London - Edward Rutherfurd [290]
If only he could get work on one of the fine barges, he could make a very different living. But, “You’re so big,” he was told, “it’s hard to pair you.” And for the good jobs, even in the humble Watermens Guild, you needed connections. “Which is what I haven’t got,” he would sigh. Somehow, though, he had to find a way, if only to save his old father. Then his troubles would be over.
The two men were laughing as they walked through the great courtyard, their footsteps echoing softly against the brick walls. It was time to rejoice.
Rowland Bull was laughing with relief. The interview had gone better than he could have imagined. Even now, he could hardly believe that they had said: “We want you.” It was no small thing for a conscientious lawyer to hear from the Chancellor of England himself. Rowland Bull, son of modest Bull the brewer of Southwark was needed at the heart of the kingdom. He was flattered. As for the income – it was more than he had dreamed. If he had had doubts about the worldliness of the court, when he thought of his little family and how this would transform their lives, it seemed to him that it must be God’s will. He turned.
“I owe all this to you.”
It was hard not to like Thomas Meredith. Slim and handsome, with his sister’s colouring, he was the family’s worldly hope. The Merediths were Welsh. Like other Welsh families, they had come to England with the Tudors. Thomas’s grandfather had fought at Bosworth; his father might have risen at court if he had not died when Thomas and Susan were children. But King Henry had not forgotten the Merediths and had given young Thomas a position with the powerful royal secretary, Thomas Cromwell, where he seemed born to succeed. He had studied at Cambridge and the Inns of Court; he sang and danced well; he fenced and drew a bow; he even played the royal game of tennis with the king. “Though I make sure I lose,” he smiled. At the age of twenty-six he was altogether charming.
If Rowland Bull wanted to sum up the influences that had brought him so far, he could do so precisely. Books, and the Merediths.
The books were easy to explain. It had been a member of the Mercers Guild, a fellow called Caxton, who had brought the first printing presses to England from Flanders and set up shop at Westminster, just before the Wars of the Roses came to an end. The effect had been astonishing. A flood of printed books had soon appeared. Caxton’s books were easy to read. In place of illuminations they often had lively black and white woodcuts; and above all, compared to the old hand-produced manuscripts, they were cheap. Bull the brewer, though he liked to read, would never have owned several dozen books otherwise. And so it was that Rowland, the youngest son, had been allowed to bury his nose in Chaucer, the stories of King Arthur, and a score of sermons and religious tracts; and it was this love of books that had finally led him away from the brewery to become a poor Oxford scholar and then to study the law. It was the books, too, that had caused him as a young man to contemplate the religious life.
But all the rest was the Merediths. Wasn’t it Peter, the man he respected above all others who had told him: “There are other ways to serve God, you know, than in holy orders.” Wasn’t it Peter who, when he had feared he could not keep a religious vow of chastity, had smilingly remarked: “Better, according to St Paul, to marry than burn.” Through Peter he had discovered Susan, and a happiness he had never dared