St. Peter's Fair (4 page)

“A
thing worth noting,” said Rhodri, spreading his thick legs on the springy
boards, “how both halves of England can meet in commerce, while they fall out
in every other field. Show a man where there’s money to be made, and he’ll be
there. If barons and kings had the same good sense, a country could be at
peace, and handsomely the gainer by it.”

“Yet
I fancy,” said Cadfael dryly, “that there’ll be some hot contention here even
between traders, before the three days are up. More ways than one of cutting
throats.”

“Well,
every wise man keeps a weapon about him, whatever suits his skill, that’s only
good sense, too. But we live together, we live together, better than princes
manage it. Though I grant you,” he said weightily, “princes make good use of
these occasions, for that matter. No place like one of your greater fairs for
exchanging news and views without being noticed, or laying plots and
stratagems, or meeting someone you’d liefer not be seen meeting. Nowhere so
solitary as in the middle of a market-place!”

“In
a divided land,” said Cadfael thoughtfully, “you may very well be right.”

“For
instance—look to your left a ways, but don’t turn. You see the meagre fellow in
the fine clothes, the smooth-shaven one with the mincing walk? Come to watch
who’s arriving by water! You may be sure if he’s here at all, he’s come early,
and has his stall already up and stocked, to be free to view the rest of us.
That’s Euan of Shotwick, the glover, and an important man about Earl Ranulfs
court at Chester, I can tell you.”

“For
his skill at his trade?” asked Cadfael dryly, observing the lean, fastidious,
high-nosed figure with interest.

“That
and other fields, brother. Euan of Shotwick is one of the sharpest of all of
Earl Ranulfs intelligencers, and much relied on, and if he’s setting up a booth
here as far as Shrewsbury, it may well be for more purposes than trade. And
then on the other side, look, that great barge standing off ready to come
alongside—downstream of us. See the cut
of her? Bristol-built,
for a thousand marks! Straight out of the west country, and the city the king
failed to take last year, and has let well alone ever since.”

Above
the softly-flowing surface of Severn, its green silvered now with slanting
evening sunlight, the barge sidled along the grassy shore towards the end of
the jetty. She loomed impressively opulent and graceful, cunningly built to
draw hardly more water than boats half her capacity, and yet steer well and
ride steadily. She had a single mast, and what seemed to be a neat, closed
cabin aft, and three crewmen were poling her inshore with easy, light touches,
and waiting to moor her alongside as soon as there was room. Twenty pence, as
like as not, thought Cadfael, before she gets her load ashore and cleared!

“Made
to carry wine, and carry it steady,” said Rhodri ap Huw, narrowing his
sharply-calculating eyes on the boat. “Some of the best wines of France come
into Bristol, they should have a ready sale as far north as this. I should know
that rig!”

A
considerable number of onlookers, whether they recognised her port and rig or
not, were curious enough to come down from the bridge and the highroad to see
the Bristol boat come in. She was remarkable enough among her fellow craft to
draw all eyes. Cadfael caught sight of a number of known faces craning among
the crowd: Edric Flesher’s wife Petronilla, Aline Beringar’s maid Constance
leaning over the bridge, one of the abbey stewards forgetting his duties to
stare; and suddenly sunlight on a head of dark gold hair, cropped short, and a
young man came running lightly down from the highway, to halt on the grass
slope above the jetty, and watched admiringly as the Bristol boat slid
alongside, ready to be made fast. The lordling whose assured beauty had aroused
Mark’s wistful admiration was evidently just as inquisitive as the raggedest
barefoot urchin from the Foregate.

The
two Welshmen had completed their unloading by this time, and were waiting for
orders, and Rhodri ap Huw was not the man to let his interest in other men’s
business interfere with his own.

“They’ll
be a fair while unloading,” he said briskly. “Shall we go and choose a good
place for my stall, while the field’s open?”

Cadfael led the way along the Foregate, where
several booths had already been set up. “You’ll prefer a site on the horse-fair
itself, I fancy, where all the roads meet.”

“Ah,
my customers will find me, wherever I am,” said Rhodri smugly; but for all
that, he kept a shrewd eye on all the possibilities, and took his time about
selecting his place, even when they had walked the length of the Foregate and
come to the great open triangle of the horse-fair. The abbey servants had set
up a number of more elaborate booths, that could be closed and locked, and
supply living shelter for their holders, and these were let out for rents.
Other traders brought their own serviceable trestles and light roofs, while the
small country vendors would come in early each morning and display their wares
on the dry ground, or on a woven brychan, filling all the spaces between. For
Rhodri nothing was good enough but the best. He fixed upon a stout booth near
the abbey barn and stable, where all customers coming in for the day could
stable their beasts, and in the act could not fail to notice the goods on the
neighbouring stalls.

“This
will serve very well. One of my lads will sleep the nights here.” The elder of
the two had followed them, balancing the first load easily in a sling over his
shoulders, while the other remained to guard the merchandise stacked on the
jetty. Now he began to stow what he had brought, while Rhodri and Cadfael set
off back to the river to dispatch his fellow after him. On the way they
intercepted one of the stewards, notified him of the site chosen, and came to
terms for the rental. Brother Cadfael’s immediate duty was done, but he was as
interested in the growing bustle along the road and by the Severn as any other
man who saw the like but once a year, and there was time to spare yet before
Compline. It was good, too, to be speaking Welsh, there was seldom need within
the walls.

They
reached the point where the track turned aside from the highway to go down to
the waterside, and looked down upon a lively scene. The Bristol boat was
moored, and her three crewmen beginning to hoist casks of wine on to the jetty,
while a big, portly, red-faced elderly gentleman in a long gown of fashionable
cut, his capuchon twisted up into an elaborate hat, swung wide sleeves as he
pointed and beckoned, giving orders at large. A fleshy but powerful face,
round and choleric, with bristly brows like furze, and bluish
jowls. He moved with surprising agility and speed, and plainly he considered
himself a man of importance, and expected others to recognise him as such on
sight.

“I
thought it might well be!” said Rhodri ap Huw, pleased with his own acuteness
and knowledge of widespread affairs. “Thomas of Bristol, they call him, one of
the biggest importers of wine into the port there, and deals in a small way in
fancy wares from the east, sweetmeats and spices and candies. The Venetians
bring them in from Cyprus and Syria . Costly and profitable! The ladies will
pay high for something their neighbours have not! What did I say? Money will
bring men together. Whether they hold for Stephen or the empress, they’ll come
and rub shoulders at your fair, brother.”

“By
the look of him,” said Cadfael, “a man of consequence in the city of Bristol.”

“So
he is, and I’d have said in very good odour with Robert of Gloucester, but
business is business, and it would take more than the simple fear of venturing
into enemy territory to keep him at home, when there’s good money to be made.”

They
had turned to begin the descent to the riverside when they were aware of a
growing murmur of excitement among the people watching from the bridge, and of
heads turning to look towards the town gates on the other side of the river.
The evening light, slanting from the west, cast deep shadows under one parapet
and half across the bridge, but above floated a faint, moving cloud of fine
dust, glittering in the sunset rays, and advancing towards the abbey shore. A
tight knot of young men came into sight, shearing through the strolling
onlookers at a smart pace, like a determined little army on the march. All the
rest were idling the tune pleasurably away on a fine evening, these were bound
somewhere, in resolution and haste, the haste, perhaps, all the more aggressive
lest the resolution be lost. There might have been as many as five and twenty
of them, all male and all young. Some of them Cadfael knew. Martin Bellecote’s
boy Edwy was there, and Edric Flesher’s journeyman, and scions of half a dozen
respected trades within the town; and at their head strode the provost’s own
son, young Philip Corviser, jutting a belligerent chin and swinging clenched
hands to the rhythm of his long-striding walk. They looked very grave and very
dour, and people
gazed at them in wonder and speculation, and
drew in at a more cautious pace after their passing, to watch what would
happen.

“If
this is not the face of battle,” said Rhodri ap Huw alertly, viewing the grim
young faces while they were still safely distant, “I have never seen it. I did
hear that your house has a difference of opinion with the town. I’ll away and
see all those goods of mine safely stacked away under lock and key, before the
trumpets blow.” And he tucked up his sleeves and was off down the path to the
jetty as nimbly as a squirrel, and hoisting his precious jars of honey out of
harm’s way, leaving Cadfael still thoughtfully gazing by the roadside. The
merchant’s instincts, he thought, were sound enough. The elders of the town had
made their plea and been sent away empty-handed. To judge by their faces, the
younger and hotter-headed worthies of the town of Shrewsbury had resolved upon
stronger measures. A rapid survey reassured him that they were unarmed, as far
as he could see not even a staff among them. But the face, no question, was the
face of battle, and the trumpets were about to blow.

Chapter Three

THE
ADVANCING PHALANX REACHED THE END OF THE BRIDGE, and checked for no more than a
moment, while their leader cast calculating glances forward along the Foregate,
now populous with smaller stalls, and down at the jetty, and gave some brisk
order. Then he, with perhaps ten of his stalwarts on his heels, turned and
plunged down the path to the river, while the rest marched vehemently ahead.
The interested townspeople, equally mutely and promptly, split into partisan
groups, and pursued both contingents. Not one of them would willingly miss what
was to come. Cadfael, more soberly, eyed the passing ranks, and was confirmed
in believing that they came with the most austere intentions; there was not a
bludgeon among them, and he doubted if any of them ever carried knives. Nothing
about them was warlike, except their faces. Besides, he knew most of them,
there was no wilful harm in any. All the same, he turned down the path after
them, not quite easy in his mind. The Corviser sprig was known for a wild one,
clever, bursting with hot and suspect ideas, locked in combat with his elders
half his time, and occasionally liable to drink rather more than at this stage
he could carry. Though this evening he had certainly not been drinking; he had
far more urgent matters on his mind.

Brother
Cadfael sighed, descending the path to the waterside half-reluctantly. The
earnest young are so dangerously given to venturing beyond the point where
experience turns back. And the sharper they are, the more likely to come by
wounds.

He was not at all surprised to find that Rhodri ap
Huw, that most experienced of travellers, had vanished from the jetty, together
with his second porter and all his goods. Rhodri himself would not be far, once
he had seen all his merchandise well on its way to being locked in the booth on
the horse-fair. He would want to watch all that passed, and make his own
dispositions accordingly, but he would be out of sight, and somewhere where he
could make his departure freely whenever he deemed it wise. But there were half
a dozen boats of various sizes busy unloading, dominated by Thomas of Bristol’s
noble barge. Its owner heard the sudden surge of urgent feet on the downhill
track, and turned to level an imperious glance that way, before returning to
his business of supervising the landing of his goods. The array of casks and
bales on the boards was impressive. The young men surging down to the river
could not fail to make an accurate estimate of the powers they faced.

“Gentlemen…!”
Philip Corviser hailed them all loudly, coming to a halt with feet spread,
confronting Thomas of Bristol. He had a good, ringing voice; it carried, and
lesser dealers dropped what they were doing to listen. “Gentlemen, I beg a
hearing, as you are citizens all, of whatever town, as I am of Shrewsbury, and
as you care for your own town as I do for mine! You are here paying rents and
tolls to the abbey, while the abbey denies any aid to the town. And we have
greater need than ever the abbey has, of some part of what you bring.”

He
drew breath hard, having spent his first wind. He was a gangling lad, not yet
quite in command of his long limbs, being barely twenty and only just at the
end of his growing. Spruce in his dress, but down at the heel, Cadfael noticed—
proof of the old saying that the shoemaker’s son is always the one who goes
barefoot! He had a thick thatch of reddish dark hair, and a decent, homely face
now pale with passion under his summer tan. A good, deft workman, they said,
when he could be stopped from flying off after some angry cause or other.
Certainly he had a cause now, bless the lad, he was pouring out to these
hard-headed business men all the arguments his father had used to the abbot at
chapter, in dead earnest, and—heaven teach him better sense!—even with hopes of
convincing them!