London (55 page)

She went to his house but he was not there. “I’ll find him,” she muttered, as she tramped back towards Smith-field. And just as she entered that broad, open space she did indeed catch sight of him. He was standing not far from the gateway to St Bartholomew’s church, talking to Brother Michael. “Got you,” she whispered with satisfaction; and she hurried across, her basket bumping against her leg. But she was only twenty paces from them when she stopped dead in her tracks, blinking in astonishment at what she saw.

For there, standing just behind the two men, as clear and as solid as the priory behind, was a strange, green and white figure, with a bird-like face, a curving tail, and a trident in his hand. There was no mistaking him: it was that very demon she had spoken to, years ago, when she had had her vision. And now – there was no mistaking this either – his beaked face was gloating. He’s come for Silversleeves, she thought, without remorse. Well, serve him right.

But then, as she watched, she saw to her horror that the green and white demon was not looking at Silversleeves at all, but putting his long arms around saintly Brother Michael. And Brother Michael was entirely unaware.

When the seven men met in secret soon after Michaelmas that year, it was agreed that Alderman Sampson Bull deserved congratulation.

“You handled Silversleeves perfectly,” their leader declared. And indeed, Bull did feel that his performance had been masterly.

Not that he had lied. No Bull ever did that. “But I may,” he confessed, “have exaggerated a little.” And Pentecost had been so willing to believe.

When he had told the Exchequer clerk that spring that John’s envoys had opened negotiations with some of the leading aldermen of London, Silversleeves’s fright had been wonderful to behold. It was in fact true that some discreet conversations had taken place, but John was not yet confident enough and nor were the aldermen ready to do more than hint at mutual interest. But by allowing Pentecost to suppose that a fully fledged conspiracy was already afoot, Bull had galvanized him into action.

“For with these monstrous tax arrangements in force,” he warned Pentecost, “I can’t imagine the city will fail to support John in any attack upon your master.”

From that day, Bull had been able to play the Exchequer clerk like a fish that had been hooked. No one was more active in counselling the chancellor as to the dangers of offending London. Hardly a week went by without Pentecost meeting Bull and anxiously asking for news, to which the thickset merchant would always reply with some vague but frightening statement such as, “John is everywhere,” or “Things look bad for Longchamp.”

Silversleeves was assiduous. By midsummer, the aldermen had been receiving hints that their campaign was working. And now, just days before, at the Michaelmas Exchequer, had come the wondrous news.

“Everything!” Bull had cried in triumph to his friends. “Everything we wanted. The king’s new taxation completely abolished. The farm back at the low rate. Two sheriffs of our own choice.” To Silversleeves he solemnly announced, “London is in your debt, Master Silversleeves.” And then, to the clerk’s further, anxious enquiry, “Why should London support John when we have such a friend as Longchamp?”

So it was fortunate, now, for Silversleeves’s peace of mind that he was not at the meeting in the house near the London Stone, and therefore did not hear the leader of the group, after congratulating Bull, announce with a bland smile to his colleagues:

“And now my friends, as to the next step, all we need to do is wait.”

For news had reached him that very day that King Richard the Lionheart had finally left the Continent and had set sail on the distant Mediterranean Sea, beyond any chance of recall.

Adam’s mother never heard from her relations at Windsor again. Despite all they had said, none of the family ever came to London, which meant that she never received any money. After more than a year had passed and no word had come, she had promised herself that she would go down there the following year to look into the matter. Or perhaps, she thought, the year after that. It was a long way.

When Adam was five she told him: “Your father had some strips of land in a village. We’re supposed to get something from them.” It meant nothing to the little boy then, and in time, as his mother let the business lapse, he would forget it entirely.

David Bull’s sickness returned that autumn. He suddenly became so pale and thin that his father was seriously worried. “We Bulls are never ill,” he said firmly; but the boy only seemed to get worse. Everything was tried, including Mabel’s herbal cures; and for a time, whether thanks to the herbs or Brother Michael’s prayers, he appeared to rally. The month of December passed. But then in January, the illness came back.

First it had snowed, then become bitter cold; the streets of London turned to ice; they sprinkled cinders in the lanes. And each day, wearing thick boots, the monk crunched sadly down to the house by St Mary-le-Bow. Not all Sister Mabel’s herbs could save the fifteen-year-old David Bull, it seemed, and even the tough merchant shook his head with tears in his eyes and said to his brother: “It seems that our family is finished.” By the end of the month, as the boy lay like a pale ghost in the chamber, Ida told him: “Fight, David. Remember, I’m going to find you a noble wife.” But to Brother Michael she whispered: “I love him as my own; but there are only your prayers now between him and death.”

Day by day Brother Michael prayed. More than once, he found his brother, head bowed in misery, kneeling by his side. Sometimes David watched dully, sometimes he slept. Each day, the monk thought, close as he was to giving up, there remained in the boy a tiny strand, like the thinnest ray of sunlight, that persisted, and it was upon this, always, that he tried to concentrate his attention. If only poor David’s pale, thin frame could somehow be brought to stand in the shaft of light; if he could feel its warmth bathing his whole body: if I could just accomplish that, the monk thought, then I believe he would either fly like an angel up to heaven, or be cured.

If young David were to die, therefore, the least he could do was try to prepare him. This turned out to be easier than he had thought. For whether it was because he feared death or was prompted by the monk’s spiritual presence, several times, as he sat with him, the boy had seemed eager to talk. He asked about heaven and hell and the Devil. One day he wanted to know: “If my soul seeks God, then why does it love the world, which is so far from heaven? Does that mean the Devil has taken me over?”

“Not exactly,” the monk told him. “Worldly desires, the desires of kings, and courts, the lust for riches, even the love of woman –” and for a moment he thought of Ida – “these are in truth only a perversion of your desire for eternal things. They are the worldly illusion of that far greater court, the court of God.”

“If so, then why should I fear to leave this Earth?” David asked.

“You should not, if you are ready and have served God,” the monk replied.

“I should have liked to have gone on crusade,” the boy said with a sigh. “But as it is, I have done nothing.”

A day later, he asked the monk about his own life. What had led him to a religious house? “A sense of vocation, I suppose,” Brother Michael answered. “Which just meant,” he explained truthfully, “that I no longer wanted anything but to be closer to God.” But the boy did not reply to this, seeming very weak. Yet he held on to life, day by day. A week later, it began to grow a little warmer. Still David clung to life, and still his uncle prayed.

Then, one day, for no reason he could explain, Brother Michael knew that the boy would live. He confided it to Ida, who was so moved that she kissed him. That morning, as he returned from the house, on a little patch of grass he saw a snowdrop growing by St Paul’s.

It was in the middle of February that Sister Mabel finally understood the meaning of her vision. She had once again revisited the curate at St Lawrence Silversleeves; despite getting nowhere in several attempts to persuade the Exchequer clerk to help the poor family, she was doing the best she could for them herself. She had decided to pay young David Bull a visit after this, and, in her usual cheerful way, had stomped up to the Bulls’ hall and walked in through the door when she saw them sitting together near the window. In that instant she perceived the truth.

There was no demon this time: just three very human figures. The boy was at the table with a handsome book before him. Brother Michael, sitting quietly beside him and guiding the boy’s hand over the complex calligraphy, was explaining a difficult passage of Latin. Ida, opposite, was not touching the saintly monk, but was looking at him with adoration. And now, gazing with horror at the three of them Mabel realized the unnatural love which was growing and which would catch them unawares.

She gave young David some medicine, then departed, and wondered what to do. She prayed, yet got no guidance. And then, meeting the monk in the cloister that evening, she told him bluntly: “You must beware, Brother Michael, of an unnatural love.”

It was rare indeed for Brother Michael to be angry, but just for a moment he was tempted. Yet then, remembering Mabel’s own attempt one Christmas night to lead him astray in this very cloister, the kindly monk had compassion. She was jealous, he realized, but what good would it do to throw that in her face? As for his feelings for Ida, he was confident enough.

“We all have to be careful,” he rebuked her gently. “I assure you that I am. But I think, Sister Mabel, that you should not say this to me again.”

Then he left her; and poor Mabel could only return to her cell and pray again.

JUNE
1191

The nightmare had begun. It was even worse than Pentecost had imagined.

Prince John had done his work well. At the start of the year, Silversleeves reckoned, there had not been a baron in England with any kind of grudge against the chancellor, who had not become John’s friend. Then, in the spring, John had begun to move.

First it was one of the southern castles that he claimed was his; then an important northern sheriff refused to obey the chancellor; then, in March, a messenger had arrived in London with still more ominous news: “John’s seized the castle of Nottingham.” It was one of the most powerful strongholds in the Midlands. “He’s gone hunting in Sherwood Forest as if he were king already,” it was said. Since then there had been constant rumours. John himself was moving about the kingdom, collecting supporters from half the shires. One of the barons was amassing a dangerous force on the borders of Wales. Indeed, in the city they were asking only two questions: “Will the chancellor face down the brother of the king?” and “Will John attack London?”

Silversleeves gazed at the scene before him. In front of the Tower a small army of men had been set to work. Already they had hastily erected a new and quite impressive-looking wall around the Tower precincts. They had also dug a huge ditch outside that. But as he studied these constructions, Pentecost could only feel discouraged. Longchamp might be a talented administrator, but as one of the workmen had remarked to the clerk, “He’s not a castle-builder.” Even Pentecost could see that the foundations of the wall were too shallow, its masonry too thin to withstand a proper attack. As for the ditch, it was meant to be a moat, but when Longchamp had tried to flood it a few days before it had been a disaster. At present it contained nothing more daunting than an inch or two of mud. Only the week before, as if in preparation for a more serious disturbance, there had been a small riot in the East Cheap. It had been put down easily enough, but Pentecost suspected John’s agents might have been behind it.

Would London stay loyal to the chancellor? God knew he had given the Londoners all they wanted. Yet he was so tactless. The previous month his hasty works at the Tower had destroyed a fruit garden belonging to one of the aldermen. “But he left me to go and apologize,” Silversleeves had complained.

“London is still loyal to the king, whether they like Longchamp or not,” Bull had promised him.

But then where was King Richard now? Was he somewhere on the dangerous seas or in the Holy Land? Was he even alive? Nobody knew. If only there were some word from the Lionheart.

That spring had been a strange time for Brother Michael. All around him, the world seemed threatening. The crusader king was far away. Who knew what his brother John was up to? And yet, by some wonderful alchemy, Brother Michael was happy. For David Bull was getting well again.

Often now, he and Ida would take the boy for a walk. At first David could only manage a few steps. But by late March he and the wiry monk were walking so vigorously that Ida would declare with a laugh: “You two boys go off together. I can’t keep up with you.”

Once, on a warm late April day, as they were passing the Aldwych, where some bold youths were diving into the Thames from the bank, David suddenly surprised his uncle by running down, stripping, and diving in too. Though he shouted to him to stop, Brother Michael could not help feeling joy at seeing his body, slim and elegant, but strong and healthy once again. Afraid that he might still catch chill though, the monk had dried him vigorously and, after a scolding, put his arm round him to keep him warm as they walked briskly home.