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Chapter 8, Page 33
So she was, and soon two slippery, shiny, brand-new calves were lying in the earth of the pit, and Tansy was licking and nuzzling them gently. -
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Chapter 8, Page 34
As September turned to October and October to November, through all those days, Alyce grew in knowledge and skills -
Chapter 9, Page 38
So it was in the middle of the night, when the monks were rising from their beds for midnight prayers, and in the towns revellers were returning home full of beef and wine, and at the manor the midwife was delivering Lady Agnes of her first son, so it was that a calmer, more rested Joan, with the
kind attention of the midwife's apprentice, brought forth a daughter -
Chapter 9, page 38
with the kind attention of the midwife's apprentice, brought forth a daughter, feet first but perfectly formed, whom she called Alyce Little. -
Chapter 10, Page 40
Early one cold November day, before the pale, watery sun could light up the morning sky,Alyce left the midwife's cottage and hurried to the cowshed to see Tansy's twins, now called Baldred and Billfrith after the saintly local hermits; and give them some parsnip tops to munch. There, huddled as close to Tansy as her calves, lay a sleeping boy, blue in his lips, frost in his hair and tears frozen on his thin dirty cheeks. -
Chapter 10, Page 43
'Edward,' said Alyce to the boy.
'Then Edward is my name,' said Edward, who used to be called Bunt. -
Chapter 11, Page 44
The boy jerked his head towards Alyce. 'Her. Yer apprentice. My mum said Alyce helped her sister Joan, the bailiff's wife, when no one else could, and so she will have no one but Alyce. 'Her! The dung beetle!' The midwife quivered in disbelief. 'You are asking for her, who knows nothing and fears to try and does only what little I bid her and that none too well!' She cracked Alyce on the cheek. 'My mum will have no other;' repeated the boy. -
Capter 11, Page 46
Alyce backed out of the cottage, then turned and ran up the path to the road, she didn't know why or where -
Chapter 12, Page 48
It was an inn. Alyce had never been in such a place, where anyone could find a bed or dinner provided he had the coins. -
Chapter 12, Page 49
'Oskins, boskins, chickadee,' Jennet said next day to Alyce. 'You are such a help to me that I would you would stay on awhile.' Alyce had nowhere to go, so she stayed -
Chapter 13, Page 54
Then on a day so like summer that the apple trees were tricked into fruit, there came another visitor. Alyce had just finished watering the beer and was kneading sawdust into the pie crust when she heard the rumble of a can on the inn path. A load of wood had come for the kitchen, and walking behind
the wagon was the redheaded boy from the village, Will Russet. -
Chapter 13, Page 55
Before the month was out, another familiar face showed at the inn. One day when Alyce returned from gathering wood sorrel to make a sauce, there at the table was Jane Sharp, the midwife herself, in her starched wimple and second-best gown, deep in earnest conversation with Magister Reese.
