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 Plummer 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 a 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 Ald 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.’