London - Edward Rutherfurd [308]
“But if it’s wrong,” Rowland began, “surely any Christian . . .” His voice trailed off.
“We are warned not to seek martyrdom,” Peter replied gently. “It’s a spiritual error.” He smiled. “A family man like you, with those God-given responsibilities –” He reached across and placed his hand over Rowland’s. “I should leave it to the monks. That’s what we’re there for.”
Susan sighed with relief.
“What if I were asked to take an oath?” Rowland asked. “You won’t be,” she cut in. But Rowland was not satisfied. He looked uncertainly at Peter. Please God, Susan thought, let him give the right answer.
Peter gazed at him thoughtfully. “You have a wife and children,” he said gently. “I cannot tell you what to do.”
It was not enough. She waited, in vain, for more. And now, looking with terror at the two men, so alike, she almost cried aloud: oh, why, Peter, why did you have to come back?
The two men were standing in the Great Hall at Hampton Court and Carpenter was proudly showing Dan Dogget his handiwork. It was an extraordinary structure. The palace at Hampton had originally been built by Wolsey and it was large then, but Henry seemed to make it huger every year; and of all his additions, none was more splendid than the hall. It took up the entire side of one courtyard and was three storeys high. At one end, a vast window, like one of the great curtains of glass in a Perpendicular church, let in a pleasant light through its stained glass. The outside brickwork was painted and even the mortar between the bricks was picked out in grey. The floor was of red tile, the walls hung with great heraldic tapestries. But most spectacular of all was the mighty hammerbeam roof. And it was to this now that Carpenter was proudly pointing.
The English hammerbeam was not just a roof, it was an institution. Invented in the Middle Ages, this useful piece of engineering had proved so pleasing to everyone that it was to last, even when not really needed structurally, for centuries. Soaring, yet sturdy, elaborately carved and painted, yet massively solid, it was everything the English liked. There was the great early hammerbeam in Westminster Hall. Every London guild or livery company that could afford a hall would want one; Oxford and Cambridge colleges boasted sumptuous examples.
The wooden hammerbeam roof was simply a series of partial arches – exactly like wall brackets – arranged one on top of, and jutting out from, another. By building a line of these brackets out from each side of a wide hall, and joining them above with a great beam, a big space could easily be crossed and a heavy roof supported.
It was, indeed, magnificent. There were eight of these mighty oak hammerbeam arrangements down the length of the hall, dividing the roof space into seven compartments. At the foot of each was a huge wooden corbel; from the end of each bracket a heavy wooden pendant hung in the space overhead. And all these, together with many of the other details, were elaborately carved in gleaming, oaken magnificence.
“I did some of those,” Carpenter said.
So perfectly were the accounts of the works at Hampton Court kept that every scrap of painting, carpentry and masonry carried out during those years was detailed with the name of the craftsman and what he was paid. Carpenter was thus already, as perhaps all men are, immortal without knowing it.
“So what news of your father?” the craftsman asked his brother-in-law, as they left the Hall together. “Has he kept to quarters?”
And now Dan was able to surprise him. “It seems,” he said, “he’s reformed.”
It was Father Peter Meredith’s arrival in the Charterhouse that seemed to be the cause of this miracle. No one could say quite how he had done it: perhaps it was his spiritual influence, or perhaps he just kept the old man company; but within a week Will Dogget had attached himself to the priest. “As long as Father Peter’s around the old man seems perfectly happy,” Dan said. “It’s the most remarkable