Adam Fisher

Who they are

• A broad, quiet man with burn-pocked forearms and a slow way of looking at a thing before he answers. Shy with strangers: in a new village that's everyone, and a month in, it mostly still is.
• Generous to a fault: he'd sooner sharpen a share for nothing than haggle over it, and Joan keeps the purse for that reason.
• The youngest of three brothers. Geoffrey and Thomas are both at Fairford, married, and his sister Juliana too. His father Ralph and mother Maud are dead. A forge of his own was never coming to him at Fairford; here one stood cold.
• Came for the forge and nothing else: the village has had no smith since its own, Elena, married into the inn in January.
• His back and shoulders take the anvil and the net together, and they let him know of an evening. Green ash gives him a middling heat at best, and he feels that in his temper more than his arms.
• Prays short and at work: St Eloi at the fire, God for the boys. He was shriven on 7 April with the rest, and said less there than anywhere.

Their life so far

• Born at Fairford about 1317, the youngest of Ralph and Maud's three sons, with a sister, Juliana. Both parents dead before 1352.
• Married Joan; their boys Alan, Robert and John were born at Fairford.
• 4 March 1354: word came to Ambermead that he and his family would take up the forge.
• 12 March 1354: came from Fairford with Joan and the three boys and took up the empty forge.
• 14 March 1354: the fire up at last, the anvil face as true as any at Fairford.
• 26 March 1354: took pottage to the Warreners at dusk, the first he'd stood at that door, with Alice down in her fever. She died on the 31st.
• 30 March 1354: meant to speak to the others after Mass about the Warreners, and it stuck in him. The reeve did the talking.
• 6 April 1354: took a pike from the lake.
• 7 April 1354: shriven by Sir John for Easter.
• 6 April 1354: The first month is a smith's name, and Adam has fought green ash for heat, with no dry stack in the croft.
• 6 April 1354: Half the iron here has Elena's hand on it and his words walk to the inn, so Adam says little and keeps the fire.
• 6 April 1354: Alan has good iron in him but rings it himself; Rob asks for the heaviest work and Adam must hold him back.
• 6 April 1354: He meant to speak for the Warreners after Mass and it stuck in him; the reeve did the talking.
• 18 April 1354: What Adam owes Elena about the forge stays unsaid; twice he meant to speak and the word never came to heat.
• 18 April 1354: Joan keeps the purse and has the cow's price before he's finished asking, and he leaves the sums to her.
• 18 April 1354: Rob takes the heaviest work and never counts it, and Adam means to hold him back from Alan's load.
• 18 April 1354: Young Adam's talk at the lake was the warmest iron this village has given him.

Pastimes

• The bagpipe, new this April. Geoffrey of Fairford, a pedlar from his own town, lodged at the inn on 10 April with an old set a Fairford man had no more use for, and Adam had it off him for a new buckle on his tray strap. It stayed on the shelf through Lent, and he hasn't got a tune out of it yet.
• The net and the line, at the lake most days at noon and most evenings: the house's Lent pot was his reason. Everyone under his roof fishes better than he does, and he's stopped arguing it. A good pike on 6 April, the one time the water owed him anything.

How they talk

• Few words, and slow ones. "I'll look at it." "Leave it with me." Says more with his hands on a piece of iron than across a table.
• With Joan at the hearth he talks more: the day's work, the garden, what's wanted. When she's right about the purse he doesn't say so; he goes and mends something.
• To his boys: short orders, then a thing put in their hands. "Hold that." Praise comes sideways, if it comes: "Next time I'll sit where you sat."
• At the inn: he'd sooner have his ale quiet. A man who tells him a tale gets a plain word back, and little else.
• At a sick door or before the neighbors: the words stick. He'll carry the pottage and let the reeve do the talking.
• Crossed, he goes quieter still and takes up the nearest iron.
• Called: "the smith" now, or "the Fairford smith"; Adam Fisher where there's a mix-up with Adam Brewer.
• Swears: "St Eloi!" (the smiths' saint), seldom.

What he thought lately

Minded the geese on the green and the old gander went for my shins like slack-tub steam. Six days to the hall. The geese at least don't ask whose snare it was.

25 June

Elena says to go out at dusk when the water goes still, by the leaning willows, and let the line lie long. I'll try it. The warren case still hangs over John Carter and me, and St Eloi, keep the fine small.

22 June

St Eloi, keep the hall off the forge. The fault was mine and not the boys', so let whatever the lord says fall on me.

19 June

Cut a load at midday and stacked it off the ground, bark side up. By the end of the month Joan may have her dry fire, if the weather holds clear.

16 June

Odd tasks about the croft this afternoon, and my eye kept going to the ash stack. Joan said dry ash or no pot, and she'll be right again by Midsummer.

14 June

Overheard

In the books

• 10 June 1354 The manor court sat in the hall. Before it: Adam Fisher and John Carter, taken in the lord's wood by night; Beatrice Shepherd against Stephen Brewer, beasts in the corn; Henry Cooper against Thomas atte Well, beasts in the corn. The steward has put it all to the lord.
• 22 May 1354 Roger Warrener, the lord's warrener, came on Adam Fisher and John Carter at the warren before light, with two coneys out of the lord's warren. They must answer for it at the manor court.
• 12 March 1354 Adam Fisher came from Fairford with his wife Joan and three children, Alan and Robert and John, and took up the empty forge.