This was fully deserving of its reputation for magnificence and beauty, Simon reckoned. A glorious, soaring building, set atop the Ludgate Hill, the first and most prominent hill in the city itself, it showed God’s glory in all its splendour. However, the place had sour memories for him, because last year he had been here with Baldwin when the Bishop of Exeter was almost attacked by a small mob. At the time Simon and Baldwin had thought that it could be another manifestation of Despenser’s ill-will, but it was as likely to be a mere mischance. The London populace were ever forward and troublesome.
Today at least they appeared less determined to disrupt. There was quite a crowd of men and women at the ancient folk moot.
It was a roughly shaped area of grassy land bounded to the south by the north-eastern wall of the cathedral, and to the north by the charnel chapel, and hemmed in by the massive belfry to the east. Simon and Baldwin went with the squire and Sir Peregrine to stand near the cathedral’s wall, where they should have a good view of events.
They did not have long to wait. First, a number of men arrived, and from the fumes of alcohol, Simon could tell that they had been to the alehouses and taverns that sat along the roads. More, rougher-looking men appeared, some of them carters and hucksters, others the meanest of scavengers and tanners. They brought the smell of their business with them, and Simon was considering moving when he was grateful to see a party of apprentices turn up, younger, fitter and cleaner men all round.
Next to arrive were the bishops, five all told. They walked to the Cross, resplendent in their robes and mitres, their right hands aloft as they muttered prayers and made the sign of the cross towards the waiting audience. The Bishops of London and of Winchester, the Abbots of Waltham and Westminster, and behind them came Archbishop Reynolds, with a number of censer-swinging priests on either side; a thickset fellow with brawny arms and a threatening demeanour carried the cross on a tall pole. The way he stared at the public all around left Simon in no doubt that the fellow was keen to protect his cross, and Simon was sure he had been picked for his truculent attitude. Any man trying to steal it from him would receive a buffet about the head that would make him swiftly regret his inclination.
It was also plain that the archbishop anticipated some form of trouble. He irritably waved on the guards who followed his party, and the men reluctantly interposed themselves between the public and the religious, their polearms held upright, but all ready to bring them down and use them. That much Simon could see in their anxious faces and their alertness.
The archbishop began talking, but Simon scarcely heard a word. He was watching the men listening all around. Soon, a young priest darted forward holding a book, and stood as a living lectern as the archbishop peered at the writing. It was a fairly interminable reading, all in Latin, and there was a priest who bawled a translation. But to Simon’s surprise, when the archbishop finished and his servant folded the book once more, disappearing as quickly as he had appeared, a bystander suddenly shouted out, ‘When was that written, Archbishop?’
‘What?’ the archbishop said, and his uncertainty was instantly communicated.
‘What’s the date on the bull?’
‘It is in force. The pope issued the bull to prevent wars in our land. Why, do you want to see war here?’
‘That’s not about this, is it? It’s a bull about the Scottish, not the righteous queen of our country,’ a man said loudly, and Simon, peering about, was surprised to see that it was an apprentice who spoke so rudely. He hadn’t expected a youth studying his profession to be so insulting to an archbishop. Youngsters had so little respect nowadays …
‘When was it dated?’
The cry was taken up, and now the scavengers were pressing forwards. There was a shout, and the guards before the priests lowered their staffs, but too late. The crowd was so close already that the staffs would only fall on heads and shoulders, and none of the men was willing to do that and begin the bloodshed. In preference, they all crossed their weapons and tried to keep the crowd back.
First it was an apple. A brown, rotten apple curled through the air, and landed a short distance behind the guards, some of the flesh spattering Reynolds’s robes. He stared at the muck with distaste, then glared at the crowds. But before he could say anything, the apprentices started to throw old fruit and some bread, anything they had about them. Others were collecting small stones and aiming them at the guards. They rattled on their helmets, and one cried out, his hand going to his eye.
The bishops and abbots abruptly turned around and hurried across the grass to the door to the cathedral.
Simon watched as the guards also beat a quick retreat. Stones continued to fall, some larger ones crashing into the cross itself, or slamming into the walls of the cathedral, but none, by a miracle, hit any of the glass windows.
There was a slithering sound that he recognised, and when Simon turned, he saw that Baldwin had drawn his sword. Like a statue carved from moorstone, Baldwin stared at the apprentices, his sword-point resting on his boot’s toe, his hand resting on the hilt.
Before Simon could ask why he had taken his sword out, he saw a couple of the apprentices glance around. One had a stone in his hand, which he hefted, a sneer curling his lip. Then he saw Baldwin, and Baldwin shook his head, slowly and deliberately, but with menace. The two looked away.
While he watched them, Simon caught sight of William Walle’s face. He registered only horror. ‘How could they do that?’ he kept repeating, over and over again, as though it was a prayer that could eradicate the memory of that hideous scene.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Tower of London
The Bishop of Exeter stormed back to the chamber in the Tower feeling a rage so all-enveloping, he was astonished he did not at once burst into flames.
‘That damned fool!’ he snarled, and kicked his door shut.
John de Padington eyed his master and gauged his mood; he had known him to get frustrated like this before. Bishop Walter was a clever man who was forced to work in conditions that not only taxed his mind, but then forced him to choose politics to explain his thoughts. Working to a worthwhile goal, only to see the achievable ambitions obstructed by others with more shallow desires for the kingdom, was hard to swallow.
‘Bishop, I have some lobster for your lunch, and here is a very fine wine which you will enjoy.’
‘Oh, I will, will I?’
‘Undoubtedly. And if you sit now, and do not upset your humours any more than strictly necessary, it will aid your digestion too.’
The bishop eyed him, and then gave a small chuckle. ‘Very well, John. You are right enough. Let me sit. Ah! That is better. Now, wine, you said? Good.’ He took a long pull from the goblet and grunted his approval.
There was a knock at the door. ‘If it’s someone from that incompetent bastard Despenser, send him away before I wring his neck!’
John opened the door to find William Walle, Simon and Baldwin outside. He stood back to let them all inside.
‘Dear God in Heaven, you lot look as though you’ve seen the queen’s host sailing up the Thames,’ he said, only half in jest.
Simon nodded towards the squire, and William took a deep breath, before explaining what they had, in fact, seen at St Paul’s Cross.
The bishop turned his face away. ‘I told them it wouldn’t work. I explained to the king and Despenser, but they wouldn’t listen. They said I was an old fool who didn’t understand how to sway the common man’s mind. If there was a threat from the pope, that would bring the city folk around, they said — what — after so many years of Despenser’s despoiling of the country? Almost all the peasants hate him; all the nobles do. If only Despenser could be sent away, many of the people would, I believe, rally to the king. But the king won’t send him to exile or death, and therein lies the tragedy of our times.’