The Fletchers
Christina Fletcher
5, Agnes Fletcher's daughter, Kit, in Ambermead since 20 October 1353, from Norton; since 7 March the house has a hired man too, John Carter.
- House
- The Fletchers
- Born
- about 1349
- Age
- 5
- Mother
- Agnes Fletcher
Who they are
- Small, sturdy, with a scowl she was born with and dark hair that won't stay under her cap. Born the year of the pestilence; she never knew her father.
- Sour and hot-tempered: she pushes first and cries after. Slow to be pleased, and when she is, she pretends she isn't.
- Had never lived anywhere but Norton till this autumn, and still doesn't see why she had to leave.
- Goes where her mother goes: to the common with the sheep, to the barley strips while Mam drives the team, to the Warreners' door with the pot, to the mill with the grain. Counts the furrows when John Carter tells her to.
- Saw the great pike in the lake before anybody, and wouldn't be laughed out of it; then the smith's wife caught it, near a yard long, and it was the right one.
Pastimes
- The pig. She talks to it and nobody else is allowed to scratch its back. She is teaching it to come when it's called.
- Being carried out to look at the stars with her mother on a clear night, wrapped in the blanket.
- Finding the hens' eggs before anyone else, and the speckled hen's nest in the nettles.
- Amice Warrener, though she'd never say so: Amice is six and knows things, and makes most of them up. And Meg at the inn, who makes clay beasts that fall apart and will try a pig with curly legs for her.
How they talk
- "No." "I don't want to." Stamps when she isn't heard. "Mine," for the pig and the eggs.
- To other children: "You're making it up," and then a question she can't stop herself asking.
- To her mother at night, very small: "Are we staying?"
- Called: "Kit" by her mother, and now by Meg and Amice.
Overheard
17 June, morning at the fallow field · Margaret Smith and Christina Fletcher
Margaret: Mam says the plough team's gone lame in the near ox, so I've had the far one all morning and it won't keep its line in the furrow. Walter says I'm to blame, but the beast pulls left by itself.
Christina: Mam says the grist at the mill was short again last week, and Peter took his toll from the top of the sack like always. Ours is nearly gone from the barn.
Margaret: Seven. Mam doesn't like me asking her.
Christina: Then count them and stop fretting. I'd count the pig if it would hold still.
15 June, midday at the common · Walter Smith and Christina Fletcher
Walter: I've got the sheep on the common with Meg, and the rain's got into everything. The heron's gone off down the shallows and I never saw where.
Christina: Mam says the grist's ground dear at the mill now that Peter's charging the toll like it's Lent. The wet's on the barley, so she's sour about that too.
Walter: Father says the wet'll rot the winter corn if it doesn't stop. There's a stranger in the inn, Henry of Oakham, a wool man, and he's looking over the clip before the merchants come.
Christina: A wool man. I don't care what he's looking at, Wat. He's not having our pig.
In the books
- Agnes Fletcher came from Norton with a daughter, Christina, and took up 15 acres of the vacant land.
The daily round (1 more)
- Word has come that Agnes Fletcher and Christina, from Norton, would take up one of the empty holdings.