Tombland

We passed through several villages. Through open windows I saw weavers at their looms, and many women and children stood in the doorways spinning wool on wooden spindles, turning them endlessly. Many people gave us sour looks, and hardly any doffed their caps or bowed as country people customarily did to gentlemen passing through. At one village a cart full of hay, pulled by a bony nag and led by a man in a smock, turned out of a farmyard in front of us. The cart was in the centre of the road and there was room for him to move to one side to let us pass in single file. I thought perhaps he had not seen us and called out, ‘Please, fellow, let us pass!’

The man ignored me. Nicholas frowned and called out angrily, ‘Out of the way, churl! We’re on urgent business!’ The man set his shoulders firmly and continued to proceed along the middle of the road. Toby gave Nicholas a cold stare. ‘Rudeness won’t help you here, master,’ he said. There was a bite on the last word I had never heard before. He called to the man in front, emphasizing his Norfolk accent, ‘Pardon that fellow’s antrums, bor. Be good-doing and let us through, we’re in a hurry to reach Naaritch.’

The farmer looked round at Toby, nodded, and moved the cart to the side.

On the far side of the village Nicholas asked Toby, ‘What are antrums?’

‘Airs and graces,’ Toby answered tersely. ‘’Tis a good thing neither of you are wearing your legal robes. Lawyers are not popular in Norfolk these days.’

* * *

WE SPENT THE night at an inn in Wymondham. My back was now so painful I found it difficult to walk without the stick I had brought with me. In the inn yard, as the horses were led away, Nicholas said solicitously, ‘You look uncomfortable, sir.’

‘I’ll be all right when we get to Norwich tomorrow. No more riding.’ I lowered my voice. ‘I think you would do well to be more friendly to Toby. His local knowledge is important to us.’

Nicholas frowned. ‘I do my best, but he makes it clear he dislikes me. In the evenings he tries to lecture me as though he were my equal, saying the ills of the country are caused by greedy gentlemen. It is boring, and insolent. Dangerous, too, with this talk of trouble in the West Country.’

His talk of trouble there was true. At each inn we stopped at, the talk was of the sudden uprising in Devon, which apparently had now spread to Cornwall, with rumours of troubles in Hampshire, too. Nobody seemed sure whether these protests were against the new Prayer Book, or the abuses of the gentlemen, or both.

‘He’s never spoken like that to me,’ I said.

‘You pay his wages. I understand now why Copuldyke speaks roughly to him.’

I said gently, ‘Well, Nicholas, you have told me your own father is no great example of gentlemanly behaviour.’

‘I seek to do better, to live up to my station,’ he answered proudly.

‘Then humour Toby. You’ll get on better without what he sees as’ – I smiled – ‘your antrums.’

Nicholas did not smile in return; he only said grimly, ‘I’ll try.’

* * *

THE NEXT MORNING , we set out early. Some miles from Norwich Toby pointed up a sandy lane. ‘That leads to the Brikewell manors,’ he said. I looked up the lane; in the distance I could see the roof of a two-storey house, perhaps John Boleyn’s.

Around midday we crossed the River Yare. By now we could see the great spire of Norwich Cathedral ahead. As we came closer we saw other spires, and the battlemented city walls, which stretched along a wide area, except where the River Wensum flowed through the city, brown and fringed with reeds.

The road was busy with carts bringing goods into the city and we halted as we approached the largest and most ornate of the gatehouses set in the walls, with double round towers on each side of a wide-arched door. There was insufficient room for more than one cart to pass through at a time, and there were several carts ahead of us. We halted before a low ditch with a wooden bridge in front of the gatehouse, half-filled with stinking rubbish like the ditches outside London Wall. There was a gallows, too, where the half-rotted body of some malefactor hung in chains, a pair of rooks picking at the blackened flesh. I turned and looked along the walls. They were of dark flint, studded with many projecting towers. I noticed that in some places they were in a state of disrepair, half tumbled down. ‘These walls are in no good state for defence,’ I said to Toby. ‘And they are lower than I expected, lower than London or York.’

He nodded. ‘They were built for civic pride, not defence. In the days before the Great Plague two centuries ago. The city was larger then.’

* * *

WE ENTERED THROUGH the gate, and rode into the city. I was surprised by how much open ground there was – to our right was an area of grass, where earthen butts stood for Sunday archery practice, while to the left were the grounds of a large building undergoing demolition. ‘St Mary’s,’ Toby said. ‘Used to be a big chantry college. The government has sold it to the Spencers, one of the big Norwich families.’