London - Edward Rutherfurd [185]
Had he been wrong? Brother Michael put his hand on his forehead. Did he really suspect this pious knight? Confused, he returned, hardly knowing what to think.
Three days later, Gilbert de Godefroi was ready to depart. Ida offered him her glove to wear as a gage upon his journey – a courtly gesture from the knightly world. But this he refused with a solemn look, reminding her: “I am a pilgrim to the Holy Land.” And Brother Michael sighed with relief.
With the departure of the knight both Ida and young David seemed to grow listless. David even became quite unwell and his studies began to suffer. In midsummer, therefore, the Alderman asked Brother Michael to give his son some help.
No one could call young David a scholar, but he was curious enough, and pleasant; and for his uncle he had a huge respect. “You are so learned,” he would say in genuine amazement, which encouraged the monk to tell him all he knew.
Brother Michael’s knowledge of the world was typical of a moderately learned man of his time: a pleasant mixture of fact and folklore culled from the library he used to enjoy at Westminster Abbey. He could give his nephew a good account of the great patchwork of states that made Europe, with its ports and rivers, its cities and shrines. He could speak knowingly of Rome and of the Holy Land. But at the edge of this huge medieval world, his knowledge began to blur into fabulous terrains beyond.
“South of the Holy Land lies Egypt,” he could correctly inform David, “from which Moses led the Jews across the desert. And by the mouth of the great River Nile lies the city of Babylon.” This was the name the medieval world gave to Cairo.
“And if you travel up the Nile?” the boy eagerly asked.
“Then,” the monk confidently told him, for he had read it in a book, “you come to the land of China.”
About London’s history, he could also instruct his nephew. “London was founded long, long ago,” he explained, “long before even Rome. A great hero called Brutus first built it. Then he journeyed on and founded ancient Troy.” He told him how the Romans had come and gone and how King Alfred had rebuilt the walls.
“And who were the kings before Alfred?” the boy asked.
“There were many ancient English kings,” the monk replied. “But the most famous, long ago, were two. One was good King Arthur with his Knights of the Round Table.”
“And the other?”
“The other,” he could affirm, “was old King Cole.” For so, in the history books, it was written.
Often, as he instructed the boy, Ida would come and sit beside them.
On a fine early autumn day Sister Mabel might have been expected to be in a good humour. Yet this morning she was not. The cause of her fury was to be found in a small church she had just been visiting.
The church of St Lawrence Silversleeves was a handsome little building, which stood on a narrow plot between a ropemaker’s house and a bakery. Down the hill in the Vintry were the Thameside warehouses of the Norman wine merchants, over which one could see the river. It was built in stone, except for its roof, which was wooden; it was four bays long and could, had its congregation ever been so many, have conveniently contained a hundred souls. Sister Mabel had just been to visit the curate of this modest church.
The curate of St Lawrence Silversleeves was a poor sickly fellow with a wife and two children. Technically, of course, since he was in holy orders, the long-suffering woman with whom he lived was not called his wife but his concubine. But few, even amongst the strictest churchgoers, would have considered his moral crime a grave one. Most of the curates in London were married – because if they did not have a wife, they would starve.
The situation at St Lawrence Silversleeves was typical. The Silversleeves family appointed the vicar, who enjoyed the income from its endowment. If there was no one in the family who wanted the position, it would probably go to some friend or connection. He,