of the Master Weaver. All the struggle of this world! It’s just—it’s just not real, though we do our best to convince ourselves. And then, we finally die of it. No, the weave of he Master Weaver is not really of this life. You miss the pattern by seeking the warp and woof alone.”“Sometimes, Julian, you astound me. I never think of such things!”“I know it. But that is something I like about you, since you concern yourself with what is important to the two of us, while I— I guess sometimes all that consumes me are things outside what most people think are important. Just, sometimes, I feel I nee a break from worry, and I like to remember we’re not put here to worry, but to love, and live!”“More deep waters from my complicated husband” She laughed, and came closer to me.“All the better for my appreciation of you.”Again we were lost in each other’s kisses, for a time.
When the sun was halfway to the sea, we gathered everything and returned home.Moselles stood at the top of the stair, a reminder that “the real world” still existed.“Julian! Good day! Listen! I have some good news for you! Remember when the Devons said they were requiring us to send them food?”I did recall, and thought it quite strange they had never but sent us an order even once. Instead, they had come down upon me like locusts to punish me for my song, and the “crimes” of young Wilmot. Anyway, could Moselles have to say I wondered.“Well, what about it?”“They have let me know they will buy all my hot cross buns this week! Buy them!”“What will it mean to our profits?” “It should bring us at least pair of tuppence.”“And they said they would pay us?”“Yes, yes! That Beaufort fellow. I took his bond, he’s ordered three baker’s dozens! Zat is usually vut ve lay out in a veek! And he offered down payment of three farthings, and said ze rest will come- on delivairy!”Well, I knew what that meant. Saddle Magdalene and store the buns in a hamper and ride to the castle... and speak to them. I did not relish these thoughts. And this really wasn’t that much to get all excited about. I sensed, rather, Moselles was trying to tell me something about how the castle men were... softening toward me.Moselles disappeared back into his bakery, and I ducked into the kitchen through the back way.We put aside our worries, for there was always the tavern, more a barrel of monkeys than ever when we returned there, what with the singing of Wilmot in his quavering voice, and the slamming of cups and plates on tables, the shouts of diners, the hustle of Pamela and Deprez to keep up with their demands. I took over the seat by the hearth from Wilmot, and sang:“I own my sock, I own my soulI own everything in my controlHole in my sock, hole in the coalYou best not meet up with me when I’m on the troll
A basket here and a casket thereAnd of your own acts, may you despairI have blown my fortune on kingdom comemy life a tale most venturesome
you never met a man like meI’m fleet an heat and bound for PicardyI work all night with a bottle in my handMy geese and pen are at my own command!
Let’s eat our meat and drink our wineWhile on the world it’s ours to dinemeat and wine, mud and clay We’ll all meet there on Judgment Day!”And in the morning I took Magdalene for her ride, and Panoptes for his run alongside, and I ended up again looking out to sea over the south toward France, the France I had seen and now remembered, even as Saint Michel’s Mount remained a blur at the edge of my eye.I paused there to rethink- quite unlike yesterday, when I had felt so pure and part of everything that a star might have fallen and I should never have paid any mind, it was the remembrance of my friends no longer with me that I considered. Richard, Stephen’s father, perhaps the first of all my benefactor if I  discount Porcull, killed by a pair of knights intent on robbing him at sword point. Anselm, my worthy patron, perhaps the most just of men, if Richard had been the kindest, laid low by an arrow in the heat of battle. Why should it be that the best, the kindest, the most just, should all be laid down by those so unworthy of ever being so described, and why take them away from those of us who need the help, the kindnesses, the good decisions, the fair treatment? Why were we again yet under the wheel of the unworthy, the plain, the mediocre, the powerful with an eye to more power? I had no answer for this, for it seemed this was separate and apart from the answers that I felt I had been party to on the afternoon just passed.I felt for Wales, for I knew without any doubt the rebellion despite the French, would fail. Without Anselm, even those of us far from home, we from Cheshire, exiled here in Cornwall, would hardly have much chance to see a free Cheshire, apart form the “Prince of Wales,” that title so self-amended and added to that of the Crown Prince of England. And I knew there would come a time, perhaps, even when Owain Glyndwyr in his glory could not overcome the strength of all the nobility of Britain arrayed against him, and that there would be no end to the derision, and the division, of the people of Wales from the language and the errors of the Crown. A dream, a fleeting dream, a great dream, but a dream no less. So it was, and the waves washed the sands, and I turned back for home, my heart a burden of care.
From the History of Pamela of Chester: The Failure of the RebellionMy winter of 1404 had some desperation. News came to us of the death of the good Baron Anselm: Now it would be so that the castle Trewydden would revert into the very hands of the men who had been oppressing the nearby Cornish- not only that, but De Courtenay would now become our good Julian’s landlord—very likely the rent on Julian’s house, as well as the tax he would pay on his tavern, would rise, as well, it was quite likely that the new castle tenants would raise the stakes of the voluntarily tithe my friend Mary paid them in ale. In the midst of this, we learned Mary was pregnant, and she would, the next year, give birth to a little girl, whom she and Julian named Aslaine. But before she was born, the war in Wales took a very dark turn.Owain Glyndwyr had won a precious victory in the very battle which took the life of Anselm, Stalling Down. But it was not followed up with more of the same. Indeed. While Julian himself spoke to me that now he felt sure the cause could not be won, King Henry next won two more victories which would, in time, be seen as turning back the tide of independence for the Welsh. The first of these was Grosmont, which came in January of the year 1405. Eight hundred Welsh and allies were killed, and no prisoners taken save one high ranking man, whom King Henry allowed to be ransomed later. Prince Henry had won the battle, and so he would go on to win another, Mrydd-y-Pull, in March. This was won even before the men of Charles VI arrived in Wales and were put into Owain’s campaigns. At this battle, some fifteen hundred Welshmen perished, among these Glyndwyr’s younger brother, Tudor. His son Gryffdd was taken prisoner, and sent to the Tower, and so, Owain Glyndwyr would spend the next four years fighting more defensively than ever, as King Henry himself now took to campaigning, returning to Wales.In June and July he attempted one more gallant sortie over the borders in Worcestershire, and took to the very city walls again lands near Shrewsbury, as a hundred and forty French ships under command of Jean de Rieux the Marichal of France, and Sire de Hugueville sailed from Brest, and gave themselves to fight for Glyndwyr. Even still, the armies of the Henrys prevailed. The fighting in Hereford and at Shrewsbury was so fierce even the “brave” Crown Prince took flight, joining his father in the south, and then, together they again saw fit to drive upward to Wales. Glyndwyr took to the mountains eventually and fought by intermittent raiding. Many of the gentle people of South Wales took advantage of the King’s grace, and were taken back to be Englishmen again, foreswearing all further attempts toward independence. The entire affair of course took years to run to completion, but the dreams of we Cheshires remained but only that. The English Saxons might rule over us forever. Sic Propono, Hr yn byw Cymru!THUS CONCLUDES THE TALES OF JULIAN PLECTRUM

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HARVEST

Wilmot finally came into his own, when five of the miners who had walked from Saint Ives, and were all full of themselves, their pockets full of shillings from a month at the Ding Dong, took over The Lady for an evening of carousing. They found Wilmot to be not the least bit out of turn for the type of entertainment they wanted, and each lay or song or poem he placed before them only encouraged them to drink more, to cheer him more, and keep him so busy he turned to me after one of his songs and asked me if he couldn’t take a break for a while.“My fingers are bleeding, sire Julian! I have been at this a full two hours, and they won’t let me go!”“That is because they like you, lad. Give them one more, then take the half of an hour away.”Wilmot gulped, but I could see he was determined, and then he plunged right along into a dance for the country men they all recognized as The Dance of Death. Whether or not he was trying to say something, it only served to make them dance the fiercer, and laugh the more, and their shrill cries as they took maids off other tables and plunged into the thick of things were loud, sharp, and lustful.Now I thought that this was the sort of thing I had wanted here all along— but I did want Wilmot to have time to relieve himself, drink some water, maybe eat something, before he was put back ahead of these people. When he was done, then, I came back from the kitchen with Luisa in my arms, and I played for them that half hour he was out. When he returned, his hair had been combed, his neck was wet with a cloth draped over it, but he was grateful I had left him aside.Now I had little idea that they liked my  playing or not, but that was not the point. I would be at The Lady whenever I chose, there was no separation between my destiny and being there for whoever else was. But I knew Wilmot had his love, Claire, on his mind all the time. I decided that he could have the spot for the next fortnight, which then meant that he would be in front of whomever was in the hall, and whether or not the Ding Dong men were about, whoever was in the hall would have to put up with his mischievous manner, his sometimes ragged tempos, and the songs that he had stolen off Clarence.Well I should not say actually he stole the songs off Clarence, for Clarence gave of them rather freely. But I hoped eventually Wilmot might bring us some songs of his own, since every man who picks up the lute, or the vielle, or the hurdygurd, has something of their own inside them—or don’t they? Even they who were drawn to music for the cozzening (like the Farter, for instance!) had some mind to make things up and tell their own tales, sing their own songs, press out the melody from their minds into the wide world, all alone, a torch in the wind, blow it fair or foul.And yet Wilmot showed little concern for making his own songs. I knew I would need to speak to him about that eventually, for I felt that if someone would do well here at The Lady, they would do best when they had their own voice, and were not just copying someone else’s.The harvest was soon upon us. I decided that to help me I needed, this year, everyone who had been about, even Deprez, to help me gather the barley and rye in the field, to cut and dry the pepper vines, to pull and clan the vegetables of the garden, and to slaughter a hen or two.And so it was that when Clarence came, himself, to help me, and Wilmot was off so disposed again, singing for his supper, I took him aside to speak about the originality of his apprentice.“He does not seem to want to make much of himself,” I said. He would much rather sing the songs he learned off you! I was a little like that a couple years ago, too, but at least I saw that I needed songs of my own- it is never enough to be the copy of whomever went before you, you know.”“Give him time, Julian. He has discouraged me a little too, on that, but he has done well at the building of lute-shells and the like, and so maybe not everyone is a poet, you know.”“Ah, but everyone who plays should be the poet of their soul...” I was not quite buying it.“And what of it? Perhaps he has not fully found his voice. Give that time, too.”Clarence and I walked to the shed where we drew out the scythes and the flails and began to make ready for the heavy work.“We really should start at the shore, and work backward.” I said. “That way when we get back to this end of the field, we have already done the hard walking.”I knew I could get Ranulf on the morrow, and Wilmot and young Will, too, for the morrow was the Saint Bartholomew feast and Market Fair Day, and while Pamela and Mary had plans for what they would do there, I knew the other men had no desire to see the fair, and yet be bored more by the kinds of entertainers that were there. So we would be a good team, all working out in the field on Market day. Perhaps we might get the better part of it done, even. But for now, Clarence and I, we headed to the land’s edge by the sea, and with my dog Panoptes watching us, we began to scythe the tall rye and barley and stack the long stalks together so that the grain heads were all aligned and wrapped into bundles. We must each have twined up some fifteen bundles apiece, when we called it day, and began to lug the sheaves back to the tool shed, where a large winnowing sheet had been lain.I told Clarence that we would take care of the first day’s harvest on the next day too, and we would have more help, so there was little need to worry over what we had brought in. Panoptes we staked outside near the grain and the chickens, so that if any of our tavern guests had ideas about stealing it, he would make an end of them. He was growing larger yet than he was as a pup just a year ago- I now looked at a fine sleek dog whose fur would bristle and whose eyes would glint “trouble” at the approach of strangers, but also a dog that gladly took what was offered from the hand, and even knew how to shake one.And on the next day, Wilmot came with his friend Claire, that they might both help me, and in so doing, earn some money from me. And I presume as well it was so that they might catch some time together, away from us all, when the time to halt for our dinner had come. I was grateful though— everyone I had asked came down to help. Moselles, who had harvested his field the week before, was even among the reapers, as I had helped him with that, and as partners in The Lady, we figured we should each help each other at harvest as well.So there I was— I had my eight friends in the fields, and Deprez and Mary were behind at the tavern to make sure that the guests were being fed, and were happy. I was ever more grateful that the sheaves began to stack themselves up, and by the time it was dinner, at midday, there were forty more sheaves of grain in three large piles at the winnowing sheet. The first day’s barley, that of the next day, and the first portion of the rye.And we had ourselves a grand dinner, we did, what with biscuit, with chicken roasted with thyme and tarragon and cinnamon, with boiled vegetables, a salad of garden greens, and big pots of new ale! Then I divided my crew into men and women, and the men continued reaping- which took the rest of the day, but it was done. While the men reaped, the women flailed and winnowed the great sheaves of grain in large bushels they collected— first the barley then the rye and as the men finished bringing in the sheaves,  the collected bushels were filled, and went up to the kitchen shelves, where they had lids fitted to them, and Kerfel the cat to guard them.Sometime during all that I guess when the dinner break came, Claire and Wilmot had disappeared, but I did not seek them out to call them back. I knew where they were, for I could see them off out the corner of my eye, rolling in the grass beneath the cypresses, on the far side of them, but still Wilmot’s red jerkin stood out at times, as it bobbed one way or another against the grey trunks of the trees. Ah, let them be, long live young lovers! I knew what they were feeling.Thought now turned of course to my wife, carrying child, but not showing so much nor taking it as burden too heavy yet to not work at the harvest. She smiled gracefully and graciously, and while they were at the reaping, she could be heard laughing and joking with Pamela and Claire, and that was how I knew it all agreed with her.When our work outdoors was all over with, and all the grain had been threshed and winnowed and stored, yet there was work at The Lady which would go on until early morn. But this night was sore different than others. I think the trouble began when Eldfarm and Beaufort made another rather rude and unwelcome appearance. But this time, they did not ask for favors or treats of food. No, this time they rushed for young Wilmot while he bowed the vielle, and while Claire gazed appreciatively at him while he did so.They seized him and were about to make off with him when I stopped them.“Hear, hear what is this? You take my minstrel from his work? He has worked hard all this day out in the field, as well. what is your purpose and your need of him?”“We suspect, good taverner Julian, we suspect that this boy and his minx there are conspiring against our King, and blaspheming against our Lord! We were told this couple have not been to Mass for four weeks! There is a fine for this, you know.”“What if there is? Is it right you should grab him at his work, that you could not have come at some other hour? Then you must grab him at his work in front of his audience!”“Master Julian, we know this is rough on you. But we had reports”—I could see it now in my mind’s eye. Micah and Earnest, of course, who had gotten to be fair admirers, so they said, of the food and drink and song here, had been through here a few times in the last month and certainly while Mary and I had gone off to Chester. And perhaps they noticed that Wilmot had not been among the parishioners attending their stuffy boring masses that they held at Saint Kelvin’s when they were not at Madron! I could see them, trying to find fault with a young lad, just that they should worry him. And I also knew the fine— twelve pence, more for the coffers of Eldfarm than those of Anselm, and what was this about treason against the King?“Master Julian, the boy came to Trewidden a week ago and sang a most atrocious song he said had been written after the battle of Shrewsbury, when our liege and master Henry defeated the foul Percy and struck down the earl of Worcester. Now that the remaining Percy, Northumberland, makes noises against the king and what is more, he rallies the French to the side of the Welsh, encourages the Scots to take up arms and cross border again as well— this boy and his foul tongue and dangerous songs is raising trouble!”“Fair game,” I said, remembering how I had played the Lay of Hotspur numerous times to he and Clarence, and so it must have been from me he learned it, as it was my song, anyway, and not a fact I cared to yet make public.“So it is, then minstrels make noises, that perhaps tell the truth from one side of a story which the other side might rather not have heard. But how will you suppress the people from thinking what they think, or writing the songs that tell the stories of their world? What, really, is his true crime? That he is a good mimic, and remembers what is sung to him, or that he is just an annoyance for nobles who have little better to do than disgrace the keep they hold, and the reputation of the lord of a great keep, that they might find succor and fatten themselves on the back of the peasant, and afflict him at their will and leisure?”They were taken aback, and I could see I had said something which had stung Eldfarm, as I had meant it to.“You may be young, and a common man, and free to think and say what you think, lad, but you are in trouble too! You set this stage here that whispers and rumors might travel freely about you, first blow one way toward the good king of the country, then the other, toward outlawry and revolt. We are keeping our eyes on you as well! Best for you beware your own rude mouth, churl, lest we pillory you as well!”They began to drag Wilmot off, again, but Claire now spoke up, and let fly her own stream of wrath at them.“I was born here, and so was he, and I will not have you take my man so quickly and without even being able to answer a trial you hold him your captive! Oh that our good Baron were here, and not you! For he would know what to do, and he would know that there is nothing you can do! You cannot force us, against our will, to worship your God when our God lives within, and answers to us apart from any priests!”They were taken aback again, but young Claire had a spirit like a kindled branch, and it was lighting the thoughts of those who sat at all the tables, too, now. There were several there who had witnessed the public beatings, and the pillories, and who also longed for Anselm to be back safe and sound and ruling over his good demesne as he had before these Devonians had appeared with their strictures, their capital infliction, and their facile, easily stoked greed.The retainers saw that they had misjudged the mood of the room considerably, and indeed they were quite outnumbered, as a number of the tavern guest began fingering their knife-sheaths, or made a quick end to their alewash, or grabbed even a salad spoon or a walking stick to make ready if there were more to deal with.But I was surprised, too, for after my speaking up, and after Claire had roused the people about us, the nobles now released Wilmot, who shook off his sleeve as though it were clogged with fleas, and sat back down at the hearth, and began to retune his vielle.“Master Julian, we did not come to give trouble to any of your guests, and we want none. We will make a mind of this to the burgesses, and ask of your servant to make a cause of himself, at court, with any witnesses he wishes to bring on his behalf. Make that for next Friday at the hour of Terce. We want answers to the charges that our priests have made as to his lack of piety, and his bad judgment of choice of words!”Eldfarm turned on his heel, and with Beaufort falling in behind him, who gave a last desperate thrust of his tongue at all of us, departed. We heard the hooves of their horses clatter off down Whychoome Road, and once the door had been barred, everyone broke into laughter, clapped each other on the back, and I brought out new pots of ale for all, that none may pay coin for, to celebrate Wilmot’s continue freedom. But the date now loomed like a cloud before us, less than a week away.
Then came the day, when Wilmot would need to travel to the court, which was of late Anselm’s, and answer to the retainers of the Lord De Courtenay of Devon, to those things they had heard tell he had sung, and of those songs whose words had been mine alone. I decided that when it came down to their trying to punish him, that I would up and take the blame, for it would not seem meet for me to allow someone else to suffer in my place, if it were my song that brought them to it. The punishment of Songgemonger in London, of course, must have had something to do with what I felt was a change of heart, for while I had meant him mischief, I had not wished him death, and if my young friend Wilmot was to be pilloried, ere we returned that evening to The Fallen Lady, then I felt it should be I alone bear the brunt of his “crime”, for I had instigated it all (and Simon!) by coming up with those rhymes, as we made our way home from Shrewsbury a year ago.So we saddled Magdalene and I gave the hindmost to Wilmot, and we made our way but slowly, slowly up the hill, past the glen of Trewidden and the spring of Saint Piran and looking back at my little home and land, I sighed, for there might be much to go through ere we were returning.The nobles were all about a great table in the center of Anselm’s hall, when we arrived there. Eldfarm and Beaufort, the accusers, along with Carldwiss (who held the monk Micah’s crozier, somewhat in the manner of a talisman, across his left shoulder), and Sugarsop.“Here now come they— the churl Wilmot of Newlyn, and Julian, the tavernmaster, at whose pleasure the churl does serve! We gather here to adjudge you of a crime, a displeasure about the royal estate, and affairs which are not the business of you common folk, but that you did give voice to disparaging verses and scandalous sentiment against our King, Henry IV, in ribald song, and mocking sense.”Beaufort read then from a scroll, the length of which drooped down over the end of the table presumably to the very floor, but it was only needed he read the first paragraph.“Young Master Wilmot. We accuse you of blasphemous scandalous song taking note of your place as the servant of Julian Plectrum, the tavernmaster of The Fallen Lady. You were heard to sing a song against the king, as witnessed by a Monk, who ha asked us not to name him. This monk however, has been tasked with the mission of seeking out heretics in the parish of Saint Kelvin and has also learned, you are not one who regularly attends the mass at Saint Kelvin’s, which is your parish church and which your mortal soul has been charged with the maintenance thereof, within. And so we, the nobles of Trewidden, we challenge you, Master Wilmot, give us proof of your fealty to king, and to the Lord of Heaven, lest thou be seen in contempt of both, and of worse crime against the Lord of Heaven.”My my! Such words. But I could see the effect they had on young Wilmot. He trembled, held his hat in his hand, and spoke haltingly.“My...my... my lords... My lords such is not the case... I am a churl, yes, I am a serving-man, and yes, I work for Master Julian, and a fair man is he... And maybe I sang that song. I knew not whose ears were there to hear it, I thought it was a song of some wit and renown, actually...”“You did now?” broke in Eldfarm. His eyebrows arched, Carldwiss rocked his stolen crozier back and forth, and Beaufort stifled a smirk, but you could tell only for a minute, and that Eldfarm had given him a kick in the shins beneath the table.“Yes, lord, I did not know who might be there. But I had heard this song had been sung across the northland, even, and that perhaps it had been heard even here at Penzance, and...”It was then I decided to speak up.“Lords, I will say something, you must hear, whether you wish me to or not, and whether or not it is my turn to speak here at all. You accuse Wilmot of something which is a mere parroting of something he had nothing to do with! For I am the author of that song.”I paused. I could hear them drawing in their breath, I could see their cheeks go flush with red, and I plunged right along.“Yes, I wrote it, and I wrote it for the people of Chester, for I was at the battle of Shrewsbury with my brother ,and we saw it all. The bravery with which Hotspur and the Scot fought against your Henry, the lines of Cheshire men moved down as they stood stock still with bows in hand, how Henry cut the heads from noble Cheshire gentlemen on the second day after battle, and hung them up like pigs on the walls of the city... My brother and I wrote the song, and we wrote it for a reason, and if you fathom it not, or wish to give me grief for it, then you know not wherefore it comes, or why, only that you are disturbed by it, but many are not.”“Many are not, are they, Master Tavernier? We have eaten of your table. You offer good food and drink, and it is said that if it were not for your tavern, that the people hereabout would be of a different nature, for you give them occupation. Therefore we cannot lay upon you the same type of punishment we might seek for a mere blasphemer such as Wilmot here, or for a typical speaker against the King.”“I am a free man, and nobody is the boss of me!”I could feel the old twinge of defiance creep back into my speech, and while I clenched my fist to fight the urge to say more, the words poured forth again, unbroken. Not a word did I mention of the strange Welshman, nor of what I knew of his speech with Aleuderis Burian, for now I was concerned with Wilmot, and myself, alone.“I do not say the King is wicked, for such as I have seen of him and his son, yet they have done wicked things to the people of my own shire. I came here in fact, to be rid of the type of trouble which they put upon friends of mine. I hold no fealty to you, but to Anselm, who rest his soul is not here among you, but were he so, he would laugh in your faces as well, you petty nobles, with nothing better to do than trouble the poor, tax us blind, and hold us to account for more than our means can provide you. I had no trouble with Anselm for my song, and I will have none from you. For it was  not my choice that it be sung again, I held a warning from Anselm to be plain and clear. Rather it was the impudence of young Wilmot, who was but repeating something he heard, and lacking other devices, chose to sing it in place of any other song he might have, and he cared not who heard, because what has he to fear? He is only a minstrel after all, and a young one, learning his way in the world. If you are to punish anyone at all, you must punish me, but I am not afraid of your cruelty, for such it is well known far and wide, and nothing you can do to me can change what has already been decided by the Lord of Heaven, anyway.”The silence was thick now, and the lords did not reply. For a moment I could hear the larks outside singing, and with its song I felt a little more courage creep into my heart. I needed it, for what they had next.“Then hear this, tavernkeeper. We forego a punishment of whips or pillory. Instead, you are to furnish us at table full for a month’s time, and we are welcome in your tavern for that full time, and there will be no singing of songs against the king while we are there, nor will we brook any while we yet reside here at this castle. You will provide us this table at your own expense, not ours, and we will have succor full, in as many ways we choose, and you shall not complain of it.”I had no idea what the cost of all that might be but I resigned myself to the loss of at least a couple of month’s worth of shillings to share out with Moselles. One month would cost me at least that much and another, especially if they were the gluttons that they had proven to be before.I suppose it were a good alternative, if you like, to being whipped or stoned, but I had steeled myself at the thought of that. Instead, they sought to hurt me in the purse, a wound I felt much quicker, much keener, than any plain physical brutality might inflict.The noble named Carldwiss, who sat with Micah’s crozier perched like a mantis’ leg across his chest and knee, leaned over and leered at me.“You see, we will have what we like, Master Julian. Would be you should be quite content with what we shall take, and not take your wife, as we are at it!”I hardly knew what to say to this, but I knew that any attempt to force Mary to give of herself as long as I were nearby would end badly— for them, not me. I said nothing. The nobles then dismissed Wilmot, and we very disagreeably left the hall, and headed out the castle’s gate, making our way on Magdalene rather slowly. Wilmot was full of questions.“What do you think they are going to do? When do you think they will come? How will we provide for everyone else?“You ask much I know not how to answer,” I said. “They will come when they come. I should think it will not be tonight, or even tomorrow, but they will come when they fancy, and it will be perhaps when we least expect them. So therefore we must be wary and expect them at any time. Look, we should go to town tomorrow— do not look at me that way, I know, it’s your day off! But we should go tomorrow and stock up on a number of things, that we have three times as many of those things we always get. I shall use more of the seed money which Anselm gave me, that we do not have to purchase things out of the last week’s earnings. You shall come with me. We will speak with our suppliers, and we will tell them of this. I am sure that when some of them hear it they will not be pleased. The more we might stir resentments against these men— who after all, have done much themselves to arouse it— the quicker will come the day when they put up and leave Newlyn. The nerve of that joker, to threaten me for my wife! But so they are, just that type of men.”My disgust must have lingered in the air, for now Wilmot was silent, and said not a word until we were back at the tavern, and he scuttled off to help Deprez, and carry the news to the rest of our crew.It turned out that we waited two whole weeks before they showed their hungry faces at the door of The Lady. And we could tell they were hungry, indeed, it seemed perhaps they all had fasted for several days, before descending upon her like a swarm of busy wasps! Pamela and Deprez were quite hard pressed, in keeping up with them, that first day.The top one, Eldfarm, ate two chickens, right off. He drank a hogshead full of wine and then an entire bowl full of pears. Seven pence! I could see it all adding up in my head.The one named Sugarsop ate up a good side of beef all on his own, it seemed, at least. There was another tuppence!The noble named Beaufort threw a fit when the pork shoulder he charged was not “just so” to his liking and Deprez, the poor man, was tasked with recooking it for another hour, basting it with mint sauce all the while, for Beaufort was a pig among pigs, and had the need to eat one like one. The pork shoulder was then (by his word) a little too well done, and he left huge portions of it uneaten on his trencher, and banged his cup on the table, demanded wine, which was brought, and laughed with the others at the commotion they were causing.Meanwhile, there were others at the tavern we needed to serve, and they were either doing without, or were made to wait, as we held to the attentions of the Devon retainers, and they kept up with their demands. One of them got up to use the latrines, but when he did so, he found it blocked by several of our other guests, who forded him to go in public against the wall of The Lady. He was quite angered, and whispered something to Eldfarm, who then demanded my presence and tried to take me to task.“Well sire,” I concluded, “if the people are giving  you a hard time here, you are welcome to leave...”“We will go when ready, and we will not be importuned by serfs!”He flushed red, swilled another cup of wine, and banged his fist on the table.“You and your little place here are lucky we did not come to burn you down! Take care how you speak to superiors!”Again, I said nothing, knowing the better part of valor would indeed be discretion, even among people like this full of themselves and full of hatred for anyone who was born at a lesser station than they. I wondered how they might behave in the presence of others greater, but I could tell they probably would have a different demeanor, then.And so they ate, belched, farted, snored, groaned, caroused, and havocked through the night, until midnight, and then quick as foxes, they got up suddenly, and left. Poor Will, who had been tasked with caring for their horses, was roused from his slumbers and forced to saddle the nags, and appeared in the kitchen when they had finally gone, rubbing his eyes, and asking for wine himself“So, zey are gone? Good!” said Deprez. “Ze nex’ time zey come, I shall make for them my chef’s surprise!” Heavens only knows what he meant by that, but I would leave it to their next visit to discover.They had cost us nearly five shillings just by coming through our doors, that night, at least three day’s worth of regular business, and I could only hope they would visit only infrequently.As it happened, that was the case, for they came again only once, and it was a fortnight later, when it was a full moon, I remember, and when there were even fewer of our local people there than the first night.This time, of course, Deprez had promised “a chef’s surprise” and it was not long before I found out what he had planned. In fact I advised against it, but he would not listen to me. His mind was set, and so it was.I didn’t ask then what he was doing, on the next visit of the nobles, when I came into the kitchen, and found him dribbling spit and snot into a ramekin. He offered that himself.“Ah, Julian! I am readying my secret sauce for ze beeg cheeses! I shall get ze last the laugh, for sure!” and he laughed a most demonic kind of laugh, which I had only heard, actually, on the lips of the nobles themselves. I said nothing.When he had filled the ramekin (and that had taken quite a bit of time) he mixed its contents into another bowl in which he had prepared his hen sauce, with herbs, with cream and wine, and with a grated turnip. And he proceeded to the two fat hens that they had ordered and began merrily basting them with “his secret ingredient.” I stifled a laugh, for while I felt empathic, and deeply resented the nobles for their imposition upon our establishment, I had the thought that indeed, there were worse things which Deprez might have chosen with which to baste their chicken, and again, discretion being the better part, I went back to the nobles and told them their hens would be ready soon.“Then they had better be, churl! Listen here, give us more mead! More perry! More hippocras!” raved Beaufort. This was seconded by Carldwiss banging the crozier noisily upon the floor.Pamela and I found our hands full as we scrambled back and forth from their table carrying the pitchers of drink, filled each of them (at least three times, that night!) and avoided he trash which they saw fit to toss right on the floor. It was a good thing I did not allow my dog the run of the tavern, but kept him safely outside near the chickens, because he would have loved to get at the chicken bones and other scraps which copiously appeared beneath each noble’s feet as the night progressed. That night, not only did they eat both the “most exquisite, delicious hens” with no further comment, but devoured an entire ham (which was actually, one of the legs of Chubb, Moselles’ pig, who had gone to his maker that summer, with our help) and five entire salmons, which had been bought from the fisherman Walsoff that morning, and which I had been hoping they actually might ignore. No such luck!Eldfarm rubbed his greasy cheeks and smiled, when he had finally cleared his plates, and spoke to me.“Now, Master Julian, we have concluded your penance. We do hope you have learned the lesson we had to teach you. You would do well to never speak in anger or spite against the lord of the land, our good King Henry, and to have some respect for us. There is no telling ho long, or short, our stay shall be at the castle of Trewidden. But while we are here, we expect that all shall know their place, and that we of the king’s service will be well-serviced and catered to.”With that, he gave out a fat belch, and rose, and so did the others with him. Sugarsop threw a chicken bone aside as a parting gesture, as they made their way out the door. This time, Will was awake and ready for them when they left, so they were not able to annoy him with kicks and pokes as they had on their trip before.I found Deprez leaned up against the doorway, as though his ear had been cocked to the hall, as I came to the kitchen with an armful of plates and cups. He had a strange, serene smile on his face, and wiped his hands on his smock in what could only have been glee, and merry appreciation that his plan had not been discovered.“Now, when ve speak of zem, ve shall alvays call zem “Ze snot-eating scum of Devon, ohn, Julian?”I nodded. It was perhaps better left unsaid that we had, in that, a small sense of satisfaction that while the mighty had seen fit to “correct our impudence” there were some things about which they had absolutely no clue, nor would they ever.
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Getting Back to Reality

     I have some bad news for those of you who follow this blog in order to keep tabs on unconstitutional actions on the part of the President of the United States and his gang of thugs and goons. We are leaving the political commentary business - to those who wish to be infected by it, and those of us who are actually better at it, more willing to endure the perils of its addiction, and more suited to slinging mud and dodging lions can have it.

     Originally it was planned that I would take the collected political posts from this blog in the last two years to publish an ebook in time for the congressional elections this November. But I realized something. While it may be worthwhile to attempt to throw pearls before swine in hopes that some of the swine will actually pick them up, wear them, and take them to the ball, the better sense of my judgment is to tell myself NO. I have been ruled and run by the folly in DC long enough now for this particular joker, President Spybot.

     The more you allow the nonsense of the corrupt punks that run Washington to annoy you the more they run your life as well. Things were quite fine even with The Chimp as World's Biggest Dickhead but now that Hif Majeftie had shaken me from my tree, I could not but lodge as many protests as I have in the thirty-some commentaries launched under the "Escapees from the Memory Hole" file tag. He's not going to run me no more. The Office of Presidency has been irretrievably stained, tarnished, and shamed by this President, and its powers grown so large as to mean that even a vote for the office would be to consent to be tyrannized, such are the consequences of his signing NDAA 2012, and the still unadmitted and unapologized murder of US citizens without due process. "due process- that's anything that I do."

     Consent by the governed means consenting to get bossed around. Offering the consent to be ruled by the pigs, thugs, militarists, murderers and liars of this government (whether wearing a D or an R) is nothing but a recipe for slavery. I know where I have been, the stand I have taken, and where I am going. Do you?

"Politics is bullshit"- Stephen Stills, 1969
     Therefore there will no longer be political opinions of any sort written on these pages. We are going back to the beautiful, the positive, the good things of life, our friendships, our garden, our music and our loves. Comments on any of the past posts, of course, are ever yet welcome.You have been tuned to Grand Jatte, an independent and autonomous
syndication of Lucid Dream Music. Stay tuned for more exciting
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ANSELM RETURNS

Word had it that Anselm was headed back to Trewidden. If not to stay, then at least he had the intentions of trying to prevent the men of De Courtenay from having any more treachery against his subjects and tenants. I looked upon this as a good thing, and I planned to tell him (myself) of their intentions of using me as a spy against Aleuderis. It was with much concern that I took these reports from those who offered them— whether it were the miners who had taken, of late, to coming to The Lady and playing at flechettes, or whether it be what I might hear from my costermen, butchers, and fishmongers in Penzance— that the baron was returning at all threw some hope into the ideas of all those in the nearby parishes.For my part, I knew that Anselm coming back, even if he meant it for a short respite from the sieges and harrying of Glyndwyr and Wales, that I could, at least, have a hope of gleaning more wine supplies from him. already the three big casks which had been sold me at discount by Albertus were running to their dregs, and at the rate my customers were drinking them, I should be done with all three by October! And then where would I be? So I wanted to deal more with Anselm on that issue. The fact that Albertus was still in Penzance, also, meant that he would be shopping them to Anselm also, even if it meant that the real ones to benefit were the Devon men, who would, again, once he had gone, sit at the table in the castle making themselves fat and happy on the countryside’s fruits.So when I learned, indeed, Anselm had returned, and not only had he returned, but had sent me a personal summons, I was off in a trice with Mary on Magdalene, taking the now familiar road, and both of us taking heart to see our dear friend once more.Anselm sat on his throne, when we found him, but his expression was gave, and he barely lifted his head from his thoughts to address us.“Ah, the Plectrums,” he said, when he finally roused himself from what was surely worry, “I am glad you are here. You no doubt have heard”—I lifted my hand in assent.“Yes, I have, Anselm. The noble men that have had the run of your halls have been creating problems. For all of us.”“For the moment, they are out of our hair, and have repaired to Penzance for the time I shall be sitting here. I must return soon to the war- too soon for my liking, but it was by the Prince’s leave that I now am here again today. When I look around me to those who once looked at me with respect...”“They still do sire, they—‘“Enough. Yes, still they do, but what has been wrought in my absence is no good, and as much as I would not wish this, Lord Devon has made his own way in councils with the King, and has made it clear that his men shall indeed return with all their noxiousness once my part is again filled. All I can do here is attempt to redress some of the people’s concerns, but no means can I use to overcome the politics of the king. And I should return to the sword, and the terror of the Welsh, again, whence I depart. There is little joy in my heart.”“Sire, it bears no strain upon your crown. We have been prospering...’“That is good, Julian, such was my hope, and so it will continue to be.”“But the Devon men have taken me in to be their informer against your friend, Sire Burian.”“Oh, have they now? This is a good thing you tell me.”“They have given me word that I should report to them each and every time he sups with us at The Lady, and upon who he speaks with, and the natures of their talk.”“No doubt they want to know how Aleuderis fares with his Ding Dong mine, and how Devon will fare against his tin in the cargoes.”“So, it occurs to me as well that I must tell you...”“Such that it is, lad, such that it is. Well I can tell you something. Aleuderis has been trading with friends of Glyndwyr, and this is what gives them interest. He is unlikely to say much in your earshot because all those dealings are on the other shore from us, up near Saint Ives Bay. But they are buying and he is giving. This you can know at no loss to your sureties with Devon’s retainers.”“Perhaps they hope he will slip his tongue... or speak with someone more sinister?”“Perhaps. But I know him. And the chances are, Julian, he has far too many dealings at present on the Saint Ives side of us to spend much time in Penzance at all, for the time being.”‘Another thing is, I believe we need more stock of wine...”“Oh blast it. They let you have none? I thought I sent a message to them...”“If there was, no sire. Albertus came back from France and left me three big casks, but those are quite near drained already! If I could only...”He waved his hand and stopped me, reading my mind.“I will assure you you may have two of mine. I yet have more, and if no other reason, it will keep them from the guts of Devon’s henchmen, for you to have these.”“Thank you, sire, thank you.”“Do you have other news? It has been tough on me to hear all the talk, of the pillory, of the whippings, and of the doings of the monks- mischievous rabble they all are! But what can you say to me, Julian, to give hope to my heart...”It was Mary who spoke up.“Well, sire, we do expect a child...”He brightened, and I freshened my own spirit with that.“A child! Marvelous! and I should hope for its very best health and good fortune! Marvelous!”“Yes, sire, we should expect the new one early in next year...”“Well that is surely something to make me glad, as I am sure it will add to your own great treasure, my friends.”Mary rubbed her swelling belly and Anselm laughed.“Tis a shame I have no heirs, myself. It will only bring trouble, more of the same, I fear.”And he again sunk his mood into some despair, and then begged our leave. I knew we would get our wine, and I was unsure if I would see him again, so in parting, I left him with these words.“Anselm, we will endeavor to do our best by you. All which has taken place here, of course, would not have been to your liking, nor would it have been your wont.”“I know it, and I wish there were more I could do. These people of De Courtenay have made an utter ruin of what took me years to build up— a good, prosperous, happy shire, and parishes full of men and women who were happy to give, happy to work, and proud to be of Penwith. Now, just look at this all. What a shambles.”“Yet I shall endeavor to keep this sense of what you wish alive, at least I shall, within my own domain.”“Yes, Julian, that I am assured you shall. And one more thing?”“Yes?”“I wish you the very best for the child. May they grow up to be blessed— and free.”When we departed Trewidden that afternoon, it was with a cart full of wine barrels, and my pockets jingling with another sinecure of cash. This was no loan, this was, itself, a gift. The legendary generosity of Anselm had been bestowed upon me once more, and I grinned toward the sun, as we steered our way down the windy path homeward bound again.Anselm left the castle of Trewidden again on the sixteenth of August, and this time, I did not see it, although I knew he had been only back to look in on things, and that ‘the King’s duty’ called him. And it was not long after he departed that we were once more visited by Aleuderis and his Ding Dong men. This time, however, even if the Devonshires had a mind to get my ear, and my tongue, on what was the nature of his schemes, I kept it all to myself, and I did not report any of it to them.This, though is what happened, when he showed up at the Lady on that night.Pamela took the men to a table, and Aleuderis, being the only one with a mount, left it in the good care of my boy Will. He ordered himself a big pot roast, and vegetals all heaped up around it. The men settled for great plates of fruit, and cheese, and draughts of ale, and we were lucky there had been a new batch made, for they drank us to the dregs of what we had, to start, and then it was out with the new stuff.I played my lute for them, and they liked Robin Hood, of course, and I avoided Arthur, for I knew Aleuderis was none so fond of my presentation. I was surprised to see him, especially since I had been told by Anselm himself, not to expect to! When I completed the singing, he called me over to his table, I drew up a stool beside him, and as he tucked into the roast, knife in hand, I listened as he told me a tale I had not the slightest how it concerned me. But this is what he said.“Well, Master Tavernkeeper, I well fancy your good food, and this good spot. When I am here this side of Cornwall, here at the edge of Penwith, I find it pleasant that there be a house far from the connivers and the schemers that haunt the harbor town. When I was but twenty I came to work at the Ding Dong mines. I had the word of my father to the owner, that I was a strong strapping young man, that I could haul a hundred-weight of ore on a cart or a track, and fair pull it up to the top of the heap by day’s end. And the owner, he watched me, he did, to see if what my dad had told him were true, and when it was, he said, alright, I shall use you.”“How I came to own the mine myself, though? Well it took me some seven or eight years as I recall I were not yet thirty. I had moved from being miner, to helping keep track of the pounds of ore, and what was taken from the mine, eventually to being made charge of the smelting. Yes, I have antimonious lungs! Haha! But even with a copper cast to my breath, I took fondly to the task. Moving the white-hot milky metal was something I found pleasing, and simple. When I set it into molds, and the slag had been burnt away, and the heaping shining ingots were cooled, and placed in great stacks, I felt like I was really something.”“Let me tell you though I was not yet anyone. The owner, his name was Deridius, he came to think of me as his first man, and at some point, he told me he would like to see me being the one makin’ the deliveries- usually they would take a cart from here, to Saint Michael’s, or over to Weymouth, and there had been a great tradition and trade in this, going back to before the Romans, you know. And when I had completed my first journey by oxcart, there to the other side o’ Lizard, he aid me a gold crown, he did. And I did this for a full year.”“Then came the plague year. And of everyone at the mine, we lost some twenty men, but worse, we lost the owner. Yes, and he had no heir, and he left everything as it was and his soul up and fled his body like it were but a sack of rotting fruit by the highway, and crossed to the other shores of Charon. And that left really, only me, to keep all the records, to carry on the trade, to make the money off the sales in port, and all. It was not like I came upon this all dishonestly, lad, but I must say it was in a manner most strange. And once the mine was mine, well, I began to hire my own men. Of course, I kept the good strong ones, and one or two that held the plague, but walked away, and what others I could replace I gathered from amongst the people of Saint Ivey.”“Now, I have been at this a’twenty-year myself. Now I grow old, and my arms could not drag cart nor sled up anything, let alone, up that little shaft! My eyes grow weak, but my mind is yet keen.”“I like to come here because —well it is mostly the food, but you are a friendly sort, and you do not seem to wish to pick my pocket, so you must be an honest sort. Let me say, there are many not so honest here about now!”And he finished his speech and huffed his ale and stuffed his face with the beef, and the men at the table all carried on, actually, through all of his talk, concerned but with themselves and the other at tables nearby.I took up the nerve to ask him a question.“Sire Burian, is it true what they have said to me, that you are selling tin not only to the French, or to the King, but to the Welsh?”He stared at me with something of a blank expression. Indeed, it was quite hard to figure what he was thinking, if anything at all.“Master Tavernkeeper. I know you are yet young, but there is much you need to learn about this world, and this life. Even though you be a bard fair and something of a poet! Listen, a shilling’s a shilling and a pound’s a pound. What matters it to me, where my next one comes from, were it from a great well known merchant, or from a villein could but spare a shoe? No, I deals with whomever I can sell to, and I go back to me hole, and I makes some more! You understand? I deal with them all, yes! English, Welsh, French, whoever it ‘tis spares the thought of my tin and my mine, and was pleased before, why him I shall please again!”I poured him out the last of the ale in the large flagon, into his cup, he nodded, and drained it.“Do you know there are people who take a dim and different view of this?”His eyes reddened and he squinted at me.“And who be that?”“Why, the Devon men that sit in Anselm’s castle!”“Ah, them! Well I told him at his Christmas feast about that, you know. That there was going to be some rough fellows coming our way, and that as soon as he were off and to the business of the king, they’d set themselves up. Have they, now?”“Oh yes, I am fair surprised nobody has appraised you...”“Bah! I hear what the word is, and I goes back to me hole, and I mines more shillings! Listen lad, I know ‘tis someone’s concern what I may do, who I deal with, but I pays the Duke, I does, and that runty Prince, such as he is, to fair leave me be, all the rest o’ the time! And does he? Why, yes, he does! Where will he get his armor and swords, or the tips for his pikes and halberds, eh? If not from the likes o’ me. Therefore, if they wish to keep the river running, they had best not block up the channel, aye.”He winked, which I felt disconcerted by, but sipped long at the ale, and rested the cup again on the table. A pretty girl about Claire’s age was now sitting at the end of the miner’s table, and they were tossing dice to see who might go with her “to seek of her favors.”“Do you fear that, perhaps these men of the king, they may have the thought one day just to take your mine, and take all you earn, one way or another?”“Whatever for, son? Without me, who would know how to run it?”“But your men here...”“Ah, my men here. They know what they need to know. And the old ones, they teach the young ones. I am not afraid, of what? That the king should come to my little door and say “ho, ho, ho, little Cornish mine-man! Ho ho ho, I came to sack your hut! Ho ho ho, I have twelve thousand horses! And knights to put a pretty price upon your head!”“Why, son, what do I say to the king? I say, folly be and folly he, do fly, for one day you too neath dust shall lie! It is a great equalizer in all things, my friend, our friend, the Reaper. Know us none when he may come, or if he pass us by, we breathe a sigh and sign the cross upon our chest to say, ‘Ah, thankee, Lord, you graciously left us alive today!’ and we bless ourselves, and bless the beasts and children.”It did seem to me that Aleuderis had either a fool’s folly  in the face of danger, or the most fatalistic approach of anyone I had ever met. What was there to worry, then, while he could eat and drink and his men made merry?In order to turn the minds of all of them, I suppose, I chose to bring out my lute and sing a new song to them. This song I based on some stories I had heard, as well as what had been sung to us all by Jack of Rowe. I thought it made a pleasing little tale, and I was not ashamed to have stolen part of the idea from Jack, even if I did not really steal any song. But this was what I sang:“Old Guigemot, he ruled the MountHe built the walls with  his bare handsWith granite, chert, and lignositeHe put the island by the sands
Old Guigemot had a darling wifeAnd ten span high she was, like heShe came to him, a helping-mateAs same to her was he
Old Guigemot told Guigielle:“Help us to build our castle high-Take thee stones and place them hereOur home shall touch the sky!”
But Guigemot took a slumber nap For rest as much for pleasureAnd Guigielle brought  up jasper-stonesFor lighter were their measure
While resting so, he fell to sleepAnd seeing him at slumberThought Guigielle, “I’ll grab those stonesAnd light shall be my lumber!”
But as she worked she slipped and fellAnd forward fell the hidden jasperAll this she did, and he was none so pleased,He rose again, to thrash her.
Blunderbore, on the other shoreThe ruler of the other side of PenwithThrew stones his way, at GuigemotWho soon betrayed his temper
But they made a peace, that GuigemotWould keep to his own islandBlunderbore threw a hammer farThat spilled Guiglielle’s head upon the highland
Great was his grief, old Guigemot, heCalled Blunderbore to the mount beside herThey laid her in, and walled her upNow the Mount is fast inside her!
When I was done, I looked to Aleuderis, but he kept a wry smile on his face, and all he said was:“It needs work.”I was a bit taken aback, but then when I thought about it, I did suppose he was right. After all, how could the Mount be inside her, if she were buried at the Mount. I was thinking about this, and having a fair conundrum of it, when another new fight began, this time, it was between one of the miners, and one of the country folk.A fletch had whizzed past his cheek, while the locals played at the flechette board, and he was sore offended.“Hey there, you careless louts!”The men at the flechette board turned round. The man who had thrown it looked sheepish.He began to apologize, but it was too late— the miner was already out of his chair, and had pulled his tommy-knocker, and was headed for the unwitting offender.As he began to give him clouts upon the head, I raised my voice for the first time in weeks.“Hey there, you there! There are no fights inside our good establishment!”“But...” The miner was obviously thrilled to now have a new adversary. Taking on the taverner himself might have seemed a good idea for the moment, for I was a bigger fish to fry. I grabbed him by the arm, and drug him with me outside, first making certain I showed him my rules upon the wall, and, basically, attempting to rub his nose in them.“Outside here, ye shall stay, and let me have a word with your boss-man! I will not have a fight in my place, no! We are better than that here, and petty arguments if the must be settled, will come to their conclusion out here, outside!”I went back in and took the local who had thrown the dart my the scruff, and demanded to know why he had done so.“T’weren’t nothing personal, sire, ‘twas but an accident, I slipped, and...”“An accident? Perhaps. But you must make your amends to the good man. Get outside with you!”I stole a look at Aleuderis, who was paring a fingernail with his knife, nonchalantly. I knew I must have a word with him as well, but he was playing it as if he had not noticed a thing.I shoved the offender out the door, and now that I had them both together, I sat them on the bench.“I wish to tell you both something. When thing come to rise of temper, we here are not to take matters to hand, but we are to speak of these things out of doors. If there must be any type of fight, or duel, well, why be it that it be out of doors here. Inside, people are eating, and making merry, and there will be no such disturbance to the good people enjoying themselves. This is a rule. If you either wish to continue to enjoy our hospitality, then you must agree, there will never be a word of spite nor a hand raised against another, not under my roof!”To the miner, I looked sternly to him, and he was a good ten years older, but I was not cowed.“Miner, sire, this man says he made a slip while he cast his dart. Why should you take offense at a misstep, that was not meant to hazard you? He wishes to apologize.”Whether he did or not, now I had placed him in a position to do so. and he did, quite meekly.“Sire, good sir, I am so sorry. I slipped on the floor and did not mean to make you feel a threat, sir, good sir...”The miner sat back, a huffing look on his grim and bearded face, then he stored his tommy-knocker back in his belt, and nodded.“So you say. Well, then, I am sorry too. I like to come here. My brethren like it here too, and I will keep coming here. If you but keep your distance from me...”“Oh, I shall, I shall!” cried the bumpkin.Feeling that the situation had been solved, at least for the moment, I returned to Aleuderis’ table, where he was now conversing with the other three miners, on some point.“Aleuderis...”“Yes, Julian?” I obviously had interrupted him, and I felt as though he now meant to hold his rank over me. Nonetheless I spoke.“Aleuderis, I talked with them both. They are at odds no more, at least, for the moment,”As the fourth miner returned to the table, the other three immediately began speaking to him, in Cornish, and I knew not what they jabbered, but it was quick speech, and full of laughter, and I thought that this must mean the end of the issue.
I dreamed again about Anselm. He was among a number of men in the retinue of Prince Henry, and they were besieging one of Glyndwyr’s strongholds. I could not tell if Glyndwyr himself were there, in the midst of the trouble and action, but it was terrible, with defenders pouring pitch out of murder-holes, arrows being shot from, and bouncing off from, machicolations in the ramparts, and huts and homes being scourged and burned outside the walls of safety, by Henry’s foot soldiers.And somewhere in all that, there was my Baron, speaking sincerely and swiftly to those he commanded, looking often so put upon, as though this entire business were something he yet would protest being involved with. But of course, I knew better. For Anselm to protest it at all would be to gain him the spite and distrust of the king and the prince. Yet the Welshmen did not relinquish their castle, and yet, they did not come forth to surrender it. It looked seriously to me as if everyone within its walls was willing to die where they stood, rather than face vassalage to an English king, and outlander.And in my dream I saw Anselm fall, shot with an arrow through his cheek, and as he fell, he caught my eye, and something — I know not what— passed between us. It was a cry of despair, it was a sigh of acceptance, it was a realization that Anselm would not be returning. Needless to say I awoke at that point, near a dark sweat of fear and apprehension, and when the rooster gave his call, I was still staring at the walls, wondering if I had seen the future.
And there was someone new at the tavern, a tall man, of red beard, and green eye, and somewhat aloof from all the local ones, although I could tell he was a traveler, anyway, for the cut of his shoes were Welsh, and so was the air he had about him. He spoke only briefly in English, and was silent more often, so it was a little strange when I discovered that the regular Ding Dong Mine boys had managed to cluster about him later in the night.By waiting on them directly, I spent a little time at the table. His name was Gryffdd, and he was indeed Welsh, and he knew he had come here at great risk but as he had no plans to go near the castle, or the town of Penzance, for that matter, he hoped to remain as it were, a citizen above suspicion. But the little crowd of miners seemed to fawn on his attention, and he was indeed seeing interested in whatever it was they were telling him.He bought a lamb chop, covered it with mint leaf and cream sauce, and ate daintily from a pear, while drinking the same hippocras that our monks were so fond of. He told me that his reason for being here was to speak with miners— if he could find Aleudris in particular,  he did not know. But his father was “an important man” back in Wales, who promised the Cornish miners “freedom, justice, good wages, and good prices for your tin and antimony”.He stayed a good part of the evening, while I managed to try a song or two on them all, this time I once more sang about the Cornish giant, Guigemot. Guigemot was a different sort and soul from Blunderbore, but no less cut a figure in the stories of yore since the age before. I plucked at the strings (A Major to B flat to C) and I had the miners laughing with couplets like this:“You think that you know LancelotBut you never knew our GuigemotA sarcen stone was like a pebble to heHis very leg, like a good tall tree
Guigemot the giant ruledAnd walked these moors ere you were schooledBrave knights quivered in their shoesWanton maidens lost their blues”It was nothing like the one I had put together the other day for Aleuderis, and it was even less complete than the other, if the other didn’t end satisfactory, well, their attention to it did not last very long, either, for the red-headed Welshman’s charisma seemed to hold them in thrall, and at a nervous distance. It happened pretty quickly when it did, although I actually had had no expectation of it. Gryffydd began to appear on several afternoons after another at the Lady. Wilmot, I suppose was the first to notice him. His long red hair and mustaches fairly bristled, and he wore mail, and those odd Welsh boots, although he held no livery with coat of arms. And Wilmot noticed something else- he spoke with a distinct North Welsh accent. To be Welsh and in these parts, in these times— perhaps there was some daring in that. Or foolishness. They are often a piece of the same, you know.Wilmot learned that, actually, he had traveled south from Llangwyllen to find Aleuderis, because he much wanted to discuss the tin trade with him, and possible outlets for Aleuderis’ products... But each time he made it to the Lady and settled, hoping to find him, Aleuderis never showed up. But if he managed to come often enough...Wilmot and Claire were always fast to serve him, to keep him out of the way, of course, for if those nosy monks or Devonshire retainers should show up, it could come to blows of speech, or even swords. He enjoyed a cider, not wine, he liked perry, but was spare on ale. I began sitting with him and trying to learn more of who he was, for a Welshman in Cornwall should know, I told him in as many words, that he would rouse suspicions from the many “large ears” we knew were lurking— if not in the shadows, then stalking us under the plain sunlight.“I am called Gryffydd. Yes, I do hail from North Wales. And yes, my father is an important man. But we have no need to speak of him. For me, it is fine to be meeting the men who work the mines, if I cannot make time with the mine owner. But that I intend to do, and this is why you see me here each day.”When I told him that I and several of my people hailed from Chester, he smiled broadly at me, shook my hand, and said, “It is of a common purpose then that we should have met! For there are things going on... sieges, battles, people being pushed aside from village to village... The son of Henry fires the huts and strips the fields... the poor of the land, always poor as you might know, are in quite a state... The marches of Wales, of which your Cheshire is but one, are thick with the horse and men of the rulers. The woods, thick with their arrows. But they also hold our revenge, those woods...”I mentioned that I knew very well the kind of rule the Prince laid down, and that I had lost a friend, a man who was robbed of all his goods while standing his own ground against Henry’s soldiers... how I had lost other people at Shrewsbury...“Ah yes. Shrewsbury. Well, Henry did mean to try and teach us a lesson there, then, didn’t he? But we are unbowed. There is a strength in our northern people that he ought not to trifle about. He will be bitten ferociously.At that he laughed, and his laughter was merry and spread in little ripples across the room, where the usual dartsmen engaged in frustrated contest, milkmaids laughed uproariously drunken, and Panoptes—always little impressed by human goings on— worried a bone he had cadged off of Pamela, near the hearth.It was interesting to hear the words of this stranger. I told him Aleuderis had not been seen in some time... At least, not for several days before Gryffydd himself had come. But I wish I had not said it.For just as I had, who should stride in from the summer fields and roads, but Aleuderis Burian, himself, sweeping his cape and walking with a most upright bearing. He had seen the stranger immediately as he entered and scanned the room, and where the stranger sat, actually, was the very table Aleuderis enjoyed most.“Good Gryffydd, how goes it! What has brought you all this way here? Surely not humble old me?” Aleuderis sense of humor was subtle and understated. The tall Welshman stood full height and shook the miner’s hand, and clasped it in both of his.“Good tin merchant! I am happy to finally have found you, again. Do you know...”Aleuderis, took Gryffydd by the arm, and began to pull him aside, and back out the doorway.“Let us go outside to speak of this,” he winked at me. “Our good taverner has rules, we must be observant! One of his rules is “no pedlar talk indoors.” But come with me!”He led the stranger out of doors, to the bowls, and they sat together on the bench, and there, I know not what they discussed, but since it was “pedlar business” I gave a sigh of relief, and turned back to the kitchen. There I drew out more drink for them, and brought them a pitcher, and cups, and left them on the end of the bench, where they could draw from them at their pleasure.I returned to the kitchen. There, Wilmot was desperately arguing something with Claire.And between the two of them, when they argued like this, they were not the perfect picture of young love that they often presented. But Wilmot, it seems, was on the losing side.I took Pamela aside and asked her, “What’s the problem there?”“Oh, Julian, it’s hardly yours to trouble with. Claire wants Wilmot to make up his mind, between working for Clarence or working for you.”“How is that not my concern? Clarence is my friend, and Wilmot means as much to me as he does Clarence.”“Because, this is Claire’s way of keeping him closer to her. If he worked for Clarence he would be closer to her every night, and the trip would not be so far, and they could have more time together. Wilmot says that without your pennies, he would not have so much to save for their future life. But...”“You know, that the monks came very close to threatening them with leirwite?”“But they have no proof they have ever even slept together. So far as we know, they have not, isn’t that so?” She winked at me, and I winced back.“All the same, Pamela, I want Wilmot here also. His help is very necessary— he helps load up the carts with our supplies, it allows me to make a finish to the dealings with the merchants, and besides, I do like the company, and someone to talk with, on those trips. Tell Claire...”“I don’t think I nor even you, Julian can have much say in this.”“Well try. Tell her that I will absolutely not consider letting Wilmot go. We can make arrangements so he does not need work so long each night. That way he can still make the trips, and still have more time to be with her.”“I will see.”When I returned to the stranger Welshman and Aleuderis, they had near to finished half of their pitcher, and were in a very good mood.“Good tavernkeeper, please, bring us meat!” Aleuderis cheerfully beamed at me.“I should like a cheese, and fruit, as well.”“You have a preference for the meat?” I asked. I hope that I could bring whatever I had ready. So it was the case.“No, my friend, just bring us a plate of it! And the cheese— and I would like an apple.”“I, at least a pear,” said the Welshman.I hurried back to the kitchen. as it happened, some people who had been in earlier ordered roast beef, but had left a good half of the platter, and I grabbed that. I stacked a quarter pound of good Stilton cheese along with an apple and pear, and rushed right back out.On the bowls green a small group of people had gathered, who knew Aleuderis, but kept a distance from them. They competed for knocking down pins, and one of them, at least, was quite good. The miner and his guest both drew knives and began carving up the beef, and with hungry, pudgy fingers, they sated themselves, taking care to slice but enough for a mouthful at one time, each taking their turn. It was obvious to me they could not finish the entire plate, and I watched the bowlers, taking my time, until they announced it was good and they had had enough. I took away the platter and returned to the kitchen.Wilmot was there and asking me questions as I returned the hunk of roast to a pot resting on the long cooking table.“Who is the Welshman?”“I am not quite sure. Yes, he does seem to know the miner. Perhaps it is just as well. Be sure, though, Wilmot, you keep his visits a secret. You know what the Devon men will say, when they discover a Welshman has been here, and that we have not only served him, but served him with some deference, and that he has indeed made some kind of plan with the mine owner.”That led me to consider this, as well. That what had just taken place was exactly the kind of thing that the Devon men wished me to report. And I would not. I would not betray the trust of any of my guests. If that meant I must betray them, so be it, but they themselves had betrayed the people of Penwith with their cruel injustices. And I need not cooperate with any of that. For I knew that all my patrons held them in low contempt, and they at least, would not do to see me myself in such trouble.
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DREAMS OF ABU

I woke up from an amazing dream. I had dreamed of a sunny courtyard somewhere, with fountains pouring cool water in large jets in a beautiful azure tiled pool. All around the fountain there were laughing people, dressed in a style I recognized as more like Abu’s, than anyone else I knew. They were drinking wine from goat bladders, and eating with fingers fruit which was piled high on platters of silver and ceramic ware. I moved close to one of the tables where these platters rested, and there were amazing dishes set forth upon it.From a large bowl I ladled a liquid which was strangely solid— it was an ice, an ice made of water, but it was near like in a block, although if one took a spoon and dipped into it, it came forth and in a portion so small it made a mouthful. When I placed it to my mouth, it was a most fascinating fruity flavor, such a fruit I have never eaten, but there were dozens of these bowls, and they each held this sort of concoction in them, and every dish was a different flavor.A servant standing there told me to grab a bowl, and fill it with different scoops of however many and however much of this I should like. I did so.When I had filled it full the many different ices began to run together, for the flavors were all different, and yet, lumps of them remained cold and cool, and so I ate of these first. Like I said, each one had a different flavor, but I recognized cherries, berries, lemons, and oranges, and a melon or two, and strawberries, peaches, and apples. It was fascinating. And when I mixed the strange slurry of all the flavors together so that I could taste this fortunate blend, the result was a sort of pinkish purple, with running rivulets of yellow here and there.The dish of ice was so satisfying and different I swore I should never, ever forget it, nor the strange tastes of fruits I could not recognize. And when I had finished with my bowl, lo, it was magically filled once more, with as many different scoops of the stuff as I had ate before! My head swam.  And this was not all of it. The other people that were jumping in the fountain, or standing about, or lounging on cushions and eating of all the different foods, they all looked at me as if I was strange, and foreign, to think any of this unusual. But of course, I was! I was a stranger in their country. something told me I must be near to Abu’s land, or very close, anyway, if not actually there.As I stood in this courtyard I began to notice the strange trees, tall and topped with rough tufts, and hanging from these tufts were large clusters of an odd strange fruit, full of sugar, and which tore apart with the slightest effort of one’s teeth. These trees stood both inside of and outside of the courtyard, which was itself composed of a hall of galleries on each side, and each gallery was carved, painted, or chiseled into patterns so complex they must have been devised by someone familiar with geometry, for each point was precisely balanced, and yet, where there were inscriptions, all of these fit effortlessly into a larger pattern that bordered upon the infinite. For if one chose to stare at any one point in each archway, one experienced a movement either toward or against its background, and these patterns were so insistent and persistent in their regularity, that it made one dizzy. Certainly I began to be dizzy! And then it was, that I awoke, just when I felt the presence of Abu, and thought he had come to speak to me.And I awoke. But later in that day I was truly surprised, for a man came to the lady wishing to give to me a letter which he said had traveled far over the seas. It was a letter from Abu! He had answered my letter... although it had taken many months.“Dear Julian,” it began, “It was good to hear from you and your give your reading of my stars and what you tell may be my future. Whether those things be true, or not, I do wish to tell you of the things which have changed for me. Remember when I told you about the haram woman, the Christian to whom I was pledged of love, and how it could not be? It was just as so. The woman proved to be unfaithful of heart, for even though she knew not of this great love for her, yet she married a Christian man, herself, and has gone away from Granada. I was sore at heart like to have near to take my life, but blessed Allah has saved me just in time, merciful is his heart and mind.For not a week had passed that I had learned of the Christian witch changing her heart that I should be shut out from it forever, but I met a young woman of the umma, of my own faith, of my own sort, who did pledge her undying love of me, for she had heard me play for the sultan a year ago, and this was for her most wonderful, and she had set her heart upon mine there and then, for all of these months, I knew it not.But now, ins’h Allah, she is to be my wife. And ins’h Allah, this year we will have a new addition to our family, a little Abu is on his way. At least, so I hope he is a boy for he will continue my work and my line. She is humble, and I said, she is faithful, so faithful as I know your Mary is, and how I must tell you now Julian how jealous I was that you had such a fine woman and I had none, only a dream! But Nafiz is no dream, she is real, and she is for me the soul and heart of all I sought before.We are, however, mixed into the midst of a new and dangerous war! The treacherous king of Navarre— who promised me his word otherwise, has joined in with the Castillian, to make war upon us—this he did despite his pledge to me, and to the most ugly wrathful chagrin of our Sultan. And so it is that we will have not the peace under which I should have hoped my children shall live. But we may yet prevail, ins’h Allah!I will listen and read often the words you wrote to me about my stars, but most of all, Julian, I am so glad that you were right, that I would find love!Most merciful Allah in blessings to you my brotherAbu al SayyadMinstrel and Diplomat to Mohammad VIIIGranada, Al Andalus”
I was altogether pleased to have this letter from Abu. I put it aside, though, and would not answer it for months yet in the future.
Now on Saint Peter’s Day, Lammas Day in Chester, when I would have been working with Garthson, Blightson, and Shaftsley in the fields of Westchester Manor. But Mary and I were on our way to the Market Fair Day in Penzance, the first being held under the new charter declared by King Henry.  I had an idea that early in the day, I would go and collect my foodstuffs from our friends and their stalls—for this was the best time to find all the victuals for the tavern— and then in the afternoon, I would play the lute and sing for the people, as Mary and Pamela went about what business they wanted, gathering fabrics for their winter clothes, and learning what they might about the new rules for the Market Days. Mary went to Pamela’s room to collect her, and together they spent the afternoon indulging themselves of much in the way of drink and feast.Without Wilmot to care for helping load the cart, I resolved that it would not be such a great thing, anyway, for me. I had brought Panoptes along with me, riding in the back with Mary and Pamela, and I left them to walk up the stairs of Pamela’s home, and for Panoptes and I (and Luisa) then, it was off to the Fair, to see what we could see.The first one of my suppliers I came across was the fisherman Walsoff. With a wave of his hand, he beckoned me to his stall.Set up on a pair of stools, was a long wide board serving as a table top. On top were  a number of baskets of various fish.“Say there, good Julian! How art thou today? Care you for any fish, my good man? All of these have just come off the boats! ‘Twas not but a few hours ago, indeed! See here! Here are dories, and tunny, and pogies, and pilchards and cod! Mackerels, sardinos, squintoes, and eels! All that you like, my good friend, help yourself, and have the time!”I looked into each basket, and the fish did indeed seem fresh. Whether or not this was some new approach of Walsoff or not, I do not know, because in fact, I was quite used to his fish having a bit of a grayish cast to the eye, most days when I got to him in the shop.“And how is it, my dear Walsoff, that you happen to have such well-appointed stock? It does seem to me as if, much of the time I have been your loyal customer, that what fish you have have lain about at least a day or two. How have you managed to change that story?”He blinked, then winked.“Ah, Julian! I have me a new fisherman or two! Deep pockets two or three he be! And he has in turn his own partner. And the two of them, they do make it each night, a new catch fresh, and sweet of meat, and none of those glass-eyed bangers for us, no more, eh? They are good men, the Bainstars, they are. A pair of brothers, Lent and Dyffdd, they be called. And they have separate boats, they do! Lent goes out early, and heads for the mackerels. Dyffdd goes late, toward night, sometimes even all night! And he goes for the deep boys. I tell you such as never has been my luck before but they are now my own best men and I will vouch for their fare on any day.”I looked at the basket of silvery pilchards.“And these, my friend? Are these pilchards the best?”“The best I have seen in a fair pair of months, Julian!”“Alright then. Give us three pounds of them. And the John Dories, five pounds. And mackerel, a good three as well. I am sorry to not wish more, but it happens that fish have not been so big at the Lady these last weeks. Perhaps because I rarely get so many sailors, and most of my people, they are beef an’ lamb an’ hen men. But...” I purposefully trailed off there so as to hear what his pitch would be. There was always a rhythm to these exchanges, and as he lifted fish wrapped them, and placed them inside my own hamper as was our custom, he did not fail to bring up the rest of the exchange.“Well, you are, there, Sire Julian. ‘Twill be a shilling then. I am also...”I stared for a moment because I did not quite believe what I was now seeing. A man had taken up his spot along the end of the row of stalls, and I could see by his dress, and the sack of props he carried, he was a jongleur. He began juggling there, first, beginning with several small balls, but then, he began expanding into stranger things all pulled from his sack. A number of wheat-scythes! Three drum batons, which he proceeded to light on fire, and then he juggled them! A pair of glass goblets, which might at any moment crash down in splintering shards on the cobblestones, he added to the torches! Five elements now, and not a single miss!He had gathered quite a crowd, and even Walsoff broke off from his wrapping my fish to gape at the new juggler. I thanked him, put the hamper on my cart, which I parked (and left) by the fish man’s stall, and brought Panoptes with me so we might have a better look at this talented trickster.When he was finished, I introduced myself, and this was our exchange.“Good day, my fine juggler! I say— you have quite a talent.”He smiled, somewhat shyly, but knowingly, implying that there must be more to the conversation lest his interest quickly fade.“I say, dear sir, have you any engagements on your bill?”“Engage— Oh! You mean as if, where I should be in the evening? Not really, dear sir, not really.”“I am Julian of The Fallen Lady. I have that as my tavern’s name, and I a minstrel besides, am inquiring it of you. For I might have a place for you to entertain for a fortnight or so, if you be so willing and if you have other lodging, for that I offer not at all.”“You have a tavern, you say? But I have no engagement, sir. It was that I did perform just last night at the good Pelican Inn here, and yet, I had no offer of such length. Indeed, the owner of that good place took me only for my coin to be a lodger, but I am not one to waste time. So here you find me, making my tricks for the Fair!”He turned his attention back to his colored balls, which he flung up, caught and kept moving, without missing a breath in his gait or his speech.“Then what say you, good sir? I can give you table, and a groat per day. 'Tis a fair thing, then, is it not? For you can always sleep at the Pelly, but our table is good and generous, and our drink, well, they say our ale is the best in the south country.”“Is that so?” he asked, seeming as though he were not only not impressed by my humble attempt at advertising my honorable establishment, but that he knew such talk to be rote for every innkeeper and taverner from here to London and north to York, and that none of us were so modest as to claim there were any better, anywhere.“Well, allow me to think on this. I shall be here all the day.”“As will I!”“Good! When I have had my fill of these crowds, then, I shall seek you out, Julian of the Fallen Lady. And now...” He turned back to the business of tricking the coins from their pockets, and the crowd oohed and ahhed, awed by his deftness.
And so it was I first met the juggler Deftwulf of Ravenglass, though it would not be but until late in the day we came to agreements, and all the rest of it. But I must speak now of the rest of that day while I went about the Fair, gathering in the goods I needed...The Costerman Kenbrucke sold me a basket of pears, many very good, although some at the bottom, I learned later, were full of fruit-flies and losing their skins. After seeing him, I stopped at the worst of all, who of course, was candlemaker Cocklenburg, and never was I ever near him but that his odor was most foul, a blend of several shades of barnslop and worse, and not only could I but hardly get away but that I had filled my basket with candles, and said a few hurried and rushed words, but that he always seemed to want to spend more time with me than I cared to with him. In this case, even though his candles (as usual) weren’t fairly weighted, I managed to offer him a ha’penny more than they were worth— if I could, of course, be just a few seconds less in his offal presence.Panoptes, too, had a dislike for the candle man, because when I stopped at the candle booth, he began a low growl, and never did he quit it, either, until we were both past and out of Cocklenburg’s disgusting area. Panoptes sat and patiently waited for me as I stopped at a woman’s stall who was offering milk, cooled with ice, spiced with cinnamon, and this was a drink most refreshing on a hot day with all about us themselves somewhat sweating, and hoping for the south wind to waft away a little of the balminess. I walked away sipping upon it, with my dog by my side, and by now, with arms full of baskets, found I needed a return to the cart. I had one more stop I felt I needed to make— and that was to see Odo Trappet the butcher.On my way to Odo, however, I was surprised to hear a very familiar voice singing on another aisle of shop stalls. Wilmot! I had to see this for myself, and I endeavored to take great care he not see me approach, for then, he would stop, and begin a conversation with me, I could just predict it.I held Panoptes back too, and we remained just out of his sight, as he sang and played, not vielle, this time, but on a lute, a lute with five courses, but only single ones, and which had (unusually) not a rounded back, but one shaped more straightly, like a viol. He was singing something he must have written by himself, and dedicated to his Claire, for every time he came to his chorus—“...And when she goes awayI hope it shall never be to stay...”—his voice faltered, and broke, and I laughed inside, because I could tell it was a song by a man in love, with quavering emote, and so barely assured of himself, that the throwing of a pair of pennies from one of his bystanders shook him into a nod and brief interruption.After he was done, then I felt I should make things easy for him. I pulled Luisa around to my chest, and walked up to him, intending to join him, which of course, pleased him incredibly.“Sire Julian! You wish to join me! Wonderful!”“I am but here to help make things a bit more easy for you Will.”“I’m I’m, I’m honored!”“Oh, hush now child. Let us play O Good Gregius.”I began the familiar tune, and he followed me. I could see that the bystanders were now enchanted, because while one lutenist alone would have been a bore, two was a rarer sight, and beside, with me leading like this, Wilmot could but do his best to keep playing along, and this was no bother to me.The coins began to shower us, though, because at one point I picked up the melody and quickened the tempo, forcing a pair of lovers who had been holding hands to embrace, and then break into a dance! And it was contagious. Soon, there were dancers up and down the alley between the two rows of stalls, and some of the merchants even, were slapping their thighs, and highstepping. Panoptes too at one point, burst into a song, and his howling caused even more laughter, and was even more an attraction. I would have to remember this. If I could one day even inspire Panoptes to “sing” on cue— why then, I might have yet another excuse for the crowds to fill our caps with coin.Wilmot brought our duet to a close with a forceful nod and four bars of torpid chords, and he leaned over to me, saying “I am so happy, really Julian.”“It is nothing, my friend.” He knew that my presence had brought him more luck than he  had otherwise, and I knew this too, but it is not in my nature to grab for all the applause. I let Wilmot clean the cap before him and did not ask for any of his coins. Once I stopped, drank more of my spiced milk, and retuned, we were ready for another song. This one Wilmot again sang, of his own creation of course, and I listened closely and tempered it with my own shadings. It was a song of walking in the Glen of Trewyddyn, and I could tell, somehow, that Ranulf must have spent time with him.Ranulf! I wondered why I had not even been thinking of him, although he was still in Penzance, still staying at the Pelican, and still very much a friend. I suppose it had been because I had the extra burden of needing to come to the Fair with the cart... And yet, in all that time I spent distracted by Wilmot, then only late was my errand at Odo Trappet’s remembered and belatedly I trudged off again, a basket under my arm.And again a distraction! For as I neared Odo’s, and passed by the front of the Pelican, who (and what!) did I see but my rival, Alstair of the Pelican, in the mist of a dark harangue he was giving a group of sailors, who already by midday were drunk, and feisty, and full of themselves.I cannot tell you what his quarrel with them was, all I knew was, there they were out in the street. And Alstair saw me, and when he did, immediately he walked away from them as if they were of no concern at all (but then, with a look on his face which could only mean I was) and approached me. “Julian Plectrum! How, how, how do you do this good day?”It was always hard to gauge exactly what Alstair could mean if he came up to you so friendly. Often, his smiling face belied a masked contempt, boiling beneath the surface, eventually to break through in force. While it always helped for one to remember this, it was also best to ignore what one knew, and take it as it came.“My friend Alstair. How goes things? Well, here I am doing my shopping at the Fair, well to give myself an extra day of rest next week, I hope! On my way to the butcher, I am.”“The butcher? Good! Listen, Julian. You may take it odd to be coming from me, but you would do best to keep away from anyone you do not already know. There are... there are men about who are not what they seem!”Ah! That even Alstair, who was never what he seemed, to begin with, should warn me off from others? What was real, moreover, who was real, I wondered.Across the street I thought I saw “the least evil” among the Devonshire castle men, Sugarsop, rushing down the stones, headed in the direction of the fair. To Alstair I nodded.“When are people ever what they seem?” I asked him. He took that to mean perhaps, that even I was not what I seemed. For next, he said something more puzzling to me. Maybe he too had noticed Sugarsop hurrying on his way.“Julian, I tell you this- take care who you let in to your inn! You see those sailors back there? I have had to make without their business now. Last night one of them stabbed another, and I was hard put to drive all of them away, for none of them would admit who had done it, and all protected each other . Therefore, they were all guilty, in my eyes! I will not have such strife!”What puzzled me about this was that Alstair took in crusty violent sailors all the time and what was his problem with these?“Alstair, we see people who are not as they seem all the time. Everyone. Even myself, I should not be what I seem to you, should I? We both seek business, we are both hosts. What we have in common is less than it might seem, because we both hope to do the other down, if we can, and gain more than the other. Do we not? Be honest.”“Julian, you are a brave soul to admit it. I know that we put a brave face on things, but yes, at heart, we are each trying to send the other home hungry, at the end of the day. But... But please remember, there are men... I mean there are men...”It was obvious now that Sugarsop was who he meant, for as he spoke he sent a nod in the direction the lackey had just gone. What was his business here at the Fair?I finally (yes finally) made it to Odo’s. Odo was not in a good mood himself today. What was everyone’s problem? He cut my sections off with a lackadaisical apparent boredom—as though he too were preoccupied. He had little to say other than grunting and sniffling, wrapping the meat cuts with a hurried impatience, and when I left, I paid him more than the worth of the meat, but he took the tip without a hint of gratitude And for once I was more pleased to leave Odo than I was to arrive!And Odo  was not my only misremembered thought! Mary and Pamela were, I hoped, still somewhere out here at the Fair. Perhaps they were still up in Pamela’s rooms, but I had not seen either, and I was due to bring them back as well.In the middle of our fifth song together, however, Deftwulf the juggler came walking up, and stopped to listen to Wilmot and I playing, and when we were done, he too laid a small coin— perhaps a farthing— in Wilmot’s cap. by now, Panoptes had settled down, and lain his head on his paws, looking about him now and then, but just as happy to snooze in the shadow of a booth curtain.“Good sire! I wish to take you up on your offer, if I might?”“Most certainly, Deftwulf. I have yet business here but you are welcome to return with me to my tavern— once I find my wife! She’s out here, somewhere...”And Panoptes by my side, I set out to look for Mary an Pamela. They could be anywhere in the six blocks of booths, but it would not take me long to give a good look up and down each long aisle. And as it happened, all I really needed, in the end, was to go three more paths over and I found them, discussing the merits of a number of fabrics with a woman who seemed, perhaps, the equivalent of a Stephen or Roger—her booth was full of rolls of fabrics and cloths, and hanging from its rafters were a number of lively colored dresses. It was these, I think which had attracted (and now held) their attention, and when she saw us approach, Mary broke off her chatter, and drew me in.“Julian, Julian my dear, just look at these! Have you not seen so fine a trace or hem as this?”The woman huddled in the shadow, masking an optimistic smile, for she figure she had Mary hooked already, and now it remained only for Mary to hook me, to bring a sale.I ran my fingers over the garment she held between her own, and briefly frowned.“ I have seen many, but I see no...”“Oh come on, you know you have not! This good woman is offering the work for just nine pence! And I do think I should be quite pleased with it.”Pamela held back, herself, for she knew that the only thing stopping Mary from her desire was my own sense of thrift. I knew, also, that should I not submit to Mary’s whim, there could be consequences. I cut to the chase.“How much?”“Nine pence, I said! Is that not a fair bargain?”“Tis what it is, it is. I know not what be a bargain. I shop for food, not clothing, my love. What I have is all I have, it suits me, and I know no need.”“Ah but Julian, you know..”“Yes, my love, I know that should I say no, I would never hear the end of it! Do as you wish.”Apparently, that was what Mary felt she needed to hear, and rather triumphantly the tailor brought down the dress, folded it in thirds, Mary dropped the coin into her hand, which she pocketed, and Mary, Pamela, Panoptes and I set off back in the direction of Wilmot, who we found, when we returned, cheerfully engaging a new crowd, and Deftwulf the juggler at his side. The juggler actually seemed to add a bit of distraction to Wilmot’s song but at the end of it, there were coins thrown into Wilmot’s hat, and I could not complain of anything, if it might have brought that about.While we were standing there, I happened to watch a rather brazen robbery of one of the bystanders, by a man who seemed quite well-prepared to offer trouble.As the crowd stood to listen, a cutpurse worked his own special magic on a number of commoners. He worked quickly, with a thumbhorn on his left hand, and his curved slicer in his right. He came up upon two gentlemen in turn, working swiftly as their attentions were turned away, and swiftly cut the strings of their purses off their belts, and stuffed them deep into his robes. I was actually rather stunned to actually see this— the thumbhorn was a protection against the swift sharp blade, as he pulled up the purse strings, and put to them the knife. He had obviously been quite practiced at this— I heard they even had schools in London where novice pickpockets and cutpurses might learn their trade from more experienced ones! And what was really shocking was that neither of their victims even noticed they had been so relieved, and that the culprit was able to flee in a matter of moments, quickly rushing off into the distance, perhaps to count his booty, and perchance to rob again.With some fond-regarded trepidation, I tucked my own purse into the folds of my cloak, and taking up the lute,  joined Wilmot in his last song. We played well enough, and the women chattered, Mary placed her new dress in the compartment beneath the ridging board of the cart, and when Wilmot was finished, and had drawn his applause, and more coins, I gathered the women into the cart. Deftwulf and Wilmot trudged alongside, the juggler’s bundle slung on his shoulder, and with Magdalene leading, we all set off for The Fallen Lady.Back at the tavern, where Deprez had things well in control (the young Will taking Pamela’s place as our server), I put it again to Deftwulf the juggler.“If you might entertain our crowd such as you did this afternoon at the Fair, I shall pay you a groat, an you might take your sup and drink on me. I usually hire a man by the fortnight, but first, prove to them that they wish your return, and that shall be your test.”Deftwulf nodded, and seemed quite confident this would not be so hard. Our clientele had been pretty sturdy and many of the same but they were quite easily entertained (as young Wilmot was discovering too, to his great joy!) and I knew it was a good idea to bring Deftwulf to the Lady, after all was said and done.So, for the next week-and-five, Deftwulf of Ravenglass put forth his flaming batons, his flying goblets, and his whirring scythes to the amazement of the people who dined with us. I noticed that even the crew who each night gathered to hazard the sharpshooting skill at flechettes would cease their challenges to watch him. For truly, it actually was a wonder, not only that he handled such dangerous tools with nonchalance and no injury, but that his nonchalance was studied and contrived in such a way that it belied what was actually his true skill, making it seem natural, and almost as if, well, anyone could do this if one only knew how! It never ceased amazing me, anyway, how he could not only hold three balls in the air but two goblets along with them, so that it seemed each hand was full at all times, even if it were in motion.Deftwulf of Ravenglass was pleased to gain his groat-a-day, and was off to the Pelican each night not too long after he complete each performance. He did take his fare in the way of dumplings, a drumstick, or a pot of stew, but he preferred the wine we had brought in from southern  France, to Mary’s good ale. It mattered little to me, for by his presence, actually, our number of guests grew, during his stay, and dwindled again once he went on his way, back north to Ravenglass on the high coast, and when he was but a memory, people spoke of him as one of our most wonderful players ever. Unless, of course, you meant Wilmot and myself, but we were always there anyway.My remembering Ranulf (a bit late) came up to me again, when none but Ranulf himself showed up one evening at the Lady, while Deftwulf had been juggling as usual. He pulled me out into the bowls green. People had learned that if they needed by confidential attention, it was always best to take me outside— there on the bench we could talk important things, out of range of anyone we meant not to hear them. And it was where many people went, for the same purpose.“Julian, be careful about that juggler! He is not what he seems...”“How so? Is he not most excellent?”“No, no, that is not how I mean it! Do you remember, you warned me, not to make myself so apparent for my being French, eh? Well... you said there were spies, and there were rumors that there were spies about, did you not?”I did. Now what was he about to tell me?“The jongleur— he is a French spy!”I looked at him.“You don’t say?”“Ah yes, yes, Julian, believe me, he is a spy for Charles he is! His overcoat— have you not noticed? On the inside of the sleeve he bears the arms of France! See for yourself, sometime, when his attention is not focused on making it less noticed. And I have heard him speaking, too! You think he is north of England, eh? North of England man. Well. He stays at the Pelican. Lots of us, we stay at the Pelican, non? But at the Pelican, he asks people the most ridiculous things! He asks the sailors what boat they sail on, where is their port, he asks what they carry aboard their cargo, he asks things about the country. How much tin, how much coal, how much silver, how much this or that! He does! Do not look at me like that! I am warning you! When the castle peoples discovair what he is up to, they will hang him! I know this! Please be careful in what you say to him.”So far, though I had not much need to say anything to Deftwulf of Ravenglass other than, “that was fantastic” or “here is today’s pay” or “what is your pleasure, sire, for a meal?” I contented myself to keeping things that way. If he were a French spy, I would not let on, to anyone, friend nor foe, for it was not my business, really,  whether or not he were. Leave that to the frips like Sugarsop to care! Deftwulf of Ravenglass played out his nights, and moved on, and nobody was ever any the wiser in The Fallen Lady as to whether he were a spy for the crown of France, or not.
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