[Roger the Chapman 05] - Eve of Saint Hyacinth (6 page)

That particular morning, by the time I reached the Clock House, whose great bell rang out the fleeting hours, I had been physically accosted at least three times and lost count of all the other exhortations. I had been importuned to buy a pair of spectacles, a hat, hose, shoes, gloves, pins, a belt, a crucifix made from a splinter of the One True Cross and a fly entombed in a lump of amber. It was on this sort of occasion that my height and girth stood me in good stead, for I was able to deter the would-be vendors simply, by saying 'No' and drawing myself up to my full six feet.

People of lesser stature were not so fortunate and I saw one small man pinned against a wall by two Flemings, who refused to release him until he had purchased a silver necklace. And this right under the noses of half a dozen of the king's Sergeants, magnificently self-important in their striped gowns and silken hoods, just emerging from the law courts in Westminster Hall. The incident reminded me of a man I had once rescued in similar circumstances: Timothy Plummer.

Westminster did hold one great attraction for me, however, and that was the cook-shops close by one of its gates. Set out on trestle tables was an abundance of food loaves, cakes, pasties, meat pies, steaming-hot ribs of beef and several delicacies new to me, including porpoise tongues - while a nearby vintner's provided a variety of wines and beakers of hot ale, spiced with pepper. As it was close on dinnertime, I stopped and bought two of the biggest meat pies I could find which, together with a bottle of Rhenish wine, I carried to the shade of some trees where I sat down on the grass to eat and drink my fill.

It was pleasantly warm, but with sufficient breeze to make me glad of my leather jerkin and its lining of scarlet.

Clouds sailed majestically across the early summer sky and, once, the transparent sheen of a dragonfly skimmed across my line of vision as it returned to its haunts by the river. A jongleur was singing in a sweet, high voice, entertaining a group of fellow diners. Having finished my meal, but not yet ready to resume the final stage of my journey, I leaned against the trunk of one of the trees and closed my eyes, first ascertaining that the strap of my pack was securely looped around my left wrist and that my cudgel lay within easy reach of my other hand. After a moment or two the voice of the jongleur faded and I slept...

I was awakened by the sound of shouting.

'Clear the way! Out of the way there! Make way! Make way!'

I heard the tramp of feet and the jingle of harness.

Opening my eyes, I was unsurprised to see the procession of some great lord coming from the royal palace on the return journey to London. It was only when I had gathered my wits together and banished the cobwebs from my brain that I recognized the retainers' livery of blue and murrey and the banners held by the standard bearers: two displaying the emblem of the White Boar and one that of the Red Bull, both badges of the Duke of Gloucester. And there, sure enough, the still, calm centre of all this hubbub, was the young man whose birthday I shared and to whom, in the past, I had rendered two personal services. He was mounted on a richly caparisoned bay horse, the strong, mobile face partially concealed, as it so often was, by the long dark hair which swung to his shoulders. All around him the other riders laughed and joked and talked, but apart from the turn of his head and an occasional smile, Richard of Gloucester contributed nothing to the general conversation. He seemed, from the little I could see of him, preoccupied; shut in on himself and alone with his thoughts.

Riding a few paces behind him, but pressing close enough for his horse's head to be on a level with the bay's swishing tail, was another young man of roughly the duke's own age, strongly built and sandy-haired, whose eyes constantly and somewhat nervously, or so I thought, scanned the crowds. His face, which I guessed would normally be of a high complexion, was rather pale and his lips compressed as if in pain. Then I saw the reason. He was controlling his mettlesome grey mare with only one hand, his left, while his right arm, from wrist to elbow, rested in a blue silk sling. The bones of his forearm had obviously sustained a fracture not yet mended, which, judging by his expression of suffering, was of fairly recent date.

The head of the procession passed beneath the gate and was lost to view, amidst the ringing cheers and encouraging shouts of the populace at large, with whom the Duke of Gloucester was a general favourite. People never forgot that he had stood loyally by his eldest brother throughout all the vicissitudes of King Edward's reign, unlike his other brother, George of Clarence, who trimmed his sails to suit every prevailing wind.

Once Prince Richard was out of sight the onlookers, who had crowded the edges of the highway for a closer inspection, began to disperse, indifferent to the tail-end of his retinue. But from my vantage point under the trees, and because I am insatiably curious about everyone, I continued to watch - and was rewarded by the sight of a small, familiar figure, last seen almost two years ago in Exeter, but recalled to mind only that very morning, bringing up the rear and riding a solid brown cob.

Timothy Plummer seemed to have grown in stature. Not physically, but in the way he held himself, in the little air of self-importance which hung about him and suggested that he was now of far greater consequence than he had once been in the Duke of Gloucester's household. He, too, like the youth I had noted, constantly looked about him, glancing to left and right in a perpetual surveillance of the crowds. But whether he was watching them or wanted to be noticed by them I was uncertain.

It occurred to me suddenly that I had no wish to renew my acquaintance with Master Plummer. On the last occasion we had met I had become embroiled, much against my will, in an adventure which had placed me in great personal danger. I made to duck my head, but before I could do so our eyes met and held for a second. I looked away quickly. It was too late, however. I had seen his start of recognition.

I decided to sleep off my dinner for a while longer, thus allowing the duke and his retainers plenty of time to put the city walls between us. But although I closed my eyes again, sleep eluded me and so, in the end, I returned to the market and purchased several items to replenish my pack. It was almost noon and I knew that if I were to find a decent lodging for the night I should set forth without further delay. Having, therefore, attended Mass at the church of Saint Margaret, I left Westminster shortly after noon. The day had grown even warmer and I was grateful for the shade cast by the houses and trees which bordered the highway. The press of traffic passing between London and the royal palace was always heavy, but with the invasion of France imminent, it was even greater than usual. Liveried messengers from the various noble households galloped by in both directions, scattering the earth from beneath their horses' hooves, their features set in lines of rigid disdain for us lesser mortals. Two wagons, piled high with armour, trundled past and at the local smithy there was a queue of horses waiting to be re-shod.

I reached the Chère Reine Cross, where both river and road begin to veer in an easterly direction, and paused, as I had done in the past, to gaze upon that memorial of soaring, flowering stone: that monument to undying love, raised by the first Edward in memory of his first queen, Eleanor of Castile. When she died he had written, 'My harp has turned to mourning. In life, I loved her dearly, nor can I cease to love her in death.' Recalling those words, once quoted to me by someone whose name I now forget as representing the summit of human affection, I felt a pang of something very like envy. Never in my twenty-two years had I experienced any emotion so profound. (It did not occur to me that I was still young. Youth and arrogance are necessary bedfellows, or else how would we all survive that most difficult of times?)

Half a dozen crows, beating the air with the black, sweeping strokes of their wings, caused me to look upwards, then follow their flight with my eyes as they disappeared inland across the open meadows. And it was thus, as I dropped my glance once again, that I saw Timothy Plummer deep in earnest conversation with a man at the foot of the Chère Reine Cross. Nearby a small urchin held the reins of the brown cob and walked the animal slowly up and down. After a moment or two I could make out that the second man was a friar, a Dominican judging by his rusty and shabby black robe. Both were staring at the ground and the friar seemed to be drawing a diagram in the dirt with his staff. Timothy Plummet was nodding.

As I watched, a third man rode up on a grey mare and dismounted awkwardly, on account of the fact that he enjoyed the use of only one arm. The other reposed in a blue silk sling and I immediately recognized the sturdily built, sandy-haired young man who had been riding in the Duke of Gloucester's procession half an hour earlier.

Having summoned another urchin to hold his horse, he joined Timothy Plummer and the friar, his head bent anxiously towards theirs. Within moments, however, the friar shrugged his shoulders, spread deprecating hands and then moved on in the direction of Westminster. It was obvious that whatever information he had had to impart was now at an end; and although the younger man ran after him, catching at his sleeve and patently asking a question, the friar had no more to tell, for he shook his head vigorously and moved away with a determined gait. The sandy-haired man and Master Plummer remained a few moments longer, talking to one another, before they both remounted their horses and trotted off along the Strand.

I now entered this thoroughfare myself, passing between the great houses of the nobles and the wealthy merchants, whose gardens and orchards ran down to the wharves lining the river's edge, and thence into the second half of that same highway which is known as Fleet Street. Long before I reached the bridge which spanned the River Fleet the noises of London reached out to greet me from beyond its walls and its pungent smells wreathed themselves about my nostrils. Once across the bridge I was hemmed in on either side by ale-houses and taverns, some old, some of recent date and yet others still in the course of construction, and all catering for the many pilgrims desirous of visiting Saint Paul's. For the church housed at that time a wondrous collection of relics, including an arm of Saint Mellitus, a phial of the Virgin's milk, a lock of Saint Mary Magdalene's hair, a jewelled reliquary containing the blood of its patron saint, a hand of Saint John the Evangelist, a knife which had belonged to Jesus Himself, used when He helped Joseph in the carpenter's shop, the head of Saint Ethelbert and fragments of Saint Thomas à Becket's skull.

As I approached the Lud Gate the noise increased a hundredfold: carts screeching and rattling across the cobbles, bells constantly chiming, summoning the citizens to prayer or to some civic meeting, vendors raucously shouting their wares. I crossed the drawbridge spanning the ditch and walked under the raised portcullis, past two guards stationed there to turn back any lepers foolhardy enough to try to gain entrance. Beyond the gate was a labyrinth of alleyways in which a stranger might easily get lost; but I had been to London before. I turned left into Old Deane's Lane, right into Paternoster Row and so into the Cheap, the capital's great market.

By late afternoon, I had sold nearly all that was in my pack and was beginning to think about finding a lodging for the night. It had been my intention to do so the minute I entered the city, but the temptation to make money while I could had proved too strong. For London, because of the forthcoming invasion, was teeming with great lords and their retainers from all parts of the country. Escutcheons hung from the windows of every respectable tavern and alehouse, denoting that their owners were in residence within; and the goodwife who bought some needles and thread from me, and whose husband was host of the Saracen's Head, near the Aid Gate, said that there wasn't a decent room to be had anywhere in the city.

'I tell my man we must make the most of it,' she added, 'for in a week or so they'll all be gone. Rumour has it that the king and his brothers cross to France next week.'

'Then I must hurry and find myself a bed for the night,' I observed anxiously, 'for I dare say the guest halls of every church and priory in the city are crammed full also.'

'Oh, aye,' the woman agreed cheerfully. 'You can be sure of that. It's not just the great lords' servants needing somewhere to sleep, but more and more people are crowding into London every day to pander to their needs and make a pretty penny on their own account into the bargain. Even our kitchens and cellars are full each night at present.' She heaved a sigh. 'But as I said just now, it can't last much above another sennight.'

'Where would you recommend me to go then?' I inquired.

She pursed her lips, considering. After a moment she tapped me on the arm. 'Follow me,' she instructed. 'I might find you a place in our kitchens, now that I come to think of it. One of our lodgers was leaving this morning. His master was bound for Gravesend today on an advance embassy, or some such thing, to the Duke of Burgundy.

And mighty cock-a-hoop Master Jump-up Johnny was about it, too. You'd best come and stake a claim to his space now, before my husband rents it to another traveller.'

I gathered up the remainder of my wares from the wall where I had spread them, pushed them inside my pack along with my clean hose and shirt and shaving gear and indicated to my benefactress that she should proceed without further delay. She led me along Cornhill grain market, past the rows of bread carts whose owners drove them in daily from Stratford-atte-Bowe - and whose loaves, or so my companion informed me, were the same price but a full two ounces heavier than those of the London bakers - and past the Tun upon Cornhill, which flowed with sweet-smelling water, piped in from the Tyburn. On top of this was an iron cage where prostitutes and rioters were incarcerated each night by the Watch for drunken and disorderly behaviour; and set on a wooden platform close at hand were the stocks and pillory, both of which were fully occupied by several sorry-looking knaves, the butt and target of every passerby.