London - Edward Rutherfurd [265]
It was over six months since he had been barred from the house; and now, as she gazed at his familiar face, his cheerful eyes and jaunty shock of white hair, she felt a sudden pang of guilt. Even if her father was right, how could she have let so much time pass without even attempting to see him? How must he have felt, an outcast, without even a show of friendship from her? And now, knowing what she did, she felt even greater embarrassment. But when she told him what she had heard, he showed no sign of resentment. “I’m glad you feel it’s safe to talk to me now,” he laughed. “It’s funny though,” he confessed, “how everyone’s been so cool towards me in the last couple of years. I don’t know why.”
But Tiffany did. And suddenly, thinking of her father’s and Dame Barnikel’s suspicions, and looking at his smiling face, she knew as certainly as she knew anything in the world that he could not have done what they thought.
“I think,” she said, “there’s something you should know.”
During the Easter season, in the year 1382, several copies of a very dangerous book were infiltrated into London. Since books had to be written out by scribes, the number of copies was limited; but the authorities were alarmed nonetheless.
The book was the Bible. It was a literal and not very pleasing translation, made partly by Wyclif himself, mostly by other hands; even its authors viewed it only as a first attempt. But it was in English; and men like Carpenter could read. This was the frightening thought. “An English Bible,” Bull told his wife, “means sedition.” With John Ball’s sermons still ringing in the people’s ears, and the terrifying rebel horde such a recent memory, the idea of simple folk reading the Bible and making their own sermons struck terror in responsible men. The followers of Wyclif now came to be known by a pejorative nickname, which meant either mumblers or layabouts: the Lollards. Wyclif’s Bible was called the Lollard Bible. And both were dangerous.
Ben Carpenter wanted a Lollard Bible. He had been able, so far, to obtain the Book of Genesis. Like many Lollard bibles, it was prefixed by a series of Lollard tracts; and he had read both tract and scriptural text, slowly but successfully, twice so far. He did not bring it to the George since Amy said it would annoy her mother, who had ceased to like Wyclif since the revolt. But several times he had conducted Amy to a quiet spot and read her chapters on each occasion. “When the weather’s warmer,” he promised her, “we can walk out in the evenings and I can read it to you for longer.”
A wet spring night, rather cold for May. Gusts of wind rattled the shutters as Ducket made his way out past Ludgate. He had waited patiently for this chance, two months from the day when Tiffany had warned him of Dame Barnikel’s suspicions, and now he was careful to keep his quarry in sight.
Of course, it might be nothing. There might be no link at all, but he could not help thinking that Fleming’s lack of money must be connected with his strange disappearances. And whatever Fleming was up to, if he wanted to clear his own name he had better find out. Ahead of him, the grocer crossed the Fleet bridge and continued westward towards Temple Bar.
The rain was blowing in his face, making it difficult to see. Just before Temple Bar, Fleming suddenly turned right and started up Chancery Lane. This was not a quarter that Ducket often visited and he wondered where the grocer could be going. He tried to draw a little closer. A gust of wind smacked a sheet of rain into his face. He wiped his eyes.
Fleming had vanished.
Taking a chance that he might be detected, he ran up Chancery Lane. A hundred yards; two hundred. There was no sign of him.
“He can’t have gone any further,” he muttered, and began to retrace his steps. “He’s got to be in here somewhere.” There were houses on both sides of the street. With their high gables and curved timbers they seemed to be looming towards him in the darkness. He realized that already he had passed a score of alleys and yards into which Fleming could have stepped. Here and