The Merchant's Tale

by Ann Swinfen

  The canons filed in, two by two, chanting the opening prayers of the service, and followed by Sub-Prior Resham carrying a gold cross as tall as himself. Last of all came Prior de Hungerford, obsequiously escorting a slender young man I took to be Edward of Woodstock. Compared with the prior’s costly vestments, he was modestly dressed for a royal prince, even for a nobleman. His gown was of fine blue woollen cloth, generously cut, but without ornamentation. The borders of its wide sleeves were trimmed with white satin, but not cloth of gold, and he was quite without any gems, except for a single heavy ring on his right hand.

  From his expression, I thought he was faintly amused at Prior de Hungerford’s deference, but he hid it well and accepted the prior’s own throne with a polite bow, while the prior seated himself in the sub-prior’s place. Resham was obliged to squeeze in at the end of the stalls for the lesser canons.

  The service was relatively short, the blessing of the fair merely being added to the normal service for Vespers. The priory was known for not dwelling over long on its acts of worship. My attention, I am afraid, was not devoted to my prayers, as it should have been, but divided about equally between the royal prince and the unpopular prior. I found myself liking the prince simply from the modest way he conducted himself. Anyone seeing this young man – for he was just three and twenty – and not knowing his identity, would never take him for a prince of the blood, heir to the English crown and to great lands in France, and the most successful commander of an army then living – outdoing, it was said, even the fame of his great-grandfather at the height of his powers. As for the prior, there was about him a shiftiness of the eyes, combined with a falsity of expression when praising God that stuck in my throat like piece of bone. No wonder Canon Aubery distrusted him.

  My plan to speak to the canon came to nothing, for the brotherhood of the priory moved swiftly out of the church through their private door and were gone before any of us who were packed together in the large congregation could move. Besides, I thought, no doubt there is to be a magnificent meal served to Prince Edward, including those fine French wines mentioned by Hamo Belancer. I would not want Francis Aubery to miss that. I doubted whether the ordinary canons of a priory deeply in debt would normally dine so well, though meals in the prior’s own lodgings might be a different matter. My discussion about the books Master Winchingham had shown me must wait for the morrow. I would surely be able to find the canon once the fair was safely under way.

  The following morning I made my way down to the Guildhall early, for the fair would be declared open immediately after the service of Prime at the priory, and I wanted to seek out the merchant who sold spectacles before the crowds grew too large. Walter was already waiting for me, looking resigned. His own lodgings were nearby by, a room over a fruit merchant’s shop. After he had lost his wife and child to the plague, he had given up his cottage down Great Bailey, near the castle, and moved in here, where the goodwife gave him his evening meal. He claimed he needed nothing more.

  ‘Good morrow, Walter,’ I said cheerfully, ignoring his glum expression. ‘If we walk smartly, we should be in time to hear the fair officially opened.’

  He fell into step beside me.

  ‘No sign of any trouble yet, then.’

  ‘Not that I have heard,’ I said, ‘though I would not be too confident that it will not be brewing. I fear the presence of Prince Edward in the town may provoke some of the wilder elements into thinking that they may persuade him – and hence the king – to alter the terms of the fair’s charter in favour of the town, either by allowing our shops to remain open or diverting the fair’s tolls and rents into Oxford’s coffers.’

  Walter shook his head. ‘Then they are like to be disappointed. A man who has faced a great French army and routed it is unlikely to heed the mischief of a handful of young miscreants.’

  ‘I agree, but I doubt if there are many cool heads amongst them.’

  We reached the entrance of the fairground and joined the crowd awaiting admittance. Margaret and Mary would already be inside, ready to open their booth for business, but as mere customers, we must stay until the temporary gates were opened. Craning over the heads of those in front, I could just make out the party emerging from the small postern gate leading through the town wall from the priory to this stretch of open meadow, which served as a fairground for one week in the year, but as grazing for sheep and cattle the rest of the time. Prior de Hungerford was clad in a magnificent robe, outshining the modest figure of the prince, who must have been persuaded into accompanying him. They were surrounded by a large group of lay servants, the senior lay steward, and a few of the canons. Not Canon Aubery, I noticed.

  We were too far away to hear what was said, but it was mercifully brief. Then two of the lay servants raised trumpets to their lips and blew a fanfare. The crowd around us pressed forward, as the group from the priory withdrew. It took some minutes for the servants on the gate to collect the required ha’penny from each of us, some of the older people grumbling loudly that in the past they had come and gone to the fair without being expected to pay.

  ‘Never miss a chance to line their pockets,’ someone said loudly. ‘True men o’God they be, these holy canons.’

  He earned a scattered burst of rueful laughter. For myself, I thought it a short-sighted policy. I would never charge people to enter my shop, and that was the nature of a fair – a great, glorious, many-coloured shop, filled with exotic goods that would never be found in the ordinary course of the day in Oxford, as well as more mundane wares. Mix that with a sprinkling of foreign faces and strange tongues, a chance to gape and gossip, and it was little wonder that folk came even if they did not intend to buy, or had not the means to do so. Later in the day there would be entertainments too: juggling and acrobats, singers and dancers, perhaps even a brief, crude play with a moral or mystical message. The town might complain about the loss of coin, but that did not prevent all the good burgesses from enjoying the sense of holiday due to a pause in employment and the colourful spectacle before us.

  ‘Now,’ I said, ‘let us search out the man who sells spectacles and see what he can offer us.’

  Walter looked at me glumly. ‘If you say I must come with you, Master, I will come, but I cannot see how such heathenish devices can serve any purpose.’

  It was a bad sign when Walter took to calling me ‘Master’.

  ‘What do you mean, “heathenish”? The Venetians who make these spectacles are no heathens. They are as good Christians as you or I.’

  He shrugged. ‘They live cheek by jowl with the Musselmen, do they not?’

  ‘Even our own merchants trade with the Musselmen. That does not make them heathens.’ I could see that I was being diverted from the true subject. ‘Come. It will do no harm to see what is on offer.’

  We found the booth in the first row without difficulty, for a large sign hung outside, depicting a pair of spectacles fit for a giant. The merchant was neither Musselman nor Venetian but a soberly clad Londoner, who looked more like an apothecary than a merchant.

  ‘My journeyman scrivener here,’ I said, ‘is having some difficulty seeing his letters of late. What do you have that might serve to help him?’

  Walter glowered at me, but would not look at the merchant. The man eyed him thoughtfully.

  ‘This is a new problem? You have not had difficulty seeing the letters in the past?’

  ‘Never.’

  I wondered. I did not think this had come on Walter suddenly, I had noticed him straining to see for some months now, and the struggle had caused him to hunch his back, leading to discomfort and then pain.

  ‘Forgive me, sir,’ the merchant said, with almost exaggerated politeness, ‘but your age would be . . .?’

  ‘I shall reach my half century next year.’

  The man nodded. ‘Will you please turn your face to the sun?’

  Walter looked more than ever suspicious, but obliged. The merchant held him gently beneath the chin and carefully s
tudied his face.

  ‘Good,’ he said. ‘I see no problem there. You have no disease of the eyes, no sign of a veil growing over them, as may sometimes happen. ’Tis no more than the effects of years, which must come to us all.’

  I noticed the lines of tension in Walter’s face relax somewhat, and suddenly remembered what I had been a fool to forget. Walter’s father, also a scrivener, had suffered from failing eyesight, and in the end had gone nearly blind. All this time Walter must have been worrying that the same fate was befalling him. His refusal to consider spectacles was an attempt to shut away his own fears.

  The merchant opened a wide, flat box and laid it on the counter. It contained rows of spectacles, framed in wood, some with quite thin lenses, others as thick as the bottom of an ale flask, . He selected a pair from the thinner end and handed them to Walter, together with a sheet of parchment written all over in a small script.

  ‘Try to read this, with and without the spectacles.’

  Walter took both gingerly. He held the parchment close to his face at first, then further away, clearly having some difficulty in making it out. Then he balanced the spectacles on his nose, where they began to slip down. Gripping the nose piece against his face, he held up the parchment. I watched his face clear, and take on a kind of wonder.

  ‘Aye,’ he said grudgingly. ‘I can see it better.’

  ‘Try these.’ The merchant exchanged the first pair for another, with slightly thicker glass.

  ‘Better.’ Walter said, with grudging admiration. ‘Aye, I can read it fine now, but I could never work, holding these on my nose with one hand. I need both my hands to my work.’

  ‘Never fear.’ The merchant took the second pair back. ‘The bridge of your nose is slender. The spectacles must be made large enough for every nose, but see these small holes in the outside of each frame?’ He reached a box down from a shelf and opened it to display lengths of narrow ribbon and tape in varied colours. ‘I will thread a ribbon through each side. Then you may tie them behind your head to keep the spectacles in place, or some people prefer to loop them over their ears.’

  ‘Aye,’ I said, ‘that is what I saw John Shippan do. He keeps the loops ready tied, to pass over his ears. Like you, Walter, he needs the use of both hands.’

  I could see that Walter was loath to admit that both the merchant and I were right, that he needed the spectacles, but there was a spark of eagerness now in his eyes, which had not been there before.

  ‘Which colour of ribbon, Walter?’ I said. ‘I think you will not choose the scarlet.’

  In spite of himself, he allowed me a small smile. ‘Black.’

  I turned to the merchant. ‘We will take them. How much?’

  The price he named was staggering, but after a brief discussion he agreed to lower it very slightly. ‘They are the finest Venetian glass,’ he said firmly, ‘and have travelled all the miles here by sea and land. Many are broken on the way. I make little enough profit, sir.’

  I forbore to say that he looked very well on it, and paid over the coin. If it improved both Walter’s work and his back pains, it would be worth every silver penny. And besides, he would be unburdened of the fear that he was going blind like his father. I was a fool not to have suspected that before.

  The merchant presented Walter with a large silk handkerchief in which to wrap the spectacles, and he placed them carefully in his scrip.

  As he bowed us out of his booth, the merchant said, ‘In two years or so, you may find that you need a thicker pair. That should not cause you concern. As we grow older, our eyes grow tired and lazy. I shall be here with the fair each year, and can provide.’

  I hoped that it would be more than two years before new spectacles would be needed, else this would become a drain on the shop’s profits. For now, however, I smiled at Walter and he – reconciled to the heathenish devices – smiled readily back.

  ‘Now,’ I said, ‘like the rest of Oxford, you are on holiday. Unless you need me for aught, I shall see you the day after the fair finishes. Although, if you care to come to the shop, we have tasks we can undertake.’

  He nodded. ‘Aye. Roger and I both feel we would be better to work part of the day, even during the fair, that we may not get behindhand.’ Then, hesitantly, he said, ‘I thank you, Nicholas. I was a fool. These will make the close work much easier.’

  I clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Good. Now go and enjoy the fair.’

  Before we could both be embarrassed, I turned away, and we soon lost each other in the crowd, which was growing more dense by the minute. First, I paid a visit to Margaret and Mary at their booth, but seeing that they were doing a brisk business, I withdrew quietly without catching their attention. As I did so, I collided with someone, stumbled, then murmured a hasty apology.

  ‘My fault as much as yours, Master Elyot. I wished to speak to you.’

  She was little changed in face and manner, since I had last seen her, but dressed in quite a different fashion. Instead of the elegant but discreet gown of waiting lady to a gentlewoman, she now appeared to be a merchant’s wife. Or perhaps even a merchant in her own right, as one or two widows have become. A gown of the very finest woollen cloth, dyed a rich but sober mulberry colour and trimmed with modest, pure white coney fur, it was a silent reproof to the extravagance of ladies like the one she had formerly served. It spoke of wealth but restraint, good sense reproving greed.

  ‘Mistress Walsea!’ I exclaimed, astonished but pleased to find her, quite unexpected, here in an Oxford fair. ‘What do you here?’

  She gave her small, contained smile. ‘I am about my employer’s business, Master Elyot. And I think you may be able to help me.’

  ‘Anything I can do, mistress, I am at your service.’

  Unconsciously I found myself glancing over my shoulder. Nothing to be seen but a cheerful throng busy spending silver pence they probably could not afford.

  Her employer’s son was at this moment on the other side of the town wall, in the Priory of St Frideswide. For her employer was the king.

  Chapter Four

  I had last seen Alice Walsea two months before, when she had ridden away from Leighton-under-Wychwood, escorted by my cousin’s son James to Burford, before she could become entangled further in the events surrounding the murders of Gilbert Mordon and her own cousin, Reginald Le Soten. Having heard nothing further of her, I assumed that she had managed to reach the king’s court and make her report. Why she was now here in Oxford, in the guise of a wealthy merchant’s wife, I could not know. I could but guess that it somehow concerned her covert occupation as an intelligencer for the king.

  ‘You wished to speak to me, Mistress Walsea? Here we are somewhat too public, I fear. There is a booth belonging to the Crown Inn at the far end of this row. They will serve a reasonable cup of ale. Let us make our way there.’

  She nodded her compliance, but instead of heading straight to the place I indicated, she strolled along, stopping to buy some sweetmeats at one stall and to admire some fine fabrics laid out enticingly by Master Winchingham’s journeyman. The merchant raised his eyebrows and smiled, seeing me in company with the lady, but I gave him a blank stare, with a slight shake of my head. Mistress Walsea fingered the cloth and spoke knowledgably about it to the journeyman. For all I knew, her knowledge of good cloth was quite genuine.

  When we reached the Cross Inn’s temporary stall, she seated herself at one of the trestle tables set out on the grass, choosing a stool with its back close to the town wall, which here formed the northern boundary of the fair ground. I sent the pot boy for two cups and a flask of their best ale and took another stool, facing back the way we had come, where the rows of stalls and booths formed a kind of street, giving a curious illusion of permanence. It was strange to think that in a few days’ time there would be nothing left but yellowed patches in the grass, discarded rubbish blowing about until rain and frost devoured it, and a flock of sheep wandering where the noisy crowds now gathered.

  When
the pot boy had brought our ale and left, I turned to Mistress Walsea.

  ‘I was glad to see that you managed your departure from Leighton in good order, mistress. I trust the rest of your journey was safely accomplished?’

  I poured us both ale and raised my cup to her.

  ‘I had no problems, save that the second carter’s horse went lame with a cast shoe, which delayed us. Nay, it was all quite peaceful.’

  She took a sip of her wine.

  ‘It is not still the affairs of Gilbert Mordon which bring you here?’

  ‘Not at all. They are in other hands now.’

  ‘And nothing is heard of his lady, or her lover?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She took another sip. ‘I am here on quite another matter.’

  I smiled. ‘You have come to trade at St Frideswide’s Fair?’

  ‘Indeed I have. You will find that I have a stall selling ribbons and laces. Over there.’ She waved toward the lower end of the fairground, nearer to Trill Mill stream, where the pitches were less costly.

  ‘I have left my girl to mind it. She knows nothing of . . . my other work.’

  ‘And that is what you wish to speak to me about? Your other work? Could it be that you are concerned with the possible trouble there may be at the fair? Trouble stirred up by the young men of the town?’

  ‘Oh, I am quite sure your town authorities, and your deputy sheriff, are more than competent enough to deal with any such trouble. I understand that Cedric Walden is considerably more able than High Sheriff de Alveton. My business is with something quite different, although I am afraid I have very little to guide me. It is hardly more than a whisper.’

  She drummed her fingers on the table, and frowned.

  ‘Word has been sent from one of our garrisons in Normandy, that a man known to them had plans to come to St Frideswide’s Fair posing as a merchant, but his business is not trade.’