Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [430]
He was a huge, blond Fleming aged about thirty-five; he was clever and knew the markets well; he had a large family; he was looking for business. And he was in debt.
“If he can’t pay soon, they’ll take his house away,” Shockley told Forest.
“He sounds like our man,” the landowner agreed.
He was taking the Fleming to meet Forest at Avonsford that day. If Forest approved, then the deal between the three of them would be struck and the business would be ready to begin.
There had been a brief shower of rain just before Edward collected the Fleming from the George Inn that afternoon, and as they rode up the Avon valley glistening in the sunlight, he was glad that the place was looking its best.
For although he and Forest were intending to make use of the big foreigner, he was uncomfortably aware that the merchant, used to the huge metropolis of Antwerp and the mighty castles and palaces of Germany and France, might be a little contemptuous of the market town and modest manor houses of Sarum. The evening before when they had dined together at the inn, his companion had expressed the general view of the continentals when he leaned back comfortably and remarked:
“You English live poorly: but I grant that you eat well.”
He need not have worried, however. For as they passed through the stone gateway and rode down the newly planted avenue that led through the deer park, the Fleming nodded in warm approval.
It was when they came in sight of the manor house, however, that his companion reined his horse and stared in open-mouthed amazement.
“It is beautiful,” he said in frank admiration. “I have never seen such a thing better done.”
For when the Forests had rebuilt Avonsford Manor fifteen years before, they had incorporated into it a remarkable feature. And as a result, with the sun glancing off the still wet walls, it presented a most extraordinary sight.
“It’s like a chequerboard,” the Fleming cried in delight.
No description could have been more apt. The house now consisted of two large, gable-fronted wings between which stretched a two storey central section long enough to contain a row of five fine windows; in the middle of this now perfectly symmetrical arrangement was a broad, low-arched doorway. But the striking feature of all this, and what had excited the merchant’s admiration, was the stonework of the walls. For here the Tudor masons had demonstrated one of the triumphs of their local craft. The entire façade was divided into perfect squares, about a foot across, and these had been alternated between local grey stone of a light shade and carefully knapped flint which was darker. When the sunlight caught it after a shower, this flint gleamed almost like glass.
It was a design that had been used in this and other regions where grey stone and flint had been found since Roman times, but nowhere was it more elegantly and precisely done than in the five valleys around Sarum.
As the two drew closer to the gleaming grey building however, it was another feature that caught the visitor’s eyes. Edward saw to his amusement, as they approached the entrance, that the Fleming’s gaze was so fixed upon this last ornamentation, that he did not even notice Thomas Forest had come out of the door to greet them.
He was staring at the chimneys.
“My God,” he shouted this time, so that his voice echoed around the whole house, “what do you call those?”
“Chimneys,” Forest answered quietly.
In the reign of Henry VIII, a brief but never-to-be-forgotten fashion appeared in the architecture of England, and one which was not found anywhere else in Europe. For the English took it into their