‘I saw him,’ Reginald agreed. ‘He’s a noticeable type, isn’t he? With those gawky hands and feet he stands out in any crowd. By the way, he’s passing the jug now, and spilling half of it. But that may be nerves. All the same, I wasn’t very taken with him. I saw his face when he was bitten, and it didn’t look pleasant. Then he glanced quickly at you, and swallowed his feelings with an effort. He didn’t harm the hawk, and that’s to his credit. But I could fairly see him thinking he was on his best public behaviour, under the eye of his host and lord. Obviously he has a fiendish temper, though at present the desire to please is stronger. One day his temper may win, and then there’s no telling what he may do. Even that would be better than calculated self-control, putting up with anything to keep on the right side of a benefactor. He may have the making of a falconer; he also has the making of a self-seeking toady.’
‘He has his way to make in the world. His father is a merchant of London; he was useful to me, and I repay him by training the son. It’s a business arrangement, not a friendly favour. He is right to make full use of his opportunity.’
‘It’s your concern, not mine. When he grows up I wouldn’t like him as an enemy, but I wouldn’t want him as a vassal either. You say he is of merchant stock? Then, depend on it, he’ll serve himself and no other, as these merchants always do.’
That settled the personality of Thomas to the satisfaction of the high table. Richer de l’ Aigle continued to train him in hawking and hunting, and in the knightly style of riding; but that was because Richer had the instincts of a pedagogue and enjoyed instructing someone who learned so fast; not because anyone in Pevensey was very taken with him as a person.
Pevensey was a very big castle, since the outer bailey had once been a fortified camp, in the days when Britain was a province of Rome. The stone keep on its motte in a corner provided lodging for the lord Richer and his immediate household, but a large population of sergeants, craftsmen and retainers lived in wooden huts behind the Roman wall. The hall was always filled with a crowd of many social classes, sharply differentiated. Thomas found much to learn, and he was interested in learning it.
At the top of the pyramid, immediately below the lord Richer himself, came the senior officials, castellan, constable, butler, and steward, technically men of gentle birth; their wives and daughters were the senior ladies, for Richer was an unmarried orphan. There were always a few knights who held of de I’Aigle, putting in the annual forty days of castle-guard by which they held their land. These were the gentry, and though there were wide differences of status among them, to a page they were all on the same level, far above him.
Below them, dining also at the high table but in other ways leading a life apart, came the clerks. Master William, who kept my lord’s seal, liked to hear himself called the chancellor, though really no one below the rank of Count or Bishop should have a chancellor of his own; he was undoubtedly head of a group of nearly a dozen educated men, from the powerful and important clerk of the kitchen to the underpaid vicar who gabbled through Sunday Mass in the parish church. They were set apart not because they were ministers of religion (for some of them had only the lowest orders), but because they were celibate; they did not join in the unending wooing, or teasing, of ladies which was the staple form of conversation at the high table. Although they were educated, they were not particularly intelligent; the service of a private lord was a dead-end career, which only the second-rate would choose. Thomas could not help comparing them to the Canons of Merton, the only other group of clerks well known to him; they came very poorly out of the comparison, and he seldom thought about them.
The next class comprised those who dined at the first table in the body of the hall, the table where young Thomas passed the wine; because they did not get the best quality and it did not matter if he spilled some. These were the skilled members of the household who were not gentry; but their skills were very various. First came the petty officers of the garrison, pre-eminent because their trade was arms; they were mostly quicktempered and stupid. More interesting were the heads of technical departments, the stud groom, the head falconer, the chief hunstsman, the farrier and the armourer; these had risen in the world from lowly beginnings, outdistancing their fellows because they were intelligent. Their conversation would have been interesting if Thomas could have understood it; but it was so full of technical terms that they might have been speaking a foreign language. Most of them were married, but there were no women at the table; their families lived in huts in the outer bailey, and the men dined by themselves in hall because dinner at their lord’s table was an important part of their wages.
At another table sat the common sergeants, crossbows or spearmen. They were men of little account, but even they lived by the sword; so they were far above ordinary servants and labourers who never went to war. They could not be expected to eat with unarmed riff-raff; but they drank beer instead of wine, and needed no page to wait on them.
There were two more tables for the mere servants, male and female; these spoke English, and did not matter.
This was the whole company who dined in the hall of Pevensey castle, rather less than three hundred in all. Cooks and scullions ate in the kitchen, and pages and serving-men after the first sitting had finished. The castle sheltered more than four hundred men, a considerable world for young Thomas to find his way in.
A large part of his day was taken up with serving at the supper table, for everyone sat there as long as possible since afterwards there was nothing to do but to go to bed. At this summer season dinner was a hurried meal, with everyone anxious to get out into the daylight of afternoon; his fellow-pages told him that sometimes in winter dinner ran on into supper, so that a young page must eat standing by the screens which led into the kitchen. He was lucky to miss that discomfort.
His mornings and afternoons were devoted to the stable and the mews. Here he had no duties; he came as the friend and pupil of the lord Richer. But he was compelled to work very hard, for he had much to learn. It was easy to sit on a well-mannered destrier, and he was not at all afraid; yet at first he nearly despaired, for the lord Richer and his head groom seemed to be asking him to do the impossible. He must keep his legs straight, with the toes well out in front; that only needed thought, though it was not the way he had been taught to ride an ambling hackney. It was the things he had to do with his hands which made it so difficult. On his left arm was a leather shield, holding his wrist almost immovable, so that only the tips of his fingers could reach the reins; he could never shorten these, or gather in the slack, because he was forbidden to use his right hand for anything except the management of his lance, at present represented by a slender stick. At the other end of the reins was a bit of such savage severity that a light accidental jab brought the destrier to a rearing stop; but he must keep a feel of this bit, or the horse would sprawl in his gallop. Just to make this difficult task quite impossible, they put long-prick spurs on his heels; if his feet moved the horse began to buck.
After a fortnight of this training he ached all over; but at last he had caught the trick of sitting so still that he moved with the horse, never unintentionally touching its mouth or flank. Then they began to teach him to control it, which they considered the only difficult part of riding.
Every day he sat in the saddle until the horse was tired (no one noticed his own fatigue). Then, if there was time, he visited the line of hooded hawks standing on perches in the mews. Here he had to begin by learning a completely new language; for the anatomical terms for falcons were unlike ordinary French, but it was very disgusting to use them incorrectly. He must handle the savage birds, and do complicated things to their heads and wings, putting on hoods sewn with little bells or imping a damaged pinion. Whatever the hawk did to him he must not annoy or vex her, that was the prime law of falconry; and she would be vexed if she sensed he was nervous. For the whole basis of hawking was really a kind of confidence-trick; it was impossible to compel a bird in the air to come ba
ck to her master; but she must never find this out.
The gentry thought riding and hawking quite easy, and as Thomas continued his training his respect for them increased.
In September, when it was time for him to go back to Merton, he was pressed to return to Pevensey next year. He had learned much that was quite new to him, and he was anxious to continue his training; it was more remarkable that the lord Richer wanted him. It was impossible to find fault with him, since he did exactly as he was told; nor could anyone reproach him for a milksop, since he had thrown himself into his riding and falconry with a passionate determination which disregarded pain and danger. But he made hard work of what should have been enjoyment. One of the principles of aristocratic life is that skill should never deteriorate into effort; a good horseman must not only ride well, he must ride easily. Thomas tried too hard.
But the lord Richer thought him an oddity, and was amused by the spectacle of a young boy taking life so seriously. Besides, the lord of Pevensey was often called to London on business, and it was very convenient to find a welcome in a genuine Norman household in Cheapside, where the cooking was good and the beds free from fleas. He had discovered a graceful way of repaying Goodman Gilbert’s hospitality. As to his followers, none of them disliked young Thomas, though no one chose him as an intimate friend.
At Merton it was the same. Thomas was approved by his teachers because he gave them no trouble; his schoolfellows did not dislike him, but they did not seek his company.
Young Thomas was well aware of this. He was an only son, who did not mix easily with his English neighbours in Cheapside because of his Norman background; at home he had never found an intimate friend, and now at Merton and Pevensey close friendship was still denied to him. That was regrettable, but it could not be helped. The other boys he knew had such mild and tepid desires that they could not share the raging passions in his breast.
His leading passion was, of course, ambition. He did not yet know in which field he would excel, but excel he must. At Merton he saw himself as a great scholar, rewarded with high office in the Church. In that atmosphere learning seemed obviously the highest good. He liked to dream that one day a lean bookworm, his black gown turning green with age, would tap on the arm another shabby student, saying: ‘There goes Master Thomas. He’s thin and ugly and poorly dressed, but he knows more about … than any other clerk in Christendom. They wanted to make him a Cardinal, but he can’t spare the time from his books.’
The trouble about this dream was that he could not fill in the missing word, the subject of his profound researches. He was fascinated by the idea of the great international Republic of Letters. It was wonderful to think that wise men in France and Italy and Germany and Greece, and even among the infidels of Spain and Asia, were all pondering the Nature and Attributes of God, pooling their knowledge as soon as a new truth was defined; it was even more wonderful to know that any new discovery must be made known in Latin, so that when he had thoroughly mastered the grammar through which he was now hacking his way he would be able to debate the latest theology with a Hungarian or a Pole. He had the quickest brain in the school, and when anything was explained by a teacher he could always follow the explanation. But he could not think of a subject that needed investigation; though when it had been investigated and he was told the result he saw that it had been an obvious line of inquiry.
Perhaps Prior Robert of Merton was right when he said ruefully that young Thomas had a most accurate mind, which lacked any trace of original thought.
His second daydream was one that would come first in the minds of most boys of his age. He would be the best knight in the West, the scourge of the infidels who menaced the Holy City. That was not so difficult as it sounded, for he started with one great advantage; he was pure Norman, and by common consent Normans were the best warriors in the world. Already from that single province of France three swarms of conquerors had gone forth; first a band of private adventurers had won southern Italy from the Greeks and Sicily from the infidel; the grandson of a poor knight from Hauteville was now a mighty King, recognized by Pope and Emperor. Then Duke William, a bastard barely returned from exile, had so impressed the holy King of England that the realm had been left to him by will; when a usurper threatened to steal his heritage the Norman army had conquered the country in a single battle. Duke William’s sons were the mightiest paladins of the age. Old men still spoke in hushed tones of the horrors and splendours of the reign of Rufus; and Henry, now reigning, had imposed the strictest peace England had ever known. But to a gallant knight the noblest of the sons of William must be Robert, who had ridden right across the civilized world to free the Holy Sepulchre; he and his Normans had fought and conquered at Dorylaeum and Antioch before they escaladed the Holy City, capturing unbreached walls from the top of a single ladder. For many years past the unlucky Duke Robert had lingered a prisoner in Cardiff castle, old and blind and crippled; but he was still alive, the prince in whose lifetime Normans had conquered Sicily and England, the prince who had himself driven the infidel from Jerusalem. He was the embodiment of Norman valour.
These were Thomas’s two dreams, of scholarship and knightly prowess; he never spoke of them, and his companions could not guess what ambitions he harboured. Only Rose his mother knew, from his mutterings in sleep and a few unguarded phrases. They were obvious goals enough, but one thing seemed to her worth noting; he thought nothing of money, for all that he was the son of a merchant.
One other subject often filled his mind, though it could not be an object of ambition. He genuinely loved God, and the Mother of God. At Merton he was surrounded by men whose whole lives were devoted to God’s service, so that was not very surprising. But his was more than the conventional piety of the catechism-class. The idea that God had come down to earth to share the suffering of mankind had captured his imagination; whenever he was hungry or in pain he thought of God’s sufferings on the Cross. And whenever he was unusually happy, and on the whole he was often very happy, he thought with gratitude of the Mother of God, who had brought Salvation into the world. He did not aspire to repay this great debt of gratitude, but there were a few simple rules he must keep or he would not get into Heaven; in his monastic school the chief of these commandments seemed that concerning Chastity. Like all his fellows, he had known the machinery of generation since he was old enough to notice the difference between a bull and a cow; before he had felt the first stirrings of puberty he had resolved that he would be chaste until he died.
In his daydreams he never did anything. His deeds were already performed, and he was receiving the admiration of the crowd because he behaved as was expected of a scholar or a knight.
For six years he continued his studies at Merton, spending the summer holidays at Pevensey; so that he only visited Cheapside for the short vacations at Christmas and Easter. At each visit he was conscious of changes in his home. Every year his father did less business; not because he was a failure as a drysalter, but because he did not want to make more money; he had enough to live on, in a style suitable to his rank, and he was gradually buying houses in the city with his savings; soon he would be able to retire altogether, to live on the rent of his property. That was not so honourable as holding land by knight-service, but it was better than earning bread by buying and selling, notoriously a way of life tempting to sharp practice.
His sisters were no longer charming babies to be played with and cooed over; the elder, Matilda, was betrothed to the son of a prosperous tanner; Mary, the younger, lodged with the nuns of Barking in Essex, and it had already been decided that she should enter that wealthy and fashionable community as soon as she was old enough to take her vows.
He had never been particularly close to his father, and now his sisters were withdrawn from intimate companionship. That left only his mother. To her he was still baby Thomas, the clever but self-willed child who must be shielded from the consequences of his own quick temper. She loved him dearly, but she could not follow his t
houghts. He was in practice alone in the world.
One wise man studied him closely, and took an interest in his future. In the summer of 1133, when Thomas was in his fifteenth year, Prior Robert of Merton sent for Goodman Gilbert. In the parlour, when they were alone, he came straight to the point.
‘I have been thinking about your son, and I have made up my mind. He must either leave Merton soon or stay for the rest of his life. It is for you, his father, to decide. In body he is almost a man, and his mind also is formed. An original idea has never entered his head, and I don’t suppose one ever will; but he is quick and accurate and painstaking, and we have taught him all the secular learning he can find in a convent of Canons. I gather you don’t want him at home until he is ready to start work. But all the other boys follow his lead. They don’t like him, but the force of his character compels them. A layman of such influence is out of place in a monastery. He always obeys a lawful command, and if you order him to take vows he can join our community. He won’t be a holy monk, but he will never be scandalous, and his brain will be useful to the house. But bear in mind that he has never expressed a desire for the life of religion. I hate to see a man take vows against his inclination, even if he keeps them afterwards. I advise you to take him away. In any case he is too mature, and too forceful, to stay on as a lay scholar.’
Gilbert was taken aback by this sudden call for a decision.
‘It’s too late to apprentice him, Father Prior. I took it for granted that he could stay here until he got some clerk’s post in the lord Richer’s establishment at Pevensey. They are bound to offer him something one day. It seems a pity to waste his learning, but I suppose he must keep accounts for some rich merchant.’
God and My Right Page 3
