London - Edward Rutherfurd [187]
“Everything!” Bull had cried in triumph to his friends. “Everything we wanted. The king’s new taxation completely abolished. The farm back at the low rate. Two sheriffs of our own choice.” To Silversleeves he solemnly announced, “London is in your debt, Master Silversleeves.” And then, to the clerk’s further, anxious enquiry, “Why should London support John when we have such a friend as Longchamp?”
So it was fortunate, now, for Silversleeves’s peace of mind that he was not at the meeting in the house near the London Stone, and therefore did not hear the leader of the group, after congratulating Bull, announce with a bland smile to his colleagues:
“And now my friends, as to the next step, all we need to do is wait.”
For news had reached him that very day that King Richard the Lionheart had finally left the Continent and had set sail on the distant Mediterranean Sea, beyond any chance of recall.
Adam’s mother never heard from her relations at Windsor again. Despite all they had said, none of the family ever came to London, which meant that she never received any money. After more than a year had passed and no word had come, she had promised herself that she would go down there the following year to look into the matter. Or perhaps, she thought, the year after that. It was a long way.
When Adam was five she told him: “Your father had some strips of land in a village. We’re supposed to get something from them.” It meant nothing to the little boy then, and in time, as his mother let the business lapse, he would forget it entirely.
David Bull’s sickness returned that autumn. He suddenly became so pale and thin that his father was seriously worried. “We Bulls are never ill,” he said firmly; but the boy only seemed to get worse. Everything was tried, including Mabel’s herbal cures; and for a time, whether thanks to the herbs or Brother Michael’s prayers, he appeared to rally. The month of December passed. But then in January, the illness came back.
First it had snowed, then become bitter cold; the streets of London turned to ice; they sprinkled cinders in the lanes. And each day, wearing thick boots, the monk crunched sadly down to the house by St Mary-le-Bow. Not all Sister Mabel’s herbs could save the fifteen-year-old David Bull, it seemed, and even the tough merchant shook his head with tears in his eyes and said to his brother: “It seems that our family is finished.” By the end of the month, as the boy lay like a pale ghost in the chamber, Ida told him: “Fight, David. Remember, I’m going to find you a noble wife.” But to Brother Michael she whispered: “I love him as my own; but there are only your prayers now between him and death.”
Day by day Brother Michael prayed. More than once, he found his brother, head bowed in misery, kneeling by his side. Sometimes David watched dully, sometimes he slept. Each day, the monk thought, close as he was to giving up, there remained in the boy a tiny strand, like the thinnest ray of sunlight, that persisted, and it was upon this, always, that he tried to concentrate his attention. If only poor David’s pale, thin frame could somehow be brought to stand in the shaft of light; if he could feel its warmth bathing his whole body: if I could just accomplish that, the monk thought, then I believe he would either fly like an angel up to heaven, or be cured.
If young David were to die, therefore, the least he could do was try to prepare him. This turned out to be easier than he had thought. For whether it was because he feared death or was prompted by the monk’s spiritual presence, several times, as he sat with him, the boy had seemed eager to talk. He asked about heaven and hell and the Devil. One day he wanted to know: “If my soul seeks God, then why does it love the world, which is so far from heaven? Does that mean the Devil has taken me over?”
“Not exactly,” the monk told him. “Worldly desires, the desires of kings, and courts,