London - Edward Rutherfurd [98]
“What! Are you defying me?”
It was a roar. Suddenly Alfred was afraid the huge Dane would change his mind and not feed him after all. Nevertheless, he found the courage to reply: “Not defying you, sir. But I’ll not go back.”
“You’ll starve. You’ll die. You know that?”
“I’ll get by.” He knew it was absurd, but there it was. “I’m not giving up, sir.”
This was met by such a loud shout that he feared the massive Viking was about to strike him, but nothing happened.
Now the woman was ladling the broth into a smaller bowl, and motioning him to draw up to the table. As he did so, he was aware of the huge fellow moving towards him.
“Well,” the deep voice demanded of his wife, “what do you think of him?”
“He’s a poor-looking thing,” she replied mildly.
“Yes. And yet,” Alfred heard him chuckle, “in this boy dwells the heart of a hero. You hear that? A mighty warrior.” With a great guffaw, he gave Alfred a clap on the back that almost sent him into the bowl of broth. “And do you know why? Because he won’t give up. He just told me. He means it. The little fellow won’t give up!”
His wife sighed. “Does this mean I have to keep him?”
“Why of course,” he cried. “Because, young Alfred,” he declared to the boy, “I have work for you to do.”
All that summer, the Saxon fleet cruised up and down the English Channel. There was only one raid, on the port of Sandwich in Kent, which was quickly beaten off. After that, nothing. Over the horizon, William the Norman was biding his time.
For young Alfred, however, despite this danger, these months became the happiest of his life.
He soon came to know the Dane’s family. Barnikel’s wife, though strict, was kindly; they had several married children, and the eighteen-year-old son who was to marry Leofric’s daughter still lived in the house. He was a stalwart, quiet version of his father and taught young Alfred how to tie sailors’ knots.
It seemed to amuse the Dane to take the country boy about with him. His house on the eastern hill overlooked the bare, grassy slopes where the ravens dwelt and was close to a Saxon church called All Hallows. Each morning he would stride down the lane to Billingsgate to inspect the little ships and their cargoes of wool, grain or fish. Alfred liked the wharf, with its bracing smell of fish, tar and riverweed. Even better, though, were the visits to the western hill where Leofric lived. Now he was no longer a vagrant, what a joy it was to wander from St Paul’s along the West Cheap, where each of the little lanes that came to meet it seemed to have its special trade – Fish Street and Bread Street, Wood Street and Milk Street, all the way to the Poultry at the far end – and hear the cries not only of the sellers of these products, but also of spicers, shoemakers, goldsmiths, furriers, quiltmakers, combmakers and dozens of others. Only one thing had surprised him, and this was the number of pigsties along the stalls. It was a feature of city life that he had not expected, but Barnikel explained: “The pigs eat up the rubbish and keep the place clean.”
Thanks to Barnikel, Alfred now began to understand more of London’s character. In some ways the city was rural still. The Saxon settlement did not fill the huge walled enclosure; there were orchards and fields as well. Around the city lay great estates owned by the king, his chief men or the Church, and these landowners’ estates existed inside the city walls too. “The city’s divided into wards,” the Dane told him. “About ten on each hill. But some of the wards are privately owned. We call them sokes.” He reeled off the names of several nobles and churchmen who held these estates within London.
Yet London was still a world of its own. As he watched and listened to Barnikel each day, Alfred found himself constantly amazed. “The city is so rich,” Barnikel explained, “that it’s taxed like a whole shire.” Proudly he listed all the liberties that the city had won: trading concessions,