Abel looked sheepish. ‘So you did,’ he agreed. He added, addressing me: ‘I have a terrible memory.’
I laughed, getting to my feet and picking up my pack. ‘Then I’m in good company,’ I replied, ‘because I have, too.’ I turned to Thomas Prynne. ‘I’ll be off, now. I can’t afford to waste any more daylight. But I’ll be back for my supper. I hope to have made some money by then, so make it a large one.’
‘You shall have as much stew as you can eat,’ he promised. ‘In the kitchen with us, or in here with our guest, Master Parsons.’
Before I could open my mouth, Abel had made the decision for me.
‘Eat with us,’ he advised, grinning. ‘The lugubrious Gilbert will be very poor company after yet another day wasted in the law courts.’
I hoisted my pack on to my shoulders. ‘Precisely what I was intending to suggest myself.’ I moved towards the door of the ale-room. ‘Besides, there’s something I want to discuss with Master Prynne here.’
‘Call us Thomas and Abel,’ that worthy reproved me. ‘We’re on Christian name terms with any friend of Marjorie Dyer.’
Abel Sampson agreed wholeheartedly. ‘And we’ll call you Roger.’ He nodded at my pack. ‘I wish you luck with your selling.’
I thanked him and asked directions to the Cheap. Moments later, I was once again walking up Crooked Lane in the direction of Thames Street. Outside the Crossed Hands inn I paused for the second time that day, staring thoughtfully up at the window which had been shut so roughly earlier in the morning. I had seen a figure hovering behind it, I was sure. Someone must have been there to have provoked so angry a reaction from the second person, the one who had closed the casement. I tried to recall the voice I had heard shouting ‘Get back!’ and the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced it was a man’s.
I suppose I stood there longer than I realized, because all at once someone said angrily in my ear: ‘Get a move on, chapman! I don’t want your sort loitering here.’
I swung round to find myself confronting a man of very nearly my own height, and a great deal broader. In fact, he was of quite considerable girth. He had a thick, bushy beard which concealed most of his face and was of the same dark brown as his curly hair. His eyes, too, were brown, and also what could be seen of his skin, which was weatherbeaten to the colour of a walnut. Burly was the word which came to mind. If he had not been so well dressed, in a fine linen shirt beneath a soft woollen tunic, with boots of good quality leather on his feet, I should have taken him for a rough ex-soldier. There was something military in his stance and the way he barked out his orders. But his use of the first person and his tone of authority made me fairly certain that this was Martin Trollope.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, swallowing my anger and speaking as humbly as I could. ‘But this is my first visit to London and I find everything fascinating. I was admiring your windows.’
‘Why?’ was the brusque retort. ‘You’ve seen windows before, haven’t you? Now, get away from here! I told you, I don’t want your sort hanging around.’
The man was definitely on edge, and I felt that it was time to make him still edgier.
‘Are you the landlord, Martin Trollope?’ I asked.
He glowered fiercely, but I noticed his right hand playing nervously with the buckle of his red leather belt. ‘And if I am, what’s it to you?’
‘Nothing. Nothing,’ I answered placatingly. ‘It’s only that I’ve heard of you. I was in Canterbury last month and was fortunate enough to have sold some of my wares to Lady Mallory of Tuffnel Manor.’ It was a lie, but only a white one. ‘Her maid told me afterwards about Sir Richard’s disappearance from this inn. And also that of his man, Jacob Pender.’
Martin Trollope’s reaction was not quite what I had hoped for. ‘Oh, him!’ he grunted sourly. ‘Left still owing me money. Hadn’t paid for his own or his servant’s lodging.’ I forbore to say that this was not Lady Mallory’s story, and he continued: ‘ And his father-in-law, Sir Gregory Bullivant, God rot him, refused to settle the account. Said I had no proof that Sir Richard had absconded without paying.’
‘But surely,’ I argued, ‘Sir Richard must have intended to return. He left the horses.’
‘Which Sir Gregory took away,’ was the vicious retort. ‘A pox on him!’
‘He’s dead,’ I answered shortly.
Martin Trollope eyed me narrowly. ‘You seem to know a lot about it.’
‘Lady Mallory’s maid was very loquacious.’
‘“Loquacious”, is it?’ he sneered. ‘That’s a big word for a common chapman.’
I thought it time to go. I had no wish to arouse his suspicions until I had gathered a good deal more information than I had at present. And I couldn’t conceal from myself that I found his attitude somewhat disappointing. He had not started guiltily on hearing me pronounce Sir Richard Mallory’s name; on the other hand, he did strike me as a man who was hiding something. I couldn’t say exactly what it was that made me feel this way, except for his general air of uneasiness and his dislike of strangers hanging around the inn. A chapman could not be an unusual sight, and it was not what I was that had attracted his attention. No; I was convinced it was the fact that I had been staring up at that particular window, and with such concentrated attention, which had brought Martin Trollope hotfoot outside to move me on.
‘I’ll be going, then, ‘ I said, and took a few steps towards the corner of the street before turning to glance once again at the casement just above our heads.
This time his reaction was far more rewarding. ‘Get away!’ he commanded furiously; and I knew then that Martin Trollope’s had been the voice which had shouted ‘Get back!‘ that morning.
‘God be with you,’ I answered magnanimously and turned, well satisfied, into Thames Street.
As I pushed my way along that crowded thoroughfare, however, I was conscious that something was nagging at the corners of my mind; some little fact which was troubling me and making me uneasy. But the more I tried to pin it down, the more elusive it became, dodging in and out of other thoughts which obscured it. By the time I had been sworn at by three passers-by for not looking where I was going, I knew I should have to let it go, at least for now, and trust that the puzzle would resolve itself presently.
And I had work to do. I set out resolutely for the Cheap.
West Cheap, or Cheapside, is also known simply as The Street, because it’s so famous. I don’t suppose there’s a soul in the whole of England, then as now, who hasn’t heard of it. It’s not what it was when I was young, but as I’ve remarked before, that goes without saying. My children and grandchildren will feel the same when they’re my age. But when I first saw it, in that October of 1471, I thought it must be the most magical place in the whole wide world.
Cheap, of course, comes from the old Saxon word ‘chipping’, meaning a market: there was nothing cheap, in its current usage, about The Street. There were shops stuffed with silks and carpets, tapestries brought from Arras, gold and silver cups and plates, the most magnificent jewellery. My eyes were dazzled and I felt like a child in fairyland, in spite of the fact that it is heresy to believe in the little people. (But then, for someone who still half acknowledges the existence of Robin Goodfellow and Hodekin and the terrible Green Man, how can I not believe in the world of fairies?) A conduit — the Great Conduit, I heard it called — brought fresh spring water all the way from Paddington, still smelling of herbs from the village meadows. There were grocers’ and apothecaries’ shops; and I saw grey Bristol soap being sold at a penny the pound, less than half the price of the hard white Castilian. The ordinary black liquid soap was only a halfpenny.
There was the Standard, originally made of wood, now being rebuilt in stone, where Lord Say had been murdered by the followers of Jack Cade twenty-one years previously; the church of St Mary-le-Bow with its famous bell, so called because it was raised on arches; the great cross erected by King Edward the first, presently being rebuilt at a cost of well over a thousand pounds through the generosity of the capital’s citizens. There was the Mercers’ Hall situated along the north side, and the beautifully painted and decorated houses of the merchants. There was … But I could go on boring you for ever with the wonders of that part of London. All I can say is that since that day, I have met many people, including foreigners, who speak with awe of Cheapside, its wares and its treasures.