London (81 page)

“Except that common folk don’t sit around telling stories like lazy courtiers,” Bull remarked.

“Oh, but they do,” his friend responded. “They do it when they travel together. And when do men and women of all conditions travel together, my dear Bull? On this very road.” He laughed aloud. “Pilgrims, Bull. Pilgrims setting out from taverns like the George or the Tabard on their way to Becket’s shrine at Canterbury. I could tell dozens of stories and fit them all together. I shall call it the Canterbury Tales.”

“Wouldn’t it be very long?”

“Yes. It will be my life’s work.”

And it was now, at last, that Bull saw the opportunity to say the thing that had been troubling him.

“If this is going to be the crowning work of your life, my dear friend,” he said, “then will you allow me to beg of you one thing?”

“Of course,” Chaucer smiled. “But what?”

“For the love of God,” the merchant implored him, “don’t let your talent be wasted and all your work be lost.”

“Meaning?”

“Write it in Latin,” Bull cried.

In fact, Bull’s request was perfectly sensible and many would have agreed with him. When Geoffrey Chaucer wrote his verses in English, he was taking a huge risk. For in a sense, the English language did not really exist. True, there were related dialects all over England, but a man from Kent and a man from Northumbria would hardly have understood each other. When a northern monk wrote the tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, or the poet Langland wrote of Piers Ploughman in the countryside, their work, though English, was thick with the Norse alliteration and the desolate echoes of ancient Anglo-Saxon, which sounded rustic and even comical to the courtly Chaucer. Yet what was the language he used? Part Saxon English, part Norman French, full of Latinate words, falling as lightly as a ballad by a French troubadour, Chaucer’s English was the idiom of the court and the better classes in London. Not only that: aristocrats were just as likely to switch to French or learned men to Latin when they conversed. And even London English was constantly changing. “It’s changed since I was a boy,” Bull reminded his friend. “I dare say my own grandchildren will hardly understand your verses. Latin is best,” Bull urged, “because it is eternal.” Men all over Europe read and spoke it and, it could safely be assumed, would always do so. “You are like a man,” Bull said, “throwing himself into a river and swimming when he should be building a noble bridge of stone. Don’t let your life’s work be swept away. Leave a monument, for future generations.” It was sound advice; nor was Chaucer in the least annoyed.

“I’ll think about it,” he said, as they rode upon their way.

Few trading activities are more profitable, and few more hated, than the stratagem of cornering a market. Buy up the entire quantity of any commodity that is in great demand, create an artificial shortage, and sell at a high price. Such operations usually have to be large and involve a ring of merchants. In medieval London, the practice was called “forestalling”. Technically, it was illegal.

Young Geoffrey Bull, formerly Ducket, and Richard Whittington, gentleman mercer, were more subtle.

The situation in which Bull had left them was remarkable. First, they had the use of Bull’s huge business – the rents coming in from properties near the bridge; the exports of wool to Flanders, the imports of cloth; and there were profits from long-standing dealings with the Hansa merchants too. But it was not just the cash at their disposal that was so exciting. It was Bull’s credit. “With this sort of credit,” Whittington remarked, “a man could make huge speculations.”

They did. But the system they operated was entirely of Ducket’s devising. For the unusual feature of Bull’s arrangement was that the two guardians of his fortune came from different guilds – not only that, but from guilds which were, just then, on extremely bad terms. When, therefore, Ducket’s group of grocers purchased a huge quantity of a commodity, and Whittington’s group of mercers bought up most of the rest, those in the marketplace assumed they must be rivals. Cleverer still, the two men were always careful to leave a little so that some of the middling traders could benefit from the rise in prices they were engineering. The two men went for luxury goods whose prices were not regulated and which could not be quickly replaced.

Peppercorns. Furs from the Baltic. An entire cargo of silk from the Orient. In the space of months they had swooped upon each of these – buying up, holding back in warehouses, letting out a little at a time at inflated prices. Between the autumn of 1385 and May 1386, the two men struck five times. By the end of this period, Whittington was a major figure in the Mercers; and Geoffrey Bull, formerly Ducket, was already a rich man in his own right.

It was Tiffany’s idea. “I wouldn’t have had the nerve,” her husband confessed. “We’re doing this behind your father’s back.” But Tiffany was determined.

“Leave Father to me,” she said.

So on a bright afternoon in June 1386 Geoffrey Bull, formerly Ducket, nervously left his house on Oyster Hill and walked westward two hundred yards to the great house known as Coldharbour, whose gardens ran down to the river, and which was the place of business of one of the most awesome officials in the kingdom. “I bet they throw me out,” he muttered, as he entered the forbidding gateway.

If the ten months since Bull’s departure had allowed Geoffrey Bull, formerly Ducket, to make his fortune, his good luck in the last few weeks had almost taken his breath away.

The mighty Grocers Guild controlled the city. The mayor was a grocer, as were key aldermen. Like all successful organizations, its leaders looked to the future. And when they looked at Bull’s son-in-law, they liked what they saw. His recent activities had impressed them. A number of middling members of the guild, who had been part of the ring, had profited nicely. “He is also going to inherit a huge fortune from Bull,” an alderman pointed out. “Who would prefer him to transfer to the Mercers,” someone else reminded them. “Can’t have that,” the alderman said. Like every man concerned with politics or charity, he knew that rich men must be cherished. “Better do something for him, then,” he said.

So it was that Geoffrey Bull, formerly Ducket, found that he had been made an officer of the Grocers Guild – a remarkable feat for a fellow just short of twenty-six years old. Two weeks later, a vacancy having occurred, he found he was also a counsellor for his city ward. “You realize,” Tiffany delightedly told him, “that this is the first step to being an alderman?”

Yet, despite all this good fortune, there was one thing that made him discontented. He felt guilty that it should do so since, he was the first to admit, none of his success could have happened but for his marriage. But all the same, it had rankled. Whatever I do in my life, he thought, I shall always have to call myself Bull. Always Bull. Never Ducket.

Yet it was not he, but Tiffany who had brought it up one day.

“You hate it, don’t you?” she said. He denied it, but she shook her head. “Yes you do.” And then she surprised him. “I hate it, too,” she declared.

It was perfectly true. She was proud of being a Bull, and proud of her fortune. But even so, it had often secretly irritated her that to her friends she was the girl who had married beneath her. Once she had overheard a young woman saying: “Tiffany’s husband? He’s the one with the patch in his hair and the funny hands. The Bulls couldn’t find her a proper husband, so they fished him out of the river.” The words had shocked her. “No,” she had wanted to tell her. “It was he who saved me from the river.” She had wanted to smack the girl’s face, but instead she inwardly resolved: I’ll show you. I’ll show you I have a husband to be proud of, and a better man than yours.

The College of Arms in Coldharbour was an awesome place. The cobblestone courtyard behind the gateway was brushed twice a day. The main building, facing the gate, was of stone below and timber above. Its great oak door was waxed and polished to a discreet glow. And having been admitted by a servant in gorgeous armorial livery, young Geoffrey Bull, formerly Ducket, found himself in a fine hall below whose timbered roof hung the colourful standards of many a knight and lord. After a short wait, a clerk, also in livery, conducted him through two more rooms to a grand, square chamber, in the middle of which, behind a dark table, sat no less a personage than the master of the royal heralds, Richard Spenser, Clarenceaux King of Arms and Earl Marshal of England. He gestured to the young man to state his business, which, after a moment’s nervous hesitation, Geoffrey did.

“I wondered, sir,” he concluded, “if I might have a coat of arms.” And blushed.

A mere merchant, a humble little fellow without even a yard of land to his name, asking for a coat of arms just as if he were a knight, nobly born, of ancient lineage? A tradesman, venturing into the heraldic holy of holies, amongst the banners of barons, earls and Plantagenet princes? Absurd. Intolerable. An outrage.

Except, of course, that in England, it was not so at all.

For just as London merchants could turn into country gentlemen, and the gentry’s younger sons could turn to trade, so in the dignities it awarded, feudal society’s appearances often masked a more practical reality. Even the coveted order of knighthood was not sacrosanct. A century before, Edward I had insisted that rich merchants become knights, so that they would then owe the feudal tax which paid for his army of mercenaries. And in the matter of heraldry, the system was more flexible still.

It was, after all, an artificial invention. Until the joust had become popular in the time of Lionheart, many nobles had never heard of a coat of arms. But it had soon become the fashion. It was colourful, dignified, heroic, even romantic. And as in every sphere of medieval life, steps had been taken to give the new fashion a proper order. Under the heralds, the College of Arms became like a huge, royal guild, with conditions of membership, regulations, and its own mystery – the rules and art of heraldic design. No wonder then that the dignity of arms was eagerly sought. A man with a coat of arms, no matter who he was, secretly felt himself to be one of King Arthur’s knights. His ancestors, however prosaic, became unsung heroes. He and his family, inscribed in the heraldic rolls, joined the immortals.

It was natural that the heralds should recognize the proud men who, even now, still referred to themselves as the barons of London. A mayor or alderman of London was entitled to a coat of arms. Bull had one from his father. An officer of one of the great guilds would merit consideration. When, therefore, the Earl Marshal stared at Geoffrey, he was not outraged, but only surprised.

“You are rather young for such a dignity,” he reasonably pointed out. “But then,” he added, “you are young to have become an officer of the Grocers Guild and a ward counsellor. How did you do it?”

Though he did not mention all his activities with Whittington, Ducket did explain that he had married Bull’s daughter, and advanced because of it. He also admitted his own humble birth. “I suppose I shouldn’t have come,” he said.

“Though your humble birth is against you,” the herald told him, “it is not a bar to your achieving arms. We are more interested in the dignity you have attained. One thing, however,” he continued, “is not clear to me. Are you seeking permission to use the arms of your wife’s family or to establish a new coat of arms of your own?”

“I want to return to using my own name, sir,” he said. “I want a coat of arms for the family of Ducket.” For here was the heart of the matter. Once he had that, not even Bull could take his name away.

The herald looked at him and pondered. The august surroundings of Coldharbour generally produced, even in the proudest merchants, a certain discomfort. He could guess the courage it must have taken Ducket to walk through the door. The young fellow was not, so far as he could see, some cocky little upstart. He seemed to possess humility. Yet one puzzle remained. “Forgive my asking you,” he gently enquired, “but how on earth did you manage to marry the daughter of a rich merchant like Bull?”

So Ducket told him, while the herald stared.

“You dived into the Thames under London Bridge, when it was in full spate?” he queried. “These things can be checked, you know,” he softly warned.

“Yes sir,” the young man replied.

And now the Earl Marshal of England burst into laughter.

“That’s the most splendid thing I’ve heard in years.” And with a smile of approval: “Well, Counsellor Ducket, you certainly seem determined to behave like one of the Knights of the Round Table. We shall have to see what we can do. Go with my clerk now,” he ordered, “and he will explain.”

A few minutes later he found himself in a long, busy room with a work table down the middle, half like a monastic library, half like a sign-painter’s workshop. “Now good Master Ducket,” the clerk began, “you shall see the wonderful mystery of heraldry.”

“First,” the clerk explained, “your arms will have a background colour. Except,” he smiled, “that in heraldry we do not say colour, we say ‘Tincture’.” He pronounced the word in a French manner. “The chief Tinctures are blue, which we call Azure; green, which is Vert; red, Gules; black, Sable; purple, Purpure. There are two metallic tinctures: gold, which is Or, and silver, Argent. We also depict certain furs, the most liked being Ermine.

“This background we call the Field. You can partition the Field with lines – divide it into two halves of four quarters. You can make a chequerboard of it or have bands running across it, which we call bars. Whatever else you add upon it is called a charge. You can have a cross, for instance, or swords, axes, arrows, horseshoes, knots, harps. Here’s a knight who’s chosen a battering ram. Or you can have trees, flowers, stars.”

“What about animals?” Ducket asked.

“Ah,” the clerk beamed. “Yes indeed.” And turning over some great sheets of parchment: “These,” he said contentedly, “are only a few.” Ducket gasped. It was astonishing. There were depictions of lions, leopards, bears, wolves, stags, hares, bulls, swans, eagles, dolphins, serpents. But not only that, each was shown in a variety of different attitudes: rising up on hindlegs (this he learned was Rampant); sitting, crouching, turning; upper half only; head only. The combinations seemed endless. Nearby he noticed another clerk working up a design of two lions rearing up as though about to fight. “Lions Rampant Combatant,” his guide advised. “But you haven’t seen the best of all,” he said, and taking Ducket to another pile of drawings he began to spread them out. “These,” he said fondly, “are the heraldic monsters.”