London - Edward Rutherfurd [250]
It was true, at the same time, that traditional life in the countryside was changing. In the last generation, since the Black Death, the old feudal system had been splitting at the seams. There was such disruption, and such a labour shortage, that serfs were hiring themselves out as free labourers and acquiring the tenancies of their own farms without much hindrance. And though the authorities had tried, through the hated Statute of Labourers, to stop this movement and to hold down wages, they had only succeeded in angering the peasantry without stopping the process. The old shackles of serfdom were dissolving; the world of free yeoman farmers and wage labour was beginning. But even if, in a way, the general poll tax was just a recognition of this new reality, such logic has never been a good enough reason for a tax. “It’s against custom,” was the cry.
There had been a modest attempt at a poll tax two years before, but this was far more ambitious. The richest men in the kingdom would pay large sums. “But even poor peasants will pay several days’ wages,” Silversleeves explained.
“Do you think there will be trouble?” Tiffany asked him.
“Yes. There could be,” he admitted.
The collectors arrived unexpectedly at the George early one summer morning, just as Ducket was loading the handcart. And since the grocer was nominally the head of the household, Ducket was sent to fetch him.
Since their strange night-time encounter, it seemed to Ducket that his master had been less abstracted and rather more cheerful than before. True, he would sometimes look worried at the stall, but that was natural when the trade in the market was still so poor. Only one aspect of his behaviour had changed. In the last few months he had taken to disappearing. It did not happen very often: perhaps once in ten days, and always in the evening. Ducket however, assuming his master was enjoying a solitary walk now the weather was warmer, had not thought much about it. Indeed, as he went to fetch Fleming, the only question on his mind was one of idle curiosity: I wonder if he’ll try something on?
The truly remarkable feature of the poll tax was the amount of evasion. It was astonishing. Spinsters, grown-up children, apprentices, servants, mysteriously vanished from households all over the land. Cottages suddenly fell empty. In some areas, with the collusion of local collectors, entire villages simply disappeared. If one believed the returns, it would seem that the Black Death had just struck again. About a third of the population of England was missing.
Would Fleming try to conceal Amy, the boy wondered? It was too late for the grocer to try to hide his apprentice. And how much would they demand? Though the poorest peasants were only assessed a groat – a day or two’s pay for most of them – many merchants in London were being charged a whole pound or more. Would Dame Barnikel be assessed as a wife or as an independent trader?
But the one thing he had not expected was that Fleming, looking very pale, should, after much hesitation confess: “I can’t pay. I’ve no money.” And when the collectors had laughed and told him to try another story, the shaken grocer had gone to his strongbox in the store and returned with only half a mark. At which point Ducket at least, staring at his master’s face, realized that he was speaking the truth. The grocer was destitute.
“But how?” Dame Barnikel was too concerned to be angry. She had paid the poll tax, which had amounted to two marks, and now, in the privacy of their bedchamber, she was gazing at him in puzzlement.
“Trade’s been so bad,” he mumbled.
“But even so. You had savings, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” he said absently. “Yes. I thought there was more.” He shook his head. “I just need a little time,” he muttered.
“Never mind that,” she frowned. “Do you mean there should have been more in the strongbox?”
“Yes, of course.” He hesitated,