Read St. Peter's Fair for Free Online

heard the sudden surge of urgent feet on the downhill
track, and turned to level an imperious glance that way, before returning to
his business of supervising the landing of his goods. The array of casks and
bales on the boards was impressive. The young men surging down to the river
could not fail to make an accurate estimate of the powers they faced.
    “Gentlemen…!”
Philip Corviser hailed them all loudly, coming to a halt with feet spread,
confronting Thomas of Bristol. He had a good, ringing voice; it carried, and
lesser dealers dropped what they were doing to listen. “Gentlemen, I beg a
hearing, as you are citizens all, of whatever town, as I am of Shrewsbury, and
as you care for your own town as I do for mine! You are here paying rents and
tolls to the abbey, while the abbey denies any aid to the town. And we have
greater need than ever the abbey has, of some part of what you bring.”
    He
drew breath hard, having spent his first wind. He was a gangling lad, not yet
quite in command of his long limbs, being barely twenty and only just at the
end of his growing. Spruce in his dress, but down at the heel, Cadfael noticed—
proof of the old saying that the shoemaker’s son is always the one who goes
barefoot! He had a thick thatch of reddish dark hair, and a decent, homely face
now pale with passion under his summer tan. A good, deft workman, they said,
when he could be stopped from flying off after some angry cause or other.
Certainly he had a cause now, bless the lad, he was pouring out to these
hard-headed business men all the arguments his father had used to the abbot at
chapter, in dead earnest, and—heaven teach him better sense!—even with hopes of
convincing them!
    “If the abbey turns a cold eye on the town’s
troubles, should you side with them? We are here to tell you our side of the
story, and appeal to you as men who also have to bear the burdens of your own
boroughs, and may well have seen at home what war and siege can do to your own
walls and pavings. Is it unreasonable that we should ask for a share in the
profits of the fair? The abbey came by no damage last year, as the town did. If
they will not bear their part for the common good, we address ourselves to you,
who have no such protection from the hardships of the world, and will have
fellow-feeling with those who share the like burdens.”
    They
were beginning to lose interest in him, to shrug, and turn back to their
unloading. He raised his voice sharply in appeal.
    “All
we ask is that you will hold back a tithe of the dues you pay to the abbey, and
pay them instead to the town for murage and pavage. If all hold together, what
can the abbey stewards do against you? There need be no cost to you above what
you would be paying in any event, and we should have something nearer to justice.
What do you say? Will you help us?”
    They
would not! The growl of indifference and derision hardly needed words. What,
set up a challenge to what was laid down by charter, when they had nothing to
gain by it? Why should they take the risk? They turned to their work, shrugging
him off. The young men grouped at his back set up among themselves a counter
murmur, still controlled but growing angry. And Thomas of Bristol, massive and
contemptuous, waved a fist in their spokesman’s face, and said impatiently:
“Stand out of the way, boy, you are hindering your betters! Pay a tithe to the
town indeed! Are not the abbey rights set down according to law? And can you,
dare you tell me they do not pay the fee demanded of them by charter? If you
have a complaint that they are failing to keep the law, take it to the sheriff,
where it belongs, but don’t come here with your nonsense. Now be off, and let
honest men get on with their work.”
    The
young man took fire. “The men of Shrewsbury are as honest as you, sir, though something
less boastful about it. We take honesty for granted here! And it is not
nonsense