Free [Roger the Chapman 05] - Eve of Saint Hyacinth by Kate Sedley

bread from Stratford-atte-Bowe, with bricks from the outlying villages around the White Chapel and Lime House, with barrels of fresh water from the springs at Paddington, were rumbling through every one of the city gates, soon to be followed by others from further afield.
    Street vendors and shopkeepers were laying out their stalls for the start of another day's vigorous trading; a gaggle of boys, laughing and shouting to one another in the last moments of freedom, made for the grammar school at the church of Saint Peter-upon-Cornhill; and sumpter horses, laden with goods, fouled the streets with their droppings. A couple of knaves were being set in the stocks and pillory, while the night's drunks and bawds and general disturbers of the king's peace were rattling the bars of their iron cage, shouting to be let out. Barely past the hour of Prime London was none the less fully awake and busy.
    It was another pleasant early summer's day, with sunlight slanting into courtyard and alley, and a light breeze which sent the shadows racing ahead of it in patterns of grey and gold. Perhaps, after all, with so many people crowding the streets, and so anxious to spend their money, I would wait until afternoon before turning my steps in the direction of New Gate and the long road home. A chance to make money was not to be lightly dismissed. Besides, why should I allow God to spoil my plans? Why should I not remain in London for at least another morning?
    In this new mood of bravado and defiance I retraced my steps to the Leadenhall, where strangers to the city could rent stalls for the first three days of the week in order to sell their wares. I set out my goods on the trestle table allotted me by the Warden and was soon besieged with buyers. By the time that the bells of Saint Michael and Saint Peter-upon-Cornhill sounded the hour of Tierce-Sext, I had sold most of the contents of my pack and was thinking hungrily of my dinner. I was just about to go in search of sustenance when my eye was caught by a man in the crowd around the stall next to mine: a small man with heavily pock-marked skin whose face was somehow familiar. I stood for a moment or two, cudgelling my brains as to why this should be, then suddenly my memory was jogged. We had met four years ago on my very first visit to London.
    'Philip Lamprey!' I shouted.
    I hardly expected him to hear me over the babel of voices which filled the enclosure, but at the sound of his name his head jerked round and his eyes darted hither and thither until they finally came to rest on me. Almost at once a broad grin split his features and he came towards me with the slightly military gait which was a legacy from his soldiering days.
    'Roger the chapman!' he exclaimed delightedly. 'Well I never! Fancy seein' you again.'
    'I'm surprised you recall me so readily,' I said, for our acquaintance had been brief.
    'Cor! Anyone'd remember a gert fellow like you. And anyway, you remembered me.'
    'Not immediately,' I admitted.
    'Ah well,' he answered, still grinning, 'I reck'n I've changed a bit since you last clapped eyes on me.' He was right. His meagre frame had fleshed out and was clothed in decent homespun instead of a beggar's rags.
    There was an air of prosperity about him which he had previously lacked.
    'Yes,' I replied slowly. 'Yes, you have.'
    'I'm a respectable shopkeeper now,' he confided. 'Managed to save enough from me begging to rent one o' them second-hand clothes shops west of the Tun. Tha's what I'm doin' 'ere. Lookin' fer any goods goin' cheap among you furriners.' The corners of his eyes creased mockingly.
    'Married again, too. Told you, I think, that me first wife ran off up north with a butcher. Got the marriage annulled by Holy Church. Found a good woman and settled down. Bad times over at last. Which reminds me, I owe you a dinner. Promised you that four year since, when you was charitable enough to treat me at the Bull in Fish Street.'  
    'You've a better memory than I have,' I