Part 17

“These things are old and out of fashion, fair sir,” said he. “Of the stones I can scarce say if they are of good quality or not, but they are dull and rough. Yet, if your price be low I may add them to my stock, though indeed this booth was made to sell and not to buy. What do you ask?”

Nigel bent his brows in perplexity. Here was a game in which neither his bold heart nor his active limbs could help him. It was the new force mastering the old: the man of commerce conquering the man of war—wearing him down and weakening him through the centuries until he had him as his bond-servant and his thrall.

“I know not what to ask, good sir,” said Nigel. “It is not for me, nor for any man who bears my name, to chaffer and to haggle. You know the worth of these things, for it is your trade to do so. The Lady Ermyntrude lacks money, and we must have it against the King’s coming, so give me that which is right and just, and we will say no more.”

The goldsmith smiled. The business was growing more simple and more profitable. He had intended to offer fifty, but surely it would be sinful waste to give more than twenty-five.

“I shall scarce know what to do with them when I have them,” said he. “Yet I should not grudge twenty nobles if it is a matter in which the King is concerned.”

Nigel’s heart turned to lead. This sum would not buy one-half what was needful. It was clear that the Lady Ermyntrude had overvalued her treasures. Yet he could not return empty-handed, so if twenty nobles was the real worth, as this good old man assured him, then he must be thankful and take it.

“I am concerned by what you say,” said he. “You know more of these things than I can do. However, I will take—”

“A hundred and fifty,” whispered Aylward’s voice in his ear.

“A hundred and fifty,” said Nigel, only too relieved to have found the humblest guide upon these unwonted paths.

The goldsmith started. This youth was not the simple soldier that he had seemed. That frank face, those blue eyes, were traps for the unwary. Never had he been more taken aback in a bargain.

“This is fond talk and can lead to nothing, fair sir,” said he, turning away and fiddling with the keys of his strong boxes. “Yet I have no wish to be hard on you. Take my outside price, which is fifty nobles.”

“And a hundred,” whispered Aylward.

“And a hundred,” said Nigel, blushing at his own greed.

“Well, well, take a hundred!” cried the merchant. “Fleece me, skin me, leave me a loser, and take for your wares the full hundred!”

“I should be shamed forever if I were to treat you so badly,” said Nigel. “You have spoken me fair, and I would not grind you down. Therefore, I will gladly take one hundred—”

“And fifty,” whispered Aylward.

“And fifty,” said Nigel.

“By Saint John of Beverley!” cried the merchant. “I came hither from the North Country, and they are said to be shrewd at a deal in those parts; but I had rather bargain with a synagogue full of Jews than with you, for all your gentle ways. Will you indeed take no less than a hundred and fifty? Alas! you pluck from me my profits of a month. It is a fell morning’s work for me. I would I had never seen you!” With groans and lamentations he paid the gold pieces across the counter, and Nigel, hardly able to credit his own good fortune, gathered them into the leather saddle-bag.

A moment later with flushed face he was in the street and pouring out his thanks to Aylward.

“Alas, my fair lord! the man has robbed us now,” said the archer. “We could have had another twenty had we stood fast.”

“How know you that, good Aylward?”

“By his eyes, Squire Loring. I wot I have little store of reading where the parchment of a book or the pinching of a blazon is concerned, but I can read men’s eyes, and I never doubted that he would give what he has given.”

The two travelers had dinner at the monk’s hospitium, Nigel at the high table and Aylward among the commonalty. Then again they roamed the high street on business intent. Nigel bought taffeta for hangings, wine, preserves, fruit, damask table linen and many other articles of need. At last he halted before the armorer’s shop at the castle-yard, staring at the fine suits of plate, the engraved pectorals, the plumed helmets, the cunningly jointed gorgets, as a child at a sweet-shop.

“Well, Squire Loring,” said Wat the armorer, looking sidewise from the furnace where he was tempering a sword blade, “what can I sell you this morning? I swear to you by Tubal Cain, the father of all workers in metal, that you might go from end to end of Cheapside and never see a better suit than that which hangs from yonder hook!”

“And the price, armorer?”

“To anyone else, two hundred and fifty rose nobles. To you two hundred.”

“And why cheaper to me, good fellow?”

“Because I fitted your father also for the wars, and a finer suit never went out of my shop. I warrant that it turned many an edge before he laid it aside. We worked in mail in those days, and I had as soon have a well-made thick-meshed mail as any plates; but a young knight will be in the fashion like any dame of the court, and so it must be plate now, even though the price be trebled.”