London (56 page)

But despite these flashes of high spirits, David was often pensive. He liked to pray with the monk nowadays, and continued to question him about religion. Once or twice, with a sad look, he admitted: “My life has been spared by God: but I’m not sure for what.” And when in May, Ida and Bull went down to Bocton for the month, David, on the excuse that, with the spring revels, this was a pleasant season to be in London, lingered there in the company of his uncle.

Exactly when it was that Brother Michael knew what he must do, he was not afterwards sure. Perhaps he had somehow known it the night after David dived into the Thames; perhaps it was a few nights after Bull and Ida had left, when he had arrived at the house to find the boy at prayer. But one thing he knew: he would not allow the boy to lose his soul. If God had brought David back from death, it must be for a special purpose. No matter what rift it might cause with his brother, he would do his duty. “I shall save him,” he decided.

And then he realized something else. If this was what God had intended, providence had put into his hands exactly the means to make it possible: his mother’s legacy. The circumstances exactly fitted her instructions. The money would be used for the benefit of the family’s religion. “You will know what to do,” she had told him. And now he was sure he did.

In the middle of June he went quietly to Westminster Abbey, requested an interview with the abbot, and made the arrangements.

These suited him very well. Whatever objections he may have had to the life of the Abbey in his youth, they seemed less important now. Ida, he was sure, would feel its noble setting to be appropriate. As for himself, having spent a lifetime in the service of Bartholomew’s, it seemed to him that he had earned a rest. The least he could do was keep an eye on David. Their entrance to the Abbey would be secured, and their comfortable maintenance assured, by the generous donation which Sampson Bull would never have provided. It was, he concluded, providence indeed.

So it was, on a warm May night, when the spring moon was almost full, that with a clear conscience and singing heart Brother Michael went to his nephew and said: “I think you may have a vocation for the religious life. What do you think?” At this remark from the saintly man he so admired, when his own young mind was so uncertain, David could only blush with pleasure and gratefully cry: “Oh yes. I do.”

With a heart flowing with love greater than he had ever known before, good Brother Michael suggested: “If you join the great Abbey of Westminster, I will be there also with you, as your guide.”

In the happy consciousness of these events, saying nothing of his plans to anyone as yet, Brother Michael awaited the return of his brother and Ida. That Bull would be angry he had no doubt. Yet remembering how broken he had been when he had thought his son was lost, it seemed to the monk that perhaps, even at this late stage of his life, the unbelieving merchant’s heart might be softened. After all, he planned to say, Bull could at least be glad he was safe and sound in the monastery nearby – where, God knows, he can always visit him, he thought.

As for Ida, he had no doubt that seeing her stepson safe in the bosom of the Church, she would feel the same joy and gratitude as he. When a message came that they would return in June he waited, half nervous and half expectant, to give them the wonderful news.

“What have you done?”

He had never seen her like this before. Her pale, noble face had become as hard as a knight’s. Her large, brown eyes looked at him with scorn, as if he were an impertinent peasant to be cut down.

“The work of God . . .” he began.

“David a monk? How would he have children?”

“We are all the children of God,” he said, abashed.

“God has no need of my step-son,” she retorted with furious contempt. “He will marry into a noble family.”

He stared at her first in horror, then some anger. “Would you put family pride before God and your son’s happiness?”

But she cut him off abruptly. “Let others be the judge of that, you meddling old virgin,” she suddenly shouted. “Get out of this house and go back to your wretched cripples and your cell.” And, half dazed, poor Brother Michael found himself stumbling out. An hour later, after a rapid conversation with her husband in which they found themselves in the most perfect agreement, Ida left again for Bocton, taking David with her.

Yet the true humiliation of Brother Michael came that afternoon when, sitting in a bemused state in the cloister of St Bartholomew’s, he confessed his troubles to Mabel. “I can’t understand it,” he muttered, shaking his head. Mabel, sorry though she was for him, was also firm. “I tried to warn you,” she said, “about unnatural love.”

Thinking of Ida’s scornful eyes he replied sadly: “I don’t think I’m in love with her any more.”

Mabel frowned. “Her? You mean Ida?”

“Who else?” He looked up in surprise.

“Why, David! The boy. You fell in love with a boy, didn’t you, you naughty old man?” And she gave a chuckle, as though it was amusing.

So stunned was he by this outrageous and revolting proposition that Brother Michael was entirely speechless for a moment or two. Then a great rage welled up in him, but before this could take form in words, like some vast, cold chasm opening before him, into which not only the wave of his anger but the whole of his life seemed suddenly to fall, Brother Michael saw before him the horrible realization that it was true. In his innocence, he had not known.

Bent double with the shame and pain, he got up and left her, and shuffled like an old man to his cell.

Young David Bull completed his recovery at Bocton. He loved the old manor with its sweeping views and went for long walks round the woods and fields with his father. He read knightly tales with Ida who was at her best as mistress of the manor. Perhaps the spirits of his Bull ancestors passed on to him some of their own, solid strength. He had never known such contentment.

Nor it seemed had Ida and his father. The crisis of David’s illness, and Ida’s fury with poor Brother Michael had evidently drawn them together. As they discussed improvements to the old place, inspected the orchard or just sat on a bench in the sun, gazing over the Weald together, they seemed for the first time to have become man and wife. The subject of his father’s merchant outlook was no longer mentioned – unless it was implied when Ida promised to find David a noble wife – and this seemed to amuse the alderman rather than irritate him. And there was so much going on in the wider world that summer that the subject of the monastery was practically forgotten.

The trouble caused by treacherous Prince John seemed to have subsided. In July, the Archbishop of Rouen had concluded a peace between John and Longchamp. England was quiet again. And not only was the crusading King Richard alive and well, but reports in August announced he had married a beautiful princess who, surely, would give him the heir his loyal kingdom needed?

One day Silversleeves came from London to have a talk with the merchant, to which David listened with great interest.

“Was Richard wise to marry this princess?” Bull asked.

“On the whole,” Silversleeves replied, “I think so. She comes from Navarre, you see, which lies just south of his own Aquitaine, so by this alliance, Richard lessens the chance of the French king attacking him from that direction. I’d say it was a sound move.”

David was slightly puzzled by this. He was not a fool, but like his Saxon ancestors he liked things to be clear. Either a man was your friend or your enemy. He could not be both. “But surely,” he asked the Exchequer clerk, “King Richard and the King of France are sworn friends? They are brothers on crusade.”

Silversleeves smiled sadly. Given the vast Plantagenet empire running down France’s western flank, the kings of France and Plantagenet England could never be more than temporary friends. “He’s only Richard’s friend for the moment,” he replied.

David looked sad. “I’d die for King Richard,” he said bluntly. “Wouldn’t you?”

Silversleeves only hesitated a second before smiling and answering, “Of course. I am the king’s man.”

But, a few days later, as he was preparing to return to London, even this conversation was swept from the boy’s mind as another, truly miraculous piece of news arrived – proof, surely, that in this year of the Third Crusade God was sending a message of bright hope to the English and their valiant crusader king.

News had just come from the western abbey of Glastonbury that the monks had discovered the tomb and the remains of King Arthur and his Queen Guinevere in the ancient abbey grounds. Could any sign be clearer, or more wonderful, than that?

There was no more time. It was many years since Pentecost Silversleeves had experienced a state of panic, but now, on the afternoon of 5 October, he was near it. In his left hand was the urgent summons from his master and patron; in his right, another piece of parchment. Both were equally frightening. And both posed the awful question: which way should he jump? Still he hesitated.

The crisis had broken quite unexpectedly in mid-September, and because of it the Michaelmas session of the Exchequer had been moved fifty miles up the Thames to Oxford. But that quiet castle town, with its little community of scholars, brought no peace to Silversleeves now.

The cause of the wretched business was a bastard; the problem, that he had been made Archbishop of York.

It was common enough, of course, for the king’s bastards to be made bishops; it gave them an income and something to do. The appointment of one of King Henry II’s many extra sons as archbishop would not have mattered, except that he was a known collaborator of John’s and had been expressly forbidden to enter England by King Richard.

So when, last month, he had landed at Kent, the chancellor had been right to insist he swear allegiance. When the cunning fellow refused, Longchamp’s mistake had been to throw him in jail.

“The whole thing was a deliberate trap,” Pentecost judged. If so, his master had fallen into it. To John’s delight, there was an outcry. The archbishop, though quickly released, was hailed a martyr, like Becket himself. John and his party had protested, and even now a great council, meeting between Oxford and London, had summoned Longchamp to explain himself. “They mean to get him this time,” Silversleeves moaned.

Yet nothing was certain. Many in the council were suspicious of John. The chancellor still held several castles, including Windsor. The key, as usual, would be London. Which way would the city go? Silversleeves was not surprised, therefore, at the urgent message from his master summoning him to London at once.

But what of the parchment in his other hand?

At first sight it looked like any of a hundred Exchequer records. Until you looked in one corner. For there, nestling inside a large capital letter, was a neatly drawn caricature of the chancellor. It was a work of art, and it was vicious. Longchamp’s heavy features had been accentuated until he looked like a coarse and fleshy gargoyle. His mouth was dripping as if he had eaten more than he could contain. The thing was not just a caricature, it was contemptuous, insulting. And this was the chancellor himself. No Exchequer scribe would dare leave such a thing in the records unless he were sure, very sure, that the chancellor was doomed. “So what does this scribe know that I don’t?” Pentecost wondered aloud.

But the parchment contained something even worse. In the margin beside the capital was a second caricature, this one of a dog that the chancellor was holding on a leash. The face of the dog, with its greedy, slobbering mouth and long nose, was also, alas, unmistakable. It was himself.

So – they thought he was doomed too. If they were right, he should desert his patron now. Quickly and firmly. As an exercise, he quickly went over all the chancellor’s actions. Were there any secret crimes he could denounce if he fled to Longchamp’s enemies? Were there any in which he himself was not implicated? Only two or three, but in an emergency they would have to do. On the other hand, if Longchamp survived this crisis and he had deserted him, Pentecost would have lost all hope of reward, probably for ever. For several agonizing minutes, he considered his future.

Then, carefully taking his knife, he cut away the offensive corner of the parchment and walked out. By evening, he was on his way to London.

On 7 October, at the house by the sign of the Bull, Ida spent the hour around noon quietly. She was glad to do so after the disturbances of the last two days.

First, Longchamp the chancellor had arrived from Windsor with a troop of men the day before. He was in the Tower now, securing the fortifications. Parties of his men were patrolling the streets. Then, this morning, news had come that the council, Prince John, knights and men-at-arms were advancing towards the city and should arrive by evening. “They intend to depose the chancellor,” the messenger reported.

But that might not be so easy. If the city stayed loyal to Richard’s man and closed the gates, there would not be much the council could do. Not that she cared for Longchamp much, but he was loyal to Richard. “And anything,” she remarked to her husband, “is better than that traitor John.” Bull himself had gone out two hours earlier. A meeting of all the aldermen and the greatest men of the city had been called to decide what attitude they should take towards the council. Ida waited anxiously.

And then there was the other matter, which she had not yet told him about.

So when Ida heard someone in the courtyard, it was her husband she was expecting. It was with surprise, therefore, that, a moment later, she saw a different figure entirely.

It was Silversleeves. She had never seen him like this before.

Bull strode rapidly past St Paul’s. He was wearing a cloak of the deepest blue, lined around the collar with ermine. His broad face was set in a bluff expression that gave little away, but his heart was singing. Everything had gone to plan.

The meeting of the aldermen had taken place in a chamber behind closed doors. There had been careful discussion, of course; several strategies had been suggested. But the group of seven had been well prepared. Months of working discreetly on the minds of their colleagues had now come to fruition. Their arguments had been cogent. They knew what to do, and how. The meeting had finally agreed to place everything in their hands, and at this moment a messenger was quietly slipping out through Ludgate.