Rhodri’s two nimble little Welsh boatmen went to work briskly, hefting the heavy bales of hides and the wool- sacks with expert ease, and piling them on the jetty, and Rhodri and Cadfael addressed themselves pleasurably to watching the lively scene around them; Its many of the townsfolk and the abbey guests were also doing. On a fine summer evening it was the best of entertainments to lean over the parapet of the bridge, or stroll along the green path to the Gaye, and stare at an annual commotion which was one of the year’s highlights. If some of the townspeople looked on with dour faces, and muttered to one another in sullen undertones, that was no great wonder, either. Yesterday’s confrontation had been reported throughout the town, they knew they had been turned away empty-handed.
“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 marketplace!”
“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 bam 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
