Neville sat down on the bed with a thump and pulled his boots on—damn? Where was Courtenay when he needed him? The man had picked a fine morning to sleep in!
“Do what?” he said, then cursed as he caught his thumb under one of the boot hooks.
“Something about Richard,” Margaret said.
Neville glanced at her. “What?” he said again, irritably, then sighed. “Ah, my love, you have had every man in creation snap at you this morning, have you not? I am sorry for my ill-temper.”
“I thought that Bolingbroke and Lancaster …” Margaret drifted off, not wanting to actually voice the words of treason. Neville had confided in her what had been said over Gloucester’s and Arundel’s corpses, but had said little since.
Neville stopped fussing with his boots and turned to look at his wife. “It takes time, Margaret.
Neither Hal nor Lancaster is strong enough—not even combined—to … well, to challenge Richard. Richard has many men, and many powerful men, behind him. Now he has Parliament as well.”
Parliament had been so shocked—and so frightened—by the ease of Gloucester’s death that it had acquiesced to Richard regarding the poll tax. Neville had heard that even now tax collectors were moving through the counties collecting six pence for every household. It was not much—a day’s wage, perhaps—but it was enough to cause resentment.
“I cannot believe that all England has cowered before Richard,” Margaret said. “Nay. All England has not. There are many men who believe he should be curtailed, at the least. But Margaret, we are talking of raising a coalition against the throne, and that is never easy to do.
Good men always hesitate before they can be persuaded to act against the established order. Richard is the anointed king, and opposition will take weeks, perhaps months, to forge into an effective weapon.”
“Months,” Margaret whispered, and Neville saw that she slid her hand beneath the covers to cover her belly.
He leaned over the bed, and kissed her. “We will be safe,” he said. “Do not fear.” ” ‘We will be safe,’ ” she echoed. ” ‘Do not fear.’ Is that something you whispered over Gloucester’s and Arundel’s bodies, Tom?”
THERE WAS nothing to be done, save to listen as London whispered and gossiped about the news from France. Generally, the whispers were prideful: Hotspur had won a brilliant victory against the French, and was even now marching to the north to slaughter every last breathing man, woman and child of the hateful French race.
The Londoners had never had a great deal of sympathy for their eastern neighbors.
Neville spent an hour or so talking with Bolingbroke and Lancaster, but then somewhat desolately wandered back to his duties. Book work waited for no man, and there was correspondence regarding Bolingbroke’s five wards that needed to be attended to before the monies for the wards’ education and the upkeep of their households became due on Lady Day.
But Neville had barely bent his head to the first of the wards’ financial matters when Courtenay opened the door to the chamber and interrupted him.
“My lord? I am sorry, but—”
He got no further as a man squeezed through the door and walked past Courtenay.
Neville rose to his feet, a grin spreading across his face despite his best efforts. “Master Tusser!”
Tusser bowed, then straightened. His face was knotted up into an expression of utmost urgency; he had no conception that there might be worldly matters more important than the daily running of Lord Neville’s estates.
“I have brought the accounts!” Tusser said, and deposited several large volumes on the table before Neville.
Neville looked at them, then raised his face and, most unfortunately, caught Courtenay’s look of amusement at Tusser’s self-importance before Neville could say something appropriately serious.
His lips twitched, then Neville burst into laughter, stifling it only when he saw the injury in Tusser’s eyes.
“I am sorry, Master Tusser,” Neville said, and waved for Courtenay to leave them. “It has been a strange day and I have responded to your arrival most inappropriately. I am glad you are here. News of Halstow Hall and its concerns will be welcome indeed after the machinations I must endure in London.”
Somewhat mollified, Tusser pulled up a stool to the table and sat down, accepting the goblet of watered wine that Neville offered him.
“I have ridden hard and long to bring you these accounts,” Tusser said.
“I know, Master Tusser, and I really am sorry—”
“I should be home, overseeing the barley crop, and making sure the men harrow properly, because if they don’t then the crop will be lost to the crows. And there are the hops to be set… I should be there for that… and the grafting to start… but, no, here I am. ‘He’ll be more than glad to see me personally,’ I thought—”
“Tusser—”
” ‘and glad to see how well I have looked after the accounts of all his estates,’ but, no, you only laugh when—”
“Tusser, I am most truly sorry!”
Tusser lapsed into a sulky silence, and to fill the quiet Neville slid the first of the heavy books toward him and opened it. He scanned the first three or four folios, feeling guiltier at each entry read, for Tusser had indeed done a fine job with his accounting, and had deserved much better than Neville’s laughter.
“I am most well-served in you,” Neville said quietly, and closed the book, “and Margaret will be sad indeed to hear how I have repaid your service.”
Tusser’s mouth lost a little of its sulkiness. “The Lady Margaret is here?”
“Indeed, and close to her quickening with our second child.” Neville had shared the news with very few people, but felt that offering Tusser such an intimacy might go some small way to repairing the injury to the man’s feelings.
Tusser’s face cracked in a broad smile. “My lord, you are so blessed!”
Now Neville’s face relaxed into a smile and his eyes into softness. “I am indeed,” he said.
“Now,” his manner became brisk, “perhaps you could give me a brief overall accounting before the bells ring for Nones. Then Margaret will, I am sure, be happy to fuss over you and provide a fine feast to soothe away your travel weariness.”
Having finally decided to forgive Neville, Tusser happily launched into a summary of the noteworthy events on Neville’s four estates, and an account of the harvesting of the previous autumn. Neville had known of the harvests from Tusser’s communications to him while he’d been at Kenilworth, but now his steward filled in the gaps. They were talking of the need to hire more men to cope with the early summer haying on Halstow Hall’s extensive meadowlands when Neville first realized the worry in Tusser’s eyes.
“Master Tusser?” Neville said, leaning forward a little over the table. “Why the concern?”
Tusser did not immediately answer. His fingers drummed softly on the open accounting book he had before him, and his brow furrowed.
“It may be nothing,” he said eventually. “But?”
“But… my lord, this poll tax has stirred the peasants grievously.”
“Has it caused hardship?”
“Only in a few cases, my lord, but that is not what stirs the men to anger.”
Neville waited.
“My lord,” now Tusser leaned forward, staring anxiously at Neville, “you know how wages have risen ever since the time of the great pestilence.”
Neville nodded. So many had died during the pestilence that those laborers who survived had demanded, and received, higher wages along with a reduction in rents and, in some cases, complete freedom from feudal bonds. Many a family had improved its lot in life.
Tusser’s air of anxiety deepened. “But for years ordinary men have felt that the nobles and Parliament were only waiting their chance to beat the commons back into the mud of bondage again. Men now fear that this poll tax is the first shot in the war to re-impose feudal dues and conditions.”
“It was Richard who pushed this tax,” said Neville.
Tusser shrugged. “But it is Parliament and the nobles who are being blamed. My lord, I fear this coming summer.”
“Why?”
Tusser caught Neville’s eyes and held their gaze steadily. “There is talk, my lord, of a rising.
Men feel they must make a stand against a Parliament which seeks to reimpose feudal restrictions. They will refuse to pay this poll tax.”
“A rising? But they cannot hope to succeed!” Neville thought of Wat Tyler. Was he behind this talk?
“Furthermore, there is a belief,” Tusser said, “that if Richard only knew how greatly the commons resented this tax he would rescind it.”
Neville almost laughed. Richard? Rescind the poll tax through sympathy for the common man?
“He is as likely to slaughter them,” he said, and then wondered why he’d said that. If Richard was truly the Demon-King, wouldn’t he rather they succeed?
CHAPTER XIII
Passion Sunday
In the first year of the reign of Richard II