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“My husband followed his conscience,” Margaret said, hoping she could deflect Thomas’ anger before he exploded. She sent Wycliffe a warning look.
“We cannot chastise Lord Neville for leaving a Church so riddled with corruption,” Wycliffe said mildly, catching Margaret’s glance. “We can only commend him.”
“Then why do you not discard your robes, renegade?” Neville said.
“I can do more good in them than out of them,” Wycliffe said, “while you do better at the Lady Margaret’s side than not.”
Neville looked back to his goblet again, then drank deeply from it. Why did he feel as though he were being played like a hooked fish?
“My lord,” said Jack Trueman, who had remained silent through this exchange, “may I voice a comment?” He carried on without waiting for an answer. “As many about this table have observed, the dissolution and immorality among the higher clerics must surely be addressed, and their ill-gotten wealth distributed among the needy. Jesus Himself teaches that it is better to distribute one’s wealth among the poor rather than to hoard it.”
There were nods about the table, even, most reluctantly, from Neville, who wondered where Trueman was heading. For a Lollard, he was being far too reasonable.
“But,” Trueman said, “perhaps there is more that we can do to alleviate the suffering of the poor, and of those who till the fields and harvest the grain.”
“I did not realise those who tilled the fields and harvested the grain were ‘suffering’,” Neville said.
“Yet you have never lived the life of our peasant brothers,” Trueman said gently. “You cannot know if they weep in pain in their beds at night.”
“Perhaps,” Wat Tyler said, also speaking for the first time, “Tom thinks they work so hard in the fields that they can do nothing at night but sleep the sleep of the righteous.”
“Our peasant brothers sleep,” Wycliffe put in before Neville could respond, “and they dream. And of what do they dream? Freedom!”
“Freedom?” Neville said. “Freedom from what? They have land, they have homes, they have their families. They lack for nothing—”
“But the right to choose their destiny,” Wycliffe said. “The dignity to determine their own paths in life. What can you know, Lord Neville, of the struggles and horrors that the bondsmen and women of this country endure?”
Neville went cold. He’d heard these words before from the mouth of the Parisian rebel, Etienne Marcel. And what had those words brought but suffering and death?
“Be careful, Master Wycliffe,” he said in a low voice, “for I will not have the words of chaos spoken in my household!”
Courtenay, very uncomfortable, looked about the table. “The structure of society is God-ordained, surely,” he said. “How can we wish it different? How could we better it?”
“There are murmurings,” Jack Trueman said, “that as do many within the Church enjoy their bloated wealth at the expense of the poor, so, too, do many secular lords enjoy wealth and comfort from the sufferings of their bondsmen.”
“Do you have men bonded to the soil and lordship of Halstow Hall, Lord Neville?” Wycliffe asked. “Have you never thought to set them free from the chains of their serfdom?”
“Enough!” Neville rose to his feet. “Wycliffe, I know you, and I know what you are. I offer you a bed for the night begrudgingly, and only because my Duke of Lancaster keeps you under his protection. But I would thank you to be gone at first light on the morrow.”
Wycliffe also rose. “The world is changing, Thomas,” he said. “Do not stand in its way.”
He turned to Margaret, and bowed very deeply. “Good lady,” he said, “I thank you for your hospitality. As your lord wishes, I and mine shall be gone by first light in the morning, and that will be too early for me to bid you farewell. So I must do it now.” He paused.
“Farewell, beloved lady. Walk with Christ.”
“And you,” Margaret said softly.
Wycliffe nodded, held Margaret’s eyes an instant longer, then swept away, his black robes fluttering behind him.
John Ball and Jack Trueman bowed to Margaret and Neville, then hurried after their master.
Furious that he could not speak his mind in front of Courtenay and Tusser, Neville turned on Tyler.
“And I suppose you walk with Wycliffe in this madness?”
Tyler held Neville’s eyes easily. “I work also for the betterment of our poor brothers, so,” he said, “yes, Tom, I walk with Wycliffe in this ‘madness’.”
“How dare you talk as if Wycliffe works the will of Jesus Christ!”
“Wycliffe devotes his life to freeing the poor and downtrodden from the enslavement of their social and clerical ‘betters’. Is that not what Jesus Christ gave his life for?”
“You will bring death and disaster to this realm, Wat,” Neville said in a quiet voice, “as Marcel did to Paris.”
Tyler’s face twisted, almost as if he wanted to say something but found the words too difficult.
Then, as had Wycliffe, he turned and bowed to Margaret, thanking her in a warm and elegant fashion, and bid her farewell. “Go with Christ, my lady.”
“And you, Wat.” Margaret turned her head slightly as soon as she had said the words, fearful that Thomas should see the gleam of tears within their depths.
Would this be the last time she ever saw Wat?
Wat Tyler stared at Margaret one more moment, then he, too, turned and left the hall.
II (#ulink_7f559e93-493c-5e62-bd6b-a861a8de6c9b)
The Tuesday before the Feast of SS Egidius and Priscus
In the first year of the reign of Richard II
(30th August 1379)
Mycliffe, Tyler and the other two priests were gone by the time Neville arose at dawn. Although Neville was grateful they had departed, he felt useless as well. He would, by far, have preferred to put Wycliffe under some form of detention before he caused any mischief … but to do so might well be to anger Lancaster, and that Neville did not want to do.
So he’d had to let the demon—as he had no doubt Wycliffe was—escape.
Neville set about his morning tasks, hoping they would consume his mind, but instead, his temper became shorter as the day wore on. He was useless stuck here in the wilds of Kent! When would Hal call him back to court?
The only thing that calmed his mood was when, in the early afternoon, he joined Margaret and Rosalind in their solar. Neville loved his daughter, and always made the time to spend an hour at least playing with her each day.
He strode into the room, greeting Margaret perfunctorily—not noticing her wince—and lifted Rosalind from her arms.
Neville grinned and ruffled the black, curly hair that Rosalind had inherited from him. She was strong now, and of good weight and size for her almost six months of age. She had recovered well from the trauma of her birth … perhaps it was her good Neville blood, Neville thought, for his entire family was of hearty stock and robust determination.
Margaret watched him with sadness. Her husband looked to Courtenay for friendship, and to his daughter for love, but to her … what? She took a deep breath, controlling her emotions, and then tilted her head as she heard a noise outside the door.
Neville glanced at her, irritated by the solemnity of her expression, then turned to the door as Courtenay strode through.
“My lord!” Courtenay said. “We have yet more company!”
He got no further, for a handsome man dressed in Hal Bolingbroke’s new livery as the Duke of Hereford pushed past Courtenay.
Neville’s eyes widened, for he recognised the man as Roger Salisbury, a young knight of noble family who had worked in Hal’s entourage for some time.
Roger Salisbury stopped several steps into the solar, and bowed.
“My Lord Neville,” he said, and was interrupted from further speech by Neville.
“Bolingbroke wants me,” he said.
“Aye, my lord. I bear greetings from my Lord of Hereford, and am to inform you of his wish that you return to his side in London within the week.”
Neville turned back to Margaret. “At last! I thought Bolingbroke had forgotten me!”
He stepped over to her and gently lowered Rosalind into her care. “I shall miss her,” he said, and did not notice the sudden humiliation in Margaret’s eyes.
Salisbury cleared his throat. “My Lord of Hereford also wishes that the Lady Margaret and your daughter ride with you.”
Neville’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Margaret is to ride with me?”
“Indeed, my lord,” Salisbury said. “Bolingbroke—” he lapsed into informality, for although Hal was now Duke of Hereford, he was familiarly known as Bolingbroke “—is to take the Lady Mary Bohun to wife within the month, and it is her wish that your lady wife serve at her side.”
Neville’s mouth twisted. “Mary Bohun does not know the Lady Margaret exists,” he said. “The wish is Bolingbroke’s alone.”
He paused, and in that pause allowed his suspicions their full malevolent flood. Why did Hal want Margaret within his household? Surely it would be better if she and Rosalind stayed within the safety of Halstow Hall? There was no need for Hal to want Margaret back, as well as him, unless … no, no. It could not be … And then there was Richard … in London, Margaret would be so close to Richard’s animal lusts … too close …
“Richard …” he said without meaning to put voice to his thoughts.
Salisbury looked at Neville. Bolingbroke had told him that Neville would fear for Margaret’s chastity around a king who had already made clear his desire for her.
“Bolingbroke,” Salisbury said carefully, “has stated that the Lady Margaret will enjoy the full protection of his household. She will come to no harm under my lord’s roof.”
Maybe not from Richard, Neville thought. But from Hal? Hal has made it plain enough to me that he wants Mary only for her lands. Does he now want the woman he does desire back under his roof?
“My lord husband,” Margaret said, rising. “You have told me previously that Lancaster thought I could do well to serve his wife, the Lady Katherine. But now that you have taken service with Bolingbroke, instead of his father, it is natural that I should serve Bolingbroke’s wife instead.”
Neville looked at her closely, but finally nodded his agreement to something he fully realised he had no choice in.
“Very well,” he said, silently vowing that he would ensure Margaret came to, nor caused, no harm.
III (#ulink_c5c0a55c-ae41-5986-9a99-c82348dbda81)
The Feast of the Translation of SS Egidius and Priscus
In the first year of the reign of Richard II
(Thursday 1st September 1379)
Richard Thorseby, Prior General of the Dominican Order in England, sat at his desk in the dark heart of Blackfriars in London, slowly turning a letter over and over in his hand. His eyes were unfocussed, his sharp-angled face devoid of expression, and his equally sharp mind fixed on a memory of the previous Lent rather than on the contents of the letter …
The Dominican friary in the northern English city of Lincoln. The Lady Margaret Rivers, tearfully confessing that Brother Thomas Neville was the father of the bastard child in her belly. Neville himself, his behaviour, dress and conduct advertising to the world his blatant abuse of every one of his vows. And John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, humiliating Thorseby and allowing Neville to escape Dominican discipline.
In the months since, Thorseby had never forgotten his affront, nor had he relaxed from his intention of bringing Neville to Dominican justice. Indeed, what had once been intention had now become obsession. Thorseby would move heaven and earth, if need be, to bring Neville to penitent knees.
Or worse.
But how to do so? Lancaster and his son, Bolingbroke, were powerful men, and Neville enjoyed their full support. If the arch-heretic, John Wycliffe, could escape the Church’s justice through Lancaster’s protection, then there was little Thorseby could do about the less-heretical problem of Thomas Neville. (Thorseby’s personal sense of insult would sway no one to attack the Lancastrian faction on his behalf.) For a time, Thorseby had thought he might be able to use the long-ago deaths of Neville’s paramour, Alice, and her three daughters, to his advantage. Surely Alice had well-connected family who would be pleased to see Neville brought to account for her death? Even her cuckolded husband could be useful.
But Alice’s family and husband proved disappointing. They were all dead: her parents, her sister, and even her husband, who had succumbed to a wasting fever while on a diplomatic mission to Venice four years previously. The family who were left—distant cousins—simply did not care overmuch … and certainly didn’t care enough to take on Lancaster and Bolingbroke.
“I will see you humbled yet, Neville,” Thorseby murmured, then blinked, and looked down at the letter in his hands.
It had arrived an hour ago, and was a summons to Rome where there was to be an Advent convocation of the Dominican Prior Generals. Normally, such a summons would irritate Thorseby; travel through Europe in November and December was never the most pleasant of pastimes, especially when the Advent and Christmas season was so busy here in England. But now such travel would give Thorseby the perfect opportunity to meet with those who had known Neville in the months when he had apparently decided to abandon completely his Dominican vows.
Somewhere in Europe lay the evidence that would enable Thorseby to extract Neville from Lancaster’s protection. Someone must have seen something that would damn Neville for all time; witnesses to a foul heresy, perhaps.
If there was one thing that Thorseby had learned from his Inquisitor brothers, it was that disobedience never goes totally unnoticed and unremarked upon.
Thorseby very carefully refolded the letter and put it to one side. He paused, briefly drummed his fingers on the desk, then leaned forward, picked up a pen, and began to compose the first of several letters he would send out later that evening.
Whatever he’d said to Neville, neither Wycliffe nor his companions had any intention of travelling to Canterbury in the near future. Tired and, on Wycliffe’s and Tyler’s parts, saddened by their inadequate farewells to a woman both loved in different ways, they’d moved directly from Halstow Hall south to the port city of Rochester.
There, as arranged, they met with several other men—two craftsmen and another Lollard priest—in a quiet room in an inn.
“Well?” Wycliffe said as he entered the room.
“Ready,” said one of the craftsmen. He indicated a stack of bundled papers. “Several hundred, as you requested.”
“Show me.”
The craftsman took a single large sheet of thick paper from the top of one of the piles and handed it to Wycliffe. Tyler, Ball and Trueman crowded about him, trying to read over his shoulder.
Wycliffe relaxed, then smiled at the three men he’d come to meet. “Very good. Wat?”
Wat was already shrugging off his distinctive livery, changing into the clothes one of the craftsmen handed him. Within minutes, he’d lost all appearance of a hardened sergeant-at-arms (save for his face) and looked more the prosperous farmer.
“You have mules for these men?” Wycliffe said.
“Yes,” the priest replied.
“Good.” Wycliffe turned to Tyler, Trueman and Ball. “My friends. You shall have the most troublesome of days ahead of you. Be careful.”
Then he smiled, the expression lightening his normally harsh face. “Remember, when Adam delved, and Eve span—”
“Then,” Wat finished for him, “there were no gentlemen!”
All the men broke into laughter, and, with that laughter were the seeds of revolution watered.
IV (#ulink_2b15d493-3fb4-5189-9717-ca65e1a7cadf)
