London (70 page)

But Dame Barnikel was happiest of all when she was brewing ale, and sometimes she would let young Ducket watch her. Having bought the malt – “it’s dried barley,” she explained – from the quays, she would mill it up in the little brewhouse loft. The crushed malt would fall into a great vat which she topped up with water from a huge copper kettle. After germinating, this brew was cooled in troughs, before being poured into another vat.

And now the real miracle began, as Dame Barnikel approached with a wooden bucket of yeast. “God-is-Good, we call it,” she explained. For the yeast caused fermentation, producing froth and – this was the miracle – more yeast. “We sell it to the bakers,” she said, “whenever we brew.” And often the apprentice would see her, growling contentedly to herself as she breathed the thick, rich aroma from the frothing vat and spooned the yeast in, murmuring: “Manna from heaven. God-is-Good.” Dame Barnikel’s rich barley ale was renowned.

As for his master’s daughter, he liked the quiet girl, but for the first two years he was in the household they had not spent much time together. He, after all, was a humble apprentice and she a shy, eleven-year-old girl. In the last year however, since Carpenter had come into her life and she had gained self-confidence, their relationship had grown into an easy friendship; and the three of them would often walk out to Clapham or Battersea together, or go swimming in the river on a warm summer afternoon. And if recently he had noticed that she was really not bad-looking, he had not troubled to think much about it.

It was on a pleasant day, shortly after the Parliament had ended, that he accompanied Amy and Carpenter on an excursion, to Finsbury Fields, a pleasant stretch of drained ground just outside the city’s northern wall, where the Londoners practised archery.

Although the first, rudimentary firearms had just begun to be seen, English weaponry still meant the massed longbows, made of best English yew wood, which had wrought such devastation at Crécy and Poitiers. The Londoners had a formidable contingent of bowmen, of whom Carpenter hoped to be one. Ducket watched with interest therefore, as Carpenter took up his position, bow in hand, arm extended, back straight and waited eagerly for him to loose the first arrow.

But nothing happened. The stocky fellow just stood there, perfectly still. When Ducket asked, “Aren’t you going to shoot?”, he only answered: “Later.” And after a further pause, seeing Ducket puzzled, he said quietly: “Pull my arm.”

With a shrug, Ducket did so. But to his surprise, the arm remained rigid. He pulled again: still nothing. And, strong though he was, the boy found that short of knocking him down, he was utterly unable to break the bowman’s position.

“How do you do that?” he asked.

“Practice,” Carpenter replied. “And patience.” And when Ducket asked how long he could stand like that, he said: “An hour.”

“You try,” Amy suggested. But after a couple of minutes Ducket began to fidget, and soon he could stand it no more. “I’m off,” he said. When he looked back, Carpenter was still there, perfectly still, with Amy sitting on the ground, watching him admiringly.

He was rather surprised, returning to the George, to find Dame Barnikel, arms impressively folded, waiting for him. “I want to talk to you,” she began. She fixed him with a baleful look. “How do you think young fellows like you get a start in life?”

“Hard work,” he suggested, but this elicited only a snort.

“Time you grew up. They marry the master’s daughter, of course. Bed,” she suddenly roared. “That’s where it all gets done. Get in the right bed and you’re set up for life.” Even now, Ducket was not sure what she meant, but her next words left him in no doubt. “Do you really think I’m going to pass all this,” she waved at the George, “to that moonfaced little Carpenter? Do you think I want him to marry my daughter?”

“I think she likes him,” he offered.

“Never you mind. You just get in there,” she ordered. “You take that girl from him. Don’t you take no for an answer, if you know what’s good for you.” And she stomped off, leaving Ducket uncertain what he should do next.

If there was one matter about which Bull felt he could congratulate himself, it was the upbringing of his daughter. With her fluffy hair and her soft but bright eyes, Tiffany was such a pretty little thing that she almost compensated for his lack of a son.

Tiffany was eleven when she was told it was time to think of a husband. It happened on her father’s birthday, one sunny afternoon in June. It was the first time she had been dressed as a grown-up.

Her mother, who had looked rather tired of late, had brightened as she took this business in hand. First she slipped a silk undergown over the girl’s head; this had close-fitting sleeves with silk-covered buttons all the way from elbow to wrist. On top went an embroidered gown of blue and gold that brushed the floor. Then, despite her protests, she parted Tiffany’s dark hair in the middle, pulled it very tight, made two plaits which she then wound and pinned into circles over her ears. “And now you look like a young woman,” she said with pride. The effect was simple and charming. And though Tiffany had no breasts to speak of yet, and was quite small, as she saw the effect in her mother’s little silver hand-mirror, she smiled with pleasure. The outer gowns had slits like pockets at the hips, and as she slipped her small hands into these, between the soft silks, it made her feel deliciously feminine.

A large company had gathered at the house. There were several prominent mercers. Young Whittington had come. At Tiffany’s request, Ducket too, neatly dressed in a clean, simple linen shirt, had also been invited. Chaucer could not be there since he had an appointment at court, but he had come by in the morning with a present that had given Bull huge delight.

There was also one other couple, whom she had never seen before: a young man and a nun. The nun, she learned, was named Sister Olive and came from the convent of St Helen’s, a small but fashionable religious house just inside the city’s northern wall, where rich families often placed their unmarried daughters. Sister Olive had a pale face and a long nose; when she smiled, it was with becoming piety; her large, soft eyes were modestly downcast. Her companion was her cousin, a pale, long-nosed and serious young man called Benedict Silversleeves. Both, it seemed, were distant kinsfolk of Tiffany’s mother. The girl found them rather intriguing.

If at first she felt a little shy in her adult dress, she was soon put at ease. Whittington came over and made much of her; Ducket gazed with a frank admiration that greatly pleased her. Several of the merchants and their wives came to talk to her. She was rather flattered too when Sister Olive came across the room, raised her brown eyes, composed her mouth into a demure smile and told her that the dress was very becoming. “But you must talk to my cousin Benedict,” the nun then said. And before the girl knew what was happening, she found herself being gently led across the room. It made her blush for a moment, for she had never spoken to a strange young man before, in these new, adult circumstances. More unnerving still, it seemed he was important. An old London family, a student of law, destined to go far: the nun had imparted all this information before they even reached him. “And of course,” she added quietly, “he is pious.”

She was relieved, therefore, when the young man made himself pleasant. His expression towards her was grave, but very courteous. He spoke of the latest city affairs, of the rapidly deteriorating health of the old king, of things she would know about, asked her opinion and seemed to value it. She felt flattered and grown-up. She decided, looking at him, that, if his nose was long, it gave him a certain solemn distinction; his dark eyes were intelligent, if a little mysterious. His tunic and hose were black and of the very best Flemish cloth. She did not quite know if she liked him, but she had to admit that his manner, if a little formal, was faultless. After a while, he politely excused himself and went over to talk to her mother about the merits of certain shrines.

But the highlight of the party, which Bull soon called them to inspect, stood on the table in the centre of the room. This was the present he had been given that morning. “And trust clever Chaucer,” Bull cried in delight, “to think of such a thing.” Indeed Tiffany had never even seen such an article before.

It was a curious object. The main component was a circular brass plate, about fifteen inches in diameter, with a hole in the middle through which there was a pin. On the edge of the plate, at the top, was a ring so that the plate could be held up or hung, and on the back was a sighting device by which the user could measure the angle of objects in the heavens. There were also a number of discs that could be fitted into place over the pin on the front side. Both sides were covered with lines, calibration marks, numbers and letters which, to Tiffany, looked like so many signs of magic.

“It’s an astrolabe, and its object,” Bull proudly explained, “is to read the sky at night.” He began to show them how it worked. But after a minute or two, while his listeners tried to follow, he too began to become confused by the intricate lines and after a while, shaking his head with a laugh, he confessed: “I’ll have to take lessons, I’m afraid. Can any of you do better?”

Benedict Silversleeves stepped forward. He spoke in a quiet, rather dry voice, but so simply and clearly that even Tiffany found that she could follow every word. He explained how, depending upon where you stood on the surface of the Earth, and upon the time of year, you would see a different segment of the heavenly spheres above.

“And the astrolabe, which was known to Ptolemy in ancient times,” he said, “is like a moving map.”

He showed easily how, by taking sightings and reading the marks on the astrolabe, you could select which of the discs should be fitted over the pin on to the front plate, and how each disc carried a diagram of the constellations as seen at a different latitude and season. He even showed how, using the astrolabe, you could not only identify the stars above but follow the sun and the planets through their courses. Dry though his delivery was, it seemed to the girl that she could almost hear the geometric music of the spheres.

“And so,” he concluded, with quiet propriety, “by this little brass disc, and some mathematics, we may discern the still greater motion of the
Primum Mobile
, and the hand of God Himself.”

The whole company applauded. Even Bull, though he had not at first much liked the look of the young lawyer, could not fail to be impressed by such luminous intelligence, and later, when the party broke up, he invited him to call again.

That evening, after the company had gone, he was still in an expansive mood when he turned to Tiffany and remarked: “I’ve been wondering, Tiffany, to whom we should marry you.”

In fact, he had already thought about it many times. “In an ideal world,” he had told his wife, “I’d have been happy to see her marry one of Chaucer’s children. But as he’s only just started a family, that’s no good.” He had dropped broad hints to young Whittington, but the rumour was, alas, that the young man had another prospect in mind. Socially, he would have been glad of a knight. “But not a fool.”

Now, gazing affectionately at his docile wife and obedient daughter and, without thinking about what he was saying, Gilbert Bull expansively remarked:

“I want you to think about it Tiffany, but I shall never force you. The choice will be yours. You may marry whomever you wish.”

It was not a concession many fathers in his position would have given. Though, so impressed had he been by the performance with the astrolabe that he could not resist adding casually: “You might do worse, I dare say, than consider young Silversleeves.”

Not everyone was so impressed. As the guests made their way out on to London Bridge, that evening, Whittington turned to Ducket, and pointed at the lawyer who was walking a little way in front of them.

“I hate that fellow,” he remarked.

“Why?” asked Ducket, who had felt, rather humbly, that the clever young man belonged in a different world from his own.

“I’ve no idea,” Whittington snorted. “But he’s no good.” At the end of the bridge, as Silversleeves turned left towards St Paul’s, he hissed in a whisper the lawyer could not fail to hear. “Why doesn’t someone clear up St Lawrence Silversleeves? It stinks.” Benedict Silversleeves, however, did not turn to look at them. “Humbug,” Whittington muttered.

If the thought of her future husband occupied Tiffany’s thoughts, she was not sure quite what to do about it. In the coming months she and her girl friends would sit in the big window overlooking the waters of the Thames that rushed under the bridge, and discuss the merits of all the men they knew. One boy they all wanted to marry.

Shortly after Bull’s birthday, Edward III had finally died, and the Black Prince’s ten-year-old son Richard was proclaimed king; with his uncle John of Gaunt as his loyal guardian.

“He’s the same age as us,” the girls all said. Young Richard was undeniably handsome. His features were clear-cut; his bearing, even at such a young age, was gracious. If he was opinionated, only those closest to him knew it. “And his eyes,” one girl said with a rapturous sigh, “look sad.” They had all seen him. But how to meet him?

Kings did not marry merchants’ daughters however, even if they had a fine house on London Bridge. “Perhaps your father will find you someone you like,” Tiffany’s mother said soothingly. But though Tiffany did not object, she remembered his promise. “He said I could choose,” she said meekly.

Ever since he had joined Fleming, Ducket had kept his word to Tiffany and called to see her every week. Sometimes they would sit in the kitchen with the cook, but if the weather was fine they would go out. One bright October day that year, they went to see Chaucer.

Ducket had seen more of his godfather recently for Chaucer had a new position nowadays, that kept him in London. He was Comptroller of Wool Customs.

The London Customs House was a huge, barn-like building that stood on the wharf between Billingsgate and the Tower. The royal regulations that covered all wool exports insisted that they only pass through certain ports – this was the great Staple organization of England. And the Staple port of London was one of the greatest. On any day, hundreds of sacks of wool would arrive there to be checked, weighed and paid for. And only when duty had been paid would they be tagged and stamped with the royal seal, supervised by Chaucer himself before being loaded and allowed to proceed downstream. Ducket enjoyed visiting Chaucer here, watching the men hauling the sacks to the weigh-beam, as the wool-fluff, which always covered the great wooden floor, constantly stirred. Chaucer would show him the endless sheets of parchment on which he and his clerks kept the records – “just like the Exchequer,” he explained – and the strongboxes where the money was kept. Once, soon after he had seen the astrolabe at Bull’s, and asked his godfather – “What exactly is this
Primum Mobile
that makes the universe turn?” – Chaucer had laughed and answered: “Wool.” For despite the increase in clothmaking, the mainstay of England’s economy, on which, ultimately, all the trades of London depended, was still the vast export of raw wool to the Continent of Europe.