第26章 The Wine Merchant(5)

Asking where the foreign merchant dwelt who had wine to sell, they were directed to an inn near the minster.Here in a back room they found a short, stout man, wearing a red cloth cap, who was seated on a pillow between two kegs.In front of him stood a number of folk, gentry and others, who bargained with him for his wine and the silks and embroideries that he had to sell, giving the latter to be handled and samples of the drink to all who asked for them.

"Clean cups," he said, speaking in bad French, to the drawer who stood beside him."Clean cups, for here come a holy man and a gallant knight who wish to taste my liquor.Nay, fellow, fill them up, for the top of Mount Trooidos in winter is not so cold as this cursed place, to say nothing of its damp, which is that of a dungeon," and he shivered, drawing his costly shawl closer round him.

"Sir Abbot, which will you taste first--the red wine or the yellow? The red is the stronger but the yellow is the more costly and a drink for saints in Paradise and abbots upon earth.The yellow from Kyrenia? Well, you are wise.They say it was my patron St.Helena's favourite vintage when she visited Cyprus, bringing with her Disma's cross.""Are you a Christian then?" asked the Prior."I took you for a Paynim.""Were I not a Christian would I visit this foggy land of yours to trade in wine--a liquor forbidden to the Moslems?" answered the man, drawing aside the folds of his shawl and revealing a silver crucifix upon his broad breast."I am a merchant of Famagusta in Cyprus, Georgios by name, and of the Greek Church which you Westerners hold to be heretical.But what do you think of that wine, holy Abbot?"The Prior smacked his lips.

"Friend Georgios, it is indeed a drink for the saints," he answered.

"Ay, and has been a drink for sinners ere now--for this is the very tipple that Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, drank with her Roman lover Antony, of whom you, being a learned man, may have heard.

And you, Sir Knight, what say you of the black stuff--'Mavro,' we call it--not the common, but that which has been twenty years in cask?""I have tasted worse," said Wulf, holding out his horn to be filled again.