

## TOMBLAND FAIR

## by

## David Brining

Copyright David Brining 2012

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of David Brining, who asserts his right to be identified as the author of this work under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

### Contents

1. Apples

2. Ale

3. Life

4. Fair

5. Tooth

6. River

7. Swim

8. Jail

9. Monks

10. Butter

11. Riot

12. Words

13. Raid

14. Aftermath

15. Journey

16. Muster

17. Revolution

18. Victory

19. Change

20. Trial

21. Duty

22. Siege

23. Night

24. Death

25. King

26. Reckoning

27. Freedom

Afterword: Story, (his)story, history and notes

1. Apples

CROUCHING by the corner of a crumbling cottage, I furled my fingers around Sam's collar, and waited. The sun slapped the back of my neck. Sam strained in my grasp. I stroked his flank to soothe his spirit, twined my fingers more firmly round the rough rope collar, and waited. Flies hummed round my eyes. My face was sluiced with sweat. My nose was clogged with the stench of sun-stoked rotting garbage discarded in the stinking gutters, yet still I waited.

Across the street, Bart, hopping from foot to foot, mouthed at me to 'get on with it'. I nodded slowly and returned my gaze to the groaning trestles and brightly striped canopies of the market that sweltered sullenly under the hammer blows of a late summer sun. A hustle of shoppers, a bustle of traders, colours and noises, the crying of wares, row after row of cabbages, carrots, turnips and leeks, rosy-cheeked apples, speckled green pears, rich ruby plums, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and cinnamon, fat brown onions, white wild garlic, barley and rye, glistening, blank-eyed, gaping-mouthed fish, herrings, mackerel, cod and plaice, crudely hacked meat hunks, red slabs of beef, anaemic chickens hanging from hooks, furry rabbits, geese and ducks, both feathered and plucked, and further away, squat rolls of worsted and huge balls of wool, and between all the stalls, the straw on the floor, filthy and stinking and gathering flies. I pulled my cowl further down on my head and waited.

Peter de Kerbroke was cheerily chatting, sharing some gossip with a number of women and lazily flapping the flies from his fruit. Patiently waiting, I felt the sun blaze on my back and the hard-packed earth under my knee. As I became enfolded in flies, I saw the old women moving away. Peter de Kerbroke, still smiling and speaking, slunk after them slyly, his hands full of fruit. This was my chance. I hurled the hard ball as far as I could, watched it bounce right under the stall, and let go my hold on the scrawny dog's collar. He shot away, a blur of brown fur, bounding through the straw, the flies and the legs, barking with joy at the thrill of a chase. Peter de Kerbroke uttered a shout and dived for the dog, his fingers outstretched, as Bart and I both darted forward, converging from different angles, to raid the stall as he danced away after the decoying dog. We scooped up our prizes and pelted away, hugging our booty, Sam dashing after us barking like fury, and Kerbroke came running, shouting and yelling, threatening beatings, waving his fists. He chased us a short way, red-faced and puffing, but gave up at Goat Lane gasping for breath. Laughing in triumph, we dashed down the alleys and into the field and dropped in a heap by the side of the pond. I had snatched up an armful of apples and a fistful of pears which I piled in a heap on the dry, dying grass. Bart had managed to clutch hold of a cabbage.

"What use is that?" I scoffed.

"I wasn't looking," he muttered.

''You need to look,'' I said. ''Don't you know cabbage is poisonous? Like all green vegetables? You have to boil it for hours to get the green stuff out.'' I tossed him an apple and crunched on my own, savouring the hard, sharp-sweet flesh and the sticky juice.

Bart's apple harboured a worm, a tiny white thread wriggling its head.

"Bloody disgrace," Bartholomew grumbled, "Selling off fish-bait. Peter de Kerbroke's just a cheap crook." The fact that the fruit had been stolen seemed not to matter. "Jesus, it's hot," he sighed, tossing the worm-riddled apple into the pond.

I gazed at my friend, Bartholomew Jay, a year younger than me, a year shorter than me, a mousy boy with mousy hair, a mousy build and a mousy face, an orphan working for Alfred Cutler the Merchant, constantly bullied, consistently beaten, nervous and clumsy, hesitant, shy.

"How's your sister?" he asked, starting in on an unripened pear.

"Still sick," I said sadly, "Really sick." My sister, Sarah, was two years old and desperately ill with a violent chill and jaundice. She had lost weight and simply sat in a corner of our bedroom staring at nothing from saucer-wide eyes. The colour had flowed away from her face leaving behind a faint yellow shade like a faded parchment on which nothing was written. But she hardly ever cried. She hadn't got the energy.

My parents had already buried five children. My older brother Tom had died at eleven from influenza. I was ten at the time and still missed him tremendously. The twins, Hannah and William, had died of measles, the first as a baby, the other nine months. Alison was stillborn and John had drowned aged five in last year's floods. I was fourteen now, the sole survivor of seven, except for Sarah, and she was surely dying.

"My mother's bad too," I told him. "Not sleeping and the veins in her legs are all swollen up. We're going to the apothecary later this week."

"Me too," said Bart broodingly. "I haven't shat for nine days." He rubbed his belly. "I feel all bloated." I understood. I too suffered from constipation most of the time. "I suppose it's good in a way," he added. "My piles are so bad that a solid turd would rip 'em to shreds."

I looked across the pond. From our place on the hill we could see the jumble of slates and tiles that were the roofs of Coslany. I had been there once and it haunted my dreams. The houses were dark and filthy, falling apart and rotting away, huddled together between the church of St Giles and the boundary ditch. The paupers in rags, stained with dirt and starving to death, begged from the sewers whilst lepers and cripples queued night and day for charity hand-outs, blighted by poverty, blinded by struggle, defaced by disease, half-human scarecrows waiting to die. It was the place where Mad Martha lived, in a hovel in Sholdams Lane. She too haunted my dreams. She talked to herself, walking up and down Tombland muttering, mouthing, lips always moving. She was a wizened, fate-blasted cripple whose hump bent her double. Her spine was as twisted and knotted as twine, her right arm as withered as a deadened tree root. When I was little, we had thrown stones at her badly bunched shoulders. One day her pig, a solid, saddled Berkshire boar, had burst through the fence onto the plot of Peter de Kerbroke. The pig had pissed on his plants and shat in his shed. Everyone thought it was funny. I remember Adam de Newton saying the turnips had a little more flavour than usual but Kerbroke, of course, complained to the bailiffs, claiming the pig had been told by Mad Martha to ravage his stock, and Martha was fined for not keeping the creature under proper control. Kerbroke was a peevish, ailing old fool with a cold in his head and a drip on his nose. I was glad we had stolen his fruit.

The pond was calm, its smooth surface glassy, the willow trees dipping their long slender arms towards their reflections and lazily touching their delicate fingertips to the skittering pond-skaters and hovering dragonflies. Peaceful seclusion. The Chapel-in-the-Field rose behind us, warm and yellow, its mellow stone glowing like butter in the afternoon sun, and beyond the chapel stood the freshly stained planks of the great City fence, the new Needham Gate and the hard-baked, packed earth of the rut-holed road to the Cringle Ford, Wymondham, Cambridge and, further, to London. This was my city, my home, Norwich, the second city of the great English kingdom.

''How's Cutler?'' I asked.

''Still playing with me.'' Bart threw another apple core into the pond. ''Not every night, though, so it's better than before, though he still whips me if I don't do it right.''

''Does his wife know?''

''I think so. She's all dried up now, so I don't think they do it any more.'' He lay back on the grass. ''Women need it because they're so hot inside. It makes them go mad, and they need to couple because men's juices cool them down. I suppose when they dry up, they don't get so hot so they don't need swyving so much.''

I tutted. ''God's teeth, Bart. Where do you get this stuff from?''

''Bartholomew Cotton,'' he said simply.

Which explained everything. Bartholomew Cotton was a monk. He lived in the Priory and led the Sunday School classes at the Cathedral. He was preparing us for Confirmation at Michaelmas. In between making us recite in Latin the three great prayers, Pater Noster, Ave Maria and Credo, and teaching us about the Ten Commandments and the Seven Deadly Sins, he lectured us on the perils of lust and the wiles of women. Of course they were all sinful because ejaculation outside the marriage bed would take you straight to hell.

''What about Cutler's soul?'' I said.

''He goes to Confession,'' Bart said indifferently. "I want a swim. Do you think it's safe?" The pool was surrounded almost entirely by thick, thorny shrubs and bushes which formed a natural barrier to prying eyes, straying dogs and wayfaring walkers. No-one would see us unless they breached that barrier. Besides, the field was deserted, so we undressed and piled our clothes on the protruding root of a weeping willow. I noticed a series of small red pinpricks on my arms and legs and hoped the fleas and lice would drown in the pond. Bart, self-conscious and skinny, also had flea-bites on his body, and I noticed, not for the first time, several fierce red stripes on his buttocks and back, stripes which seemed to glow like the embers of a slowly dying fire, and, between those stripes, deep purple bruises, dark as the night sky, from an earlier whipping. Usually I laughed at the pink, heart-shaped birthmark smeared above his groin. The Wife's Best Friend, he called it. Cutler's Kiss, I called it, but not today.

We ran down to the shore, the sun on our backs, and dived into the water in two shallow arcs. We splashed and swam as the fierce August sun surrendered some of its fire, slipped down the sky and lengthened the shadows of the pond-stooping willows. Sam joined us, dancing and barking, and perhaps that is why we failed to hear the girls as they pushed their way through the scrub at our backs.

We both froze, sudden stone statues staring silently towards the trees on the bank. God's teeth, I muttered through firmly clenched jaws, the lovely, lively Spicer Girls, Rowena, whose limpid, liquid blue eyes melted Bartholomew's too-often bruised heart whenever he saw her, and Eleanor, younger, a smiling seductress with designs on every man she met. But worse, to my horror, Matilda de Swerdestone, giggling and gawping, was gazing at me. I blushed fiercely, my cheeks red as fire, and crouched in the water, my knees sinking into the shingle bed of the pond till the surface was left to lap at my nipples. Matilda de Swerdestone was poised, cool, glacial, refined, and beautiful, heart-breakingly, ball-achingly beautiful. Her long silken hair tumbled over her shoulders like a cascade of gold. Her eyes shone like sapphires. Her lips glistened like rubies. I gulped and swallowed, averted my eyes, willed my body to obey my commands.

"God save you, gentles," cooed Rowena le Spicer. "How is the water?"

"Warm." Bart shielded his genitals.

"Mind if we join you?" purred Eleanor, raising the hem of her blue satin dress and stepping down to the shore.

"Or perhaps you'd like to come out and join us," said Rowena, extending her fingers in a teasing gesture to Bart, whose face glowed like the glorious sunset. Matilda de Swerdestone said nothing, merely laid the tip of her tongue between her slightly parted lips and glanced coyly in my direction, her finely shaped eyebrows in a Normanesque arch, a faint tinge of pink blossoming over her cheekbones.

"What say you, Nicolas Bromholm?" Eleanor flashed a smile towards me. "Don't be shy. Show us what you're hiding under the water and we'll show you what we're hiding under our skirts." They all giggled and started whispering behind their hands.

A sudden crash in the trees announced somebody else's arrival.

"God's blood, the peasants are here," an angry voice grated. Henry Mulbarton, Nathaniel Palmer and two of their friends, churlish and surly, older than us, and bigger than us, appeared on the bank. "This is our pond, Bromholm, so piss off back to your river."

"Or the stinking sewer," Palmer added, baring blackened teeth. Everyone remembered the day when Palmer, Mulbarton and their gang had thrown me into the shit-brook. I had stunk for days, my clothes had been ruined and I had been so sick with fever that Isaac the Jew had given up with his herbs and potions and gone straight for the blood-letting, slicing my vein with a scalpel and draining half a pint into a glass. My father had been furious, but when he heard it was Henry Mulbarton, son of the city councillor, bailiff and one-time mayor he'd said I must have provoked him. Maybe I had. I'd punched him in the face when he'd called me a scum-sucking paederast.

"It's not your p....p...pond," stammered Bartholomew. "It belongs to the city."

"Oh," drawled Mulbarton, "The bloody little orphan boy. Lost any parents recently? Buried any more mothers? You've been through more foster families than Bromholm's had fleas off his bloody flea-ridden dog." Bartholomew's face darkened. Whilst it was true, there was no need to say it. Mulbarton grinned wolfishly, leaned down and gathered Bartholomew's clothes into his arms. "Too embarrassed to come out in the nude? I'm not surprised. If I had a cock as tiny as yours, I'd be ashamed too. But I'll help you. Get dressed in the pond." He tossed Bart's shirt and cap into the water. They floated like fallen leaves.

"God's teeth," I snapped, starting forward through the stream. ''You piss-pot, Mulbarton.'' I wished I was able to reach my knife.

"Come and fight me, then!" challenged Mulbarton, folding his fists on his hips, "Nick the Prick."

He was twice as broad as me, muscles knotted in brawny arms, upon one of which Matilda laid her hand. "Henry." Her voice was like silk in the wind. "You're not being very gentlemanly."

He grunted. "But he is a prick, a tiny little prick, and a goddam peasant."

''He's not in your social class,'' said Matilda, ''And you should not engage with him.'' She turned away as Bart and I stepped from the pond. The air had grown cool. We walked up the bank whilst Mulbarton and his friends jeered at our undersized bodies. We clutched our clothes to our goose-pimpled chests and fled through the trees, their laughter ringing behind us.

"One day I'll kill him," gulped Bart as we dragged on our trousers. "Just 'cos their fathers are rich, they think they own the town."

"Bart, my friend," I sighed as we walked slowly down the hill, back to town, back to the flies and the stench of sewers, back to our lives, back to reality, "They do own the town."

#

# 2. Ale

BY the time I reached home, the heat had seeped from the air and the light was beginning to thicken. I walked along the quay, picking through rotten fish, discarded fruit, decaying seabirds, dead rats, rotting rubbery innards, glistening puddles of discoloured liquid, surfaces stained by a rainbow-like sheen, and the seeping, steeping smell of rank putrefaction. The horseflies were sweeping in over the river. A rat dragged its slimy belly over the remains of a goat. I shuddered. I hated rats. Even when the other boys caught them and set them to fight with their dogs, I hated them, with their little twitchy noses, their long pink tails, their yellow teeth, little ratty eyes.... They made me feel sick. Several boats, secured by ropes, bobbed on the water. My father would be busy and I'd be in trouble.

At Fyebrigge, I skipped up the stone steps, Sam at my heels, turned left, crossed the street and entered the tavern, jumping to tap the board that swung over the door and denoted my home as The Mischief Inn. It was built of flint and stood by the river close to the road bridge that commanded the quay. Father had bought it from Abraham Deulecresse, the old Jewish moneylender and property dealer who owned most of the buildings in the centre, in Haymarket and King Street. The position was good. The trade from the river brought steady business and everyone from the north of the city had to pass over the Fyebrigge and pass by our door on their way to the market. Our nearest rivals, the Adam and Eve, a small flint-built inn down by the river close to the site of the planned Bishop's Bridge, caught the Priory trade, whilst the Ten Bells in Bethel Street was more of a brothel and thus catered for a different clientele, that of the yellow-hooded variety.

Our tavern had a cavernous cellar containing swollen-bellied barrels of ale and vats of wine. It was dark and damp with a stone-flagged floor and a faint scent of fungus. The tap-room was spacious, with several tables, large and small, long and short, a long wooden counter for serving, a number of barrels and plenty of tankards, both wooden and pewter. A large blackened fireplace gaped in the wall. The room was lit by flaming brands, smoking, hissing, sputtering torches resting in brackets screwed to the bricks. Behind the bar was the kitchen, another vast fireplace and a round, red-brick oven. The kitchen was always warm and welcoming and smelled of bread. Up the stairs we had another room. It ran the length of the thatch-covered roof which steepled sharply over the wooden planks and freshly strewn straw. This was where we slept, my parents, me in a bed of my own, Sarah in her crib, and, sometimes, when Father agreed, which was not so often, Sam the dog.

I liked living in a pub. There was always something interesting happening, something interesting to see and to hear. I also knew that one day it would pass down to me, a ready-made home and business, so whilst Bartholomew Jay was unloading herrings and salting cod, I learned my trade by swilling down beer and listening to men. I had, however, at Mother's insistence, taken up cooking, a useful skill, and we often spent hours in the kitchen preparing dishes to serve to our customers. The addition of food was a great innovation. Most taverns offered ale, cider, perry or wine and maybe some nuts or berries but we had decided that providing home-cooked meals would separate us from the competition.

The tavern was pleasantly gloomy and pleasingly full. A group of Dutch sailors played dice in the corner. A small knot of horse traders nursing their tankards huddled together in a bunch by the bar talking of business and prices at auction. Richard the Watchman, on his way to the walls with four grizzled gatekeepers, Walter Skinner and Nicolas Dyer completed the throng, except for the table set nearest the fire, occupied daily by the same four men, Adam of Newton, Geoffrey the Brown, or le Brun, Henry Godale and Stephen the Blunt.

"It's always the same," de Newton was saying. "They steal from the poor and they give to the rich, and it's all got worse since de Skerning took over. Taxes to the city and taxes to the church and taxes to the Bishop, and what do we get? Crumbling hovels, cracking roads, a downturn in trade and much greater poverty."

"What does he want with a new bridge anyway?" growled Henry Godale. "A private road and a private bridge, just for him, straight to his palace. And look where he wants it. Down by Cow Tower. It's going to choke the trade, you mark my words. The big ships won't be able to get round the bend to the wharf. They'll have to unload at Carrow and ferry their goods up the Wensum. They already pay a toll to get through the Boom. Now they'll have to pay again to pass under the bridge, and then the mooring fee at Carrow, and the mooring fee at Wensum Quay, and another fee to hire a barge.... Prices will rise and the City's trade is going to die."

"And what makes it worse," added Stephen le Blunt, "Is the monks don't pay tax, so the City alone bears all the costs of the Bishop's bridge-building programme."

"Boy!" I jumped. "Yes, you, boy!" the dice-playing Dutchies barked at me. "Bring us more beer! And shut your stinky dog out in the street."

Sam had discovered a half-eaten chicken bone nestling in the straw near the dice players' feet. I caught his collar and dragged him away, taking him out to the kitchen for food.

"Oh, you're back, are you?" said my mother, fists on her hips. "And where have you been all this time?"

"I went up the Chapel Field with Bartholomew Jay," I said, foraging in a bowl for some bread.

"We needed you here." Her voice wasn't angry, more weary and strained.

"How's Sarah?" I asked, feeling slightly guilty.

"Sicker than ever," Mother replied. "Her coughing is worse and she seems so weak." I laid my hand on my mother's arm. The lines on her face seemed etched into stone. She suddenly hugged me and sobbed. I looked down at her hair, a fine white and grey, resembling ash from a fortnight-old fire. She was trembling. I held her tightly to my chest. She seemed to be shrinking. She was thirty-six and already ancient.

"Shall I go and see to her?"

"Meg's upstairs," She stroked my cheek with rough, calloused fingers, her eyes full of tears. "You're a good boy, Nick. I'll get you some supper."

I washed my hands and face in the pewter ewer next to the stove and cut a chunk of bread from the loaf with my knife. I was worried about my sister, yes, but more worried about my mother. She seemed worn-out. Without Meg things would be dire indeed. Meg was also fourteen and had worked with us for about three years. She slept in our room on a small truckle bed with a blanket, but usually went home to her drunkard father in Coslany on Sundays and Feast Days.

It being a Wednesday, my mother had made a vegetable stew. We were not allowed to eat meat on Wednesdays. Or Fridays. Or Saturdays. Or in Lent. Or in Advent. The Church said so. Anyway, meat was expensive, so it was probably just as well. I heard my father grumbling and groaning, approaching the kitchen, searching for me. He burst through the door as the first spoonful kissed my lips.

"There you are!" My father had the build of a bullock and manners to match. "Get your skinny arse off that chair! There's people want serving." He scratched at the lice in his bushy, brown beard.

"Let the boy be," Mother said softly, "I'll come and serve while Nick eats his supper." She patted my shoulder and followed my father whose voice I could hear grating "Lazy little bastard, living in idleness, living for free." A gentle murmur was followed by an aggressive "All right, Alice! Don't go on about it."

I grinned. Mother always took my side. I dug my spoon deep into the stew and found some carrots, onions and barley, then poured a mugful of ale, stirred in a spoonful of sweetening honey and snatched at the flea squatting fat on my wrist. It leapt away before I could squash it.

Sam raised his head and I scratched his ears. He wasn't very big, he was bony and scrawny, a scruffy little thing with a wiry, brown coat, but he was loyal and trusting. He followed me faithfully, licked at my face and snuffed at my feet. His nose was wet and his ears were ragged as though they'd been chewed when he was a puppy, but he was mine and I loved him.

Back in the bar, I sat contentedly on my stool at the counter and sipped another beer. The tavern had emptied, the watchmen, the sailors, the gatekeepers gone. Only the regulars remained, Brun and Godale tucking into what remained of the bread and stew.

I heard Geoffrey le Brun's rasping voice "...the Bishop's raking in the coins. And the traders and merchants you're so fond of pass on their costs to us in higher prices and higher rents. The property owners and rich employers getting fatter on the sweat of the workers..."

"I pay £100 a year in tax. The clergy pay only £20. How can that be right?" This was my father. He was never much interested in principles, not when money was involved. ''Where's the money gone?"

"Into their bellies," Godale said dryly. "Blackbirds and herons and fancy French sauces, Rhenish wines and silken robes.... They don't come cheap, you know."

"Oh," said le Brun, "And there are those wonderful palaces and all the so-called public buildings to be maintained. The glories of England. Built on the backs of the labouring classes."

The others laughed. They came here every night to drink and talk politics. I knew some of them well, but not all. Adam of Newton, for example, was a close neighbour. He was old, in his forties, a thick-set man with a face like a radish and streaks of grey in his chunky brown beard. His wife, Margaret, was Sarah's godmother whilst my mother had returned the favour to one of the de Newton six. I could never remember which one. Little children were all the same to me, all squalls and smells, and Newton's brats were riddled with ringworm, great scabby patches smeared with sulphur cream on their scalps and skin. What he did for a trade I was never sure. Something in imports and customs, I think. Adam enjoyed nothing more than a drink and provoking Geoffrey le Brun, who was the man I knew least well. Tall, wiry, broad-shouldered, with curly brown hair, a nose my father called 'Jewish' and a brown beard, Brun was the son of a priest but had fought as a soldier in campaigns both at home and overseas. I guessed he was in his early thirties. He was often intense, occasionally intimidating and always challenging. For instance, he now declared that the King was a feeble old fool. Everyone in the tavern gasped. My father even crossed himself.

"Fifty-six years on the throne," said le Brun, "Fifty-six years of one ruler. That cannot be good for a country."

"At least he's English," muttered de Newton, "Not one o' they bloody Frenchies we had before."

"No-one here can remember what we had before," said Brun.

"Better King Henry," said Father, "Than Simon de Montfort."

"At least de Montfort set up a Parliament," said Henry Godale.

"And who elected the Parliament?" said Brun. "I didn't. They're all barons and lords. And what does this Parliament actually do? Whose are the interests this body protects? Not ours, that's certain!" Brun gazed at the blackened fireback. "Parliament is part of the dictatorship," he said. "It upholds injustice and justifies the violence of the State to keep the ruling classes strong and intact, and it puts out the lie that it's open and fair. The country's in debt, and who pays it off? Not the rich, nor the bankers who spent all the money, but you and I and the poor. We pay more whilst the rich get their taxes cut.'' He spat again. "Am I really the only one to believe the sight of a beggar with a blanket and a bowl an obscenity in a civilised land? Am I really the only one to feel the cutting of alms, the payments of sums to the sick, to the old, to the poor an act of wickedness? Am I really the only one to feel that the persecution of people in need so the rulers and the rich can remain in comfort an evil? If I am, then I no longer wish to live in this country with such blackened hearts and sickened minds, where the people starve whilst the bankers get fat.'' His words entered my heart like a fire. ''But then if the people cared about all this,'' he said, ''If they really cared about justice and fairness and truth and what is right, they would be out on the streets, raising the barricades, storming through the palace walls and tearing down the State's apparatus in a welter of blood."

"Geoffrey le Brun," drawled Adam de Newton, "The man who would be King."

"No, Adam. No Kings." Brun was very serious. "There must be no-one raised above anyone else. No kings and no aristocracy. All men are equal, born equally, dying equally. All are conceived in the same way. All enter the world through the same gates. And all leave it the same way. It makes no difference to Death whether you're a prince or a pauper, a King or a kitchen-hand. When you're staring death in the face and choking out your last, gasping breath, your title is no matter. Death, disease, plague, they are no respecters of titles. They take anyone, everyone. It is only we silly fools who respect titles. We must build a new order in which all people live together as equals. Each person will receive what they need according to their needs and not their means, and there shall be no more pain and no more suffering..."

"And neither shall there be a tear on the infant's cheek," said Father ironically.

"Behold, I saw a new Heaven and a new Earth!" sneered Adam. "It's all a dream."

"Why?" snapped le Brun. "Why can't this dream become a reality? If we want to, we can make it come true."

"By wiping out bosses and storming through walls?"

"We cannot begin to build until the new order is destroyed," le Brun said coolly.

Something in his messianic message, his passion, his fervour, struck a chord within me. I thought of Henry Mulbarton and the way he and his father treated people. Perhaps it was possible to change the world. And even if it wasn't, should that stop you from trying? There was a kind of hush in the bar now. Even my father had stopped talking.

"Simon Palmer tells me the Prior wants to tax us for using Tombland for the Trinity Fair," said Stephen le Blunt. I liked Stephen. He was the clerk of St Michael-at-Plea, the little flint church in Hunde Gate which my family sometimes attended.

"God, God!" shouted Newton. "Bloody Normans! Foreigners coming over here, changing our customs! Bloody outrageous! Bloody Normans! Two hundred years since they wiped out our culture and they're still messing things up!" He shoved his empty mug towards me. Tombland was a large common between the Cathedral and the City. It had been the site of the market before the Conquest.

''The Council won't allow it,'' said my father. ''The Trinity Fair has been held there for centuries. ''

"The Council!" Brun's tankard thundered into the table. "Four men, all unelected, who do nothing but talk. Who chose them to represent the people? Nobody. They chose themselves.''

"The King chose them," protested my father.

Brun, Godale and Blunt laughed mockingly.

''He who pays the piper calls the tune,'' scoffed le Brun. ''Appointment means patronage and patronage means pleasing the masters which means the people will always be exploited. We can only be free if we choose our leaders through democratic election. You choose your leader. You can even be the leader."

"What about the King?" I said, "And the Pope?"

The men laughed again. "There should be no king," said Henry Godale, "And no Pope, unless the people elect them."

"The Church is a mere extension of the Roman Empire anyway, and the Pope a Caesar who inherits his throne," commented Brun. "There is absolutely nothing religious about the Church of Rome.''

''You do talk garbage sometimes,'' snarled Newton.

''And treason,'' added my father. ''They'll close me down and confiscate my licence.''

''Ah, not to worry,'' said Godale amiably. ''Let's have a song.'' They started in on 'Go to Joan Glover and tell her I love her and in the mid of the morn that I will come to her'. Le Brun did not join in. Instead, he frowned at his ale, lips pursed, until Father called Time.

When they had gone and Father had bolted the doors and slotted the bars into their strong metal brackets, Meg washed the tankards whilst I swept the floor. I watched her working, her hips swaying slowly, a little frown rippling her forehead, her pale pink lips pursed, a bead of sweat settling in the groove under her nose. A spray of freckles blazed over her wind-reddened cheeks. Her mousy brown hair, crammed under a cap, strayed in loose straggles to curl round her ears. I found her attractive, this girl from Coslany whose mother had died giving birth to a brother who had, in turn, died some minutes later. But she lacked the poise of Matilda de Swerdestone. One was a pebble, the other a jewel. One was sackcloth, the other silk. One was rough, the other smooth. One was earthy, the other angelic. And so on.

"Do you think we will ever get rid of kings and nobles?" I mused.

"No," snapped Father. "Some things are meant to be, and the social hierarchy is one of them. It's the way God orders the World. There are three estates, those who fight, those who pray and those who work. We are those who work."

''Why?''

''Because we're Bromholms,'' he said.

"Have you ever read the Bible?" I asked.

"Of course not," Father scowled. "That's why we have priests."

Up in the bedroom, Sarah was sleeping. I peered into the cradle, a long wooden box, and noted the black, bruise-like smudges under her eyes, the fish-belly white of the skin stretched tightly over the cheekbones which seemed about to burst through the surface. I stooped over and kissed her hot forehead. I thought she was burning. I rocked the cradle and hummed a line from a lullaby, 'Lullay lullay, thou little tiny child, lullay lullay lullo'. She just stared at me from empty eyes.

My mother sat on a small stool and combed her long ash-grey hair whilst my father picked fleas from his beard. Meg discreetly undressed in a corner, slipping into a white nightshirt. I tried not to watch. I also wondered what Matilda wore in bed. I knelt on the floorboards and prayed for Sarah whilst my parents prepared for bed. They both wore long white nightshirts and night-caps. My father farted.

''Better out than in,'' he said.

My bed was made of wood with a canvas mattress filled with straw. It was several feet away from my parents' bed and Sarah's crib. I had shared it with my brother Tom until he had died. I had then shared it with Meg until we reached fourteen and adulthood. I liked having the bed to myself in the summer, but in the winter I would miss the warmth of another human body. I lay my clothes by the side of the bed, sweat-stiffened white shirt, ragged, brown trousers, dusty, brown sandals, white undershorts, and slipped under the coarse, woollen blanket. I could hear the mice and insects rustling in the thatch overhead and the cockroaches scuttling to and fro across the planks. I lay on my back, folded my hands behind my head and considered Brun's words.

If only it were possible to change the world.... If it were, I could have Matilda. God's wounds, how I wanted her. I would do anything to have her. My body ached for her, my mind ached for her, my heart and loins ached for her. She was everything I wanted. Damn Mulbarton. Damn him to Hell. I hated him. And I loved Matilda. But how to get her? That was the problem.

Over in the darkness, Father farted again, then belched.

That just about summed it all up.

#

# 3. Life

THE Holy Feast of Pentecost in the fifty-sixth year of the reign of King Henry, Third of that name, July 1272.

My day started at dawn. Sunlight filtered through the thatch and threw everything into stark relief. Church bells shattered the silence, signalling six o'clock, the Hour of Prime, the First Hour, and the roosters of neighbours crowed their 'Get up sleepyheads' to the waking world. I rubbed my eyes. I had a slow day ahead. My parents were already up. I could hear them clattering around downstairs. Meg had gone home. I yawned, pulled the blanket up to my ears and thought about turning over for another hour's sleep but I knew my father would soon be charging up the stairs with a broom in his hand to chase me out of bed so I scrambled onto the straw, slipped my shirt over my head and knelt by my bed. I made the sign of the Cross over my heart, said my 'Our Father', prayed to Mary, Mother of God and all the blessed saints for a day safe from danger, the Devil and all manner of sin and finished with a 'Hail Mary, full of grace'. I crossed myself again, then padded across to the washstand. Mother had put out a bowl of warm water in which sage and bay leaves and rosemary sprigs floated. I splashed the scented water over my hands, face, feet and privates and dried myself with a cloth. Then I poked a green hazel twig between my teeth to clean them, crunched on a handful of aniseed to freshen my breath and looked at myself in the pewter mirror. The boniness of childhood was becoming the muscularity of adulthood, black hair was sprouting under my arms and my voice was breaking. Very soon I would be a man. I wasn't sure how happy that made me. I would have to start going to confession and paying taxes and doing all that boring adult stuff. I tied my shorts and went downstairs.

Father and Mother were working, despite the feast day being a day of rest. The old straw had already been swept from the flag-stoned floor and waited in a heap by the back door for someone, probably me, to remove and burn it. The windows were open, the shutters thrown back and latched to let the sun stream in. We had no glass in our windows so when winter came, we would pack the frames with straw or cloth to keep out the draught. Sam was lying by the fireplace whilst Father was brushing cobwebs from the wooden ceiling beams. Sarah sat on a stool in the corner staring vacantly at the doll in her hands. Her face was flushed today. Her eyes were unnaturally bright. Her cough was worse.

''Hey Sarah,'' I said kindly. ''You want to hear a song?'' I had once made a little flute out of a reed. It now lived in the toy-box but I found it and started piping 'Summer is a-coming in, loudly sings cuckoo.'

Father growled something like ''I'll sing you 'cuckoo', right on your arse,'' which made me laugh. I took the doll and made her dance in my hands whilst I sung the song. I liked the doll. She was called Malkin and was made of rags. Sarah almost smiled.

''Sing cuckoo,'' I chirped, ''Blows the seed and grows the mead and loudly sings cuckoo.''

''I hate that song,'' said Father. ''What the hell does it mean?''

I shook my head. Old folk never understood our music. They didn't even like Half Hannikin or Mall Peatley.

I dug in the toy-box for my old hobby-horse Peterkin. It wasn't very sophisticated, just a stick with a gaily-painted wooden horse's head at one end, but my father had made it with his own hands for me. He'd made another, called Jankin, for my brother Tom and we had raced each other up and down the street or in the back yard for hours at a time. Peterkin's head was red and green, Jankin's blue and yellow. We had pretended to feed them with oats and apples. Tom had been so imaginative. He had told me wonderful stories about faraway people in faraway places, like the Ethiopian troglodytes who live in caves, fatten up their parents and eat them at Christmas and the one-footed Sciopods who live in Australia and shelter from the sun by lying on their backs using their feet as parasols. He told me about Prester John the immensely rich King of India, and the dragons that live in Lanka. He told me about the Egyptian crocodiles that lure you to the water's edge by crying, then bite you, poison you and swallow you whole. He also taught me rhymes. This was my favourite:

'Three headless men played at ball,

A handless man served them all;

While three mouthless men lay and laughed,

Three legless men away them drew'

because he acted it out for me and made me scared and laugh at the same time. He also taught me the tongue twister 'Three grey greedy geese flew over three green greasy fields', and funny songs like

'Tom-all-a-lin and his wife and wife's mother,

Went over the bridge all three together;

The bridge was broken and they fell in.

''The Devil go with you,'' said Tom-all-a-lin.'

I used to laugh at that. We played hoodman-blind, hide-and-seek and follow-the-leader and got into trouble for stealing rich men's caps off their heads. Father had whipped us both till we cried. I missed my brother so much. I prayed for his soul every night.

I sat Malkin on Peterkin's back and rode her round the stool. Sarah stuck a finger in her mouth and giggled.

''Our dame milked the mare's tail, the cat was licking the pot,'' I made the rag doll say. ''Our maid came out with a flail, and laid her under foot.''

Then I swung my leg over Peterkin. ''Neigh,'' said the horse, ''Neigh. I will not go to Beverleyham, it is too far away,'' and snorted. Sarah laughed as I pretended to gallop round the room.

''When you've quite finished,'' said my mother, pushing me away with her broom, ''You can feed the goats then get ready for church.''

I stroked my sister's head. Her soft, brown hair was so wispy and fine, like silk, but, underneath, her skull felt like a hard, hot ball of iron. I knew she had a fever and would soon need bleeding.

I put on my shirt and cap and went outside with a bucket of corn husks and some carrots. The back yard was fairly small, a only a few square yards of hard, packed earth, but it had an apple tree, a pear tree, the hen-house and a privy in the corner that was a pit in the ground covered with a plank with a hole in the centre through which you could crap.

I fed some slops to Barley and Bailey, our two brown goats, then scattered some grain for the hens. We had six good layers and a magnificent cockerel called Copper. Whilst they scratched and pecked in the dust, I collected half a dozen warm brown eggs from their small wooden house. I sized up Copper's chances of winning the Michaelmas cock-fight. He was big and strong with fearsomely sharp talons. Perhaps I should enter him in the fight. We held six each year, Shrove Tuesday and All Saints' Day and on the quarter days of Michaelmas in September, Christmas Day, Lady Day in March and John the Baptist's Day in June. John Scot's cock had won in June. It was called Goliath and was black and gold. It had ripped the throat out of one and clawed the comb off another. I made a lot of money that day, betting on Goliath. Bart had lost every penny. He'd bet on Hugh Coventry's bird, a fast bantam named Ham with a beak like a razor. Ham and Goliath gave us probably the best cock-fighting final we had ever been lucky enough to witness. The atmosphere in the cockpit had been feverishly excited with money changing hands and children yelling, screaming and cheering. Scot and Coventry had swept the blood-stained sand out of the arena and scattered some fresh then released the cocks. They had strutted and postured, circling each other before Ham had struck, drawing blood with his beak, and tossing Goliath to the back of the pit. Scot had yelled and jabbed the bird with a stick to make it angrier. It flapped its wings, crowed and flew at Ham in a flurry of feathers. Over and over the cockerels had tumbled, throwing up sawdust and sand and spatters of blood in showering clouds. When they had finally separated, Ham had stumbled back, one eye pecked out, blood leaking from his breast, his red comb tattered and ripped, and Coventry had surrendered rather than see the cock killed. The children had booed. They had wanted a fight to the death. Scot had taken the undefeated Goliath home in triumph and I had collected my winnings. It had been a fantastic fight which we had talked about for days, the adults smiling and shaking their heads. They saw cock-fighting as a childish pursuit, but it never stopped either my father or Adam Newton taking a cut of my winnings.

I decided that Copper should not be entered this year, at least not until Lady Day in March. I would wait for him to be bigger and stronger and for Goliath to die or retire before I risked my mother's prize rooster in a fight. If he got injured or killed, I reckoned she would rip my balls off.

Mother was scattering fresh straw on the flagstones. She usually put lavender and rose petals down as well to make it smell nicer. Father was polishing some of the brass, the gridiron and pots and pans that hung on hooks in the kitchen. It was laundry day tomorrow. She would be scrubbing our clothes in the wooden tub with the Spanish soap that made her hands coarse, red and blistered, although the soap was the best on the market. It was apparently made from potash, soda and mutton fat, so that's how good it was.

The church bells struck Terce, the third hour after daybreak, and we got ready for Matins. It being a feast day my father decided we should go to the Cathedral so I dressed in my second-best clothes, a knee-length green tunic with salmon-pink trim, dark green hose and soft leather shoes. My best tunic, the yellow one, I was saving for Trinity Sunday next week. Yellow was the traditional colour for boys, blue being for girls, and it was also very fashionable. I even dragged a comb through my hair because Mother said it resembled rats' tails, and you never knew who you might meet in church.

The Cathedral looked magnificent. Embroidered banners, vividly red and shot through with gold silk, blazed triumphantly between the vast stone columns that supported the vault and its fabulous bosses, scenes from the Bible sculpted in stone and painted to teach the people through pictures what they could not read in words. These fine works of art were, however, so high above our heads they were impossible to see and I found myself wondering why they had been put on the ceiling rather than in the door or the walls.

I dipped my fingers in holy water and muttered ''Christ's Cross be my speed'', then I knelt before the statue of Our Lady, crossed myself and said a ''Hail Mary''. The monks were already singing a psalm. William le Messer swung a censer and everybody bowed. Across the Nave I noticed Matilda de Swerdestone, beautiful, poised and quite unattainable. A bashful glance in my direction brought blood to my cheeks and fire to my loins. I tried to control myself. Unclean thoughts in the House of God would certainly send me to Hell, but, as the monks sang a mournful Agnus Dei, I could not keep my eyes off the lavender dress and sky blue sash and the snow white cowl covering a tumbling stream of gold.

The paving stones under my knees were cold and uncomfortable but I knew that if I fidgeted Father would fetch me a blow round the ear. I had to remain statue-still, as unmoving as one of the stony monuments lining the walls as wave upon wave of ecclesiastical Latin washed over my head. The air hung heavy with incense. William le Messer rang a bell and Bartholomew Cotton read from the Gospel. I did not understand anything. I could see through the rood-screen to the Altar and Bishop de Skerning, stern-faced and solemn in purple and gold, his thinning hair like melting snow on the head of a statue, and next to him, Prior de Brunham, thick-set, ox-like, as solid as the sandstone walls themselves. Candles and incense, Latin and chanting, the rituals of the Church designed to dazzle the ignorant masses; were Brun and Godale right after all? Bishop de Skerning's sermon was in French. I did not understood anything. Later the Bishop administered Communion to the monks behind the screen whilst I muttered petitions to my name-saint Nicholas and thought of dinner.

We filed from the ancient Cathedral's cool gloom into the head-slapping, brain-sapping heat of the sun on the stone-studded pavement. Father met up with Adam Newton and John Scot whilst I scuffed the cobbles with my shoes and lurked in the shade. Just outside the Great West Door, Matilda sheltered among a bunch of bailiffs, Adam le Spicer, the grey, gaunt mayor, and his giggling daughters, Nicolas Ely, bullnecked and bald, Simon le Palmer, the clerk to the council, with Nathaniel, John Casmus the coroner, Hugh de Mulbarton, Henry's stern, severe father, and Roger de Swerdestone, tall, imposing, tree-trunk like figure towering over his delicate daughter, who kept glancing coyly in my direction. Or at least I thought she did. I felt a sharp stab of pain in my heart and lowered my eyes. All of a sudden, she was standing beside me, and smiling.

"God give you good day," I said, squinting slightly because of the sunshine.

"God save you too," she said coolly. "I believe it's even hotter today."

"Yeah," I answered. "Are you going to the Trinity Fair?"

She smiled. "Probably. Are you?"

"Yes,'' I sighed. ''I'll be working. Come to our stall and I'll give you free beer."

"I only drink wine," she replied. "My father says beer is for commoners." I bit my lip.

"Matilda!" Her father was calling impatiently. "Come along!"

"I have to go," she said, hesitating.

"See you at the Fair?" I could scarcely conceal the pleading note in my voice.

"Maybe," she answered, and my heart fractured. "You look nice, Nick," she suddenly added, and smiled. "Those colours suit you. God be with you."

My poor broken heart melted.

Then Henry Mulbarton and Nathaniel Palmer arrived.

"Peasant boy's in love," Henry drawled. Palmer haw-hawed. "Hands off, peasant. She's gonna marry me. If I catch you looking at her again, I'll beat you black and blue."

He slapped the back of my head. Palmer haw-hawed again, and brayed "Nick the Prick" a couple of times, while Henry slapped me again, then kneed me in the balls. I sobbed and fell to the ground. Henry trod on my fingers. ''Just watch your step, peasant,'' he growled, ''Or I'll make your life a living Hell.''

I glared through my tears at their retreating shoulders. One day, I thought, you'll get your come-uppance, Henry Mulbarton, and you, Nathaniel Palmer. One day I will get you back for all these indignities.

"Nicolas!" my father roared, "Come along! There's a floor to scrub!"

Palmer's braying laugh echoed in my brain.

''God's teeth, '' I muttered.

''Stop swearing,'' said my father, cuffing my head. ''Do you want to go to Hell?''

I'm there already, I thought darkly, as the noon bell rang Sext, the sixth hour, and dinner-time.

When we got home, I changed my clothes, washed my hands, laid knives and spoons on the canvas tablecloth and sat down for a favourite dinner, boiled bacon, mushed-up peas, black rye-bread and ale. I cut a thick slice from the loaf to use as a plate. The bread would soak up all the bacon juices and then would be eaten, if not by me, then by the goats or by Sam. Father said a prayer before we ate. Mother fed Sarah some pap, bread soaked in goat's milk. I wiped my mouth on a napkin and took a drink. It was considered bad manners to drink without wiping your mouth first because you would transfer the grease to the cup and what if someone else drank from your cup? Yuck. It was also bad manners to dip your meat in the salt because the meat juices would congeal and make the salt useless. The worst thing anyone could do at the meal-table was to drop the meat-bones onto the floor or toss them over your shoulder into the fire-place. God's teeth. Why would anyone chuck half-gnawed bones round their kitchen? You would get thrown out of ours for that.

After dinner, my mother's god-siblings descended. Father said he knew how the Israelites felt about their plagues of locusts. The women, all godmothers to each others' children, would gather in our kitchen to drink ale, knit or sew and talk whilst their children played cherry-stones and hopscotch together in the yard. My mother, Margaret Newton, Agnes Scot, Mary Payne and Katherine Kerbroke were formidable and intimidating. Father usually went to bed for an afternoon sleep, whilst I went to Sunday school, but today, being a festival, classes were cancelled so we had invited Adam Newton to join us for kayles, the ten wooden skittles set up in the fireplace. I was good at kayles, but my father was better. I won the first game, Father won the second, then, whilst I was twenty points ahead in the third, the men called for more beer. Unfortunately the beer was in the kitchen. More unfortunately so were the godsibs.

''You go,'' Father told Adam.

''It's your house,'' said Adam. ''You go.''

''Have you run mad?'' said Father. ''You go.''

Almost as one, they turned to me. They said nothing. My heart sank. I opened the door a crack. They were in full flow.

Mary Payne claimed that Walter Skinner had got his maidservant 'with child'. Mistress Skinner had long since died of measles so he would be able to marry her, but still.....

Nicholas Dyer, according to Mistress Scot, had been seen consorting with Sally Simpson, who was, according to my mother, ''no lady. Honestly,'' she added, ''She flaps her elbows when she walks. She moves like a duck.'' Mother gave her friends an impression and they all cackled with merriment.

''No lady rolls or wriggles her shoulders when she walks,'' said Mistress Payne haughtily.

''And have you seen the way she tosses her hair?'' There was more laughter as my mother did another impression.

''I'm surprised she's going with him,'' said Mistress Kerbroke. ''He stinks of dye.''

''Still,'' said Margaret, ''At least he's dipping more than his wool now.''

They all cackled again.

''Nick,'' hissed Adam, ''Get a move on. Thirsty men here.''

''Why can't one of you go?'' I protested.

''God Almighty,'' said my father, ''Enter a kitchen full of gossips? Fate worse than Death.''

They were now talking about Rebekah the Redelees, the most famous of our local prostitutes. She wandered around the city wearing the yellow cap required by law and seemed to cast a spell over every male she met. This in itself was enough to damn her in the eyes of the Good Wives' Club, but, because she was also in her early twenties, strikingly beautiful, smooth-skinned, long-legged, raven-haired, she was doubly despised.

''She's a Jewess, you know,'' said Mistress Payne.

''Never,'' said Mistress Scot. ''A Jewess? How do you know that?''

''The hair, Agnes, The hair,'' said my mother. '''She's got Jewish hair.''

''Why do they call her 'redelees'? '' I hissed.

''Means 'unready','' hissed Father, ''Like King Ethelred the Unready.''

''Badly advised,'' added Adam. ''It means 'badly advised'.''

''She was badly advised?'' I said.

''Probably. She became a whore,'' said Father.

''Riddled with pox,'' added Adam.

''Still,'' said Father, ''Phwooar, eh?''

''Ha ha,'' said Adam, ''Give her a poke, eh, Nick?''

I blushed beetroot-red. Yes, I would, and had often thought about it.

''He couldn't afford her,'' said Father, ''Not on his wages.''

''Give us a rise, then,'' I said.

''Ha ha,'' said Adam, ''Won't be your only rise, eh, Nick? Ha ha.''

He leaned on my back a little too heavily and I fell through the door into the kitchen, sprawling on my knees. The two men seemed to yelp as they jumped back out of the way. Five pairs of eyes fixed on my face.

''Little Nicky,'' said Mistress Scot.

''Not so little now, I'll wager,'' said Margaret, ''Not now he's a man.'' She made an obscene and suggestive gesture and they all cackled again. The needles clattered.

''I remember when you were crawling in your baby clothes,'' said Mistress Scot. ''You were a beautiful bairn, wasn't he Alice?''

''Oh yes.'' The needles clicked. ''Shame they have to grow up.''

''I see you're wearing your hair longer,'' said Mistress Payne. ''It's over your ears and over your neck, like a real Englishman.''

I hated the Norman style, long at the front, shaved at the back. I thought it looked absurd. ''It's the style,'' I said, getting to my feet.

''Will you grow a beard?'' asked Mistress Scot, ''When you're a man?'' I gulped.

''You got a girl yet?'' asked Mistress Kerbroke. ''I'm sure my Peter would rather you had your grubby hands on someone else's fruit for a change, if you know what I mean.'' She too made a suggestive gesture and nudged Mistress Payne, who guffawed and chugged back more beer.

''Nicky, you stole from Master Kerbroke?'' Mistress Scot sounded disappointed.

''It was just a joke,'' I muttered.

''With Bartholomew Jay, my Peter said.''

''Bad influence, that boy.''

''Needs a firmer hand from the Cutlers.''

''Running wild. Mary needs to beat him more.''

''Being an orphan, he has no-one to correct him when he goes wrong.''

''Spare the rod and spoil the child.''

''Don't you worry, Kate,'' said my mother. ''Hugh'll tan his arse before the day's out. He won't sit down for a week.''

''Nick,'' hissed Adam, ''Nick.... Get the beer!''

''What?''

''Get the beer!''

''Oh, yeah. Right.'' I moved towards the cupboard next to the stove.

''You looking forward to the Trinity Fair?'' asked Mistress Payne.

''Maybe you'll be escorting a young lady by then,'' added Mistress Kerbroke.

''Courting,'' said Mistress Scot.

''Little Nicky, courting at last, eh?'' Margaret Newton. ''Make you feel old, Alice?''

''He already does,'' said my mother, clicking her needles.

I spotted a pitcher of ale next to the stove, darted forward, seized it and, with a huge sigh of relief, scurried back to the bar.

''You took your time,'' Father scowled.

''Couldn't get away,'' I said sourly.

''Fascinating conversation, eh?'' He poured the beer into three mugs. ''Good health.''

We resumed our game until a knock on the front door just before None interrupted us. My heart sank when I opened up to see Adam le Spicer, the bailiff, and Peter de Kerbroke standing in the street. Father welcomed them in and offered them ale. I liked Adam well enough, but Peter's presence made me twitchy and uncomfortable. My conscience pricked, I suppose. He kept looking at me through narrowed eyes whilst le Spicer talked to Father about the Trinity Fair. It seemed that the monks had decided to tax us for the use of Tombland.

''A meeting was held between the council and the Priory,'' he said, ''With William le Messer....''

Adam de Newton scowled. William le Messer was unusually aggressive for a cleric and often represented the Priory in their negotiations with the City. He was famed for his inflexibility and declared determination to 'safeguard the interests of the Church' at the expense of the wider community. I could not imagine that Adam le Spicer had managed to win any concessions at all.

''It's our land,'' said my father.

''That is why it's so outrageous,'' said le Spicer.

''We go ahead anyway,'' said de Newton. ''Damn his eyes, what's he going to do if we hold the Fair and tell him to go jump in the lake?''

''Confrontation is not desirable,'' said le Spicer. ''The Prior should not be provoked.''

''Well, damn his eyes too,'' said de Newton. ''I pay my tithes. I expect something back. Besides, are priests not supposed to be humble?''

''You're very quiet, Nicolas,'' de Kerbroke observed. ''Something on your mind?'' Bollocks. ''Matilda of Swerdestone, maybe?''

The men chuckled. Newton whistled. Father kind of barked.

''She's a beauty,'' he said, ''A regular fox. You never see her wriggling her shoulders or letting men touch her hands.''

''No,'' added de Newton, ''She's a haughty filly. Needs tupping, you can tell. You want to do it, do you, Nick? Hur hur. You sly dog. Can't say I blame you. She's a right sex-pot.''

''She's also my god-daughter,'' said le Spicer.

Father cleared his throat and asked after the magistrate's garden. This was famed through the town for its sweet-scented roses, the strawberries, gooseberries and mulberries, and its orchard of apple, pear, plum, cherry, walnut and damson trees. He supplied Kerbroke, who fixed his beady eyes on me again as Master le Spicer invited us to call round to his King Street house and help ourselves.

''Ho,'' said de Kerbroke, ''Nicolas doesn't need an invitation to help himself to other people's fruit,'' and the whole tale came out.

Father was appalled. ''I never brought you up to be a thief,'' he said.

''God's teeth,'' I said, ''It was only a joke.''

''It's not a joke to break a commandment,'' he said, ''And for God's sake stop swearing.''

''You could hang for theft,'' said Adam le Spicer. ''You're old enough at fourteen and the law says thieves should hang.''

''I don't want him hung, Adam,'' de Kerbroke said evenly. ''Just give him a beating. Like his dog, children only understand right and wrong if it's beaten into them.''

The adults murmured agreement. I heard comments such as ''Never did me any harm'', and ''A good boy is a well-beaten boy'' and ''Bad children come from bad parents''.

''Young people today,'' said de Newton, ''Are only interested in music, fashion and chasing girls. They don't know what it's like to have to work for a living or do as they're told. Too many rights and not enough responsibilities.''

''Aye, you're right, Adam,'' said le Spicer. ''My girls spend half a day in front of the mirror trying on gowns and braiding their hair.''

''No values,'' said my father. ''Don't you fret, Peter. I'll whip his arse for him. And Bart Jay's. They won't sit down for a week.''

Just what my mother had said. Bloody parents. I picked moodily at a scab on my arm, then Adam le Spicer intervened. Bart and I were too big to be birched, he said. This isn't the Dark Ages, he said. Penance and prayer, restorative justice, those were the keys these days. He proposed that, after the fair, Bart and I should spend one week working for Kerbroke, serving fruit and veg on the stall in the market and performing any other duty as Kerbroke saw fit.

My father said we were getting off lightly but Kerbroke's salacious grin said we weren't. I just hoped what he had in mind was not similar to Alfred Cutler's line in duties. I never found out, and I never served behind that stall, because, on the Feast Day of the Holy Trinity in the fifty-sixth year of the Reign of King Henry, Third of that Name, July 1272, everything changed, for everyone, and forever.

# 4. Fair

Tombland was a riot of colour, a wonderfully bright, heady brew of noise and excitement, bustle and vigour. There were dozens of stalls, low trestle tables mostly of food, but some souvenirs, clay goods and pots. There was freshly baked bread and honey, runny and glowing like liquefied gold. There were slabs of roast pork, cooked on the spit, sweet and sour rabbit, bean and bacon pottage and dry salted fish. There were blood puddings and sheep's feet and clay-baked hedgehogs, which I couldn't afford. There were sweetmeats and jellies, pies and pastries, small fancy cakes and tarts filled with custard. I wished to sample something of everything and nagged at my mother to give me some coins. I got some baked ribs, a small rabbit pasty, some fried blood sausage, some spicy cabbage, a hunk of cheese, a chunk of bread and a tankard of mead. My father grunted something that sounded like "Hungry, are you?" and extracted a promise that I would help him on the stall before I drifted away to examine the toys. They were mostly gaily-painted figures carved from wood, horses, dragons, spinning tops, yoyos, hoops and cotton-sailed boats. I paid a penny for a small painted doll, a gift for my sister, then a carved wooden horse as a gift for Matilda. I feared she might laugh in my face but it was worth the risk. After all, she'd said I'd looked nice.

People were already playing games on the grass, hurling balls through holes in a plank, tossing hoops over stakes in the ground, shuffling in sacks, three-legged races, and an archery contest away near the cross at the edge of the plain. Some children were playing on a merry-totter. I watched with interest as they bobbed up and down, ate my pasty, then had a go with the hoops, left empty-handed and drifted down Tombland towards the dancing.

The Norwich City Waits were playing a Breton dance called a bransle. Someone was sawing away on a fiddle, another man was plucking a zither, his fingers moving with frantic precision, a fat man was blasting squawks from his bagpipes, somebody else was tapping a tabor and the final member was trilling a flute. Women whirled and men clapped their hands, whistling admiringly as everyone danced. Mistress Scot saw me watching, caught my waist in the crook of her arm and span me away, smiling broadly as everything blurred. I felt my sandaled feet churning the dust. At the end of the dance, she kissed my cheek. I burned with embarrassment, especially as I had glimpsed Henry Mulbarton and Nathaniel Palmer grinning and pointing.

My return to the stall found Father in his best land-lording mood.

"A fine day for the Trinity fair," he was saying as he poured ale into Adam Newton's tankard, "A day to make merry and welcome friends. Here you are, Adam. Free of charge on this beautiful day."

"I can pay for it, Bromholm," Adam replied. "I don't need charity from the likes of you." He flung a handful of coins onto the table

"I'm sorry, Hugh," Margaret apologised. "He had too much last night. Bit of a head. Get yourself a drink with the change."

"God give you good day."

Adam snarled. "Another lecture from King Geoffrey, I fear." He greeted Brun sourly. "Good morrow to you. Knocked any crowns off lately?"

"Not yet," Brun replied smoothly. "You certainly like your ale."

"And what's wrong with that? A man has to have his little pleasures."

"It's not his only little pleasure," Margaret said dryly. The bystanders laughed.

"I can still pleasure you!" Adam shot back.

"Aye," said Margaret, "And that's even littler. I've had bigger splinters." There was more laughter. Adam sulked.

"Ah, leave me alone, woman. Can't you stop your nagging for just one day?" He buried his nose in the froth of the beer.

A cheer and a whoop distracted us all. Henry Godale was stalking over the dry, fraying grass, walking on stilts and juggling balls, occasionally bowing to the encircling crowd which accompanied him towards Tombland Cross.

"I have performed in London, travelled to York, bewitched them in Coventry and now, via Lichfield and Ely, I, Henry Godale, present my show to the people of Norwich, on this Trinity holiday in the place known as Tombland." A slight breeze ruffled his butter-blond hair and his baggy white shirt.

"Gonna show us some tricks with his balls," Adam muttered. I grabbed another beer and dashed off through the crowd.

He began by juggling two wooden balls, then added a third and a fourth then tossed up a fifth in one unbroken seamlessly smooth rhythm. As the applause subsided, he took up a torch, its hazy flame almost invisible in the bright midday light, a thin trail of smoke seeping into the air, and swept it smoothly from left hand to right, then he scooped up a second, sending them both whirling, spinning and swirling in a dazzling display to which a third torch was added as the crowd caught its breath and Henry just smiled as the yellow tongues danced. I stared at him, mesmerised by the movement and grace, but more wonders followed when he added three knives, the silver blades catching the sunlight, flashing and blazing, a halo of light in the middle of fire.

"And now you shall witness a feat never seen before in the city of Norwich." He fished an apple from the pocket of his starched, black breeches. I held my breath, body taut, intense with expectancy. A fierce concentration flooded his features. He ate the apple whilst juggling the knives. Applause rang out, cascaded from walls and crashed over my head. Godale grinned and bowed, tossed the gnawed core on the grass at my feet and hopped down from his stilts. "That's how to eat an apple," he said as the crowd tossed coins into his hat.

"That was amazing," I breathed. "I've never seen anything so amazing! Can you teach me to do that?"

Godale grinned and thanked a small child. "Sure." He looked at the mug in my fist. "It's thirsty work, though."

"Uh, sorry," I mumbled, and gave him the rest of my ale. He drained the mug and dragged his wrist across his lips.

"Take one," he said. "Throw it up gently and catch it in the same palm." He made me do it over and over again before he allowed me to throw it from right hand to left hand and left hand to right hand, and, after an age, up and down in a circular motion. He watched me carefully, walked around, eyeing my action, advising me gently to keep everything smooth and relaxed. He stepped behind me, took my wrists in his fingers and guided my hands. I was reduced to a doll like the one in my pocket.

"Like this," he murmured. My head dropped back against his chest and my breathing quickened. "You're tense," he said. "You can't juggle if you're all tensed up." He laughed softly. "You need a massage." I let myself flop against him, caught a scent of beer, onions and smoke, felt myself enclosed within his arms, but not trapped, not imprisoned, more like secure, and safe. Perhaps I could relax. "Keep your eye on the ball," he murmured quietly, his hot rasping breath tickling my ear. It was hypnotic again and I found myself falling, lulled by the movement, rocked by the rhythm....

"Nicolas! Nicolas!" Mother was here, making a noise like a screeching bird.

"Look! I cried. "Look! I can juggle!" I broke away from Henry's hold and showed her proudly what I could do. It was slow but precise. A small crowd gathered.

"He's very good, for a beginner," said Godale. "He's got a very good rhythm."

A few people laughed. I saw Matilda in the crowd and blushed.

"I'll give him rhythm," squawked Mother, "Right on his arse if he don't get to work." Everyone laughed and I dropped the ball. Blood flowed hotly into my cheeks.

"Maybe he could work with me," Godale suggested, "Entertainer's Apprentice. We travel all over."

"I suggest," Mother said tightly, "That he starts by travelling to work."

I glared at her and bit my lip. Palmer and Mulbarton were grinning and Matilda was smirking.

"It's a holiday, Alice," said Henry, "Let him enjoy it." He smiled at her winningly and her anger subsided.

"Get along," she said, "Your father needs your help."

As I passed Matilda, she smiled and said I was very good. I blushed, and gave her the horse, muttering "This is for you," and scurrying away before she could react.

Father was fretting. "Where the hell have you been?" he snapped. "I'm run off my feet here. I haven't stopped for a moment."

I looked around for the hordes of drinkers and saw just Adam de Newton, still supporting his weight on our stall, and leering at Meg.

"You'd dance wi' me, darling," he slurred. "I bet you're good. And not just at dancing," He poked my ribs with his elbow. "Eh, Nick? Hey," he added confidentially but so loudly everyone could hear ''You'd be far better off swyving some honest girl like Meg than a snooty piece like Matilda.''

''Thanks Adam,'' I said, trying to ignore the sly sniggers of the people around us.

''What do you say, Meg? You'd be better in the sack than Matilda de Swerdestone.''

''Adam Newton!'' Meg pretended to be scandalized. ''I'm a good girl, I am.''

''I'll bet you are,'' said Adam, and pinched her bottom.

She slapped him playfully with a damp cloth, smiled suggestively at me and placed a tankard in my hand. Her cheeks had reddened and coarsened with sun, wind and beer. Maybe it was my imagination, but she seemed to want me.

"The Adam and Eve crowd are serving wine," Father told me. "They're doing good business." He removed the tankard from my fingers.

I'd only had a couple of sips. "That tasted good," I said, watching it go.

"You'll get the rest when you bring back some wine," he replied.

"I've been learning to juggle," I declared.

"Why?" He stared at me in total astonishment, "What for?"

"Entertainment," I said, snatching up two pebbles. He was less than impressed.

"Get back to the tavern and fetch some wine!" he bawled. "Meg can help you. I'll manage alone." He glared into the crowd. "Where the hell's your mother?"

"Talking to Henry," I said. "He's going to teach me to juggle properly..."

"Good God," snorted Father, "Juggling! You'll be tumbling next, then music, bagpipes and dancing - any of that 'hey nonny nonny, sing cuckoo' stuff in my house, and you'll be out in the gutter, my lad."

"Maybe Nicolas likes playing with Henry's balls," leered Adam.

"And any of that and....." Father seemed on the verge of a seizure.

I grinned and called for Sam. He lifted his chin and regarded me woefully. "Come on, Sammy," I said. He lowered his head again, snuffled a little and went back to sleep.

It was very hot, mid-afternoon, the sun high in a clear cloudless sky, the heat rising in waves from the hard-baked earth through the soles of my boots.

"Do you really want to be a juggler?" asked Meg as we passed by the band. "I thought you were going to be a cook."

"Dunno," I said, "But it annoys my father, so it must be a good thing." I suddenly felt the urge to dance again. The band was playing Half Hannikin, one of my favourite jigs. "Dance with me, Meg," I said, catching her hand and whirling her away, despite her protests and the pricking of my conscience. I moved clumsily, because of the beer, but felt light as air as we held hands and danced in circles. I felt sweaty, flushed, thirsty and elated.

Back at The Mischief, I downed two generous measures of beer before setting to work dragging out earthenware jars and pottery pitchers so that Meg could fill wineskins and bottles. I sat on the counter practising my new-found juggling skill with two turnips I'd found. Meg watched, a ghost of a smile flitting over her lips.

"I'll try it with three," I announced, but, unable to find another suitable object and thus distracted, lost my concentration, missed the drop and heard them fall to the floor with a thud of finality. I swore.

"You need more practice," Meg observed. I leapt from the counter, trilling the jig tune merrily, grabbed her hands again and charged round the tavern in a frenzied dance. She threw back her head and laughed. "Are you drunk?"

"Yes!" I said. "I'm drunk. A little bit drunk! But I'm also happy! It's been a great day!" I gazed at her, at the long auburn hair curled round her neck, the skin grimed with dirt, her mouth slightly open, her mouth just a little too wide to be perfect, her cheeks blazing, her eyes a dull, sea-like green, her breasts, like small cabbages, heaving as she panted for breath .... Matilda she wasn't, but in that instant I found her attractive again. I fought my lust but, as I caught her against my body, I felt it rising and pressed my lips to hers. The next few minutes were a fog of fumbling fingers tugging at laces and plucking at buttons, of fevered lips flitting kisses from faces to lips from lips to flushed faces, of trembling hands thrust inside clothing... Bartholomew Cotton's teaching fled from my mind.

"Let's go up." My voice was breaking through my heart, which had become a huge lump in my throat, so my whisper was hoarse. "Unless we just do it here." I buried my face in her breasts, fumbled some more, felt her tongue twining round mine, felt her hands running over my shoulders and face, then, suddenly and without warning, she pushed me away and said ''Stop.''

''What?''

''Stop.'' She started re-lacing her bodice. The frown cut through her face like a scar.

''What's wrong?'' My face burned with a mix of desire, anger, frustration and bewilderment. What had I done to upset her?

''It doesn't seem right,'' she explained. ''You're like my brother.''

''But I'm not your brother,'' I protested, putting my arm round her shoulders again. ''I'm a man who needs you.'' She shook me off. ''Meg,'' I wheedled. ''Pleeeease.'' I put my hand on her breast. ''You know you need to couple. Otherwise you'll overheat....''

''Who told you that?'' she said scornfully.

''Pleeeeease.....'' I put her hand on my cock. ''Go on, Meg. Pleeease...''

She slapped my face and walked out.

I rubbed my cheek and sat down on the bar, utterly confused. What had I done? One minute she had been pulling me down on top of her panting ''Yes yes yes'' and the next she was pushing me away like I was a leper or something. I didn't get it. I also didn't understand how awkward things would be between myself and Meg when I got back to the stall.

''Hey,'' said Bart, ''See what I got us from that pedlar over there.'' He waved vaguely towards some stalls near St Ethelbert's Church.

''I don't know,'' I said wearily.

''Guess.''

I tried to catch Meg's eye. ''Magic beans,'' I said. ''A unicorn. A rhinoceros. A large hat.'' She scowled at me, and my anger took over. ''A tart, a loose woman, a wanton, a trollop....''

''Turd in your teeth, Bromholm,'' she said viciously.

Bart glanced nervously from me to Meg and back again. ''No,'' he said uncertainly. ''Lucky charms.'' He held out two pieces of pink coral on strings. ''Wear it round your neck and it'll protect you from evil spirits.''

''Evil spirits?'' I said. ''Where do you get this stuff from?''

The sun was lower now, and long shadows were being cast on the grass. The City Waits were playing 'Summer is a-coming in.' Some people were still carolling. I could hear the words: ''loudly sings cuckoo''. A game of kayles had started up near the stone Saxon cross at the top of Ratun Rowe. I caught sight of Reuben, the apothecary's son, dressed in a black, belted tunic and trousers. He was slender and skinny, a year or so younger than me, melancholic and gloomy, with a brooding expression, but he was kind. I beckoned him over. I liked Reuben.

"No Jews at my table," snarled Father.

"He's my guest," I said, thrusting a cup of wine into Reuben's hand.

"Can you pay for your guest?"

"I'll pay," Reuben said softly.

"I'll pay." Henry Godale slapped down some coins. "It's a holiday, even for 'prentices like Reuben and Bart." He smiled at the Jew. "How's your father?"

"Well," said Reuben.

"Christian holiday," Adam slurred angrily.

"So Christian charity for a poor lost soul on a Christian holiday may be no bad thing." Godale placed his hand on Reuben's dark, greasy hair. "Your health, boy."

Bart nudged me. ''What's wrong with Meg? She seems upset.''

''Oh, Meg's fine,'' I said. ''She's just being a moody bitch,'' I spat out the last word, ''A frigid, moody bitch.''

''Go to hell, you lying lollygagger,'' she snarled.

''Frigid bitch,'' I repeated.

Meg planted her fists firmly on her hips. Bart said later he thought she was going to hit me. ''Go swyve your dog, Nicolas Bromholm,'' she said icily, and tossed her head. I felt the anger boiling inside me and clenched my fists.

"Hello," said Stephen, nodding towards the Ethelbert Gate. "What's all this?"

The huge wooden doors to the Priory swung slowly open, the rusting hinges grating as if protesting against the movement, then a group of men headed out, pushed rudely through stalls and people, and swaggered across the grass to gather in a knot by the archery butts. It was a mix of monks and monastery workers, gardeners, builders, servants and so on. We watched as some of these retainers took up the bows and begin firing arrows at the straw targets. The people who had been playing kayles were shoved aside. The children were knocked from their see-saw. The dancers stopped dancing and the band stopped playing. Those around us began to mutter, especially Newton.

"By bloody hell, who do these people think they are? Try to tax the fair, try to ban the fair, then come out and enjoy the fair."

God's teeth, I muttered. They were heading our way. Bart gulped and pressed one of the coral charms into my palm.

''Eight cups of wine,'' snapped William le Messer, "And be damn quick about it." I leapt into life, scurrying round whilst my father spoke platitudes and the other men glared.

"Eight pence," said Father, pale under his tan.

"This is a holiday." Le Messer laughed roughly and grabbed him by the shirt. "Surely you can spare the Christian brothers who pray for your wretched soul a few measures of wine."

"Of course," stammered Father.

"You should be grateful we patronise your pitiful enterprise," le Messer continued. "Hey, boy, where are the drinks?"

"There are only six cups," I said helplessly. "Reuben....."

"You give wine to a Jew and not to a servant of God?" Le Messer snarled.

Reuben set down his cup. "You may have it, if it means so much to you."

"Drink from the mug of a Jew?" Le Messer's lips twisted. "Defile my lips?" He spat on the grass. "You dishonour the Church, you filthy Jew."

"Have mine." Bartholomew gulped and blinked. "I'm not a Jew."

"Filthy little orphan boy," le Messer replied. "Fine people you drink with, Bromholm. Jews and urchins and ...," He glanced at de Newton, "Impotent drunkards." He smoothed his shaved scalp with a hand blood-red in the mid-evening sun. Away at the archery, a fight broke out. Le Messer laughed and drained his drink. His voice rang out across the plain. "This fair is closed!" he cried, "By order of the Prior. Disperse and go home."

"The Prior has no jurisdiction over us," said Stephen le Blunt. "This land belongs to the city, not to the Church."

Le Messer merely laughed. ''It's our sphere of influence,'' he sneered.

Adam de Newton set down his tankard. "The fair goes on! Who is de Brunham to tell us to stop? The fair goes on! Strike up a tune!" Margaret put her hand on his wrist. "Get off me, woman! The fair goes on!" He gestured wildly. "Music! Where is the music? For God's sake, start a song and drown the sound of this prattling priest."

The fiddler uncertainly scraped out some notes of 'Bobbing Joan' then the piper set his reed to his lips and a shrill gavotte trilled in the air. The tabor knocked and the bagpipes heaved and Adam shuffled his feet, lurching unrhythmically from one to the other.

"Dance!" he bellowed, "Dance, damn you!"

The crowd remained still, cowed by the presence of William le Messer. Suddenly, Adam de Newton fell down in the dust. Everyone laughed.

"You should have gone home hours ago," sneered William le Messer. "You're not fit to be out, crawling around like a pig in the dirt. Don't shame your wife by any more foolery." He turned to the crowd. "The fair is now closed."

The piper defiantly played a dozen more notes before William le Messer snatched the reed from his fingers and broke it in half. "Pipe on the pieces, you peasant," he roared, flinging the fragments on to the grass. "The fair is closed! Break up the band!"

He seized the edge of our table and turned it over with one mighty heave. Glasses, mugs, tankards and bottles crashed to the ground.

"A turd in your teeth, le Messer, you whoreson bastard!" Adam de Newton was back on his feet, swaying slightly, but back on his feet. "You want a piece of me? You want to fight?" He reached into his boot and drew a dagger, long-bladed and gleaming silver in the dying sun.

"Adam! Stop it!" cried someone, possibly Margaret, possibly Mother.

"Come on, you whoreson French boyswyver!'' The blade waved urgently. "A scum of French monks! Kissers of arses and swyvers of boys!" He lurched at le Messer, who sent him scrabbling for the dagger which span from his grasp.

"Feeble old fool!" cried William le Messer, "To challenge the Church. Down in the dust, like the dog that you are!"

"Your mother was a whore and your father a dog!" Adam ranted. "Your mother was a dog-sucker! Dog-spawn dog-swyver!" He clawed at his dagger.

Le Messer turned lazily aside, then reached inside his robe. There was a sudden sharp twang and sudden hard thud. Adam's eyes widened with shocked disbelief, his hands growing red as he clutched at the bolt that had shattered his ribs. Le Messer had shot him. The crossbow he had fired was still extended at the end of his arm. Adam coughed and a torrent of blood gushed from his mouth. Margaret screamed and ran towards him. He kicked and gargled but otherwise remained sitting up straight.

"Live like a pig, you die like a pig." Le Messer replaced the crossbow. "Break up the Fair." The monks moved among us, turning the tables, scattering food, smashing the toys, shoving us, cursing us, stealing the silver, pillaging pots, looting, robbing and trashing the stalls. Somewhere nearby a child started crying. It was the only sound in the shocked-silent square.

# 5. Tooth

IT was a long, hot and tiring walk. Jacob the Dentist lived in a large gloomy house at the corner of King Street and Parmentergate, close to the church of St Peter, a fine, flint-built Friary and the wonderful Dragon Hall where merchants met for banquets and dinners. This was the smart part of town, bigger houses, higher rents, richer people and plenty of Jews. We went there infrequently. My skin was itching because of the ticks and fleas which shared my bed. I scratched at the bites with irritation and vigour until they broke open into small beads of blood. My mother was carrying Sarah, a fearful, feverish bundle of bones. The sun blasted out of an azure sky, a molten white coin fresh from a furnace.

Jacob the Dentist was not just a dentist. He was also an apothecary, herbalist, surgeon and physician. The rambling garden which led to the river was crowded with flowers, green plants and herbs, the ingredients of his poultices, ointments and remedies while the room he used to examine his patients was covered with star-charts, astrolabes and dust-laden horoscopes. He had a long, lugubrious face, like a goat's. He had a beard like a goat's. He even had a voice like a goat's, bleating softly "Apply this cream to the bites. It'll make them feel better." Although he was good, he made me uncomfortable. That soft goatish voice, the curly grey locks, the black velvet cap, the thin, beaky nose, the broken-down teeth, the silken black slippers, a Jew from a story, a Jew from a nightmare.

"Creatures like that," my father had warned, "Kill Christian children and drink their blood. He'll nail your hands and feet to his door, cut off your cock, sup on your blood and laugh at your screams. You can't trust a Jew."

Mother mentioned Abraham Deulecresse who had sold us the tavern.

"Bah!" snorted Father, "Moneylenders, crooks and usurers. Their time will come! Remember how Christ drove them out of the temple? Well, sooner or later it'll happen again. Not now, I grant you. The King needs their money. He's even borrowed from Deulecresse. But when Edward Longshanks succeeds to the throne.... ah, then there'll be a reckoning, and not just with the Jews. The bloody Scots and the bleeding Welsh and the sodding French, and as for the Irish ...." The very word stuck in his throat. He rubbed his hands gleefully, "Oceans of blood. He'll clear them all out. Strong Government. That's what we need, and that's what we'll get, and all your doctors and lawyers and lenders of gold ..." He rubbed his hands together again. "Oho! They'll get their just desserts all right."

But Mother believed in the Jew, and so did I.

I passed through the gate, entered the garden, saw Bartholomew Jay squatting on a bucket behind a large bush. He was pale-faced and sweaty. The smell was quite overpowering.

"I been shitting for hours," he whispered weakly. "It's all liquid. Christ knows what he gave me. Linseed fried in fat, he said. It stank worse than this. My guts are all knotted. My hole feels like it's been swyved by a horse, but it's clearing me out, thank God. If it doesn't work, he's going to squirt mallow, salt and soap up my arse with some bellows. That'll really clear me out. How's your sister?"

"Sick," I replied, "Very sick. I think she may die." I thought of my mother, thirty-six, worn out with work and the worry of children and burying six and wondered how much longer she could survive.

"What's up with you?"

"Fleas again, and toothache," I said.

''Well,'' said Bart, ''That's the worms. They eat through the enamel and then eat the pulp. You have to burn them out with a mutton-fat candle.''

I shook my head. ''Where do you get this stuff from?'' I said.

''Bartholomew Cotton,'' he said, his face twisting suddenly as his guts wrenched again and another shower of shit spattered the back of the bucket.

It was all a bit miserable. Once the monks had ended our fair, after my father and Godale and Stephen le Blunt had carried the corpse to a cart, after they'd taken it back to the house, after my mother and Agnes Scot and one or two others had attempted in vain to comfort the widow and six Newton children, we had drifted desultorily down to the wharf and watched the rats frisking back and forth on the dusty old dock as the light finally died. The sunset had swathed the scene in blood, blood on the quayside, blood in the water, blood on our faces, and blood on our faces, everything stained. The masts of moored ships had swayed and dipped, their ropes creaking eerily. We'd sat there in silence. I'd wished a rat would jump into range so I could kick it into the river.

"Bloody le Messer," Bart blurted suddenly. "Why did he have a bow at a fair?"

"Le Messer's a bully," Reuben said wisely.

"And French," snarled Bartholomew. "Geoffrey Brun's right about that. The French despise us, and so do the monks. They speak their own tongues to keep us in darkness, spin us lies about God and rob us, and now they are shooting us down in cold blood."

"There'll be an inquest," I said firmly, echoing my father's words. "Le Spicer and Ely will put him on trial."

They'll never arrest him," said Reuben despondently. "The Prior protects his own people. It's English justice."

"French justice," Bart broke in. "Our laws are made by the French. Le Spicer, de Swerdestone, le Palmer - all French, like le Messer, de Skerning, de Brunham ..."

"De Bromholm," I said acidly. "You calling me French?"

"Well, your great-grandfather was," said Bart. "My ancestors are solidly Norfolk."

"Norfolk 'n' good," I'd remarked, and thumped him on the left cheek.

Now I looked down at him, perched on his bucket, tears in his eyes and a bruise on his face, and apologised.

"Sorry, Bart. It was terrible day."

He nodded, then his face convulsed and another spasm pulled at his stomach. More diarrhoea dribbled into the bucket. He groaned and wiped a sleeve across his brow.

During the night I had woken with toothache. Howling and weeping, I'd clutched the sides of my bed with white-knuckled fingers, tears of pain streaming over my cheeks, and cried for my mother. She had held me, rocked me gently and rubbed some crushed clove oil into my gums.

"It's swollen," she'd said, and when I'd pressed it myself with an experimental finger, it had squashed like a soggy sponge.

I'd had no sleep. The pain had swelled through my skull, throbbing intensely, burning like fire, bored through my jaw like a burrowing thorn, my poor face swollen and sore. My howls had woken my father who'd tried to send me downstairs to the kitchen but Mother had slapped him and ordered him out, so I'd sat on my bed, twisting the blanket in agonised fingers and cried like a baby.

Meg had brought me some salt in water and I'd rinsed the solution around my mouth. Then Sarah had stirred with a whimpering cry and a raging fever and Mother and Meg had left me alone with my misery. The baby's skin looked like molten wax whilst my mother's face was the colour of ash.

I sat on a hard wooden chair surrounded by jars and bowls and knives and needles, drowsy with pain, weariness and some drug he had given me. My shirt lay in a heap on the floor. Jacob leaned over and a sickly-sweet smell of perfume enveloped me.

"Your flea-bites are better," he observed, nodding at the fading pink marks on my chest and shoulder. "How are your bowels?" He probed inside my mouth.

"Aaaarrr," I said. Why do dentists ask you questions when they've got their fingers inside your mouth? I mean, how are you supposed to answer?

"Good." He touched the abscess and a wave of pain washed over me. "The tooth is rotten. It will have to come out."

''Can't you just coax the worms out with a mutton-fat candle?'' I asked hopefully.

Reuben sniggered. ''Where do you get this stuff from?'' he scoffed. ''This isn't the Dark Ages, you know.''

I moaned and a thin string of saliva dribbled onto my chest. I felt suddenly sick. The pain from my tooth was rocking my head but now I knew there was worse pain to come. This was a judgement, I decided, for my unclean thoughts. I began to gabble a prayer in my head. 'Dear God, I'm so sorry, so sorry, so sorry ..."

Reuben, gloomy as always, set aside the pestle and mortar and the green leaves he'd been grinding, and placed his hands on my shoulders, pinning me back against the rough wooden chair whilst his father applied some kind of ointment to the abscess.

''This is a paste of henbane and mandragora. It will numb your mouth,'' he explained, whilst his son, my friend, heated some pincers and a lance in a bright candle flame until they both glowed bright red. Jacob the Dentist, with his shabby black skullcap and his velvety coat and his huge beaky nose, was a figure from nightmares, a figure from Hell.

" 'S all right," said Reuben, "It won't take him long." My heart thundered madly, as if to escape from its ribcage imprisonment. I dug my nails into my thighs, screwed shut my eyes and continued to pray.

It felt as though the whole side of my face was being lifted away from my skull when he clamped the tooth in his tongs and heaved with all his might. A weak, distant scream rose from my throat, a scream I could barely hear, as saliva and blood flowed over my lips, down my chin and splashed onto my chest. I felt myself struggling against Reuben's palms, felt Jacob's knee crushing my ribs, restraining my heart, felt my brain dissolving, my nerves stripped to shreds, felt another great heave and a searing twist.

Don't let me die, don't let me die, don't let me die, don't let me die

Everything behind my eyelids was spinning white, dancing, diving, driving dots against black, like stars in the night. My mind was slipping. I screamed again, tasted metallic blood in my mouth, felt I would choke, felt I would drown, heard Jacob groan, spat and spilled some blood with my tongue, and then it was over. Jacob had wrenched the tooth from its socket and Reuben was wiping my skin with a cloth. I was crying and shaking and covered with sweat. Jacob thrust a brass bowl under my chin. Blood splattered noisily. I thought it would flow forever. At least it would wash the poison away. I felt sick and dizzy, and suddenly fainted.

It took a long time to get home. Mother thought about calling a cart but we'd given most of our money to Jacob so we had to stumble, almost blindly, through the streets, Mother carrying Sarah, now quiet and sleeping but bearing a fever and weak from the bleeding, and me feeling dizzy and having to rest every so often. Reuben had sealed the wound with some healing herb and prepared a poultice to lessen the swelling. I pressed it to my jaw. Only once was I sick, vomiting shakily over the cobbles outside Dragon Hall.

Once home, I went to bed and lay in my side, holding Sam against my chest and trying to sleep. The atmosphere in the tavern was gloomy and dark. Adam's murder had rocked the community and Mother was constantly nursing my worsening sister. A cockroach scuttled across the planks of the bedroom, a couple of mice scratched in the thatch. My ankle itched. A flea hopped from my skin. They were back.

Meg came up with a bowl of fish broth she'd made herself. She helped me sit up, her face unmovingly grim. I sipped at the liquid.

"I'm sorry," I muttered.

''Sarah's really sick,'' she said.

''I know.''

"Oh, Nick!" She burst into tears. "You know it's our fault, don't you? It's all our fault." She sobbed and ran out of the room.

I felt utterly miserable and very confused. We hadn't done anything. That was part of my problem. I finished the broth and rested the spoon in the bowl. My mouth still throbbed but not so much now. I scratched Sam's ears. Then my father appeared, his beefy face drained and drawn. He sat on my bed, his great hands writhing.

''Oh Nick......you're the only one left, the only one left." He threw his arms round my shoulders and sobbed.

Sarah had died. Mother crouched in a corner clutching the corpse, rocking to and fro on her heels, whilst Meg cried and Father sat next to me, his hands hanging hopelessly. I clutched my dog and my lucky charm and prayed silently.

#

# 6. River

THE Feast of Corpus Christi in the fifty-sixth year of the reign of King Henry, Third of that Name.

I trudged wearily along in the oppressive blackness of a rain-soaked Norwich night, feeling the drizzle dampening my hair and freckling my face. Sam trotted dutifully at my heels, occasionally pausing to piss up a wall. The smell of the city was not so bad here. Bigger houses, larger yards, wider streets, not so much shit in the sewer. We were nearer the river, so I guess it didn't have so far to travel.

The atmosphere in the tavern had been thick with tension. The inquest had failed. William le Messer had been acquitted. We'd found it difficult to grasp Simon Palmer's account, of unreliable witnesses, of le Messer acting in self-defence, of the story that he had carried the crossbow because he feared for his life in the streets of our city.

Margaret had been understandably bitter. "My husband lies dead and his killer walks free," she'd said. "How can that be?"

"Did you ever doubt it?" Brun had answered. "He's one of theirs, part of the Establishment. Of course he walks free."

"Who was on the jury?" Father had asked.

"All priests," Palmer had said. "Ecclesiastical court."

"The judge was Prior de Brunham," Godale had added.

"They call that a fair trial?" My father had never supported trial by jury.

"There were some people from outside the Priory," Godale had answered. "The priest of St Faith's, a monk from Whitefriars and the Abbot of St Benet's near Ludham."

"All in the diocese of Norwich," Father had added.

"Ah, but it wasn't stacked with Priory insiders, was it?" Godale had answered.

I felt deeply depressed. The talk in the tavern, my problems with Meg, who blamed me for everything, for Adam's murder, my sister's death, her own sickness in the morning, and the news from the inquest had all conspired to dampen my spirits to such a degree that I'd dived into darkness to take Sam for a walk though a storm had been building for hours in the skies overhead. Occasional growls in the belly of Heaven told me the unbroken sunshine and strength-sapping heat were about to be shattered.

I could barely see where I was going. The moon was blotted out, obscured by clouds, and there was little street lighting even down here in the richer, smarter quarter of town. I relied on my sharp eyes to keep my sandaled feet out of manure and dog-dirt and garbage. At least the flies were less active tonight, I reflected, and my thoughts turned again to Geoffrey Brun and his earlier discourse. Was he right? Could he be right? Were we just slaves, no better than blacks, pinned into poverty, imprisoned in ignorance to service the rich?

My father worked hard, my mother was worn and exhausted. I didn't see Roger de Swerdestone or Hugh de Mulbarton grey with fatigue. In addition, my best friend Bart worked every hour his master could make him. He smelled of fish and wool dye and nothing could shift it. He was tired and miserable whilst the Cutlers lived in comparative splendour. He slept in the kitchen, close to the fire on a stone-flagged floor whilst they slept in four-poster beds. No shared mattresses stuffed full of straw for the merchant classes. As for le Spicer, the leading bailiff of Norwich lived in a large house in Benedict's Street. Not for him the grim decay of Coslany or the terrors of night on Timber Hill.

Did they really keep us chained in poverty? If we remain poor and ignorant, Brun had said, we can never gain power, and whilst the masses are powerless they can be exploited, so the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, the hungry stay hungry and the fat get fatter. Is this what life was about? Hadn't each individual been created in the image of God? Isn't each human equal in worth? And if that were true, shouldn't each human being have some sort of dignity, some measure of freedom? My thoughts reeled. I had reached Carrow Gate. I was thirty minutes away from my bed.

I glanced up the hill at the menacing bulk of the Black Tower, glowering over the huddled cottages beneath, imagined the prisoners chained within its flint-studded walls, and shuddered. The Black Tower had haunted my childhood. Every misdemeanour had drawn a fatherly scowl "It's the Black Tower for you, my lad, if you don't sort yourself out." Now it squatted malevolently on the ridge, blackly silhouetted against the blackness beyond, whilst away to my left the Wensum flowed, a slab of black behind the bushes, glittering like funereal marble. Before me lay the Carrow Boom, two flint towers with a string of steel connecting them across the water. Further up the hill was Carrow Abbey and across the river the mist-shrouded marshes of Thorp and Trowse. I could go no further. I sat on the grass and watched Sam root around for hedgehogs and mice.

What did Brun want? I peered at my toes, white in the darkness, bound by the brown leather sandals, and my white, flea-bitten ankles. Change? How could we change? The nobles spoke French, the clergy spoke Latin and most of the people could neither read nor write, even in English. Knowledge is power, Brun had declared. They keep us from knowledge, so they keep us from power. And as for the Church, could it all be superstition? Not God and that, but witches and Satan, devils and evil? Was it all invented as a way of scaring us into submission?

I recalled how Adam de Newton's inquest had ended up in an ecclesiastical court in the first place. Adam le Spicer had gone to the Prior with a warrant. His meeting with Bishop de Skerning had not gone well. He had entered the great Parlour of thePalace, a huge chamber with a fireplace and stained glass windows and heavy oak furniture and beautiful tapestries, to present a brief account of le Messer's part in the murder of Adam de Newton whilst William de Brunham had waited impatiently, grinding his teeth and flexing his fists. When he had finished, de Skerning had smoothed his thinning white hair and looked into the black, empty heart of the hearth.

"Rash, maybe. Incautious, perhaps. But not criminal in his actions." He had glanced at de Brunham. "Le Messer is your man, Prior. What say you?"

"Le Messer defended the Church," the Prior exclaimed. "I will not hand him over. A churchman tried in a civil court? It is out of the question, quite unthinkable."

"Of course," de Skerning had murmured. "The civil courts have no jurisdiction here. How can we be certain that any trial will be fair and impartial? This city has no love for our people, a city with a record of provocation and violence against members of this community stretching back some several years. Given this history, and the current gossip, I think it unlikely that Brother le Messer will receive a fair hearing."

"So how will the matter be resolved?" le Spicer had asked.

"If it comes to a trial, it will be in an ecclesiastical court," de Skerning had answered. "He will be tried by his peers, as befitting his status."

Adam le Spicer had then failed to win a promise that le Messer would give evidence to the inquest or pay compensation to Margaret de Newton and her children.

"I am sure that the city, with its commendable concern for this family, can find a way to provide for her," de Skerning had said.

Le Spicer said that taxes might be withheld and was told in fairly strong terms that the city would then be placed under an interdict. No services, no weddings, no burials, no alms, no confessions, no prayers, excommunications for all...every soul in Norwich would go to Hell.

"This city is famed for its spiritual and intellectual life," de Skerning had said. "Consider the consequences of losing such benefits. No pilgrims to spend their money in Norwich shops, economic catastrophe, spiritual chaos, children dying unbaptised, Papal pressure on the King..." He had smoothed his white hair once again. "Resistance, defiance, will disturb the pious and damage your name. You will lose infinitely more than you could gain."

I shivered in the drizzle and hugged my knees. The rain had dampened the rough, brown cloth of my trousers. Then I heard a noise.

At first I thought it was thunder approaching slowly from the east, but the noise was too rhythmic, too regular, too evenly spaced. It sounded like drumbeats. Away to my right I could see a red glow, a soft gleam on the river. Something was burning. Something had spilled into the water and caught light. There were very few houses at this end of the city but the gate and the tollhouse might be in danger. I started to scramble up, then stopped. What could burn in water? I knew of no substance on Earth that could burn in water, so it must be something unearthly! A creature from Hell was loose in the city.

I fell to my knees, crossing myself and praying "God save me." A visit from Satan to the people who'd tried to arrest his servant le Messer and challenged the Church, and to visit the boy had entertained doubts who just a moment ago. "God is very quick," I heard myself saying, in a very faint voice.

The fire was moving up the river towards the boom tower. I watched, transfixed, for a sight of the Devil. The drumming got louder, and then I noticed that there wasn't one fire but three as they seemed to separate out into a line. Three Devils. Sam raised his head and glanced at me doubtfully, his brown-button eyes gleaming like glass.

My heart thumped into my throat. I had made a momentous decision without quite realising how. If Satan were a mere superstition, a mechanism to keep the people in check, I would be unharmed, whilst if he were real, if the Devil were coming, we'd all be burned up anyway, and I at least, as a thief and a liar who hadn't confessed his sinful deeds, would be done to a cinder, so I might as well die now as later. On the other hand, I thought as I slid down the bank towards Carrow Bridge, I could hide in the hedgerow and hope he passed by. My father's words came back to haunt me - "You're the only one left" - as, holding Sam tightly and closing my eyes, I jumped for the bushes.

The rhythmic beating bored into my brain. What would he look like? Horns and a beard? Feet like a goat? A trident? A pitchfork? Red as fire or black as tar? Faint sounds of singing sighed from the water. Angels? Or Devils? Satan's attendants? I opened my eyes, squinted into the drizzle and saw not devils but three large barges stopped by the boom chains. The fire came from torches alight in their bows. These were men, not Ministers of Mayhem. I gripped Sam's collar and slid closer to the river's edge. These were boats full of men, who were singing and drumming, not ordinary men, but armoured and shielded with helmets and weapons. And there, by the tollhouse, was William le Messer. I smiled ironically. I was right. The Devil was approaching our city. I watched as the gatekeeper lifted the boom chain, le Messer handed over a bagful of money, the barges inched slowly forward. They were moving upriver towards the Priory. From there they could reach the wharf, and from the wharf, the City itself.

I scrambled to my feet and set off along the riverbank, helter skelter, Sam ahead of me, silent, efficient. The breath rasped in my throat, an ache gnawed in my chest, a stitch exploded in the side of my stomach, my legs weighed like lead, my feet echoed eerily as I ran to the tavern, that rhythmical drumming driving me onward, regular drumbeats propelling me forward, hitting the air as my feet hit the cobbles perfectly synchronised, perfectly smooth .... I flew like a bolt, clattering, scuttering, choking for breath, the fire on the water, Satan behind me, laughing and jeering, perched on my shoulder.... I fell through the door and collapsed on the straw.

"H...................H..............H................H............." I said.

"What the devil?"

"Nicolas Bromholm!" My mother cried out. "Where have you been? You're covered in mud and soaked to the skin."

"HHHHhhhhhhhhh....................."

Mother came forward bearing a blanket which she tossed round my shoulders, whilst Father roared "Well, where have you been?"

My hands were muddy, my shirt was wet and muddy, my trousers were torn, wet and muddy, and as for my feet ... God alone knew what I'd run through.

"C ....... c...........c..........c..........."

"Let the boy breathe," said Godale, smiling and patient.

I put my hands on my knees and looked up through my matted fringe at their faces, Meg concerned, Father angry, Henry amused, Mother fretful, and gasped out some words, just three - "Men. In. Boats." I waved vaguely towards the Priory and my breathing steadied, the aching ebbed away. "Moving up to the Watergate."

"Give him a drink," Brun instructed.

"Damn that dog!" shouted my father as Sam leapt up to greet him, muddy paws all over his shirt.

"Three boats," I reported, "Boats full of soldiers, coming up river, just past the Boom Tower... they're heading to the Watergate." I accepted the ale and drank down a draught. "Into the city. With William le Messer."

"Damnation!" Geoffrey le Brun slammed his fist on the table. "He's arming the Church. He means to use force to gather his taxes." He strode to my side and hauled me upright by seizing my shoulder. "Le Messer was with them?"

"Yes," I gasped. "He paid the watchman."

"Are you sure?" He shook me so roughly the beer slopped over my wrist.

"I saw it myself," I protested.

"The watchman!" Brun let me go. "So the City Fathers and bailiffs know."

"It's dark and it's raining," said Stephen le Blunt. "Perhaps Nick's mistaken."

"I know what I saw!" I snapped. ''God's teeth! Why won't you believe me?''

Henry Godale got out of his chair. "They'll be at the turnpike," he said, "At Riverside Bridge. Perhaps we should see for ourselves."

"I know what I saw!" I repeated hysterically, dancing impatiently at their dull disbelief.

"Take me and show me," Godale said.

"But it's raining!" I howled.

"We'll make a detailed report. How many men? How are they armed? Where are they heading? Where are they from?" Godale smiled. "You and I, we'll go to the river."

"It's raining!" said Mother.

"So we'll get wet," he answered her crisply. "You ready?"

I handed the tankard back to my father. "Yes."

"We'll be back in an hour," said Godale. That hour that would change my life for ever.

#

# 7. Swim

THE rain hissed over the cobbles. It gurgled in gutters and bounced off our backs as we stumbled blindly towards the river. We had to move slowly. Visibility was poor. Eventually, soaking shirts plastered to skin, sopping hair clinging to skulls, we arrived at the bridge by the Watergate. Skulking in the shadow of the Priory wall, we could see the shapes of the ships secured near the channel which linked the Close to the Wensum itself, the channel cut to help the Normans transport the honey-coloured limestone from their home in Caen onto the site where they had built their Cathedral. Now the descendents of those Normans were standing on the same jetty, but ferrying soldiers and unloading weapons in the red glow of torchlight.

"There's le Messer," hissed Henry, "And Prior de Brunham. Dammit. I wish we could what they were saying." He squinted down the steep muddy bank at the black water, its surface pocked and pitted with raindrops. "Can you swim, Nicolas?"

"Uh?" My jaw dropped.

"Good." Henry gripped my shoulder fiercely. "Get into the river and swim to the jetty. Hide under the planks and see if you can hear what they're plotting."

"But ..."

"You're already wet," he reasoned. "A little more water ..."

"But ..."

"I'll swim to the boats and take a look at the cargo." He pulled off his boots. "We'll leave Sam here to guard our clothes." The dog was bedraggled and woebegone, his fur matted, tangled and spotted with mud. His eyes said it hadn't been such a great adventure after all. Godale slid down the bank clutching at saplings to slow his descent, then he disappeared into the water.

"Well, Sam," I said, hugging his head and patting his flanks, "See you soon."

The bank was steeper than I'd expected. I half-slid, half-scrambled through churning mud, tree branches whipping my face, ripping my shirt as I gripped and released and gripped and released, and, gathering speed, tumbled towards the hissing black water, the rain lashing its surface as though in a fury. Just as it seemed I would hurtle headlong into the flood, I seized a root, a gnarled, ancient root, and stopped, though my shoulder was almost wrenched from its socket. I clung to the root and studied the ships. A hundred yards away, perhaps. I wondered whether to keep my clothes on. They were already wet and very muddy but the shirt was white, more or less, and might be seen, and so was my skin. I had an idea, hauled my shirt over my head and began to daub my chest and shoulders and face with mud. It was cold and wet and would be washed away by the rain and the river but the dirt, if ground in, might help conceal me from casual glances. I unstrapped my sandals and covered my feet, edged down to the water, crossed myself and slipped silently in. I stuck my knife back through my belt and swam for the jetty.

The journey was dreadful. I was fighting the cold seeping into my skin. Rain lashed my head. The wash of waves slapped my face. My body was numb, weighing my limbs as tiredness crept over me. The water which slopped into my mouth tasted foul, slightly briny, slightly brackish. God only knew what lay in the Wensum. Sewage, corpses, dead dogs....

A huge white shape ghosted out of the darkness. I swallowed a scream. It was a swan, gliding from the jetty's shelter to investigate this strange intruder ploughing into its territory.

After what felt like a lifetime, I swam under the planks and clutched at a strut. I hung there gasping, half out of the water, rubbing my eyes and touching my charm, whilst water streamed down my face. I could hear nothing. The rain was drumming on the jetty and boots were thumping and crashing as the boats were unloaded. I had to get closer.

A couple more struts and I was close enough to see both William le Messer and Prior de Brunham. Torchlight gleamed on their rain-beaded faces, lending their aspects a devilish glow. Le Messer was wrapped in a boat cloak. A man stood nearby, a man with a beard, thin, black and pointy, a Fleming's beard. I shivered.

"You have made good time," said Prior de Brunham. "How was Yarmouth?"

"Fruitful." Le Messer gestured to the man at his side. "Jan Russ, my Lord. Their leader."

"Welcome," said de Brunham. "I trust your journey was good."

"Satisfactory." The leader inclined his head. His face was shrouded by gloom.

"The facilities of the monastery are at your disposal for the duration of your... ah ....visit," said de Brunham, watching with a wince as the men came ashore, cursing, thumping, growling and clinking weaponry. "I hope Brother William explained our problem to you."

"He did," said Russ. "A good night's sleep, wine and women, and we can get to work."

"Wine we can provide. We have an excellent cellar here. But as for women...," De Brunham laughed nervously.

Russ replied non-committally, "My men are tired, thirsty, hungry and far from home. They want diversions, entertainment. See to it."

"Get some women brought in here," hissed de Brunham.

"My Lord?" Le Messer seemed startled.

"Women," said de Brunham impatiently, "You know. Rebekah the Redelees and her prostitute friends. Get Mad Martha if you must. Pay them well. We may need this Flemish scum sooner than we thought." He bowed politely towards Russ. "Let me show you to your quarters and you and your men can make yourselves at home before joining us for a little light supper."

As Russ nodded curtly and led his men towards the Priory, de Brunham handed le Messer a purse of money. They started speaking in French, so I could understand nothing. My biceps were screaming. Then my heart went as cold as the rest of my body. Two men in leather breastplates were approaching from the boats driving at sword-point a muddy, dispirited prisoner.

"Henry Godale!" de Brunham declared in delight. "Fished from the water. What a stroke of luck. God smiles upon our enterprise."

Sick with dismay, I let go of the strut, slid back into the water and struck out quickly back to the bank. The swim seemed to take longer. My legs could barely find the strength to kick. My arms, aching and numb from their earlier ordeal, felt so heavy. The cold was driving deeply into my bones. Suddenly thunder crashed overhead, a streak of lightning split the black sky, and a heavy swell pushed me downstream. I sank momentarily, blackness engulfing me, swirling around me, pressing upon me, choking me, blinding me. My head broke the surface. I coughed and spat out the foul tasting liquid, then went under again. In those seconds, my ears roaring, my lungs bursting, my eyes stinging, my feet flailing, my hands clawing, in those few seconds my short life seemed to pass across my cold, numbed brain. My childhood. My siblings. Their funerals. Meg. The Trinity Fair. My visit to Jacob, and a voice insinuated itself into my head.

"Just let yourself go," it whispered, "Let yourself go. Finish the pain. Say goodbye to the pain and the cold. You're tired, so tired, you need a long rest. Just go to sleep. Go to sleep. Let me rock you to sleep. Surrender yourself to my arms."

And the swell and the current did rock me and lull me and soothe me, gently, kindly, lulling me soothingly. I swallowed some water. It tasted of Death. I began to dissolve.

My father's face swam before me as lightning exploded inside my skull, showering sparks. "You're the only one left," my father's voice said, "The only one left."

Another swell of the current carried me back to the surface and this time my father's voice sounding in my ear filled me with strength. I kicked my feet, beat my hands, forced myself forward, nose and mouth streaming. Several strokes later, I felt the gravel bed of the Wensum scraping my chest and, sobbing, I crawled though the shallows and scrambled ashore. I was shivering uncontrollably, my teeth chattering and rattling, the rain bouncing down on my bare, mud-streaked back. Henry was taken. He was a prisoner. My feet were numb and lifeless, seemingly dead as I strapped on my sandals. Every inch of flesh was chilled and unfeeling. I pulled on my shirt, a sodden rag, and scrabbled back up the steep, muddy slope. Once or twice I slid back. I moaned with frustration and physical effort. Finally I collapsed in the bushes, heaving for breath. My muscles had stopped, my strength was exhausted, and darkness swept over me.

I don't know how long I lay there. I was stirred eventually into something like life by Sam's wet, warm breath and rough, rasping tongue scraping my face. I felt his nose nuzzle my neck and then heard a low, miserable whine. I lifted my head.

"Hullo, Sam," I wearily murmured. "Time to go home and get help for Henry."

I lurched to my feet, stumbling forward. I wanted to run, but that was impossible. I beat my arms against my body like some grotesque bird flapping its wings in an attempt to warm myself up as I staggered across the bridge. I began to feel a little better, and almost started whistling, and then I collided abruptly with William Le Messer. My knife clattered to the stones.

"Ha!" he cried. "The second spy! He's mine!"

"Run, Sam! Run home!" I shrieked as Le Messer pinioned my arms. But Sam had another idea. He leapt at Le Messer and sank his teeth into the monk's exposed wrist.

Le Messer bellowed and flung Sam away yelling "Damn that dog!" Sam barked and growled fearsomely, dancing back towards him.

"Sammy, run home!" I urged, panting and kicking Le Messer as hard as I could. A sharp searing agony lanced through my foot. I had broken my toe.

Le Messer bellowed again and hammered the side of my head with his fist. I crumpled like a string-severed puppet. The last thing I heard before merciful sleep enveloped me was Sam's frantic barking, Le Messer's swearing and my own failing voice pleading with the dog to run home.

#

# 8. Jail

DIMLY, through the darkness of my mind, chanting voices, faint and distant;

Aches in my brain;

Pains in my bones;

Thirst in my throat;

Everything quiet, except for those voices;

Everything dark.

I was dead. Le Messer had killed me. His savage blow had burst open my brain. And so I was dead. Apart from the pain, it wasn't so bad. The softly chanting voices were soothing. The pain would pass.

A sudden terrifying thought tumbled into my mind. I couldn't be in Heaven. It was too dark. No light. No warmth. No Guardian Angel to welcome me in. No Cherubim. No Seraphim. No Dominions or Powers. And therefore no God!

I stole Kerbroke's apple. I swore all the time. I had also lied. But I was trying to be a good boy. I was learning the commandments. I went to Sunday School. I was going to be confirmed. ''Holy Mary, mother of God,'' I began, ''Intercede for me and save me from Hell.''

"Get a grip," said a voice. "You're not in Hell. At least not yet."

So Purgatory then. The place of darkness, eternal darkness, of wailing and gnashing and grinding of teeth. The chanting voices were interceding angels pleading for my soul before the throne of God. No flames. No fire. I sighed with relief. Suddenly I sneezed violently, snot exploding over my fingers. I sat up sharply. "I'm not dead!" I cried. "Thank you God for showing me mercy."

"Which is more," said a familiar voice, "Than Prior de Brunham will do."

It was Henry Godale, tired, bruised, filthy, exhausted, but Henry Godale nonetheless. I wanted to hug him, but, as I moved, a jerk at my wrists and a clattering racket told me I was chained to the wall.

"W... w... what h...h...happened?" I stammered.

"They threw you in here several hours ago," Godale answered. "You've been unconscious, ranting about Heaven and Hell," He smiled wearily, "And Matilda de Swerdestone."

I blushed fiercely. "Where are we?"

"Somewhere under the Priory. Don't know where. Possibly the hospital, possibly the almshouse."

The cellar was dark, but a small window cut high in the wall afforded entry to a thin shaft of sunlight, enough to enable me to make out pools of water on the stone-flagged floor where the cellar had flooded, huge patches of damp, of green and black moss mottling the walls, a half-dozen barrels and several boxes stacked in the corner.

"Storehouse?" I said. "What's in the barrels?" Godale shrugged.

I was desperately thirsty. I tugged at the manacles. They were firmly fixed in the stone. "Dammit." I glanced at Godale. A burning pain stabbed through my bladder like a red-hot needle. "I need a piss. My bladder's busting. An' I need a drink. My throat's on fire."

My wrists were bound together and the length of chain was short, perhaps two feet, attached to a ring set a foot or so from the floor. It was impossible to stand, impossible to lie, impossible to do anything other than sit or possibly kneel, and I definitely couldn't reach my buttons. Dammit. I clenched all the muscles in my lower body, contracting my anus.

"Hey!" I yelled. "Hey! I need help here!"

"Don't think about it," Godale advised. "What did you hear?"

"What does it matter?" I rapped out impatiently. "We can't tell anyone, can we?" I shuffled uncomfortably, squeezing my thighs together. "I sent Sam home, so I hope someone ... oh God!" Another sneeze was building in my nose. "I can't hold it! Hey! Guards! Anyone! Help!"

"I saw about fifty or sixty men," Godale said, "With swords, shields, armour and bows, a regular army of Flemish mercenaries."

"Brought up from Yarmouth," I said, rocking from buttock to buttock. "Hey!" Fire, discomfort, hold it, hold it, hold.... then I sneezed a shattering sneeze. The snot from my nose shot over my fingers, the explosion triggered my bladder. "Ohhhhh shiiiiiiit!" I moaned as it flowed into my trousers, dribbled over my legs, warm and sticky. A great patch of wetness spread over my thighs. I couldn't be more depressed. Shivery. Achy. Occasionally sneezy. Sweaty but cold. My head throbbed. My clothes were stiff with sweat, mud, water and piss. Fat brown cockroaches scuttled over my ankles. I thought it couldn't get any worse. I'd never felt so forlorn or alone, until I saw the rats. Three or four. Brown and grey. Long pink tails. Curling like worms. Sat by the barrels, eyes black and beady, teeth bared and yellow. I retched. Bile trickled onto my shirt.

"At least you're not dead," Godale remarked.

"At least Hell is warmer," I answered. "Those rats make my flesh creep."

"Don't look at them." Godale shifted. "I heard you praying. You believe in God?"

It was an astonishing question. "Of course I believe."

"Why?"

"He created the Earth."

"Who told you that?"

"It's in the Bible." I was amazed.

"You've never read it," Godale observed. "You can't read anything. You can't read."

"I've heard this before," I muttered rebelliously. "It's why we have priests."

"You could've died in that river," Godale said, "But you didn't. Why?"

"God spared me," I answered.

"But He didn't spare your sister."

"He took her to be with his angels," I said.

"Along with your other five brothers and sisters." Godale's face was etched with solemnity. "But not you, not Nicolas."

"He must have a special purpose for me," I said thoughtfully.

"So the others were useless? Not needed? Not wanted? Purposeless lives so He cut them short?" Henry fixed his eyes on mine. "Why are there sadness and sickness and poverty? Why is there disease and death? Why is there Sin?"

"Adam and Eve," I said scornfully. "Don't you know they brought Sin into the world? That's why Christ died. To redeem Mankind from Sin."

"How come Adam de Newton's dead in the earth and his killer walks free? The Commandments say 'Thou shalt not kill'."

"Le Messer's a churchman," I said.

"So he is above the law."

"He answers to a higher law," I said. "God Himself will judge le Messer. He'll be punished in Hell."

"And where is Hell?" Godale replied.

"Under the earth."

"And Heaven?"

"Above the clouds."

"And Purgatory?" I hesitated. I didn't really know. "Nicolas," Godale declared, "Hell is here, on Earth, in this very City, in this very cellar. Hell is disease. Hell is poverty. Hell is injustice. Hell is le Messer murdering men and walking away. Hell is man-made. The Devil's man-made. The Devil walks among us. He is le Messer, de Brunham, Mulbarton, all those men who crush and humiliate and grind us into the dirt."

I tried to focus my eyes on the dust specks dancing in the shaft of light which slipped through the window.

"And Heaven..." Godale swept on, unstoppable. "Heaven's in here also." He struck his breast. His manacles clanked. "Heaven's in here! It's the place where the heart dwells, a just heart, a kind heart, a good heart dwells. That is Heaven. Because people like that, people like us can make Heaven on Earth."

"How?" I looked at him helplessly. It all sounded fine but...

"By ridding ourselves of fear and oppression. By taking control of the levers of power." His manacles clanked again in his animation. "We govern ourselves. We choose our own leaders. We embrace our own destinies. We reject their slavery. We break our bonds. We destroy their system and work together as a common unit for a common good. From each one's means to each one's needs. The State shall provide. Government by the people, from the people, for the people." His eyes were fixed on some far-off point beyond the sunlight shaft.

"And the King?" I whispered.

"Who needs a king?" said Godale dismissively. "I didn't vote for him."

He went on to outline a whole new world, of voting, of showing hands in an open assembly, of every person having a voice, of a council, of candidates, of general elections, of a real and accountable Parliament.

"But we have a Parliament," I interjected. "We already have these things."

"That posse of peers," he spat, "A nest of nobles, aristocrats defending their land and their interests. The Magna Carta was signed by King John not to give the peasants rights but to safeguard the gentry. And Montfort's Parliament did the same. Like the Church and our Council, those in power protect those with power. I'd seize their lands.

"Geoffrey le Brun fought with de Montfort. It was six years ago. You're too young to remember the war, I know, but it was a time that filled us with hope. Brun joined up at Leicester. He fought at Lewes. Le Brun was a knight. He fought in the East and over in Europe and he came back to England to a country corrupt and complacent, rotten with privilege and stinking with patronage. He wrote papers and letters, made speeches and sermons, preached the cause of the urban poor then he joined with de Montfort and fought against the king. And they won. They captured King Henry, locked him away, and created their government, but it was an assembly of nobles. Geoffrey le Brun had fought to help the peasants but, as he discovered, the nobles had fought to help themselves."

The door of the cellar suddenly rattled, creaked on its hinges and swung away to admit the monk Cotton, my Sunday School teacher. He gazed at me thoughtfully, dismay in his eyes, and placed a beaker between my bound hands.

"It's wine, warm and spiced," he told me. "Drink it down quickly, and I'll bring you another."

I could smell the cloves and nutmeg in the hot rising steam. "When can I leave?" I asked. "My mother and father ..."

"Think you are drowned." Cotton watched me draining the beaker. "Your dog returned to the tavern. Alone." He glanced at Godale. "Everyone thinks you both were drowned." He gave a small sigh before he left. "Oh Nicolas. You run with the Devil."

I sneezed and shifted on the hard stone floor. It was bruising my bottom. My toe was throbbing painfully. Bartholomew Cotton was a good and gentle man.

"He's greedy for power, just like the others," Godale scoffed.

I huddled against the damp, lichen-shrouded wall. I no longer wanted to listen. It was all bitterness, and all bollocks.

#

# 9. Monks

I screamed loudly. It pierced the damp atmosphere and echoed wetly back from the walls as I scrambled back as far as I could, sweeping the rat away with my foot. It skidded across the floor, bounced off a barrel and squatted on its haunches. It glared at me with malevolent eyes, its whiskers bristling indignantly.

"Fuck off!!" I shouted, my pounding heart blocking the base of my throat. "Just fuck off!"

I'd opened my eyes from a fitful, dismal doze to find that whiskered, conical nose sniffing my face, those glittering eyes just inches from mine, the long yellow teeth grinning balefully, the coiling tail twitching like a bald pink worm... Nausea. Rats revolted me. I'd seen many hundreds in my life, killed some, watched Sammy biting their necks, but still they revolted me.

"Fuck off!" I yelled again.

The rat gave me one last look, seemed to toss its head with an air of hurt and buried itself behind a fat-bellied barrel.

The floor was becoming increasingly painful, its hardness oppressing my bones. My toe too was throbbing and swollen. I was bored and restless and my nose kept running. I watched some spiders scurrying over the stonework and wondered miserably what my parents were doing. Preparing for Sarah's funeral, I imagined. Would they postpone it? Would they perhaps hold a service for me? Did they think I was dead? Losing two children in a matter of days would be almost unbearable. Would Meg be grieving, I wondered? And Matilda? Would she have been told? And how would she feel? Did she feel anything for me at all?

My ruminations were disturbed by Henry Godale's return. He reeled through the door and collapsed in the corner.

"What have you done to him?" I cried, glancing from the shivering figure to the leather-clad soldiers framed by the doorway.

One of the men released me from the wall ring. "Your turn," he said, seizing the chain and hauling me to my feet.

I glanced at Godale and swallowed the quivering fear in my throat. "I'm not going anywhere." I dropped down in the doorway.

The man clicked his tongue impatiently, then kicked me hard in the ribs. Whilst I was gasping for breath, he dragged me several yards along the corridor, scraping my elbows and thighs on the flagstones.

"You can either walk and retain what is left of your dignity," he said wearily, "Or I can kick you and drag you. It's your decision."

I glared at him, realised I had nothing to gain and decided to stand. "You have no right to keep me here," I said. "I demand you release me." He grunted and led me by the chain up some steps to another, larger chamber.

The first thing I noticed was a monk scrubbing blood from the floor with a hard-bristled brush. The second thing I saw was a ferocious fire blazing in the hearth. The air in the room was stiflingly stuffy. The third thing I noticed was a large iron ring hanging from the ceiling on a long length of chain. The fourth was the people, Bartholomew Cotton, William le Messer and, sitting in a high-backed red velvet chair, a golden goblet grasped in his palm, was Prior de Brunham.

I lifted my chin and stated firmly "You have no right to imprison me here."

Le Messer stepped forward. I noted with some satisfaction a blood-stained bandage secured round his wrist. He placed this hand on my shoulder and hissed in my face "This is for your damned dog." He rammed his knee into my balls and I collapsed. As I choked and writhed, blinded by tears, he grabbed my hair in his hand and bounced my head off the floor. Dizziness. Nausea. Salty blood. Rising sickness. Blood. Pouring out of my nose. Everything spinning. Bright lights spiralling out of control. Then they stripped me naked and dragged me to my feet. The length of chain was tossed through the ring and my arms were drawn high over my head till my feet left the ground and my muscles and tendons and shoulders screamed "Stooooop!" Two soldiers set about beating me with thick wooden staves. They beat my back, my thighs, my arms, my ribs. Every time they hit me, I twisted and swung, like the sawdust-filled sack my father had hung in our cellar when he'd taught me to box and to fight with a knife. Pain, like red-hot pincers ripping my flesh, tore at my wrenched, shredded shoulders. The room swayed left, then right, turned grey as a fog descended, drowning my vision.

Thud. Crump. Crack. Thump.

Another blow in my side. Another whack on my back near my kidneys. A smack in my armpit jolted my shoulder. A crack in my stomach winded me. A thump on my thigh nearly broke it in two. I no longer cared that I was naked, or that urine was dribbling down my legs.

The mist thickened.

"Nicolas ....." A distant voice swam through the haze. "Nicolas....."

I lifted my face. It was sticky with blood from my nose and cut over my left eye, which was threatening to seal itself shut as the leaking blood seeped over its lashes.

"Quel âge as-tu?" Prior de Brunham was crouching in front of me. "Tu ne parles pas français?"

I looked at him with my good right eye. I had never been so close to him before. He was short and stocky with huge hands, like ham shanks, and a dark-bluish shadow spreading over his chin, cheeks and neck although he had been closely shaved. His round, shaven head resembled a turnip, except that this turnip had cold, blue eyes and a huge wart sprouting inky-black bristles on the side of its nose.

"How old are you, Nicolas?" De Brunham spoke English with a heavy French accent, and a curse for having to lower himself to our language.

"Fourteen," I muttered.

"Do you know who I am?" he demanded.

"You are William de Brunham, Prior of Norwich," I answered tonelessly. As if he thought that would scare me.

"Do you know where you are?"

"Somewhere in the Priory," I said.

"You are in the Priory," de Brunham confirmed, "But your parents and friends, they think you are dead. They think you are at rest on the bed of the Wensum. They think you drowned in the river on the night of the storm. So you see there is no-one coming to save you. You are ours, for as long as we choose to keep you alive."

I wiped the blood from my eye with the inside of my arm. "Why am I here?"

De Brunham returned to his throne, steepled his fingers. "Are you a Christian? Do you believe in God, who created the world, in Jesus His Son who saved the world? Do you belong to the Church, Master de Bromholm?"

I grasped at a straw. "I come to Cathedral. My teacher is here." Cotton nodded a curt confirmation.

"You are a God-fearing boy," said Prior de Brunham approvingly. "You pray every day?" I nodded. "Do you fast?'' I nodded again. 'Do you know your Creed?"

"I believe in One God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth."

De Brunham checked me with a smile. "Very good." He reached for a book and opened it. "Now, Nicolas." He held out the book. "Can you read what is written here?"

I stared at the symbols inscribed on the page. Letters and patterns and groups of shapes. They meant nothing. I stared at them, hopelessly, wanting to cry. I had never felt so stupid or shamed in all of my life. I felt as naked mentally as I was physically.

"You see," said de Brunham, "You are not a man. You are a beast, a dumb, stupid beast, like your dog." I blinked back tears. "And, just like your dog, you have to be broken, taught, trained and led. Do you know what this book is?" He lifted the cover and revealed a gilt Cross. "This is the Book of God. This is the Bible, the Word of the Lord." I muttered a prayer. "These are the Ten Commandments," he said, "In the Book of Exodus. Do you know the Ten Commandments, Nicolas?"

"Of course," I stammered.

"Recite them," he ordered, closing the Bible.

I fixed my eyes on the gold-leaf Cross and began to recite: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy mind and with all thy strength." De Brunham smiled paternally as I ran through to the Fifth, sniffing when I reeled off "Honour thy Father and Mother." The Sixth made me falter. I glanced at Cotton, a little ashamed. "Thou shalt not.... steal," I finally whispered, but the Seventh Commandment I spoke very clearly. "Thou shalt not kill." I glared at Le Messer, repeated the line in a loud ringing voice. "Thou shalt not kill." His reply was a scowl. "Thou shalt not commit adultery." I knelt upright. "Thou shalt not bear false witness. Thou shalt not ...."

"Stop," said de Brunham. "Repeat the last."

"Thou shalt not bear false witness."

De Brunham looked at me shrewdly. "Now you're clearly an intelligent boy. You know what that means. Bearing false witness."

"It means lying, my Lord." I glanced again at Bartholomew Cotton. "Thou shalt not lie."

"Why should you not lie, Nicolas?" asked Prior de Brunham.

"A lie to the world is a lie before God," I said.

A smile of approval broke over his face. "Well done," he exclaimed. "We'll make a monk of you yet."

"God knows all things," I continued. "He knows the truth without being told. Lying is not possible before God. You compound your sin by cowardice."

"You have a good teacher." De Brunham smiled at Cotton. "So, Nicolas, what happens if you lie before God?"

"You go to Hell," I replied.

"And what is Hell?"

Poverty. Hardship. Made by men who lie for their personal power and profit.

"A place of suffering, cut off from God," I said. "No light, no hope, no light, no redemption." Yes, I thought. Sounds about right. Describes where we are right now.

The Prior cradled my blood-stained cheek in his palm and murmured quietly "You are a clever one, too bright for a tavern, too sharp for the streets. Too bright can be dangerous, Nicolas. I am your friend. We are all your friends. We are trying to help you, trying to save you. Do you believe me?" I believed him. "Satan is chained to a lake of fire." Suddenly the soldiers who had beaten me were at my side, releasing the manacles and supporting my descent to the floor. "Hell is fire. Hell is pain. Hell is anguish and torment for ever." De Brunham spoke on, softly, soothingly, as the soldiers pinned my arms and carried me towards the fireplace.

"Don't burn me! Don't burn me!" I shrieked. "I'm not a witch. I'm a Christian!" I couldn't resist. All my muscles were weak with pain and strain. Le Messer laughed and the soldiers slammed my shoulders into the mantelpiece. The roaring flames were inches away. I could feel them licking my calves, searing the skin. I screamed and writhed. The room seemed to spin. The pain was intense. I bit my lip, felt it burst, felt the blood fill my mouth, heard a high-pitched whine escape through my teeth, then delirium danced through the haze and the blur and the grey fog of pain and I started to weep. When they released me, I fell to the floor, my legs scorched and stinging. It was agony beyond anything I'd ever endured.

De Brunham knelt down and cradled me gently against his chest. "We are your friends," he murmured gently. "We are trying to save you."

"You're trying to hurt me," I blubbered.

"We are trying to help you," he said, "But sometimes we have to be cruel to be kind." I clutched at his robe, buried my face in his shoulder and wept. The Prior stroked my hair and made soothing noises. "Calm yourself, Nicolas. Calm yourself. Have no fear. We are trying to save you. Do you believe me?"

"Yes, yes," I sobbed.

"You stood by the fire a mere few minutes," he said. "It hurt, did it not? Hurt you terribly, worse than any pain you have felt before. Imagine then being inside those flames, inside that fire. Imagine how much hotter, how much more painful, how intense being buried in the heart of the fire, forever and ever, not just for three minutes, nor even three hours, nor even three days, nor even three weeks, but forever, forever, for two thousand years, three thousand years, ten thousand years, no gentle hands to fetch you away, no kindly hands to apply soothing balms, just Devils to pinch you and poke you, stab you and jab you, tear at the bruises and scorches and blisters with tridents and forks, more torment, more anguish, more pain, forever. Imagine that, Nicolas." I sobbed violently and clutched his habit. He prised my face out of his chest and fixed his eyes on mine. "Do you want that future?"

"No, sir!" I cried.

"Then confess," said de Brunham. "Confess before God, be shriven and spared. Answer me truthfully, Nicolas from Bromholm. A lie before me is a lie before God. A lie before God is eternal Hell Fire." I closed my eyes. "Why were you at the bridge last night?"

"I was walking my dog."

"You live in the tavern next to the Fye Bridge," answered le Messer.

"My dog likes to walk. We often go to Carrow Tower."

"Your clothes were wet and covered in mud," le Messer observed.

"As though you had been swimming," added the Prior.

"It was raining," I said. "There was a storm. Didn't you hear it? I got soaked to the skin and fell in a puddle."

"Did you encounter Henry Godale during your travels?" said the Prior.

"No." I tried to shrug. "I hardly know him."

"He drinks in your tavern," snapped le Messer.

"Many people drink in our tavern. It's a thriving business."

"Did you see anything down by the river?" asked le Messer impatiently.

"No." I looked at him coolly. "It was dark and it was raining. I couldn't see more than a few feet ahead of me." I smiled winningly. "I'm sorry I kicked you, Master le Messer. I couldn't see it was you. I thought you were a bandit."

De Brunham smiled thinly. "What did you hear?" he asked.

"Thunder," I said.

"Why were you lurking in the trees?" asked le Messer.

"I ...." I tried to shrug again. "I was having a piss."

"Why were you down at the Priory Bridge?"

"I was walking my dog."

"Why were you off the road?"

"I was having a piss."

And so it continued. I swayed on my knees. Everything ached. My legs stung. My shoulders throbbed. My toe, probably broken. My hands. My ribs. My thighs. My arse. My knees. My face. My eyes. My nose. My ears. My

"Well," said de Brunham crisply. "That is what you say." He held out the Bible. "I want you to swear an oath that you speak the truth. Put your hand on the Bible." I swallowed. "If you swear on the Bible, if you lie on the Bible," de Brunham swept on, "You perjure yourself and perjury is the worst sin of all. To swear falsely on the Word of God is to spit in his face. Put your hand on the Bible and swear you spoke the truth." I bit my lip. De Brunham raised an eyebrow. "Why are you waiting?" he asked mildly.

I pressed my fingertips against the Bible's black cover. I could see the gilt Cross gleaming between my knuckles. I spoke slowly, thickly, repeating his words. "I, Nicolas, son of Hugh, from the village of Bromholm in Norfolk solemnly swear on pain of Death and eternal Hell Fire..." I swallowed again, "That what I have testified is the Truth and nothing but the Truth, so help me God." I stared at the Cross under my fingers and waited for God to shout LIAR. But He didn't. I had told the truth, and nothing but the truth. It was just not the whole truth.

#

# 10. Butter

EVERY part of my bruised body ached. The scorched, seared skin on the backs of my legs stung constantly, prickling with heat as though I'd lain in the sun too long.

"Was it bad?" asked Godale gently.

"Worse," I replied. "They beat me and burned me..." I shuddered.

When I'd been re-clothed and returned to the cell, I'd pleaded with Cotton to leave me unchained, at least for a few moments. There was blood in my urine.

Cotton crossed the floor to one of the barrels, slid the lid sideways, dipped in a hand and drew out a dripping palm-scoop of glistening, rancid butter. Applying it gently to the burns on my sore, reddened calves, he told me quietly it would ease the pain.

"How long will they keep us?'' I exploded when Cotton had gone. ''Someone must be searching for us by now."

"Everyone thinks we're dead," Godale shrugged. He seemed to be quieter, more subdued, more insular, gloomier, more withdrawn. Maybe he'd given up hope, slumped into despair.

"What did they do to you?" I asked curiously, and felt my stomach lurch as he held up his hands. Black, caked crusts of blood, yellow pus, purple swellings, raw pinky flesh, twisted, gnarled fingers....my knees felt weak as a tingle of horror ran up my spine. They had hammered splinters of wood under his fingernails.

"Tomorrow," he said, "They'll break my fingers so I'll never juggle again."

"Why?"

"They want me to lead them to Geoffrey le Brun." Godale's despair came through in his voice. "They want me to betray him. Geoffrey's a leader. He could stir up the people. He keeps moving so their assassins can't find him, but when they do, he'll be murdered."

"We must get a message out to him, warn him."

"How?" Godale was scornful. "We're locked in a cellar and chained to the wall."

"There must be a way." I glanced at the window cut high in the wall. "If I could get through ..."

"You're thin, Nicky, but not that thin," he said, "And where would you go? We're in the depths of the Priory. God knows which building we're in, or which way you'd go. You'd almost certainly be caught before you got to the gates. You'd have to climb over the wall. It's twenty feet high." He slumped against the wall. "Give it up, Nick."

"So we just rot here?" My mind was coursing, the pain almost forgotten. "There's a vegetable garden close to the stables. It borders Recorder Road. Do you know it? There's a little low fence, four or five foot. I can easily climb that." I grinned. "I've done it before. With Bartholomew Jay. We dug up some carrots one night last year, trampled their turnips, pissed on their herbs, and Bart shat on their beans. After they raised the ground-rents and reduced the welfare provision."

"I remember." Godale smiled. "De Brunham told the poor to get on their horses and look for work. He fined the city to cover the damage." Le Spicer and Ely had held an enquiry, tried to match footprints to boot-soles, but Bart and I had kept our nerves and remained undetected. "You're a bit of a wild one," he continued, "But you're forgetting something else." He shook his manacled hands. "You're chained to the wall."

God's teeth. I spat on the straw.

Hours passed. Time dragged. The square that signalled salvation dimmed as the dusk descended and the light beyond died. The rats began to emerge from their corners, skipping and frisking and sniffing the air. I thought I recognised the one I had kicked. He seemed to grin at me with razor-sharp fangs, a "Tonight you're mine" kind of grin. I had to stay conscious. That would be easy. Despite my exhaustion, the incessant aching and throbbing made sleeping impossible and slowly the rats and the soreness in my legs and my shoulders gave birth to a plan.

The sky outside was velvety black when Bartholomew Cotton returned to the cellar. Light poured in from the corridor, making me blink and rub my eyes. "Food and drink," he announced, placing a beaker of milk and a plate of bread by my side.

"When can I go home?" I asked softly.

"The Prior wishes to speak with you again in the morning."

Not the answer I was hoping to hear. "I'm frightened in here." I blinked again and turned my face towards his. "It's so dark and so cold and I'm...." I lowered my voice. "I'm frightened of... the ghosts, the evil spirits. They came out of the wall last night and said they would kill me." I lowered my voice still further. "I'm frightened for him." I nodded at Godale, "For Old Master Henry. He's not very well. He keeps talking nonsense. I think he's delirious. He seems so weak and he's not so young and he can't stay awake. I'm frightened the ghosts will take him or the rats will eat him." I injected a tremor into my voice. "And me. That rat there. He's been eyeing me up as though he's deciding which bit to eat first." I looked up at him, pleading with my eyes. "Can't you unchain us? Then if they come we can beat them away."

Cotton looked doubtful, but torn. I could see it in his face.

"I can look after Godale," I said. "Please, Brother Cotton. My legs hurt so bad. I can rub that butter on them." He started to move away. "Don't leave me! Do you want me to suffer? Do you want me to get torn to pieces by the rats, or the ghosts?"

Cotton came back, the key in his hand. "But he remains chained."

I rubbed my wrists with relief and stretched my cramped, aching muscles whilst he locked the door behind him. When his footsteps had faded, I got up and hobbled across to the barrel, scooped out some of the soft yellow butter and smeared it over my calves. It was cold, greasy and very slippery.

"Well done." Godale's voice was suddenly animated, infused with enthusiasm. "It's pitch dark outside. You have to go now, before Cotton comes back."

I nodded and measured the height from the floor to the window. I reckoned a barrel and two boxes would be enough. There were six barrels to choose from. I selected the nearest and gave it a good strong heave. It wouldn't budge. What the hell was in it?

I tried again, pulled with all my might, but couldn't shift it, not even an inch. It didn't help that my body was stiff with bruises and that consequently I couldn't put much weight behind my pressure. The second barrel was also too heavy to move but the third scraped a foot or so. I mentally blessed my father's profession. A lifetime of rolling barrels up and down ramps and rocking them over the flag-stoned floors of The Mischief had taught me something useful after all. I eased the barrel on its circular base, rocking it, wheeling it round its own axis into a position beneath the square window, then I collected two boxes and set them on the lid. The rats watched me, their whiskers twitching with curiosity.

"Will you be all right?" I whispered to Henry.

"Just go and get help," he replied.

I clambered up on the barrel, teetered uncertainly on the boxes, put my hands on the sill and heaved myself up. A wave of protest raged through my arms. Sheer will and a large dose of fear quelled the revolt before it had time to spread and I thrust my face into the warm, wonderful, velvet air of a dark summer night.

The window was on ground level so all I needed to do was crawl out onto the gravel path. Ahead of me lay a large, grassy lawn and then a low, limestone building. The path to the left would lead to the river, the one to the right to the Ethelbert Gate and then into Tombland. My heart leapt. Tombland and home. Just minutes away.

The stone sill cut into my ribs. "See you," I called, and launched myself forward. My shoulders jammed against the frame.

"God's blood!" All my hopes were suddenly dashed. "God's blood! I'm stuck!" I wriggled and squirmed an inch or so further tearing my shirt in the process. "Shit." I pushed myself back, dropping onto the boxes, then onto the barrel then on to the floor. "Shit, arse and bugger!" I raged. "I'm so close an' I can't get through." I kicked at a box and howled as a sharp pain hammered through my broken toe.

"Take off your clothes," Godale said coolly.

It had never occurred to me. I tugged off my ripped, dirty trousers and the ragged remains of my shirt. These clothes were finished anyway. I even removed my sandals. Bare feet would make less noise on the gravel. I stood in the cellar utterly naked looking up at the window again. It would still be tight.

"Butter!" said Godale.

"What?"

"Butter. It's greasy. A lubricant. Cover yourself in the butter!"

"You, Master Godale, are a genius." I limped to the barrel and took off the lid. The smell was awful. Nevertheless, I began to anoint myself liberally. I noticed the bruises, red, blue, black, purple and yellow, making a mottled patchwork. I hoped the butter would ease them too.

"You're glistening," grinned Godale. "They'll see you glowing in the dark."

"Shut up," I hissed, daubing my hips and buttocks. I drew a finger over my stomach. It seemed to be slippery enough. I threw my clothes up on to the box. "So long," I said.

I scrambled back onto the barrel, adjusted the boxes and dragged myself back onto the ledge. Again the night air tasted delicious. The path was deserted. I threw my clothes out of the window and thrust myself after them. My shoulders slipped through but my upper arms caught. I gasped and groaned, wriggled and cursed, eased myself back. " God Almighty."

"Put your arms out first," Godale advised.

I smeared butter over the insides of my arms and my armpits and my ribs and sides and returned once again to the window. This time I was able to grip the outer wall of the building, giving myself leverage, something to pull. The skin was scraped off my back, my stomach and buttocks were grazed but, after a minute of heaving and pulling and sweating, I slid from the window like a new-born child and flopped on the gravel gasping for breath.

The moon was full and the stars sparkled brightly. There was a cloudless sky and a pale cast of light. I had to find shadow. I gathered my clothes and hobbled over the gravel to the grass. The small, sharp stones cut my feet. I flung myself onto the lawn where I lay in the darkness and felt the lovely, damp dew and the soft, luscious grass against my naked skin. A soft, night-time breeze stirred my hair. I allowed my battered body to relax in the soft caresses of Nature and then I dressed and limped away into the shadows.

The vegetable plot was some hundred yards away. I glanced around. Everything still, everything quiet. A strange, new feeling was flooding my body, a mix of excitement, elation and heart-thumping terror. It gave me new strength and I shot across the lawn and a wide cobbled path, my shoes in my hand. I ricked my ankle but carried on running to vault the low fence and land in the herbs. My heart pounded and the blood coursed through my veins. I rolled over and peered through the leaves across the rows of cabbages, carrot-tops, onions and beans. I could see the wall. I strapped on my sandals, looked round again, and my blood seemed to freeze. Two monks were walking along the path. I pressed myself against the soil, trying to conceal myself amongst the cabbages. If they entered the garden, I would surely be captured. Behind them the low, grey Priory buildings hunched malevolently in the darkness. They were speaking in French but I clearly made out the names of Henry Godale and Nicolas Bromholm. What were they saying? They didn't appear to be searching, merely taking the air. The conversation was casual, jovial and light. It appeared that my absence had not yet been noticed. One of the monks drew his finger across his throat and grinned. "Nicolas, le garçon," he grinned. "Comme un petit cochon!" God's teeth. My hair stood on end. So that was the promised end. They passed by the garden and moved towards the stable block. There was no time to lose.

Keeping low, I ran through the garden, slapped my palms on the top of the wall and leapt from the ground. From where I stood, I surveyed the scene, the vegetable garden, the path and the lawn, the low sandstone building from which I'd escaped and away behind it the squatting Cathedral and the lowering bulk of the Priory. I had an idea. I jumped down again, tore up some beans, pissed blood all over their cabbages, then flung myself up and over the wall, jarring my ankle as I landed in the street beneath. I gritted my teeth, glanced around and set off for home.

#

# 11. Riot

SHAFTS of sunlight spread over my skin, driving through the straw of the roof to bathe my face in a warm, golden glow. I opened my eyes, yawned and stretched and shifted a little under my blanket. Sam was sleeping on my legs, his weight heavy but not oppressive. He had stayed at my side from the second I had walked back into the tavern and had spent most of the night lying awake watching me, guarding me. The Prodigal Son could not have received a warmer welcome. Once they had determined I was real and alive and not a spectre come to haunt them, my parents wept and hugged me joyfully.

I'd arrived at the tavern to find the door bolted. Of course. It had been three in the morning. But a light had been burning behind the smoky-green glass. Father had been sitting by the empty hearth, Sam sprawling miserably under his chair. I had tapped on the window, registered with surprise my father's shock as he'd stared disbelieving at what he later confessed he'd thought was a trick of the light. Once he'd thrown the door open, however, he'd seized me in a rib-cracking hug, cried aloud for Meg and Mother and dragged me into the tavern, his cheeks bathed with tears, whilst Sam had jumped around us, barking and trying to get his paws up on my chest. Mother had come downstairs with a candle which she dropped on the floor to clap her hands to her face with a moan of "Thank God" and to haul me away from my father's embrace into one of her own. Meg had joined us and for a wonderful moment we had stood in a silent, collective embrace whilst the tears flowed. I told them the story of my capture and torture only when Mother had asked what I'd got all over my shirt.

"Blood, sweat, piss, puke, ash, fire, snot and mud," I'd answered. "Oh, and butter."

So the story had tumbled out whilst Meg sponged blood, mud and other stuff from my face and Mother stroked my sweat-caked hair. I reflected later that I must have looked frightful, a figure from beyond the grave or even a nightmare.

"We should send for Jacob," Meg had suggested. My feet were cut and my right toe badly misshapen, livid and swollen, not to mention the other numerous scratches, bruises, weals and welts.

"At dawn," Mother had answered. "He sleeps now."

"You stink like a goat," Meg had laughed through her tears. "I'll draw you a bath."

Truthfully, a bath was the greatest luxury I could imagine. I had wanted a bath more than anything, except some clean clothes and a sleep and perhaps some light supper, so I had slid into a wooden tub in the kitchen and allowed the hot water to ease my aches. I had lain back and relaxed, enjoying the fragrance of the roses, lavender and camomile Meg had added to the water, and listened to Mother and Father discussing what to do next whilst Meg had scrubbed what remained of my shirt and trousers in another tub with Castilian potash-and-mutton-fat soap. Eventually Father had lifted me out of the water and carried me up the stairs to my bed.

The following morning, Jacob and Reuben had come to see me. They had mixed up some ointments and soothing balms but first they had cleansed every scratch and cut with hyssop and made me yell. Jacob had told me I might have a limp for the rest of my life because my toe had been so badly broken. He had wrapped it tightly inside a bandage, applied more hyssop and some sulphur cream to my burned legs then bandaged my feet and shoulders to reduce the swelling.

Bart had also been to see me but I had been sleeping. Some men from the council, de Dunwich and Ely and Roger de Swerdestone, and the tall, saturnine Constable, Giffard, had also called by but again I had been too drugged and sleepy to talk to them. Through the haze I had dimly heard my father relaying what I had told him about Henry Godale's continuing imprisonment and the mercenary soldiers who'd been shipped up the river. I hadn't caught their response but I later learned that Giffard had posted an armed guard outside our house.

Now I lay back, put my hands under my head and stared at the ceiling, at the rafters and thatch and the rays of sunlight streaking through the swirling dust and wondered what had happened to Henry. Maybe he had been murdered. I shuddered. Perhaps I should never have abandoned him. I had gone to get help and here I was lying around in bed being pampered and spoiled. Defying the stiffness in my muscles, I threw back the blanket, which made Sam snuffle and snort, and limped across to the wooden chest which held my clothes. I couldn't find anything except my dark green tunic and some rather ragged braes which were a little small for me.

"Nicolas Bromholm! What are you doing?"

I span round to see Meg in the doorway. She had her fingers pressed to her lips and glowing pink spots on her cheeks. I gasped and covered my privates, feeling myself blushing.

"You should stay in bed." She moved towards me. "Let the council sort it out."

"What are they doing?"

"Arresting le Messer. They've issued a warrant."

"Like last time?" I said bitterly. "He'll get away again."

"But this time," said Meg, "Giffard is taking some men from the Castle and the coroner, Casmus, is going to deliver it, along with the bailiffs."

"Great," I said, pulling on my pants.

"You're not going, Nick," she said with some determination.

I ignored her and slipped the tunic over my head, but I hadn't reckoned on Mother. She made it very clear that I was to stay in the tavern, shoved me into the back yard with Sam and a bowl of warm milk, honey, cloves and cinnamon sticks, and locked the door.

"Just as the bastard's going to be brought to justice," I muttered angrily, bouncing a ball among the chickens pecking in the sand. Sam hurled himself in among them and started chasing Mother's best laying-hen. I had to bring him to heel, threaten to tie him to the gate. He looked up at me sulkily, an 'I don't want to stay in' glare. "You and me both," I told him gloomily.

The sunshine warmed my face. I tossed a few sticks, saw a fat rat stick his nose through the fence, tossed a stone at him, watched the smoke curling up from the chimney and listened to the woman next door singing ''Ride ye not to Beverleyham'' as she hung her washing out on a line. I wanted to be in Tombland. I wanted le Messer to see my face as they dragged him to jail. I wanted de Brunham to see I'd survived. Most of all, I wanted to be the first to greet Henry Godale as he walked through the Ethelbert Gate.

Mother understood. Of course she did. "But I've only just got you back," she said gently, "And you're the only one I have left."

I tossed another twig for Sammy to chase. He brought it back, slapped his paws on my knees and breathed up into my face, his tongue lolling. I could hear chanting and shouting from Tombland. Damn my mother. I scuffed a stone at a hen. It squawked irritably. I bounced the ball off the wall then shot some marbles. The goats were sleeping. Flies buzzed around the yard. They were drawn by the stale smell of chicken-shit. A fistful of sparrows were having a dust-bath, flapping their brown feathers and burrowing their beaks into the earth. The tapering masts of a sea-going schooner glided across the top of the fence as it made its departure from the wharf for the coast, a long journey downriver to Yarmouth through the marshes and peat-bogs past Benet's Abbey and into the Bure. Life was going on outside my yard and I was missing it, cooped up with the flies and the sparrows and the chicken-shit cakes. I reached a decision. I climbed on top of the henhouse and scrambled over the fence.

Tombland was busy, almost as busy as it had been on Trinity Sunday. This time, however, the crowd was focussed not on the stalls and the band at the Bichil end but on the Ethelbert Gate and it was chanting steadily:

"Bring out Le Messer! We want Le Messer!"

Some of the people were carrying flags and I saw huge banners inscribed with symbols I recognised as letters of the alphabet, the kind of symbols I'd seen in de Brunham's black Bible. Once again I felt an angry frustration at my inability to read.

I hovered on the fringe of the gathering, not wishing to be seen because I was not supposed to be there and because I was intending at that point to have a quick look and then get back before I was missed. Consequently I stood near the gutter and a large heap of horse dung trying not to breathe in too deeply.

"Bring out le Messer! We want le Messer!"

Le Spicer and Casmus were talking with Giffard and several tonsured scalps could be seen on the Priory's battlements over the massive, oak doors and on the roof of St Ethelbert's Church.

"Release Godale!" yelled le Brun.

The crowd took up his cry.

"Release Godale!" they howled. "Let him go!"

Le Messer appeared on the battlements to a chorus of booing and whistling. Somebody hurled a handful of dung. It splattered against the wall.

"You defile the Lord with your presence." De Brunham's icy voice cut through the noise. He had appeared at the gate. Jan Russ and several armed men stood by him.

"Where's Godale?" Brun demanded.

"How should I know?" De Brunham shrugged disinterestedly. "We do not have him. We have never had him."

"And Nicolas de Bromholm? What of him?" This was le Spicer.

"I do not know him," De Brunham said crisply.

"He says you held him prisoner, tortured him...." William de Dunwich, the bailiff.

"I have never heard of him." De Brunham fixed his eyes on le Spicer's.

''And these people you have lodged in the Priory?'' asked Giffard.

''Pious pilgrims at prayer,'' de Brunham replied. ''Foreign friends from Flanders.''

Brun laughed. ''Jan Russ? A pious pilgrim?''

Russ stroked his beard and stared at Brun for a moment. ''You know me?''

''Oh yes,'' said Brun. ''I was at the Siege of Baghdad.'' He looked at the Prior again. ''This man is a war criminal. If he is a friend of yours...''

''I warn you, Lord Prior, I will have no trouble in my city,'' said Giffard. ''You will respect the jurisdictions and the law.''

"We have a warrant for William le Messer," said Casmus, holding out a paper, "To stand trial in a civil court."

De Brunham took the warrant from Casmus's hands, read it through quickly then ripped it to pieces and flung the pieces in le Spicer's face. "A straw for your warrant," he said, and turned away.

Everything seemed to slow down. Events seemed to unfold at the pace of a snail. Images crept across frozen frames of Time suspended.

Simon Palmer reaching out to catch Brunham's sleeve.

De Brunham shaking the hand away with a gesture of fury.

Brun stepping in front of Jan Russ.

Casmus moving between them.

De Brunham lashing out.

The flash of a dagger.

The glint of steel caught in the sun.

The stabbing, darting, sharp silver tongue

Casmus collapsing, hands pressed to his belly, blood welling and spreading in a wide, staining pool...

De Brunham displayed his blood-covered knife to the people. "Do not challenge my Church!"

I heard a moan behind me, felt someone bury their face in my shoulder. It was Reuben Jacobson, shaky and ashen.

As Casmus bled to death in the gutter, someone screamed "Ransack the buildings!" and missiles screamed towards the monks. Horse-shit, garbage, sticks and stones rained onto their shaven scalps. Then someone, possibly Brun, possibly not, ripped up a cobble. It struck a monk on the side of the head. He fell to the ground, probably killed outright. Then the crowd surged forward, a tidal wave of living fury trying to get to the monks. Giffard's soldiers, caught in the middle, loyalties torn, stood by, uncertain, waiting for orders. Giffard himself was kneeling by Casmus, trying to staunch the blood from his stomach. Brun had vanished.

''Fire!'' screamed Russ.

A shower of arrows poured down from the Priory, from the walls and the roof of St Ethelbert's Church. An old woman screamed as one pierced her skull. One skimmed Palmer's arm. Another bounced off the cobbles next to de Swerdestone. I saw several people struck down and bleeding, a child with an arrow deep in his thigh. William of Dunwich took one in the face.

The people broke and ran for cover and, as they ran, the Priory gates opened again and the army of mercenaries at last was revealed. They charged at the crowd, wielding clubs and swinging swords, battering heads and shattering limbs.

"God's wounds!" I hissed, feeling Reuben clinging on to my tunic. "Where's my father?" He was swallowed up in the chaos.

"Look at them run!" de Brunham was crowing. "Cowardly scum! Go on, Russ. Break some bones! Break some heads!"

As the people fled, and the mercenaries followed, cheered on by the monks, I limped away down the alley, supported by Reuben. The Tombland grass was stained with blood, littered with arrows, strewn with banners and ribbons of clothing, heaped with the hurt and the injured.

We entered the tavern and saw Meg tending a cauldron of simmering soup.

"You're in big trouble," she said unsympathetically.

"She knows I went out?" I demanded urgently. Meg turned her back.

The bar was full of wounded people. Mother, Agnes and Mistress Payne were moving to and fro bathing cuts, anointing grazes, bandaging heads. The sawdust on the floor was soaked with blood. It resembled a hospital, or a butcher's shop.

"Ah!" cried Mother, "I need your help. You, Reuben, you're a physician..."

"Apprentice," he answered.

"Whatever." She propelled him into the midst of the carnage. "Practise your skills. And as for you..," She glared at me fiercely, "Do something useful for once in your life."

Father was sitting in a chair near the counter, a thick cloth pressed to his face.

"What happened?" I asked, expecting him to say he'd been struck by a club or a rock or even a fist.

"Fell over," he answered sheepishly. "Hit my head on a cobblestone."

Geoffrey le Brun, unscathed and whole, had worked himself into a towering fury. "How can you defend your precious church now?" he kept shouting. "Don't you see what's happening here? Now will you people see what de Brunham is like?"

You were light on your feet, I thought.

Reuben and I moved through the crowd bearing bowls and water-soaked wads till we reached the child who'd been hit by an arrow. The wooden shaft had snapped off as the child had scrambled away to safety. Reuben tore open the trousers and wiped the blood from the skin with a sponge. He frowned.

"The arrow-head's still in the flesh," he said. "I'll have to cut it out."

"Don't touch my son!" screamed an hysterical mother who was having her arm bound to a splint. "Don't touch my son! A filthy Jew boy ....."

"If I don't," Reuben replied calmly, "The wound will go septic and the leg will have to come off. Maybe your son will die." He pressed his slender fingers to the little boy's cheek. "He's already feverish." Even I could see that the staring, dark-rimmed eyes and the sallow sweat-beaded face were not the marks of a healthy young boy.

"You don't touch him!" she snarled, vixen-like. "Bloody Jews get in everywhere!"

"That would be the International Jewish Conspiracy," said Geoffrey Brun dryly.

''Exactly,'' snapped the mother.

Reuben and I reached Peter de Kerbroke who was nursing a dislocated shoulder. His nine year old son Gerald had a gash on the forehead.

"I can reset the socket," Reuben informed me, "But it will hurt."

"Good," I said, remembering the apples.

"God's teeth," Kerbroke kept gasping, "By bloody hell ... you keep your filthy Jewish hands off me." His face was beaded with sweat and his breath rasped in harsh ragged bursts.

"Master Kerbroke," I intervened.

"Ah," he gasped, "The innkeeper's thieving brat of a son ..."

"Do you want us to help you or not?" said Reuben wearily.

"No, by Christ's Cross! No. Wait." Kerbroke's face was contorted with pain. "Yes. Please."

"Hold him tight," Reuben instructed, moving behind him, folding the man's body against his chest and burying his shoulder inside Kerbroke's armpit. I seized de Kerbroke's free arm as Reuben gave an almighty heave, throwing all his weight backwards to lever the shoulder back into place. Kerbroke roared like a wounded bull.

"See?" cried a shrill, frightened voice. "The Jew-Boy is killing him!"

De Kerbroke roared again. The sweat leapt out on Reuben's face as he heaved and wrestled. Kerbroke's fingers dug into my chest and I bellowed myself. Then there was a loud clicking noise and Reuben let go, breathing hard through dilated nostrils.

Kerbroke groaned and massaged his shoulder. "I think it's all right," he said after a moment. "I think it's all right." A smile erased the pain on his features. "Thank you."

"Well done," I told Reuben, impressed by his skill. All of a sudden Reuben was needed by everyone.

Christopher Pevensie, a soldier from the garrison, entered the tavern, strode up to Brun and clasped his hand. "Yes, it's Russ all right," he said. "It seems we didn't kill him after all."

Le Brun shook his head. "Then we're in trouble. I don't like Russ, never did. He's vicious and cruel. I don't like having him in the city. I only hope de Brunham has hired him in ignorance. If he hasn't, if he knows about Russ, knows about Baghdad, well...."

"What shall we do?" Pevensie said gloomily.

"Le Spicer's written to the King again," said Brun dryly, "But Roger de Skerning won't be back for two or three days. He's in Eye with his priests."

"There's worse," said Pevensie. "The City's been placed under an interdict and a curfew."

The churches of Norwich were closed. No-one could set foot in the streets after six in the evening. Gatherings of more than three people were now illegal. All taverns and places of entertainment were henceforth closed down.

"But my business," cried Father, "My trade ..." He slumped into a chair.

"My daughter!" cried Mother. "The funeral's tomorrow!"

''What shall we do?'' cried Peter de Kerbroke.

''What shall we do?'' echoed Agnes Scot.

Then Gerald de Kerbroke uttered a squeak. Henry Godale, bloodied and battered, stood framed in the doorway.

# 

# 12. Words

Apprehension, anxiety, insecurity gripped the city by the heart. The Prior's decree and the Constable's curfew on top of the brutal dispersal of marchers who felt they had a legitimate grievance and the murders of Adam de Newton and now John Casmus the coroner made people feel that the situation was beyond their control, so they hid in their houses like the Israelites waiting for the Angel of Death to pass over their roofs.

Henry Godale had been released once the protest had been broken up. He had wandered around in the missile-strewn streets dazed and confused until he had reached The Mischief Inn. He and I had hugged each other and cried together. A strong bond built from suffering and pain had developed between us over those days we had spent in captivity.

"Did they torture you more?" I murmured, holding his maimed, blood-caked hands in mine.

"When they found you had gone, they beat me with bars of iron," he said. "They threatened to skin me and let the rats eat me." I shuddered, remembering, then Reuben arrived to examine the wounds.

"They may go septic," he told us mournfully, mixing up a poultice. "I'll return in the morning with some herbs from the garden."

He nodded abruptly and made for the door but my father stopped him with a hand on the shoulder. "I was wrong about you," was all he said.

Mother and Meg provided baked herrings, pottage and spiced onion soup with warm, spiced ale and we ate together whilst she tried to persuade Henry to stay, at least for one night, because of the curfew and the danger that Russ and de Brunham might send some soldier to seek him and silence him. She also decided that Meg should go home to her drunken old father in Coslany until the situation got better. She cried and said she didn't want to leave us. I gave her a watery smile and a peck on the cheek.

"Surely you're not still pining for Matilda de Swerdestone," Henry remarked later as we entered the bedroom and were greeted by the usual rustling of roaches and rodents up in the thatch. "The girl is a snob and besides, you'll never get her father's consent."

"I know," I said gloomily, noting the bruises, the burns, the shiny pink blisters, the scrapes and the scores on Henry's skin, as he undressed next to me. The marks of my own ordeal were beginning to fade, purple slipping softly into blue and yellow, cuts already crusting into reddish-brown scabs.

"Henry," I said, "Can you read?"

He dropped his torn, dusty clothes on the straw by my mattress. "Yes, I can read."

"Will you teach me?" I pulled my tunic over my head and stood in my shorts.

"You want to learn how to juggle and how to read?" At last he smiled. He cradled my face in his hand. "We'll make an entertainer of you yet."

I lay on the mattress and listened to the noises in the bedroom. Mother and Father, some ten yards away, were snuffling and puffing in their sleep. I remembered their occasional couplings, the grappling and gripping and groaning and yelling. Thankfully they'd given it up after Sarah's birth. It always sounded so painful, and really hard work. I heard my father snort and cough, heard my mother shift and turn, then listened to Henry, sleeping beside me, quietly, calmly. He smelled of onions and milk and blood and soap. I listened to the scratching in the straw then drifted into an uneasy dream in which William le Messer and Rebekah le Redelees, the prostitute in the yellow cap, pursued me past St Lawrence's Church. They cornered me and Rebekah drew a fingernail over my face.

"Who's paying for this one?" she breathed.

"I am." Le Messer had transformed into Adam le Spicer. Nathaniel Palmer was holding my arms. Rebekah leered at me, her teeth stained with blood, and I lashed out behind me, kicking a shin hard with my heel ... I woke with a start. It wasn't Palmer pinning my arms, it was Henry Godale, who was whispering "Hush Nicky hush, it's only a dream, you're safe. You're at home."

"It seemed so real," I murmured thickly.

"You had a nightmare," Henry said, "But you're all right now. Everything's fine." He cushioned me gently against him. I could feel the soft hair on his chest against my back. "They hurt you so badly," he murmured, his lips nuzzling my neck, his bristly chin scraping my shoulder.

I turned round in his arms. "I want to learn to read," I said.

Henry leaned up on his elbow and gazed into my face. The moonlight cast pale shafts over our bodies. "Why?"

"You said it yourself. Knowledge is power. Unless I can read, I can't gain that knowledge and I'll never have power. I can only challenge these people if I can read the same words as them." I looked into his eyes. They were very blue. "You can teach me."

"I'm no teacher," he murmured.

"You taught me how to juggle," I said. "You can teach me how to read."

"In the morning," he whispered. "Sleep now."

He held me close and stroked me tenderly. I had never felt so protected or so safe. But during the night he groaned and thrashed. I felt his tears on my neck. At one point, he kicked so hard I fell out of bed. I realised he needed healing just like me and that maybe I was the only person who could do it. I got back under the thin blanket and just held him tightly in my arms till he stopped crying. When morning came, with sunlight slanting through the thatch, we were still in each other's arms. My father, dressing, grunted something I didn't hear and did not want to hear. Henry and I needed each other. We had both been to Hell and come back alive. Over a breakfast of ham, cheese and freshly baked bread, I gazed at him. He had survived worse torture than me, and here he was, cracking jokes and teasing my father. He had become my hero. Then he turned to me.

"Do you want to start reading today?" Henry asked. "Learning to read?"

"Learning to read?" Father repeated voice full of scorn. "Why on earth would you want to do that? You're not a monk!"

"Knowledge is power," I said.

"Bah!" said Father. "You'll fill your head with dangerous rubbish." He tore at his bread. "Ideas are dangerous! You'll end up like Brun," He waved his knife warningly, "Or worse, like de Brunham. God save us from thinkers."

I sipped at my milk and agreed. "I don't need to read to run this tavern," I said. "I can count and do numbers and I can cook. That's all I need to be a taverner, but if I can read, I can do so much better than The Adam and Eve and The Ribs of Beef and The Market Inn. I can write placards and banners to bring people in. I can advertise across the city. I can also cook. I can offer a range of hot meals, and advertise those too. I can make this place the most famous, most talked-about inn in the county."

Father's delight chased surprise from his face. "That's my boy!" he proudly declared. "He will be the greatest publican in Norwich's history."

Just after Terce, Geoffrey Le Brun and Margaret de Newton arrived at the tavern. Stephen the Blunt had agreed to defy the interdict and bury our baby at his little church of St Michael-at-Plea. He had gathered together a group of priests and clerics - Benjamin Clerk from Peter Parmentergate, Robin of Dunwich from the church of St Swithin's, Philip from St Cuthbert's, John the Farmer from St Stephen's, Joseph the Black from All Saints Timber Hill, Gregory, John's son, from the Church of St Giles and Abbot Richard from the Dominican Friary which faced the great Church of St Andrew's – who had all agreed to defy de Brunham's decree and conduct our funeral.

"His jurisdiction ends at the Ethelbert Gate," Stephen said calmly. "Only the Bishop, the Cardinal or the Pope himself can declare the City Interdict. It does not fall to the head of a self-contained monastic order to interfere in the affairs of a town he does not serve. He has not the authority."

"Besides," Abbot Richard had growled, "The Dominican order won't take instruction from a damned Benedictine."

St Michael-at-Plea was not far away. Led by le Blunt, we moved off from the tavern. Father clasped the tiny coffin against his chest. Mother, dressed in black, her hair covered in a black wimple, walked on his right and Meg and I walked on his left. I was dressed in my best yellow tunic and the soft leather boots I wore in the winter whilst Meg wore a dress of grey silk. The sun was strong as we trudged up the hill through the puddles of piss and great heaps of horse-shit. A smell of decay escaped from the box. I tried to blot out my mental picture of Sarah rotting, her flesh already creeping with maggots, and focussed instead on the mourners awaiting us at Charing Cross junction.

There was a show of support from our friends and our neighbours. Henry Godale, Margaret de Newton and Geoffrey le Brun, John and Agnes Scot, Simon le Palmer and Peter of Kerbroke, Cutler and Dyer and Walter the Skinner, and Bartholomew Jay, who looked ever more mouse-like with each passing day, and dozens more people I barely knew, stood alongside us, not just in sympathy for our dead baby but also in defiance of the Prior who had banned her this burial. I knew my parents would be humble and thankful.

"Almighty God ..." Stephen proclaimed, "Thou saith thou art the Resurrection and the Life, thou, oh Lord, the friend to children, who saith 'Suffer them to come unto me'.'' The hole in the ground was small, no more than a yard long. "Receive, oh Lord, in Your Infinite Mercy, the Soul of Your Child Sarah, beloved daughter of Alice and Hugh and sister of Nicolas ...."

As the casket settled into the grave and nestled among the soil and clods, I glanced at Bart. His lips were trembling. I remembered him speaking once about his parents, how his father had died in an accident down at the wharf. He'd been unloading barrels of salt beef from a horse-drawn cart. A rope had split and the barrel had fallen, crushing his ribs. Bart had been eight. The following year his mother had died when the influenza struck town, the same influenza which had done for my brother Tom. The orphaned Bart had been sold to the Cutlers by the Westwyck bailiffs for a few shillings.

Shaking and sniffing, my father and I tossed handfuls of soil onto the coffin. It rattled as it skidded and scattered over the wood. Sarah was dead and now she was buried. Such a short, sad life.

The godsips held on to each other as the sexton came to fill up the grave. Bartholomew joined me next to the lych gate. He had put on his best grey and brown tunic, patched and fraying but cleaner than his usual trousers and shirt. He was ready to cry. I thanked him for coming, put my hand on his arm, then Father appeared.

''To bury a child is a terrible thing," he started haltingly, "But when it's your sixth..." He stopped. I looped my arm round his neck. I had never seen this great bull of a man break down like this. "I pray to God that you two boys will never know ..." He heaved painfully, and great racking sobs dragged themselves out of his soul. I cried too, which set Bart going. We all clung together whilst John and Agnes tried to comfort us.

That same afternoon, just after Nones, I sat in the back yard, the chickens scratching round our feet, Sam snoozing in the warm summer sun, and began my first reading lesson. Henry drew some symbols in the dust with a stick.

a b c d

I chanted the sounds he said went with the symbols - ay, bee, see, dee.

"Good," he cried. "Ay - bee - see - dee..."

"Ay - bee - see - dee," I repeated. ''Why is A the first letter?''

''Because it's the first letter of Adam and Angel, the first things created.'' He laughed briefly. ''Or so the church says. It's also the first sound that a baby makes.''

''Oh,'' I said. ''I didn't know that.''

He wrote the whole ABC out in the dust:

\+ A a b c d e f g h i k l m n o p q r ד ſ s t v u x y z ƿ &. est. amen

He taught me to recite the ABC, helped me with the pronunciation of 'yogh', 'eth' and 'thorn', told me to begin with ''Christ's cross be my speed'' and end with ''Amen'', then he combined some symbols into a word -bad

"Buh-a-duh," I read.

"No," he said. "Lose the 'uhs'."

"But you said they were buh, ah and duh," I protested, jabbing the symbols with the stick. "Buh ah duh."

"You're reading the letters," said Henry. "Read the word. You know what it is. It's 'bad'. That's what 'bad' looks like."

He wrote another set of figures in the dust and got me again to match sounds with symbols. I couldn't get 'guh' or 'rrrrrrrr' and kept confusing 'buh, duh and puh' because they looked the same.

"The tails are different," said Henry impatiently. "Look. Try this one." He drew a snake in the dirt. "What's that?"

"I don't know," I said sulkily. "I can't read."

"What does it look like?"

"A snake."

"What noise does a snake make?"

"I don't know. I've never seen one."

"Think!"

I tutted. "Ssssssssssssssssss," I said sarcastically.

"Well done!" He clapped me on the shoulder, making me cry out. "Sorry." He jabbed at the long letter S he'd drawn in the sand. "It looks like a snake, it sounds like a snake. SSSSSSS. You know the words. You just have to remember which pattern of letters goes with each word." He traced a longer string of characters. "Try it."

"MMMMMMMMM", I said. "Aye. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmaye. Mmi. Mi. Nuh. Nuh ah." He corrected me. "Nuh. Nuh ah mmmuh n a me!" I looked up at Henry in triumph. "Mi nahmuh." He smiled encouragement. "i - i - isss. Mi nahmuh iss." I stared at the next set of characters. They were baffling.

"Letter by letter," Henry advised. "Nuh."

"Nuh," I said. "Nuh. i. Nuh i. Kuh. Nuhikuh. Oh. luh luh luh luh. Nuhikuholuh sss. Nuhikuholuhss." Suddenly I connected the sounds with the words and the sentence burst from me "Nicolas!" I grinned broadly. "My name is Nicolas."

"Well done," said Henry softly. "Read the whole sentence."

But I was staring at the symbols inscribed in the soil.

n i c o l a s

That was my name. That was what my name looked like. I had never seen it written down before. And I could read it.

"That's my name," I said to Henry, "My name." Henry smiled. "My name is Nicolas," I murmured. "My name is Nicolas. Nicolas."

#

# 13. Raid

I was very pleased with my progress. I had read my name. I took my parents out into the yard just before supper and showed them the sentence.

"My name is Nicolas," I read.

Mother clapped her hands but Father grunted and went back to the table.

"What's the matter?" I said as I tried to find some meat among the bones of the rabbit on my plate. "Aren't you pleased that I'm learning to read?"

"It isn't right," said Father, "It isn't natural. If God had meant us to read..."

"Being able to read will open up a whole new world," I said. "Knowledge is power. Power is control. Ignorance means you get mistreated, by priests and by bailiffs. If I can read, I can challenge their control and I can struggle for justice, for fairness."

Father glanced fearfully over his shoulder. "Shut up, you little fool," he hissed. "You want to get us hanged? The only way to live your life is to keep your head down. Then at least it will stay on your shoulders. Anyway..." He grinned suddenly. "I've got power. I've got my own business. I can't read, I ain't clever but I got my own business and this little business feeds and clothes us all."

"But you're not in control," I said. "The Council curfew's closed you down. They're in control! And most of your profit goes to the church in taxes and tithes."

Father coloured. "So if you can read," he retorted, "How will that help? You can be a juggler like Henry, or perhaps a monk? The only people who need to read are monks and scholars. You'll end up a friar, a pot-bellied baldy-head, idle and flabby." He drank down some beer.

"Or he might end up like Bartholomew Cotton," Mother said softly, "A monk we're all proud of, who helps the poor and heals the sick, like Stephen le Blunt or John Farmer."

" God's Teeth!" snarled Father. "Whatever next. Nicolas Bromholm, the juggling priest."

I laughed and finished my ale. It was dusty and warm.

"Henry Godale's a very bad influence," Father declared.

"I think he likes you," Mother said teasingly. "Maybe he fancies you."

I blushed furiously. "Bollocks," I said.

"Bloody actors and jugglers," said Father, "All of them sodomites. He'll be trying to get up your arse before you can say 'arse'."

I blushed hotly and tossed a delighted Sammy some bones from the rabbit.

''Don't throw bones about,'' Mother reproved me.

Brun and le Blunt had fled the city. They were hiding out in the marshes of Thorp and Trowse where the Rivers Yare and Wensum flowed together. An armed band had been sent to seize le Blunt for defying the interdict. Prior de Brunham had wanted to break up the funeral itself and arrest everyone present. It was only Bartholomew Cotton's intervention that had prevented Russ's men descending on St Michael-at-Plea like a plague. Roger de Swerdestone had also attempted to issue a warrant against my father for allowing a gathering of more than three. Adam le Spicer had opposed the request. These decisions later saved their lives.

I imagined Brun and le Blunt away in the marshes, perhaps in a cave or an old hollow tree, the mist and the marsh-gas rising around them as they eked out their salt-fish and iron-hard meat. A rich smell of soil and brackish brown water pervaded the air as a bright, sprightly marsh spirit, a will o' the wisp, danced through the darkness into the trees. They would be cold, although it was August. I hoped they had cloaks.

"Perhaps we should get you another apprenticeship," Father was saying. "Perhaps you could go to work for the Cutlers and we could take Jay." I'd begged him to take Bart, over and over, but Father didn't like him. He said he was snotty-nosed and always looked miserable. "You don't know how lucky you are. You've never had to go out to work. You've always been here and your mother runs after you ..." I sighed. This was the lecture on filial ingratitude which always included several "Young people today don't know they're born. Back in my day......."s and made me want to eat my own head.

I took Sammy into the yard as the sun slipped slowly out of the Heavens, tainting the roofs with a soft, blood-pink stain. Beyond the fence I heard Giffard's soldiers enforcing the curfew. I felt depressed when I went up to bed.

*

Matilda de Swerdestone was swimming beside me in the Chapel Field pond. She was naked and soft and reaching towards me, putting her hands between my legs, just as a massive explosion interrupted my dream.

I leapt from my bed, pushed through my parents and looked out of the window. The orange glow of fire swelled from the quayside.

"That's a building ablaze," said my father.

Out in the street there was shouting and crying. Sam started barking. Another explosion rocked our house, rattled our windows. More fire erupted over the city. Then a thunderous thump on the door made us jump. Someone was knocking, furiously, desperately. We glanced at each other. Father reached for his trousers.

"Stay here," he ordered, and ran down the stairs. Sammy shot after him. Mother and I looked at each other nervously. The fire-glow was spreading, seeping over the chimneys and tiles, creeping over the roof of the city. I looked down at my mother. She looked small and vulnerable, standing on the planks in a ragged, grey shift, her fading grey hair tumbling over her neck. I put my arm round her shoulders. She was trembling. We could hear downstairs an urgent exchange with someone who sounded like Nicholas Dyer. The chickens were clucking furiously.

"My house! My business! My house!"

"What is it? What's happened?" my father was saying

"My house! My business!"

Another explosion. More shattering glass. More crackling flames.

"Get a grip, man." I could imagine my father shaking him. "What's happening?"

"My house is on fire," said Dyer. "Soldiers came. They set it on fire. They are burning the Waterfront. At least six quayside houses are already in flames. They hurled bricks through Walter Drake's windows and poured a tub of blue dye over him. He's covered from head to toe. They're trashing Kerbroke's now and Cutler's house is almost destroyed, his business too. It's been afire for an hour already. Nearly ashes by now, I expect."

Cutler's! Bart was there.

Father returned. "The mercenaries are loose in the city. They're burning and looting everything in their path. "Peter Kerbroke's house is on fire, like Alfred Cutler's." He picked up his boots and tossed his night-cap onto the bed. "I'm going over to help put it out."

"Will they come here?" I asked, my heart thumping in the base of my throat.

"They're moving towards St Benedict's." Father slipped into his shirt.

"Hugh, please ..." My mother's voice was soft and low. "Don't go. You might get hurt."

"At times like this you need your neighbours," Father said firmly.

"I'll come too," I said, going over to gather my clothes. "Bart lives at Cutlers'. He might need help." I pulled on my shorts.

"You stay here," Father rapped back. "There are several fires burning. There's looting and fighting. A kid like you would get in the way."

"Bart's my friend!" I was hurt by his last comment. "And I'm not a kid."

"Someone needs to protect the tavern, to look after your mother."

"You said they were moving in the other direction!"

Father tore at his hair. "I'm not going to argue, Nicolas. Stay with your mother! For once in your life, do as I ask!"

The man downstairs bellowed his name. "Hugh!!"

"I'm coming!" Father called back. "Keep Sam with you," he ordered me crisply. "Lock all the doors and go back to bed. We won't be long." He thundered downstairs and out into the street.

The wooden door-beam was heavy and the door solid oak. It would take a battering ram to break it down. Reassured, I went back upstairs but of course I couldn't sleep. I went to sit with Mother and Sam, huddling together on her bed in silence, waiting, hearing explosions and shouting out in the streets. Sam was tense. His ears were pricked and his body was taut.

Minutes passed. The shouting subsided.

More minutes passed.

The flickering glow of the fire, gleaming on the glass, seemed to be dying.

More minutes passed. The mice scratched and the cockroaches scuttled.

More minutes passed. I hugged my mother and stroked Sam's coat.

More minutes passed. A sudden cry in the street outside made us jump. We clung to each other, nerves screaming tension.

More minutes passed. The chickens squawked.

More minutes passed. Then Sam growled a low rolling grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr in the depths of his throat. Someone was trying to get into the tavern. My mother's fingers dug into my flesh. Sam strained against my side. I pressed his flank into my hip and held my breath. Someone was rattling the lock.

"Must be Father," I muttered uncertainly.

"He knows the door's barred," Mother replied. "He told you to do it. Why doesn't he knock or call out?"

A dozen scenarios stalked through my head. "Maybe it's Skinner or somebody else. Maybe it's Bart! Maybe he's injured."

"Perhaps it's a ghost." Mother's voice disappeared in a hiss.

"Don't be silly. It would walk through the wall." But I found myself shaking.

The rattling continued. Perhaps it was chains, not the lock after all. We shrank together against the wall. It stopped. We breathed out slowly. I found my mother had seized my hand and was crushing it painfully. Sam relaxed. Then there came a knock on the door.

"Open up!" demanded a voice. "Or we'll break down your door!"

"Sweet Jesus," murmured my mother.

"Open the door!" More thumping and hammering. "Damned English oak."

"Smash it in!" said someone else.

"... Save us," finished my mother, launching into "Pater noster qui es in coelis."

"Forget it. Bastard door's locked."

Thank God for that beam. I relaxed again, listened to my mother reach "fiat voluntas tua sicut in celo et in terra" then I heard a thud in the kitchen and my bladder slackened. A dribble of urine tickled my thigh.

"They've got in through the back," Mother was keening. Her eyes stared wildly. She clawed at her throat. "They've got in through the back."

I gathered myself. "I'm going to look," I declared.

"Don't leave me," she moaned.

"It might be Father. He might be hurt. It might be Bart. Or Meg ... Nobody else would come in the back."

"It might be them!" Mother's face was ashen grey.

A second thump turned my legs to jelly and my bladder to water. "I'm going down." I unhinged her hand. "I'll take Sam and my knife."

A low murmur of voices rose from the bar. It had to be Father.

There was a nerve-shattering crash and raucous shouts and boots thumping up the stairs and Sam barked and bared his teeth, saliva flecking his fur, eyes flaring like blazing flames. Every hair on his coarse coat bristled and he flattened his ears. His growling was savage, beyond any noise I'd ever heard him make. It took all my strength to hold him back. He was enraged, on the edge of total insanity. The growling frightened me. I felt the anger and fear coursing through his quivering body. Suddenly the bedroom door banged open and two men came in. They were carrying knives and staves of wood. I crossed myself, touched the coral charm round my neck and muttered ''Christ's cross be my speed.''

Sam flung himself at them, raging, maniacal, a savage beast with one aim in mind, to rip out their throats. He sank his teeth into one of the wrists and shook it ferociously, the same kind of action I'd seen him using on rats. Then he sprang and ripped at the face. The man screamed and lurched backwards, bleeding and flailing, the blood spraying over the floorboards. His companion leapt forward and smashed Sam hard in the side with his stave of wood. The dog was hurled against the wall. He roared and started back, a fur-clad missile. The second man kicked him out of the air.

"You bastard!" I screamed, on my feet in a flash. "Leave my dog alone, you whoreson, pox-scarred bastard!"

Sam was up and poised again. The first man was quietly whimpering, blood pouring over the fingers he had pressed to his eyes and his cheeks. The second man watched Sam warily, the stave of wood balanced in his hand. They circled each other, then Sam jumped. The stave crashed into his side. He skidded across the floor with a whimper. I think most of his ribs had been shattered. The man grinned, and brought the stave down across the dog's spine. Sam's body flopped.

"You bastard!" I yelled again. "You bloody, fucking bastard!" The tears were already streaming down my face. "You whoremonger's...!" I couldn't use the word I wanted to.

"Let him go," the man told my mother, "And he'll get the same treatment." My mother was holding me back. "All we wanted was a nice quiet drink in the tavern downstairs. Now my friend's face is destroyed and we're thirstier even than we were at the burning." He spoke English with a very strong foreign accent.

"We're closed," my mother said faintly. "There's a curfew in force, or haven't you heard?"

I glanced at Sam. He was lying still in the corner, a crumpled mass of matted fur. I knew he was dead. The man who'd been attacked by Sam lay on the stairs, blood streaming down his face. There were bite marks on his cheek and a flap of skin was hanging down. His wrist was also spouting blood. His skin was waxy and his breathing was laboured.

"I'll send someone up with a bandage," said the mercenary dryly.

There were nine more in the tap room. They were covered in soot and grime. They had already broken open one of the barrels and were drinking steadily, not cheerfully but with a fierce determined concentration. I felt very vulnerable, just dressed in shorts.

"Bloody dog went for us," snarled the mercenary. "Get us a drink."

"You got anything better than this?" yelled one of the men. "It tastes like piss."

Mother shook her head.

"You! Boy!" snarled another. "Fetch us some food."

"We don't have any," I said. My stomach churned and my bladder burned.

He fixed his ice-cold eyes on mine. I met them defiantly.

"Your beer is like swill," he said. "It's only good for cleaning the floor." He marched across to one of the barrels, gripped the rim and with one almighty heave turned it over on to its side. The contents gushed out over the flagstones. The mercenaries cheered. "Now get us some food," he said.

"Get it yourself," I said.

He slapped my face so hard that my head rang and my cheek stung.

"Leave him, Vlieland," said one of the men. "He's only a kid."

"You're right," said Vlieland, flinging me away so I fell in the lake of beer. He strode forward and kicked me in the ribs with an iron-toed boot. I felt something crack and a wave of nauseous dizziness passed over me.

"Leave him alone!" Mother screamed shrilly. "Leave him alone! He's only a boy! I'll give you anything if you leave him alone!"

"Money," said Vlieland, eyes narrowed to slits as he glanced round the bar.

"Dammit, Vlieland, this is a tavern," said one of the others. "Let's have a party." He opened another barrel, dipping his head deeply into the ale. When he emerged dripping and grinning, they started to sing a boisterous song:

There was a young woman from over the sea

Who'd reached the old age of seventy-three

But we stripped her and beat her

And kicked in her teeth

And she never gave trouble again, we believe...

There was a poor cripple who walked with a stick.

We gave him a drink and we showed him a trick.

We chopped off his feet

And caved in his head

And we cured his old limp by making him dead...

And as for the Jew who lived by himself,

Who kept all his cash in a jar on the shelf,

We ripped off his beard

And broke his hooked nose

And we burned down his house and broke all his toes...

There was a young virgin from old London town

Who cried and who struggled when thrown to the ground

But we whipped her and stripped her

And swyved her to death

And she never had time to draw her last breath....

They finished the song by splashing in the puddles, kicking ale around the floor.

"This really is horse-piss!" bawled Vlieland.

"So throw it into the gutter!" shouted another, and they seized yet another barrel, lofted it up from the flagstones and hurled it through the window. Giant jagged splinters of glass flew across the tavern like spears.

"You don't like me, do you?" Vlieland grinned. Half his blackened, rotting teeth were missing.

"You killed my dog," I replied.

"Boy's got spirit," remarked one of the others. "Remember that one in Ghent who put out Vonk's eye with a dagger? You chopped off his bollocks and made him eat them."

The mercenaries laughed, then Vlieland looped his arm round my mother. "You know what we're doing to your beautiful city? We're smashing it up. To teach you ungrateful, quarrelsome peasants a lesson. Don't cross your betters, or you'll get hurt." He kissed my mother on the cheek. ''You're a little cutie. Where's your husband?"

"Coming back with a party of men," she said, frightened but calm.

"Does he show you a good time?" Vlieland grinned. "Bet he doesn't. Bloody book-keeper and pint-puller. Can't get it up, eh? Well, I can." He forced my mother's hand between his legs. "Feel that? Stiff as a sword.'' He moved her hand up and down. "He's looking for a comfortable bed. How about yours?"

I leapt forward into a fist and doubled up like a landed fish as he rubbed himself against her. Through the haze, I saw her wide eyes staring with terror like those of a cow awaiting the knife. I started forward again and was kicked savagely into the corner.

"She's trying to bite me," I heard Vlieland crowing.

"Good," laughed another. "I like it when they play rough. Remember that boy in Jersualem? Took the lobe off my ear."

Everyone laughed and broke into song:

There was a young boy from Jerusalem city

Who sobbed and struggled and begged for pity...

Through the song, I heard Vlieland grunting, Mother whining shrilly in the back of her throat.

"Bar's open, boys,'' Vlieland cried. ''The bitch is on heat." The mercenaries whooped and three jumped forward. I couldn't stand any more. I got to my feet, seized a stool and threw myself through the mob to batter the chair on the third man's head. He cursed and fell sideways, skull crushed like an eggshell. Vlieland lashed at me with a dagger and slashed my chest open.

"You little bastard!" he cried, seizing me by the shoulder. "You filthy little bastard!" I was almost fainting with pain, could feel the blood wet on my chest. "You killed him!"

"And you killed my dog!" I yelled in reply.

He slammed my head into a barrel and I felt my consciousness slipping away.

"What is happening here?" A new voice, a smooth, silky voice, crept through the mist which enfolded my brain.

"This little sod killed Van Vaart," said Vlieland.

The newcomer evidently made some kind of gesture for I was hauled to my feet. I could taste blood in my mouth, felt it sticky on my chest. I was standing in front of Jan Russ. He looked me up and down, stroking his goatee. "You're spoiling our party," he said softly. His voice made me shiver.

"They killed my dog," I repeated angrily, "And raped my mother." Who had crumpled into a quivering heap of grey limbs and bones by the hearth.

"That, my dear boy," said Russ, "Is their job. It's what they do." He took my jaw in his palm. "What is your name?"

"Go to Hell," I said, and spat a mouthful of blood in his face. He narrowed his eyes and brought his knee up into my balls. I gasped, gagged and sagged in the grip of whoever was holding me.

"Another young puppy to play with," he said, stroking my cheek. "He's prettier than the bitch. Be a shame to spoil his beauty. I know he's a coarse semi-peasant but still ..." I twisted my head and caught his finger between my teeth. I heard myself growling and invoked the spirit of Sammy the dog as I felt the blood burst and my teeth clash with bone. Russ yelped and slammed his fist into my stomach. "You need taming, you little animal," he snarled as I crumpled again and was copiously sick over my chest. "You behave like a dog, so I'll treat you like a dog."

A dagger scraped out of a scabbard. I felt the point travelling over my skin. "Cold steel, puppy. Feel it against you. Feel it caressing you. Does it send a shiver down your spine?"

"Go to hell," I gasped again.

Russ laughed raucously. "Maybe I should slice your tongue to ribbons, or maybe just cut it out, or maybe I won't. Maybe I'll hack off your fingers, saw my way through the bone. Or maybe not." I felt the dagger point travel down over my chest and stomach, over my groin. "Or maybe your prick. I'll cut off your prick." He sliced through the waistband of my shorts. I felt them fall past my knees, exposing my privates. "Or maybe your balls. Maybe castrate you, make you a gelding." He looked at my eyes. "I can see in your eyes. Please God, not my balls. Cut off anything, except my prick and my balls. Please God. But I am not God. I am Jan Russ. And you don't know what I might do, whether I'll unman you or not. And that terrifies you, doesn't it?"

I gritted my teeth, waiting for pain, and ground "Go to Hell."

Surely Father would be back any second, and while Jan Russ was dealing with me, my mother was safe. I spat a string of bloody saliva into his beard.

"You need a lesson in manners," said Russ. "It isn't nice to spit at people."

"One day," I whispered, "I will kill you."

"Maybe you will," he observed, "But it won't be today.'' He turned to his men. ''Fill him up, boys!" The mercenaries cheered, slammed me face-down on the table, pinning my shoulders, and then everything got a hundred times worse than I could ever imagine.

It stopped when le Messer arrived. I slid to the floor in a puddle of fluids.

"So you're here. What, in the name of God, are you doing?''

"Teaching," said Russ, "Teaching manners. You're just in time to join in. You want the boy or the bitch? They're both ready."

"You were supposed to intimidate, not bugger them senseless. You were told not to hurt anyone," Le Messer rapped out.

"Terror," said Russ, "Is far more effective when you do hurt people."

"The castle garrison has been raised in spite of our bribe," Le Messer reported.

"This party is over," said Russ. "Back to the Priory, lads. Home time."

There was a young boy from a city called Norwich

Who we took up the arse and...

"You really are a bore, le Messer. Boy was begging for it," Russ added dryly, and shut the door.

Le Messer twisted my hair in his hand. ''Nicolas Bromholm,'' he said. 'We meet again. At last. Ha ha. Oh, this is meant to be. Surely this is divinely inspired.'' He laughed again. ''Are you hurt? Are you shamed? Were you begging for mercy? Pleading to be spared? I hope you wept bitter tears and you'll weep every day for the rest of your life.'' He twisted my hair again and dragged me upright. ''They killed your dog. Serves you right, you lying little spunk-bucket.'' He spat in my face, twisted me round and kicked my legs apart.

#

# 14. Aftermath

I buried Sam in the yard. It was raining. The soil was soggy and clung to my spade. Tears ran down my cheeks. I laid the corpse in the shallow grave, said a final goodbye then shovelled soil on top of my dog. I had a bandage wound tightly round my chest, several strips of cloth taped over my face and one round my shin. I had found a pair of ragged trousers, a tattered shirt and a pair of battered sandals. I felt the rain soaking into my clothes and wetting my face and sighed heavily.

The tavern had been wrecked. Splinters of wood, shards of glass, pieces of barrel, puddles of piss and blood and vomit and beer, broken windows, two dead bodies - the one whom Sam had savaged had bled to death on the stairs - which we dragged into the street where, had it not been for the rain, the flies, rats and crows would have feasted. They had killed Copper and stolen the chickens. The goats they had let out into the street. It was to this that Father returned, to his wife and son cowering together in a puddle of beer, crying and trembling and clinging together like shipwreck survivors waiting for rescue.

The full extent of the horror came clear in the cold light of morning. Seven houses had been damaged by fire. The market had been destroyed. Every wharf-side warehouse had been broken into, looted and pillaged. Families had been attacked in their homes - the Cutlers, the Skinners, the Dyers and us. The Cutlers' house had been burned to the ground. Cutler's beard had been burned by Vlieland, Martha Cutler had been repeatedly raped and Bart had been beaten by Russ and Fleischmann. His balls had swollen up like apples. He had a lump like an egg on his forehead, cut and swollen lips, a blackened eye, two broken fingers, cuts on his face, black bruises on his back and legs, a broken rib, and he kept coughing blood. They had used him like a football.

"The Devil's abroad," he said mournfully, dropping a bundle of clothes on the floor by my bed. He had come to stay with us whilst the Cutlers moved in with the Kerbrokes.

Mother merely existed, suspended in a void, silent and frozen, her face set like stone. She had not spoken since the attack, save to occasionally stroke my hair and whisper my name. My face was battered and swollen and my cracked ribs ached constantly but the real pain was trapped within. My insides had been torn and bruised and I felt permanently cold. My stomach was cold. My mind was cold. I had buried my lucky charm and my religion along with my dog. The coral had failed to protect me from evil. So had God.

Father was in a terrible state, stalking round the tavern wringing his hands, lamenting the fact that he hadn't been here, that he'd left us exposed whilst he'd helped out the neighbours.

"There was nothing you could've done," I told him consolingly. "There were eleven, twelve with Russ. There were too many to fight."

"Sam killed one and you killed one." He laughed harshly. "My weakling son, the would-be juggler killed a soldier! While I was away!"

We drank moodily. I missed Sam. We went for a walk leaving Father to clear up the pub. We walked to the Chapel Field, passing through the littered streets and smoking shells of buildings, passing groups of shock-numbed people with bundles of possessions. They were leaving town. They felt safer out in the marshes with le Brun and le Blunt. Some of the churches had been targeted with paint. Gravestones were shattered, broken in pieces, and church windows smashed. So much for the pious pilgrims at prayer in the Priory. We pushed past the overhanging willow branches and sat by the pond. The rain had eased to a sticky warm drizzle.

"Was it like, killing that man?" Bartholomew asked.

I didn't know. I felt nothing. It had been like killing a flea or a rat. "It all happened so quickly," I answered.

"Oh Nick," he sighed, "You'll go to hell. It's a cardinal sin. It's murder. You'll go to hell."

"I've been there already," I answered, "Twice, and I've come back each time." I tore up a grass stalk. "Hell is in here." I touched my breast. "And out there." I waved the grass stalk towards the smouldering city. "We're living in hell and you know who fashioned it? Adam le Spicer and his bailiffs and William de Brunham and the men of his church." Bartholomew shot a fearful glance towards the sky. I laughed harshly. "If you're waiting for God, you'll wait forever." I tossed the grass stalk into the pond. "The world is full of abusers. The good get hurt, the bad get rich and the innocent are always exploited. Best thing is the Kerbrokes and Cutlers got their come-uppance."

"The Cutlers gave me shelter, gave me a job," said Bartholomew mournfully.

"They beat you and starved you," I snarled, ''And he made you do things with him.''

"Only when he was drunk," Bartholomew said.

''So that makes it all fine,'' I said.

I gazed towards the tower of St Giles and wondered if the people down there had been attacked. They weren't part of the business community. They were poor and sick, mostly whores and beggars. I also wondered if the Spicers and Swerdestones had been attacked and decided not. They were too rich and therefore powerful. What about Meg? I shuddered and put the thought out of my mind. They would not go to Coslany. No. Never. She would have been safe. I hoped.

I stared at the water, at my slightly rippled reflection, my dark hair hanging shaggily over my neck and ears, the cuts and bruises marking my face. "My father blames himself. He wasn't there to protect us, he says."

"He put out the fire in our house," Bart answered, "Pulled the mistress out of the flames. Helped the master. Then he went to help Master Skinner before getting Gerald of Kerbroke out of his bedroom. Your dad was a hero."

"But he let down his family." I sighed. "He thinks so. Out playing hero whilst his family suffered. He couldn't have helped. I don't blame him. But he blames himself and anything I say won't make it better."

"You can be there to support him," Bartholomew said.

The day wore uneasily on. The grey drizzle-filled mist never really lifted. Evening stole into the late afternoon and made away with what was left of the light. An enveloping sense of panic crept stealthily into the city in the shadow of the twilight. People banded together and barricaded themselves inside their houses. No-one came to The Mischief. They were too scared.

Father, Bart and I drank more beer. None of us could eat though I still went into the kitchen for some salted fish and handfuls of nuts.

''I hate these people,'' Father declared. ''I hate them.''

''You shouldn't hate anyone,'' said Bart. ''Jesus said forgive your enemies and turn the other cheek.''

''Which one?'' I snapped. ''This one?'' I gestured at my face. ''Or this one?'' I lifted my left buttock.

''First thing tomorrow we'll go see le Spicer. Lodge a complaint. Get the bailiffs involved.''

''They are involved,'' I said. ''Do you think their houses got wrecked? Do you think their wives got raped? Where was Giffard and his legendary garrison? Sat home drinking wine and watching the city go up in flames. They stayed back and did nothing, and that makes them as guilty as Russ and de Brunham.''

My father turned the tankard around in his fingers and started to ramble. ''When your grandfather opened this tavern,'' he said, ''It was for the labourers building the city. The Adam and Eve served those constructing the monastery but this was for the people who worked in the market or down on the docks. This was the People's pub, you see.'' He took a swig from his tankard. ''Your grandfather, Thomas, was a farmer's son in Bacton, on the coast. He was born in 1199, the last year of King Richard. His father grew up with the Crusader taxes, an absentee monarch, and King John brought stability. Then we had Henry and Simon de Montfort and the Oxford Parliament and all the troubles.... You were a baby when it all broke out. 1258.'' He looked at me fondly. ''Little Nicky in his christening gown. All brown curls and a rosy pink face.'' Bartholomew snickered. I punched him on a bruise, which shut him up. ''We left the land, came to Norwich, bought this place.'' He finished his beer, poured another. ''This is a good place, a good city. The bailiffs will help us. I know these men... they're good men.....'' He was beginning to slump. ''Nicky, little Nicky, in his christening gown and bonnet... little brown curls.... Good men, Spicer and Swerdestone... Tom was a good boy.... didn't really know the others... too young.... Poor Sarah... Your mother.....'' Words began to slip away. ''Your mother....''

My mother had gone to stay with Margaret de Newton.

''Wait and see,'' said Father drowsily, ''Wait and see.''

Bart and I went to bed.

''Wait and see?'' I echoed as we undressed. ''What does he mean, wait and see? It's ridiculous.''

Bart pulled his tunic over his head. ''Dunno,'' he said. ''Maybe he knows something.''

I snorted. ''My father knows nothing. He can't even read.'' I stripped off my braies, and a thought struck me. Or maybe it was more of a realisation. There was only one man who could end this, one man who could bring peace. One man. And we had to find him. Before it was too late. ''What about finding Brun and Godale?''

Bart was halfway into bed. ''They're out in the marshes.''

''So we go into the marshes.'' I climbed under the covers. ''We need them back.''

''Maybe.'' He sounded uncertain.

''We go tomorrow.'' I snuggled up to him. ''Want me to kiss your birthmark?'' I smirked.

''Bugger off,'' he said.

#

# 15. Journey

I had only left Norwich once before, last Christmas, when Father had decided to go to Wymondham to get some barrels of mead from the abbey. He had hired a horse and cart and set off through the snow-covered streets just as dawn was breaking and the Prime bell sounding. It had been a fine adventure, passing through Needham Gate and crossing the ditch, tipping the watchmen then splashing through the Cringle Ford and trotting along the rutted, frost-crusted road between the furrowed strips of fields and thick, woody clumps of ash, beech and hawthorn. We had taken a dinner of blood pudding, vegetable pasties and bottles of ale which we had consumed under some trees by the side of a stream somewhere near the village of Heather Sett. We had collected the barrels and spent the night at The Green Dragon. It was not as good as our tavern. It was a vast stone hall lit by sputtering candles which smelled of mutton fat. The floor was covered with rushes of straw which trapped the horse dung brought in by travellers, mouldy bread, rotten fruit and mud. My mother changed our rushes twice a day and mixed rose petals and lavender in with the straw to make it smell pleasant. Everyone seemed to get very drunk. There had been several fights, mostly over dice games. Prostitutes in their trademark yellow caps had circulated, looking for business. One had approached my father, who was scandalised. I, on the other hand, had tried to strike a deal. She had wanted two pennies but I only had one. I'd asked my father for another. He cuffed me round the head and sent me to bed. Alone. God's teeth, I had said. When will you let me be a man? When you can afford it, he'd answered.

It was pitch-black at night. My bed was uncomfortable. It was a wooden frame strung with ropes. My father had, predictably, farted frequently, loudly and fruitily and I had been woken by barking dogs, vomiting men and fist-fighting in the street. We had returned the next day, scarfed and gloved, cheeks flushed pink by the nipping frost. We had been in very high spirits. We had even sung rounds together. Mother and Sarah had welcomed us back and fed us roasted chicken by the roaring log-fire.

This second time was very different. Bartholomew Jay and I skulked through the streets in the grey dimness of dawn. The light was just beginning to touch the large, stone houses of King Street. These places had gardens. I knew the Swerdestones lived somewhere round here. No wattle and daub for them. Just great, grey, granite blocks.

We had put on dark clothes, grey tabards and sandals. We had also taken our knives. We did not really know where we were going, nor how long we would be searching. We had told Father we were going to find Meg in Coslany. He had turned over on his straw mattress, grunted, slobbered and muttered something about feeling sick.

The spaces between buildings got bigger as we moved into Bracondale. We could see vegetable plots and, up on the hill, Carrow Abbey. The city was thinning out, houses and churches interspersed with copses, clumps of birch trees and patches of grass. The sun was higher by the time we arrived at the ditch and wooden wall that marked the city limits. Beyond it we could see the River Yare and some bobbing boats. A number of families had gathered at Conesford Gate. The two watchmen were questioning them. Most, it seemed, had lost property in the mercenaries' raid, or no longer felt safe inside the city. They had relatives in Acle or Yarmouth and were getting out. We joined the queue. Many were turned away. These begged and wept. Others were waved through. These waved and cheered. It seemed money was changing hands. I clicked my tongue and looked for another way round but there was none.

There were two wooden, two-storey towers, one on each side of the five-bar gate. They were connected together by an upper passageway which ran above the gate itself. The city walls themselves were made of planks, about twice the height of a man. They had a yard-wide walkway built in horizontally and about halfway up. Wooden steps at regular intervals allowed the watchmen access to the walkway. Behind the wall the ditch fell away steeply, perhaps to a depth of ten feet. Once in, you would have to scrabble like a badger to get out again.

''Good morrow, boys,'' said a watchman.

''God give you good day,'' I politely replied.

''Where be ye orf to, then?''

I was highly tempted to snap ''None of your damned business'' but decided it would not be helpful, so I adopted a Norfolk accent in case that might be. Solidarity and all that.

''Troyin' to foind ower marther,'' I drawled. ''She caaaam through jaast afoore uz. We got separated, see.''

''No-one's supposed to go out of or enter the city,'' tutted the watchman, ''Not without permission or paying the toll.''

''Toll?''

''Two pennies. Constable's orders. Extra security.'' I played dumb and shrugged inquisitively. The watchman leaned closer. I could smell garlic on his breath. ''There's a load of bandits loose in them there marshes.''

''There's a load of bandits loose in that there city,'' I answered, spotting a woman with a bunch of children hurrying towards a boat. ''Maaaarther!'' I waved. ''Wait for us! Hurry,'' I begged, ''Or we'll lose her again.''

''How did you fall behind in the first place?'' said the watchman.

''My brother needed a shit.'' I indicated Bart. ''Oi told him not to eat them there blaaaackberries off the hedge. They go right through him. But he won't listen. Sometimes oi think he's a bit simple.'' I tapped my forehead theatrically. Then waved again. ''Maaaarther, wait a minute!'' I looked at the watchman again. ''Right through him. Them there blaaaaackberries. Stinking slop all over that there road. Well, we 'ad to clear it up, didn' we? Couldn't leave it for you boys, could we?''

Bart groaned and clutched his stomach. ''Oi think there's more,'' he moaned. ''Nicky....''

''Maaarther!'' I yelled. ''Bart's gonna shit again.''

The watchman wrinkled his nose. ''You boys best get through,'' he said. ''Go shit in them there bushes by the river.''

Bart started hopping up and down on the baked earth road, holding his belly and squealing. ''Nicky.... Oi caan't hold it much longer.....''

I waved at my imaginary mother. She was, by now, looking over her shoulder, attracted by my constant squawking, and frowning heavily. In fact, she flicked us the finger. ''God's teeth,'' I said, ''She's mad with us. You got a privy my brother can use, or a cesspit? He'll have to go right here in the road if you ain't.''

Just then, God came to our aid. I don't mean in a big puff of smoke and a lightning bolt and a 'hey there, puny mortals' kind of way. I mean that some man's nerve suddenly broke. He started yelling and screaming ''I ain't going back! I ain't! Not to that!'' and tried to break through the gate. The other watchman wrestled with him and called for help. ''Hey, Jed. Gi'e us a hand.''

''Right,'' said Jed. ''You two, get to your mother and, you, make sure your brother does his business far away from my bedroom.''

He opened the gate, then hesitated. ''Hey,'' he added, ''You better not be that there Nick Bromholm trying to escape.''

''Me?'' I said, shutting the gate. ''No chance. Why?''

''He be wanted for murder. He'll likely swing for it too.'' And with that, Jed jumped on the man and clubbed him to the ground.

''Let's be having you,'' I said to Bart and we scuttled off towards the river.

God's blood, I thought. Wanted for murder? What the hell?

''You shouldn't have killed that man,'' sniffled Bart. ''I told you it was wrong.''

''He was swyving my mother,'' I retorted stiffly. ''Shut up and walk.''

Trowse was a mean little village, four or five squalid huts on the edge of the marshland. People eyed us with suspicion. I kept hearing their voices: ''You better not be that Nicolas Bromholm. You be wanted for murder, you be.'' They clearly thought we were planning to rob their livestock, small black and white cows and woolly-backed sheep not much bigger than Sam.

''We don't want your smelly cows,'' I felt like saying, ''Or your scabby children.''

We trudged on, splashing through water and sinking in bog, until we arrived in a forest. The tree trunks were swathed in mist and a soft drizzle descended on our shoulders. In the half-light, some of the trees looked like twisted human figures. Bart was convinced Mad Martha was out here, hunch-backed and gnarled. It was getting spookier by the minute.

''Do you think there are ghosts in the forest?'' he asked hesitantly.

''No,'' I said, uncertainly.

He touched his coral charm. ''Do you think the Green Children are here?''

''Green children? Those fairy creatures from St Martin's Land that were found in a forest?''

''They couldn't talk and they only ate berries and their skin and hair were all green,'' he said eagerly, the flood-gate opening once again. ''And they can do magic spells. I heard that they conjured up a feast from thin air for the poor old woman who found them, and they turned a wicked woodcutter into a toad.'' He lowered his voice in case they were listening. ''Some say they were to blame for last year's floods.'' Much of Norwich had been under water last summer.

''And the Bishop said the floods came because of the wickedness of the people,'' I said. ''They may, of course, have come because it rained a lot,'' I added sarcastically. ''Green children. Where do you get this stuff from?''

''You don't believe in magic?''

I snorted contemptuously. Since my encounter with the mercenaries, my credulity in the supernatural had largely vanished. Nevertheless, Bart was not so easily persuaded.

It was getting dark. Very soon we would not be able to find our way. I suggested we rest.

''Here?'' Bart glanced around. ''In a ditch?''

''Yes,'' I said, ''In a ditch.''

We gathered some mushrooms, hazelnuts and blackberries and had picked up some fallen apples on the way. We made a small fire from old, dry hazel twigs and ate under a rowan tree as the light disappeared and the stars came out. I had never really noticed how many there were before. Thousands winked playfully at us, silver dust scattered on a black cloth.

''Do you think the Man in the Moon is watching us?'' said Bart.

''What?''

''You know,'' he said breathlessly, ''The man who lives inside the moon. You can see his face once a month when the moon is big and he comes out to play.'' I just shook my head sadly.

He spent much of the night snuffling, twitching and snuffling and jerking about at every noise. Once he had sat bolt upright and seized my arm in terror when he had heard a strange low moan coming from a clump of ash trees.

''It's them!'' he cried.

''Who?'' I snapped irritably. I had been almost asleep.

''The Green Children!''

''God's teeth, Bart. It's an owl, a bloody owl. Now shut up and go to sleep.''

He remained unconvinced and spent an hour or so poking around the trees with a stick. I stayed in the ditch. He disturbed a fox which raced away in a blur. This sent a flock of pheasants whirling into the air. Bart almost pissed his pants. He had only made himself more frightened than before.

''You won't be laughing so hard when the Babes in the Wood come for you,'' he scowled, rolling up in a ball again.

The next morning, as we pushed on through the forest, he got stuck in the swamp. I went back, clasped his arms and hauled him out. He was covered in mud and stank to high Heaven. God's wounds! Why had I brought him with me? Although I loved him as a brother, he was a liability on a journey like this. I should have come alone.

''Are we nearly there yet?'' he kept asking until I wanted to slap him.

We walked alongside a pretty, gurgling stream. Butterflies hovered over the colourful flowers sprayed across the lushly grassed banks. Daisies, cornflowers, forget-me-nots and poppies jostled for space in the reeds and rushes that grew from the water. A couple of rabbits played under a bush. A spindly-legged heron stood nearby waiting for some fat fish to drift too close to his iron-hard beak. He ignored us as we passed by. It was so quiet.

Suddenly, a voice bellowed out ''Halt! Who goes there?''

Bart jumped out of his skin.

''It's them!'' he cried, ''The Green Children!''

''Two lost brothers!'' I returned. ''We got separated from our mother who was heading to Yarmouth. Please help us.''

''Nicolas Bromholm!'' said the voice, and Henry Godale stepped into the clearing. We had found them at last. After exchanging hugs, he rushed us through the marsh to a small encampment hidden deep in the trees, a hut built out of branches and, sitting outside it, Geoffrey le Brun.

''Nicolas Bromholm,'' he said, ''And Bartholomew Jay. To what do we owe this unexpected pleasure?''

We sat on the grass and told him about the mercenaries, the looting, burning and pillaging, the interdict, the council's inaction.

''I hear you killed Van Vaart,'' said Brun, ''With a bar stool.''

''Yeah, an' I'm wanted for murder. The Prior will hang me for sure.''

''The Prior has no power here,'' said Brun. ''Here we are free men.''

He drew himself to his feet. I had never before realised how tall he was, nor how commanding. I was so used to seeing him curled up in the chimney corner of The Mischief spouting politics and bantering with my father. Now he led me and Bart round his camp with the air of a king.

He showed us the shelters his people had built from branches and leaves.

He showed us the play area with kayles and a merry-totter he had built for the children.

He showed us the small chapel Stephen the Blunt had built for believers.

He showed us the communal kitchen and told us food was prepared three times a day.

''And what do you eat?'' asked Bart.

''What the forest provides,'' said Brun. ''Nuts, berries, herbs.''

''Any meat?'' Bart muttered.

''Rabbits. Squirrels.'' Brun shrugged.

''Rabbits? Squirrels?'' I echoed. These were the meats of the wealthy. No-one could afford squirrel. I'd had it once, in a New Year feast. It was stringy but delicious.

''They run wild. Out here, they belong to no-one,'' said Brun. ''There's also the river. It provides fish, ducks, geese swans...''

''Swans?'' I blurted out. Now it was getting ridiculous. They were eating as well as the richest people in town.

''We live like kings,'' smiled Brun, ''Because we have no kings. Life here in Thorp is lived as it should be, simply, cleanly and communally. We all serve each other, according to our needs and not our means.''

''But you need to come back,'' I muttered. ''Norwich needs you.''

''What is Norwich to me?'' he replied. ''I'm from Coventry. I settled in Norwich by mistake.'' His father, a shoemaker living in Cross Cheaping, had been an enterprising businessman with shops near Gosford Green. He had sent Geoffrey to school to learn reading and writing but, one spring afternoon in 1256, he was knifed in a dispute over money. He died three days later. Geoffrey was 17 and suddenly deep in debt so he left Coventry to become a soldier. He had fought in Andalusia against the Moors and in 1258, paid by Armenians, had invaded Iraq alongside Jan Russ. They had met in the year of my birth. It seemed significant though right now I did not know why.

''He took pleasure in it,'' Brun recalled. ''We destroyed a culture, a whole civilisation. Some say a million died in the Siege of Baghdad. We looted the city and massacred families. I watched Russ burn a house with a family of eight trapped inside and laughing as a little girl fell from the window to smash her skull on the street. I saw him burn holy books, sacred texts, precious manuscripts on medicine and astronomy, all the learning of the Arabs and Muslims thrown into the river. We tore down mosques and palaces and then killed the Caliph by riding our horses over him.'' Brun shuddered. ''You do not want to imagine the sights I saw that week. The Mongols and the Chinese were bad, brutal barbarians with a bloodlust, but we so-called Christians in an unholy alliance with the Armenians, the Georgians and the Franks... it finished the Iraqis and their Abbasid Caliphate forever.'' He glanced at me and Bart. ''Now you may say they were only Moors, Muslims, Arabs, so who cares? But Moors are human too.'' He tore at a blade of grass. ''It changed me, made me think about justice and tolerance, made me understand the world is mad, the world is sick, and made so by men, by poverty and by religion. So I came home to fight with Simon of Montfort to free my people from the twin tyrannies of church and state.'' He fell silent for a moment, lost in thought. Then he tore again at the grass. ''I know what Russ can do, what Russ will do if he is allowed. I have seen it.''

''So we must stop it!'' I cried. ''We have to fight them!''

''What with?'' said Brun. ''Who with? You? Bart? Godale? Against an army? Against the Prior? Against the City council? Against the garrison? You saw what happened when Casmus was killed. Nothing.''

''The bailiffs have called a muster for high noon on August 9th,'' I said. ''There will be hundreds of people. We could capture the Priory itself, and then...'' I shrugged. ''We'll be the rulers.

''We have no weapons,'' said Stephen le Blunt.

''We have no army,'' said Henry Godale, ''Just traders and craftsmen.''

''Even traders and craftsmen will fight,'' I exclaimed, ''With the right motivation, with something to gain. Geoffrey, you can persuade them. You lead, they will follow.''

''People fight for many reasons,'' said Godale. ''Fear, anger, revenge, justice, freedom...''

''Freedom,'' said Brun.

''Freedom from fear,'' said Godale. ''Just think, Geoffrey. You could finish what de Montfort began, right here, right now, a revolution that will change this country forever.''

Brun stood up, glanced around at his camp, then strode away into the forest. It was beginning to darken. Women and children were returning from the river with jars of water to boil their cabbages, carrots and kale into broth. Someone close by was baking bread and the warm, homely aroma drifted lazily across the camp. I identified beech trees, ash trees, silver birch and chestnuts. A squirrel sat in one, peeling the husk from a nut, its bushy red tail curled over its back. A nightingale began to sing. I stretched out under a tree and drifted into a dreamless doze. It was the last peaceful evening of my life for the next morning word came that they were forcing all the Jews to live in a special camp outside the city wall. Anyone who resisted was being hanged in the street, and so we started training, preparing for August 9th, the day on which we would take back our city and rid ourselves of the leeches, parasites and enslavers forever.

#

# 16. Muster

AUGUST 9th 1272 was a gloriously warm, sunny day. A crowd of two hundred or so had gathered in Tombland. They were mostly men and boys but some women and girls had also come. Le Spicer, Giffard, Mulbarton and Ely were huddled together by the ancient cross near the Ethelbert Gate. Brun, Godale and I stood near the back, our faces hooded, and listened.

"It gives us some satisfaction to see how many of you have answered the muster of the council this morning," Le Spicer began. "Near this spot, John Casmus, our esteemed and noble Coroner, lost his life whilst issuing a warrant drawn up by us, your council. The warrant was issued in response to the actions of a murderer housed within these walls. Now John Casmus too lies dead like Adam of Newton, murdered by the leader of that community. Our protests are continually ignored by that leader, taxes continue to be levied against us, and his foreign army continues to reside within those walls. A warrant for the apprehension of the Prior has been drawn up so he may answer questions at a board of inquiry....."

John Scot interrupted him. "So which fool with a death-wish are you going to get to deliver it?" he called.

Giffard shifted uncomfortably. "I will deliver it. He cannot defy the King's Constable."

The crowd hooted derision.

"He defied your curfew," cried Scot, "And your watchmen are taunted and beaten."

"The King has been informed," said Mulbarton.

"His reply is awaited," Le Spicer went on. "His Majesty has many other matters requiring his attention but do not fear. Action will be taken."

"He's too busy," jeered Walter the Skinner.

"Takes no notice of us," muttered Cutler.

"Or our magistrates," said my father.

Margaret de Newton pushed forward and confronted the council. "Have you forgotten already how my poor husband died here in this very road, bleeding into the dust, his life blood flowing between the cobbles and into the gutter, gasping out his last breath as le Messer stood by and laughed? Have you forgotten how a monk shot him down as he crawled helplessly through your feet for safety from the swords and staves of these men? Have you forgotten? It was Trinity Sunday. A Christian feast. Monks killing men when they should have been praying to God!"

"And now Casmus!" This was Godale, pushing towards the Cross. "Struck down by the Prior for doing his job. How many more must die before we take action? You talk and you talk and nothing is done ..."

"There's an army of foreign soldiers in our Cathedral," cried Stephen le Blunt. "Our Prior's a murderer ..."

".... And you, our bailiffs and councillors, do nothing but write letters which are torn up in your faces!" yelled Scot.

"And last week," shouted my father, "You sat in your homes as our city was burnt."

"We need a leader who will stand up to these people!" Godale shouted

"Geoffrey Lebrun should speak for us!" Margaret declared.

"Geoffrey Lebrun!" shouted Godale.

"Geoffrey Lebrun!" shouted the crowd.

"Geoffrey Lebrun should be our leader!" Godale bawled.

"Brun! Brun! Geoffrey Lebrun!" yelled the crowd. "BRUN! BRUN! GEOFFREY LEBRUN! BRUN! BRUN! GEOFFREY LEBRUN!!!''

Le Spicer made a last desperate effort. "The letter to the King ...." Then his voice was drowned by booing and whistling and shouts of

BRUN! BRUN! GEOFFREY LEBRUN!

"All the warrants in the world will not bring out the guilty men!" Geoffrey Brun flicked back his hood. "If we want them, we must drag them out by the hair!" He raised his arms. "People of Norwich! People of England! The time has come for you to act. The time has come for you to take control of your own lives and destinies!" He thrust his way through the throng to the Tombland Cross.

Mulbarton and Ely drew their swords. ''It's the outlaw Lebrun!'' yelled Ely. ''Seize him!''

''With the outlaws Bromholm and Blunt!'' shouted Mulbarton. ''Ten shillings to the man who takes them alive!'' John Scot, William Payne and Adam de Tofts blocked their way. Nobody else reacted. Brun mounted the steps and turned to the crowd.

"The Prior, fat in his stew of corruption, has taken our money in tax and in tithe, and spends his gains on clothing and wine. The Prior has taken our hard-earned cash and hired these bandits to silence our voices and keep us in line. We have suffered these scorns and now bear the scars. But no longer. The time for change at last is here. The time has come! The time is now!''

''This man is an outlaw!'' Ely tried again. ''Wanted for treason, wanted for crimes.''

''The treason, Master Ely, is yours,'' Brun responded, ''And the crimes are the Prior's. They are many and varied. Remember how he slew, with his own hands, our friend John Casmus. Remember how his man Le Messer shot here, in this very place, the husband of this woman, our friend Adam de Newton. Remember how he protected the murderer from prosecution, shielded him from the law, ripped up our warrant and flung it back in our faces. Remember how he hired his Flemish friends to guard his gates, to guard his grounds, our grounds, because this Cathedral Church and all these buildings belong to us! It was our money that built them, our money that roofed them, our money that keeps them repaired. And what do we get in return? Insults, scorns, and murder!

"All these crimes are crimes against the people. Crimes against you. Crimes against us. Crimes against justice. Crimes against freedom. But now he has committed the greatest of his crimes. For now his hired soldiers create fear in our city. They burn down houses, beat up bystanders. Alfred Cutler's burned to the ground. Bromholm's tavern, broken and looted. This boy ..." He seized my arm and dragged me roughly up the steps, "Tortured and beaten before his mother's very eyes!"

I squirmed as he exhibited me to the people who exhaled a long, lowing moan.

"Is it right that they escape? Is it right that they are spared?" He released my collar. "The people are beaten in their own homes on Prior de Brunham's orders, and the council wrings its hands and writes letters! The law has failed to protect us. The law cannot protect us. The law is made for the strong. The law is made for the rich. But there is a greater law, the law of right, the law of justice, the law of truth. Made by the people, for the people, and enforced by the people!"

Who cheered loudly.

"They must be made to answer for their crimes!"

The crowd went wild.

"Gather your weapons! Sharpen your swords! The Day of Justice is here!"

''DAY OF JUSTICE! DAY OF JUSTICE!'' chanted the mob.

I felt my spirits stirring, felt my soul unshackled, my fear falling away.

"We see that day dawning over the spires of our city. And with that dawn we are delivered from slavery into freedom!"

I yelled and clapped with the rest. Fire coursed through my veins.

"The time has come to tear down this illegal castle in our midst! The time has come to bring to justice those within it! The time has come to wrest back our souls from the Church! The time has come. The time is now!"

I yelled again. People around me were stamping and cheering. Ely, Mulbarton, Swerdestone and Spicer looked concerned.

"The time has come to fight for our rights!" Brun's voice was growing hoarse. He strode through the people, clapping shoulders, touching elbows, till he came back to the cross. He looked up at Le Spicer. "The time has come to break the chains that hold us captive!" He mounted the steps again, speaking as he went. "Chains of church! Chains of State! Chains of Law! Chains of bondage! Shatter the fetters! Rise up and destroy!" He looked round, open-palmed, and yelled out a mantra: "No more soldiers! No more slaves! No more bowing to Church and to rulers! No more lawyers! No more priests! And no more Priors! Shake off your chains and be free men once more!"

We howled in anger, excitement and jubilation.

"Storm the Priory! Storm the State! Loot! Burn! Destroy! Take back what is yours! No more masters, but Liberty, Truth, Justice, and Freedom!"

''FREEDOM! '' yelled the people, waving their hats.

Suddenly the crowd broke and surged towards the Ethelbert Gate propelled by Brun's words and an overwhelming wave of fury and bitterness. Stephen le Blunt and Simon le Palmer were throwing down weapons, swords, clubs, daggers, hammers, chisels and garden tools.

Godale thrust a sword into my hand. "Nick! With me and Scot to Vedast's Lane! Through the vegetable garden! We'll hit them from the rear." He issued instructions to Margaret Newton and Agnes Scot. "Burn the gates!" And to Cutler and Father and others nearby. "Bring up a battering ram. Taylor! Skinner! Get into Bichil and attack the gates by the Bishop's Palace."

Brun turned calmly to the bailiffs. "And now it's happening and you can't stop it. Everywhere, everywhere you look the people are massing to end their oppression. First the Church, then the State, all tumble down in a welter of blood! Look to yourself, Master Magistrates. It's the turn of the poor to inherit the earth."

Waving his sword, he waded into the mob.

#

# 17. Revolution

HENRY de Heylesdon began it. He had a bag of glass bottles which he had filled with pitch. Into each neck he stuffed a rag and these he set on fire. The bottles were flung over the Priory's walls, some landing on the roof of Ethelbert's Church. Then Agnes Scot and Margaret Newton came with bundles of bone-dry reeds which they placed against the pitch-painted gates and set alight. A huge sheet of flame whooshed skywards. People cheered and Brun called for a battering ram.

I followed John Scot out of Tombland. Peter de Kerbroke was running beside me, a dagger in one hand, a sword in the other. He was panting and gasping for breath. Bartholomew Jay caught us up. He had a hammer and a knife. We reached the small fence I had clambered over just a weeks before and vaulted it several at a time to stand among the cabbages, getting our bearings. The hospital lay ahead, the Ethelbert Gate to our left. I remembered it clearly. I glanced at my companions. I knew some of them: Hugh Coventry, whose father Robert was the chirographer, Walter Knot, the former bailiff Adam of Tofts, Paul Benedicite, Henry of Heylesdon, and to my surprise, Simon the Palmer.

"Those with me, to the Gates!" yelled Godale. "Those with Scot, to the Cathedral! Split their defences!"

We stormed across the lawn and swept into the Upper Close. The Ethelbert Gate loomed up on our left. Smoke and flames were pouring over the ramparts. Monks and mercenaries were gathered together with buckets of water and sacks of sand. Ahead of us stood the Charnel House and some Priory buildings. To our right was the almshouse and part of the infirmary, behind it the monks' dormitory and Cloisters and there, in the corner, between the refectory and the Charnel House, stood the Cathedral itself.

A group of mercenaries ran at us, swords raised and glinting in the afternoon sunshine. My heart leapt. Vlieland was leading them.

"Steady, boys, steady!" called Scot. "Let 'em come on to us."

With animal snarling, we clashed. My whole arm jarred as my blade was knocked aside. It almost fell from my fast-numbed fingers. Paul Benedicite smashed the mercenary down with a savage blow of his hammer. I mumbled my thanks and tested the sword-weight in my palm once again. Another man plunged towards me. Instinctively I parried his lunge and felt the blades lock. I forced his sword sideways using both my hands and all my strength then swept mine inwards and felt it connect with his body. Again my whole arm juddered as the steel sliced through his skin and flesh and embedded itself in something more solid, probably bone. Blood flowered through his shirt. I yanked the blade free as he fell to his knees and swung it up to meet another onrushing figure. It crashed against his arm. I stabbed viciously upwards. The point of the sword drove up through his chin. Blood burst over me in a fine bright spray which dappled my face. He gurgled and died.

I stood over the bodies and surveyed the battle. Henry Heylesdon and Fleischman were engaged in a furious hand-to-hand combat. Godale, Coventry and Adam Tofts were side by side, hacking through towards the gates. Scot and Benedicite were fighting outside the almshouse. Smoke was climbing into the sky from the Ethelbert Gates and drifting over the Priory's grounds. The smell of burning filled my nose. Flaring red sparks danced in the air. Through the haze I saw Russ, de Brunham and William le Messer outside the Cathedral.

I was distracted by a cry and saw Peter de Kerbroke go down in a heap. The mercenary raised his pike. Kerbroke's face was turned away. There was no time to reach him. I snatched the sword of one of my fallen adversaries and hurled it towards the pike-wielding figure. It struck him in the thigh. I sprang forward as he sank earthwards and slashed him across the nape of the neck then I drove the sword through his back and out through his ribs. I heard the bones crack as the sword-point burst through his chest. Kerbroke rolled away nursing a gash in his wrist. As our eyes met, he nodded his thanks.

Vlieland loomed up in front of me, teeth bared in a grin. I smashed his sword-thrust sideways, feeling the fury boiling inside me. We circled each other, round a patch of blood-stained grass. He tossed his sword from palm to palm, teasing me, licking his lips, grinning wolfishly all the while. Suddenly he sprang at me. I danced sideways and brought my sword round as he passed me. He cried aloud as the iron smashed through his skull and into his brain. He tumbled forward and I noticed Taylor, my father, Cutler and others running from the Preaching Yard. The mercenaries were caught in the middle. A second later, the Ethelbert Gates gave way and Brun led the mob in from Tombland. I leapt over the dying Vlieland, kicking his jaw as I did so. Grey sludge oozed from his scalp. I swore viciously.

Reuben and Bart appeared together. Bart's hammer was caked in blood and hair. "I got a Fleming," he gasped breathlessly.

"So did I!" I yelled triumphantly, hacking again at Vlieland's torsos. ''See you in Hell, Vlieland.''

The mercenaries retreated to the Cathedral but, before they could barricade themselves inside, they were overwhelmed as we stormed through the doors and into the building.

"Separate!!" Godale shouted. "Some to the Cloisters, some to the Presbytery!"

A group of monks huddled around the High Altar. Some were praying. More were shielding their golden and jewel-crusted Reliquary. Benedicite and Henry Heylesdon started rounding them up. Then William le Messer appeared. "Do not shed blood in the house of God!!" he shouted.

"Give yourself up!" Godale cried. ''Surrender yourself!''

''Go fuck yourself, Godale,'' he snarled. Their blades clashed. Sparks flew from the steel. Le Messer was fighting ferociously, slashing and cursing in equal measure. Godale ducked a swipe. Le Messer laughed but Scot joined the fight and the mob closed in. Le Messer leapt away, sword aloft, then slipped in a pool of blood and they were on him. I saw Tofts pinion him then they dragged him back towards the altar yelling their hatred, punching him, kicking him, tearing his habit, clawing his scalp. He was shoved roughly up against the altar. Blood was streaming down his face.

''Let me go!'' he screamed. ''It's the Prior you want, not me! The Prior! It was always the Prior!'' His eyes were wild. ''What did I do to deserve this treatment? What did I ever do to make you hate me so?''

''You killed my husband,'' said Margaret Newton. ''He died like a pig, remember?'' She slapped his head. ''Remember?''

''You tortured me,'' added Godale, holding out his hands. ''You drove splinters of wood under my nails. You said I would never juggle again. Remember?'' He kicked le Messer in the thigh.

''Mercy,'' moaned le Messer. ''Have.... mercy...''

''Mercy?'' Margaret sneered. ''Brother le Messer begs for his life.'' She slapped him again. His nose started bleeding. Everyone laughed. Someone punched him in the stomach. He vomited. One of his eyes was closed with blood.

''Are you ready to meet your Maker?'' Godale demanded. ''Is your soul prepared?''

Le Messer raised his chin. ''You wouldn't dare,'' he said.

Margaret drove a spike through his right eye. He shrieked in absolute terror, and the mob fell on him, frenzied, insane, and hacked him apart.

Clashing steel, shouting voices, the din of battle bounced off the stones and echoed around the ancient building then I saw de Brunham and Russ hurrying up towards St Luke's Chapel and the entrance to the Cloisters. Russ was holding his arm.

"We can't hold them!" he cried. "My force is spent!"

"You have to hold them!" answered de Brunham, "No matter the cost!"

"Where is the gold you owe us?"

"What?" The Prior looked as though he'd been struck.

"The gold," said Russ. "If you want me to fight, and maybe die, pay me."

"Now? How can I pay you now?" De Brunham sounded impatient.

"I am a mercenary. I fight for money," Russ answered simply.

"Have you no causes, no ideals?" asked de Brunham.

Russ laughed scornfully. "Ideals? Yes, I have an ideal. Just one. A fat purse," He jabbed de Brunham with the point of his sword, "From a fat friar."

"And if Brun offered you more, you'd fight for him?"

"Of course." Russ gritted his teeth as he tried to staunch the flow of blood from the shoulder. "It's my living."

"You are a man with no scruples, M'sieu," de Brunham said bitterly. "Never trust a hired man."

"Or a priest," answered Russ.

Geoffrey Brun's voice seemed magnified beyond belief. "Take the Priory! Trash the buildings! Tear them to pieces!"

"Fifty gold crowns," said de Brunham, ''To at least get me away from here.''

Russ said nothing.

"Fifty thousand!"

"Take me to your treasury," said Russ.

"You are needed here, m'sieu," de Brunham said silkily. "If your men should miss you, believe you are fallen ... I will fetch it myself."

"They are cornered like rats!" howled Henry de Heylesdon.

De Brunham was gone, slipping away through the shadows into the Cloisters. Before I could follow, Jan Russ rose before me like a ghost from a grave.

"Ah," he said, "The whelp from the tavern. Did you not receive enough pain from me that you come back for more? Are you collecting cuts?"

"Those cuts," I said coldly, "Will be repaid with interest. We are alone. At last. There are no soldiers now to protect you."

"I am Jan Russ," he said, "The greatest swordsman in Flanders. Do not be so foolish, boy, as to challenge me to single combat."

I lunged at him. The sword-point sliced up his wrist, opening the skin in a long blood-filling line.

"Well," he said, "Just for that, I shall cut off your balls and use them as marbles then stuff them up your well-greased arse like I did to that boy in Baghdad." He grinned and flicked the tip of his sword towards my groin. ''He squealed like a pig, and he bled for hours.''

I cleared my throat and spat phlegm on the floor. ''Go on then,'' I said.

Our blades locked for an instant, and then we fought. Cut. Slash. Parry. Thrust. Slash. Parry. Jump. Back. Side. Forwards. Lash. Lunge. Parry. Block. Hold. Push. Thrust. Jab. Stab. Jab. Hack sideways

"My blade!" His sword shattered. He swore viciously and hurled the jagged hilt at my head. I swayed aside. It clattered against a pillar.

''What are you going to cut my balls off with now?'' I sneered. ''I broke your little sword, you sick fuck.''

Russ backed into St Luke's Chapel. "You wouldn't harm an unarmed man," he said. "Where's your English sense of fair play?." He spread his palms. I set my jaw and advanced. He backed into the altar. "Give me another sword. Fight me like a man."

"You used me like a woman." I placed the tip of my sword against his throat. "As did your army. Against a woman, a boy, and a dog. All three are worth more than you." I drove the sword through his neck. The blade splintered the altar. Russ coughed a little, choking on the frothing foamy blood then he grunted a laugh, blood gushed down his chin and the light died in his eyes.

I panted for breath as my steadying senses took in the scene around me. Inside the gloomy chapel with its vaulted ceiling was an altar with a painted wooden front which depicted five episodes from the Story of Christ: the Scourging, the Way of Sorrows, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection and the Ascension. Russ was pinned against the panel which showed a robed Christ stepping out of his coffin, his right hand raised in blessing. Blood-streaks were smeared over the panel to his right which showed a loin-clothed Christ hanging on the Cross and his blue-robed Mother fainting in someone's arms. The blood was pooling on the rough stone steps. Once I would have kissed that panel. Now I heaved my sword free from Russ's throat and left.

Together with Scot and Adam of Tofts, I stalked through the Priory, searching the buildings for William de Brunham. We dragged terrified monks from their hiding places in dormitories, refectories, infirmaries and chapels and marched them at sword-point to a holding area down in the cloisters with the remnants of the Flemish army. But we didn't find de Brunham.

A new sense of urgency seemed to seize hold of Lebrun. He swept the Cross, cloths and relics from the altar. "Bring those monks here," he yelled, stepping down to one of the trembling, kneeling figures. "What is your name, monk?" The final word was contemptuously contorted.

"Hubert."

"Can you read and write?" Brun asked him. "Answer! Can you read and write?"

"I can," said the monk.

"Latin? French?"

"Both," said the monk.

"Languages of the devil!" bellowed Brun. "Languages of Church and State! Languages of tyranny and oppression! This man has placed himself apart! This man has raised himself above the people! He is an agent of oppression who has robbed the people of their goods, filled the Prior's rooms with our wealth, grown fat off the blood and sweat of the working people.

"You, sir monk, are a traitor, a traitor, a liar, a thief and a murderer! You are sentenced to death!" The dagger-hilt thundered against the altar. Struggling, protesting, the monk was bundled away to a side-chapel by a grinning, slavering mob.

"Now," said Brun, sweeping the rest with a terrible glare, "The rest of the rabble. Pray to your God to save you now. He will not listen. You are all accused of treason. You are all accused of conspiracy. You are all accused of robbery. The people find you guilty! And therefore you must die!"

John Scot appeared at his shoulder bearing the severed head of Brother Hubert. "Behold," he declared, to the squealing delight of the people, "The head of a traitor!"

Blood dripping from the neck-pipes stained the Sanctuary steps with bright drops. The eyes were staring and wild. I choked back the vomit.

"Victory!" cried Brun. "Victory!"

John Scot tossed the head into the crowd. It was used as a football. I couldn't contain it. I turned and vomited violently over a pillar, splattering the stones with my sick.

"So suffer the enemies of the people!" Brun declared as a dozen monks were hauled away by an eager, blood-frenzied mob. He stepped down into the Nave and gathered up the fallen head. "Here." He thrust it into my hands. "Here, Nicolas. A gift for you. A memento of our revolution. Keep it safe." I stared at the twisted face as the mob swept back into the church howling in orgasmic triumph, twelve tonsured heads stuck on poles, the blood still running. I felt the vomit rising again.

"Behold," yelled Brun, "The heads of our enemies! Pray now, brothers. Look down on us now, brothers!" He seized my hair and twisted my face round so I could see. "A stirring sight, eh, boy? A sight to remember! Twelve heads to nod and grin at us, the blood still warm and fresh!" He grinned maniacally. "Bow down to us, brothers. Give us good day." Grotesquely, the heads bobbed. Brun laughed. "Are you content, brothers?" The pole-bearers bobbed the heads once again.

Brun let me go. "Bear them hence!" he instructed, "Through the streets and to the walls! Up Rattun Rowe and down Fyebridge Street. To the quayside, into Ber Street and to the Haymarket. Set them up to symbolise the People's Revenge!" The mob swept out bearing the poles and heads aloft.

"Burn the Church!" Brun instructed. "Break down the walls! Destroy their crops and seize the silver! The day of reckoning has arrived!" He leapt onto the Altar.

18. Victory

FIRES burned around the Cathedral and its Close. The Church of St Ethelbert was a smoking ruin, steaming streams of molten lead from its roof solidifying in great silver snakes across the scorched grass. The Great Gates had been reduced to heaps of charred beams that looked as though they had been gnawed by giants. Mercenaries and monks lay strewn in the Close. Of our number we had lost but three.

I was exhausted. I had caught a glance of myself in a glass. Grimy face, wild hair, blood splashes on my skin and clothes, great rings under my eyes. Bart and Reuben were similarly painted. We, like a hundred others, crouched in the Cathedral, huddled around makeshift fires, waiting. Bart poked the fire with a stick.

"What now?" he said.

A sudden commotion in the doorway heralded the arrival of a party of men. They had arrested Bishop de Skerning.

"Citizens!" called Scot. "Bishop Roger has come to meet us!"

A menacing growl broke from the crowd. The tired, frail Bishop, his thin, white hair disturbed by the breeze, raised his manacled hands and jangled his chains.

"Release me. Release me at once." He glared around the Cathedral. "I am an old man. Have you no respect?"

"Well, Bishop," said Brun casually, "Or rather murderer, thief, employer and patron of the arch-criminal Prior. Well-met indeed. You talk of respect. Did you ever show respect to the people?"

"De Brunham acted without my authority," de Skerning declared, "Against my instructions. It was his idea to raise the taxes, his idea to hire the soldiers. I was in Suffolk. I had no notion..."

"We do not believe you," Brun interrupted coolly.

"Touch one hair on my head," said de Skerning defiantly, "And the fire of God shall strike you down. I am a Bishop, by God, and not a man alive shall harm me!"

Brun smiled. "Well, let us see." He stretched out a hand and plucked a silver hair from de Skerning's scalp. "What? Is there no thunder left in Heaven? God has abandoned you for the liar and traitor you are."

"By the Holy Relics..." de Skerning yelled, "I curse and excommunicate you all!"

"Holy Relics?" Brun smiled again and patted the silver reliquary beside the altar. "Holy Relics. What kind of relics do you keep? What relics do you invoke to frighten the credulous?" He placed his dagger-tip against the cask. "Let us examine your holy relics." A gasp of dismay came from the crowd as he levered the reliquary open and reached inside. "Have no fear, citizens." He smiled and held up some small grey objects. "Pigs' bones cannot harm you."

"That is the toe of St Thomas!" de Skerning protested. "This heretic has mocked it in God's own house!"

"Where is the lightning? Where the dropping fire?" Brun mocked. "Where is the fury? Where the wrath?"

"These are pigs' bones," said Stephen le Blunt, "And you have bewitched us with sorcery and lies."

"Good Saint Thomas come to my aid!" howled de Skerning.

"Call away," Brun smiled gently, "Call on every saint and Jesus himself. They will not help you." The smile snapped off. "You who so dishonour and debase them. You shall stand trial for your crimes. Conspiracy to murder, conspiracy to destroy property and goods ... murder itself."

"Maybe," murmured Godale, "We should avoid a trial. Summary execution, or perhaps an accident whilst he is in our custody. He could ... ah... fall down the stairs."

"You won't dare!" stammered de Skerning. "The Pope ...."

"No," said le Brun crisply. "It must be a public trial, to expose the hollowness of their myths and lies once and for all."

Le Blunt shuffled his papers. "You will be taken to a cell to await your appearance before a People's Court."

"Appropriate, don't you think?" sneered Brun, "That the place in which you peddled your lies and imprisoned the people in vile superstition now becomes your own prison."

"How dare you!" De Skerning shook his chains again. "I've done nothing wrong! Nothing! I was out of town! You need to capture de Brunham. He planned it all! Take him, not me! Take him! It wasn't me! It wasn't me! Please. Have mercy on me! I'm an old man! My hair is white!"

"But your soul is black!" yelled le Blunt. "Take him away!"

"Satan will come for you!" de Skerning screamed. "Satan has come for you!" He jabbed his chains towards Brun, Godale and le Blunt. "And you will all burn in Hell. By the bones of St Thomas..." Scot and Paine dragged de Skerning away.

"You see how they lie!" Godale shouted. "You see how they cheat. Pigs' bones to keep us in fear! You must never allow them to regain their authority."

Brun hammered on the Altar with the hilt of his dagger. "People of Norwich! Citizens! Friends! You have taken control! You are now masters of your own destinies. We have made History this morning! And we shall proceed to make a greater History now!" He swept his arm around the devastated Cathedral. " The old regime of le Spicer and Giffard failed the people. Their regime must be consigned to the dustbin of history." He struck the altar again. "We, Geoffrey le Brun, declare, in the name of the People, all properties, buildings and other possessions of this Priory and Cathedral Church confiscate. The silver shall be sold and the money raised distributed amongst the poor and needy in the city.

"Further, we declare the government of this city to be under the people's control. All civic offices are now suspended. The laws and policies of the city will henceforward be determined by this court in direct consultation with the people." He held out his hands. "You shall at last direct your own lives, free of interference from church or state. We shall convene a court and a Parliament in the Tollhouse and arrange free and fair elections on the principal of universal suffrage. All citizens aged 14 or older will be entitled to vote. For the first time in history, your leaders will be chosen directly by you and if they fail you, removed by you!"

Le Blunt spoke up. "We shall appoint an interim government until elections can be arranged. In the presence of the people, I call upon Geoffrey le Brun to serve as Chairman. Geoffrey le Brun. Will you serve the people of this City of Norwich?"

"I will."

"In the presence of the people, I call upon Henry Godale. Henry Godale, will you serve the people of this City of Norwich?"

"I will."

"In the presence of the people, I call upon John Scot. John Scot, will you serve the people of this City of Norwich?"

"I will."

"In the presence of the people, I call upon Margaret of Newtown. Margaret of Newton, will you serve the people of this City of Norwich?"

"I will."

"In the sight of the people, I call upon Nicolas from Bromholm. Nicolas from Bromholm, will you serve the people of this City of Norwich?"

My mouth fell open.

And so it came about that the People's Government of the City of Norwich was established on that day, August 9th 1272, amid the ruins of the Norman Cathedral, and responsibility for the affairs of the city and citizens assigned.

Citizen le Brun declared it the First Day of the First Year of the People's Victory, and it was good.

John Scot took control of Security. His role was to police the city, defend the people and track down the fugitive Prior.

Henry Godale took control of Finance. His role was to redistribute the wealth of the religious orders and landowners and organise a fair taxation and customs system.

Simon the Palmer, despite his being part of the old regime took control of Law and Justice. His role was to organise the courts. His appointment was recognition of the part he had played in our revolution and a way of splitting the old order.

Margaret de Newton took control of Land Reform. Her role was to distribute and organise the appropriate use of common land.

Peter de Kerbroke took control of Trade. His role was to organise the markets, the guilds, imports, exports, all aspects of commerce within the city.

Stephen le Blunt took control of Education. His role was to establish schools for all children with the aim of teaching numeracy and literacy to everyone.

Reuben Jacob's son took control of Health. His role was to establish a health care system for all people, with treatment for the poor paid for out of central taxation.

William Payne took control of Food. His role was to inspect food and drink and to ensure only meat and vegetables fit for human consumption were sold.

Agnes Scot became Commissioner for Women. Her role was to ensure equal pay, equal access to education and to introduce a law guaranteeing wives a half-share in the property and wealth of their husbands.

Henry de Heylesdon took control of Housing and Environment. His role was to organise the clearance of slums and rubbish and put into place a drainage and sanitation system.

Bartholomew Jay took control of Employment. His role was to reform and oversee the apprenticeship system and prevent exploitation at work.

I, Nicolas de Bromholm, took control of Social Welfare. My role was to put into place systems of support for the sick and the poor.

"Go declare our will round the City!" Brun instructed. "Cry it at every corner. The citizens of Norwich at last have a government of the people, by the people and for the people! A new day dawns. A new age begins. Today the people take control!"

19. Change

IN many respects, life went on as it had before except that I spent less time at home and more time at work. I shared the old almonry in the Cathedral Close with Reuben and Henry Heylesdon because our respective departments were closely connected. Le Blunt was also based in the Close, having taken over the schoolroom next to the Green Yard. Kerbroke, Payne and Bart had offices in the Market Square. Brun, Margaret, Agnes and Godale had taken over the Tollhouse and John Scot and Palmer had established themselves in the Castle Keep. Brun's friend Christopher Pevensie, commander of the Castle garrison, enforced law and order. His soldiers patrolled the streets. Thus we spread through the city. Giffard had been retained as Scot's deputy whilst le Spicer had been permitted to return to his former profession as a grocer. Mulbarton, Swerdestone and Ely had also been given employment as town planners in Henry de Heylesdon's department. Geoffrey Brun had wanted to exile them but Henry Godale had preached lenity.

"We have made our revolution," he had said, "We have the hearts of the people, but to win their minds we must exercise clemency, justice and fair government. We must show them a better way."

We buried our dead in the Cathedral Close, Stephen le Blunt leading prayers and Geoffrey le Brun naming them as People's Martyrs. He said they had made the ultimate sacrifice, they had laid down their lives for their friends, they had given their todays for our tomorrows. It was a sobering thought. It meant our tomorrow had to be better than their today or their sacrifice would be wasted, so we set to work with vigour. Although I tried to get home as often as possible, there was much to do in those first few days and we often worked late into the night, sleeping in the almonry on rush mattresses before going out again at the break of day to tour the city.

The area of Westwyk was particularly noxious. The main road of Nether Newport leading to the Church of St Giles was crowded with mean little houses, most of which had holes in their roofs. The streets that ran between Newport and Pottersgate such as Smallgate and Pottersgate and Over Westwick such as Sholdam's Lane and Backhouse Lane were almost dark as the upper stories of the buildings leaned across the cobbles, virtually touching each other and blotting out the sky completely. Flies buzzed, stray dogs lurked and everywhere there was the stench of rottenness and decay. The cockey that ran behind St Swithin's Church next to the great timber gate of St Benedict was choked with stinking, fly-ridden food, shit, dead dogs and the scattered entrails of animals. Pigs and chickens fed on the refuse, and bare-footed, bare-legged, ragged-clothed children played by the side. The air was thick with mosquitoes. It was no surprise that we encountered cholera, consumption and leprosy in the cramped, single-room dwellings of Sholdam's Lane. Crime, they told us, was rampant, with fights and robberies on a nightly basis. We referred this to John Scot. He introduced a new fine of six pence for starting fights, two shillings for drawing blood, and stepped up the watch patrols, but we wanted to be both tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime. Agnes, meanwhile, outlawed the beating of wives.

''Give people dignity,'' said Stephen le Blunt, ''Treat them with respect, and they'll start to behave in a more civilised way.''

"It all comes down," Heylesdon declared. "We build a new Westwyk with sewers running under the roads, not into water-courses but into earth-pits dug beneath the houses themselves."

Reuben decided to build a leprosy hospital just beyond the gate and a plague hospital just across the river in Coslany. He also favoured a leper house beyond the Fyebriggate. ''The priests told us that leprosy is a sign of divine retribution, disease the wage of sin,'' he said. ''This is wrong. Disease is caused by poor diet, poor sanitation and poor housing. When people live among rotting carcasses and heaps of dung, they fall ill. I have read this and I believe it is true.'' Tough on disease and tough on the causes of disease. ''Another thing,'' he added. ''Bishop Suffield's Great Hospital. It was built exclusively for priests. I want it. For the people.''

''Sequester it,'' ordered Brun, ''By force if you need to.''

Stephen le Blunt decided to open a school. ''Education is the key to social mobility,'' he declared. ''Reading, writing and arithmetic should be taught to everyone. An educated man is a dignified man, and knowledge is power.''

I decided the children should be clothed and the slums cleared. "We have plenty of tailors and plenty of worsted in Norwich," I told the Council. "We shall buy the cloth from Alfred Cutler and employ John the Tailor. We shall employ a team to clean the cockey and remove dead animals, and we shall impose a six-penny fine on people who allow their livestock to roam free and pollute the street. The fines shall be used to improve the housing by putting windows in the walls. We shall also provide street-lighting every hundred yards in every street and the watch must not only light the torches, they must tend them through the night."

"And the merchants and traders must contribute in taxation to this project," added Henry Heylesdon. "It is in everyone's interests that Westwyk is transformed."

I also proposed the control of prostitution and gaming in Conesford. "Gaming, especially dice, leads to fights and social discord," I said, "And prostitution makes the streets dangerous at night. It also spreads disease and is dangerous for the women, many of whom are beaten, raped or killed.'' Agnes nodded agreement. ''This trade is borne of economic necessity. If we can educate the women, give them a meaningful trade with a living wage, they will willingly give up their ways and for those who do not I propose installing them in houses with proper regulation."

"A guild of their own?" said le Blunt, "A Guild of Whores?"

Everyone laughed. I felt my face redden. "Why not?" I retorted. "Regulation will at least make it safer."

''And how does Rebekah the Redeless react to this?'' sneered Kerbroke.

''It's her idea,'' I confessed. ''I spoke with her earlier.''

''I bet you did,'' said Palmer, and everyone laughed again. I reddened further.

''Nicolas,'' said Brun, ''This is a great social reform. Get it done.''

We established a panel of three councillors to adjudicate in civil disputes. Simon Palmer chaired each one, with two of us serving in turn. I served with Peter Kerbroke one afternoon when William Payne brought complaints against Thomas de Sprowston for selling rotten sausages and puddings made from disease-ridden pigs in our market, John Bleacher and Ranulph the Fisher for fixing the prices of oysters unnaturally high and Thomas Gooseonthegreen for selling bad fish. Previously they would have been pilloried. Now they were each fined 5 shillings and the money put into the city's regeneration programme. John Scot brought a complaint against John de Weston for digging turves out of the ditch at Nedeham and Robert the Fowler for selling stolen goods. Again we fined them and sent them away.

''We need laws,'' said Scot, ''Codified customs so everyone knows what they're doing, their rights and responsibilities.''

So Palmer was charged with drawing up a 'customal' which would set out the rules and regulations to be called The Laws and Customs Used and Upheld in the City of Norwich. Not the snappiest of titles, perhaps, but it was comprehensive, covering everything, from dealing with murder, theft, drowning, outlaws and fugitives to property inheritance, wills and testaments to weights and measures used in the market and taverns to elections, maintenance of ditches and property, and financial accountability. It was, we thought, the first such document ever produced in England. We had created our own legal system, and it was adopted by the council in a unanimous vote. In addition, Stephen le Blunt, as a cleric, was elected bishop. He lifted the interdict and reopened the churches.

Over the first two weeks, I visited Westwyk several times to watch Heylesdon's men begin the awful task of clearing the cockey and burying the refuse in huge pits outside the gates. I also observed the builders installing iron poles hung with lanterns along Newport at hundred yard intervals. I had the honour of lighting the first lantern in the evening of August 16th, just as the curfew bell was tolling. A crowd gathered to watch and clapped enthusiastically.

I watched happily as Alfred Cutler, James of Worsted, John Tailor, Walter Knot and a team of apprentices measured and sewed trousers and shirts for the children within the working conditions and hours that Bartholomew Jay had set down - no more than eight hours per day with a thirty-minute break for dinner at midday, a minimum wage of a shilling a day and every Sunday a holiday. He also introduced an apprentices' contract. He laid down fourteen as the minimum age, and ruled that boys and girls could not be apprenticed without their parents' consent. He also ruled that apprentices should have a basic level of education, or that the employer must provide schooling for those who had missed out.

In Coslany we established a system of licensing premises for both gaming and prostitution. The places for prostitution like Groppequeynte Lane were required to shine a red lantern so that everyone knew what it was and where it was. The prostitutes themselves were entitled to free medical examinations every seven days. Reuben himself was not so keen but engaged his father and some other physicians to help him.

I also spent time in the almoner's room hearing pleas for assistance from the hungry and poor and trying to find the money to help them.

I went to Godale. ''Henry, I need more money.''

''Why?'' He shuffled through some documents.

''There are hungry people out there,'' I said. ''They have no money. They can't afford to feed their families.''

''Nick.'' He looked me straight in the eye. ''We need the money to rebuild Westwyk and the rest of the city. Be creative. Find a solution. That's why you're in this job.''

So I went to my father.

The Mischief was a shadow of its former self. It had hardly opened since the night of the mercenaries' raid, and I had hardly visited since the revolution. I preferred to sleep on a small rush mattress in my office. It was as though the tavern was part of a past life I would prefer to forget. My family seemed to share these feelings. Father spent more time drinking ale than serving it. His beard was untrimmed, his hair uncombed and his clothes unwashed. He looked and smelled greasy. He walked with a stoop. At forty-one, he was old. Mother had returned from Margaret's but had taken to sitting in a chair in the kitchen rocking Sarah's empty cradle with her foot and crooning lullabies to her dead daughter's ragdoll. She seemed to have no colour. The brass cauldron had not been polished, the floor had not been swept and the straw had not been changed. The goats were scrawny and starving. They bleated joyfully when I pushed open the gate to their pen so they could harvest the apples and pears that lay uncollected under the trees.

''So you're back, are you?'' said Father, pouring himself another drink whilst I opened the shutters to admit some light and air.

''I've been busy,'' I said.

''So I heard.'' He gulped at the cider. ''When are you coming back to work?''

That was a question I had not expected. ''I don't know,'' I said. ''I'm busy.''

''Putting the world to rights with Geoffrey le Brun,'' he said.

''Yes.''

''And how long will you last, you and your tin-pot regime? You think the King will let you go on, taxing the church and imprisoning his bailiffs? Sooner or later, there'll be a reaction and you'll all be hanged.''

''We'll fight, like we did against the Flemings,'' I said. Father laughed mirthlessly. "Anyway,'' I said, "I have a proposal. There are many hungry people in town. Can we not provide a little food and drink as an act of Christian charity? Soup and bread and maybe a pottage with a mug of ale, for half a penny..."

"All that costs more than half a penny," he grunted.

"The city will provide you the money," I said.

"Aye, and take more in tax."

"No taxes," I said. "You'll be serving the people. You won't pay tax."

''Your friend Godale agree to this, has he?''

Be creative, he had said. So I was.

"These people are a scum of vagabonds," said Father.

"Not all of them," I countered. "The women and children..."

"Whores and thieves," said Father.

"Because they are hungry," I said.

"Because they are wicked," said Father. "Your soul is in peril, Nicolas. You keep company with rioters, traitors and heretics. God's government has been given over to women, Jews and children. It isn't right. You should repent now before it is too late."

"This is the thirteenth century," I retorted loftily, "Not the Dark Ages. We don't believe this ancient superstition invented to keep the people suppressed and in check."

Father buried his face in his fingers.

''Look,'' I explained, ''I don't want Margaret to seize this place. You said my grandfather Thomas built this place as the People's Pub. Let it be that again. Let this tavern serve the people.''

He looked up at me slowly. ''Let her seize it. You think I want it? You think I want to keep this place? It's brought us nothing but trouble. It's not called The Mischief for nothing.'' He poured another drink. ''Do what you like with it.''

''It will give you a purpose,'' I said, ''You and Mother.'' I gestured towards the kitchen. ''God's teeth, she's going mad. She's turning into Martha. All she does is rock that cradle and sing.''

He turned the mug round in his hands. ''I don't know how to help her.''

''Drinking all day won't help her,'' I said. ''Let me get Meg back and she can run the Penny Kitchen with you.''

''Do what you like,'' he said again.

I shook my head. The air was stale. I left him leaning on the bar and went to see Meg. Her father's house was one of those we wanted to demolish. It was a small hovel in a dark alley behind St Lawrence's Church, one room with a hard earth floor and no windows, a crooked chimney and roof tiles, most of which had slipped out of position, spattered with bird droppings.

Inside it was dark and smoky. There were two wooden chairs and a table, a few battered tin pots, a truckle bed covered in a blanket which Meg shared with her father. I shuddered at the thought. He was in his forties, a gong-farmer who eked out a living by emptying other people's privies and cleaning the shit-brook. His wife had died of cholera. His other children had succumbed to influenza and accidents, his only son being run over by a charging horse at the age of seven. He had apprenticed Meg to us and taken to drink. He seemed to eat scraps from other people's pig-bins. Gabriel Slater was just the kind of crushed, down-trodden individual our revolution was trying to help. I put this to Meg as I outlined my plans.

''Soup, bread and ale for half a penny. We can feed the poor for next to nothing. We're doing God's work, right here, right now. We're building the new Jerusalem. Jesus would be proud.''

''You've changed,'' she said.

''How so?'' I hadn't noticed.

''More confident, more certain, more passionate.'' She stared at the fire. ''I don't know. Something's different about you.''

''Will you come?'' She hesitated. ''What have you got to lose?'' I said.

And so The Mischief became a haven for the hungry. Meg made soup twice every day and soon we were feeding as many as forty women and children at each sitting. The churches of St Giles and St Gregory in Pottersgate, and The Cock and Cow in Barleymarket Yard followed our lead and the Penny Kitchens became my single greatest innovation. However it became clear at a council meeting that we were running short of money. Godale and Kerbroke were reluctant to increase taxation and customs duties, Margaret reported that the kitchen gardens were producing at almost full capacity and the Cathedral's treasures were almost exhausted.

"In that case, we must produce more food by seizing all land and turning it over to agriculture," said le Brun. "We must close all the churches and sell their property."

Kerbroke looked at his fingernails. "I have a suggestion," he said. "If we are short of money, why don't we seize the property of the Jews?"

There was an intake of breath. Reuben blushed and looked at the table.

"Abraham Deulecresse owns most of the market area. Confiscate it."

"The greatest achievement of this government," said Henry Godale carefully and quietly, "Is the fact that it consists of men, women and boys, of Christians and Jews, the fact that we are all sitting together and working together for the collective good. We are the first truly representative government in the history of the western world. We will not throw that away by going after the Jews. That's what le Spicer did."

"But...," said Brun, "It doesn't prevent us borrowing money from Deulecresse." He smiled. "The Jews are represented here, by Reuben. So can we not go to him for... ah... a contribution?"

So Abraham Deulecresse joined the government as Paymaster General and everything was good. Scot and Giffard had reinvented the watch and installed officers who patrolled at night to ensure that the watchmen were not sleeping, drinking or playing dice. Payne and Kerbroke were regulating the market and organising workers into unions, called guilds, which would represent and regulate each trade's interests. Business on the quayside was flourishing. The land of the Prior's fee and that out near Carrow Abbey had been put to crop-growing. Le Blunt was teaching forty poor children to read and write and in the evenings some twenty-five adults. Jay was improving working conditions in the tanneries and masonries. Reuben was employing Dominican friars alongside his own father to work in the Great Hospital with victims of cholera and consumption and was building his leper clinics outside the gates. Heylesdon's great clearance was under way, the Benedict's cockey and Muspole Lake clean for the first time in living memory and refuse pits being dug all over the city. And I had my Penny Kitchens which fed dozens a day. Slowly, but surely, our city was becoming a heaven on earth, the New Jerusalem.

One evening I walked with Meg to the Chapel in the Field. We sat together on the grass and watched as the gilding sun dipped over our city and made the spires glow rich and warm.

"This city is going to be so wonderful," I said, "The greatest place on earth. I'm so happy right now." We had grown up together, me the innkeeper's son and her the apprentice maid and cook my mother had taken in all those years ago. I half-turned towards her. ''I love you, Meg. Not as a sister...but...'' I glanced back at the sunset. ''More than....that... you know.''

''I love you too,'' she muttered, "I always have."

I chose my next words carefully. ''You remember the day of the Trinity Fair? When Adam was killed?'' She nodded. ''You remember..... in The Mischief....'' I had a lump in my throat. ''What happened? I... didn't understand...what I did...''

''You reminded me of my father,'' she said. ''It's what he does.''

There were a million things to say but I said none of them. Suddenly I could not imagine my life without her. I remembered Adam of Newton's words, just before he had died. ''Marry Meg,'' he had said. ''She'll make you happier than that snooty Swerdestone bitch ever could.''

"Marry me," I said. Her jaw fall open. "We're both fourteen. We're old enough." I gazed across the golden cityscape. "I have property - who's my father going to leave The Mischief to? I have a job. Citizen Commissioner for Social Welfare. I'm changing things in Norwich, Meg, and I want you by my side, for always."

"Yes," she said and kissed me tenderly on the lips.

20. Trial

I went home on Saturday night and slept late into Sunday morning. I was woken gently by a shaft of sunlight streaming through the straw, smothering my face in warmth. As I yawned and opened my eyes lazily, I became aware of a weight on my shoulder. I smiled. Meg was still there. We had celebrated our engagement twice and then slept in each others' arms. I stroked her rough, ruddy cheek with a finger then gently kissed her soft brown curls before planting a peck on her funny snub nose. Was she beautiful? I was beginning to think so. I lay back, her head on my chest, and thought about the future, the wedding conducted by Stephen le Blunt, the party held at this first Penny Kitchen, the first child baptised in St Clement's Church. Would I make a good father? I was young in age but old in experience. I had led a revolution and governed a city.

Suddenly Bart was in the doorway. "Nick. You must come instantly. All hell's breaking loose. Citizen Brun is ordering mass arrests."

''What is it? What's happening?'' murmured Meg sleepily.

''Nick!'' Bart sounded scandalised. ''You slept with Meg? With Meg? Like man and wife? She's like your sister. Does your father know?''

''My father's so drunk these days he knows nothing,'' I snapped as I dressed, ''And my sister's dead.''

''Nicky... come back to bed. It's Sunday. Nicky...., '' Meg sat up, saw Bart and pulled the blanket up to cover her breasts. ''Bart. God save you.''

''Morning, Meg.'' Bart stared fixedly at the plastered wall. ''God save you too.''

Once I'd dressed, I kissed Meg on the cheek. ''I'll be back soon,'' I said, ''I promise. Don't go away. We have unfinished fun for the whole afternoon.''

''Nicolas Bromholm,'' Bart scolded, ''You'll go to hell.''

''Never done it, have you, Bart?'' I said, as we strode towards the market. ''When you do, you'll see it's totally worth it.''

Brun was raging in the Tollhouse. Grim-faced Godale sat nearby. It seemed that William Giffard had intercepted a letter from the deposed city councillors to the king asking for aid. Ely, Mulbarton, le Spicer and Swerdestone had accused Giffard and Pevensie of siding with the rebels and the rebels of seizing the Priory, arresting the Bishop and sacking the city. Most of what Jan Russ and his men had done was attributed to us. For example, the bailiffs accused Godale and Brun of burning Cutler's home, destroying The Mischief and beating the people.

"There is a plot against our lives, our town!'' stormed Brun. ''The merchants and traders have conspired against us! They have sold us out to the King and hired assassins to kill us!"

"I have drawn the warrants as you requested." Simon Palmer looked tired.

"How many?"

"Seventy."

"That seems too few," Godale murmured. "Have you got all the landowners, merchants and city officials?"

"That will be hundreds of people," said Palmer.

"We must be strong when traitors take the field," retorted Brun. "They are our enemies. They are the enemies of the people. They will always be reactionary, always hinder our plans." He looked out of the window. "We cannot build the new order until the old is utterly destroyed."

"But all these people! Merchants. Lawyers. Clerks. Landowners." Palmer spread his hands. "These people will be needed to build the new order."

"We have no need of traitors, Simon." Godale said quietly. "Do you imagine for one moment that the forces of reaction would treat us any differently? They would hang us without a second thought."

Palmer sighed heavily. "The warrants will be drawn. The charge will be conspiracy against the people." He glanced at Brun. "Will you sign them?"

"I will," said Brun. He slammed his fist into his palm. "Now we have them, Henry. Now at last we have them, and they will feel the full force of the law. If only Simon de Montfort were here. This time we shall not fail."

Ely, Mulbarton, le Spicer and Swerdestone were duly brought before the People's Court. A jury was sworn and Brun, Godale and le Blunt set themselves up as a prosecuting triumvirate.

Ely and Mulbarton were aggressively arrogant, refusing to recognise the right of the court. Ely blustered and threatened revenge whilst Hugh de Mulbarton sneered icily at the peasant classes empowered.

"Who the hell do you people think you are? A scum of craftsmen, jugglers and boys. How dare you sit in judgement over me. How dare you hold me against my will. I am appointed by the King and the King is appointed by God."

"We have been here before," Brun said wearily. "Have you anything new to say, Master Mulbarton? Or will you just parrot phrases like the arch-traitor de Skerning?"

"You can go fuck yourself, Geoffrey le Brun," spat Ely. "We do not answer to you, or to your rabble."

"No," said Brun softly, "You answer to the People."

The jury found them guilty and condemned them to death. Ely swore copiously and violently as he was bundled out of the court. Mulbarton simply looked superior. I saw his son lurking in the back of the room and pointed a finger yelling "There's another! That's his son! He's another!"

Henry hid behind Nathaniel Palmer as John Scot moved towards him.

"Citizen Bromholm," said Godale, "What is the charge?"

"Henry Mulbarton is an enemy of the people," I yelled. "He conspires against us."

"You little shit," gasped Henry as John Scot pinioned his arms. "You little shit."

Scot slapped his face. "Show respect to the People's Commissioner."

"People's commissioner? People's Commissioner?" Henry was struggling. "He's nothing but a scrawny little bastard who lives in a pub."

Brun grunted. "But a scrawny little bastard who saved and now serves this city. What have you ever given the people? How have you ever served?"

Henry Mulbarton fell silent. He had done nothing. He was a selfish, spoiled little rich kid who had got around by bullying others. And now he was done for.

"You will die with your father," declared Geoffrey Brun.

It was as simple as that, the Settling of Scores. The People named the criminals, the court condemned them to death. Bartholomew Jay called Alfred Cutler on grounds of exploitation.

"Alfred Cutler, merchant," began Geoffrey Brun, "You stand before the People's Court accused of treason, namely that you have run a private business, employing persons at a rate of pay lower than the profit you yourself have made."

"Of course," replied Cutler. "I take the risks. If I import something and it fails to sell, my business loses money. My profits decrease."

"What happens then?" asked Stephen le Blunt.

"My people lose their jobs," said Cutler.

"And you lose your house?" asked Godale.

"Well, no," said Cutler. "My house is secured through insurance against such losses."

"And the houses of your workers?" Godale.

"Well," replied Cutler, "That's their concern."

"With respect," said Brun dangerously, "That is your concern. You are their employer. You have a duty of care."

"I give them jobs and an income," Cutler answered angrily. "Isn't that enough?"

Godale laughed. "But if you fail, they lose everything. They invest their entire lives and those of their families in the success of your business." He looked at his fingernails. "You don't feel they should be compensated for this risk by a higher rate of pay?" Cutler said nothing. "You have never thought, for instance, of taking your workers into partnership as, say, shareholders who bear the risk equally with you and share the profits equally too?"

"No," said Cutler.

"And let me tell you why," said Brun. "It is because you would have to share your profits. You have become rich because you keep your workers as wage slaves dependent on you for a crust of bread. You have profited at the expense of your workers, built your business empire on their backs, poured money into your own coffers whilst your work force went hungry through the winter. You knew that food was scarce and prices high yet you refused to raise your wage and, at the same time, you supported the City Council's decision to increase taxation and the price of fuel. You collaborated with the ruling class to impose greater suffering and injustice. You collaborated with the ruling class to reduce men and women, human beings, to rags, the streets, and charity." Brun banged his fist on the table. "This court finds you guilty as charged and condemns you to death. Take him down."

"Blimey," said Bart, "I only wanted him to stop fiddling with me in the night."

There was a murmur of dissatisfaction around the court room. Some people muttered that he'd been attacked by le Messer, that he had helped take the Priory, that he was 'one of us'. Brun retorted that they were only with us to defeat us, the enemy within.

"All lawyers, clerics, traders, all money-lenders and usurers who sell money for interest and profit, buying souls with loans and deals, all property owners who make their wealth from trading in a basic human need, all must answer to the People's Court," he declaimed.

"You can't hang them all! " cried Kerbroke. "It's monstrous!"

"Is it monstrous to wipe out our oppressors?" Brun challenged. "We are fighting for our very lives, fighting for our rights as human beings. We are created equally, dying equally and therefore living equally."

"But you'll have a bloodbath," said Kerbroke.

"What are a few hangings, what is this bloodbath, compared to the bloodbath and the hangings that will come if we fail?" said Brun. "For if we fail, they will destroy us utterly. Make no mistake about that. So the counter-revolution must be broken before it can begin. Bring in the arch-traitor le Spicer."

It was a month after the revolution, Day Twenty-Seven of the First Year of the People, September 5th 1272. Adam le Spicer, once Mayor of Norwich, stood before us, grey-haired but defiant, in a simple brown tunic and heavy manacles. His no-longer-so-giddy daughters sat in the public gallery with Matilda of Swerdestone and Nathaniel Palmer, whose father wrote the notes.

''Adam the Spicer,'' said Brun, ''The grocer turned mayor.''

''I refuse to recognise the authority of this court,'' le Spicer announced.

''You are compelled to do so by force of arms,'' countered le Brun, ''Just as we were compelled to recognise your court and your laws by the same force.''

''Master Lebrun...,'' began le Spicer impatiently.

''Not Master! We have no masters here.'' Brun cut him off. ''We have no titles. There is no hierarchy. Here we are all equals before the law.''

''Citizen Brun, then,'' said le Spicer with heavy irony. ''Your court has no authority under the law of the land.''

''This court has the authority of the people,'' said Brun. ''That is the only authority it needs. It has been appointed by the people for the people.'' He paused. ''Your courts did not work that way, did they? Who appointed you magistrate? The King. And who elected him? Not me. Not any of us. You and your fellow judges had no right to sit and pass sentence over us because you did not represent us. You represented the monarch. And if we recognise no monarch, your position is worthless.'' Brun glared at le Spicer, then composed himself. ''But we are wasting time on tattle. Adam Le Spicer. You stand before the People's Court charged with treason. You took upon yourself the leadership of the community. You failed in that great responsibility.''

''Failure is not a crime,'' said le Spicer mildly.

''But the consequences of your failure...,'' Godale murmured.

''You failed to protect us from the ravages of the clergy,'' said Brun. ''Your failure cost the lives of two men. Your failure led to untold destruction and suffering. You contributed through your weakness and the ineffectiveness of your leadership to the poverty and the persecution of many people.''

''I did my best to avoid bloodshed,'' said le Spicer. ''Everything in my power was attempted to reach a peaceful settlement.''

''Your programme of conciliation gave the Prior time to strengthen and gather his forces.''

''That was not my intention,'' le Spicer said softly.

''You struck a secret pact with the Prior to save your own miserable neck and preserve your own office and, given the chance, you would seize control of everything we have won.''

Le Spicer said nothing.

''Your silence is eloquent, Citizen,'' said le Brun.

''My motives were always ... compassionate.''

Brun struck the table with his hand. ''Compassionate? Compassionate? Compassionate to whom? Certainly not for the hundreds of people who toiled in the fields. Certainly not for the hundreds who starved in the streets. Certainly not for the hundreds begging for alms. Compassion. You dishonour the very word.''

''You mean to kill me,'' said Adam le Spicer. ''I must die so your revolution can be completed. Well, so be it. If my death will lead to a better life, then I am willing to die. But my death will lead to your own, Master Brun, and to all of those who sit in this room. My death will lead to a whirlwind of vengeance and the guilt will be on your heads!''

''Guilt?'' screamed Brun. ''Guilt? It is you who are guilty, Master le Spicer. You. Guilty of conspiracy. Guilty of treason. Guilty of counter-revolution. You, my fine friend, are guilty as charged, and you must die! Take him away!''

The executions began. Ely and Mulbarton died badly. They swung from the Tombland gallows the next morning, Ely with a curse on his lips and Mulbarton fighting with his captors. I watched as Alfred Cutler was hanged. Bart was pale and twitchy.

''You condemned him,'' I said sourly.

''He used to visit me in the night,'' Bart whispered, ''Make me do things. I wanted him to stop but I never wanted him dead.''

Too late, I thought as John Scot kicked away the stool and Cutler slowly strangled.

Then Henry Mulbarton, weeping, pleading, begging, was dragged to the scaffold.

''Please,'' he begged, ''Please. I never did nothing.'' He saw me in the crowd. ''Nick. Nicolas. Tell them. They listen to you. Tell them...'' They looped the noose round his neck as he blubbed and cried. ''What did I ever do to deserve this? What did I ever do to you?'' For a moment, I felt sorry for him. After all, he was a rich man's son. He had just played his part. Then I remembered the scorns and insults, the countless cuffs, the slaps and kicks, and my heart hardened. I remembered what he had done to me. He was a bully. He deserved to die.

Scot kicked away the stool and Henry Mulbarton dangled in space, legs thrashing, face purpling, hands clawing at the rope choking his throat. As he pissed and shat in his pants, I turned away. I was glad he was dead. ''Bastard,'' I spat, and danced a little jig. As I twisted, a shadow fell across mine and my knees turned to jelly. It was Matilda, and she was crying.

21. Duty

SHE was dressed in her best finery, a long, flowing, lavender-coloured dress and a white silk veil covering her golden hair.

''Nicolas,'' she sobbed, and my heart melted.

''Come to my office,'' I blurted, ''In the Close. We can talk there.''

The almoner's house looked over a grassy lawn in the middle of the Cathedral Close so to get to it we had to pass through the ruins of the Ethelbert Gate. They had long since stopped smoking but much of the cream-coloured stone was stained black with soot. The skeletal wreck of the church itself stood as monument to our revolution. Some shattered fragments of coloured glass still remained embedded in their stone frames and charred beams still lay across chunks of rubble. The Cathedral itself had escaped that destruction but it had been emptied of its treasures.

I escorted Matilda across the dry grass to the flint-studded, two-floored building. We made polite conversation about the weather and avoided politics altogether. The office on the second floor was empty.

''Welcome to my work-place,'' I announced. It was a long, rectangular space with windows on both sides and a large fireplace at the far end. There were three heavy, wooden desks and a number of chests. The desks were covered with parchments, quills, pots of ink, seals and ribbons. Matilda glanced through the windows on her right, the windows that afforded a view of the Upper Close, Ethelbert's church, the smoking remains of the bell tower and the battlements from which the Prior's men had bombarded us. She seemed to shudder.

''The other windows look over the Cloisters,'' I said lamely. ''You can see the monastery orchard. There are pear trees and cherry trees. It's very nice.''

''Which is your desk?'' she asked. I indicated the one by the fireplace. She crossed the rug, sat in my chair and removed her veil. Her hair tumbled free in a shower of gold. My heart thudded into my throat. God, she was so beautiful.

''That's Reuben's desk,'' I croaked, ''And that's Henry de Heylesdon's. We decided this would be a good place to bring the social services departments together. The other rooms are used by our clerks, waiting rooms or for storage.''

''You have a clerk?'' she murmured. Actually, I had two. ''You're proud of your work?'' She leafed through some papers.

''Of course.'' I started to list our achievements but she waved her hand wearily.

''I hate this revolution,'' she said. ''Hate it. Everything has changed. People have changed. You have changed.''

''We have control now!'' I protested. ''We are in charge! No more masters!''

''Except Citizen Brun and his Citizens' Council,'' she said dryly. ''They....'' She corrected herself sadly. ''You... are the masters now.''

''At least we're doing things,'' I argued. ''Building houses, clearing slums, healing the sick, helping the poor...''

''Killing Ely, killing...Henry...'' She choked, dabbed her eyes with a little lace handkerchief, gathered herself again. ''We were engaged to be married,'' she said. I reddened and stared at the soot-stained back of the brick fireplace. There was nothing I could say. 'Sorry' would be absurd. After all, I had just danced at his execution. ''You weren't to know,'' she continued, dabbing her eyes again. ''I don't suppose you saw the notice. You'd be too busy.''

I thought of Henry Mulbarton, tall, broad-chested, brawny, a nose like a chisel, stupid blond curls, cock of the walk, slapping my face, beating up Bart, tossing me in the Shitbrook...

''Did you love him?'' I asked.

''I guess,'' she replied. ''It was arranged by our fathers but he was good to me.''

''He was nasty and vicious,'' I snapped. ''He beat my dog, he beat my friend and he used to beat me.''

''He made me daisy chains and stroked my hair,'' said Matilda.

''Well,'' I said brutally, ''He's swinging out there in the breeze and as far as I'm concerned, it's the best place for him.''

She regarded me for a long moment. It was difficult to read her deep blue eyes. ''You have changed,'' she remarked eventually. ''You've turned into Geoffrey Lebrun.'' She got up from my chair and walked round the desk. ''So you hated my husband-to-be, but what of my father? He too is condemned to die. This evening, at sunset, my father will also be swinging in the breeze, as you so tactfully phrased it.''

I had not waited for the verdict on Roger de Swerdestone or even stayed to hear his trial. Something had drawn me away, Meg waiting at home perhaps, or maybe not wanting to see Matilda's face, feel her anger, her sorrow, her pain when he was found guilty.

She stroked my face. Her fingers felt like silk. ''You are an important man, Nicolas. Brun and Godale, they listen to you. You can stop it. You can save him. If you want to.''

I had a rock in my throat. ''I can't interfere with a legal process.'' God, her skin was like alabaster, so white and smooth. ''Matilda...''

''I know you have feelings for me,'' she purred, ''That you...desire me. Save my father and you shall have me. '' She moved her hand over my neck and onto my chest. I felt the blood surge through my loins. My throat felt dry and scratchy. Clumsily, I stroked her hair. She pressed her body against mine and looked up at me. ''Your eyes are so dark,'' she breathed, ''Like coals.'' She put her hand on my cock and squeezed. ''My, he's hard and ready,'' she breathed. Oh God, yes. Ready to explode. Then we kissed. I tasted milk and honey, sweet perfume. When I had kissed Meg, I had tasted garlic and beer. But that might have been me. She had never said.

Matilda broke away, stepped back, shook her wonderful hair and pulled at the ribbons on her dress. Take me, Nicky. Right here, right now.'' Her hair fell on either side of her face but I wasn't looking at that. I was looking at her breasts, now fully exposed to my transfixed stare. ''I never loved Henry,'' she was saying, somewhere a million miles away, ''It was always you, Nicky, you, always you. But my family said no.'' They were smooth and round, like porcelain dumplings. And so white, so unbelievably white. Meg's were dun. My legs shook and she moved purposefully towards me. ''Take me, Nick, take me now.''

Oh, yes! Yes, yes, yes!

As I was fumbling at my buttons, she slid down my body to kneel at my feet, lips parting, hand reaching, tongue teasing... I could feel her hot breath on my

The door behind me opened. Matilda squeaked, and closed her dress.

''Citizen Bromholm!''

I cleared my throat. ''Citizen Heylesdon. Good day to you.''

Henry de Heylesdon strode across the room to his desk, tactfully averting his eyes from the hurriedly dressing girl by the hearth. ''Have you finished your monthly accounts yet?''

''Errr...m,'' I haven't finished anything, thanks to you, or even started yet, I thought.

''The council meets this afternoon to draw up plans for the general election. Which leet will you represent?'' Henry picked some papers off his desk.

''Errrrmmm...'' General Election or General Erection? I blinked and pulled myself together.

''Coslany, perhaps?''

''Errrr....''

Matilda replaced her veil and scuttled towards the door. Her skin was not so white now. In fact she looked as though she were burning inside. ''Good day,'' she stammered, ''To you both.'' She paused in the doorway. ''I will come to your home,'' she told me, ''Later tonight.''

No, I thought, for God's sake don't. Meg Slater will kill you.

Henry raised an eyebrow. ''The daughter of the arch-traitor Swerdestone, I believe.''

''Damn you, Henry,'' I said, refastening my flies. ''I've been after that girl for years.''

''Snooty bitch,'' said Henry, glancing at another paper. ''You'll have the Spicer girls round here next. They're a feisty pair.''

Trying not to think about Matilda's feisty pair, I returned to my desk and considered the elections. Everyone over the age of 14 and who had lived in Norwich for more than three years was entitled to vote. The city had been divided into wards, or leets, and anyone was entitled to stand. The person who received the most votes would represent their leet on the city council. Voting would take place over an entire day. Because not everyone could read, each voter would go to a designated place in the leet and tell a supervisor the name of their choice. The supervisor would mark it down and tally up the totals. They would be called 'tellers' because people would tell them their choices. The whole occasion would be policed by the hundred soldiers from the Castle under Pevensie's management. On the day before the election, all the candidates would speak at a muster in the leet and explain why they would be the best representative. The elections had been called for Michaelmas Day, September 25th. They would be our greatest achievement, a truly democratic and representative government for our city. Brun had decided to contest Conesford, Godale Timber Hill, le Blunt Parmentergate, where he had his church, and Jay Westwyk. I had more or less decided to stand in Coslany. I had done much to clear it up and make it better. I thought I had a good chance of winning. After all, who would oppose us?

I did a little paperwork, signed some money over to Mad Martha and a destitute family in Elm Hill and then headed off to the Great Hospital to join Reuben in opening a new ward. He was going to contest the Castle Meadow leet, part of the Jewish area.

As I left, Henry Heylesdon said ''She thinks you'll save her father.''

''She does.''

''You can't betray us for a poke,'' he said, ''Even with a snooty bitch.''

I laughed uneasily and stepped out into the sun. Matilda had made a very strong play for me. I had forgotten about Meg almost completely, except to compare her negatively, and what if we had done it? What then? How could I save her father? What would I say? Although I had cursed Henry Heylesdon at the time, the more I pondered on the possible outcomes, the more I began to see his untimely entrance as a blessing. He had prevented me from making an untimely entrance of my own.

I was surprised to find Sally Simpson and Rebekah the Redelees at the hospital with Reuben, whom I greeted with a handshake. He was dressed in black as usual, a black skullcap clipped to his greasy black hair. God, he looked cheerful.

We went round the beds shaking hands, exchanging words, offering prayers. Some of the patients clapped. Someone cried ''God bless you, Master Bromholm. And God bless Geoffrey Brun.''

Before our revolution, these sick people would have been begging from the gutter. Now they were in a hospital cared for by nurses. Sally Simpson and Rebekah had volunteered to help.

''Does that mean you've given up prostitution?'' I asked Rebekah.

''Why?'' She stroked my face. ''Are you worried I won't be there for you and your friends when you're big enough to appreciate me?'' I blushed and was about to ask what she meant when a bed-ridden woman with a massive swelling on her neck cried out for a drink. Rebekah left me, picked up a pot of boiled water and went to her aid.

'Water?'' I said to Reuben.

''If you boil it,'' he said, ''You kill most of the bad stuff.''

''How do you know that?'' I asked.

''Basic science,'' he shrugged. ''Nothing can live in boiling water.''

Our revolution was saving lives. I clapped him on the shoulder. ''Citizen Jacobson, I applaud your brilliance.''

The hospital was a truly great achievement. The nurses took the patient's clothes away to be boiled, dressed them in simple shifts then put them to bed in large, airy, well-lit rooms with two or three others. The floor was swept and washed twice a day and the bed sheets changed and washed twice a week in accordance with Reuben's belief that cleanliness aided recovery and supported good health. The patients were fed on pottage twice a day and given mutton on Tuesdays and Sundays. They also got a gallon of ale a week. They had herbal baths and their hair and beards were trimmed every Saturday. It was all free. The city paid out of the taxes it collected.

''This is what they do in civilised countries,'' said Reuben. ''I read it about somewhere.''

Medicine, it seemed, was not all about star-gazing, bleeding and enemas.

After the opening, Reuben and I met Bart and walked by the river. Once upon a time we had lived like boys, fishing off the wharf, chasing rats with Sam, eyeing up girls, getting drunk and mooning the watchmen, yelling abuse at the whores and the elderly, stealing fruit from Kerbroke's stall, getting beaten.... That is how we had started the summer of 1272. It seemed so long ago. We ended up at the newly reopened stew, the public bathhouse near the Madder Market. The Prior had closed it down after the floods saying public nudity and public bathing encouraged 'licentious behaviour'. It was true that girls circulated with ale and snacks, but only in the closed rooms frequented by the likes of the late Mulbarton and Ely. The public rooms were strictly single-gender. Reuben had persuaded me of the health benefits of steam so I had reopened it, charging customers two pence per hour to cover the cost of the wood and the employment of two men and two women to tend the fires and look after the premises.

''Matilda de Swerdestone came to see me,'' I told my friends as we undressed. ''She wants me to save her father.''

''Bollocks,'' said Bart, piling his shirt and trousers on the bench. ''Let him swing.''

''She was going to suck my cock.''

''Bollocks,'' said Bart again, but in a different tone of voice.

''Should've let her do it,'' Reuben said, ''And then let her father swing.''

We pushed open the door into the steam room. There were two or three grizzled old men sitting on the benches, their faces brick-red and sweating. The scent of eucalyptus hung in the damp air. The heat hit me like a wall. We nodded greetings and slumped on another bench close to the circular iron door of the furnace.

''Henry Heylesdon interrupted us,'' I continued.

''Bollocks,'' said Bart for a third time.

''You know, Bartholomew,'' I said sarcastically, ''Your vocabulary is expanding by the minute. I was unaware of how many different ways one could say the same word.''

But he was not listening. He was staring into space. ''Bollocks,'' he said again.

I ignored him and confided my fears to Reuben, how I had been so tempted, so willing to go with her, not to save her father, but for my own lust, to prostitute the girl I adored and then betray her. Maybe she loved me after all.

''I think Bartholomew speaks for everyone concerning that issue,'' said Reuben. ''She was just trying to use you.''

''Feminine wiles,'' muttered Bart. ''I'll go see her if you don't want to cheat on Meg.''

Meg. Shit. I hadn't thought of her. What kind of bastard did that make me, led by my prick and not by my heart? Her father would die. Not that I cared. But I cared for Matilda. Or did I? Was it lust, or was it love?

''God's teeth,'' I cursed, ''I'm so confused.'' The sweat ran down my face.

Reuben patted me gently on the shoulder. ''He told me you coupled with Meg. Was it so bad you want to couple with Matilda now?''

''No,'' I said, ''It wasn't bad... it was ..great...''

''So two girls would be greedy.'' Reuben smiled. ''You could give one to Bart. He needs to do it soon, or his balls will explode.''

Bart whimpered a confirmation. The sweat was beginning to trickle down my face and body. It stung my eyes, making me blink. My skin felt as though it were being scraped off with a knife.

''What would you do?''

''Poke her,'' said Reuben, ''And then let him hang.''

''That's so dishonest,'' said Bart.

Reuben shrugged. ''He's going to hang anyway. You think Geoffrey Brun will let him go just because you poked his daughter? You might as well get something for yourself.''

''Aye,'' said Bart, flicking perspiration from his fingertips. ''She won't couple with you when he's gone.''

We lapsed into silence for a while. We could hear the wood crackling and spitting in the furnace. The older men left. Water hissed into steam. We played some two-dice hazard, then cross or pile with a silver penny Reuben had got from a patient whose sore throat he had cured.

''I know about this,'' Bart said eagerly. ''Mistress Cutler had a sore throat once and the master and I had to make the medicine.'' Reuben raised an eyebrow. ''Catching the cat was the hardest part.'' Both eyebrows. ''And finding bear-fat.'' My eyebrows joined Reuben's somewhere near the ceiling as Bart detailed the cure for a sore throat Cutler's physician had prescribed. They had had to mix up a concoction of bear-fat, hedgehog grease, the heads of three fat bats fried in butter, sage, resin, candle wax and honeysuckle gum and stuff it inside a ginger cat from which all the guts had been drawn. Then they had to roast the cat and anoint Mistress Cutler's throat with the dripping.

''How long did it take you?'' asked Reuben.

''Days,'' said Bart.

''Did it work?'' I asked.

''No,'' said Bart. We all laughed.

''God Almighty, Bart, where do you get this stuff from?'' I spluttered.

''Wormwood in water,'' said Reuben, rolling the dice for seven. ''That's the cure. Wormwood in water. Basic science.'' He said he had asked for a meeting with Henry Godale and Abraham Deulecresse. He wanted to establish a clinic where women could have babies in safety. It was part of a plan we had devised together to make absent fathers pay for the maintenance of their children and open an orphanage. Reuben believed that lots of hot water and plenty of towels would help reduce the infant mortality rate.''

''How do you know so much?'' I asked admiringly.

''Basic science,'' he said again. ''You should be pleased. The way you're behaving, you'll need a baby clinic.''

''Oh, ho ho ho,'' I said, ''You're so funny. Not.'' To hell with Roger de Swerdestone. And Matilda. What we were doing was good for everyone. We could not let him and others like him stand in our way. ''Come on,'' I said jovially, ''Let's go to The Mischief and get some ale. Celebrate my engagement.''

''You asked her father?'' Reuben blew sweat-beads from his nose and heaved himself off the bench. I had never seen him naked before. He was so thin and bony.

''Was he sober enough to understand what you said?' asked Bart. He knew about Gabriel Slater. Everyone knew about Gabriel Slater.

''You must be mad,'' said Reuben. ''You'll have the town drunk as a father-in-law.''

''He'll be delighted, marrying his daughter into the pub trade,'' gasped Bart as we tipped buckets of freezing cold water over our heads. ''He'll move in. You'll never get rid of him.''

We washed our hair with shampoo made from olive oil and cinnamon, then combed it in the mirrors. We chewed fistfuls of aniseed and liquorice breath fresheners and sprayed ourselves with perfume of musk, cloves and nutmeg. When my father, and doubtless Reuben's complained about young people today spending too much time in front of the mirror, they were right, and a good thing too. We did not stink like our parents' generation.

''Think I'll visit Rowena Spicer,'' Bart said, examining his reflection. ''Have I got a pimple?''

''You are a pimple,'' said Reuben from the privy, which made me laugh heartily for the first time in weeks. ''What'll you get her to do?''

Bart grinned. ''Everything.''

''Aren't you afraid you'll go to Hell?'' I teased.

''Reckon I'm not,'' he replied, ''Not any more. Reckon I've done more good works than most. Reckon I'm safe.'' He started to dress. ''Besides, the aristocracy prostituting themselves for the likes of us... that's not going to last forever. Make the most and get a poke while you can, that's what I say.''

And with that philosophy ringing in our minds, we dried, dressed and left the stew.

# 

# 22. Siege

ON Holy Cross Day, we received word that an army was moving against us. Gerald de Kerbroke had seen them. They were camped about three miles from the south gate of the city. Hundreds of men, he claimed, lots of shining armour, plumed helmets, banners bearing a silver lion device, surcoats of white with red crosses emblazoned...

"These are crusaders," Godale said, "Crusaders of the King and led by Hugh Peeche. The silver lion is his device."

"What will he do?" Le Blunt glanced at Brun. "You know Peeche. What will he do?"

"He'll lay siege to the city," Brun replied. "They can't come through the east. It's all marshes and river and the north would be difficult, so he'll attack two points at once, south, at Berstrete or Conesford, and west, at Newport perhaps or Westwyk. Anywhere the ditch is shallow we need to defend." Brun sketched a rough map in the dust with his dagger's point. "Their priority will be to free the Bishop. Retaking the Cathedral has a symbolic value so that is where we will make our stand." He drove the dagger point into the dirt.

John Scot sent people out to muster the people, men and boys, to be sent to the city's nine gates in groups of thirty or forty. Although Brun and Godale felt confident that Peeche would drive through the south and south-west, it was believed that the whole ditch had to be defended too. The parties would be instructed to hold the gates but, if defeated, to fall back to Tombland and the Cathedral. Suddenly we were facing a grave crisis and we needed the people to come out and support us.

"Everything we have established here, everything we have fought for could be swept away in a matter of hours," said le Blunt urgently.

''Bart, bring Giffard and Pevensie,'' Brun instructed. ''Nick, go to Needham, Reuben, you take Westwyk.''

I went to Needham Gate at the south of the city. It was commanded by William Payne and John Grant. There were some thirty men and boys gathered nervously behind the four-foot high fence on top of the six-foot-deep ditch and the square, timber gate. They had maces, axes, knives and sticks.

"I'm not sure they can get in," said Payne.

''Whether they do or not,'' I said, ''We fight. We have achieved too much to let it go now.''

Away in the distance, we could see sunlight glinting on metal among low brown clouds of dust, could hear the thundering roll of horses' hooves, the blaring of trumpets, the beating of drums. I glanced at Payne. He scraped his throat with his fingernails and blinked. A few minutes later, the knights emerged from the horizon, seemingly growing out of the clouds, a line of silver and white, the red crosses stark and menacing against the white coats, like blood on snow, the helmets closed, spears and shields resting easily against the solid square forequarters of the black and brown horses. The line seemed to stretch forever.

I felt my bowels turn to water. I licked my lips and glanced at my companions. One small boy was glaring angrily into the sun and chewing his lower lip ferociously. A middle-aged man was crossing himself frantically, his cheeks trembling. Another man was sweeping sweat from his face with the back of his hand. Almost slowly, painfully slowly, a row of soldiers stepped from behind the cavalry.

"Archers!" yelled Payne. "Take cover!"

There was a whooshing sound and the sky grew dark as a thousand arrows lashed through the air. It seemed like a million screaming birds were swooping overhead. The thuds as they struck thundered in my ears. There was a lot of screaming. A man was struck across the forehead. A flap of bloody skin fell down over his eyes. He was howling that he'd been blinded. A child was hit in the hand. He was sitting on the embankment, his hand held out in front of him, blood dripping. The arrow pierced his palm, the iron tip poking between the first two knuckles.

More swishing sounded as more arrows were loosed. They fell again in an unrelenting hail of iron and wood, striking the turf, thudding into the timber, burying their heads in gate and ground. A teenage boy span round, a shaft through his thigh. A white-haired man took one in his chest and collapsed with a choked-off cry. In the silence that followed we could hear sobbing, praying and cursing. Some men attended to the fallen and then a knight emerged from the ranks and urged his white horse forward.

''In the name of the King!'' he cried. ''Sir Thomas Trivet approaches the people of Norwich to demand their surrender to His Majesty's mercy. Retreat from the gates, throw down your arms and allow us to enter. You have one hour to comply.''

To reinforce his message, three great catapults trundled forward.

''They'll smash our defences to pieces,'' said Payne.

''No surrender,'' I snarled, scrambling down the embankment.

It later emerged that the King's army had divided into four and camped outside four of our gates, making the same announcement at Needham, Berstrete, Westwick and Conesford.

''There are three thousand of them,'' explained Christopher Pevensie. ''That's about the half the population of the city. They aren't afraid of dividing their forces. They're planning to break through in four places and converge on the centre from four different directions.''

''Peeche is in command,'' said Brun. ''Who else?''

''Thomas Trivet, Ralph Bakpuz, Hervey Stanhow. King's men.'' Pevensie shrugged.

''Can we count on you?'' Godale demanded. ''On the garrison?''

''You're talking of less than a hundred men, Henry.'' Pevensie sighed. ''The castle's more a royal palace than a military base.''

Brun stood up. ''The people will fight, and they will prevail. What we have built, here in this city, what we have lifted up out of the dirt, with our own bleeding hands, will not be so easily taken. This is what we will do.''

He and Pevensie outlined his plans for the defence of our city and then dispatched carts carrying barrels of pitch, weapons, including pikes and billhooks, sharpened staves of wood, nails and broken glass to each gate. They also sent several nurses.

''We have been preparing for this for several weeks,'' said Pevensie. ''We knew this day would come.'' He glanced at Brun. ''We fought together for Simon de Montfort at the Battle of Evesham, and we lost. Seven years ago, our dreams were destroyed on that battlefield. But here, here in Norwich, we can live the dream again, and this time we can win.''

''The forces of conservatism,'' said Brun, ''The forces of reaction would never let us bring about change peacefully. They will never cede power voluntarily. To preserve our revolution, we must fight. It is the way they order the world. Go, and God be with you all.''

Godale slowly exhaled. ''Well,'' he said, ''Let's to it.'' He kissed me on the forehead and hugged Bart and Reuben and then he was gone, riding a white horse he had found somewhere in the Priory stables. I shook hands with Bart and Reuben. ''Good luck, boys.'' And we parted.

Godale and Jay were to take command at Ber Street, Payne and I were to command at Needham, Scot and Dyer would defend Chapelfield, Reuben and Henry de Heylesdon took Westwyk and Tofts and Benedicite took Conesford. Brun, le Blunt, Margaret Newton and Pevensie would remain in the Cathedral. Pevensie's garrison would circle Tombland whilst Giffard would hold the market and Skinner and Coventry would guard the river. I rode back to Needham on the cart with Sally Simpson and Rebekah. We exchanged few words. We knew this would be a fight to the death.

There were now about five hundred people gathered round the gate, a motley mix of elderly men, boys, women and young apprentices. Most of them were poor. I could tell by their clothes. Of the wealthy middle classes, the merchants and traders, there was no sign.

''It isn't enough,'' muttered Rebekah, glancing fearfully over the parapet.

''It's enough,'' I countered. ''Now let's get to work.''

At the end of the hour, Sir Thomas Trivet rode out again. ''I note your gates remain stubbornly closed,'' he said. ''You disappoint me. Archers! Loose!''

Arrows swished through the air again but this time they thudded harmlessly into thick wooden shields held over our heads. We had learned.

The rain of arrows was followed by an assault from the catapults. We huddled together against the bank of the ditch and heard the noise of huge rocks smashing into the ground, splintering the wall, tearing holes in the planks. They screamed in agony. A boulder ripped away the top of the gatehouse. The ten men we had stationed there were ripped away too.

More arrows hammered down. A man was caught in the shoulder. Sally went to his aid.

Then they charged. Hooves drummed the ground as horses gathered speed. We stood ready on the banks of the ditch, thirty men and boys facing a hundred armoured knights through the holes in our wall, and waited.

We watched them come closer, and closer, and closer. People around me crossed themselves. A little boy wet himself. An elderly woman prayed to herself. The horses came closer and closer and then, as the knights lowered their lances some fifty yards away, a miracle happened. The ground under their horses opened up and the Crusader cavalry descended into the pit dug days ago on Pevensie's orders. Limbs thrashed. Horses neighed. Men cursed. Legs broke.

''NOW!'' I screamed. ''FIRE!''

Behind me, Payne and his men unleashed a hail of arrows, crossbow bolts and a ballista we had taken from the mercenaries. Bricks and rubble, bolts and arrows whizzed and whooshed above our heads pounding the people down in the pit and mashing them into a mangled mass. We cheered and hugged and waved our hoods. It was a triumph. Some people wanted to rush out and finish them off.

''Hold!'' I shouted. ''Hold! Stay behind the defences. It isn't over yet.''

The Crusaders responded with more arrows and more blocks of stone whilst the remaining cavalry regrouped round the chaos. They sent men out to test the ground. We shot them down. Sir Thomas Trivet huddled with his commanders around their ballistas. I huddled with Payne round ours. The ten men killed in the gatehouse we could do nothing for. The two or three wounded were tended by Sally.

''How many do you think we got?'' asked Payne.

''Thirty, forty,'' I guessed. There had been a lot of horses in that pit. ''They'll come again.''

''That they will,'' he said, ''An' we be ready.'' He went off to inspect the next line of defence, the sharpened stakes down in the ditch.

They did send more cavalry. Riding in a wide arc to avoid more traps, they lowered their lances and charged once again. We let them come. We moved the women, the children and the elderly away from the wall, back behind the ditch, and let them come. I felt sorry for the horses. They had no control. They could only die. Like my Sam.

The knights whooped as they whirled through our wall, but the whoops turned to screams as they plummeted down to the stakes in the ditch five feet beneath. It was carnage. I saw a horse take a stake through its throat. It screamed and struggled and died. I saw a knight take a stake through his stomach. He screamed and struggled and died. But I could show neither weakness nor pity.

''NOW!'' I yelled, and fifty people set fire to the rags in their pitch-filled bottles and hurled them onto the thrashing bodies down in the ditch. The bottles burst into flames as they smashed on the armour. Fire flared up, orange tongues licking the sky. I heard someone scream. I heard horses cry. I heard groans and curses and I smelled burning flesh. Whether horses or knights, it smelled greasily fatty. People around me cheered again and watched with delight as the warriors battled the fire, figures aflame writhing and twisting in agonised throes. Those who had been lucky enough not to get hit scrambled up the bank and were shot or clubbed to death.

Thomas Trivet lost patience. His heavy cavalry had failed to intimidate us. They had failed to break us. They had been defeated. Now he sent his infantry against our gatehouse and a vicious hand-to-hand combat broke out.

"We can hold them!" yelled Payne. "We can fight them off. But we need more men! Get to the Priory and tell Scot we need reinforcements!"

I nodded and slid down the embankment. As I reached the junction of Needham Street and Wastelgate near the Horse Market, I realised that we were perhaps too late, that other gates had perhaps not managed to hold them off. There was fighting all around me. People and knights grappled in combat. Steel clashing and ringing. Cries of pain, cries of anguish, cries of triumph, cries of despair. A party of apprentices raced in from Durnedale. Most of them were bleeding. Then John Scot and a group charged in from the Chapel Field. Scot's arm was hanging uselessly by his side.

"They've broken through!" he gasped. "Godale's taken."

"Oh sweet Jesus! What went wrong?"

''What we feared,'' said Scot. ''People got over-excited, charged out through the fence and chased the knights back across the field. They got encircled and crushed.'' Scot leaned against a wall. "And I saw de Brunham. He's leading a force against the Priory." Scot winced as one of his men tied a splint to his elbow. "Get back and warn them. We'll have to fall back to Tombland but we'll hold them off as long as we can, give you time to prepare..."

More shouting and crashing, more pounding drums, more waving banners, and a knot of Crusaders crowded into the cobbled triangle where four streets met. Then I saw HIM. The small, brown pony beneath him danced sideways in its excitement. A large, wooden Cross bounced on his black-and-white habit. A sword waved in his hand. The evening sun gleamed blood-red on his scalp. He was back.

"That's John Scot, one of their leaders! Take him alive!" yelled Prior de Brunham.

"Never!" Scot shook my shoulder roughly. "Nicolas. Go! Raise up more people. Defend the Priory!"

I stared at de Brunham.

"Burn the houses!" he was screaming, "Burn them out! Bring me Brun and Godale alive!"

"Hold the Priory!" yelled Scot.

Suddenly Payne and others burst into the square. "We lost the gate! Knights came at our backs....surrounded us....."

"Take them!" yelled de Brunham. ''Seize them!''

"Nicolas! Go!" Scot pushed me hard in the back and I stumbled over the cobbles, lurching into Wastelgate as Payne and Scot picked up their billhooks and mattocks and turned grim-faced towards the armoured Crusaders.

I heard de Brunham yell "Attack!" and Scot bawl "For Norwich!" and then everything was lost in a cacophony of clashing and crying.

#

# 23. Night

AS we fell back through the streets towards the market, we covered our retreat in the way we had been instructed. We scattered broken glass and nails in the road to stop the horses, covered every grassy space with pitch that we could set on fire and set marksmen with crossbows in the upper storeys of the houses in Elm Hill, Ratun Rowe and Fishergate. We would draw them in, circle them and destroy them.

Rumours swept the city. Brun had been killed. Godale was captured. Jay and Kerbroke were dead. Reuben was dying. Le Blunt was a prisoner. It was getting dark. Twilight stalked the city streets. We made ourselves ready for a night assault but it did not happen. Instead, the Crusaders withdrew. They had clearly decided against spending a night in a hostile and unknown city surrounded by hostile and unknown forces. As they left, they ripped out our defences, broke down our walls, tore the stakes from our ditches, occupied our gatehouses and settled down to wait for the morning when they would attack again.

Inside the Cathedral Close, clumps of people huddled together in a makeshift camp. Mean little fires burned. Children played hopscotch. Men played skittles. Women sewed socks. I thought of my parents and my wife-to-be. Where the hell were they? And where was Matilda?

I went into my office and changed my tunic. It was stained with smoke and blood. I stripped it off, tossed it onto my desk and selected loose brown trousers, a loose-fitting white shirt with big sleeves and brown, leather boots. Tomorrow would be a fighting day, an all-or-nothing day. If only I could get an armoured breast-plate from somewhere, I would be ready when they came. I decided to steal one from a dead Crusader at first light.

The atmosphere inside the Cathedral itself was tense. Brun was not dead. Nor was le Blunt a prisoner. They were conferring with Pevensie at the altar.

''Clever,'' mused Pevensie. ''Get in, break us down, get out, come back later. Very clever. Hugh Peeche was always clever.''

''So what do we do?'' said le Blunt.

Pevensie shrugged. ''Stay in here and wait for them or go out to meet them.'' He nodded at me as I joined the group.

''Nicky,'' said le Blunt, ''Thank God you're alive. We lost Godale. He's captured. He was dragged down in Ber Street.''

''And Jay?''

''Ask him yourself,'' grinned le Blunt. I turned to see Bartholomew walking towards me, blood caked on his face from a cut on his brow and a blood-stained sword dangling from his hand.

''Bart!'' I embraced him, held him very close, slapped his back. ''I thought I'd lost you.''

''Takes more than a hand-to-hand sword fight with a massive Crusader army commanded by the most respected knight in England to get rid of me,'' he said.

''Reuben?''

''Tending the wounded in the Nave. He's with his father.'' Le Blunt stroked my hair then hugged us both to his chest. ''This is no battle for boys. You should go home.''

''This is a battle for our homes.'' Bart tossed his sword to the floor. ''Let these bastards come. We'll be ready.'' But I was not so sure. Every single face was lined with anxiety. Every single person seemed tired, drawn, pale and frightened.

Brun appointed a Military Council to advise him. He made Pevensie chairman and gave me, Bart, Paine and Scot seats on the committee. Except Scot was missing.

The people's army would defend the Fye Bridge and then draw the Crusaders into Tombland when the hundred-strong garrison would emerge from Palace Plain, surround them and force their surrender. They would be disarmed and sent from the City. We approved the idea gloomily then Bart and I went out into the Close. The night was cold and the conversations dispiriting. People were losing heart. People were starting to slip away.

Tofts, Knot, Skinner and Dyer were sharing a flask of wine, playing dice, recalling the Trinity Fair and considering how long their businesses might take to recover from 'the Troubles'. The Coventrys and the Scots were roasting some kind of bird in the embers of their fire. Agnes had her arm round her son, also named John. He was twelve and had been crying. Robert Coventry told him his father would be coming back soon. John just sniffed. Kerbroke scowled over the head of his sleeping son whilst Nathaniel Palmer, abandoned by his crowd of bullies now Mulbarton was gone, gulped and looked sick. Jacob the Dentist and other Jews huddled against a wall. They were discussing how the King's Army might deal with them. Jews were never popular at the best of times and Prince Edward Longshanks in particular had a seemingly visceral hatred of them. Jacob said they were fortunate he was off crusading in Palestine. Another Jew, Isaac Jurnet I think, laughed and added they were more fortunate King Henry owed so much money to Abraham Deulecresse.

Then there was the women's camp. Rebekah, Sally Simpson, Martha, Joan of Heylesdon, a bunch of others, housewives, nurses, nuns, prostitutes all together round a larger fire. Rebekah was saying she would die for the revolution. ''They treated me with respect,'' she explained, ''Gave me some dignity. Same with you, Sally, and you, Martha. They treated us well. If they lose, we will go back to where we were before.''

This was similar in a group that included Robert Fowler, Ranulph Fisher and John Weston, poor people from the Westwyk and Coslany slums who had once been thieves, gong-farmers and beggars but were now gainfully employed digging foundations, constructing homes and clearing cockeys, contributing to the community rather than harming it. What might happen to them?

Payne was knotting another bandage round his left arm and grinning fiercely at Grant. There was no way he was giving up. ''Not letting they bastards take my city,'' he said, and Grant agreed. They drank a large draught of wine and clapped hands.

''People face death in many different ways.'' Brun had joined us. ''Some will yell defiance and charge and meet it full-on. Some will take fright and try to flee. Some bleed quietly into the earth. Some scream and cry for a surgeon, or for their mothers. Some die well. Some die badly. Most die indifferently. It's what you die for that matters. You can make your death count. You can die as a slave or you can die as a free man.'' He smiled at us. ''How will you meet death when he comes for you?'' Bart gulped. ''I've seen death in many guises,'' Brun continued. ''Baghdad, Granada, Lewes, Evesham... so much death. Like Russ, I once fought for money. The biggest purse won my sword. But Simon de Montfort taught me to fight for something more, to fight for ideals, to fight for freedom and justice and truth. We won at Lewes, captured the King, captured Prince Edward, and introduced reforms, created a Parliament. But at Evesham he died. Simon died, and everything died with him.'' He sighed. ''I left the battlefield and crossed the country to Norwich where my uncle John was a priest. He built the Chapel-in-the-Field you boys are so fond of in 1248, and he managed to keep a distance between himself and this damned Priory.''

''What happened to him?'' I whispered.

''Oh, he died,'' said Brun simply. ''I was going to take over the chapel, go into the church myself, but Roger de Skerning, the Prior at the time, refused me. Said I was too...soaked in blood to be a good priest. Ironic, eh?'' He put one hand on my shoulder, the other on my friend's. ''You two have more honour and courage than most people I ever met. I am proud to know you and proud to have worked with you. Whatever happens tomorrow, it has been a glorious adventure, eh? Nicky? Bart? A glorious adventure.''

I wondered if the people sitting round their fires would agree. Without our revolution, they would be sleeping safe in their beds tonight, not keeping out the chill of a mid-September evening in the Cathedral Close.

''But they started it,'' Bart reminded me. ''We weren't safe in our beds, remember?''

I remembered, and went in search of my sword.

No-one slept. Well, Gerald de Kerbrooke and John Scot Junior managed a few hours. I, and I imagine many others, pictured the crusaders in their tents beyond our ditches. They would be drinking fine wine from golden goblets, toasting their courage, boasting their strength, with William de Brunham welcomed among them. I growled and prayed for morning to come so I could get stuck in again but when it finally came, it brought a surprise.

My father had at last forsaken his bar and his beer. As dawn bled a pale, sickly, fish-belly sheen over the Close, Hugh de Bromholm lurched across the grass holding a wooden club.

''Shoulder to shoulder, son,'' was all he said, and shook hands with William Payne.

We could hear the clattering of horses and armour beginning to move through our streets. People gripped their weapons. Brun, Pevensie and le Blunt emerged from the Cathedral. There was no excitement, just fear and tension. Gerald Kerbroke started crying.

''This is no use!'' cried someone. ''We're all going to die!''

The noise of approaching armour grew louder, a jangling, clashing sound of moving metal, and then a regular, steady banging began as, beyond the walls, the knights struck their swords against their shields in a hair-raising, ear-drum-shattering, marrow-freezing rhythm.

''God's blood,'' I muttered.

Meg had appeared beside me. I slipped my arm round her waist and pulled her closer. The pounding intensified. I felt Meg trembling and glanced at my companions. Every face was etched with fear.

''We're going to die....,'' repeated the voice, ''All of us....''

Someone sighed. Someone prayed Our Father in Heaven. Someone sobbed.

''And if we are? What of that?'' A voice carried over our heads. ''All things must die and if today we are marked to die, let us die with honour and pride.''

Not Brun, nor Blunt, but Bartholomew Jay. He was standing on the rubble of the Ethelbert Gate, sword in hand, dressed like me in a loose white shirt and brown britches. Bart the Blusher. Bart the Bashful. Bart the Brilliant.

''I am thirteen years old,'' he told the crowd. ''I have my whole life before me but what life can I live without freedom, what life if a life lived in fear, what life if a life filled with terror? I do not wish to live again in the valley of pain and sorrow. We escaped from that to build something better and if we do not fight to defend our hard-won freedom, if we surrender, I tell you what Russ and the Flemings did to our city will pale by comparison. Open those gates and these crusader knights led by Prior de Brunham, who thirsts for revenge, will exact a punishment of Biblical wrath.'' He moved a little higher up the rubble heap as the pounding sounded louder. ''I will not let it happen! I will not! I will not let them drag your silver-haired fathers round the market by their beards then dash their brains against the walls. I will not let them spit your puling babes and mewling infants on the ends of their pikes. I will not let them dishonour your swell-bellied wives or defile your shrill-shrieking daughters for their rapacious pleasure. I will not let the mad mothers howl as they bear the bodies of their choked children and battered babes to their graves. For I will fight. I, Bartholomew Jay, will fight, and yes, maybe I will die. To save a revolution? Yes, but more, much more than that. To save my city, and to save my friends!''

The crowd erupted, cheering and waving their weapons as Bart swept on.

''And you people hiding in your houses, cowering in your corners, skulking in your shadows, if you hear us fighting, if you hear us crying, if you hear us dying, do not despair. We are dying for you. So up and at 'em, Norwich! Make our mothers proud!''

Stephen le Blunt blessed the crowd, sprayed holy water over us as we knelt, then Bart leapt from the rubble and ran for the gate. ''For freedom!'' he yelled and the people swarmed after him, scrambling over the bricks through the dust, smoke and haze of the breaking dawn. A tremendous roar rose over the wall as the armies clashed.

Meg's face was wet. I kissed her lips, then ran to join the fight.

#

# 24. Death

THE battering rams relentlessly pounded the great gates and walls of Norwich's Priory. Inside, around a small fire, I held hands with Meg and waited. We had lost Tombland and retreated inside the Cathedral. They had brought up siege towers but we no longer had the people to defend the battlements. Many were missing and others were dead. Pevensie and Grant had fallen under the first onslaught of arrows, Pevensie struck through the throat, Grant in the chest. Hugh Coventry had been stabbed through the stomach. Sally Simpson's face had been smashed by a shield. Rebekah had been stabbed in the breast. Little John Scot was cut down by a sword. Reuben's leg was broken by a mace and his limp body dragged off the field. I had felt sick and worried. I had lost sight of Bartholomew almost at once.

I had heard de Brunham screaming 'I want prisoners! Get me some prisoners!'' Payne had seen him astride his little brown pony and charged him. De Brunham shot him in the shoulder with his crossbow. Payne had kept running. De Brunham shot him again, this time in the thigh. Payne had kept running then launched himself at the Prior, sword raised, his momentum carrying de Brunham off the pony and onto the ground. I had seen them roll over. I had seen de Brunham smash him round the head with the hilt of his sword. Payne had got up, rallied the troops, then disappeared into the thick, rising smoke pursued by de Brunham. I did not see him again. We had fought like demons but sheer force of numbers had eventually overwhelmed us.

The parley was delivered by Hugh Peeche on behalf of the King and the terms were unequivocal. Release Bishop Roger and Adam le Spicer. Hand over Geoffrey le Brun and Stephen le Blunt. Leave the Priory grounds and receive safe passage to our homes. If we refused, they would storm the Cathedral and kill every one of us. There would be no negotiation and no further communication.

"We should surrender now," said Simon le Palmer. "They will give us safe passage."

"Rubbish!" snarled Brun. "They'll cut your throats as soon as you set foot outside."

"Let the Bishop go!" said Kerbroke, "And le Spicer. He can speak for us."

"Never!" Brun poked the fire with his dagger point. "They are bargaining counters."

"They've got Henry Godale," said Palmer, "Scot and Payne, Jay, Heylesdon. Grant and Pevensie are dead. They've captured the city. What's the point of fighting on?"

"The point," said Margaret icily, "Is that we can at least die as free people, and not as slaves."

"Peeche promised safe passage!" said Kerbrooke.

"And you believe him," said Brun scornfully. "How wonderful! You believe that this is an army come to protect you, to restore order, to save you from the rebels and anarchists." He laughed. "What he means is restore the old order. Everything we've rejected will be re-imposed under military control. They can't let us make our own laws, you see, or elect our own leaders, choose our own paths. They must have control over us. But there is one path left for us to take! It leads to victory!"

"Geoffrey, we're outnumbered." Le Blunt tried to reason but Brun stood up and addressed the people gathered in the Nave.

"Maybe not victory today, but in history, as martyrs for freedom. Our descendents demand that we fight on. We fight for them, you see, to teach them there is a better way, a better system, a better form of society.

"Through the smoke and blood-hued haze, I see a vision, a new order coming to birth, an order where justice and peace and freedom and brotherhood prevail, an order constructed on sharing, on giving, where equality, respect and dignity are given to all people, regardless of age, sex, class or status. It is our privilege to be the foundation stone on which this order can be built. A glorious destiny lies within our grasp. We must not, we may not let that destiny slip away. If we do so, we betray not just ourselves but generations to come."

The people murmured.

"He's gone mad," said Palmer.

"He'll destroy us all," said Kerbroke.

''I'm no martyr,'' grimaced my father. He had tripped and knocked himself out right at the start of the battle.

"We fight to the end!" yelled Brun. ''All or nothing!''

Just then I made a momentous decision. I had to save the city. I had to save my friends, as Bart had said. I squeezed Meg's hand and got up.

''Where are you going?'' she hissed.

''To save the Revolution,'' I muttered, and slipped away to the chapter house where Adam le Spicer and Bishop de Skerning were chained to a wall.

"Nicolas de Bromholm." Le Spicer's voice sounded like rustling paper.

"I've brought you some wine," I said, holding a cup to his lips.

"He's come to kill us, you imbecile!" de Skerning cried out. "Don't you see his sickle? This boy isssssssss ....... Death. Ha ha ha!"

"Is that true, Nicolas?" Le Spicer looked over the rim of the cup into my eyes. "Are you our executioner?"

"No," I said, conscious of the dagger in my belt. "No. I've brought you wine." I moved towards the Bishop with the cup.

"Where's your magic hat?" de Skerning demanded.

"What?"

"Everyone," he said urgently, "Should have a magic hat. I've got one. Only I can't find it. Perhaps it's under the beehive.''

"Hush," I said fiercely. "Be quiet, for God's sake, or they'll come for you."

"They won't find us if we hide," said de Skerning. "We could go under the carpet, or behind ... yes, behind the tapestry. But mind the fire."

"What's happening, Nick?" said Le Spicer.

"Crusaders are besieging the Priory," I said. "They are demanding your release."

De Skerning started singing. "I had a little lamb, but it couldn't see me."

"Shut up," I hissed. "What's the matter with him? Is he drunk?"

"Poor fellow." Le Spicer shook his head. "He's mad. Quite mad."

"If we let you go," I said urgently, "You could speak for us. Geoffrey Brun is determined to fight to the end but Hugh Peeche has promised to destroy the city if he doesn't surrender. I don't want the city destroyed. Everything we've worked for, the slum clearances, the Penny Kitchens, the new schools and hospitals ... it'll all be for nothing! We have to stop. We have to stop now if we're to save anything that we've built." I gripped Le Spicer's shoulder. "You have to speak for us, tell them to stop."

"And Brun?"

''They won't speak with him.'' I shook him. ''We'll lose everything. Everything we fought and died for will be for nothing.''

De Skerning seized my sleeve. "Here. Come here." He pulled me closer. "I know a secret."

''Get off, you loon!'' I snapped. ''Adam.... Help us....''

"Very well," said le Spicer. "Surrender with honour can be negotiated."

"Excellent," I whispered, and began to break open the chains with a chisel.

De Skerning started singing again. "There was a little man, who had a little plan, and his name was William of Brunham..."

One of the chains gave way. Le Spicer sighed noisily. "What's our strength?"

"A few dozen," I answered, "Mainly inside the Cathedral. We lost the city. Godale's a prisoner. He was taken in Ber Street. Pevensie's dead." Another link cracked. "Some others too. Jay, I think, and Scot. I don't know exactly who."

The final link fell away. Le Spicer stood up, rubbing his wrists. "Ah, the blood circulates again." He smiled. " 'Tis good to be free. Where is Brun?"

"In the Sanctuary," I said.

"And the army?"

"Some in the Green Yard, some in the Cloisters."

"Dog-meat!" de Skerning rapped out. "They'll cut you into .." His voice dropped to a hushed whisper. "Dog-meat."

"Leave him," ordered le Spicer. "He cannot help us yet."

Outside, beyond the sandstone walls, the soldiers continued to shout and the rams continued to batter.

"You can't desert us now!" Brun was saying. He was standing on the Altar. "It is usual for the weak of spirit, the faint of heart, the fellow travellers to melt away like the snow on a hot chimney when things get unpleasant. Such defections purify the revolution. And those who are left ...."

"Face thirty thousand fully armed, fully trained Crusaders hardened in battle in the Holy Land." Le Spicer spread his hands. "Against a few dozen of you, and half of you are too old, or too weak, or too young to fight with them."

Silence descended. Then Brun responded. "Betrayed! Betrayed! It all starts to crumble!" He tore at his hair. "Crumble into dust! Traitors everywhere! Everywhere you look!"

"Give it up, Geoffrey, before it is too late." Le Spicer circled the Altar. "You have my guarantee of safety. I give you my word of honour that you will be treated fairly."

"You can't trust him!" Margaret yelled. "He's a lawyer! And he's French!"

"I'm a grocer," le Spicer replied, "A trader in spices and herbs. And I'm as Norfolk as you, Margaret. My family settled here three generations ago. You, Geoffrey? You came here as a fugitive, a refugee, a wanted war criminal. You hid out in your uncle's chapel until Longshanks stopped hunting you and went to the Holy Land. What happened? You thought you'd live out Montfort's dream, undo the damage you did when you turned and ran and left him to die like the coward you are?"

A loud cheer outside accompanied the rumbling of rubble-fall as a wall collapsed.

"You have a matter of minutes!" le Spicer cried. "You have to decide! Which way will you go? Surrender to safety or fight to the death?"

"Everything we fought for, everything we worked for ..." Stephen le Blunt.

"What can be saved will be saved!" said le Spicer, "But if we fight to the death, nothing can be saved, nothing. The city will be destroyed. Nothing will be saved."

Simon Palmer and Peter Kerbroke threw down their weapons. "Speak for us, Adam," said Palmer. "We are for you."

"You cowards!" screamed Margaret. "You weaklings! Deserting your leader!"

Brun smiled wearily. ''They were never really with us, Margaret. Not really. They were just along for the ride.''

"You treacherous little bastard!" Margaret spat at me. "You let him go!"

Outside there was another crash, another wall smashed.

"Trust me!" cried le Spicer. "Trust me!"

More crashing. More smashing. More cheering.

"They're coming!" le Spicer shouted. "Simon. Unbar the doors! Signal surrender! Let them in!"

"You'll never get them out again!" Margaret bawled, "Never! And they'll hang you all anyway!"

"Simon! Do it! Now!" Le Spicer turned to Brun. "Give it up, Geoffrey! Give it up!"

"Never!" Brun hurled himself from the Altar. "Leave the door! We stick together! To the end!" He shouldered Palmer aside, knocking him to the ground. "As for you ..." He whirled round on Spicer, his sword coming up. "At least I shall live to watch you die!"

"NOOOO!!" I stepped between them.

Everything blurred.

I felt the heavy weight of Brun against my chest, the rasping gasp of his breath in my hair, the shuddering jar in my wrist and a twist in my elbow, the dim cry of "Nicolas!" from a squirming le Spicer and a murmured "Oh Nick" from Geoffrey le Brun as he slid away from me on to his knees, his fingers pressed to the blossoming crimson patch over his heart, pushing the hole made by the chisel, choking, coughing, blood flowing from his mouth and over his chin, his fingers reaching to gather the Altar cloth, dragging it and the pens, parchments and paraphernalia of government on top of himself as he died.

"He fell on the chisel!" Horrified, I let it drop from my numb fingers and clatter on the stones. "He fell on the chisel! Just fell." The Crusaders were marching down the Nave. ''Geoffrey.'' I sank to my knees and sobbed. ''Geoffrey....''

There was a clatter of metal. I looked up. I was enclosed by a ring of steel sword tips.

The last thing I saw was the smirking smile of William de Brunham.

#

# 25. King

THE dungeon of Norwich Castle was a dank, dark place. Water ran in rivulets down the walls. Insipid sunlight straggled through a latticed window set high in the stonework and settled in a puddle on the straw-strewn stones. Close by, the coals in a brazier glowed like burnished bronze, the air above them hazy with heat. I was manacled to the wall, my arms above my head. My shirt was torn and covered with blood. My boots had disappeared. I had a bruise on my forehead. I could feel it. I blinked and looked around. Godale was covered in blood from a dozen cuts and scrapes. His chin rested on his chest. Margaret was silent. Blood stained her teeth. Her nose was broken. Le Blunt and others were also chained up. I recognised Heylesdon, Agnes Scot, Paul Benedicite, Knot, Skinner, others.

''Henry,'' I whispered. ''Thank God you're alive.'' He grunted as though saying 'not for long'. "Where's John Scot?" I asked.

"He's dead." Godale lifted his face wearily. "How are you?"

"Tired." I said. "Where's William Payne? I saw him disappear."

"Don't know. Not here." Godale glanced at the window. "I heard he went down at Fye Bridge. That's where the attack was the heaviest. I heard de Brunham cut his throat."

"Holy Mary," I murmured. "Where's Jay?"

"No idea." Godale's chin returned to his chest.

''And Reuben?''

''Nicolas,'' he said wearily, ''I don't know. I was captured right at the start.''

The door ground open to admit le Spicer, de Brunham and a tall, stocky, grey-haired knight in a red surcoat.

"Godale, my fine friend!" crowed de Brunham. "You'll swing high tomorrow!"

Godale fixed his eyes on the Prior. "Where did you come from? We searched everywhere for you."

"Ah," said de Brunham, "I escaped. Slipped out through the back door whilst you were busy knocking down the front and busying yourselves with the criminal Messer. Nice of Russ and his men to keep you occupied whilst I filled my saddle bags with gold."

"I'm so pleased to learn of your loyalty," said Godale, "That you stayed by your Bishop's side in his hour of need."

"You think I'd risk my neck to save de Skerning's skin?" said the Prior silkily, "When the riot was his fault anyway?"

"I'm sorry," said Godale, "The riot was your fault. Yours and le Messer's."

"Le Messer is dead," de Brunham replied. "No blame attaches to me."

Godale laughed bitterly. "Lord Peeche. Master le Spicer. Please prosecute this abominable priest. He's a liar and a hypocrite."

"Tchah!" De Brunham glanced round the dungeon contemptuously. "Your ragtag army lies in ruins. Your leader lies dead. By tomorrow I'll have your head on a plate. Let's hear what you say from the gallows, when you're dancing from the rope's end, when the breath is choked from your bursting lungs and your bowels are ripped from your still living body, as you see your life-blood splash on the steps. Let's hear your words then, Henry Godale, let's hear your words then." He gave a little dance of triumph and rage.

"I always thought you mad and vicious," said Godale. ''And you call yourself a man of God.''

"Silence, you dog!" De Brunham struck him across the face.

"Lord Peeche." Le Spicer, grey-faced and trembling, turned to the tall, silent knight. "Have mercy. My word was given. They should not hang."

"Hang they will!" de Brunham declared, "And hang they must! Prince Edward has decreed it so!"

"Lord Peeche...," le Spicer began again. "My life was saved by the boy."

"Who murdered Brun and God knows how many others!" de Brunham snapped. "The boy is a murderer, just like the rest, and will therefore hang, just like the rest."

"But a promise was made." Le Spicer held up his hands.

"You are in no position to promise anything," said de Brunham sharply. "The city is under military control with Lord Peeche in command. Come." He put his hand on le Spicer's arm. "They would have killed you too if we hadn't intervened. Look what they did to the other bailiffs. Strung them up in the market place like common thieves. Don't waste your tears on scum like this. They lived by terror. Let them die in terror."

"But to die without trial, without absolution..." Le Spicer was horrified.

"They placed themselves outside the law," said de Brunham. "They cannot expect the law to help them now. We can't give terrorists and anarchists any kind of public platform. God knows what sedition they might preach with the oxygen of publicity."

Le Spicer sighed heavily.

''You failed again,'' said Godale, struggling against his pain. ''This whole episode was caused by your abject poverty of ideas, your lamentable weakness. If only you had done something to help us.''

''I tried,'' said le Spicer. ''I did my best.''

''You did your best for your friends, you mean,'' said Godale.

''Enough.'' Peeche finally spoke.

Suddenly Agnes Scot called out. "Father! Father Prior! Father de Brunham!"

"Who calls on me?" De Brunham glowered round the dungeon.

"Father, hear my confession."

"What?" De Brunham's voice rose by an octave. "You must be joking! You all die unshriven, unconfessed and excommunicate! Confession? You're going to the circle reserved for traitors and rebels." He seized Agnes Scot's jaw. "Especially you! You get a head-start. You will burn today as a witch and I shall personally stoke the fires!"

"You really are a fine priest, aren't you?" said Godale.

De Brunham shoved Peeche aside and snatched a hot iron from the brazier. "Godale the tumbler," he ground. "Let's see how well you tumble to hell!" He pressed the iron to Godale's skin. It sizzled and melted. The smell was indescribable. Godale shrieked once and fainted.

"Enough!" Hugh Peeche said again.

I yelled at de Brunham, "You! You're an animal! Worse than an animal! They killed my dog but he had more morality than you have in your little finger. You're not fit to live!"

De Brunham fixed his eyes on mine. "Bloody little peasant boy!" He touched the iron to my thigh. I felt a sear of agony, a scream burst from my lips and everything went dark.

When I came round, the dungeon was darker, quieter, emptier. There were spaces against the walls. Empty manacles dangled down. Margaret remained but Agnes had gone. So too had Stephen le Blunt. Pain fogged my brain. I peered dazedly through a mist. Godale was gone. As I struggled against the pain in my thigh and tried not to cry, I caught a glimpse of a shadow through the window, a bunch of fruit hanging from a branch, swaying slightly in the early autumn breeze. The fruits were very big. Dimly I heard a drum-roll and a voice declaim "Behold the traitors!" and more fruit blossomed on the tree, kicking this time. A terrible, terrified, blood-curdling scream cut through the air. It sounded like Reuben.

''They're hanging them,'' Margaret said softly, ''All of them. Henry. Stephen. All of them.'' I bowed my head, choking back tears. ''I'm glad you killed Geoffrey,'' she said. ''It spared him de Brunham's final victory.''

''I didn't mean to kill him,'' I sobbed. Hot tears of pain and regret coursed down my cheeks. ''I... I loved him.''

''He loved you too,'' said Margaret. ''He said you were the hope of the people.''

I cried some more. ''Why am I alive?'' I sobbed. The pain in my leg swept through my body. The pain in my heart was even worse. I felt terribly lonely. I never even got to say goodbye, not to Godale, not to Reuben, not to anyone. ''Why didn't they hang me with the others?'' That question would not be answered for several days.

Time passed. One by one, the others were led away, Margaret to be burned. She cursed and fought as they dragged her away. I smelled and heard her execution and cried. Others were taken away to die. I cried for them too.

One day Bartholomew Cotton came with my mother and some food, just bread and milk but it was the first I had seen in days. I was not really hungry. My emotions blocked my throat and filled my stomach, but I ate anyway. Mother told me that Adam le Spicer was working to free me. She cried. Cotton blessed me, anointing a cross on my forehead with his thumb. I asked about Meg. She was half-crazy with grief. Father lay in the yard unconscious with drink. She cried again.

''I didn't mean to cause you so much pain,'' I said softly. ''Forgive me.'' But I could not cry any more. My tears had dried up.

Finally, one morning, someone came, unfastened my hands and let me crumble to the floor. The livid wound in my thigh burst open and wept. Pain stabbed through my arms and shoulders. Someone grabbed my wrist and dragged me to my feet.

"I'm on my way to the gallows!" I thought. ''At last I am going to die. Thank you God.''

Someone pushed me through a narrow doorway. I stumbled and fell into a lake of light. In front of me stood Adam le Spicer, Lord Peeche and a frail, white-haired man with a rich, ruby robe round his stooped, bowed shoulders and a thin, golden circlet tight round his temples. I was in the presence of King Henry the Third.

"Master le Spicer," he said icily, "I am most displeased to have to make this journey to settle your civic differences for myself." He coughed. "Your East Anglian winds cut straight to my bones. Lord Peeche, report, if you please."

"Sire, I have dissolved the city council and placed the general affairs of the city in the hands of Ralph de Bakpuz and Sir Thomas Trivet. We shall act on your behalf until you decide the city can be trusted to run its own affairs again."

"And the finances?"

"I have given them over to Hervey de Stanhow, sire."

Peeche tallied the dead. Three hundred and fifty four knights, two hundred and eleven squires, infantrymen and common soldier. One hundred and four citizens of Norwich killed in the fight and forty-four executed. My heart swelled with pride. We had beaten them. We had comprehensively beaten them.

"Well." The King coughed yet again. "God's teeth, it's cold in here. Don't you have any fuel in this city? And why is it so draughty?" He gathered his robe more tightly. "I hate East Anglia. The wind whips straight in from the Russian steppes. Le Spicer!"

"Yes, my lord."

"His Holiness the Pope has excommunicated the rioters and demanded compensation. He has suggested that representatives of the city should go to Rome to do penance." He coughed again. ''You should go to Rome, you and other bailiffs.''

Le Spicer looked at the floor. ''There are no other bailiffs, sire. The rioters killed them.''

"Peeche will choose some," said the King, "And I think a fine of some sort should be levied. Show them we're doing the right things, eh, Peeche?" He coughed again. "Say, 30,000 marks. And payment for the reconstruction of the Priory gates, with a chapel to replace the one lost in the fire."

"A heavy fine, Majesty," le Spicer muttered. "It will take a generation to pay so much."

"Heavy but fair," the King said firmly. "Now, Lord Peeche. What is this creature you have brought before me?"

"The boy Nicolas de Bromholm, one-time Commissioner for Social Welfare in the People's Government, and the only surviving member."

So Bart and Reuben were dead. I glared at them from under my ragged, greasy fringe.

"He is very dirty," said the King.

"Stand up, boy." Peeche commanded.

I growled warningly and bared my teeth.

"He's just like a dog," the King remarked delightedly. "And you want me to spare him?"

"He saved my life," le Spicer said simply.

"Out of the question," rapped Peeche. "All the rioters must hang. It will be an example. Pardoning any would send out the wrong signal. We must be seen to punish all wrongdoing with the full force of the law."

"But those that are left are merely the followers, sire," said le Spicer.

"And hanging them will show others that they should not follow the wrong people and the wrong ideas," said Peeche dismissively.

"My son, the Longshanks, believes it will be a sign of weakness if we let any of them go." The King turned to gaze out of the window.

"No, Majesty. It will be a sign of strength, of magnanimity." Le Spicer ignored Peeche's snort of derision. "If you let some prisoners go, especially the boy, it will be seen as a Christian gesture, the sign of a great and wise ruler who is not afraid to pardon his enemies. The people of this city will welcome you as a monarch with courage and vision, a monarch who responds to the cries of his people."

I growled again. "The Prior provoked us."

"How dare you question us!" Peeche waved towards the King. "Do you know whose presence you are in, boy?"

"A man," I snarled, "A man like you and like me."

"This is the King of England, boy, King Henry himself. Prostrate yourself."

"An old man," I grated, "Whose time will soon be over, and a man I did not choose. Nobody voted for him.''

Peeche took me by the throat. ''God chose him.''

''Bah!'' I managed to gasp ''When he stands naked, is he not like you and me? When he shits, is he not like you and me? When he...''

Peeche slapped my face. ''How dare you!'' he spluttered.

"Lord Peeche ..." The King waved his hand to cut the exchange short. "He's delightfully spirited. Is this what all peasant children are like?"

"I was tortured,'' I snapped. ''My mother was raped. I was raped. My dog was killed. My friends were killed. What will you do with the Prior? Can we have justice?"

''Justice?'' Peeche's face purpled. ''Justice? Your justice comes from the King. It is the lot of the common folk to be under their masters. Their masters dispense justice, as you call it, and it is not for them to decide the quality of that justice.''

''You never met Geoffrey Brun, did you?'' I growled, ''Or lived in the People's Republic. That was justice.''

"You see, my lord, how he has been indoctrinated," said le Spicer. ''He was not responsible for his actions.''

''Theft, murder, treason....'' Peeche seemed to be choking.

''What'' coughed the King, ''Did you achieve, young man?''

''My name is Nicolas,'' I said. ''I am Hugh's son, I come from the village of Bromholm in Norfolk and this is what we achieved.''

I told him about the slum clearances in Westwyk and Coslany. I told him about the custumal and the laws we'd brought in. I told him about the apprenticeship system and minimum wage. I told him about the leper hospitals and medical care free at point of use. I told him about the education plan, the teaching to read of hundreds of children. I told him about the Penny Kitchens where the poor got cheap but nourishing food. I told him about our elections, where people chose their leaders for themselves, where men, women, Jews and Christians, rich and poor, adults and children worked together to build a caring community of equals. As I spoke, it sounded wonderful. A lump swelled in my throat. Had we achieved so much in such a short summer? ''It really was a new Jerusalem,'' I finished.

"What would you have me do, Master le Spicer?" The King looked at his beautifully manicured fingernails. "He's dangerously deluded."

''I would have you adopt some of his ideas, Majesty,'' said Adam le Spicer. ''They have made the city a better place to live.''

The King coughed. ''Better for whom?''

''For the people,'' I said. ''For the ordinary, common people who at last had some control over their lives.''

"I have an idea, Majesty," Peeche was watching me with distaste, "An idea which might settle the dispute once and for all and satisfy all parties, le Spicer, de Skerning and this... creature."

I raised my head and looked the King in the eye. ''I want power over my own life,'' I said.

Peeche smiled slowly. "I will give you power over one," he said. "That of William de Brunham."

#

# 26. Reckoning

THE Commandery at Kerbrooke, a combination of monastery and garrison for the Knights Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem, was about twenty miles west of Norwich. It took most of a day's riding to get there. I was accompanied by two knights of Hugh Peeche's personal guard. Not that I was under arrest, of course. The guards were for my protection.

On the way I passed horrors I had never expected to witness in all my life. Along the path from the Castle Keep to the Outer Bailey they had hung bodies. I counted twenty. Their faces were black and swollen and all but unrecognisable. I knew that among them were Henry Godale and Stephen le Blunt. A pile of charred, twisted bones lurked by the castle gate. Margaret? Agnes? Both of them? Brun's body was rotting in a cage in Tombland. His head had been struck off and stuck on a spear in the market place. Reuben had been castrated and crucified, his hands and feet nailed to a door in Wastelgate, his genitals shoved into his mouth so he would choke. I saw someone that I thought was Bart. The naked corpse was about the right size but I could not be sure. All the hair was burnt off, the right hand was missing, the torsos slashed into mince and the face smashed in with a shovel but I saw a pink, heart-shaped birthmark just above the groin. I steeled myself and guided my horse through what was left of the city gate.

Peeche had dressed me in a monk's brown habit. He had wanted to shave my head to make my disguise more authentic but I had refused. I had asked to see Meg and my parents before I set off but he had refused. He had, however, let me confess with Bartholomew Cotton and take my first Communion, ''in case I did not return''. They did not intend me to return. Of that I was sure.

We rode along a rutted track that took us past Colney then splashed through a ford near Bauenburc where we paused for refreshment at St Walstan's Well. There was no conversation. The knights neither liked me nor trusted me. They had barely introduced themselves. One was Sir Godfrey, the other Sir Edmund. I had asked about Baghdad. They'd ignored me.

The day wore on. We trotted through farmland and woodland and then began crossing the sandy, gorse-covered heath of Brakelond. The coarse habit felt like a sack, the insides of my legs were beginning to chafe, my back was starting to ache and my arse was taking a pounding. I wished we had taken a cart. Autumn was coming. The leaves were beginning to redden. Once upon a time I would have been preparing for nutting, scrumping apples and cider-making in Newton's orchard. We would be planning All Hallow's Eve, the night when we dressed up as ghosts and spirits and went to our neighbours to play tricks for treats. I had hoped to juggle this year and win us some sweets. Young John Scot would also be gathering bladders from slaughtered pigs. He would inflate these bladders for the football season which started at the end of November. The Mischief would field a team against one from the Adam and Eve and the game would last several hours, dozens of men and boys wrestling the bladder up and down the streets to be the first team to get it over the other's line and score a goal. These games were often violent and caused much damage to shop-fronts as well as limbs and skulls. I didn't really like football. The French called it camp-ball, from campain, to fight, and indeed 'fight'ball was a more accurate name for it. This year it wouldn't matter. There was no-one left to play.

We stopped at Scowltown for bread, meat and ale and for a blacksmith to check our horses' shoes. Sir Godfrey clamped steely fingers round my wrist and told me not to drink too much. "Fall off," he warned, "And you can walk the rest of the way." I thought of telling him where to go but buried my face in the beer instead. Eventually, some time in the late afternoon, we arrived in Kerbrooke. It had a flint-and-stone church, several springs and little else. This, of course, was where Peter the Vegetable Seller originated. No wonder I didn't like it. We crossed Cowdell Spring and stopped outside the Commandery where I got off my horse and opened the gate. A blackbird was competing vigorously with a song-thrush. It reminded me of that night in Thorp when Geoffrey le Brun had first shared his vision with me. I walked down past the church towards the stream that chuckled over the stones and pebbles. He was there, as promised, and he was alone.

William de Brunham, in a plain brown habit, was raking fallen leaves from the grass. I lifted the hood of my own habit until my face was concealed within its shadows, tightened the rope round my waist and walked purposefully towards him.

"Boy!" he hailed. "You, boy! Any news from the Commander?"

"No, sir," I answered, pulling the cowl more firmly over my face.

"A place of safety! Until the fuss dies down! That's the thanks I get for doing de Skerning's dirty work. He keeps his job and I get replaced! Me! Replaced! By William de Kyrkeley, of all people. He's a total sap. The people will run him." De Brunham leaned on his rake. ''Who made de Skerning anyway? I did. Without me, he'd be nothing. Who covered up for him when Simon of Watton passed away? I did. Who persuaded the brothers to elect him as Bishop? I did. Talk about gratitude.'' He spat on the grass. ''To add insult to injury, I'm stuck out here in the middle of nowhere tending vegetables when I should be tending the faithful.'' He sounded remarkably bitter. ''What a waste of talent.''

"Why?" I tried to come across as innocently curious. "I thought you liked it here."

"Anywhere will do for a shit and a shave. I'm on my way to France," he said, then added angrily "To think of it ending like this. Slipping out of the country like a common criminal. Earn my passage by turning turnips and watching bees, like a God-damned peasant-farmer."

"I have brought you some food." I pulled a flask of mead and a chunk of bread from my moleskin bag. We sat side-by-side on a tree trunk. Being so close to him was a strange experience. This man's pride, his arrogant ambition had caused such misery. He had aged considerably since that day at the fair.

He tore at the bread with his teeth and slurped the mead greedily. It trickled down his chin in glistening drops. ''This is good, boy,'' he said. ''I thank you for it.''

"Better than that rich Priory fare," I replied, "Capons and ducklings and swans."

De Brunham sighed. "I suppose so. Simpler, yes, but more satisfying? There's nothing like a well-roasted swan..." He looked at me sharply, suspiciously. "How did you know I was once in a Priory?"

"Your hands," I said. "They're soft, not hardened and roughened by years of work in all weathers. I think you must have been an important man."

De Brunham was delighted. "Yes, yes, I was. The most important. I was the Prior!"

I couldn't resist a dig. "Oh. You must be William de Brunham, the Prior who lost his seat to a rabble and had to summon help from the King to get it back. An insurrection of butchers, blacksmiths, women and children and the King's Crusaders required to bring them under control." De Brunham said nothing. "That's why you're here, isn't it? You're hiding out."

Now he was stung. "I am not hiding! I was sent here by the Bishop to recuperate."

I raised an eyebrow. ''From your wounds?'' I asked innocently.

''To get me out of the way.'' He leaned towards me. ''I know too much, you see. I could embarrass them if I so chose.'' He wiped some mead from his stubble. ''Who paid for the Flemings' passage from Yarmouth?'' He laughed. ''The people paid for it themselves. Where do you think their tax money went?'' He finished the bread and looked into the shadows of my cowl. ''Who are you? Why are you here?''

''To settle a debt.'' I folded back my habit to reveal the lividly purple, puckered scar on my right thigh. "You made your mark on my flesh, Brother William, the mark of the Devil. You tortured me in front of your fire. I was beaten and raped in a night of terror at the hands of your hired help. Then three days and three nights of horror in the Cathedral whilst Geoffrey Brun lopped off heads.'' I grinned. ''I held a head in my hands. It was still bleeding, you know. The eyes were still staring. I held a human head in my hands.'' I laughed. ''Thanks to you. Then two days of torment in the dungeon, chained to a wall, watching my friends hanged, waiting to die and never dying, watching them walk to their deaths on your gallows, all those people to satisfy your rage and your animal blood-lust. They all had to die for your wounded pride, didn't they?"

De Brunham peered at me. "I don't know you. Who are you?"

I lowered the cowl. "My name is Nicolas, Nicolas from Bromholm, Hugh the innkeeper's son. Remember?'' He frowned. ''You tortured me the night your Flemings came." He stared at me blankly. "No matter. We were all nobodies to you. We meant nothing to you."

"Of course you meant nothing to me," de Brunham said scornfully. "You're a bloody little peasant boy. What should you mean to me?"

''I'm a human being,'' I said. ''That should be enough.''

''Bah!'' he snorted.

"You branded me,'' I said. ''You scarred me for life."

''You have come to kill me,'' he said suddenly.

''I have.'' I regarded him coolly.

He fell silent.

''Would you like me to pray with you?'' I asked.

''Good God Almighty!'' he exploded. ''Bloody de Skerning. He's behind this! Bastard!'' He rounded on me. ''Whatever he's paying you, I'll double. I have means. I have resources.''

''Would you like to pray?'' I repeated.

''Why?'' he sneered. ''Will you spare me?''

''God may spare you,'' I answered.

''God?'' His face seemed to swell. ''God? You think I care about Him?''

I felt for the dagger handle inside my robe. ''Tell me you regret it. Tell me you are sorry for the loss of life. Just one word and I'll spare your life.''

He shook his head. ''The Devil take you, Bromholm,'' he replied. ''I was doing my job.''

''As I am doing mine,'' I said. ''I have a message from the Bishop.'' I drew the dagger from my sleeve. The late afternoon sun glinted pinkly on its blade. I leaned close to him so I could whisper in his ear. ''The message is die. Die, de Brunham, die.''

''God damn you!'' The blade sank into his soft stomach. ''Damn you.'' I stabbed him again, his heavy body slumping against me. ''Damn you to Hell, boy.''

''For my mother. For my father. For my friends. And for me,'' I said, stabbing him four more times. Blood poured over my hands and wrists. I could smell it, more powerful even than the mead and garlic on his breath. I held him tight and cut his throat, digging my blade deeply into the flesh. I heard him gurgle as bright scarlet blood gushed into the air like a high-pressure fountain and frothed on his lips. Some of it sprayed over my face. His eyes bulged as he choked.

''Damn you all,'' he gasped again. It seemed somehow fitting that he died with a curse on his lips. He slid down my body and sprawled in a heap at my feet. His blood started soaking into the grass. I tossed the dagger aside and went to wash my hands in the Cowdell spring at the bottom of the meadow. As I washed, I observed my reflection in the crystal water. My eyes were hard as flint, my face unmoved. I had paid the reckoning but at what cost to myself? My heart was cold as any stone.

The two knights advanced. With them strode the Kerbroke commander, Robert le Syrreys. Now it was my turn. I squatted by the spring until they arrived then stood to face them. Syrreys glanced at the body. Flies were already feasting on the glazing blood. Syrreys drew his sword. The blade scraped out of the scabbard.

"He died badly," I said, "But I will not." I bared my throat to the sword-point and closed my eyes.

27. Freedom

A year has passed. The old King died a few weeks after his visit to Norwich. The cough turned out to be emphysema. He was bed-ridden at Bury St Edmunds. Turned out to be Bury King Henry. So King Henry is dead. Long live King Edward, known as the Long Shanks, Crusher of the Jews, Smasher of the Welsh, Hammer of the Scots.... Huzzah.

Sir Thomas Trivet still runs the city. He has appointed his bailiffs. One of them is Roger de Swerdestone. They collect the fine money on a regular basis, but if someone cannot pay, they let it go. Some say Roger puts his own money in to help them out. Adam Spicer and Simon Palmer are walking barefoot to Rome to beg forgiveness from the Pope. Bishop Skerning is sick. Some say he has cancer, that he will die soon. Nobody cares. The interdict has been formally lifted but there is still a curfew imposed by the military who send armoured knights to search the market for weapons or pamphlets. The great revolution has resulted in a greater tyranny than ever before.

The bodies of the dead were taken down from the gallows and buried in a communal pit in front of the castle. Bishop de Skerning wanted to burn them so they would have no bodies in the afterlife but Hugh Peeche refused. He said they should be buried so their loved ones could grieve.

Alice de Bromholm died just after Christmas 1272. She simply wasted away. Hugh de Bromholm aged rapidly after his wife and drank himself to death just before Easter 1273. Every week I take flowers and prayers to the communal grave and think about those men I called my friends, Godale, Blunt, Scot and Payne, and most of all Geoffrey the Brown. Then I go to St Michael-at- Plea to pray for my parents and siblings. I go into the church and light candles for the souls of Bartholomew Jay and Reuben Jacobson and sometimes I light one and pray for the soul of William de Brunham, but, despite what Bartholomew Cotton tells me about praying for those who have done you harm, I still cannot bring myself to pray for Jan Russ or for William le Messer. Not yet, anyway. The scars are still raw.

Why did I survive? I ask myself that question every day. The knights at Kerbroke let me go. They inspected the body then ruffled my hair. "Sleep here tonight," Syrreys had said, "And ride back tomorrow." All through that night I was expecting them to creep into my room and kill me in my bed but they did not and after a breakfast of bread, bacon, eggs and ale, the talkative one, Sir Godfrey, had said "You paid your pardon and the King is well pleased."

I arrived in Norwich later the next day and went home. My father did not ask me where I had been. Neither did Meg. They could see in my eyes. I went to bed and slept for a day and then I went out to look at the damage, knowing there was nothing I could do any longer to make it better, that THEY had won. So now I sit here, next to the pond by the Chapel-in-the-Field a year or so later and wonder why I was saved.

My wife says don't wonder, just live, and rejoice in that living. I know she is right. We were married in May. Bartholomew Cotton performed the ceremony in the Cathedral itself. No-one came. There was no-one left. Our first-born child was a boy. Jacob the Dentist delivered him. I sat outside in the herb garden listening to the screams and screwing my cap into a sweat-sodden mess but the baby was safe and my wife survived.

We argued about names. I wanted Geoffrey or Henry or maybe Bartholomew but my wife objected. I suggested Sam but she said we couldn't name a baby after a dog. I stood my ground. Sam was more than a dog. He was my friend, so Sam it is. He's a bonny lad. He seldom cries and often smiles. Some say that I am too young to be a father but after so many lives were taken that summer, it feels good to bring new life into the world. I love my son. He is everything to me but this time I want a girl. We will call her Mary and I will kill anyone who goes near her.

We have sold The Mischief. My father left it to us in his will and although certain councillors complained, Roger de Swerdestone and Adam le Spicer made everything good. They signed the papers and smiled on us. Matilda thanks me every day that I spared her father. But I didn't. It was timing, that's all, a piece of luck, or maybe God's blessing.

Leaving Norwich, the town of our birth, will be hard but there are too many memories, too many ghosts. We are moving to York. York will be new. We plan to buy a small tavern next to their river, the Ouse, in the heart of their city. I will cook and my wife will serve. We will call it The Welcome Inn. We like the pun. Politics and religion will be banned in our bar. We know we are subjects. Our rights are just granted, not guaranteed. The King told me so.

I have dropped 'of Bromholm' from my name because I am not. My father was but I am not. I am of Norwich and I am proud of that. I thought about Hughes, after my father, but my wife prefers Alice's son after my mother who took her in and treated her like a daughter and who loved me even unto death. My wife also wants me to take an 'h' into my name, to make it less French. In York, she says, they're principally Vikings and like the French even less than we did. So Nicholas Allison I will become. My son could be Sam Nicholas' son, and his son could be Whatever Sam's son, and so on, like the Vikings, but my wife and I have decided to move away from this patriarchal system so we will be Allison. It honours my mother and Sam will grow up to honour her too.

My wife has healed my heart. There was a time, after I had killed de Brunham, when I thought I would never love again, never feel again. I had seen so much, done so much. My heart was like a stone in the centre of my chest. When Mother died, it hardened further. I took a long time to heal. Bartholomew Cotton helped but the steadfast love of my life helped more. She convinced me that life was not over, that at fifteen years old, I could still start again, with her, with a family, with a change of scene.

We are moving this afternoon. This moment by the pond, where for me it all started, is the last. I gaze over the towers and spires of my Norwich and reflect that, for six weeks one summer, we had it all.

The baby starts crying. My wife starts cooing. I smile at them both. Take a good look, Sammy. You'll never see this place again.

''You ready?'' she says.

''Yes. I am ready.'' I kiss her then kiss my son. ''I love you,'' I say, ''And I love you too, Sam.'' I look again at the tower of the Cathedral which is being extended into a spire. So much vanity. So much blood. So much pain. But, for six weeks one summer, we made something new, we made a difference, I made a difference, we changed lives for the better.

''Let's go,'' I say, and hand-in-hand, my son held against my shoulder, Meg and I walk to the cart. We are ready to be healed. We are ready for a new life. We are ready.

### THE END

# Afterword: Story, (his)story, history and notes

ABOUT a century before the Peasants' Revolt, the city of Norwich, the second largest in England, experienced a mass insurrection of ordinary people against Church and State. This revolution took place in the 'blood summer' of 1272. The insurrection, it seems, was provoked by a series of disputes between city and church over land ownership and taxation. These disputes had been running for over a decade and were hardening into generational grudges. It seemed to the citizens that the church was lining its own pockets at the expense of the poor and was generally corrupt. The citizens paid 10% of their income in taxes to the Church every year. This money which was used for capital building projects (the Bishop's Bridge was begun in 1272). They also paid £100 a year in taxes to the Crown. The clergy paid just £20. There were also tensions between 'native' Anglo-Saxons (workers and peasants who spoke English) and 'incomer' French Normans (the monks and city's rulers who spoke French and Latin), between supporters of Simon Montfort's rebellion just 8 years earlier and supporters of the Established Monarchy, between Norwich traders and the Jews (who had all the money), all stirred up by discarded, demobbed Crusaders, corrupt clergymen and murderous mercenaries. Add to that a dying, lame-duck King, and Norwich was ripe for Revolution.

On Trinity Sunday (August 9) 1272, the tension erupted into open conflict. The annual Trinity fair, held on Tombland, was broken up by a band of armed monks who objected to the noise. During the ensuing scuffle, one of the monks shot and killed one of the citizens. The council issued a warrant for the monks arrest but, when the Prior refused to hand him over, missiles were exchanged and demonstrations organised. The Prior, fearing that he might lose control, sent to Yarmouth for a group of foreign mercenaries to "protect" his Priory. The mercenaries ran wild, firing the city and abusing the people. This provocation resulted in the people storming the Priory, to "tear down the illegal castle in (their) midst". Several monastic buildings were burned and thirteen monks killed. The people overthrew their council and set up a government of their own with officers elected on something like proportional representation. A programme of mass education was started, hospitals were built, sewers and drains were constructed and slum clearance begun. However, a city governed by its own people on the principles of democracy and social justice terrified the wealthy, the merchants and the landowners. So King Henry III attacked the city with an army to "restore order". After a siege, the city fell. The majority of the insurrectionists were arrested, tried and hanged and their projects abandoned or demolished. The Bishop and the City Council were restored to power. A heavy fine was levied and the city was forced to compensate the Church for the damage.

Accounts of the uprising are few and there are disagreements over the numbers of people involved. One chronicler estimates the mob at 120. Another states that there were 173, including 2 women (!), whilst the "official" version, an eye witness account by the monk Bartholomew Cotton, puts the number of rioters at a staggering 32,000 (in a city with a population of around 10,000 - the joys of state propaganda!)

The events of the novel are mostly historically accurate. Most of the locations in the story still exist (Tombland, the cathedral, the market, the Mischief Inn) and the characters' names are all to be found in Rye and Blomefield (local historians). Hugh de Bromholm is indeed listed as the keeper of a tavern ransacked by the mercenaries, Alfred Cutler as a merchant whose house was burned, Adam Newton as the man slain by the monks, and William Le Messer as the monk who fired the shot.

Godale and others are listed as having been hanged during Hugh Pecche's suppression of the occupation. Bishop de Skerning survived and remained in office, as did Adam Le Spicer, who is reported as being one of the leading players to make the penitential pilgrimage to Rome. Geoffrey Brun is listed as having been "handed over to the Bishop" - ominous and unhelpful. William de Brunham, the Prior whose arrogance and intransigence sparked the uprising, was removed from office by the King. Six weeks later, however, Henry died at Bury St Edmunds, on his way back from Norwich. His successor, Edward I, ordered the arrest of de Brunham and handed him over to de Skerning to face an ecclesiastical court. De Brunham mysteriously escaped and was never heard of again. It is said he fled to France and died shortly afterwards. I like to think my version is closer to the truth.

David Brining

York 2012

If you would like to know more about life in medieval times and read Nicolas Bromholm's letters, get some recipes and view some photos visit http://davidbrining.blogspot.co.uk/.

About the Author

David Brining comes from Leeds in England and now lives near York. In between he lived in Russia, Sweden, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Jordan, Syria and Egypt. He enjoys most sports, especially cricket and football, most music, especially classical and opera, and sampling local foods. His writing is fairly eclectic and he is interested in exploring the possibilities afforded by digital publishing (including serialisation, weblink incorporation, embedded audio files etc.). He has an aversion to books about vampires, zombies etc. etc. children's books which reduce history to gossip about fat blokes and jokes about bodily functions, chick-lit about shopping and shoes ... in other words, EVERYTHING currently being published in print! He will be publishing a wide range of fiction over the next few months...watch out for a new perspective, and see below for some examples.

Other titles by David Brining

A Teenage Odyssey, available from Amazon and other ebook outlets

Join Adam and Lucy, Rick and Kim, Ninja and Animal, Handy Mandy the Missing Part Tart, Billy the Rent Boy, 'Birch'em' Bircham the high court judge, Cheatles, Leech and Swindells the bankers, Flint the landlord, Cruikshank the Preacher, on an epic journey through 1990s London as Adam searches for his runaway father and comes face to face with Broken Britain.

STILL NO VAMPIRES, STILL NO ZOMBIES, STILL JUST LIFE (OF A KIND)

A Teenage Odyssey, by David Brining. Coming Soon to an Ebook Store Near You.

WORK IN PROGRESS

Dead Boy Walking, ch 1:

SADR City's Friday Market was a sustained assault on the senses. Each stall was a riot of colour: the vivid orange, yellow and green of fruit and vegetables, the pink and purple of T-shirts, baseball caps and socks, the black and brown of plastic sandals hanging from strings, the red and white of meat on slabs, the grey and blue of fish stuck in ice, and everywhere noise, overwhelming noise. People shouted, haggled, bargained, argued, laughed, and shouted some more. Bodies jostled bodies as women and children shoved through the throng. The air stank of dust and sweat and humanity. Over it all rose the call to prayer, ''Allahu Akbar'', GOD IS GREAT, amplified, commanding, resounding, inescapable. On the corner, American soldiers in desert-khaki camouflage, stab-vests, flak-jackets and helmets cradled semi-automatic rifles, chewed gum and observed every movement.

Ali Al-Amin followed his mother's broad black-clad back. She had the shoulders of an American footballer and she used them in a similar way, to charge a goal-ward path through the scrum. She had once been slim, something of a beauty, but bearing four children had taken its toll and she had thickened to the point where her hips were indistinguishable from the rest of her frame. Ali's sister, Fatima, in pink skinnies, pink plastic sandals and a white T-shirt with pink flowers, tried to keep up. Ali's older brothers, Mohamed and Hussein, slunk beside him, eyeing up girls and complaining about having to carry the shopping.

The call to prayer rang out again. ''Allahu Akbar!'' GOD IS GREAT, the muezzin cried.

"Let's go pray," muttered Mohamed, "Get out of the sun." There was a small mosque in the centre of the market.

Hussein handed Ali the plastic bag bulging with aubergines, tomatoes and cucumbers. "Here, squirt. Don't drop it."

Ali felt the jerk in his muscles as the bag hit the road.

"He couldn't lift a banana," said Mohamed.

''Not even his own,'' scoffed Hussein. The brothers laughed.

''Why are you wearing those shorts?'' Mohamed demanded.

Ali had dressed very carefully today. He had put on his favourite grey T-shirt, the one with Mickey Mouse on it. He had chosen beige Bermuda shorts in light cotton. He had selected grey socks to match his T-shirt and the white Adibass trainers his father had worked so hard to buy. He was hoping to meet Sour, the girl from school that he liked. She had fair skin and a pretty face, although she wore glasses, and always wore a fashionably coloured headscarf. He thought she was a Sunni but, since he had never really plucked up the courage to say more than ''Hi Sour'' when they met at the school gates every so often. Today he had decided to ask her to help him with his Maths homework. He was lousy at Maths, but she was really good.

''Don't you know it's a sin to show your knees in public?''

''That's only for men, brother,'' Hussein said spitefully, ''Not 'ickle boys who wear Disney pictures on their chests.''

''I like it,'' Ali protested.

''Course you do,'' sneered Mohamed. '' 'Ickle weed.''

''Shut up,'' said Ali, ''Leave me alone. And anyway the shorts cover half my knees so is that only half a sin?''

''Tch,'' said Mohamed. ''Argumentative little dog.'' He slapped Ali lightly on the back of the neck.

"Mum!" cried Hussein, "Mum! We're going to pray!"

Their mother was too busy arguing over the price of oranges to hear.

"I'll come," said Ali.

"You stay with the women, squirt." Hussein smoothed his gelled, black hair. ''Where you belong.''

''I want to pray too,'' Ali protested.

''Not with the men,'' snarled Hussein. ''You'll have to go in with the girls.''

''Besides,'' added Mohamed, ''If you come with us, people might think we're related.'' The brothers cackled and nudged each other as they headed towards the mosque.

''Hussein,'' called their mother. ''Call in at the coffee shop, will you? See if your father wants anything special for dinner.''

Every Friday, before midday prayers and while the family was out shopping, Ali's father took himself away to Islam's tiny coffee shop facing the market place mosque to read the paper, play backgammon and 'chew the fat' with his friends. Several cups of bitter-sweet Arabic coffee were consumed and maybe the odd water-pipe smoked before the call to prayer drew them from their earthly pursuits to things more spiritual.

''I'll go,'' Ali said quickly. He loved Islam's coffee shop. He loved the smells of cardamom and coffee and the smell of apple or aniseed from the pipes. He loved the hissing sound as coffee boiled over the rim of the little bronze pot and sizzled on the burning hot stove. He loved the sight of the old men, all wrinkles, furrows, knots and gnarls, clicking dice and shifting counters on the backgammon boards. He loved it when Islam, ancient and wizened, called out ''Here's Ali, son of Hassan'' and gave him a fruit drop, usually orange. He'd watch his father's strong, hairy fingers manoeuvre the counters and breathe in the aroma of coffee, sweat and aftershave.

''Bah,'' said Hussein, ''The coffee shop's a place for men. No room for the squirt.''

Mohamed slapped the back of Ali's neck again. ''Stay here with the girls, squirt.''

Ali often hated his brothers. Although he was averagely tall for his thirteen years, he was thin and puny and his voice had barely broken, whilst they were big and powerful like their father. Mohamed even had a moustache coming. They shared a room. Mohamed slept on a couch whilst Hussein and Ali shared a bed. Every night Ali went to sleep with the sweet stink of aftershave, the cheesy smell of sweaty feet, the boiled cabbage scent of stale farts and the aroma of testosterone clogging his nose. He hated his brothers even more at night.

On the other hand, they had defended him against a neighbour's boy. Sherif had demanded Ali hand over his bicycle, then punched him in the stomach and taken it when he'd refused. Ali had gone home crying, so the brothers had tracked Sherif down, blacked his eye, bruised his lips and bloodied his nose. When they returned to the flat, Hussein had slapped Ali's neck. ''Toughen up, squirt,'' he'd growled. "It's a cruel world and we won't always be around to protect you."

Ali caught up with his mother and sister. The handles of the plastic bag were cutting into his hands. "Mum, Mum...," he started.

"Be quiet," she snapped, picking an orange off a pile and squeezing it. "This fruit's soft," she told the seller, a wiry man with the sleeves of his blue shirt rolled up. "You're selling old fruit."

"Do you know how difficult it is to get fresh fruit these days?" snorted the trader. "There's a war on, in case you hadn't noticed. Fruit trucks get hi-jacked, you know." One of the oranges, dislodged from the pile, rolled slowly along the table. Ali watched it turn over in the air and bounce into the gutter. "You gonna pay for that?" snarled the stall-holder.

"Mum...," Ali tried again.

"Oh, for God's sake, Ali, do shut up." His mother poked a strand of grey hair back inside her head scarf and turned back to the fruit seller. Fatima smiled maliciously and stuck out her tongue. She loved it when Ali got into trouble.

"But Mum .."

"You're giving me a headache!" she snapped. "Go and play in the traffic!"

''I wanna find Dad,'' he said sulkily.

''Make yourself useful for once in your life and go get some bread,'' growled his mother.

Ali glared triumphantly at his sister and stuck his tongue out in return. "You take the shopping," he hissed, shoving the heavy bag into her hands.

''Muuummmmm!'' bawled Fatima, letting the shopping sink onto her sandals. ''Ali stuck his tongue out at me!''

Before his Mum could slap his neck, Ali slunk under somebody's arm and into the crowd. The bread stall was at the far end of the street. Ali squirmed through the press of bodies, wiped the sweat from his face and asked for ten pieces. An American soldier was standing nearby. Under his helmet, his face was deeply sunburned. He smiled at Ali.

"All right, kid?"

Ali nodded. A sharp jolt against his shoulder made him look round. A boy had knocked against him.

"Hey!" shouted Ali. "Watch where you're going."

The boy looked through him. He had a weasly face, bad acne scars, furry brown teeth, the look of the gutter. He stank of garlic and fear.

''You like Mickey Mouse?'' The soldier indicated Ali's T-shirt.

''Hmm.'' Ali nodded uncertainly.

''Me too,'' said the soldier. He had blue eyes. Ali had never seen blue eyes before. He handed over two faded banknotes and took the plastic bag of flat bread.

''Want some gum?'' The soldier held out a stick of Wrigley's.

''Sure,'' said Ali.

''Live round here?''

''Near,'' said Ali. His English was not so good and the American's Arabic was patchy. He unwrapped the stick of gum and put it in his mouth. ''Thank you.''

The soldier smiled, his weather-beaten features crinkling into fine lines and crow's feet. ''Got a kid about your age back home,'' he said.

''Where's that?'' Ali munched the gum. It tasted of mint.

''Oklahoma,'' said the soldier. ''Farming country. Lots of wheat.''

''Huh?'' Ali did not understand the word.

''Wheat,'' said the soldier. ''Makes bread.'' He pointed to the bag in Ali's hand.

''Ah.'' Ali glanced back towards his mother and sister. Mother was still arguing with the fruit and vegetable seller, this time waving a cucumber under his nose. Fatima was shuffling her feet under the heavy bag, shifting it from side to side. She saw Ali looking and stuck out her tongue. Behind her, Ali could see the mosque where his brothers were praying, a bunch of sandals piled on the steps. He thumbed his nose at his sister, then stuck out his own tongue.

''Your sister?'' asked the American.

''Yes. She...''

Then the bomb went off.

Ali heard a loud, ringing cry of "Allahu akbar!"

A huge rumbling roar ripped the air to shreds.

The front of the mosque exploded outwards in a brick-dust volcano.

The world went silent, totally, utterly and scarily silent.

Blasted off his feet, Ali was hurled backwards like a rag-doll and crashed down, onto and through the bread table which, smashed in half, fell across him, pinning him to the ground. A cascade of bread poured over his head. Oranges, aubergines, onions, apples bounced around him. Thick wooden splinters thudded like arrows into his shield. One grazed his shoulder, slicing it open. He howled in pain as blood poured down his left arm. Blood and glass rained from the sky, spattering him and everything round him. He grunted as something punched him hard in the chest, a heavy weight on top of the table, forcing all the air from his lungs as it pressed down upon him. It was the American soldier. Another pain wave flooded his frame and something hard and wet smacked into his foot.

He could see smoke, thick, black and oily, billowing out of the ruined mosque, fire too, orange flames worming up the walls. Smaller fires flared on the ground. He could see people running, clothes in rags, some naked, streaming blood, caked in dust, hands aloft, mouths open in silent screams, curses or prayers. He could also see bodies, people lying still in the street. To his right, the bread seller was crawling on his hands and knees through a carpet of glass. To his left, he could see a young woman stripped down to blood-stained pants sitting in a puddle of water, mouth open, tears streaming. She was covered in dust. Her bare breasts were smeared with blood. In front of him, on the wooden half-table, lay the soldier. He was very still. It seemed to be raining blood.

Suddenly sound returned, a deafening roar of screaming, sobbing, shouting and sirens. Somewhere in the distance he could hear a low, animal moaning, a constant keening, like a cow mooing.

The weight of the soldier was crushing his chest. He squirmed, trying to shift it. Pain shot through his body. He raised his hand, realised he was still holding the bag of bread. It was covered in blood. He tossed it away. More pain swelled through his limbs. More blood surged down his arm. He screwed his face up. The chewing gum in his mouth tasted of blood. He spat it out and gathered his strength. Every inch of his body ached. Nevertheless, he managed to push the wooden trestle aside. The soldier's body tumbled onto the stones. Ali looked down. His clothes had been shredded. His T-shirt was ripped into strips and his shorts hung in tatters round his thighs. There were cuts and grazes all over his chest and legs. His trainers were gone altogether. His left sock was stained with blood, but then he had blood all over him anyway. He could now see what had smacked into his foot. It was a blood-soaked bundle of fur, the remains of a cat with its guts hanging out. Perhaps it was the cat's blood on his sock, not his. Nevertheless, his ankle, like his shoulder, throbbed with fire and his head and ears were still ringing from the blast. Otherwise he seemed unhurt. Tentatively he sat up and saw a scene from hell.

Every part of the market was burning. Water from a fractured pipe was surging into the sky. Dust clogged the air. Fragments of glass, spars of wood, pulverised bricks and pieces of metal lay strewn on the ground. The mosque had vanished behind a curtain of choking smoke. Most people were lying, sitting or crawling. Very few were standing or walking.

He crawled to the American soldier, now lying on his back. The face was a mask of blood and dust. He put his ear to the mouth and heard a faint gurgling sound. With his fingers, he scooped out bloody saliva, then rolled the man onto his side, manipulating the limbs like those of an action toy until he was in the recovery position. The soldier muttered something, then vomited over the pavement. He was alive. Ali thanked God and stood up. The pain in his ankle got suddenly worse and his head span, everything blurring for a moment. He looked around and understood that he would not be able to walk far in his socks without cutting his feet to ribbons. And his arm was still bleeding.

He tore at the rags of his T-shirt, ripping them into three pieces. One he used to bind the gash at the top of his left arm, tying the knot with his teeth. Then he stripped off his socks, grimacing as he realised the blood on his left foot was not that of the dead cat but his own, leaking from a large cut on the top. He wrapped the T-shirt strips round his feet and started to move, but pain shot through his ankle again. He cursed and sat down again. The ankle was swelling rapidly. There was nothing else to do. He removed the tattered remnants of his shorts and tied the broken table leg to his left ankle. Now he really was showing his knees in public, and more. His brothers would make his life a misery if they could see him now, he thought, limping through the street in his Spiderman undies.

He had to find the trainers. Although they were fake, his dad had worked so hard and had been so proud when he had presented them as a birthday gift just a few months ago. ''Now you're a teenager,'' Hassan had said, ''You can have some proper shoes.'' They'd had ice cream and chocolate and Pepsi and sung songs and everyone, even the brothers, had been happy. Fatima had kissed him and given him a hairbrush, Hussein and Mohamed had got him some perfume (''to attract the girls'''), Uncle Wagdy had brought a roasted chicken and Aunty Nour had danced. Bombs had burst in the Baghdad night, fireworks lighting up the sky for Ali's birthday, and everyone had been happy. He had to find the trainers. For his family.

He limped through the fires, glass crunching under his feet as he squinted through the falling white dust, the spiralling ash and the smothering haze. The smell of burning was horrific, rancid, fatty. The burning of people. Where was his family?

As he moved around searching for his shoes, he tossed a coat round the naked woman and crawled to the blinded bread-seller.

A little boy sat on the ground bawling. Ali went to comfort him. ''It's OK,'' he said, ''It'll be OK.'' Knowing it would never be OK ever again.

The boy continued crying. Ali used the back of his hand to wipe the snot from the kid's face.

''What's your name?'' he asked. The crying continued. ''I'm Ali. What about you?''

''M...m...mah...moud.''

''OK, Mahmoud,'' said Ali. ''I'm going to get you out of here and home. Hold on to me.'' He gathered the boy into his right arm, fighting the pain, trying to balance the weight with his makeshift crutch. His ankle screamed at him to stop. Mahmoud needed him. He gritted his teeth and took a few paces forward.

Sirens wailed somewhere nearby as Ali spotted a white shoe. He stooped, fighting the pain in his ankle, the fire which had now spread to his thigh. The boy clung to his shoulder, still sobbing but not so loudly now. American soldiers and white-coated medics were running through the mist, yelling orders. Ali reached down, then stopped, his blood running cold. There, on the ground, next to his shoe, was a foot. It had been severed just above the ankle. A white sliver of bone stuck out from the ragged edge. It was a small foot, the foot of a child. It was still attached to a pink plastic sandal.

''FATIMA!'' Ali screamed.

An American soldier threw a silver blanket round him, yelled, shouted for a paramedic. A white-coated figure holding a needle loomed from the mist.

''Fatima!'' Ali screamed again. Then he collapsed into the soldier's arms.

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