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Read Online [Roger the Chapman 05] - Eve of Saint Hyacinth by Kate Sedley - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Kate Sedley
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smoke-blackened beams overhead. A sudden suspicion had taken hold of me and I needed to think. Why had it come to me, a few moments earlier, that Master Arrowsmith's baptismal name was Lionel? Someone had mentioned it within my hearing in recent weeks and I fixed my eyes on a knot of wood in one of the rafters, forcing myself to concentrate.
Then all at once I had it. Millisent Shepherd! She had been speaking of... of... Lady Wardroper's cousin! That was it! Lady Wardroper, she had told me, had enlisted Lionel Arrowsmith's help in obtaining a place for her son, Matthew, in the Duke of Gloucester's household.
So I was right! What I had thought of as my own independent wanderings had really been part of a plan.
God's plan! I had been led from Mistress Gentle in Southampton to Millisent Shepherd to Lady Wardroper and, finally, to the Saracen's Head. God was using me yet again for His purposes and my resentment rose and flooded over. 'No, Lord,' I told Him firmly, 'not this time. I've only just brought two villains to book for You down in Devon. I refuse to be pushed into a second adventure in less than three months. I came to London for my pleasure, not for Yours. Let me alone! Leave me be!'
I suppose I might have known that my arrogant demands would go unheeded. After all, I should, had I deferred to my dead mother's wishes, even then have been giving glory to God and doing His work as a Benedictine Brother at Glastonbury. Instead, I was free, roaming the countryside, selling my chapman's wares, pleasing myself.
But I succumbed to the conviction that I could set up my puny will against His and that, somehow or other, He would acknowledge what I saw to be the justice of my arguments and cease to trouble me. And so, with a sigh of relief, I turned on my side, snuggled into my straw, ignoring the fleas, and was sound asleep within a couple of minutes.
It had been my intention to spend two nights at the Saracen's Head; but when, the next morning, the pieman offered to buy my space from me for twice the amount I had paid the landlord's wife I willingly agreed. I had taken an unreasoning dislike to the tavern and wished to shake its dust from my feet. Indeed, I had made up my mind to quit London altogether and was only too happy to sell my few feet of kitchen floor in order that the pieman's nephew, who was joining his uncle that day from Norfolk, had somewhere to lay his head until such time as the royal princes, noble lords and all their retinues departed for France, thus relieving the capital of their encroaching presence.
'But where will you sleep tonight?' the pieman asked me.
'Somewhere in the open countryside,' I answered thankfully. In response to his inquisitive stare I continued, 'I've decided to go home to Bristol. I'll return to London in a month or two, when it's less crowded.' And to myself I added, 'And when it's too late for whatever purpose God has in mind for me.'
'Maybe you're wise,' the pieman conceded. 'I'd probably go home today myself, if it weren't for young Thomas coming to join me.'
I wished him goodbye and good luck, sought out the landlord's wife to acquaint her with the new arrangement, treated myself to a substantial breakfast in the Saracen's Head ale-room and then set off to make my way back across London to the New Gate, and so out on to the Holborn road.
Although early, an army of rakers was busy carting away the refuse of the previous day, conveying it to specially prepared pits outside the city walls or to the wharves, where boats were waiting to ferry it out to sea. But it was a losing battle. People were already throwing the night's excrement out of bedroom windows and sweeping yesterday's rushes out of doors, along with stinking straw from the many stables. Butchers tipped pails of fresh entrails and animal heads into the central drain, where they were soon joined by stale fish, builders' rubble and feathers from the poulterers. Traffic, too, clogged the streets. Carts piled high with
Then all at once I had it. Millisent Shepherd! She had been speaking of... of... Lady Wardroper's cousin! That was it! Lady Wardroper, she had told me, had enlisted Lionel Arrowsmith's help in obtaining a place for her son, Matthew, in the Duke of Gloucester's household.
So I was right! What I had thought of as my own independent wanderings had really been part of a plan.
God's plan! I had been led from Mistress Gentle in Southampton to Millisent Shepherd to Lady Wardroper and, finally, to the Saracen's Head. God was using me yet again for His purposes and my resentment rose and flooded over. 'No, Lord,' I told Him firmly, 'not this time. I've only just brought two villains to book for You down in Devon. I refuse to be pushed into a second adventure in less than three months. I came to London for my pleasure, not for Yours. Let me alone! Leave me be!'
I suppose I might have known that my arrogant demands would go unheeded. After all, I should, had I deferred to my dead mother's wishes, even then have been giving glory to God and doing His work as a Benedictine Brother at Glastonbury. Instead, I was free, roaming the countryside, selling my chapman's wares, pleasing myself.
But I succumbed to the conviction that I could set up my puny will against His and that, somehow or other, He would acknowledge what I saw to be the justice of my arguments and cease to trouble me. And so, with a sigh of relief, I turned on my side, snuggled into my straw, ignoring the fleas, and was sound asleep within a couple of minutes.
It had been my intention to spend two nights at the Saracen's Head; but when, the next morning, the pieman offered to buy my space from me for twice the amount I had paid the landlord's wife I willingly agreed. I had taken an unreasoning dislike to the tavern and wished to shake its dust from my feet. Indeed, I had made up my mind to quit London altogether and was only too happy to sell my few feet of kitchen floor in order that the pieman's nephew, who was joining his uncle that day from Norfolk, had somewhere to lay his head until such time as the royal princes, noble lords and all their retinues departed for France, thus relieving the capital of their encroaching presence.
'But where will you sleep tonight?' the pieman asked me.
'Somewhere in the open countryside,' I answered thankfully. In response to his inquisitive stare I continued, 'I've decided to go home to Bristol. I'll return to London in a month or two, when it's less crowded.' And to myself I added, 'And when it's too late for whatever purpose God has in mind for me.'
'Maybe you're wise,' the pieman conceded. 'I'd probably go home today myself, if it weren't for young Thomas coming to join me.'
I wished him goodbye and good luck, sought out the landlord's wife to acquaint her with the new arrangement, treated myself to a substantial breakfast in the Saracen's Head ale-room and then set off to make my way back across London to the New Gate, and so out on to the Holborn road.
Although early, an army of rakers was busy carting away the refuse of the previous day, conveying it to specially prepared pits outside the city walls or to the wharves, where boats were waiting to ferry it out to sea. But it was a losing battle. People were already throwing the night's excrement out of bedroom windows and sweeping yesterday's rushes out of doors, along with stinking straw from the many stables. Butchers tipped pails of fresh entrails and animal heads into the central drain, where they were soon joined by stale fish, builders' rubble and feathers from the poulterers. Traffic, too, clogged the streets. Carts piled high with
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