The Tabard Inn, 1390s
I’d changed my dusty travel clothes at once.
Put on my best red stockings, coifed my hair –
the road from Bath had been both long and rough.
But now this pilgrimage would start in truth.
I looked around the company gathered there:
prissy prioress and worldly monk;
guildsmen, cook, the ploughman and the priest…
Which one could I entangle and enchant
before we reached St Thomas’ shrine? (And there
I’d pray the saint to heal my deaf right ear)
I wasn’t after anything too great –
I’d had enough of husbands after five –
no, just a little dalliance by the way…
The knight? Too high, and honourable. His son?
Oh, far too young, though a good-looking lad.
And some of them, though willing, far too crude:
the miller, to take one – I’ve got more taste
than let that red-haired lout breathe over me.
The franklin is worth thinking on, perhaps…
And then I saw the quiet one in a nook.
Some sort of well-off clerk he seemed to me.
And scribbling notes, then looking round some more,
assessing all the gathering, as was I…
At first I couldn’t make his purpose out,
and then he looked at me and gave a wink:
not a come-on one, but one which said
“You too find pleasure in observing folk”
So then I realised: he was drawing us
in words, it seemed – as I drew near to him
I saw the scribbled notes, the inkhorn and the quill.
“We are a motley crew that’s gathered here,”
he said, “And your sharp eye discerns them all”
I answered, “You are capturing us in words:
write kindly when you come to put me down”
“You may be sure of that,” he said. And smiled.
Elizabeth Horrocks
