London - Edward Rutherfurd [128]
“And if all these come together, then even William may find it’s more than he can handle,” the Danish envoys were quick to point out.
Hardly surprisingly, such rumours were a source of delight for Barnikel. He might be sinking into debt. He might be growing old. “But in a year or two, we could have a Canute on the throne of England again,” he cried to Alfred enthusiastically. “Think of that!”
How, then, could Alfred hesitate?
For a long time now, Alfred had been concerned about his relationship with the Dane. Five years had passed since they had last shipped arms. Five years in which England had been quiet. Five years in which Alfred had become the trusted master armourer at the Tower. He had even made a coat of mail for Ralph and a sword for Mandeville himself. He had raised his family, and lived in security.
True, every month or two Barnikel had come to him and asked him to make arms. Never very much at a time. Easy enough to accomplish without arousing suspicion and to hide in the several spaces he had devised under the floor of the armoury. Without telling even his wife, Alfred had continued to oblige the Dane out of loyalty. “I still owe it to him,” he told himself. But as time passed and his family grew, he did these commissions with ever increasing reluctance. And a month ago, when he had surveyed the full size of the hoard hidden under the floor, he had been horrified.
“You could equip a hundred men,” he whispered to himself. For the first time, he experienced a real sense of panic. If ever the Normans raided the armoury and found these arms? I could never explain that away, he thought.
“I’m frightened,” he confessed to Barnikel.
“Then you’re a coward.”
At this Alfred only shrugged. He was much too fond of the Dane to take offence. Besides, there was a further consideration.
“I also think,” he admitted, “that it’s all becoming a waste of time. The truth is,” he said quietly, “that most Englishmen have accepted William now. They might not even fight for the Danes.”
Barnikel let out a roar of rage. And yet he could not altogether deny it. London, of course, would make its own terms with any king, but in several of the minor rebellions over the last ten years, the English in the countryside had actually fought side by side with the hated Normans, putting down the rebels – for the simple reason that such insurrections threatened to damage the harvest.
“You’re a traitor,” Barnikel angrily declared. And at this Alfred did bridle.
“If so,” he retorted, “then what are your children?”
It was a sharp blow and it hurt the Dane. Alfred knew very well that the Dane’s grown sons had shown little interest in joining their father in his secret activities. “If the King of Denmark arrives, we’ll be Danish,” the youngest son had once told him. “But not before.” It was a sensible position to take, but Alfred knew that Barnikel had been deeply disappointed.
Perhaps it was because he saw how hurt the old man was that, a few minutes later, Alfred gave in and agreed to do as Barnikel asked. But he did so with misgivings.
In December of that year, Barnikel of Billingsgate was greatly surprised to find himself politely summoned to a meeting with Silversleeves.
There was no denying it. If Alfred had become independent, the long-nosed Norman had nowadays become nothing less than splendid. A man-at-arms stood by the gateway to his house. Two clerks busied themselves at a table in his fine stone hall. He was a canon of St Paul’s. Archbishop Lanfranc himself had called upon him, and though that stern reformer had seen the clerical merchant for exactly the disgrace he was, he was too wise to do more than drily admonish the generous canon and patron of St Lawrence Silversleeves. Barnikel tried not to be impressed, but it was difficult.
The Norman greeted him with the utmost courtesy, begged him to sit down, and, looking down his nose at the table between them, gravely addressed him.
“It has long been on my mind, Hrothgar Barnikel, that I owe you the debt I took over