London - Edward Rutherfurd [99]
But it was not these things, but rather something else – something in the air, yet something very tangible – that truly impressed the sharp-eyed boy. For a time he could not find words to summarize this perception, but then one day, in a chance remark, the Dane provided them.
“The walls of London touch the sea,” he said.
Yes, the boy thought. That is it.
Resting as it did at the head of the long Thames Estuary, looking daily to the sea, the great walled settlement had for generations been a home to seafarers and traders from all over the northern world. And though they obeyed the authority of the island’s Saxon or Danish kings, these men of the seas did not expect to be interfered with too much. They organized their own guilds to regulate trade and defence. They knew their value to the king, and this was recognized. A great merchant like Barnikel’s grandfather, who had made three voyages to the Mediterranean, had been created a nobleman. Three generations of Barnikels had served as captains of the city’s Defence Guild, which could produce a formidable force. The city’s walls were so mighty that even King Canute had respected them. “No invader can take London,” these Anglo-Danish merchant barons liked to boast. “And no king is king unless we say so.”
It was London’s pride that Alfred sensed. “For the citizens of London,” the Dane explained, “are free.”
It was an old English custom that if a serf ran away to a town and lived there unclaimed for a year and a day, he was free. True, there were serfs and even slaves in the households of some of the landowners and rich merchants, though most of the apprentices were, like himself, free. But in London, he discovered, the word “free” meant something more. A merchant who paid his entrance fee, or an artisan who had completed his apprenticeship, became a freeman of the city. They had the right to trade, set up a stall, sell goods and vote at the Folkmoot. They paid the king’s taxes; and all others, whether they came from the next county or beyond the sea were “foreigners” and could not trade there until they had been awarded citizenship. No wonder, then, that the Londoners cherished their freedom. As the boy felt his dagger at his side, he flushed with pleasure to think he was to be part of it.
After a week, when Alfred’s strength had fully recovered, Barnikel turned to the boy one morning and remarked: “Your apprenticeship begins today.”
The quarter to which the Dane now led him lay just outside the city’s eastern wall. Here, a little stream ran down to the Thames, and along its banks were numerous workshops. It was a busy area, controlled by the city’s Defence Guild. As they approached a long wooden building and Alfred heard the familiar sound of hammer on anvil, he supposed that he was to be apprenticed to a blacksmith. It was only after they entered and he looked around him that his heart almost missed a beat.
They were in an armoury.
Of all the tradesmen, to a boy brought up as a blacksmith, the armourer was the prince of craftsmen. Gazing round at the coats of chain mail, the helmets, shields and swords, Alfred was speechless.
The master armourer who now approached was a tall, bony-faced man with a stoop. His mild blue eyes were kindly, but as he noticed the curious webbing on the boy’s hands he turned to Barnikel doubtfully. “Can he do the work?”
“He can,” the Dane answered firmly. And so Alfred’s apprenticeship began.
Perhaps no days in his life were ever happier. As the newest apprentice, Alfred was set to work on menial tasks – fetching water from the stream, stoking the fire and working the bellows. This he did without question and nobody took much notice of him.
At the end of the first day he went back with the other apprentices to their lodgings. Usually apprentices were not paid, but lived free in their master’s house, but the armourer was a widower who disliked this arrangement. Instead, on the slope of Cornhill his sister