‘It’s snowing!’ Perfect the gargoyle chirped excitedly.
Pip had his head halfway down an eel trap, trying to see if there were any left in the bottom. It’s almost impossible to collect eels without getting a bit mucky, and Pip was a totally muddy mess. As he re-emerged, you could see he’d even managed to get slime in his hair.
‘What?’ he said, rubbing a grubby hand across his already smeared face.
Perfect didn’t care how dirty Pip got. She hopped onto his shoulder and grabbed his ear with her two front paws and twisted, so he’d look up.
‘OWWW! Let go! Hey – it’s snowing!’
‘That’s what I said.’ Perfect sounded smug, as if the big fat flakes drifting down towards them were entirely her own doing.
Pip grinned at her, then stuck out his tongue to catch snowflakes on it. Perfect launched herself into the air and tried to do the same, but it is surprisingly difficult to fly with your tongue out, so she landed on the front of the punt instead.
‘I win! I win!’ she kept squealing, but it was hardly a fair contest. Her tongue was long enough for her to lick her eyes with it, and Pip just had a pathetic human one. Then Perfect over-reached and landed in the icy water with a splash. Pip had just fished her out again, unharmed, when they both went rigid and stared at each other.
‘What was that?’
Then, they heard it again – the unmistakable sound of a pole clunking against a punt, somewhere out in the tall reeds. Someone was coming!
In a flash, Perfect was safely hidden away inside Pip’s hood. (Neither of them knew for certain what would happen to Perfect if anyone found out about her, but they did know it wouldn’t be good. She might be part of a church, but she was made of stone, shaped like a dragon, and against all the usual rules of nature, able to talk, walk, swim and fly. It all smacked too much of demonology and bewitchment – and the punishments for those didn’t bear thinking about.)
‘Hello there!’ A voice boomed out, and almost at once another punt nosed round the edge of the reed beds. ‘It’s young Pip from Wickit, isn’t it?’
Pip’s grin almost split his face in two when he realised who the owner of the voice was.
‘Walter!’ he yelped. ‘You’ve come to see us!’
‘I have that,’ the man said with a big smile, ‘so let’s be going before this snow covers Wickit up so much we have to tunnel in to it!’
Pip gladly swung his punt round to lead the way back to the monastery.
The first snow and a visit from Walter the Pedlar – how could a day get any better?!

*

Different people like different times of the year, and the people at Wickit Abbey were no exception. Abbot Michael, for example, loved the autumn, with its mists and mellow colours, because it reminded him of Wales, his home all those years ago. Brother Barnard, the Cellarer, liked it to be cold weather so he could stick his red face out of his kitchen sometimes and cool off from all the heat. Brother Paul, Wickit’s handyman, liked it to be fair weather outside, since that’s where he spent most of his time. Brother John, of course, with his peculiar sweetness of nature, loved every season equally.
Prior Benet was a tall bony man with no spare flesh to keep him warm, so you’d think that he would like summer best, but Prior Benet was a man who disliked every season equally. In fact, he didn’t really like anything. And one of the things he didn’t like the most, was Pip.
The Prior didn’t like it when Wickit monastery took Pip in as a baby, that year the Fen Fever was so bad and the boy’s family died. He didn’t like it later, when Pip sang before the King in the great cathedral at Ely. He wasn’t well pleased when there was all that bother afterwards, though he hadn’t been around for most of it. He certainly didn’t like it when Pip went traipsing off with that Viking girl – oh, yes, the little brat said she’d forced him to go with her in search of a treasure trove, as if you could believe a word of that. The Prior was still waiting for Abbot Michael to punish the boy for leaving Wickit without permission, if for nothing else. There really wasn’t anything about Pip that Prior Benet approved of.
And as for Pip himself, everybody at the monastery kept him so busy he didn’t have time to have a favourite season, though it was now recognized that Brother Gilbert should have first call on him. Pip was a sort of apprentice to the Abbey’s doctor and medicine maker. (Prior Benet didn’t like that either, for no real reason.) Perfect the gargoyle, however, with her surprisingly keen sense of smell, loved hiding in Pip’s hood and snuffling up the scents of cinnamon and frankincense, cardamom and rue – all the pungent things that went into Brother Gilbert’s medicines.
And which time of the year did Brother Gilbert like the best? Well, the Infirmarer judged a season by the illnesses it brought with it. So when Pip got back to Wickit that day and burst into the Infirmary shouting excitedly, ‘Brother, look! It’s snowing! Already!’ Brother Gilbert only grunted and reached for his mortar and pestle.
He put them down again quickly enough when Pip went on to say, ‘And Walter the Pedlar’s here! In the kitchen with Brother Barnard!’
‘Why didn’t you say so first!’ the Infirmarer scolded – but there was a smile on his face nonetheless. He wouldn’t be the only Brother either who’d be glad to find an excuse to come to the kitchen, exclaim about the early snow, and settle down round Brother Barnard’s hearth to listen to the Pedlar’s news.
Walter the Pedlar was always good for the latest information from the great wide world. At this time of year he would be heading for his daughter’s home in the Fens – she had met and married a Fenman on one of her father’s visits to Ely – but he always took the time to stop by the Abbey, to share some mulled ale and gossip in the kitchen of his good friend Brother Barnard.
‘What’re the waterways like? Is there thin ice yet?’ the monk asked.
Walter shivered dramatically. ‘It’s perishing punting through this, Brother, and that’s the truth. But I’m not the only one stuck out in the weather.’
He paused for effect. (Walter was nothing if not a storyteller, and a storyteller enjoys a good pause.)
‘Who?’ asked Pip, eyes wide. ‘Who else is stuck out?’
‘Well, I’m glad you asked me that, young Pip,’ said Walter with a wink. ‘And I’ll tell you who else. Only the King of England, and his chief councillor Sir Robert, and an entire army to boot. That’s who else!’
‘The King?!’ squeaked Pip.
‘An army?’ exclaimed Brother Paul, who’d come in in time to hear the news.
‘That’s right,’ said Walter, making room for the wiry little monk near the fire. ‘An entire army of King Arnald’s finest, slap bang in the middle of the route from the North.’
‘But what are they doing there?’ asked Brother Barnard as he poured out another mug of hot ale.
‘Well,’ said Walter, taking a big sip and smacking his lips appreciatively. ‘That’s a story!’ He looked round, to make sure he had his audience’s full attention, then began.
‘You know as well as I do, my friends, that it’s vain to expect old tongues in young heads, but even so . . . young King Arnald made a bit of a clodpoll of himself at court this year.’
‘Why – what did he do?’ the Brothers asked.
‘Well . . . you know the Barons in the North, and how bad-tempered they are – so touchy about their ancient ancestry and their pure blood-lines?
So proud of their crumbling old castles and estates? Well, apparently – and I got this from someone who heard it from the brother of a serving man who was in the very next room when it happened! – the King got cornered by one of these irascible, thin-skinned noblemen at a court assembly, and this Baron was going on and on about himself, about how important he was, and how fine his ancestral stronghold was, on and on . . . My source’s source’s brother – the serving man – says that he heard that the lad tried to look polite for the longest time. But then, finally, when the Baron paused for breath, our young King turned to someone standing nearby and muttered, ‘Who is this old coot? What’s this place he’s whittering on about? I’ve never heard of it!’ He thought he was only whispering, but just at that very moment there was one of those sudden silences that happen sometimes in a room full of people . . .’
‘Oh no!’ the Brothers exclaimed, horrified.
‘Oh yes!’ said Walter gleefully. ‘The Baron heard every word, and not only that – everyone else did too! It took all of Sir Robert’s skill to calm the old coot – er, I mean, the Baron – down enough to keep him from declaring war on the spot.’
‘But did he anyway?’ asked Brother Gilbert. ‘Is that why the King’s army has come?’
‘No, luckily everything got patched up. But you know how it is with a patch – you can get new rips and tears all around it if you’re not careful.’
The Brothers nodded.
‘There’ve been rumours flying thick and fast for a good time now,’ Walter continued, ‘that the fine folk up North wouldn’t say no to a change of government. And the lad’s little social blunder won’t have helped any of that. But Sir Robert, the King’s adviser, he’s a shrewd man, and he has the young King’s best interests at heart. Now nothing official’s been said about why he’s got those soldiers over-wintering out there. But sometimes, to avoid a battle you have to make a bit of noise. Put on a bit of a show. Let the Barons know it isn’t smart to pursue their restless ways any further.’ The pedlar shrugged. ‘Leastways, that’s what the soldiers think they’re doing there, and they’re usually in the right about such things. You can’t keep secrets in an army camp, and that’s the truth too.’
‘Where exactly has he put them?’ Brother Paul asked.
‘At the edge of the Fenland, two days’ travel, must be, oh, almost directly west of here. There’s rough ground beyond, so the road is pinched between that and the marsh. Good place, given the purpose.’
Pip asked after King Arnald, but Walter had only seen him in the distance.
‘Don’t be daft, boy, that sort don’t buy from a poor soul like me! But I don’t mind – I off-loaded every last thing in my pack anyway, and I could have sold as much again – if I had a back as strong as a mule! Oh yes, an army with pay in its purses and time on its hands is a gift to the worst pedlar in Christendom, and I’m vain enough to think I’m not the worst!’
‘But that’s not an empty pack you have there, my friend,’ protested Brother Barnard. ‘I heard some definite clunking and rattling sounds when you dumped it down on my kitchen floor!’
‘Well observed, Brother, well observed! And what I have in that old pack of mine is going to bring smiles to the faces of my grandchildren as quick as a refill from your ale jug will bring a smile to mine! And,’ he grinned as Brother Barnard hastened to comply, ‘I’ll be very surprised indeed if my daughter, for all she’s a grown woman, won’t be wanting a pair as well.’
‘A pair of what?’ asked Pip, puzzled.
‘Skates,’ said Walter proudly, but Pip didn’t look enlightened.
‘Why, skates, boy! Don’t tell me you’ve never skated?!’ Walter exclaimed.
Pip shook his head.
The pedlar looked round at the monks in mock dismay and wagged a finger at them. ‘Shame on you, Brothers all, for not teaching the lad how to skate before now!’ Then to Pip, ‘This is your lucky day, boy, for I’ve shinbones enough and to spare to make a pair for you too. Let’s have a look at your foot.’
Not sure quite what was happening, Pip stuck out his foot. The old man squinted at it for a moment and then had a rummage in his pack. He pulled out a couple of cow’s shinbones. They were each a bit longer than the length of Pip’s soft leather shoes.
‘I’ll need one of your awls now, Brother Paul. One of your finer ones, if you please.’ Brother Paul hustled off, and brought him what he’d asked for.
With the awl, the Pedlar bored a hole into each end of the cow bones. He produced some stout leather lacing from his pack and threaded it through the holes. He scraped away at one side of the shinbones. ‘That’s to help the sole of your shoe to grip, see.’ Then he tied the bones onto Pip’s feet with the roughened-up part facing up and the smooth flat part facing down.
‘The more you skate, the smoother that surface will become. The ice polishes it, you see, and that means you’ll be able to go faster, the more you do it! But first we must ask Brother Paul another favour. We need a stick with a nail or some sort of sharpened metal at one end . . .’
Brother Paul had just the thing – a pole about Pip’s height with an old nail sticking out of the end like a spike. The monks were as excited as Pip by now. They came to watch him try out his new skates-and-pole on a slippery bit of the foreshore that had flooded and then frozen. Abbot Michael and Brother John soon joined the group as well.
There was a lot of shouted advice, and enthusiastic arguments between the spectators, and different monks miming different skating styles up and down the foreshore. It was impossible to follow everyone’s advice (and besides, whenever Pip stopped to watch them they were so funny he would fall over with laughter), so he just cobbled together his own technique by trial and error. At the cost of innumerable tumbles and a sore backside, he ended up with something halfway between punting and a strange walk.
‘Thank you so much for these! Skating’s wonderful!’ Pip panted at last, when the fading light and the bell for service (rung by a disgusted Prior Benet) brought the practice session to a close.
‘You’re welcome, boy,’ said the pedlar, rubbing his cold hands together. ‘And now what I need is a bit of prayer, a hot meal and a warm bed, and tomorrow I’ll be on my way.’
The snow was still falling when Walter left early the next morning, and they could only hope he got safely to his daughter’s, for the frost deepened not long after, and the water froze in the channels. The Brothers and Pip remembered him in their prayers, and everybody put on an extra layer of wool.

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