The Merchant's Tale

by Ann Swinfen

‘It is gut.’

  ‘I can’t do it,’ Jonathan said, in a dispirited voice, and handed the box back to the woman.

  The man took it from her. ‘You see? Like so.’ With a few quick twists that we could barely follow, he had opened the box to show three separate compartments. ‘Now you.’

  Jonathan tried again, and succeeded in opening one.

  ‘I show you.’

  They put their heads together and the man patiently took Jonathan through the movements.

  ‘You keep secrets here, Ja? No one sees.’

  ‘Aye!’ Jonathan’s eyes were shining.

  I turned to the woman. ‘The box, the doll, and the top,’ I said, ‘and I need one more.’

  I picked up a beautifully carved dog. Its legs and tail were jointed, and its head could be set at a whimsical angle, but its real appeal lay in its lifelike appearance and especially its face, which was friendly and eager.

  ‘This dog as well,’ I said. ‘For Stephen.’

  I saw that Alysoun was now wishing she had noticed the dog.

  ‘You know that Stephen would like to have a real dog, Alysoun,’ I said, ‘but he could not manage. It would probably knock him over, and he could not walk with it. You have Rowan. We will give Stephen this dog. It can sit beside his books when he is studying, and it will never need feeding.’

  She smiled, and slipped her hand in mine. ‘That is well thought on, Papa.’

  ‘We shall take it to him this very afternoon.’

  The rest of the day seemed to pass very slowly. As soon as we reached home, Jonathan ran off to show his box to his father, and no doubt puzzle him with its trick openings. I did not know what treasures he meant to keep in it, but children should be allowed to keep their secrets.

  We ate the cold dinner Margaret had left for us, then walked down to the East Gate, and Beatrice’s cottage. The sight of Stephen’s face when I gave him the carved toy would have been worth a hundred wooden dogs. I saw tears in Beatrice’s eyes as she turned away, but then she became very brisk, urging the children into the garden to feed the hens.

  ‘Not that they need feeding, Nicholas,’ she said, ‘but I think Stephen is quite numb with gratitude, and ’tis best he has something to do. He has names for all the hens, you know, so I shall never be able to kill one for the pot, even if they stop laying.’

  ‘He is looking much stronger, since our time in the country,’ I said.

  ‘Aye, he is. I believe he has even grown a little taller. And he continues to use just one crutch.’

  ‘Do you think the leg is any stronger?’

  ‘It must be, or he would still need both crutches. Sometimes he even rests a little weight on the toe.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said, ‘one day he will walk without a crutch.’

  She smiled, but shook her head. ‘I pray so, every day, but I cannot believe it, for the leg is wasted, and twisted awry. I have thought of making a pilgrimage to Canterbury, but it would be difficult.’

  ‘You could always appeal to our own St Frideswide.’

  I gave her an account of the play Emma and I had seen the day before, until I had her laughing.

  ‘And how do you suppose they made the fountain spring up?’ she said.

  ‘That I cannot imagine. It was spectacular, but, I suspect, not miraculous. They say the spring at Binsey still exists, and its waters have curative powers.’

  The children came in then, Alysoun bearing a large brown egg cupped in her hands, which Beatrice said she must take for her supper. She found another for Rafe, and I placed them carefully in my scrip to carry home. Clearly Beatrice’s eggs must be better than our own.

  At last evening began to steal in, and it was time to fetch Emma away from the fair. Walter had agreed to stay with the children until Margaret returned, promising to tell them one of his mother’s stories to keep them occupied.

  ‘Nothing alarming,’ I warned, ‘that might keep them awake, or Margaret will skin us both.’

  ‘Never fear,’ he said, ‘I have a-plenty that are not fearful.’

  I considered changing into a better cotte and hose, then laughed at myself for a fool. Emma would either notice, and mock me, or fail to notice (for it would be dark) and my efforts would be wasted. As I slung my cloak round my shoulders, I told myself I was not some coltish boy, but a grown man with a business and a family to support. I was escorting Emma home merely because the streets of Oxford were always dangerous after the fair.

  Indeed, there was already something of an air of menace in the streets before I even came to the fairground. The trumpet to close the fair sounded as I reached the gate, timed to ring out as the priory bells chimed for Vespers. The half charred gatehouse was almost dismantled, and there was chaos within, as stalls were being folded and stacked, merchants loaded their goods on to carts, and both merchants and late buyers jostled their way out to the street.

  I found Margaret and the others well organised, their few unsold goods loaded into the handcart, together with some of Peter Winchingham’s short lengths of cloth. Margaret, Beatrice, and Maud had all taken advantage of his late bargains. Mary was checking that everything had been cleared away inside, while one of the priory’s lay servants stood waiting to collect the key to the booth. These more substantial structures would be dismantled during the next few days, after everyone had gone, and stored away in one of the priory’s barns over at the grange, until next year’s fair.

  I noticed that Roger had brought two friends with him.

  ‘Aye,’ he said, when I mentioned this. ‘I thought it seemed best. With three of us, we can fend off any light fingered churls who think to steal the mistress’s goods.’

  ‘Very sensible,’ I said.

  ‘Do you need Emma any longer?’ I asked Margaret. I knew if I asked Emma herself, she would insist that she still had work to do.

  ‘We are quite finished,’ Margaret said. ‘There is nothing more except to settle matters with the priory servant.’

  I walked over to where Emma was talking to Roger’s friends.

  ‘Come,’ I said. ‘There is such a crowd, it will takes us some time to make our way through. Margaret says you are finished, and it is growing quite dark.’

  I spoke no more than the truth, for clouds had crept over the sky almost without my noticing it, so that now the rising moon and the stars were quite blotted out and there was a thunderous feeling in the air. The good weather, which had held for the fair, might break at any moment. If there was to be a thunder storm, I hoped that Walter would be able to reassure Rafe.

  ‘Have you a cloak?’ I asked, as Emma turned to me.

  ‘I never thought to bring one this morning,’ she said. ‘It was fine then, and the sun was quite warm.’

  ‘Well, if the rain starts before we reach St Mildred Street, you may borrow mine.’

  She took my arm as we tried to force our way back to the gate, but the crowd had grown thicker even in the short time I had been in the fairground. Everyone had suddenly realised the threat of those looming clouds and was pushing through the gateway, so that the crowd was like a river forced through the narrows. Unlike a river, however, it moved more slowly, not faster. As well as those who simply wanted to avoid a soaking, there were stallholders whose goods would suffer in the rain.

  The priory servants had lit the pitch torches on either side of the gate, but the wind was getting up, so that the flames streamed out almost horizontally, scattering sparks which caused the crowd to bunch together even more. Their flickering light made the growing dark seem even darker. We were through the gate at last, and then through the South Gate of the town, and into Fish Street, but, if anything, here it was even worse. More of the larger, horse-drawn carts were ahead of us, as well as dozens of handcarts and the close pressed mass of people. There was hardly any forward movement at all.

  ‘We shall never be home before the storm breaks,’ Emma said, shrinking a little closer to me as she was shoved aside by a burly packman leading a laden mule.


  ‘You have the right of it,’ I said, ‘if we stay on Fish Street. But there is a better way. Do you see St Aldate’s Church there, just ahead, on the left? Across the street from it, on the right, there is a narrow lane which leads past the front of St Frideswide’s Priory. If we go that way, we can turn up past Oriel College, and reach the High Street much more easily. It will bring us out not far from St Mildred Street. The way is too narrow for any of these carts, and most of the crowd are like sheep, anyway, all flocking along Fish Street. We shall slip around them.’

  She nodded, and held my arm a little tighter as a cluster of rowdy youths pushed past us.

  My plan was a good one, but for a time I was not sure I should be able to carry it out, for several of the carts had become entangled ahead of us, just before the church, and from the shouting and swearing, battle seemed likely to commence at any moment. I drew Emma over to the very edge of the street on the right, and we began to worm our way past the bulk of the crowd, which was now stationary, and not liking it. Some of them objected to what seemed to be our attempt to get to the front of the pack, but at last we reached the opening into the lane. I pulled Emma firmly into the dark tunnel, and we both paused for breath.

  ‘I can hardly see,’ she said.

  Indeed, after Fish Street, where there were plenty of lanterns and torches lit beside the doorways of the big shops and houses, with even more further ahead, where the Guildhall stood, the lane seemed very dark.

  ‘Our eyes will soon grow accustomed,’ I said. ‘And look, not far along, you can see the gleam of the torches beside the priory gatehouse.’

  She nodded. I think she had been truly alarmed by the roughness and ill temper of the crowd.

  ‘Let us carry on,’ she said. ‘I am glad to be out of that–’

  It seemed she could not find the right word. I reminded myself that for over a year she had lived in the quiet and seclusion of Godstow Abbey. Before that, she had only known her grandfather’s manor and then that of her stepfather. Although she had now spent a few months in Oxford, she had no experience of a town crowd in a bad mood.

  ‘We’ll soon be safe at St Mildred Street,’ I said cheerfully, ‘having circumnavigated them all. Let us hope Juliana will have some supper ready for you. I fear it will be a long time before your aunt reaches home.’

  ‘I hope they will be safe.’

  ‘I am certain of it. They will have the sense to wait until all this hurly-burly disperses. Had I shown some sense, we could have slipped through the priory’s postern gate, and gone that way. I am known there, they would not have minded.’

  We began to feel our way along the lane, which was very roughly cobbled, so that we were in danger of tripping in the dark, if we did not watch our feet – which we could barely see. As we drew nearer to the priory, we could hear the chanting of the service for Vespers, although the sound came fitfully, for the wind suddenly gathered speed and flung the first of the rain in our faces, not in a fine scattering of drops, but a hard fistful, mixed with sleet.

  I stopped. ‘Here. Put on my cloak.’

  I wrapped it around her shoulders, but she objected.

  ‘You will be soaked to the very skin, Nicholas. It is wide enough to shelter us both.’

  She insisted on drawing me in under the shelter of the cloak, and although that meant that neither of us was entirely dry, neither of us was entirely wet. With the darkness and the driving rain and the broken cobbles, we made very poor, stumbling progress along the lane. There were a few small houses here, which I think belonged to the priory and may have been used to house their servants, but all were in darkness now. Probably the lay servants were occupied in closing up the fair, those who were not on duty in the priory itself, in the kitchen, for the canons would take their supper after Vespers.

  We were, I suppose, about ten yards from the priory gatehouse, or a little more, with its welcoming pool of light cast by the gate torches, when I thought I saw a furtive movement. A man, silhouetted against the light. I did not like the look of him, or the way he moved. I stopped, holding Emma back. She was quick to sense that something was wrong.

  ‘What is it, Nicholas?’ she whispered. ‘Why have you stopped?’

  I put my lips close to her ear.

  ‘There is something suspicious about that fellow. There. About halfway between us and the gate.’

  Like the torches by the fairground, the priory torches were also twisted and wrenched by the wind. When the nearer one flared suddenly up, with a burst of sparks, I caught a brief glimpse of the man’s face. Even in the poor light I could see that he was swarthy of complexion, with thick black eyebrows which nearly met over his nose. Unconsciously I gripped Emma’s arm tighter.

  ‘What’s amiss?’ she whispered, so low that I could hardly hear her.

  ‘I think it is the man I have been seeking,’ I said. ‘The Frenchman Alice Walsea was warned about. The vintner who was known to Hamo Belancer, and almost certainly the man who struck down Peter Winchingham and murdered Belancer.’

  ‘How can you know?’

  ‘I cannot be certain, but he matches the descriptions given by Winchingham, and the priory cellarer, and the steward. Surely there cannot be two such. And why is he lurking here? If he was about some honest business, he would walk up to the gatehouse and declare it.’

  I slipped out from under the cloak and wrapped it round her.

  ‘Stay here. I am going a little closer, to try and see what’s afoot.’

  She laid her hand on my arm. ‘Be careful, Nicholas!’

  ‘I will. Stay in the shadows.’

  I made my way cautiously forward. Fortunately by now I had gained my night vision, and the warm, if erratic, light from the torches meant that I was less likely to stumble.

  Ahead of me, the man was groping his way slowly in the direction of the gatehouse, but with one hand braced against the priory wall. Then he stopped.

  I froze. Had he heard me?

  The figure stooped and seemed to be feeling for something on the ground. Then I heard a scraping sound, as of metal on stone. What could he be doing?

  And then he disappeared.

  One moment he was there, a figure clearly outlined against the light, bent over, and the next moment he was gone. The erratic light from the torches flowed toward me unimpeded by any intervening shape.

  ‘What is happening?’

  Emma had come up behind me so silently that I felt my heart jerk in momentary panic.

  ‘He has disappeared. I am going closer.’

  She clutched my sleeve for a moment, then let it go.

  One cautious step at a time, I moved forward, until I thought I was near the place where the man had been standing, and I stopped.

  Perhaps it was the blessed St Frideswide herself who laid her hand on me and made me halt, for had I gone two more steps, I would probably have been killed. No more than a yard in front of me, there was a patch of greater darkness in the dark of the cobbles. I squatted down and felt out with my hand. A hole. A great hole. But this was not some accidental pit in the street. It was squared off. I could feel chiselled and shaped masonry blocks around the edges. And just beyond the hole, lying on the ground, a square of metal, glinting faintly. That must be what the man had moved. The cover of the hole. A draught of cold air rose up into my face from the hole, and I sensed, rather than saw, that it was deep.

  At first I thought it must be a well, or some sort of crude sewer. I suppose it was the dark and the rain and the alarming appearance and then disappearance of the man which had muddled my wits, for I did not realise at once what I had found.

  And then I understood. This was something quite ordinary. It was the chute down which the barrels of ale could be rolled into the cellar of the priory, without the need to trundle them through the enclave itself, disturbing the canons at their prayers or their studies.

  Nothing remarkable about this.

  But I knew at once that I had found the secret way into the priory.

&nbs
p; Something brushed against me, but this time I knew who it was.

  ‘What have you found?’ Emma’s voice was no more than a disturbance of the air beside my cheek.

  ‘I think it is the chute into the ale cellar, and the Frenchman has climbed down into it.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because, for some nefarious purpose that I cannot guess, he wants to enter the priory in secret, despite the fact that he may enter at any time he wishes, on lawful business. Now why should that be? It is possible that he is caught up in some conspiracy with de Hungerford, and wants to release him from confinement. It seems he has been asking a great many questions about all the buildings in the enclave, perhaps trying to discover where de Hungerford is held.’

  ‘Do you believe that?’ I could hear the doubt in her tone. ‘From what I have heard, de Hungerford is a brutish, violent man, with no subtlety. While your Frenchman proceeds by stealth. If he worked with anyone, it was Belancer, yet he killed him.’

  ‘From the start, I have wondered why he would want to kill Belancer, but now I think I understand,’ I said. ‘He needed Belancer to tell him how he might enter the priory secretly. Once Belancer had divulged that information, he was of no further use to the Frenchman Mateaux. Indeed, he was a danger, for whatever crime Mateaux committed, Belancer could have pointed the finger. So it was necessary to kill him.’

  I felt her shiver as she leaned against me.

  ‘He is a dangerous man, Nicholas. Alice Walsea told you so, and his killing of Belancer bears it out.’

  ‘Aye, but he is now inside the priory, and must be stopped.’

  ‘Not by you. We must fetch Sheriff Walden.’

  ‘There may not be time.’

  I sat back on my heels, thinking furiously. Mateaux would be feeling his way about the cellar now, trying to find the steps which I thought must lead up – not to the kitchens. From what I remembered of where they stood, we were too close to the gatehouse here. More likely to the row of pantries and storerooms on this side of the main court. With the canons at Vespers, most of the lay servants dismantling the fairground, and the remaining servants in the kitchens, the main court would be empty. Mateaux could not have come to steal the priory’s treasures, for ever since the attack led by de Hungerford, it was common knowledge that they were secured in the church, which would be locked now, and again once Vespers was over.