London - Edward Rutherfurd [253]
On a December day, in 1380, when the city was covered with snow and the river rushed silently under London Bridge, Ducket, dressed in thick woollens, was just approaching the small church of St Magnus by the bridge’s northern entrance when he saw them coming towards him. They were both wearing rich, fur-trimmed cloaks and fur hats; they were walking side by side, and laughing. Silversleeves and Tiffany were so taken with each other that they did not notice him.
It was some time since he had seen Tiffany. Ever since his conversation with Silversleeves he had kept to his policy and paid her only occasional visits as a reminder of their childhood friendship. “You’ll be married long before I am,” he had once cheerfully remarked to her.
The long-nosed young man, his face flushed in the cold, looked almost handsome. Tiffany’s face was turned up to his, and her eyes were shining with amusement. A moment later, they saw him. There was not a trace of awkwardness in Tiffany’s smile, but only kindness; and in Silversleeves’s greeting, the comfortable jocularity of a man who, lucky in love, meets another man who cannot possibly be a rival. And wasn’t it natural? Wasn’t the lawyer a clever young fellow of good family, with a fine future before him – a worthy husband who had every right to this charming girl upon whom Ducket had no claim at all?
Why then, as they passed on, should the apprentice suddenly have felt such violent, astonishing emotion? A flash of warmth, an instant of the most complete and certain knowledge: she was the one.
But it was impossible. He had no right. It was pointless. He could not, he would not, fall in love with Tiffany Bull.
It was the eve of St Lucy’s, the winter solstice, the midnight of the year. A long, deep night, dark as nothingness, in which all manner of things might be concealed: which was as well, for behind these tightly closed shutters was concealed no ordinary mystery, nothing less than the secret of the universe itself.
That the secret of the universe was, at present, within the city’s bounds, was due to a minor alteration of geography. For with the passing of time, the city limits had progressed well beyond its ancient walls. At various points along the approach roads, these new boundaries were marked by chains across the road to force the traffic to halt and pay tolls. These gateways were known as the city bars. On the western side there were two: about half a mile out from Ludgate, on the lane now called Fleet Street by the old precincts of the Knights Templar, lay Temple Bar. A similar distance out from Newgate, was Holborn Bar.
It was here, between the Holborn and Temple Bars, that the most learned men in London were gathered together, in the lawyers’ quarter. There had been hostels, known as Inns, for lawyers in the vicinity for a long time. But in recent decades, the ever-increasing number of legal men had been flocking to the area like gathering starlings. Already some of their communal lodgings and schools were acquiring permanent names: Gray’s Inn, Lincoln’s Inn; even the Temple precincts too, their crusading order having been disbanded, were now leased to these sharp-eyed and chattering fellows. Down the centre of this quarter, running from Holborn southwards to Fleet Street, was the narrow thoroughfare known as Chancery Lane. And it was by Chancery Lane, in a small lodging on the upper floor whose windows, had they not been shuttered, would have given out on a tiny, enclosed courtyard, that the secret of the universe, like some subtle legal contract, was being minutely investigated to see what it could yield.
Fleming watched spellbound, his concave face turned towards the glowing coals in the fire, as the dark figure before him went about his work. The Sorcerer wore a black robe on which were sewn, in golden thread, images of the sun, moon and planets. On a table in the centre of the room was a score or so of bowls, jars, phials, beakers and retorts.