London - Edward Rutherfurd [107]
The terms came. All the city’s ancient rights and privileges would be respected. William of Normandy would be a father to them. That morning, beside St Paul’s, Leofric the merchant, with grim common sense, had not hesitated to state his position: “We should accept.”
Even the Staller agreed. London would yield to William and there was nothing Barnikel could do about it.
“Traitor!” he shouted again. And then half London heard him say: “As for your daughter, keep her. My son will marry no traitor’s child. Do you hear?”
Leofric heard. In the circumstances, sad though the business was, he supposed he should thank his stars.
“As you wish,” he replied, and walked away.
It was three days later when they brought Barnikel the news of Hilda’s betrothal to Henri Silversleeves. For a few moments he could not believe it.
“But you told him we didn’t want her. You refused the marriage,” his son pointed out miserably.
“He might have known I didn’t really mean it,” the Dane moaned, before it occurred to him that Leofric had.
And then Barnikel of Billingsgate became very angry indeed.
It was generally agreed by the inhabitants of Billingsgate and All Hallows that there had been nothing like it in their lifetime. Even old men who could remember the entire reign of King Canute and would swear they had seen Ethelred the Unready, confessed they had witnessed nothing better. People stood in their doorways or leaned out of their windows; a few desperadoes who had run up from the wharf gathered, ready to scatter in a moment, only thirty paces from Barnikel’s door.
The Dane’s rage continued for more than an hour. The next day, when his family ventured back into the house, they could not prevent their neighbours from entering with them to survey the damage he had wrought. It was awesome.
Three barrels of ale smashed, seven earthenware pitchers, six wooden platters, two beds, a cauldron, five wooden stools, fifteen pots of preserved fruit, a chest. Twisted beyond all further use: three meat hooks and the spit on which the meat was roasted. Broken: the shaft of a double-handed battle-axe. Further destroyed or greatly reduced: a trestle table, three wooden window shutters, two oak doors, and the larder wall.
Even his Viking ancestors, they said, would not have disdained these efforts.
The coronation of William the Conqueror of England was fixed for Christmas Day 1066. It took place in the sacred church of Westminster Abbey.
Silversleeves and Leofric attended, standing side by side. The marriage had been fixed for the following summer. Leofric was free of his debts. The sole condition on which the Norman had insisted turned out to be that Leofric should henceforth import his wines through Silversleeves and cease to do business with Becket, the merchant of Caen. Leofric did this with some regret, but it seemed a small price to pay.
It was with some surprise that, two days after the coronation, young Alfred, chancing to meet Barnikel in the East Cheap and remarking that the Norman king was making himself master of London now, received this admonition:
“Wait and see.”
Unusually for the Dane, it was said very quietly. Alfred wondered what it meant.
THE TOWER
1078
And now by the riverside, below the slopes where the ravens dwelt, a new presence was beginning to rise.
It had always been a quiet place, this south-eastern corner of the city where the ancient Roman wall came down to the Thames and the spur of the eastern hill created its natural open-air theatre by the water. A few fragments of the old Roman buildings had stood there, like guardian sentinels, or actors from some antique drama, turned to stone. But if the croaking ravens on the slopes had been expecting entertainment from the grassy stage below, then they had been waiting for the play to recommence for nearly a thousand years.
Until King William came.
For now, on this sheltered green, a large earthwork had been formed, behind which were the beginnings of a new building.