The People's Queen Part 34

He smiles. He misses Alice's energy. He even misses her vindictiveness.

He wishes she could see this for herself.

He hopes she's been safe, out in Ess.e.x, where they say it's been worst of everywhere, but there's nothing he can do to protect her now.

Then, because nothing seems quite real right now except what's going on before his eyes, and even that doesn't seem very real at all, Chaucer forgets Alice and moves on. Tranquil. Light on his toes.

He's actually in the hall with more of the intent, dancing, whirling maniacs, with his eyes stinging from the flames licking up over the giant bonfire, with his hands up to protect his face from the heat, wondering if there isn't anything else lying about that he can stuff in his bag and save, when, through the spit and fury of the fire, he hears a scuffle behind him.

He turns. A group of the men hauling barrels towards the fire (wine barrels, he thinks) have dropped them and turned on one of their fellows. They're pummelling the man, pulling at his tunic, grabbing his bag. The victim's screaming like a stuck pig, digging his heels in, clinging on to whatever he can, but they're lifting him up, whacking him as they go, shouting confused, furious words at him. There's a moment of near-quiet - just the crackle, and the man's enormous eyes. Then someone hisses, 'That'll larn you to go a-stealing,' and someone else shouts, 'We told you and told you, we do not do nothing of that like, right?' and a bit of something glittery is thrown into the fire. 'We are not thieves! We are the True Commons: zealots for truth and justice!' yells another voice, a London voice. Then they throw the man in the fire too. A rush of flame and smoke envelops them all.

As the screaming gets louder, Chaucer fades out of the hall, ashen-faced. The bag on his back, crackling with its secret load, feels like a hot coal.

His legs are suddenly moving very fast. If they're going to turn nasty, it's time he got out of here.

It's only as he whisks down a green alleyway outside, making for the Strand and hopefully home, that he hears two more voices, behind the hedge, out of sight. They're breathless voices, busy, but surprised out of the trance-like destruction, for a moment, at least: 'Tom? That's never Tom Piper of Henney?' Then, in a deeper voice, the reply: 'Whoo-oop, Janny, bin heyah since the start, boy,' and a clapping of flesh on cloth.

If they're saying, 'Whoo-oop,' then those are Ess.e.x men.

The Ess.e.x men must have got in too. Through Aldgate.

Chaucer breaks into a sweat; he's running.

He's still running when he gets up the hill to the cathedral. He doesn't even stop when, far behind him, there's an almighty explosion.

Well, he does, of course. Just for a moment. Though he shouldn't. But a man wouldn't be human without a bit of curiosity. Anyway, everyone else on the crowded hill street has stopped too. They're all craning their necks and shaking their heads. There's awe on every face. There are giant flames and vast black clouds gushing out of the Savoy; as he gazes back, more pops and more vast flying chunks of masonry. 'Gunpowder,' he hears from some know-all.

The greatest palace in Europe, gone in one almighty flash. The Duke of Lancaster's permanent presence in London, obliterated.

Those barrels, he thinks. The ones I was going to watch them chuck on the fire. Thank G.o.d he got out in time. Thank G.o.d. But there's no time to waste. He turns, heaves in breath, and staggers on east, against the human tide.

It's not just to put as much distance as possible between himself and that scene from h.e.l.l, back there.

It's this. If the Ess.e.x men are here, they've entered through Aldgate. So what's happened to his home?

Aldgate is open. He can see St Botolph's beyond, and the houses of the eastern villages, and the fields. There are still rustics pouring in from the Ess.e.x encampment at Mile End, shouting and spitting and charging down the road.

But there are no gate guards that Chaucer can see. No dead men on the ground. No prisoners. No ugly scenes. There's no smoke, either, and no torn masonry. The staircase to Chaucer's apartment is intact.

He wriggles through the crowd and up the stairs. There's danger everywhere outside. All he can do now is bar his door and sit tight. Wait it out, as his daughter's doing. After a while, Chaucer's heart stops thudding and the sweat on his skin dries and cools. He's not exactly sitting tight. He's still pacing around, wild-eyed and wild-haired, revisiting in his mind his most frightening moments out there.

When he's recovered himself a little, he gets the rolls out of his leather bag and spreads them on his table. It's only two years' worth of household accounts, though even that's better than nothing: a splinter of defence against the onslaught of the darkness these...others...are bringing into London. Chaucer's a little cheered by that thought. He even summons up enough ordinary inquisitiveness to go through the rolls he's grabbed and saved quite carefully - for what else is he going to do, here, today? He sees his own name twice a year (and that of his wife, rather more often, including as the recipient of a silver-gilt cup at Christmas that sly Philippa never mentioned to him him she'd been given, which is listed here as being worth PS5 2s. 1d., or half the entire value of Chaucer's ducal pension for the year). He also sees some of the large amounts of money that the Duke seems to spend on fripperies for Katherine, on top of her already lavish allowances. Katherine has received, this spring alone, two tablets of silver and enamel for 7 marks, a silver belt costing more than 40 shillings, a three-legged silver chafing pan worth 33 shillings, a gold brooch in the form of a heart set with a diamond, and a gold brooch set with a ruby and fashioned in the form of two hands. she'd been given, which is listed here as being worth PS5 2s. 1d., or half the entire value of Chaucer's ducal pension for the year). He also sees some of the large amounts of money that the Duke seems to spend on fripperies for Katherine, on top of her already lavish allowances. Katherine has received, this spring alone, two tablets of silver and enamel for 7 marks, a silver belt costing more than 40 shillings, a three-legged silver chafing pan worth 33 shillings, a gold brooch in the form of a heart set with a diamond, and a gold brooch set with a ruby and fashioned in the form of two hands.

It seems nothing's too good for the Duke's women, Chaucer thinks sourly. But then he catches himself on that ungenerous thought, and imagines Katherine hiding wherever she is, with her secret children, and the fear they must feel now, with the peasants gone wild and out for blood, and finds that all he feels for her, really, is pity. Gold brooches won't help her now, poor creature. He wouldn't be in her shoes, if a mob of madmen like the ones he's seen today is after her, too. He hopes she's found a refuge.

Chaucer goes to the window.

There's a nagging voice in his head, telling him he should do something more to defend what he holds dear. Take these rolls to Walworth, maybe. Show willing.

But there are no familiar faces or shapes out there. Just strangers, some yelling in their Ess.e.x voices as they head back through the open gates to Mile End, some drunk already, more coming in, with frightening joy on their turnip faces.

Irresolute, he stands and stares.

THIRTY-NINE.

They come out of the woods, arising from the greenery like furtive spirits. They must have slept rough. There are at least ten of them, led by a woman with a tattered shawl draped over what may once have been a good robe. She has a baby in her arms, a very still baby. But what Alice notices about her first is her closed black eye and fat lip. And the children trailing behind have brambles in clothes blackened and scorched by fire.

It is nearly noon. There are no men at Gaines. They're long gone, with their big staves and their big talk, following Wat. It's just the women and children left behind: Alice and her baby, and Aunty, and the kids. All Alice knows of what the men are up to is what she hears, via Aunty, from the talk on the road: from the wives whose men come back for a s.n.a.t.c.hed night at home, or those sent to the villages to gather reinforcements. What Aunty said this morning, stirring the pot with dark satisfaction, was that the men had left the green-wax fires burning in Chelmsford and Canterbury, and got straight into London. The King's readily agreed to meet the True Commons. And not a drop of blood shed.

It's Johnny who sees the arrivals first. Johnny, who stayed in the solar while the men were still milling about; who hasn't had a good word for Wat or anyone else for weeks now, even before he stopped talking to Alice and Aunty altogether. Still in his mutinous silence, not meeting anyone's eye, he gets up from the table and stares out of the window.

Then he walks out, across the courtyard, through the gate, across the field.

Alice sees something in the set of his shoulders, so she gives Aunty little Lewis, who's heavily asleep, and follows Johnny out, feeling strange in the hot air of outside after her days in confinement, staring at the approaching woman with the black eye, and the children, and the cowered women behind, supporting a limping figure Alice can't make out, and watching how they cringe down when Johnny, silhouetted against the sky, starts waving to them up ahead. He's tall. A man, they might be thinking. But when they hear his thin boy's voice, full of a concerned warmth Alice hasn't heard in a while, not around her house, the women start moving forward again. Even from her distance, Alice can hear the kids begin to snivel as they stumble across the field towards safety.

Mary Sewale and her family have been in the woods for three days.

They ran out of the burning house when the mob got in. She doesn't know what's happened to her husband, the sheriff of Ess.e.x. She pushed the children out through the chicken hole, she says, and ran after them.

There'd been men all around the house for days before. A week. There was no food left by the time the crowd got in.

The Sewale children are wolfing down bread. Stuffing it in. They're staring round Aunty's kitchen with vacant eyes. They jump at every noise.

And the young girl with them, the one the two old servant women have been holding up, the one who was limping with the lost look on her face, and is now huddled down on the floor, crying in a forgetful sort of way, as if she doesn't remember that there's water on her face: she's been...well, none of them can describe the outrage done to her. All the old servants can say, with that imploring look that begs you to understand, and with those occasional flashes of rage at the memories they don't want to revive, is that it happened after the mob got into the Sewales' house at Coggeshall, and found this young Jane Ewell there too, and her new husband, the escheator of Ess.e.x.

They know what happened to him him, all right. John Ewell came out of his hidey-hole when he heard his wife screaming. So they got him, and dragged him out. Cut his head off in front of the chapel. Tom Woodcutter did it, with this crazy look on his face. And the old women got Jane out the back, after the others. Into the woods.

'But why were you all still there? Why didn't you get away days ago?' Johnny says very gently, with his hands on Mary Sewale's. 'When the rioting first started? Why didn't he take you to safety?'

Mistress Sewale shakes her head. She can't explain properly, even to this kind lad. Who can explain fear? She's too exhausted; overwhelmed.

Alice, too. She's got her baby back in her arms. She's nestled in her corner, on her stool, doing nothing but staring down into his tiny face, watching his eyes open and gaze at her with that look that goes beyond trust. She's taking refuge in that look. But there's a terrible misgiving swelling somewhere deep inside her.

And not a drop of blood shed, Aunty was saying earlier on. Wasn't she?

This isn't what was supposed to happen, was it?

She peeks up. If Aunty's also feeling a stirring of guilt, she's not letting on. Aunty's face is closed. She's leaving the questions to Johnny.

Aunty's heaving a big pot of water on to the hook over the fire. Then she takes the baby off Mary Sewale. It's tied on, round my lady sheriff's front. Aunty fumbles with the knots, then cuts them. It's still not moving, that lump.

Aunty unwraps the swaddling. She lays the baby on the table to do it. Bluish stick limbs emerge, floppy against the wood. The stink is unbearable. So is the silence.

As if only just remembering her child's existence, Mary Sewale gets up to help. She moves as if she's in a trance. But her voice is strangely ordinary as she says, 'She's been sick for days. We couldn't go, she was so sick. That was why.' Then, leaning over, pale as a ghost, but still with that unnatural calm, 'Is she dead?'

Doubtfully, Aunty shakes her head. But she doesn't seem able to speak to Mary Sewale. 'Janey, Joanie,' she croaks, ignoring the woman and picking up the baby. 'Get me a bucket and a cloth. Move.'

The baby only stirs once Aunty's started dabbing away at the encrusted dirt with the warm water. Once clean, Aunty picks it - her - up, leaving the swaddling bands, streaked with glistening mucus and liquid brown, on the table, and holds the bluish sc.r.a.p of flesh close. 'Cold as ice,' she says, to no one in particular, as the baby starts to whimper.

At the first gurgle from the child, Mary Sewale sits down, rather suddenly, on the table. But Johnny's at her side, guiding her solicitously back down to the safer perch of the bench.

It's only now that Alice sees what she can do. What she must do, if she wants Johnny, who's avoiding her gaze, as if he holds her personally responsible for every outrage committed by the men, to forgive her for her part in starting this.

With a pang, she realises, that's all she does does want from life. Her world, which once encompa.s.sed kings and palaces, has shrunk to no more than the size and shape and urgency of that desire. It's simple; it may always have been this simple, if only she'd realised. She wants her son to be able to look at her again with that innocent look that goes beyond trust. That's enough. Would be enough. If it's not too late...if she hasn't spoiled everything, for ever. want from life. Her world, which once encompa.s.sed kings and palaces, has shrunk to no more than the size and shape and urgency of that desire. It's simple; it may always have been this simple, if only she'd realised. She wants her son to be able to look at her again with that innocent look that goes beyond trust. That's enough. Would be enough. If it's not too late...if she hasn't spoiled everything, for ever.

I didn't know, a voice inside her implores Johnny. I told them not to hurt anyone. Don't blame me for this.

But she knows that's not good enough. Not any more. Not for these accusing wraiths, standing so quietly around her kitchen, staring. Not for her son.

Hastily, she pa.s.ses little Lewis to Janey, who's hovering beside her.

'Give that baby here,' she says, turning to Aunty and holding her arms out for the Sewale infant. It's suddenly blindingly obvious. Mistress Sewale's been scared out of her wits, running for her life. She'll have no milk.

As Alice puts the small stranger to her breast, feeling the unfamiliar ways of this new body, and the chill in those miserable little limbs, she looks up, almost humbly, over her shoulder, at Johnny.

Below her the baby starts searching excitedly for the nipple; finding it, she closes her eyes and clings on, sucking painfully for all she's worth.

Johnny's standing beside Mistress Sewale, who's staring at her baby with painful urgency now, willing her to take milk and live, just beginning to believe she might. For the first time in days, Johnny's actually looking straight at Alice. And a bit, just a bit, of trust, or hope, or something close, is back in his eyes.

Doubtfully, Johnny whispers: 'This isn't what you wanted, is it, mam? This isn't what you meant...them...to do?'

It's evening. The barns are filling up fast. Johnny's spent half the day carrying bedding and water and food around the barns with his sisters, as more bedraggled female strangers, with smashed faces and slashed clothes and horror stories, have crept out of the woods. All of them wives, or widows, or children, or servants of one or another of the officials Wat was going to put out of action. We heard it was quiet here, they say, before they start weeping. Aunty's stone-faced with them, and all but silent in front of Alice and Johnny and the girls, too; she senses they've shifted ground, and doesn't want to hear. But she's sweet with the kids, at least; all those staring-eyed, slack-jawed, silent gentry children whose noses are running, and whose heads are splitting, and who can't sleep without screaming.

It's the first time all day that Alice and Johnny have had a moment to speak.

Johnny looks so grown-up, Alice thinks, yearning to take this burden off his shoulders, the burden she's created. He looks so tired.

'I had no idea, no idea,' Alice says weakly, shaking her head. 'They've all gone mad.'

It's true, in a way. She really can't imagine Wat or his men doing the terrible, b.l.o.o.d.y things she's heard the women talk about today. She wishes, now - with desperate, guilty sincerity - that she'd never egged him on.

But it's a lie, too, that she had no idea. She knows that, too, even as Johnny sighs his resigned acceptance and puts a hesitant hand on her arm. However much she now wishes she'd never given Wat any of that clever-clever advice about destroying every last trace of tax paperwork and the top half-dozen men in each county, she did say those things. She did egg him on. She just never thought how it would actually be. She's guilty of everything that's happening, because she should have known it would end like this, in horror. She's gone too far, again, despite all those resolutions she made at Chaucer's, in that other life. Chosen the wrong side, the wrong friends; damaged her children and herself. And it's too late for regrets.

FORTY.

'We must attack,' says Mayor Walworth.

The lords around the golden-haired boy-King are slumped, hunched, bundles of fear. But there's nothing soft about Walworth's pale eyes. They flash like steel.

The rebels have settled down for the night, most of them, right outside the Tower, where this Council meeting is being held, on St Katherine's Square. You can hear the catcalls and the drunken songs and the demands through the window. They want to know what the Chancellor's been spending the money on for the past five years. They want to see the King. Or else.

Walworth raises his voice over the shouts from outside. 'We wait till midnight,' he says. 'We come out down four different streets. We attack. They're drunk now. They'll be asleep. And there's scarcely one in twenty of them with a proper weapon. We slaughter the whole sixty thousand of them, like pigs.'

Walworth's supposed to be from the servile cla.s.ses; he's supposed to fear blood. But he has interests to protect, no less than any lord, and a family, and pride. He's standing tall, strung tight as a bowstring - an avenging angel. He's the only one.

The boy with the golden hair, whom they're all addressing, looks interested. But the a.s.sembled lords, the nation's experienced fighting arm, the muscle and brawn and sinew of England, only mumble and shake their heads. Archbishop Sudbury is no longer the Chancellor; he's resigned. But he's in fear of his life now he's trapped here, surrounded by those men who want his head. His skin is grey with fear; his hands tremble. Sir Robert Hales, the treasurer, so fine and bold before, is paralysed too. But then he's another one whose blood the crowd wants.

'Sire, if you can appease them by fair words, that would be the better course,' advises the Earl of Salisbury uneasily. He can't meet Walworth's eyes.

The boy isn't sure. He glances questioningly at the Mayor. Young Richard has been up a turret this evening, observing the revellers. He can't see why he couldn't go and talk to them. He can't really see, either, why he shouldn't go and kill them now. Nor does he especially trust Salisbury, that dried-up old stick, whom his mother always laughs at; whom his mother married, for a while, long ago, then left when her first husband Thomas Holland reappeared.

But Salisbury has a long and glorious past in France. He was at Poitiers. He helped negotiate Bretigny. He's the senior soldier here, and a n.o.bleman. He should know best - better than a merchant, anyway. Still, the King would like Walworth to go on arguing for attack. 'Walworth?' he says. His voice squeaks between man and child. Perhaps it's the squeak that does it.

Walworth thins his lips and bows. 'Very well,' he says coldly. 'If you command it, sire, I will remain inactive.'

So the criers go out at first light, telling whoever wants to know that the King will ride out of London to Mile End fields, and there grant the requests of anyone who wishes to speak to him. Everyone between the ages of fifteen and sixty must leave the City to meet the King there at seven of the bell.

It starts well. The City begins to empty out as the innocents still excited by a meeting with the King march back east, under Aldgate and into the fields. The King rides out and meets the simple souls.

But this is not the happy ending it might seem, for not everyone has left London for the Mile End meeting.

Wat Tyler and John Ball are among those who don't bother. They have bigger fish to fry.

Within an hour of the King leaving they're inside the Tower. Their men are tousling the hair of the defeated, dejected guards, and jumping on Princess Joan's bed, and raiding the larders, and hunting down enemies.

They're dragging out poor old Archbishop Sudbury from his chapel, protesting, in his thin goaty voice, that he's done nothing wrong, right to the block, and bashing off his head with an axe blunted from too much use on metal yesterday. The first of eight blows only wounds his neck. He puts up his hand to feel the wound. He says: The hand of G.o.d. The second blow cuts off his fingers.

Sir Robert Hales' head is chopped off too; that's Hob Robber gone. They find the Duke of Lancaster's physician, a Brother William, and behead him - a token of intent for when they find the Duke himself.

Only a few n.o.bles are lucky. The Duke's son, Henry of Derby, dresses up as a soldier and gets away with his life. Princess Joan is kissed by a drunk rebel and faints. But she manages to get away by boat, and makes it to the Royal Wardrobe building right at the other end of the City sh.o.r.eline before collapsing.