Page 109
“Fresh herrings! Caught this mornin'!”
“Hot pies! Two fer a penny!”
“Fine wool, good gentles! Come an' feel it fer thyselves!”
“Eels! Live eels! Fresh from t'river!”
The cries come from every direction, merchants shouting over one another whilst customers crowd around their stalls, arguing over prices and getting in everybody else's way. Iscairn manages to guide the horses around a handcart abandoned across half the street, but I have to slip between two women quarrelling over a sack of onions to keep up.
“Three pennies fer that lot? Tha must think me daft!”
“Then tha can grow thy own!”
I emerge from between them just as a man comes lumbering towards me with an enormous basket of eels hooked over his arm. One of the wretched things has its head poking through the wicker, and I'm so busy looking at it that I nearly collide with its owner.
“Mind thyself, mistress,” he grumbles, shoving past.
I turn back to Iscairn, who's waiting a few paces ahead with both horses, and pick my way through the mud.
“I thought Beswick was busy on market day,” I mutter, catching hold of his cloak before another cart can pull us apart. “How is a person meant to walk, let alone trade?”
“With considerable patience, I imagine.” He looks towards the horses, who seem no more impressed with York than I am. “Come. We ought to find somewhere to stable these two before the streets grow any busier.”
“Busier?”
He sets off before I can ask how such a thing could happen, leaving me to follow him past a row of fishmongers competing to see who can shout the loudest. One has a great heap of silver herrings spread across his stall, and he's halfway through telling a customer that his fish were swimming in the river that very morning when he throws back his head and laughs.
Something moves beneath his jaw.
I slow, catching sight of a little throb in the thick flesh of his neck as he turns to call for more fish. His collar has fallen open, exposing the skin above his shirt, and with every beat of his heart, a small vein seems to swell and settle beneath it.
That's peculiar.
The man bends to drag another basket onto the counter, and the movement disappears beneath his collar. I ought to carry on walking, particularly as Iscairn has already gained several paces, but when the fishmonger straightens, my attention goes straight back to his throat.
The fishmonger is still shouting about his herrings when a woman barges past with a bundle of firewood, catching me hard enough on the shoulder that I stumble towards his stall.
“Watch where you're going!” I snap, turning after her.
She doesn't even look back.
The hollow beneath my ribs pulls again, and I grit my teeth as a boy comes tearing between the stalls, nearly knocking me over in his hurry to get past. I catch him by the sleeve before he can disappear.
“Have you no manners? You nearly had me on my arse!”
“Get off!” he shouts, wrenching himself free.
The little sod runs off, and I'm left standing in the middle of the street, fists clenched so tightly my nails dig into my palms. Around me, the merchants carry on shouting, a cart driver starts bellowing for people to move, and the fishmonger bursts into another great fit of laughter.
Shut up.
For pox’s sake, will everybody just shut up?
A man shoulders past me, treading on the hem of my kirtle, and something in me snaps.
“Would you all stop bloody pushing!” I shout, turning on him. “There's a whole damned street here! Must you all insist on walking through me?”
He stops to stare. And I want him to answer back. I want him to give me some reason to scream at him properly, though what I'd do if he did, I haven't the faintest idea.
