London - Edward Rutherfurd [262]
That evening, Bull himself appeared. He looked at Ducket with disgust. “Your friends have been successful,” he said drily. “The king has granted charters abolishing serfdom. In return, they have not only murdered the archbishop, but they are roaming the streets setting fire to houses and killing anyone they don’t like the look of. About two hundred innocent people so far. I thought you’d be pleased.” Then he banged the door furiously and locked it.
The following morning was Saturday. The early hours passed quietly. Then, in mid-morning, he heard people running in the street. There were cries, but not like yesterday’s. People being called by name. He heard someone at Bull’s door. Hurried conversations. After a while, the voices died away. Two hours passed. More cries. Cheers. People in the street laughing. A horse clattering up to the door. Someone entering the house with, it seemed to him, a heavy tread. And then, half an hour later, the kitchen door opened and Bull appeared.
“It seems,” he said calmly, “that the king has pardoned you.”
James Bull saw it all.
At the Tower, after capturing Ducket, James had not found anyone ready to go to the Savoy; but his eagerness to serve the authorities was so obvious that no less a man than Alderman Philpot procured him a horse and arms. “You can make yourself useful,” he said. From that time, he hardly left Philpot’s side. And so on that fateful Saturday, he witnessed the astonishing climax to the Peasants’ Revolt.
Early that morning, after going to Mass at Westminster, King Richard II of England, together with a small retinue of nobles, the mayor of London, Philpot and some other aldermen, rode to Smithfield, to parley with Wat Tyler.
It was a calculated risk. So far, the rebels had shown no desire to harm the boy king himself. But they could destroy London. Reports were also arriving of risings all over East Anglia. “The whole country could go,” Philpot told James. If young King Richard could persuade Tyler’s men to disperse, huge bloodshed might be avoided. “Or they may change their minds and kill him,” Philpot remarked grimly.
When they arrived, they found Tyler and his men drawn up on the western side of the broad space of Smithfield. The little group behind the king stopped in front of the tall, grey buildings of St Bartholomew’s. The horde, pressing round the side of Smithfield, was a fearsome sight, and even James found he was trembling. But the son of the Black Prince, with the Plantagenet blood of Edward I and the Lionheart, rode out into the centre, alone. And Tyler came to meet him.
Seeing a space just in front of him, James managed to edge forward until he was only just behind the mayor’s shoulder. Despite his efforts at the Savoy, he had not actually seen Tyler before, but now he was only sixty yards away and James could see the man’s features clearly. He gazed, fascinated, at the swarthy face. It seemed to him Tyler might have been drinking. And then he frowned.
Tyler wasted no time. Greeting the king in a friendly but abrupt manner, he now issued his demands. All lordship must be abolished. There were to be no more bishops, except one – John Ball. The vast estates of the Church must be confiscated and given to the peasants. And all men should be equal, under the king. Richard rode back to his cortège. James heard him in muttered conversation with the mayor and others. He heard the king say: “I’ll tell him we’ll consider them all.” Then Richard returned to Tyler.
But it was not the king upon whom James Bull’s eyes remained fixed. It was Tyler. He was racking his brain. Where had he seen that face?
On receiving Richard’s response, Tyler grinned.