The Pillars of the Earth - Ken Follett [218]
It was market day, so it took them some time to drive their cart through the crowded city to Meg’s street. At last they arrived at her house. Aliena stepped into the hall. A woman she had never seen before was standing there. “Oh!” said Aliena, and she stopped short.
“What is it?” said the woman.
“I’m a friend of Meg’s.”
“She doesn’t live here anymore,” the woman said curtly.
“Oh, dear.” Aliena saw no need for her to be so brusque. “Where has she moved to?”
“She’s gone with her husband, who left this city in disgrace,” the woman said.
Aliena was disappointed and afraid. She had been counting on Meg to make the sale of the wool easy. “That’s terrible news!”
“He was a dishonest tradesman, and if I were you I wouldn’t boast about being a friend of hers. Now clear off.”
Aliena was outraged that someone should speak ill of Meg. “I don’t care what her husband may have done, Meg was a fine woman and greatly superior to the thieves and whores that inhabit this stinking city,” she said, and she went out before the woman could think of a rejoinder.
Her verbal victory gave her only momentary consolation. “Bad news,” she said to Richard. “Meg has left Winchester.”
“Is the person who lives there now a wool merchant?” he said.
“I didn’t ask. I was too busy telling her off.” Now she felt foolish.
“What shall we do, Allie?”
“We’ve got to sell these fleeces,” she said anxiously. “We’d better go to the marketplace.”
They turned the horse around and retraced their steps to the High Street, then threaded their way through the crowds to the market, which was between the High Street and the cathedral. Aliena led the horse and Richard walked behind the cart, pushing it when the horse needed help, which was most of the time. The marketplace was a seething mass of people squeezing along the narrow aisles between the stalls, their progress constantly delayed by carts such as Aliena’s. She stopped and stood on top of her sack of wool and looked for wool merchants. She could see only one. She got down and headed the horse in that direction.
The man was doing good business. He had a large space roped off with a shed behind it. The shed was made of hurdles, light timber frames filled in with woven twigs and reeds, and it was obviously a temporary structure erected each market day. The merchant was a swarthy man whose left arm ended at the elbow. Attached to his stump he had a wooden comb, and whenever a fleece was offered to him he would put his arm into the wool, tease out a portion with the comb, and feel it with his right hand before giving a price. Then he would use the comb and his right hand together to count out the number of pennies he had agreed to pay. For large purchases he weighed the pennies in a balance.
Aliena pushed her way through the crowd to the bench. A peasant offered the merchant three rather thin fleeces tied together with a leather belt. “A bit sparse,” said the merchant. “Three farthings each.” A farthing was a quarter of a penny. He counted out two pennies, then took a small hatchet and with a quick, practiced stroke cut a third penny into quarters. He gave the peasant the two pennies and one of the quarters. “Three times three farthings is twopence and a farthing.” The peasant took the belt off the fleeces and handed them over.
Next, two young men dragged a whole sack of wool up to the counter. The merchant examined it carefully. “It’s a full sack, but the quality’s poor,” he said. “I’ll give you a pound.”
Aliena wondered how he could be so sure the sack was full. Perhaps you could tell with practice. She watched him weigh out a pound of silver pennies.
Some monks were approaching with a huge cart piled high with sacks of wool. Aliena decided to get her business done before the monks. She beckoned to Richard, and he dragged their sack of wool off the cart and brought it up to the counter.
The merchant examined the wool. “Mixed quality,” he said. “Half a pound.”
“What?” Aliena said incredulously.
“A hundred and twenty pennies,” he said.
Aliena was horrified. “But you just paid a pound for a sack!”
“It