From Ken Follett: How will a small group of people in Kingsbridge fight tyranny and modernisation?
An excerpt from ‘The Armour of Light’, by Ken Follett.
Until that day, Sal Clitheroe had never heard her husband scream. After that day she never heard it again, except in dreams. It was noon when she got to Brook Field. She knew the time by the quality of the light gleaming weakly through the pearl-grey cloud that sheeted the sky. The field was four flat acres of mud with a quick stream along one side and a low hill at the south end. The day was cold and dry, but it had rained for a week and, as she splashed through the puddles, the sticky sludge tried to pull off her home-made shoes.
It was hard going but she was a big, strong woman, and she did not tire easily.
Four men were harvesting a winter crop of turnips, bending and lifting and stacking the knobbly brown roots on broad shallow baskets called corves. When a corf was loaded the man would carry it to the foot of the hill and tumble the turnips into a stout oak four-wheeled cart. Their task was almost done, Sal saw, for this end of the field was bare of turnips and the men were working close to the hill. They were all dressed alike. They wore...