"When Adam delved and Eva span, who had gold and jewels then?" Cob chanted, raking his fingers through his hair and squashing a louse that ran out of it. He trotted off down the street towards the Tower and the rebel camp beyond it on St. Catherine's Hill.
Here Cob was swept up by the wild excitement. Their leaders Wat Tyler, Jack Strawe and the priest John Ball, were all a-horseback, galloping amongst their forces, which numbered by now nearly eighty thousand men. "Mile End! Mile End!" they shouted. The King was to meet them at Mile End and listen to their plans in person. "Onward march to Mile End to meet the King!"
Cob surged forward with a great multitude of them, swarming and trampling over the fields until they reached the meadow where the little King awaited them.
Richard sat pale and stiff upon his brightly caparisoned white horse. His crown was no more golden than his long curls, and in Cob's eyes and those of his fellows Richard's royal beauty shone round him like a halo. "God bless our King!" they cried. "We want no King but thee, O Richard!" All bowed their heads, and many genuflected humbly.
The King smiled at them uncertainly and waved his hand in response, as Wat Tyler rode up to him for parley.
A dozen nobles were gathered behind the King - those who had been with him in the Tower: the Lords Warwick and Salisbury and Sir Robert Knolles, grim fighters all three and of proven courage in war, but this aggression from a mob of despicable serfs and peasants was so alien to their experience that they had floundered this way and that, quarrelling amongst themselves.
The King's beloved Robert de Vere, the Earl of Oxford, had drawn apart from the others and watched from beneath raised eyebrows, which were finely plucked as a woman's. With delicate fingernail he flicked a tiny blob of mud off his rose-velvet cote, and as Wat Tyler approached them, de Vere sniffed ostentatiously at a scented spice ball that dangled from his wrist.
The King's uncle, Thomas, Earl of Buckingham, was there too, his truculent black eyes flashing, his swarthy face suffused with impotent rage, but even he had sense enough to hold his tongue and stay his sword arm until they saw what might be accomplished first by guile - and by a further measure which was even now in progress back in the Tower.
Sudbury's and Hales' attempted escape by boat had gone awry earlier, ill timed and clumsily executed. The archbishop had been recognised by rebel guards on St. Catherine's Hill and had regained the safety of the Tower just in time. But not for long. As the King left for Mile End, Buckingham had issued certain orders, not mentioning them to Richard, who was often oversqueamish. Buckingham had decided that the safety of England and the crown should no longer be jeopardised by two cumbersome superfluous old men.
The little King gave no sign of fear as he nodded graciously to Wat and, after listening a while, readily gave the verbal agreement his advisers had told him to. The abolition of serfdom and a general pardon for all the rebels - these were what the tiler demanded first, and "Ay - it shall be done!" cried Richard in his high, pretty, childish voice. "The charters shall be prepared, ye shall have them on the morrow."
This was not all that John Ball and Wat had drawn up as their requirements. It did not answer their demands for the abolition of private courts, for freedom of contract, disendowment of the clergy, land at fourpence an acre rent, but Wat thought it better not to press for too much at once. These other matters could wait, since the greater part of their glorious goal had been so comfortably achieved.
He seized Richard's hand and kissed it vehemently. Then he jumped on his horse and standing in the stirrups shouted to the silent straining mob, "The King has agreed there's to be no more bondage!"
"Free?" whispered Cob, swallowing. A shiver ran down his back. No more hiding in the forests or the City. No more heriot fine, no fines, no boon-work. He could go back to Kettlethorpe and do as he pleased on his own croft. He could keep his ox and earn money for his labour. A freeman.
"I didn't rightly believe 'twould ever happen," he whispered. He put his knuckles to his eyes, and a sob rose in his throat. All around him men were leaping, laughing, crying, so that it was hard to hear what else Wat said, but the tall ploughman passed it on.
" 'Twill take a little time to get our charters, the parchment what'll prove we're free. Wat says we'd best wait on St. Catherine's Hill."
Cob nodded, for he could not speak
He and many others took their time about wandering back to the City. The sun shone on them, the earth of the road was brown and warm beneath their feet, and the brooks gurgled joyfully through the meadows. The leaping wild excitement died down and they smiled at each other quietly, their eyes shining. Some sprawled upon the grass apart, thinking with fast-beating hearts of the manors they had left, the anxious waiting wives and children, and how it would be when they got home, free and safe. The King had said so.
Cob heard the martial beat of music as he reached their camp at last and crowded up to watch. A procession came through the postern gate from Tower Hill. John Ball led it on his mule, Wat Tyler and Jack Strawe followed on their horses, and behind them came seven proudly grinning members of the fellowship, each bearing a dripping head set on a pole. They marched triumphantly to the blithe rhythm of the pipes and tabors, and they held the heads high so all could see.
Cob wormed his way up to the front and gaped with the others. The first head that went by had belonged to Sudbury, the Archbishop of Canterbury. You could tell that, for they had jammed his jewelled mitre down over the grey tonsure, and fastened it to the skull with a long nail.
"How'd they get him?" Cob cried startled; several of the new-comers echoed him.
A Kentishman behind answered them: "We got the old rat in the Tower chapel - when we broke in an hour back. And there's Hales too."
The treasurer's head was mangled and still bled profusely. "That cursed prior sold his life dear," said the Kentishman, "we'd trouble with him."
Four other heads passed by, then Cob stiffened and squinted. "Ah, I know that one," he said pointing to the seventh. " 'Tis from yesterday at the Savoy."
"Ay," said the Kentishman, laughing. "They say 'twas John o' Gaunt's own Grey Friar and leech. Some daft broke-jawed weaver had it, and wouldn't give it up, but Wat recognised it and said since we didna get the Duke, we must show off his friar instead."
The rebel camp that Friday night was happy one. A few charters of freedom began to be delivered from the King, and most of those who received them set off at once for home.
John Ball spent the night on his knees before the cross that was placed on St. Catherine's Hill, thanking God for the victories they had won.
The King too and his meinie spent most of the night in prayer, but it was no prayer of thanksgiving.
Richard had cried out in horror when he found what had happened at the Tower in his absence at Mile End, he had wept for the gentle old archbishop and been frightened for his mother, whom the rebels had bespoken roughly but not hurt. She had fled to the royal wardrobe in Carter Lane near St. Paul's and here Richard and his nobles joined her, in gloomiest pessimism.
True it was that some of the rebels had gone home as they received their charters, but not nearly enough of them. Thousands still roamed the London streets looting and butchering according to their whims. And a messenger from Wat Tyler made it clear that there were still many points to be discussed, and new concessions to be granted.
On the next morning, Saturday, Richard and his party hurriedly breakfasted in the wardrobe's small congested Hall while they held yet another worried conference.
"Your Grace will have to meet these accursed ribauds again, I fear," said Lord Salisbury gravely. "We'll never rid the City of them else. We must still play for time."