“Well, he was wrong,” Uncle Simon said. “Aunt Edith is dead. What’s more, since your father’s disgrace, I’ve lost half of my lands to that fat rogue Percy Hamleigh. It’s hard times here. So you can turn right around and go back to Winchester. I’m not taking you in.”

Aliena was shaken. He seemed so hard. “But we’re your kin!” she said.

He had the grace to look slightly ashamed, but his reply was harsh. “You’re not my kin. You used to be my first wife’s niece. Even when Edith was alive she never saw her sister, because of that pompous ass your mother married.”

“We’ll work,” Aliena pleaded. “We’re both willing-”

“Don’t waste your breath,” he said. “I’m not having you.”

Aliena was shocked. He was so definite. It was clear there was no point in arguing with him or begging. But she had suffered so many disappointments and reverses of this kind that she felt bitter rather than sad. A week ago something like this would have made her burst into tears. Now she felt like spitting at him. She said: “I’ll remember this when Richard is the earl and we take the castle back.”

He laughed. “Shall I live so long?”

Aliena decided not to stay and be humiliated any longer. “Let’s go,” she said to Richard. “We’ll look after ourselves.” Uncle Simon had already turned away and was looking at the horse with the high wither. The men with him were a little embarrassed. Aliena and Richard walked away.

When they were out of earshot, Richard said plaintively: “What are we going to do, Allie?”

“We’re going to show these heartless people that we’re better than they are,” she said grimly, but she did not feel brave, she was just full of hatred, for Uncle Simon, for Father Ralph, for Odo Jailer, for the outlaws, for the verderer, and most of all for William Hamleigh.

“It’s a good thing we’ve got some money,” Richard said.

It was. But the money would not last forever. “We can’t just spend it,” she said as they walked along the path that led back to the main road. “If we use it all up on food and things like that, we’ll just be destitute again when it’s all gone. We’ve got to do something with it.”

“I don’t see why,” Richard said. “I think we should buy a pony.”

She stared at him. Was he joking? There was no smile on his face. He simply did not understand. “We’ve got no position, no title, and no land,” she said patiently. “The king won’t help us. We can’t get ourselves hired as laborers-we tried, in Winchester, and no one would take us on. But somehow we have to make a living and turn you into a knight.”

“Oh,” he said. “I see.”

She could tell that he did not really see. “We need to establish ourselves in some occupation that will feed us and give us at least a chance of making enough money to buy you a good horse.”

“You mean I should become an apprentice to a craftsman?”

Aliena shook her head. “You have to become a knight, not a carpenter. Have we ever met anyone who had an independent livelihood but no skills?”

“Yes,” Richard said unexpectedly. “Meg in Winchester.”

He was right. Meg was a wool merchant although she had never been an apprentice. “But Meg has a market stall.” They passed the red-haired peasant who had given them directions. His four shorn sheep were grazing in the field, and he was tying their fleeces into bundles with cord made of reeds. He looked up from his work and waved. It was people such as he who took their wool into the towns and sold it to wool merchants. But the merchant had to have a place of business…

Or did he?

An idea was forming in Aliena’s mind.

She turned back abruptly.

Richard said: “Where are you going?”

She was too excited to answer him. She leaned on the peasant’s fence. “How much did you say you could get for your wool?”

“Penny a fleece,” he said.

“But you have to spend all day going to Gloucester and back.”

“That’s the trouble.”

“Suppose I buy your wool? That would save you the journey.”

Richard said: “Allie! We don’t need wool!”

“Shut up, Richard.” She did not want to explain her idea to him now-she was impatient to try it out on the peasant.

The peasant said: “That would be a kindness.” But he looked dubious, as if he suspected trickery.

“I couldn’t offer you a penny a fleece, though.”

“Aha! I thought there’d be a snag.”

“I could give you twopence for four fleeces.”

“But they’re worth a penny each!” he protested.

“In Gloucester. This is Huntleigh.”

He shook his head. “I’d rather have fourpence and lose a day in the field than have twopence and gain a day.”

“Suppose I offer you threepence for four fleeces.”

“I lose a penny.”

“And save a day’s journey.”

He looked bewildered. “I never heard of nothing like this before.”

“It’s as if I were a carter, and you paid me a penny to take your wool to market.” She found his slowness exasperating. “The question is, is an extra day in the fields worth a penny to you, or not?”

“It depends what I do with the day,” he said thoughtfully.

Richard said: “Allie, what are we going to do with four fleeces?”

“Sell them to Meg,” she said impatiently. “For a penny each. That way we’re a penny better off.”

“But we have to go all the way to Winchester for a penny!”

“No, stupid. We buy wool from fifty peasants and take the whole lot to Winchester. Don’t you see? We could make fifty pennies! We could feed ourselves and save up for a good horse for you!”

She turned back to the peasant. His cheerful grin had gone, and he was scratching his ginger-colored head. Aliena was sorry she had perplexed him, but she wanted him to accept her offer. If he did, she would know it was possible for her to fulfill her vow to her father. But peasants were stubborn. She felt like taking him by the collar and shaking him. Instead, she reached inside her cloak and fumbled in her purse. They had changed the gold bezants for silver pennies at the goldsmith’s house in Winchester, and now she took out three pennies and showed them to the peasant. “Here,” she said. “Take it or leave it.”

The sight of the silver helped the peasant make up his mind. “Done,” he said, and took the money.

Aliena smiled. It looked as if she might have found the answer.

That night she used a bundled fleece for a pillow. The smell of sheep reminded her of Meg’s house.

When she woke up in the morning she discovered that she was not pregnant.

Things were looking up.

Four weeks after Easter, Aliena and Richard entered Winchester with an old horse pulling a homemade cart bearing a huge sack which contained two hundred and forty fleeces-the precise number which made up a standard woolsack.

At that point they discovered taxes.

Previously they had always entered the city without attracting any attention, but now they learned why city gates were narrow and constantly manned by customs officers. There was a toll of one penny for every cartload of goods taken into Winchester. Fortunately, they still had a few pennies left, and they were able to pay; otherwise they would have been turned away.

Most of the fleeces had cost them between one half and three quarters of a penny each. They had paid seventy-two pence for the old horse, and the rickety cart had been thrown in. Most of the rest of the money had been spent on food. But tonight they would have a pound of silver and a horse and cart.

Aliena’s plan was then to go out again and buy another sackful of fleeces, and to do the same again and again until all the sheep were shorn. By the end of the summer she wanted to have the money to buy a strong horse and a new cart.

She felt very excited as she led their old nag through the streets toward Meg’s house. By the end of the day she would have proved that she could take care of herself and her brother without any help from anyone. It made her feel very mature and independent. She was in charge of her own destiny. She had had nothing from the king, she did not need relatives, and she had no use for a husband.