London (34 page)

Only once, five years ago, had he dared to go further. She had been looking tired and sad one day, and suddenly he had demanded: “Does he mistreat you, your husband?”

She had paused before giving a sad, wry laugh. “No. But what,” she asked, smiling, “would you do about it?”

Forgetting himself for a moment, the Dane had moved close and said fiercely: “I would take you away from him.”

To this declaration she had merely shaken her head, murmured, “I may not see you if you say such things,” and he had never made any advance again.

And so, year after year, this relationship of chaste lovers had continued. It was agreeable, she thought, knowing herself to be imperfectly loved at home, to be appreciated by an older, wiser man. And for his part, Barnikel found that this role of an ardent suitor who, perhaps, was not quite without hope brought its own particular kind of joy.

He came forward eagerly, therefore, wearing a new blue cloak, with a lightness in his step, and together they walked westwards towards the Aldwych and the old churchyard of his Viking ancestors at St Clement Danes.

How cavernous the cellars would be. As the foundations grew, the outline of the huge Tower’s interior was already clear.

Approaching the site from the riverbank, the whole of the left half of the interior was taken up by a great hall. The right side was divided in two: a long, north–south, rectangular chamber occupied the rear two-thirds of the space, leaving the front, south-eastern corner for a smaller chamber. This corner would contain the chapel.

The builder of this mighty project was Gundulf, a distinguished Norman monk and architect who had recently been brought to England and made Bishop of Rochester in nearby Kent. With him Gundulf had brought all his knowledge of the fortress-building of Continental Europe and King William had already set him to work on several projects. Indeed, the great Tower of London was itself one of a pair, its nearly identical sister being in the Essex town of Colchester.

Much as he hated the drudgery of his work, Osric could not help being fascinated by the details of the building growing around him. The base level would form the cellars, which were roughly at ground level on the river side of the building, but because of the slight slope in the ground, were almost completely underground along the back wall.

The stone was laid in layers: first Kentish ragstone, which was only rough-hewn or rubble, then a layer of flint to strengthen it, then more ragstone. Everything was bound with mortar made from various materials to hand. On a number of occasions, cartloads of ancient Roman tiles from the surrounding area had been brought to the site and he had been put to work with the men who were hammering and grinding them into powder to make the binding cement. When the tiles were used, the mortar in the wall had a reddish tinge, and one of the labourers had grimly remarked:

“See. The Tower is built with English blood.”

The pale Norman stone from Caen was for corners and dressings only. “It’s especially hard,” the foreman had told him, “and being a different colour, it makes the building look neater.”

As the cellar walls began to rise, Osric observed other things. Although one could walk from one huge room into another, there was no door in the outer wall. The cellar would only be reached, he discovered, by a single spiral staircase set in a turret in the north-eastern corner. As for windows, when he asked the foreman, the fellow had smiled and pointed to one of two narrow insets high in the western wall. “Watch those,” he said. Once the masons started work on these places, Osric had realized that each was to be an opening in the shape of a slim wedge that grew narrower towards the outside.

“There won’t be room for much of a window,” he had remarked to one of the masons, and the fellow had laughed.

“It’ll be just a slit,” he answered the boy, “no wider than a man’s hand. No one will get in or out through there.”

Two other features of the cellar also concerned Osric. The first was a large hole in the floor of the main, western chamber. At first he had been puzzled by this, but he soon learned its purpose, for since he was one of the smallest labourers, Ralph had promptly chosen him to go down into it. “Dig,” he had curtly ordered. And when the boy had foolishly asked “How far?”, Ralph had cursed him and explained: “Until you find water, you fool.” Although the Thames flowed nearby, and there was also a well not far from the bank, it was essential that the king’s castle should have its own secure water supply within its mighty walls. Day after day, therefore, Osric had gone down with pick and shovel, lowered by ropes, sending the earth and gravel he dug up to the surface in a bucket. Deeper and deeper into the bowels of the Tower’s mound he had gone until at last he had come to water. When they measured the well he had dug, they found it was forty feet deep.

But it was the other feature that filled his heart with dread.

The very day after refusing to let him be a carpenter, Ralph had suddenly called out, “Osric, since you are good at working down holes, I have a new job for you.” And before the little fellow’s face even had time to fall: “The tunnel, Osric. That’s the place for you.”

A necessary feature of any large fortified building was its drain, and the Tower of London’s was intelligently conceived. Beginning in the corner, below a hole in the floor not far from the well, it was to run underground, sloping gently down for some fifty yards until it reached the river. At low tide the drain would be tolerably dry, but at high tide, the Thames water would flood the drain and flush it out.

It was a low and narrow space, with just enough room for a few small fellows like Osric to use their picks in a crouching position. Each day he went down and dug away for hours while the loosened earth was dragged back up the tunnel in open sacks, and carpenters put up supports to keep the roof from collapsing. How many days or weeks it would take to bore this hole before the masons could move in to wall and roof it, Osric did not know. All he knew was that he felt like a mole in the ground and that his back was continually aching.

It was after a week of this that he made a second, hopeful attempt at freedom.

Bishop Gundulf of Rochester was a large man. His head was bald. His face was fleshy. Both his body and his manner of speech could best be described as rotund. But there was also a certain briskness in his movements, giving an indication of the very quick mind that made him an excellent administrator. If he experienced any distaste or amusement that late August afternoon as he stood facing the slow-witted overseer, nothing of it showed on his face. It was time to be tactful.

He had just changed the design of the Tower of London, and Ralph Silversleeves was going to have to rebuild it.

At first Ralph could not believe it. He gazed at the huge foundations already rising. Could it really be that the fat bishop wanted him to remove the tremendous mass of stone and begin all over again?

“It is only the south-east corner, my friend,” the bishop said in a soothing tone.

“It’s twenty-five bargeloads of stone,” Ralph retorted furiously. “And for God’s sake why?”

The reason for the alteration was simple enough. The sister castle at Colchester had a semicircular projection towards the east at this same corner. The designer of the London Tower, seeing how well it looked, had decided to do the same thing here as well.

“It will form the apse of the royal chapel, you see,” Gundulf continued blandly. “It will be a noble construction. And the king is delighted,” he added.

If the slow brain of the overseer had registered this last hint, it did not show.

“It will add weeks to the work. Months more likely,” he said sullenly.

“The king is anxious that the work should proceed swiftly,” the bishop replied with firm politeness. It was an understatement: after a decade of trouble in England, William wanted the new stone castle of London completed without delay.

“Not a chance,” Ralph grunted. He hated being bullied by clever men.

Gundulf sighed, then struck.

“I said to the king only the other day how willing you were, how well suited to your great task,” he remarked. “I shall be seeing him again shortly.”

Since even he could not fail to see the implied threat, Ralph shrugged sulkily. “As you wish,” he muttered, and began to move away.

“I shall tell the king,” the bishop smoothly concluded, to punish the surly fellow for boring him, “that you will be able to complete the new task on exactly the same schedule as before. Not a day will be lost,” he called gaily. “He will be very pleased.”

Only moments after this, young Osric made his move.

Osric had often seen the portly bishop before, when Gundulf came to inspect the work.

Like many people in high position, Bishop Gundulf had easily assumed that mantle of cheerful politeness which protects and eases the path of those in public life. As he went round the building site, his courteous nods, even to the serfs, cost him nothing.

It was natural enough, therefore, that the little serf working miserably in the dark tunnel should have formed the plan he had.

Every instinct, even a physical craving in his fingertips, told him he should be a craftsman. Could this be wrong? Or had God decided he must suffer like this for his sins? The one thing he was sure of was that Ralph Silversleeves was no agent of God: he was the devil. But Bishop Gundulf, who was in charge of everything, was a man of God, and he looked kindly. Surely even a humble serf like him might approach a man of God?

Anyway, he thought, I’ve nothing else to lose.

He had waited for an opportunity. Now, as he came out from his shift in the tunnel and saw the bishop standing in front of the building site, he decided to take his chance. Running over to the carpenters’ workshop, he seized the piece of work he had done and shyly approached the great man.

Bishop Gundulf was surprised when he saw the earnest little figure caked in earth standing before him with his lump of wood. Nevertheless, he asked kindly, “What is it, my son?”

In a few words Osric explained. “This is my work. I want to be a carpenter.”

As he gazed at the serf, it was not difficult for Gundulf to guess the rest. The work, he saw, was good. His eyes strayed towards the carpenters’ workshop. Perhaps he should place the boy there to see what they could make of him. And he was about to stride over there when he heard a cry of rage behind him.

It was Ralph.

The moment he caught sight of them, he had realized what Osric was up to. Already in a furious temper about the change of plan, the sight of the wretched little serf going to Gundulf behind his back was more than he could bear. As he raced to the bishop’s side, his cry of rage was practically a howl.

“He says he wants to be a carpenter,” Gundulf observed mildly.

“Never.”

“The craftsman’s talents are a gift from God, you know,” the bishop remarked. “We are supposed to use them.”

And then Ralph had his inspiration.

“You don’t understand,” he replied. “We can’t trust him with a knife or sharp tools of any kind. He’s only labouring here because he tried to kill one of the king’s knights. That’s why they slit his nose.”

“He doesn’t look very dangerous.”

“But he is.”

Gundulf sighed. He was not sure he believed the overseer. On the other hand he’d given him enough trouble for one day. And the work on the Tower must go smoothly on.

“As you wish,” he said with a shrug.

And so it was that Osric, though he did not understand what they were saying, since they spoke to each other in Norman French, perceived that the last hope in his young life had been extinguished.

A few moments later, held by the ear, he found himself back at the entrance to the tunnel. Ralph was shouting at him.

“You think you’ll be a carpenter behind my back, do you? Well, look around you. This earth and this stone are what you are going to dig and carry for the rest of your life, little carpenter. You’ll do that and nothing else until your back breaks.” He gave a grim smile. “This Tower will be your life, Osric, and it will be your death, because I shall make you work building it until you die.” Then he threw him bodily into the tunnel with the curt order: “Work another shift.”

So intent was he upon this important task that Ralph Silversleeves did not take any notice of the other people standing around. Even if he had, there was nothing remarkable about the presence of Alfred the armourer.

In fact, Alfred was inside the Tower for a good reason. He had been told that he would be making the great metal grilles that would fit over the drain and the well, and he had come by to get an idea of the size of these cavities.

With mild interest he had watched and listened as Ralph raved at the solemn little fellow. After Ralph had gone, he walked over to the tunnel entrance. On the ground he noticed the little example of Osric’s woodwork, which had fallen when Ralph had thrown him down. Alfred picked it up thoughtfully.

And that night, following a long conversation with young Osric, he told his friend the Dane: “I think I’ve found the little fellow we need.”

“Can you trust him? With your life?”

“I think so.”

“Why? What does he want?”

Alfred grinned.

“He wants revenge.”

Revenge was sweet. The plan was not without risk, but Osric felt confident. Above all, he felt proud.

Secretly, at night, he would sneak out of the labourers’ quarters by the Tower and make his way to the Dane’s house nearby. There, in a storeroom at the back, he and Alfred would work, his stubby fingers instinctively feeling their way forward so that soon, by careful trial and error, he had evolved a piece of carpentry so neat, so ingenious and so deceptive that the master armourer cried out: “You are a craftsman indeed!”

The task the Dane had set him was to convert a huge wagon he possessed so that he could conceal arms in it. But where he had expected the little carpenter to design a secret compartment under the cart, Osric had hit on a more ingenious solution. “If they search you, that’s the first thing they’ll look for,” he had pointed out. Rather than touch the floor of the wagon, he had instead concentrated on the solid beams that made its frame. Working with care and sheer inspiration, he had hollowed these out, preserving their outside appearance with stops and sliding panels, and doing so with such thoroughness that a quite remarkable quantity of dismantled swords, spearheads and arrowheads could be snugly lodged within. By the time he had finished, his work was invisible.