Everywhere could be heard the cries of vendors shouting or singing their wares or professions, the flower-girls, the knife sharpener, the baker’s boy, and the butcher’s apprentice.
“Co brakuje, co brakuje,” they all shouted in a chorus. “What do you lack? What do you lack?”
Occasionally to Joseph’s delight, a monkey could be seen, brought here by traders from the east or south, one playing around a booth, another carried, much bedecked with ribbons, in the arms of some merchant’s or perhaps burgomaster’s lady.
Once or twice amid the clamor of the market rang the clanking of chains as poor wretches about to be fastened to the church walls by iron collars, or stuck in the pillory, or perhaps even to suffer a worse fate, were marched to the church for a last prayer before the sentence of the law was passed upon them. Life was a precarious thing in many ways in those days, and men and women for very slight offenses were beheaded or banished or thrown into terrible prisons.
Now they passed a procession of pilgrims on the way to some shrine, men and women from the villages dressed in their good clothes with the parish priest marching ahead of them and leading the chant which they were singing. The cross bearer was a young man with stalwart shoulders and bright eyes; he had need of his strength, too, for he had sworn to carry the holy image of Our Lord from his native village to Chenstohova, which was many miles distant. This company had already been on the road about ten days. There were boys and girls, too, in the procession, and some had their minds upon serious things, but others were looking for the first time upon the glory of medieval Krakow, and would no doubt in their prayers ask forgiveness for too much attention to worldly things.
The cart turned into Grodzka or Castle Street after leaving the market place and went directly toward the Wawel. Near the Wawel Pan Andrew swung the horses to the right and passed through a city gate and into a meadowy lane. In front of a large rambling palace that stood there, he drew up by the side of the road and leaped to the ground not far from a pair of iron gates that marked the entrance. At these gates he was accosted by an armed guard who, with a rather hostile air, blocked the entrance completely with his spear.
“What do you want?” he asked sharply.
“I seek Pan Andrew Tenczynski.”
The guard shouted something, whereat five men in armor came running from a little house near the gate.