poliphilo: (Default)
poliphilo ([personal profile] poliphilo) wrote2004-03-08 10:16 am
Entry tags:

In The Fens

There were six of us in a line, breaking up the claggy soil with hoes. My hands were red with the cold and swollen. There were deep cracks in the skin round my finger joints.

To our left a hedge of pollard willows; to the right, on its embankment, the road into Ely.

The sound the troopers made as they cantered past was like the jangle of a blacksmith's shop. The officer wore a sash over his breastplate, but he was too far for me to tell the colour. It didn't matter. Whoever he was, I knew his coming meant trouble for our people.