Shield of Three Lions by Pamela Kaufman Page B

as a fairy, but the horror was soon doubled when Twixt was jostled out of step by a fat horse, and a female voice called out, “Don’t stop! Sing on and I’ll join ye.”
    Enoch grinned and complied while I stared from under my hat at a plump partridge riding a white mare. She sang lustily loud, further off-key even than Enoch, her mouth stretching wide over her pointed gap-teeth. I had never seen such a bold wench, a chicken vendor to judge by the huge white hens caged on the rump of her mare, for her dress was cunningly contrived to show more than it concealed. Her egg-white wimple was starched stiff as parchment, but slipped back to display wiry red crinkled hair; her full freckled face was framed by heavy dangles in her ears; her pale brows were plucked above jade-green eyes threatened with sties; her bosom was covered to its cleavage—albeit with a transparent gauze; her kirtle was pulled tight at her waist so that both hips and breasts bulged like melons; her scarlet skirts were hiked to show a bold expanse of thick hairy legs above her brown boots. Yet no doubt she was a handsome dame in her coarse way, for she was spritely and friendly as a sparrow.
    “Be gay! Be frivoli gay!” she bellowed a few beats after Enoch had finished, then laughed to make all heads turn for it sounded as if she were calling for cows: “Caaaa! Caaaaa! Caaaaa!” Whereupon her chickens cackled in loud chorus.
    “That’s good,” said the Scot.
    “Go on, ye’re bletherin’ me!” And she pushed him off balance so hard that Lance snarled upward. “Oh look ye, a wolf! Did ye ever see the menagerie King Stephen kept in the royal castle?”
    “We’ve not been to London afore.” Enoch doffed his hat. “Enoch Angus Boggs at yer service and my wee brother Alex.”
    I threw him a fierce look for not calling me Tom, but he was too dazzled to notice.
    “Ye’re a Scot then! La, I
love
Scots. O’course, that’s why ye can sing so. Is that not called harmon-izement?”
    “That it is, a Celtish gift. You English dynt on one note and think it music while we carol like birds in a tree, each to his own tune but working togeddir.”
    “’Tis a jolly dynt withal and you do it wondrous well, better than most men, I trowe. Caaaa! Caaaa! Caaaaa!” And off went the poultry again in a mad jabber.
    Enoch laughed just as heartily though I failed to see the humor. Then the dame introduced herself as Mistress Gladys Stump on her way from Oxenford to Smithfield Market to sell her hens.
    Her face grew solemn. “I have to support myself now that my dear husband is in his grave, alas, for I’m a poor widow.” Her green eyes squinted and she added archly: “Well, not so poor, mayhap, if I had some strong smart wight to manage my property, for I was left with considerable.”
    “Ye’re a brave lass and bonny. Certes yell nocht be alone long. I envy the lucky fellow what will take yer cue and gain him some fowls.”
    “Caaaa! Caaaa! Caaaa!”
    Everyone stared as I winced and thought we might as well have carried a banner announcing our presence as to take up with such a brazen loud hussy. Enoch showed remarkably poor judgment after all his caution in the forest.
    “So ye’ve ne’er been to London before. ’Tis a most ‘wildering city withouten a guide to show ye the sights.”
    Enoch reached to pat the mare’s neck and hit Gladys’s flank by mistake. “I was hopin’ I dared prevail on yer service, yif ye’re nocht too busy sellin’.”
    “I don’t sell all the time. Guidance I’ll give away gladly.” And once again came the long hawking laugh as I cringed and the fowl cackled.
    And so they jangled through dinner and beyond, for we’d acquired a companion, that was sure. As the road became ever more crowded, she proved to know everybody and everything.
    “See that haughty train there what deigns not to notice no one but itself? That be the Bishop of London on his way to his palace which be on this side of the old Bourn. He can keep