Towards evening the mob gathered in the square of St. Catharine’s by the Tower, and fixed their quarters there for the night. Here was the very heart of the kingdom, the castle of all castles, and the sight of its walls and towers roused these peasants to the very top of their frenzy. They crowded close to the walls, hooting and howling, and singing songs, boasting of the day’s happenings, and promising themselves nobler things on the morrow. In yonder were great lords whom they hated, and Simon of Sudbury, the archbishop, whom many of them had sworn to kill. The King should come out to them and grant all that they desired, or they would break in and take him out of the hands of men who were their enemies. Merlin’s wagon had been drawn into the square of St. Catharine’s, and from it John Ball and Wat the Tiler spoke to the crowd. Fulk, lodged in a little upper room above the King’s chamber in the White Tower, could stand at the window and look down at the crowd about the wagon. One of the figures in it was that of a woman in a red robe, a mere red line set among the other little figures that stormed and waved their arms like dolls on a puppet stage. Isoult was too far away for Fulk to recognise her, nor did she guess that he was in the Tower. CHAPTER XVIII The great lords and gentlemen sat round the table in the Council Chamber in the White Tower, and out of the summer night came the shouts of the peasants. They had lit bonfires in the square of St. Catharine’s and were making merry, there being no lack of meat and drink, for they had taken whatever they desired to lay their hands upon. Hundreds of them were drunk before sunset, and the multitude kept up a fuddled uproar, marching to and fro under the walls, hammering on pots and pans, and making every sort of noise that it was possible for tipsy fools to make. The King was not at the council board. He had gone to his chamber soon after sunset, and ordered all the windows to be closed, for the wild shouts of the mob had terrified him, even as a child is terrified by the howling of wolves on a winter night. Salisbury, Simon of Sudbury, and Walworth the Mayor had gone to his chamber, to find it lit by a blaze of candles, and the King abed with a great purple quilt, embroidered with golden suns, pulled up over his head. He had turned his face away and refused to speak with them, muttering that one of his uncles had conspired to raise the rage of the people against him. These three councillors had looked at the room with its tapestries of green and red, its eastern carpet, its mirrors, its hutches packed full of jewels and clothes. It was more the room of a woman, soft, sensuous, with bunches of flowers in bowls, and a lute inlaid with mother-of-pearl lying on a scarlet cushion. The smell of it was like the smell of some rich courtesan’s chamber. This lad in the bed was not to be counted on. Salisbury and his companions stood by the door, whispering.