London - Edward Rutherfurd [260]
“Don’t provoke them,” he said. “Let them through.”
“Idiot!” Bull shouted, rushed back to his house and started to bar the door and close every shutter. Minutes later, the house, with the Bull family inside, was engulfed in the moving mass.
Twice Ducket had hoped to stop his friend. As they swept towards the George, he caught sight of Dame Barnikel, standing grimly before the door with a club. He had tried to steer Carpenter towards her, for she could certainly have stopped him; but a sudden surge from behind carried them past. At London Bridge there was a crowd waiting to cross, while others were streaming along the south bank instead, towards Lambeth. “Turn back,” he begged. “There’s sure to be trouble.” But Carpenter refused. “No trouble,” he said. “You’ll see.”
And amazingly, as they crossed into the city, he seemed to be right. Tyler’s orders had been strict: no looting. The Londoners were cautious, but friendly. The men from Kent began to wander through the streets and Ducket saw them stop and pay for food and drink as they went by. The main body drifted along the Cheap, past St Paul’s and out through Newgate to Smithfield, in whose large space they set up camp. The good temper of the previous day seemed to have returned. By late morning, Ducket left his friend and, curious to see what else was happening, wandered right across the city. At Aldgate, he found the gate open and a steady trickle of Essex men from Mile End coming through. Chaucer was there too, watching them with a wry expression. “I don’t know why the gate opened,” he said. “They don’t seem to be after my books, anyway.” And he glanced up at the big room over the gate.
Ducket told him all he had seen and heard. “Could the peasants really take over?” he asked.
“It has been tried in other lands,” Chaucer said, “but never successfully.” He smiled. “Doesn’t it occur to you that Tyler would make himself king and soon his chief followers would be the new lords? As for today,” he went on, “there will be trouble.”
“How do you know?” Ducket asked.
“Because these fellows have nothing to do,” the poet replied.
He was proved right that afternoon. Ducket had not been back at Smithfield with Carpenter for an hour when he realized the crowd was getting restless. A few started singing. Something else was happening too. Mobs of Londoners had come to join them. Some were just apprentices, there for the fun; but others were of an uglier sort. Soon there were shouts, of anger. And then, whether on Tyler’s orders or of its own volition, the whole crowd suddenly gathered itself up and began to stream towards Westminster. Just before Charing Cross, they came to the huge, sprawling palace of the Savoy, the residence of no less a person than John of Gaunt. And now they had a target.
The whole Savoy was blazing. Soon, the huge symbol of feudal privilege by the Thames would be smouldering ashes. The looters – mostly London ruffians – had also been busy, despite Tyler’s orders. Ducket had watched in fascination, but also sadness, for it was a fine building; at his side, Carpenter had also watched, with a dazed look on his face, murmuring from time to time: “Yes, it must go. This is what must happen.” And, supposing his friend could come to no harm there, standing in the crowd, Ducket had walked a short way towards the Temple, where some of the lawyers’ lodgings were being fired, before coming back again to find that Carpenter had vanished. He looked about, could see no sign of him, and then glanced at the Savoy.
What could have possessed him? Who knew? The carpenter’s solemn figure was walking into the courtyard as though in a dream. Others, too, were in there, tearing any loot they could carry from the flames; but the craftsman made no such move. As though hypnotized, he was entering one of the buildings, drawn by the flames. Ducket’s act of heroism was purely instinctive. He did not stop to think. He ran.
It was bad luck that the building should have collapsed just as he got there. He saw Carpenter fall, leaped