London

by Edward Rutherfurd

  As for Bull’s family, his mother appeared to be a kindly, pious old woman, but was obviously not in the habit of talking much. The boy, David, who stared at her so shyly, seemed a much better prospect. She could see at once that he was a brave, frank fellow who must be lonely. When she gently said she was sorry he had lost his mother and hoped he would let her try to take her place, she saw his eyes moisten, and she was touched.

  The surprise was Brother Michael. How amazing that the blunt merchant should have such a relation. She looked into Michael’s kindly, intelligent eyes and liked him at once. Time had wrought a fineness in his face. She discerned his purity. Having always admired religious men and found herself attracted to them, she went up to him and begged him to come and visit her very soon, causing the monk to blush.

  But she still had to sleep with the merchant, and here Sampson Bull was clever. He knew very well Ida’s feelings for him and her repugnance for the marriage, but was not discouraged. He saw it as a challenge. When, therefore, they were alone in the bedchamber and it was the hour when she must submit to him, he took his time. This first night, Ida, conscious of her new station and that the boy was in a chamber nearby, let the merchant do what he must in silence. The second night, bathed in a sweat, she bit her lip. The third, despite herself, she cried out with pleasure. Later, asleep, she was not aware that the merchant, looking down at her pale body with a certain grim amusement, murmured gently: “Now, my lady, you’ve really been disparaged.”

  On the morning of 3 September 1189, King Richard I of England was crowned in Westminster Abbey. The coronation had one unusual feature. The gallant crusading king, having suddenly developed a fear that the sacred rites might somehow be polluted or endangered by witchcraft, had the day before ordered that the coronation was to take place in an atmosphere of particular purity.

  “No Jews or women are to be admitted to the service.”

  Brother Michael hesitated. He told himself it was because of the boy. Why had he promised to raise the matter of the crusade? He knew it was futile, and it would only make his brother furious.

  Relations between the brothers had improved in recent years. If Sampson was still irreverent, he seemed to have reconciled himself to his brother’s life. A little before she died, his mother had summoned Michael and placed a considerable sum in his hands. “I want you to use it, on behalf of the family, but for religious purposes,” she had told him. “It grieves me that your brother Sampson is still a lost soul, but you of course I can trust. Keep it until you know what to do, and I’m sure God will guide you.” For some years he had remained the guardian of this money, and it gave him pleasure to think that when he was sure what to do, he would be able to make use of it. Michael had half expected his brother to protest, but when the alderman had heard, he had only laughed. When Bull’s wife had died a year ago, and Brother Michael had visited almost every day to keep his and David’s spirits up, Bull had one day given him an apologetic look and remarked: “I must say, Brother, you’ve behaved uncommonly well.” No, he really did not want to have an argument now.

  But there was something else.

  It was nearly twenty years since his brother’s crude challenge, yet the words still came back to him: “I don’t even believe you can keep your stupid vows.” But he had. Was it so difficult? His vow of poverty had been easy, of course; there was no wealth at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. Obedience, too, had been easy enough. And chastity? That had been harder. He had been tempted by women, especially in the beginning. But with time the practice of celibacy had become not only a habit but a comfortable one. His work had brought him joy. I believe, he had thought to himself when he passed the age of forty, that I am safe. So why, now, did he hesitate at the door of his brother’s house? Was it some instinct warning him of danger?

  The coronation had taken place without interruption. Sampson Bull had attended the service in Westminster Abbey; then, while King Richard feasted with his court in Westminster Hall, the rich merchant had returned home for a more modest meal, to which he had invited his brother.

  The conversation was cheerful. Though several times Brother Michael saw his nephew staring at him anxiously, he was in no hurry; and he found his gaze returning to Ida. What did she make of this marriage to his coarse brother? Could she be happy? It was hard to know what she was thinking, he decided. Only when the meal was nearly over, and he could not put it off any longer, did he finally broach the subject of the crusade. And held his breath.

  To his surprise, however, Bull showed no sign of anger. Instead, he leaned back, closed his eyes for a few moments and smiled.

  In truth, Bull had half expected it. The crusading fever was at its height. He knew that boys of David’s age often conceived a passion for religion that usually passed, and if the boy had a desire for adventure, so much the better. Opening his eyes again, therefore, he remarked: “So you want to go to the Holy Land.” Then, turning back to the monk, he mildly enquired: “Are you so anxious, Brother, that this boy should die?”

  Brother Michael flushed. “Of course not.”

  “Yet many who go to the Holy Land,” the merchant truly observed, “do not return.” The monk was silent. “But you want the boy to save his soul? Which is hard to do in London, I suppose.”

  The merchant sighed. How was it, he often wondered, that men ran after ideals and ignored reality? Some who went on crusade were honest pilgrims, some were seeking adventure, some profit. Many would never even reach the Holy Land, dying first of disease or even, as with the last crusade, fighting other Christians. Nearly all would be ruined. Where, in all this, was the ideal? Lost in the journey.

  It was at just this moment that young David gained an unexpected ally. The more Ida saw him, the more she liked the boy. The thought of losing him on a dangerous crusade horrified her, but as the daughter of a knight she understood him. Only the day before he had confided his secret to her, and when she had replied, “You’re rather young,” and seen him flush with shame, she had cursed herself. Now, therefore, she calmly intervened:

  “I think you should let him go.” It was the first time she had crossed her husband. She wondered what would happen.

  Bull did not respond at once, frowning while he considered how to deal with this new development. Finally he observed with a trace of cruelty, “You were sold against your will, madam, because of a crusade, yet you still support them?”

  “It’s the principle that matters,” she proudly replied. Then, very calmly, she smiled at Brother Michael.

  How beautiful she was, he thought, how noble. With her pale white face, her large brown eyes, how sublimely above this merchant’s house she was. He noticed with approval that young David was also gazing at her admiringly.

  It was seeing their admiration that tempted Ida to make a foolish mistake, for now, turning to her husband with a trace of contempt, she remarked: “But since it concerns principles, you would not understand.”

  Deserved or not, it was an insult, and at once she realized she had gone too far. For a moment Bull was silent. Then he began to redden.

  “No,” he replied dangerously, “I wouldn’t.” She saw the veins beginning to stand out on his forehead. She noticed Brother Michael and David looking anxiously at each other. With a little tremor of fear, she realized that she was about to experience for the first time the merchant’s famous temper. Who knew what might have happened next if, at this moment, a servant had not burst into the hall, knocking over a pitcher of wine in his haste, and cried out: “Master! There’s a riot!”

  Men were running through the streets. Brother Michael made his way swiftly along the West Cheap and up Ironmonger Lane, from where he could hear shouts. One of the timber and thatch houses had been set alight. He found the dead body of a man lying in the street. Then he came to them.

  There were about a hundred – men, women and children. Some were ruffians, but he saw two respectable merchants he knew, also some apprentices, a tailor’s wife and a pair of young clerks. They
were breaking down the door of a house. Someone had just thrown a lighted torch on to the roof, and a rough voice was crying out, “Round the back. Don’t let him get away.” When he asked one of the merchants what was happening, the man replied: “They attacked the king at Westminster. But don’t worry, Brother. We’ll get them.”

  It was the Jews.

  The London riot of 1189 began as a simple, stupid mistake. While Richard and his knights were feasting, the leaders of the Jewish community had, with the best intentions, arrived at Westminster Palace to make a presentation to the new king. Since women and Jews had been forbidden to attend the coronation, the men at the door mistook this for some kind of attack and started shouting. Some hot-blooded courtiers rushed out, swords drawn. They struck. Several Jews fell. The commotion spread, and within the hour men were gathering in the city.

  It did not take much to start a riot. In this case, as the whole city was in a fever for the Lionheart’s crusade, the excuse was obvious.

  “What’s the use of a crusade if we let these foreign infidels live off the fat of the land right here in London?” the merchant now demanded angrily. Turning around, he shouted: “It’s a crusade, lads. Kill the infidels!”

  It was at exactly this moment that the Jew came out of his house. He was an elderly man with pale blue eyes, a narrow face, and a long grey beard. He wore a black cloak. As he looked at the mob before his door, he shook his head in disgust and mumbled a prayer. It would not save him.

  A roar went up. The crowd surged forward.

  Only then did Brother Michael realize who the old man was. It was Abraham, the Jew who had sold his brother the Bocton estate.

  It did not take Brother Michael long to decide. It seemed to him there was nothing else to do. He rushed forward. The crowd, seeing he was a monk, let him through and a moment later he was standing beside the old man, his hand raised as though to restrain them.

  “Well, Brother,” a voice cried, “will you kill him, or shall we?”

  “No one shall kill him,” he shouted. “Go home.”

  “Why not?” they cried. “Isn’t it right to kill an infidel?”

  “Yes, Brother,” he heard the merchant’s voice. “Tell us why?”

  And for a moment, to his own surprise, he could not remember.

  Of course his humanity told him it was wrong, but that would not protect the old man now. Wasn’t all Christendom supposed to fight the unbelievers, Muslim, Jew and heretic alike? What was the proper reply? Stumped for a moment, he looked helplessly at the old man, who softly murmured: “We’re waiting, Brother.”

  Then, thanks be to God, it came to him. The great monk Bernard of Clairvaux, that indefatigable founder of monasteries, the man who had inspired the previous crusade and who all Christendom declared a saint, Bernard himself had formulated the doctrine concerning Jews:

  It is written that at the last the Jews also shall be converted to the true faith. If, however, we kill them, then they cannot be converted.

  “The blessed Bernard himself said the Jews must not be harmed,” he shouted. “For they are to be converted.” Triumphantly he smiled at the old man.

  The crowd hesitated. The two men could feel its mood in the balance. Then, glancing up for a second to heaven, Brother Michael did something he had never done before. “In any case,” he shouted, “it makes no difference. I know this man. He has converted already.” And before anyone could think of anything to say, he seized the old man by the arm, pushed him through the hesitating crowd, and marched him down the street, not even looking back until they had crossed into the West Cheap.

  “You lied,” Abraham remarked.

  “I’m sorry.”

  The old man shrugged. “I’m Jewish,” he said wryly. “I shall never forgive you.” Which, though Brother Michael did not understand it, was a bitter Jewish joke.

  They were not safe yet, however. The mob behind, now doubtless looting Abraham’s house, might change its mind, and there would be other mobs about too. Thinking quickly, the monk told Abraham: “I’ll take you to my brother’s house.”

  But here again he was due for a shock. Encountering Bull, who was standing by St Mary-le-Bow in the company of Pentecost Silversleeves he explained what he wanted, only to be told by the merchant, “Sorry. I don’t want my house burned down. He must go elsewhere.”

  “But you know him. You got Bocton from him. He could be killed otherwise,” Brother Michael protested.

  Bull was adamant. “Too risky. Sorry.” And he turned his back.

  To the monk’s surprise, it was Pentecost Silversleeves who solved the problem. “We shall take him to the Tower,” he announced. “The Jews are being protected there by the constable. Come on,” and he started to lead them in that direction. When, however, Brother Michael remarked that the Exchequer clerk at least showed some humanity, Silversleeves gave him a bland look. “You don’t understand,” he remarked coolly. “I’m protecting him because the Jews are chattels of the king.”

  Not all the king’s Jewish chattels were so lucky. There were numerous assaults, and the mobs also, naturally, looted the houses of these rich foreigners. Before long, as news of the London riot spread, other towns started similar atrocities, the worst of which took place in York, where a substantial congregation was burned alive. King Richard was furious and had the perpetrators severely punished, but the London riot of September 1189, the first of its kind in England, was to mark the start of a gradual erosion of the Jewish community’s position that would have tragic consequences for a hundred years.

  For Brother Michael, however, the image that remained, hauntingly, in his mind from that day was not of the angry mob, nor even of Abraham.

  It was of a pale, proud face, a pair of large, dark brown eyes, and a long white neck.

  If Sister Mabel kept cheerful, it was partly because early that year an important new interest had been added to her own life. She had a child.

  Not of her own, but as near as she could get.

  Sister Mabel never did things by half. When Simon the armourer suddenly died, leaving a widow and an infant son, she not only comforted the mother, she virtually adopted the little boy. As it happened that her brother the fishmonger had young children, she arrived at his house one day with the little fellow in her arms and announced, “Here’s a playmate for our babies.” The boy’s name was Adam. With his webbed hands and his white tuft, the Barnikel family soon dubbed him ‘little duck’, or ‘ducket’, and before long Adam Ducket he became.

  Mabel was delighted with the arrangement. Hardly a day went by without her finding some cause to visit Adam and his mother, and indeed, the widow was glad enough of her assistance. “For his two daughters from his first wife,” she explained to Mabel, “are both married and they aren’t interested in us. That’s for sure.”

  In other ways, though, the widow was lucky. Many of London’s humbler craftsmen owned little more than the tools of their trade, but whilst the armoury itself had been taken by a new master, Simon had left his widow a tiny, four-room house by Cornhill, and through letting out two of the rooms and working hard as a sempstress, she could get by.

  There was also the other inheritance. It was on this account that, thanks to Mabel, a small event now took place which was to have quite unforeseen consequences for the Ducket family. It concerned the little parcel of land at Windsor.

  His widow had never understood why Simon had continued to hold these few acres, which yielded little return, but no subject had been closer to his heart. “My father had them, and his before,” he used to declare. “They say we were there in the days of good King Alfred.” To him the importance of this ancestral link was self-evident. Each year he had ridden the twenty miles to pay his rent and arrange with his now distant cousins, still serfs, alas, to work the land for him. Just before he died he had made her promise: “Never give up our land. Keep it for Adam.”

  “But what am I to do about it?” she asked Mabel. “How would I even get there to make the arrangemen
ts?” Her answer came when Mabel appeared at Cornhill one morning with a small horse and cart belonging to her brother. “It smells of fish a bit,” Mabel remarked, “but it’ll do. You go to Windsor. We’ll look after the baby while you’re gone.” And so Adam’s mother set out to secure his inheritance.

  She reached the hamlet on the second day. The place had changed little since the Domesday survey. She had no difficulty in recognizing her husband’s kin, for as soon as she arrived, she saw a fellow in the lane with a white patch in his hair just like her husband’s. And if, at first glance, she thought the fellow looked a little shifty, her fears were soon set to rest when he not only turned out to be the head of the family, but that very evening offered her a solution to her problem. “You don’t want to come out here every year,” he explained. “And there’s no need. We’ll work the land as usual. But from what it yields we’ll settle your rent with the lord’s steward and afterwards one of us will come to London with the balance for you.” He grinned. “I’ve two sons and a daughter who all want to visit London. You’d be doing me a favour if you would let them lodge with you a few days.”

  By the next morning, the whole matter was settled with the steward and the widow was able to return, delighted with the easy way this tiresome business had been taken off her mind.

  For Ida, the month of September passed pleasantly enough. The house of which she was now mistress had been enlarged in recent decades and was now a substantial building. Like most merchant houses, it was constructed of wood and plaster. Bull conducted his business on the ground floor; there was a fine upper floor where the hall and bedchamber were situated; and an attic floor where young David and the servants slept. However, two other features of the building, common to most of the houses in London then, gave the place its character.