London - Edward Rutherfurd [210]
“We’re leaving London. We’re going to live at Bocton.” He paused, heard her gasp, and added for good measure: “All year round.”
In fact, Bull’s plan was not unusual. While London merchants had often retired to their estates in the past, a number of his own patrician contemporaries, finding the competition in the city too hot, had stopped trading and turned into country gentlemen. Thank God there was still a substantial fortune. He would simply buy more land. But now he heard a cry of disbelief.
“I hate the country.” He smiled. He knew. “I shall stay here in London,” she protested.
“Not in this house,” he said cheerfully. “I’m selling it.”
“To whom?”
That, as it happened, was the easy bit. For if there was one feature of the booming city that all men remarked upon, it was the astonishing increase, since his childhood, in the number of drinking establishments. In a city with a resident population of around seventy thousand, there were already some three hundred taverns serving food and drink, not to mention another thousand little brew-houses offering a beaker of ale. Some of the taverns were quite large affairs, offering sleeping quarters for the city’s many visitors too; and some of their owners had made fortunes. Only a month ago an enterprising fellow who owned two of these had told him: “If you ever want to sell your own house, I’ll give you a good price.” So now Bull informed his wife: “I’m selling to a taverner.”
“You beast.” She began to cry. He cast his eyes to heaven. “You brute!”
“I’m going out,” he said, and prayed for silence. But there was only a brief and hostile pause, and then that dreadful, plaintive murmur.
“I know where you’re going. After some woman.”
It was too much. “I wish to God I were,” he bellowed back, thumping both hands on the embroidered cushion. “Shall I tell you where I’m going? I’m going to get the city sergeants. And when I come back with them, we’re going to put you in a scold’s bridle. And then I’ll have them lead you through the streets. That’s where I’m going.”
It was not a pretty thing, the scold’s bridle. Foul-mouthed women were sometimes sentenced to wear the little iron cage that fitted over the head, with a cruel iron bit that went in the mouth to immobilize the tongue. Encased in this, unpopular women would be paraded about, in the same way as other malefactors were put in the stocks. He heard her weeping, and felt ashamed.
He made up his mind. It was too much. He would stand no more. A moment later he was striding past her and out of his house. And so it was, just after noon, that William Bull arrived at the whore-house on Bankside, and, accompanied by the grinning brothelkeeper, strode towards Joan.
He was, the man assured him, the very first to get there.
Joan looked at William Bull.
He was, she supposed, about forty. She saw a large, burly man in a cloak, with thick calves, hide boots folded over below the knee, and a florid face, who was obviously used to being obeyed. Already he had rewarded the brothelkeeper for the pleasure of taking her virginity.
It was quiet. At that hour of the day there were few customers about, and most of the prostitutes were either out or sleeping. Of the Dogget sisters there was no sign.
Suddenly, she became angry. Striding over to the brothelkeeper, she cried, “You promised me no customers until tomorrow, you filthy liar.”
Bull looked questioningly at the man’s wife.
“It’s nothing, sir,” that worthy woman called. “She’s just a little nervous.” To Joan she hissed: “You’ll do as you’re told.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Refuse?” the brothelkeeper spat.
“You don’t understand, dear,” his wife cut in. She tried a motherly smile. “This is an important man. A good customer.”
“I don’t care.”
The smile vanished. The two little eyes in the cheese-like face were cold. “You need a whipping.”
“You’ve no right to do such a thing.”
The arrangement of the brothel was that each