'What do you think?' Rachel asked me.
I could only gape, wide-eyed, like an entranced child, and she laughed her lovely musical laugh, grabbing my hand to lead me down into the thick of the crowd. We were jostled and bumped, but I found I did not mind it, and to my own amazement I heard myself laughing as the final shreds of oppression fell away from me. The breeze lifted my hair and the sun warmed my face, and I felt suddenly, gloriously alive.
'It's wonderful!' I cried to Rachel, but my voice was swallowed by a sea of voices, and she did not hear me. She led me on a little farther, then turned back toward me, her face flushed with excitement.
'Come, you must see the players,' she said.
A large cluster of people had gathered in one corner of the square, and she pulled me toward them. When we reached the spot, Rachel smiled sweetly at one of the taller men, who moved aside to let us slip in front of him, where we could view the goings-on with ease. The players were eight in number, dressed in weird and fanciful clothing of every conceivable rainbow hue. One of them, a young lad of about fourteen, was speaking a prologue in a high, ringing voice.
'I'd hoped they would be here,' Rachel confided in an elated whisper. 'They often come on market day, to entertain.'
The young Prologue had finished, and an anticipatory hush fell on the watchers. It was a short play, only several minutes long, but it was acted wonderfully well.
One of the men came forward draped in somber black, with a Puritan's hat upon his head, and the word 'Parliament' painted on a banner across his chest. He spoke at length about the ruinous morals of the English nation, with such droll turns of phrase and twists of meaning that he merely mocked himself, and made those watching laugh aloud at his foolishness. By and by came Oliver Cromwell himself, and a Roundhead soldier, and a leering preacher, and all three joined in the general lamentation, and made such evil and sinister plans that the crowd made a mighty protest with shouts and hissing noises.
In came an angel, who listened sadly and unseen, then crossed to the 'Parliament' and touched him, whereupon the dark Puritan clothes were cast away to reveal a new Parliament, gleaming white and gold. A player representing the people, clothed in red and brandishing a sword of fire, joined this new and holy Parliament, and together the two challenged and defeated the diabolical conspirators. And such a cheer rose from the assembled crowd when a fair facsimile of good King Charles appeared to claim his crown, that it rivaled the very din of the Coronation Day itself.
There were many 'Hurrahs!' and a good many coins thrown when the players had finished.
'It was a good play,' I said to Rachel as we drew away.
'Ay,' she agreed, 'but your uncle would not have thought so.'
'Why would he not?'
She looked at me, and seemed to be considering something, then suddenly thought the better of it.
'Look,' she said, instead, 'there is the orange seller. Shall we share an orange? I have money to spare.'
I had money of my own—a few hoarded pennies safely tucked within the lining of my dress, but I let Rachel buy the orange that we split carefully between us, savoring the sweet, juicy flesh and the exotic fragrance of the zest, a fragrance that clung to our fingers long after we had finished eating.
'Now,' said Rachel, remembering our instructions, 'I am to get a goose, and a joint of beef for Caroline. The butchers be over there, across the way.'
I hung back, hesitating. 'If you don't mind,' I told her, 'I'd like to look about a bit on my own.'
The truth was, I dreaded the stench of the butchers' stalls, and I had never been able to bear the sight of animals doomed for slaughter. Rachel did not seem to begrudge my reluctance.
'Do as you will,' she invited with a small shrug. 'I'll come to find you when I've finished with the shopping.'
I felt a tiny twinge of guilt. 'D'you not need my help? To carry the meat, perhaps?'
'Not at all. Don't trouble yourself so,' she laughed. 'I usually come to market by myself. Be off with you, and amuse yourself. You can carry your share of the load on the walk home.'
It was not difficult to amuse myself, surrounded as I was by such an array of wonders and trinkets and marvelous things: tonics to improve the health, imported French silks and Flemish laces, apples and lemons spilling from their carts onto the cobblestones, dried fish and tin horns and wooden buckets and delicate jewelry. Entranced, I wandered from stall to stall, pausing on the fringe of the gathered crowds to hear one seller crying up his wares, or to watch another remove tallow stains from white linen with a liquid strong as magic.
At one of the stalls, a beautifully worked bracelet caught my fancy, and I paused to admire it. It was daintily made of gleaming gilt, a linked procession of fanciful birds of paradise with eyes of blue glass that glittered like royal jewels. I lingered over it wistfully, tracing the delicate creatures with my fingers. My pennies seemed to shift impatiently in their hiding place, and the merchant, sensing my weakness, sidled cautiously closer.
'That's real quality, mistress,' he told me, accompanying his words with an ingratiating smile. 'Just like the ones the fine ladies wear at court nowadays. Only ten shillings.'
Ten shillings! I drew my hand back reluctantly. I had only sixpence in my pocket, and I could never hope to bargain him down as low as that. My disappointment lasted only a moment, though, for as I turned away from the stall my eyes fell upon a bookseller's cart tucked into a shadowed corner on the fringe of the marketplace, and my heart leaped joyfully. How wonderful it would be, I thought, to hold a book again, to feel the smooth, crisp pages and smell the rich, intoxicating smell of oiled leather and paper.