London - Edward Rutherfurd [286]
“But my home is in London,” he would truthfully say. And he lived there contentedly. He saw his friend Whittington become mayor not one, or even twice, but a legendary three times. He saw him build many of the things he had always said he would, including a new water fountain. In his will, the mayor even provided for sanitary public lavatories not far from dirty old St Lawrence Silversleeves.
He watched James Bull’s brewery prosper from its modest beginnings at the George to a great affair which supplied beer to the troops of the next king, Henry V, when they went to fight at Agincourt. He saw England, in its old conflict with France, once again triumph as it had in the days of the Black Prince. He saw his own children grow up and grow rich until it was nearing the time when he, too, should depart.
Yet even now, as he grew old, and remained in the house on London Bridge, his greatest pleasure of all was to watch the river, not only in the evening out of the big window that faced upstream, but better yet, in the early morning, standing by the road on the Southwark side not far from the spot where he had first been found, from which vantage point he could gaze for an hour or more at the great stream of the Thames flowing eternally towards the rising sun.
HAMPTON COURT
1533
She should not have entered the garden. She should have walked past when she heard the whispers. Hadn’t her brother warned her about such things?
A sultry August afternoon; a clear blue sky. In its great deer-park beside the Thames, a dozen miles upriver from London, the huge, red-brick Tudor palace of Hampton Court lay in the warm sun. Across the green spaces before the palace, she could hear the distant sounds of the courtiers’ laughter. Further away, amongst the parkland trees, the deer moved delicately, like dappled shadows. There was a faint scent of mown grass and, it seemed, of honeysuckle in the gentle breeze.
She had walked away to the riverbank, wanting to be alone, and it was only now, as she came past the hedge, that she heard the whispers.
Susan Bull was twenty-eight. In an age which admired pale, oval faces, her features were pleasantly regular. People said that her hair was her best feature. When not pinned up, it hung very simply close to her face, only curling a little at her shoulders. But it was the colour that everyone remembered – a dark, rich brown with a hint of warm auburn that gave it a lustrous sheen, like polished cherry wood. Her eyes were of the same colour. But secretly she was more proud of the fact that, after four children, her body had not lost its slim shape. Her dress was simple but elegant: a starched white coif on her head, under which her hair was neatly tied, and a pale brown silk gown. The modest gold cross that hung round her neck suggested, correctly, that she loved her religion, though many a lady would have made a similar show of piety at the court, where it was quite the fashion.
She had not wanted to come here. The courtiers always seemed so devious, and she hated any kind of falseness. Nor would she have done so if she had not felt she must. She sighed. It was all Thomas’s idea.
Thomas and Peter, her two brothers: it really was astonishing how different they were. Thomas, the baby of the family: quick, brilliant, charming, wilful. She loved him of course, but with reservations. Large reservations.
And Peter, comfortable, solid Peter. Though actually her half-brother from an earlier marriage, he was the one to whom she felt closer. It was Peter, the eldest of the Meredith family, who had taken the place of their father when he died young. Peter who was still, and always would be, the family conscience. She had not really been surprised when he had entered the priesthood, leaving young Thomas to pursue the things of the world.
There had been no better parish priest in London than Father Peter Meredith. A good height, balding and pleasantly stout by his forties, his comforting presence was as familiar as it was welcome to his flock. He was a clever man and, but