London (76 page)

What could have possessed him? Who knew? The carpenter’s solemn figure was walking into the courtyard as though in a dream. Others, too, were in there, tearing any loot they could carry from the flames; but the craftsman made no such move. As though hypnotized, he was entering one of the buildings, drawn by the flames. Ducket’s act of heroism was purely instinctive. He did not stop to think. He ran.

It was bad luck that the building should have collapsed just as he got there. He saw Carpenter fall, leaped in, managed to drag him out and was considerably burned himself in the process. Carpenter had been knocked unconscious. With the help of another fellow Ducket managed to lift him and carry him away.

Half an hour later, Carpenter having come round though still burned and shaken, Ducket left him with the good brothers at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, and started off towards the George, to let Amy know what had happened.

James Bull was not a man to give up. True, his rich cousin had never sent for him in the last five years. True also, a year ago, judging her to be old enough to receive such things, he had sent flowers to Tiffany, together with a lumbering poem that had never been acknowledged. But how could he bring himself to the attention of his cousin and earn his approval?

When James Bull saw Tyler’s men enter London, he knew exactly what he thought. Most Londoners hated the poll tax. Many sympathized with the men from Kent. Some had gone to join them. But James had no such ideas. They were troublemakers. He did not have to think about troublemakers, he knew, deep in his bones what needed to be done. They must be put down. And in this, indeed, he proved himself to be a true Bull. Keeping his distance, but eyeing them with deep suspicion, he had followed their progress to the Savoy. Now, as he watched, he saw what he could do.

Later, he felt sure he had done his best. He had dragged three would-be looters out of the burning Savoy, and only stopped when the crowd made it plain that if he did it again they would lynch him. Then he had gone off to look for support. Finding none of the city sergeants or anyone else in authority, he hurried back towards Ludgate in the hope of finding some men-at-arms. After all, if he wanted to make a name for himself and impress his cousin on London Bridge, he needed to do something remarkable, and in front of witnesses. As he passed the burning Temple and reached Chancery Lane, he had seen Silversleeves on a fine horse. “Carry me to the Tower. We must get help,” he cried, but the lawyer only gave him a silent look and then rode swiftly off, to the west, down a lane that avoided the Savoy by a good half-mile.

So it was an unexpected piece of good luck, just as he reached London Bridge, to see one of the rebels walking alone. There could be no mistaking it: the white patch in his hair; the burned hands. He ran forward, threw himself on the man, and as they went down held him fast, with a cry: “Got you.” Yet surely it must have been providence that, as the winded rebel tried to struggle free, James saw, approaching from the bridge, the burly form of his rich cousin, to whom he cried out: “Sir, help me. This fellow was looting the Savoy.”

He was rather surprised when the merchant, after asking if he was sure, turned to the rebel as if he knew him and, with a look of thunder declared: “So, Ducket. You shall pay for this.”

The hours passed slowly in the kitchen of the house on London Bridge. Bull had ignored Ducket’s protests. Though if young James Bull, who had hurried on to the Tower, could have heard the merchant’s comments he would have been pleased indeed. “Capital fellow. Grown up sound, I must say. I may have misjudged him when he was younger.” Bull’s words to the apprentice, however, were bleak: “You’ll stay under lock and key until I can hand you over to the proper authorities,” he told him. The doors were locked, the windows barred and shuttered. Only one person remained with him, and this was the fat girl. “You watch him,” Bull said. “If he tries anything, raise the alarm.”

From time to time, Ducket would look at the fat girl. At one point, having nothing better to do, he tried to explain to her how Amy had sent him after Carpenter, the things he had heard and seen, and lastly how, far from looting, he had rescued Carpenter from the flames. “So you see,” he concluded, “I’m not guilty of anything at all.” But the fat girl continued placidly eating and said nothing.

This regime lasted all the next day. The cook was briefly in the kitchen in the morning. She spoke little but told him the king was going to Mile End. Then the house was quiet for some hours. But later Ducket heard the sound of a great crowd approaching. From the clamour, it seemed something was happening close by. Next came a huge roar. Then the sound of a crowd departing. An hour later the cook appeared again. “They got into the Tower and killed the archbishop,” she said. “They’ve stuck his head on a spike in the middle of the bridge.”

That evening, Bull himself appeared. He looked at Ducket with disgust. “Your friends have been successful,” he said drily. “The king has granted charters abolishing serfdom. In return, they have not only murdered the archbishop, but they are roaming the streets setting fire to houses and killing anyone they don’t like the look of. About two hundred innocent people so far. I thought you’d be pleased.” Then he banged the door furiously and locked it.

The following morning was Saturday. The early hours passed quietly. Then, in mid-morning, he heard people running in the street. There were cries, but not like yesterday’s. People being called by name. He heard someone at Bull’s door. Hurried conversations. After a while, the voices died away. Two hours passed. More cries. Cheers. People in the street laughing. A horse clattering up to the door. Someone entering the house with, it seemed to him, a heavy tread. And then, half an hour later, the kitchen door opened and Bull appeared.

“It seems,” he said calmly, “that the king has pardoned you.”

James Bull saw it all.

At the Tower, after capturing Ducket, James had not found anyone ready to go to the Savoy; but his eagerness to serve the authorities was so obvious that no less a man than Alderman Philpot procured him a horse and arms. “You can make yourself useful,” he said. From that time, he hardly left Philpot’s side. And so on that fateful Saturday, he witnessed the astonishing climax to the Peasants’ Revolt.

Early that morning, after going to Mass at Westminster, King Richard II of England, together with a small retinue of nobles, the mayor of London, Philpot and some other aldermen, rode to Smithfield, to parley with Wat Tyler.

It was a calculated risk. So far, the rebels had shown no desire to harm the boy king himself. But they could destroy London. Reports were also arriving of risings all over East Anglia. “The whole country could go,” Philpot told James. If young King Richard could persuade Tyler’s men to disperse, huge bloodshed might be avoided. “Or they may change their minds and kill him,” Philpot remarked grimly.

When they arrived, they found Tyler and his men drawn up on the western side of the broad space of Smithfield. The little group behind the king stopped in front of the tall, grey buildings of St Bartholomew’s. The horde, pressing round the side of Smithfield, was a fearsome sight, and even James found he was trembling. But the son of the Black Prince, with the Plantagenet blood of Edward I and the Lionheart, rode out into the centre, alone. And Tyler came to meet him.

Seeing a space just in front of him, James managed to edge forward until he was only just behind the mayor’s shoulder. Despite his efforts at the Savoy, he had not actually seen Tyler before, but now he was only sixty yards away and James could see the man’s features clearly. He gazed, fascinated, at the swarthy face. It seemed to him Tyler might have been drinking. And then he frowned.

Tyler wasted no time. Greeting the king in a friendly but abrupt manner, he now issued his demands. All lordship must be abolished. There were to be no more bishops, except one – John Ball. The vast estates of the Church must be confiscated and given to the peasants. And all men should be equal, under the king. Richard rode back to his cortège. James heard him in muttered conversation with the mayor and others. He heard the king say: “I’ll tell him we’ll consider them all.” Then Richard returned to Tyler.

But it was not the king upon whom James Bull’s eyes remained fixed. It was Tyler. He was racking his brain. Where had he seen that face?

On receiving Richard’s response, Tyler grinned. He called for a jug of ale. One of his men brought it. He raised the jug to his lips, gulped it down crudely. Smacked his lips in triumph.

Of course! It was when the fellow smacked his lips that the memory came back. A night, long ago in the George. A swarthy man like this one, who smacked his lips. Could it be the same? Yes, he was almost sure of it. And then James Bull entered English history.

“I know that fellow,” he blurted out, his voice ringing across Smithfield. “He’s a highwayman from Kent.”

Whatever he might have expected, nothing could have prepared James for the effect this produced. Tyler stared. Next, whether it was true, or he merely felt insulted, he went red. And then suddenly he lost his head. With a roar of rage he seemed to forget the king, spurred his horse, and pulling out a dagger as he came, dashed straight at James. “I’ll have you dead,” he yelled. James blanched, but hardly had time to think. There was a scuffle in front of him. Swords flashed: he saw the mayor’s, then a squire’s. There was a scream. Tyler’s horse wheeled round, raced back and, just before it reached the king, Tyler crashed to the ground and lay there, streaming blood.

There was a terrible silence. The rebels gasped. James heard Philpot mutter: “They’ll kill us all, damn it.”

But he had reckoned without the boy king. For now the fourteen-year-old King Richard II performed an extraordinary feat of coolness and courage. Raising his hand, and walking his horse forward straight into the midst of the huge rebel crowd, he called out to them.

“Sirs, I will be your captain. Follow me.” He headed towards some fields that lay to the north. The crowd paused. James held his breath. Then the rebels followed him.

The next hour had been frantic. The mayor, Philpot and the other loyal men had dashed round London. At last, taking heart, the men-at-arms and the Londoners from every ward formed up in ranks. While the king kept the rebels occupied at a parley, the London force surrounded them.

And suddenly it was all over. The rebels surrendered. The king was safe. The mayor and Philpot were knighted on the spot. The head of Tyler replaced that of the poor archbishop on London Bridge. Wisely, however, King Richard had ordered that all his humble followers, whatever they had done, should be unconditionally pardoned.

But, flushed and excited as he was, James Bull’s real triumph came when he rode over to the house on London Bridge to give them the news and, for the first time, was ushered upstairs to find the merchant, his wife and Tiffany all in the big room.

“Now tell us, my boy,” his kinsman said with a smile, “tell us everything just as it happened.”

The great Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 was over. For some time outbreaks continued in East Anglia and elsewhere, but with the failure at London, the head of the revolution was severed. As for the promises of the boy king to the peasants, they were immediately and entirely forgotten. As he himself curtly informed a deputation of peasants a little later: “Villeins you are: villeins you shall remain.” The stars had returned to their courses, the orders of society were back in their proper spheres. But one important political lesson had been learned, which would not be forgotten for many centuries. Bull put it succinctly: “Poll taxes mean trouble.”

It was two days after Tyler’s death, when order had safely been restored, that a foaming horse and rider clattered up to the house on London Bridge. It was Silversleeves. His joy at seeing Bull seemed to be huge.

“Thank God, sir, you’re safe,” he cried. “And dearest Tiffany?” He sighed with relief. “I’ve been so worried.” He had been in the West Country on business, he explained. “But as soon as I heard about Tyler, I came as fast as I could.” He rushed upstairs, even allowing himself to hug his beloved. “How I wanted to be with you!” he cried. Bull was touched.

But one person towards whom Bull’s heart remained hard was Ducket. “He was with the rebels; that is enough,” he said. “He is a traitor.” And to the apprentice himself, when he released him from his confinement he said coldly: “I do not care what your part was in this. I will keep the commitments I made to you when you were apprenticed to Fleming, because I gave my word. But you are not to come to this house again.”

One month later, Benedict Silversleeves and Tiffany Bull were betrothed. At Tiffany’s request, the marriage was not to take place until the following summer.

When James Bull heard that Tiffany was betrothed, he looked very thoughtful. “That’s it then,” he said at last. If, in his inner heart, he had known that the last five years of hoping had been a waste of time, his sense of family duty and of his own worth had never allowed him to acknowledge it. And now, just when, for the first time, he had at last got into his kinsman’s good graces, it was all over. Suddenly, he realized, his life had no particular object. He began to frequent the George. Not that he drank heavily, or failed to attend to his business, but there were still many hours when a man might sit morosely by himself; and this is what he did.

Dame Barnikel noticed him, and remembered vaguely seeing him like this once before. Now, rather curious, she kept an eye on him and pointed him out to Amy.

“A man,” she told her daughter, “is what you make of him.” Not she reflected to herself, with a sigh, that she had been able to make much of poor Fleming. “But now that young man,” she said, “needs looking after.” After a while she decided to take him, as she put it, under her wing. Whenever James came in, he found the formidable landlady wreathed in smiles. “Here’s this handsome man again,” she would say in her deep voice, as she sat him down. She positively purred at him. She even made the big, spare fellow feel attractive. “There,” she would say to Amy afterwards, as the girl stood awkwardly by. “You must learn to bring a man out; you never know what may be in there.”