“After careful consideration, I told Hal the whole truth about the advent of Emmett and me into this world, and, at his insistence, we journeyed up here, to Whyffler Hall, that he might see the console. And well it was that we came just when we did, too. Both his first two wives having died in childbirth, James Whyffler had wed a young heiress, replaced the stockade with the present stone wall, and was in the process of leveling the hill to lay the foundations of this hall when His Majesty’s retinue arrived. It had been his original intention to dismantle the upper levels of the old tower-keep, utilizing those precut stones in the foundation of the hall, while filling the lower level with earth and rubble for a ready-laid stretch of foundation.”
“Of course, King Hal forbade any such thing, citing as public reason that the old keep had withstood the Balderites
plus God knew how many generations of Scot reavers; he ordered that instead the tower be incorporated into the new hall. And after he had seen the console and I had shown him the operation of one of the hand-stunners, he had the masons wall up the only entrance to the tower cellar, marked the closure with the Royal Seals, then had James Whyffler vow that only I or the King would ever be allowed to break those seals. I’m sure James thought that royal treasure or religious artifacts or both had been deposited in that cellar, and no doubt he was highly flattered by the secret honor thus accorded him and his house.
“In 1508, the first of the so-called Priests’ Plague outbreaks occurred. The disease had afflicted portions of Armenia and Turkey as early as the waning years of the fifteenth century and was thought to have died out there, then it burst like a petard in the Balkans during the summer of Arthur’s illness. After lying dormant through the winter, it moved north, into Europe proper, the next summer.”
“Yes,” said Foster, “I’ve heard talk of this Priests’ Plague; it had something to do with the senior archbishopric being moved from Canterbury to York, didn’t it?”
The old man shook his head. “No, not this first outbreak, Bass, but the second, which occurred during the reign of Arthur II. There have been other outbreaks since that one, but not in England, thank God.”
“Okay,” said Foster, “the obvious question, Hal. Why the designation ‘Priests’ Plague’? Simply because it wiped out the then Archbishop and all his household?”
The white-haired head shook again. “No, Bass, the disease was called Priests’ Plague long before it came to these islands. Why? Because eighty percentum of the victims were clergy nobles or merchants—chiefly in towns, but in the countryside as well, notably in monasteries.
“I theorize, Bass, that the plague is transmitted by way of luxury goods, likely Asian in origin. I’ve never been able to pinpoint any closer than that general classification. But consider you this: the Court was hard hit, the King and his two sons only lived through my lavish expenditure of my longevity booster capsules; the queen refused to take them and so died. Throughout the rest of this realm, almost nine out of ten town-dwelling clergy were stricken and more than half of those died; in the wealthier monasteries, there frequently was not a single survivor … yet very few of the simple, comparatively poor village clergy were afflicted and the stricter, less luxurious monastic communities survived intact.
“Inside two months, three-fifths of the greater nobles of England were dead, along with their families and even their entire households, like as not. Of the commoner sorts not connected with service of nobles or clergy, most deaths occurred among merchants dealing in commodities from overseas, their households and employees, or those commoner townsmen grown wealthy enough to afford luxuries.
“Even as England was slowly recovering, a fresh outbreak was raging through Italy, southern France, and Catalonia, so there was no objection from Rome when the King took upon himself the old royal right to fill vacant sees and other clerical offices. Right many a humble, middle-aged priest suddenly found himself with the ring of a bishop on his finger. And, if the truth be told, Bass, the anti-Rome sentiment of the English people began at that time, through the preachments of these commoner-priests-cum-prelates against the sloth, indolence, money grubbing and posturings of the Church hierarchy.