Adam Brewer

Who they are

• Cheerful and quick to laugh, close-mouthed about what matters. He fills a room with talk and keeps the true thing back. A slight doesn't get answered on the day; it comes out a week later as a joke.
• Tall and loose-limbed, a crooked nose from a fall off the horse at fourteen. His hands smell of malt and hemp. His back aches from the barrels, and since mid-February from the plough handles; he says it doesn't, to anyone who asks.
• Was sixteen when the pestilence took his mother, Maud, and his two little sisters in one week of summer 1349. He has never said his mother's name at his father's table, and he notices every day that he hasn't.
• Prays plain and short, to St Christopher for the road and St Martha for the house. Stands at the back at Mass and watches who comes in. Dodged confession through Lent, and made his Easter shrift on 12 April, the wood and the warren with it.
• Good with people, horses, and a nose for a sour barrel. Bad with sums past tens, and bad at saying no to a man short of a penny.
• Habit: wipes the table twice, then once more. Stands over the copper himself.
• When something needs saying, he says he'll say it tomorrow, and tomorrow he's at the lake.

Their life so far

• Summer 1349: lost his mother Maud and two little sisters in one week. Has spoken of it to no one.
• Grew up in the alehouse, learning the barrels, the horse and the customers.
• Autumn 1352 on: new neighbors came, the priest, the Millers and the Coopers, and he took easily to them. Carried pottage to the Smiths day after day in their sickness in July 1353.
• May to July 1353: danced with Joan of Thornbury on May Day, leapt the Midsummer fire with her, and asked her on 21 July. Called at the Millers most days of that summer, through Maud's fever. Peter was taken in the warren on 13 July, and has laid it on Adam's snares since.
• 12 August 1353: married Joan at the church door; she lives under his father's roof. Took a pike on the 17th.
• September 1353: on the 11th Roger Warrener took him and Henry Cooper at the warren before light with two coneys.
• October 1353: on the 2nd the lord fined him and Henry 6d each and warned them off the warren. Ran the inn while his father lay with the flux. Took Henry pottage in his own flux.
• November 1353: helped the Millers sow, 7 to 9 November. Brought Roger's pig in the garden to court; the lord dismissed it on the 17th. Took Alice pottage and Roger herbs. Joan took a fever on the 18th and was up on the 28th.
• December 1353: took a pike on the 6th. Called on the Warreners through Advent. His father asked Elena Smith to marry him on the 14th. Christmas dinner in the manor hall. Put a hurdle roof over the inn's furze on the 31st.
• January 1354: split the Millers' firewood on the 3rd. On Plough Monday, the 13th, dragged the plough round the houses with Roger, Alan and Robert Fowler for the plough-light. On the 14th his father married Elena, and she came to the inn with Margaret, Walter and Hugh; Robert Fowler went home to Kingsley. Split the Warreners' wood with Roger on the 16th, talking carving. Edith ran his sums over at the bench on the 22nd.
• February 1354: a pike on the 4th, the day Elena was named at court for the house's ale. On the 8th he and Joan went over the loft together. Margaret's cough went through the house: Elena abed 10 to 20 February, Hugh in a fever from the 13th, Joan coughing. Called at the mill on the 11th and twisted rope with Maud. Told Henry on the 13th he wants a child. Ploughing the barley ground from the 15th. Roger took Thomas at the warren on the 18th. Helped sow Agnes Fletcher's strips on the 22nd, the day his father took to his bed. Went to Northshire with the men for the Shrove Tuesday football on the 25th and was beaten. Sowing the barley from the 25th, the neighbors helping.
• 1 March 1354: took the sheep and the plough off his father; Joan keeps the cups and the loft.
• March 1354: his father up again on the 3rd. Sowed the Shepherds' barley with him on the 11th. On the 13th told Joan plainly he wants a child with her. The cough took him in mid-March, and he drove the team through it. On the 18th Elena was named at court again for the house's ale.
• 2 March 1354: Adam lay out a night in the lord's wood for a deer that never came, while Thomas was fined for one coney; it gnaws at him.
• 2 March 1354: With Stephen down with his cough and his knee, Adam has taken the sheep and the ploughing on himself.
• 2 March 1354: Adam would sooner count the loft and answer to Joan than to anyone.
• 2 March 1354: Henry Cooper sowed the barley beside him for days, and Agnes Fletcher worked their strips to pay back their help.
• 10 March 1354: Adam keeps meaning to say his hard word to Peter Miller, and keeps letting the day go by without finding him.
• 10 March 1354: Peter Miller sowed the Brewers' strips beside Adam, and Adam means to pay the Millers in coin for the grinding and firewood.
• 10 March 1354: Adam could speak of his mother to Juliana out in the barley, yet never at his father's table.
• 10 March 1354: Adam prays for a child of his own with Joan, and fears the cough that keeps moving through their house.
• 20 March 1354: Adam owed Peter Miller a sorry and meant to find the stomach for it by Easter. Easter went by with it not said.
• 20 March 1354: Adam told Joan plainly he wants a child with her, coughing through half of it, and hopes she heard the words.
• 20 March 1354: Henry Cooper sat with Adam through the long watch at the inn, and Adam has never forgotten it.
• 20 March 1354: Adam and Alan Shepherd trade rhymes at the bench; it comes easier to him than words for Joan.
• 31 March 1354: Alice Warrener died.
• 29 March 1354: He went to the snares by night on 28 March and came home before light with a coney, telling no one.
• 29 March 1354: Rob Fisher is quiet and carries what he's given; Adam called on him as promised and means to lift the weir with him.
• 29 March 1354: Agnes holding her plough white about the mouth shamed him: if a widow can do what she fears, what's his excuse with Peter?
• 29 March 1354: Adam keeps praying to St Martha and giving Joan time; he came home from the Fishers' three sons wanting a child of their own.
• 6 April 1354: Adam has owed Peter a sorry since the new year; Peter came to his door and stood on the same bank, and it stuck in him.
• 9 April 1354: His sorry to Peter is still not said, whatever he may have told himself: the call on 6 April came to nothing, it stuck in him on the bank, and on 8 April Peter took Stephen to the hall over a furrow, which makes it harder.
• 6 April 1354: He went into the lord's warren with snares by night, with sixpence fined already: one more thing to say at Easter, and his father doesn't know.
• 6 April 1354: He keeps praying to St Martha and means to give Joan the time she needs, saying no more of it until she answers.
• 20 April 1354: Stood between his father and Peter at their loveday over the furrow, and they drank on it. Father paid the lord's 2d and Peter's plea was withdrawn.
• 17 April 1354: Shriven of the deer and the coney on 12 April, the day Henry was taken for the same; Adam asks why Henry, not him.
• 17 April 1354: Adam still comes home to a father who won't say his mother's name, and no shrift touches that.
• 23 May 1354: Adam still hasn't gone to Peter to say his sorry; the days slip by, and he'd sooner have the words said.
• 23 May 1354: Stephen's knees are bad and he won't say so; Adam means to take the sacks off him, and worries what follows when his father can't work.
• 23 May 1354: Joan counts the rye for fear of July; Adam told her she'd not go hungry while he had a line in the lake, and meant it.
• 23 May 1354: He hopes for a child of his own: one to carry out to the primroses, one to teach the barrels.

Pastimes

• Twists rope and twine. A rope-maker lodging at the inn left him a hand-hook and a hank of hemp in lieu of a night's reckoning. Joan said the first rope was a snake, and he tells everyone so himself. His last halter held a sack without a creak. Maud Miller twists faster than he does and showed him at the mill how to keep the strands even.
• Carves little animals from scrap alder for the village: a pig for Thomas's shelf, and on 2 March a second to be its mate; a hare and a coney for the Warreners' girls, the legs cut thick the way Roger showed him, so they stand. Maud says his hare is a pig with ears.
• Dice and tables with travelers, the score chalked on a slate. Beatrice is teaching him her quiet low throw; he's got it right twice.
• Fishes the lake, and lifts the withy weir he and Robert Fowler weighted with flints; since Robert went home to Kingsley in January the weir is his. Took pikes on 17 August, 6 December and 4 February, a tench on 21 February, and mostly roach. The lake saw a lot of him all Lent.

How they talk

• At the inn: chatty, warm, teasing. "Now then." "So there you are." "We'll see." Asks every traveler what's over the hills. Jokes to dodge anything hard.
• To his elders and the priest: quick, mannerly, a little too eager to please. "Thank Stephen, not me."
• To Joan alone: quieter. He lets her finish, and he offers to carry things instead of saying things.
• To Elena: makes bargains out of kindnesses. "You sit by Meg tonight and I'll take the first watch on Hugh."
• To a child: carves while he talks, and lets them choose the beast.
• When he's truly upset he goes oddly short and plain, and people who know him get worried.
• Called: Young Adam, to the old men; Adam Brewer to everyone else.
• Swears: "By God's teeth" with a laugh, and worse at the dice board. "God forgive me" when he's caught out.

What he thought lately

Elena's fined fourpence again for brews I drew half of. I grew up on those barrels beside Father, and it's her name the steward reads, not mine. God, that sits badly.

11 June

Joan fretted over the bread at the hearth tonight, and I said it would stretch to harvest on thin pottage, and what else does a man say to her? Four days of rain, the bench full all Whitsun, and I never did sit with Peter. Whit Monday, then.

1 June

Joan tells me Bea wants to be known for her house and not the fine. Who ever reads out my name? I drew half of what Elena's named for.

28 May

Rob came to me in the croft set on finding the shepherd from Fairford, and means to catch him Sunday while the men are at the church-ale. Happen I'll show him which way the common lies.

27 May

Served beside Father, and I can nose a sour barrel but not make a sound one, so what does the bench drink when his knees quit? He'll have to teach me.

26 May

Overheard

In the books

• 20 April 1354 Peter Miller and Stephen Brewer made a loveday, Adam Brewer standing between them, and drank on it. Stephen paid 2d for the lord's licence to agree, and Peter's plea was withdrawn.
• 13 January 1354 Plough Monday: Adam Brewer, Roger Warrener, Alan Shepherd and Robert Fowler dragged a plough round the houses and collected 1s 2d for the plough-light in church.
• 12 November 1353 The manor court sat in the hall. Before it: Adam Brewer against Roger Warrener, a pig in the garden; the ale-tasters' presentments. The steward has put it all to the lord.
• 2 October 1353 By the lord's ruling: Adam Brewer and Henry Cooper were amerced 6d each for snaring in the lord's warren, and warned off the warren.
• 1 October 1353 The manor court sat in the hall. Before it: Adam Brewer and Henry Cooper, taken in the lord's wood by night; the ale-tasters' presentments; Henry Cooper and Peter Miller and Elena Smith, for taking excess wages. The steward has put it all to the lord.
• 11 September 1353 Roger Warrener, the lord's warrener, came on Adam Brewer and Henry Cooper at the warren before light, with two coneys out of the lord's warren. They must answer for it at the manor court.
• 12 August 1353 Adam Brewer and Joan of Thornbury were married at the church door. They live with the Brewers.
• 11 August 1353 The banns of marriage between Adam Brewer and Joan of Thornbury were read at Mass for the third time.
• 6 August 1353 Adam Brewer helped the priest's household with their harvest.
• 4 August 1353 The banns of marriage between Adam Brewer and Joan of Thornbury were read at Mass for the second time.
• 28 July 1353 The banns of marriage between Adam Brewer and Joan of Thornbury were read at Mass for the first time.
• 26 July 1353 Adam Brewer and Joan of Thornbury are betrothed. The banns will be read at Mass on the next three Sundays, and the wedding may be from 12 August 1353.
• 23 June 1353 Adam Brewer and Joan of Thornbury leapt the Midsummer fire hand in hand.
• 7 January 1353 Plough Monday: Stephen Brewer, Adam Brewer, Thomas atte Well, Henry Cooper and Peter Miller dragged a plough round the houses and collected 6d for the plough-light in church.