London - Edward Rutherfurd [239]
Over the George, Dame Barnikel splendidly presided. In the mornings, she might be seen emerging cheerfully from the little brewery where, like most tavern-keepers, she brewed her own ale. In the evenings she sat by the bar where ale and wine were served. Behind the bar but always within reach was a heavy oak club in case of trouble-makers. On the bar before her, a huge and ancient Toby jug in the shape of an alderman. While she acted as master of ceremonies, Amy helped serve the guests; but Dame Barnikel never allowed Fleming to do anything. “He has his business and I have mine,” she would explain.
But Dame Barnikel was happiest of all when she was brewing ale, and sometimes she would let young Ducket watch her. Having bought the malt – “it’s dried barley,” she explained – from the quays, she would mill it up in the little brewhouse loft. The crushed malt would fall into a great vat which she topped up with water from a huge copper kettle. After germinating, this brew was cooled in troughs, before being poured into another vat.
And now the real miracle began, as Dame Barnikel approached with a wooden bucket of yeast. “God-is-Good, we call it,” she explained. For the yeast caused fermentation, producing froth and – this was the miracle – more yeast. “We sell it to the bakers,” she said, “whenever we brew.” And often the apprentice would see her, growling contentedly to herself as she breathed the thick, rich aroma from the frothing vat and spooned the yeast in, murmuring: “Manna from heaven. God-is-Good.” Dame Barnikel’s rich barley ale was renowned.
As for his master’s daughter, he liked the quiet girl, but for the first two years he was in the household they had not spent much time together. He, after all, was a humble apprentice and she a shy, eleven-year-old girl. In the last year however, since Carpenter had come into her life and she had gained self-confidence, their relationship had grown into an easy friendship; and the three of them would often walk out to Clapham or Battersea together, or go swimming in the river on a warm summer afternoon. And if recently he had noticed that she was really not bad-looking, he had not troubled to think much about it.
It was on a pleasant day, shortly after the Parliament had ended, that he accompanied Amy and Carpenter on an excursion, to Finsbury Fields, a pleasant stretch of drained ground just outside the city’s northern wall, where the Londoners practised archery.
Although the first, rudimentary firearms had just begun to be seen, English weaponry still meant the massed longbows, made of best English yew wood, which had wrought such devastation at Crécy and Poitiers. The Londoners had a formidable contingent of bowmen, of whom Carpenter hoped to be one. Ducket watched with interest therefore, as Carpenter took up his position, bow in hand, arm extended, back straight and waited eagerly for him to loose the first arrow.
But nothing happened. The stocky fellow just stood there, perfectly still. When Ducket asked, “Aren’t you going to shoot?”, he only answered: “Later.” And after a further pause, seeing Ducket puzzled, he said quietly: “Pull my arm.”
With a shrug, Ducket did so. But to his surprise, the arm remained rigid. He pulled again: still nothing. And, strong though he was, the boy found that short of knocking him down, he was utterly unable to break the bowman’s position.
“How do you do that?” he asked.
“Practice,” Carpenter replied. “And patience.” And when Ducket asked how long he could stand like that, he said: “An hour.