But Tyler also kept the most extraordinary company—his escort of the demon Wycliffe was but one example, and Neville felt sure he knew one of the other priests from somewhere—
and Neville simply did not know if he trusted Tyler any longer.
In this age of demons who could shape-shift at will, taking on whatever form they needed in order to deceive, whom could he trust? Neville had trusted the Frenchman Etienne Marcel—
and yet he had been a demon, intent on destroying God’s order on earth and distracting Neville from working the angels’ will. Tyler kept the company of demons; Neville knew he
could not trust him.
MARGARET VERY carefully washed her fingers in the bowl the servant held out for her, then dried them on her napkin. Finally, she folded her hands in her lap, cast down her eyes, and prayed to sweet Jesu for patience to get through this dreadful meal.
Thomas was not the sweetest companion at the best of times, but when goaded by John Wycliffe, as well as two of his disciples … Margaret shuddered and looked up.
Normally, she ate only with Thomas, Robert Courtenay, and Thomas Tusser in the hall of Halstow. Meals were always tolerable, and often cheerful, especially when Courtenay gently teased Tusser, who always good-humoredly responded with a versified homily or two.
Tonight their visitors had doubled the table, if not its joy.
They had eaten before the unlit hearth in the hall, and now that the platters had been cleared, and the crumbs brushed aside, the men were free to lean their elbows on the snowy linen tablecloth and indulge the more fiercely in both wine and conversation.
Margaret sighed. Under current circumstances, and with current company, religion was most assuredly not going to make the best of conversational topics.
Neville toyed with his wine goblet, not looking at Wycliffe, who ignored his own wine to sit stiff and straight-backed as he stared at his host.
Margaret suspected that Wycliffe, as well his companions, John Ball and Jack True-man, were enjoying themselves immensely. During her time spent at Lancaster’s court before her marriage to Neville, she’d heard tales of how Wycliffe liked to goad more conservative companions into red-faced anger with his revolutionary ideas, and Margaret was certain Wycliffe wouldn’t miss this opportunity to torment Thomas, who so clearly disliked the renegade priest.
“So,” Wycliffe was saying in a clipped voice, “you do not disagree that those who exist in a state of sin should not be allowed to hold riches or excessive property?”
“The idea has merit,” Neville replied, still looking at his goblet rather than his antagonist, “but who should determine if someone was existing in a state of—”
“And you do not disagree that many of the higher clerics within the Church are the worst sinners of all?”
Neville thought of the corruption he’d witnessed when he was in Rome, and the sordid behavior of cardinals and popes. He did not reply, taking the time instead to refill his goblet.
Further down the table, Courtenay exchanged glances with Tusser.
“Over the years many men have spoken out about the corruption among the higher clergy,”
Margaret said. “Why, even some of the saintlier popes have tried to reform the worst abuses of—”
“When did you become so learned so suddenly?” Neville said.
“It does not require learning to perceive the depravity rife among so many bishops and abbots,” Tusser said, his eyes bright, and all three priests present nodded their heads vigorously.
Neville sent Tusser a sharp look, but the steward preferred instead to see his lady’s smile of gratitude. He nodded, satisfied that he’d made his stand known, and resolved to say no more.
“You can be no defender of the Church, Lord Neville,” said one of the priests, John Ball,
“when you have so clearly abandoned your own clerical vows to enjoy a secular lordship.”
“I am more able to work the Lord’s will as a nobleman than as a priest,” Neville snapped.
Ball gave a soft, disbelieving laugh. “Such a convenient answer, my lord.”
Neville repressed a surge of guilt. It had been best that he leave the Dominican order. As a nobleman, he had far better access to those who worked their demonry within the English court than ever he would have had as a friar. He tried to find the words for to justify his decision to this self-righteous priest, but instead satisfied himself with a hostile look sent Ball’s way. He remembered where he had seen the man previously—at Chauvigny in France, where the priest had openly mouthed treasonous policies. The man was in the company of Wat Tyler then, too.
“Perhaps,” Ball said, easily holding Neville’s stare, “you found your vows of poverty too difficult? Your vows of obedience too chafing? You certainly live a far more luxurious life now than you did as a Dominican friar, do you not?”
“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 realize 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 virtually the same words from the mouth of Etienne Marcel, the Provost of Paris, just before the provost had led the Parisians into an ill-fated uprising against both their Church and their nobles. Many thousands had died. Not only the misguided who had thought to revolt against their betters, but many innocents, as well. Neville remembered the terrible scene of butchery he’d come across on his journey toward Paris, the slaughtered and tormented bodies of the Lescolopier family. Marcel, and now Wycliffe, mouthed words that brought only suffering and death, never betterment,
“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.