Mask of Night by Philip Gooden Page A

was hurt or simply distressed and angry. Righting himself, the carter jumped from his seat and made as if to help the woman but he thought better of it and went instead to retrieve a sack which had tumbled into the roadway. Rather than pick it up he dragged it awkwardly to the cart before heaving it into the back.
    Abel Glaze, quicker or more charitable than I, ran up the slope. I followed. By this time the woman had rolled over on to her back. Her bonnet sat like an upturned helmet in the centre of the rutty road. She groaned when she saw us. It was plain what had happened. There were mud marks and grease across her skirts where the cart or its wheel had struck her and knocked her over.
    “Are you all right, mistress?” said Abel, crouching down.
    “Where is he?” said this woman. “I’ll see him.”
    She was a red-faced individual, and not just on account of her supine position. Even though she was lying injured on the ground she radiated determination. There was a smirch of mud on her cheek. I didn’t think she was badly hurt.
    “Should we help?” I said, kneeling down on the other side of her.
    Her eyes, small currant-like objects, swivelled between Abel and me.
    “Yes,” she said, raising her head, then, “No.”
    At which she lay back and groaned more loudly than ever. I’d forgotten about the carter but now a reluctant shadow fell across the scene as he drew nearer.
    “I know you,” she said, looking over my shoulder. “John Hoby.”
    “Oh, Mistress Root,” said the carter. “Oh dear.”
    He stood there, holding his cap in his hands and twisting it in his fingers.
    “I – I – didn’t recognize – Mistress R-R-Root . . . ”
    “And what if you had,” she said. “It would be all right, I suppose, to knock down poor old harmless women in the street as long as you do recognize them.”
    “I ca-ca-called out.”
    “And I did not hear you, you muddle-headed measle. I am deaf on one side.”
    “Mistress – you – you were wandering . . . ”
    “Yes! Wandering! Was I wandering!”
    I moved back slightly, driven by the force of her shouts. She remained lying in the roadway. For sure she could not be badly hurt.
    “ . . . w-w-wandering about the r-r-r-r – ”
    The carter, twining his fingers more furiously in his cap, was unable to get the word “road” out through his teeth. He had a wen or growth of some kind on his exposed neck, about the size of a tennis ball, which bobbed in time with his efforts and made him look even more ridiculous. He made a series of whooping sounds and then gestured helplessly around him. By now a handful of passers-by, on foot or horseback, had slowed down or even stopped altogether so as to savour the scene. Abel Glaze had moved back as well, sensing that this Mistress Root was well able to take care of herself. Most likely she was enjoying the commotion.
    “I suppose a poor old lady is entitled to wander down the road, you clay-brained coxcomb.”
    The carter didn’t know what to say. His mouth opened but no sounds came out.
    “I
know
you, John Hoby,” said this woman again. She hadn’t moved an inch from her position on the road. “You will pay.”
    The carter looked round helplessly at his horse and cart. The horse, a piebald nag that didn’t look in much better condition than its driver, was browsing on the grass at the verge. The driver looked back at the fallen woman. It seemed as if he might burst into tears.
    “A thousand plagues on you, you onion-eyed oyster,” said Mistress Root, half getting up from the ground. Abel and I moved to assist her. She groaned but it was for show only. There was no satisfaction in her eyes at the effect she’d produced on the carter but rather a kind of contempt directed at him. I had begun by feeling concern for the woman but now I felt sorrier for John Hoby. It was as if
he
had been run down by her.
    Mistress Root was a short, quite elderly woman with a lot of flesh attaching to her. Her arms, each of which was