CHAPTER XXI
At Mile End Fulk Ferrers sat on his white horse, a little apart from his lords and gentlemen, who held together like desperate men expecting treachery. With the rich colours of their clothes and the glint of their harness they looked like some noble pile of plunder heaped up in the midst of a ploughed field, for the brown men of the soil in their thousands closed them in on every side.
Fulk had ridden forward thirty paces ahead of his company. He sat there on his white horse, with the peasants crowding round with their solemn, hairy faces. Imperturbable, stung to a tense audacity, he looked down at them with fearless eyes; sometimes he smiled; he knew himself their King.
“Sirs, here are we together, King Richard and his Commons. Speak out. Am I afraid to listen to your desires?”
They surged round him, looking up into his face, held by his blue eyes and the mouth that did not falter. He had left over yonder the lords whom they hated, and had ridden into their midst, a King who was not afraid.
They cheered him.
“Long live King Richard.”
He held up a fist.
“Long life to myself, say I, my friends. But to your business. I am your King. I am here. I listen. Let no one come between us.”
A hundred voices shouted for all manner of changes, but since their cries smothered each other, they grew more silent, and pushed some of their leaders and spokesmen to the front. Wat the Tiler, Jack Straw, and John Ball had remained behind with those who had seized the Tower, but Merlin stood hidden in the crowd, whispering to his neighbours and prompting them in their demands.
“Sir, noble sir, land at fourpence an acre.”
“We will be serfs no longer.”
“Down with the market tolls.”
“No more grinding at the lord’s mill.”
“No heriot, and no dues, and no fleecing of a poor man when his wench marries.”
For an hour or more Fulk sat there in their midst, listening to the babel of their desires, patiently, proudly, knowing behind his pride that for the moment the kingdom was at their mercy. The great brown mob palpitated about him. He was a rock in the midst of the sea, a solitary oak on a wind-blown heath.
His hand went up for a great silence, and it came—after much wrangling and shouting.
“Sirs, it seems to me good that men should be free. I, Richard the King, grant you your desires.”
They surged round him, shouting like madmen.
“King Richard! King Richard!”
“The King’s word carries!”
“We knew we would have justice if we had the ear of the King.”
“St. George for Merrie England!”
“Yes, yes; and let the clerks put it all in writing.”
Fulk turned his horse and made a sign to Cavendish to approach.
“Let my banners advance. Room, sirs, room for my banners.”
Yet to one man in the crowd the game was going too smoothly, and that man was Father Merlin. This lad on the white horse seemed likely to carry the people away with him, and Merlin stood biting his nails and watching Fulk malevolently from under his hood. This young King on the white horse held the grey friar at a disadvantage. The one was lifted up valiantly before all men; the other lurked in the crowd, fearing to thrust to the front because of his grey frock.
“Fools, fools, to be cozened!”
A snarl of rage broke from him when the crowd honoured the King’s banners. Each county was to have its banner, and the men of each county were to march back with the King’s banner to their homes. Clerks were to be set that night to make out the charters, and two men from each county were to tarry behind their fellows to carry the charters into the countryside.
A voice trumpeted its scorn.
“Fools, you are being tricked, sent home like sheep!”
Fulk heard the cry. His face seemed to glow like white metal. He stood in his stirrups, high above the crowd.
“Who is it that challenges the word of the King? Let him stand out.”
He had the crowd with him, and angry shouts went up.
“Bring the rat out.”
“Who calls the King a liar?”
“Smite the churl on the mouth.”
Merlin pulled his cowl down, pushed through, and slunk away.
“Pax, pax,” he said; “it was not I who challenged the King.”
But his red mouth looked fierce, and his eyes formidable, under his cowl.
In another hour this great crowd had been tamed and won, the men of each county standing massed about the King’s banners. A clerk sat on an overturned tub beside Fulk’s horse, dipping his quill into the ink-horn at his girdle, making a rough draft of the King’s charter to the Commons. And the men who were to tarry behind stood and looked over the clerk’s shoulders, knowing nothing of letters, but seeing in them symbols of strange power.
Fulk sent a trumpeter to start the men upon their march. They circled round him with their banners, like a huge wheel with the figure on the white horse for the hub. The King’s lords and gentlemen thanked God and the saints for a marvel.
“To your homes, sirs.”
Fulk returned to his lords, and saw that a dusty, grey-faced man was standing beside Salisbury’s horse. Walworth and Knollys were whispering together, their heads almost touching.
“To the Tower, my lords.”
Salisbury covered his mouth with his gloved hand.
“Listen. The Tower is ours no longer.”
He pushed his horse close to Fulk’s.
“Wat and his ruffians broke in. Simon of Sudbury is dead, his head hacked off on Tower Hill. Others are dead with him. By God, we are on the edge of hell. Keep a brave face.”
Fulk’s eyes flashed.
“Have I faltered? Have I not poured out lies without flinching?”
“Sir, you have saved the kingdom. But he—the other——”
“What! have they taken him?”
“Our Lady be thanked, no. We had news. Something was carried out in the Princess’s bed, put aboard a boat, and smuggled to the Wardrobe in Carter Street.”
Fulk’s lips came together in a hard line.
“By the Cross, the ice is thin. We have got rid of these good sheep, but should we be betrayed——”
“We shall be, with Simon of Sudbury. Wat and John Ball have their thousands still—beasts who have tasted blood.”
“Then whither go we, since the Tower is ours no longer?”
“To the Wardrobe, sir, to comfort the Princess.”
The trumpets sounded, and the King’s company unwound itself into a trail of steel and colour. Fulk rode forward on his white horse, Salisbury beside him, Cavendish close on his other flank.
“King Richard! King Richard!”
Fulk’s eyes glittered. He spoke to Salisbury under his breath.
“Sir, my tongue burns in my mouth. The promises I have made these poor fools!”
“You have put the twitch on the beast’s nose. Who rules, the herd or the herdsman?”
“Give me Wat and his bloody rogues, and that grey friar—I’ll speak fire to them, and show them the sword.”
They re-entered the city, and were stared at by people whose eyes were sullen and threatening, men whose blood was ripe for violence, men who thought of the plunder and the wine and the bodies of women surrendered to their desires. Here Merlin came by his own again. The sheep were pattering back to their fields, but the wolves remained.
Fulk met the eyes of these lust-hungry men. His face grew more bleak, his eyes full of a hard, cold light.
“Sir, this pleases me better.”
“These curs that snarl?”
“By my troth, yes. Have we no swords, no good men to read these scullions a lesson?”
“Gently, by God, gently. Fifty thousand men are not to be whipped by five hundred.”
“Fifty thousand!”
“The scum of the city is with them. Who does not love plundering a rich man’s house?”
They came to the Walbrook and the bridge was narrow and the press great. Fulk had to rein in; the great company behind him swayed like a dragon with painted scales.
Fulk’s eyes fell into a sudden stare.
On the parapet of the bridge sat Isoult with Guy the Stallion standing beside her. She was so close to him that Fulk could have touched her with the point of a sword.
Their eyes met, and held. Fulk saw that she knew him, and into Isoult’s face the blood crept like fire.
She held her head high so that her throat showed.
“Long live King Richard, long live the King!”
Fulk’s eyes stared into hers, and they were the eyes of a strong man and not the eyes of a boy.
The crowd gave back, and he rode on with a voice crying within him, “Isoult—ah, Isoult!”
The woman on the parapet found a man gripping her wrist. She glanced down and met the red eyes of Guy the Stallion.
“God’s death, wench, I see light.”
She did not falter.
“And all heaven opened, Sir Guy!”
“That was no King!”
“His ghost then!”
“It is that bastard of the forest, Fulk Ferrers, and you know it.”
She laughed in his face.
“Friend Guy, you have drunk too much wine.”