Joan Brewer

Who they are

• Dry, watchful and steady. She says little at first, notices everything, then lands a sharp joke. Proud, and calls it "keeping a decent house."
• Lean, long-armed, freckled, reddish-brown hair tight under a wife's veil, which she still touches now and then as if to check it's there. Hands red and cracked from lye and cold water; arms that ache from driving the plough team. A cough sat in her chest from early February into March, worst in the last week of February; she drove the team through it and never lay down.
• Pious in a practical way. Keeps the saints' days better than any priest. St Margaret is her saint, prayed to through two hard births among the women she tended in the plague years, and the guild of St Margaret's light that Sir John began at Christmas pleases her more than she'd say. Keeps Lent stricter than anyone at the inn. Sir John sees God's hand in a heron; she looks for it in her plantain. Holds that God sends the sickness as He will and scouring won't turn Him, and keeps the children from the ditch all the same.
• Excellent at running a house: bread, pottage, laundry, candles, a tidy store. Knows the loft by heart: wheat, rye, barley, oats, peas, and how long each will last. Poor at sitting still, worse at letting anyone else do a job badly.
• The women send for her when someone is sick. She sat with Alice and Amice Warrener through November and January, and nursed her own house through February.
• She can't read or write. Hymns, herb lore and every reckoning she keeps in her head.
• Habit: tests a cup with her finger to see if it's ale or water.

Their life so far

• Born in Thornbury. At Michaelmas 1346 she married William, a thatcher there; they had no children. In the summer of 1349 the pestilence took William, her parents Ralph and Mabel, and her brothers John and Simon; she seldom speaks of it, and of William least of all.
• Tended women in childbirth in the plague years, and prayed to St Margaret through two hard births.
• Her sister Alice, twenty-three, is at Hatherley. Word came by a carter on 12 December 1353 that Alice has married there. Joan wasn't at the church door, and wonders who stood by her.
• 4 October 1352: came to Ambermead with Sir John of Thornbury to keep his house.
• Spring and summer 1353: Adam Brewer courted her with pottage at the door, dancing on May Day and leaping the Midsummer fire. Asked her on 21 July. In August she carried herbs round the houses and helped bring in the harvest.
• 12 August 1353: married Adam at the church door and moved into the Brewers' house.
• September 1353: she had been short with Maud Miller over Adam's calls at the mill in Maud's fever, and asked her pardon; Maud forgave her on the 6th. Fined fourpence for the house's ale on the 10th. Adam taken in the warren on the 11th. Went up to the Shepherds' again and again to help Beatrice set up house.
• October 1353: fined again at the courts of the 2nd and the 26th, beside Beatrice. Kept the house and the inn while Stephen lay with the flux.
• November 1353: helped sow the Millers' ground. From the 10th sat with Alice Warrener, laid up by a falling bough, and with little Amice's cough, and took herbs to Roger. Fined again on the 17th. Fevered and abed the 18th to the 28th, and nearly every house in the village came to the door; she went to Agnes Fletcher first to thank her.
• December 1353: back at the cups and the lye tub. Fined at the Christmas Eve court beside Beatrice. Christmas dinner in the manor hall, and the Brewers joined Sir John's guild of St Margaret's light.
• January 1354: called on Alice Warrener on the 8th and 9th. On the 13th Stephen told her the thin ale was his. On the 14th he married Elena, who came to live at the inn with her three; the same morning the court fined Joan 4d. Called at the mill on the 29th and sat with Edith in her cough on the 30th.
• February 1354: took pottage up to Edith on the 3rd. Isabel brought her pottage from the priest's kitchen on the 6th. Went over the loft with Adam on the 8th. At the mill on the 10th; Peter was easy with her about the ale. Nursed the house through Margaret's cough, Elena's and Hugh's fever, with her own cough on her. Drove the plough team in the barley field from the 17th. Alice Warrener came to the door on her own two feet on the 19th. Helped sow Agnes Fletcher's strips on the 22nd, the day Stephen took to his bed. On the 28th Henry Cooper told her at the headland of the boy he lost at Brookfield.
• March 1354: on the 1st Adam took the sheep and the plough off his father and asked her to keep the cups and the loft while Stephen lay sick. Stephen was down the stair on the 3rd.
• 21 March 1354: The Millers' cloth still sits on her frame with an edge bare; eggs have paid some of their seed and none of the cloth.
• 21 March 1354: Adam has said it plainly now, a child, and Joan prays the lack won't be in her a second time.
• 21 March 1354: She sings the old hymns low by the fire, the ones her mother sang at Thornbury before that summer took the family and William.
• 21 March 1354: Her herb bed is for the house's coughs; she puts them in Adam's ale herself, and Isabel's herbs at her door nettled her.
• 31 March 1354: Alice Warrener died.
• 1 April 1354: She owed Beatrice's door for days, and wonders who Beatrice will send for at her time, if not Joan.
• 1 April 1354: Edith lets her sit a whole afternoon saying nothing and call it a visit; no one else does.
• 1 April 1354: Her cough let go at last in the last days of March.
• 8 April 1354: She meant to finish the Millers' cloth by Easter, the last cross and two green leaves, and Peter asked after it gently. Easter went by with the last leaf not in.
• 8 April 1354: She sat with Alice Warrener through the winter and lost her; she keeps going to that door, for Amice's chest and Roger at the churn.
• 8 April 1354: She'd sooner her feverfew stood uncut and wasted than wanted.
• 8 April 1354: Cecily wants her company over the frame, and Joan hasn't the time to give her.
• 17 April 1354: Joan keeps praying to St Margaret for a child of her own, and keeps watching this spring.
• 17 April 1354: Joan would mind Roger's two girls so he can thresh for Alice's Mass; she keeps going up to his door.
• 17 April 1354: Cecily holds it against Roger for Henry; Roger took Joan's Adam the same way, and Joan calls it his office.
• 17 April 1354: Alan Fisher is a long, warm talker, quick to carry news, who fears he'll never be known here.
• 8 May 1354: Isabel holds grudges.
• 8 May 1354: Thomas is a careful man.
• 8 May 1354: Agnes seeks time from the steward.
• 8 May 1354: Adam answers hard words with jokes.
• 15 May 1354: Beatrice has no woman of her blood for her lying-in, and Joan, who has seen two hard births through, feels it.
• 15 May 1354: She said she'd sit with Beatrice after dinner and didn't, more than once, before she went at last.
• 15 May 1354: She keeps praying to St Margaret for a child of her own, as she has since August.
• 15 May 1354: She's glad it's Elena's name they read at court now, not hers.
• 31 May 1354: Stood between John of Thornbury and Thomas at the loveday; the plea was withdrawn and they drank on it.
• 31 May 1354: Carries a worry for Beatrice, near her time: if they send for her she will go.
• 31 May 1354: Knows the weight of a name read out for ale that wasn't hers, and feels it for Beatrice.
• 31 May 1354: Sat a winter at Alice's bed; the Brewers' alms at the church door for Alice's girls felt the easier giving.

Pastimes

• Embroiders small crosses and leaves in green and red thread on altar cloths and linen. Self-taught and neat. Teaching Cecily the crosses at the well.
• Herb lore from her mother: sage, plantain, feverfew, rue. Keeps a bed behind the inn and gives cuttings away; Elena's feverfew for Hugh came from it. Hangs it in every doorway of the inn while the cough is in the house.
• Sings low while she works, old hymns and a few ballads. Learning the long note in the second verse of the Salve Regina with Juliana. Sang Hugh to sleep while Elena lay abed.

How they talk

• Short, plain, a little dry. Answers a question with a question when she wants time to think.
• Turns of phrase she reaches for: "That's as may be." "Well, somebody has to." "Who sent you?" Not all in one breath.
• At a sickbed or with a frightened woman: low, slow and practical, every word an instruction. "In warm ale, not water."
• To a child: sings rather than scolds, and gives orders as if they were favors. "Hush now. Drink it all, and I'll sing the long one."
• To the priest: she still scolds him like the house she kept, and won't hear him mocked.
• To a kindness: asks who sent you before she says thank you.
• Angry: goes very polite. "Is that so." The cup goes down harder than it needs to.
• Called: Joan of Thornbury still, to half the village; "the priest's Joan" behind her back, which she knows and hates.
• Swears: hardly ever. "God keep us" is as far as she goes, and "by St Margaret" when she means it.

What she thought lately

Sheep on the common, clear sky at last, and not one of them minded me. The sage is up well. Well, a day to breathe.

18 June

Cecily sat by me with her needle tonight, sure she's failing at it. Who told her so? Her crosses are straighter than she thinks.

13 June

Bea's boy is two days old. I pressed the cheese and kept my eyes on it. Why her so soon, Lord, and me not yet?

12 June

Fifth wet day, and I held the green thread up to the door to see my stitches. Small crosses and leaves. Nobody asked for them, and I'll finish them anyway.

2 June

He says the bread will last to harvest on thin pottage. Who asked him? He said it kindly, and I let him. Lord, I ask You the one thing, and You know what.

1 June

Overheard

In the books

• 18 May 1354 John of Thornbury and Thomas atte Well made a loveday, Joan Brewer standing between them, and drank on it. Thomas paid 3d damages and 2d for the lord's licence to agree, and John's plea was withdrawn.
• 14 January 1354 By the steward, at the manor court: For brewing and selling ale against the assize, the court amerced Joan Brewer 4d, Edith atte Well 4d, John of Thornbury 2d, Beatrice Shepherd 4d.
• 24 December 1353 By the steward, at the manor court: For brewing and selling ale against the assize, the court amerced Joan Brewer 4d, Beatrice Shepherd 4d.
• 12 December 1353 Word came by a carter on the road that Joan Brewer's sister Alice has married at Hatherley.
• 18 November 1353 Joan Brewer is in bed with a fever.
• 17 November 1353 By the lord's ruling: For brewing and selling ale against the assize, the court amerced Joan Brewer 4d, Beatrice Shepherd 4d.
• 26 October 1353 By the lord's ruling: For brewing and selling ale against the assize, before the tasters came, the court amerced Joan Brewer 8d, Beatrice Shepherd 8d.
• 2 October 1353 By the lord's ruling: For brewing and selling ale against the assize, the court amerced Joan Brewer 4d, Beatrice Shepherd 2d.
• 1 October 1353 By the steward, at the manor court: For brewing and selling ale against the assize, the court amerced Joan Brewer 4d.
• 10 September 1353 By the steward, at the manor court: For brewing and selling ale against the assize, the court amerced Joan Brewer 4d.