“And now,” Thomas said, “what has caused you so much concern that you must rush from us tonight?”
“It is as I said. The threatening war has caused the ordinary people of Paris, together with those in the surrounding countryside, great distress. Taxes have risen until many starve in order to pay, and the city militia are being directed south to join King John’s armed forces in order to repel the English. Pans is unprotected, and its people alarmed.”
“You must hate the English,” Thomas said softly.
“Nay. Not the English. More, we hate our own nobles and king for draining us of our livelihood and the food from our tables. The years of war have exhausted us, and exhausted our trust in those who should protect us.”
“But you owe allegiance to your nobles and king, Marcel!”
“We owe them nothing when their taxes starve us, and when they do not protect us!”
Thomas sat back, disturbed by Marcel’s attitude. “And when you get back to Paris, Marcel? What then?”
“Then I will do what is necessary in order to alleviate the people’s suffering.”
“Even to encouraging discontent that might destroy the ordained order … God’s ordained order?”
“I will destroy that order myself, Thomas, if I see one child starve on the streets because we have been abandoned by those who should preserve us!”
Thomas was silent a long moment before he spoke again. “You speak rashly,” he finally said.
“Aye. I do. It is my hot temper and my concern for family and friends that makes me speak thus. Forgive me, Thomas. I was rash.”
Thomas nodded, accepting the apology although his mind remained deeply disturbed. For a few minutes they spoke of minor things until Karle came in and told Marcel that the horses were ready.
“I must leave,” Marcel said, and, standing, walked about the table to embrace Thomas. “Never forget that I will help if I can. Good luck, my friend. Go with God.”
“Go with God,” Thomas whispered, and then Marcel and Karle were gone, and the night was filled with the sounds of horses’ hooves rattling over the courtyard cobbles.
THAT NIGHT, Thomas had a bed and a room to himself for the first time in many
weeks, but even so he found it difficult to sleep. He kept thinking of Marcel, and their conversation. Thomas was sure that Marcel aided him because he’d been sent by the archangel St. Michael (how else could he know so much, and be so understanding of what Thomas told him?), but, even so, Thomas worried for the man’s soul. He had spoken so rashly of upsetting God’s established order on earth.
Thomas understood the man’s emotion and pain at the suffering of his people, but it was every man’s duty to live as best he could within God’s order.
When Thomas finally slipped into a fitful sleep he dreamed of merchants wearing crowns and wielding scepters.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Feast of St. Swithin
In the fifty-first year of the reign of Edward III
(Thursday 15th July 1378)
— I —
NUREMBERG WAS ONE of the richest trading cities in northern Europe, boasting several powerful trading and merchant guilds and associations and a host of wealthy craft guilds. The buildings, especially the cathedral and castle, were magnificent, the streets bustling, the voices cheerful, and yet Thomas found it a depressing city, perhaps because of the drizzling ram and chill wind, and perhaps more so because he missed the company of Etienne Marcel.
He had risen early that morning, spending an hour or more in prayer before the others rose and broke their fast with a hasty meal, all riding out just as dawn broke.
Everyone was keen to get to Nuremberg. The Biermans because of the wealth they expected to make for themselves—and Marcel—in the markets; Marcoaldi because he could finally dispose of whatever it was he’d so carefully guarded in his chests; Thomas for his own reasons; and the guards, both Swiss and German, because this was where they would receive their final pay and go home, or on to their next employment.
Thomas said goodbye to his companions of the past weeks once inside the main gate of the city. He knew the location of the friary and it would take him nowhere near the main square that the others were heading for. Their goodbyes were hasty, and Johan Bierman was the only one who genuinely appeared to regret the loss of Thomas’ company.
“Be careful of goblins,” Johan said with a grin.
Thomas jumped slightly, then took the remark as a jest, and replied in kind. “And you be wary of your admiration for mountains,” he said, “for otherwise they will be the death of you.”
And for the others there were nods, the briefest of polite words, and that was it.
Despite his depression, Thomas felt an immense relief as he once again set out on his own.
THE DOMINICAN friary was set against the eastern wall of the city, a small establishment for such a wealthy city, and Thomas wondered if it had ever managed to recover from the ravages of the pestilence thirty years previously. Many communities, whether those of the Church, or of secular society, had been so decimated by the pestilence they had never recovered from its horrors.
“Pray God there is someone here who remembers Wynkyn,” he muttered as he tied his horse to a ring set in a side wall of the friary’s courtyard.
A young friar, his earnest face marked by the scars of boyhood acne, walked from a door and greeted Thomas.
“Well met, brother. May we offer you the hospitality of the friary?”
Thomas thanked him, then asked if he might, first, speak with the prior. “If he is not at his prayers.”
“Oh, no,” the young friar said with a smile. “Prior Guillaume will be more than glad to welcome a visitor.”
“Pray tell me, is Prior Guillaume an old man?”
“Oh, very,” said the friar, and Thomas wondered if, being so young himself, the friar thought of all men past thirty as “old.”
But Prior Guillaume was indeed old—ancient, Thomas thought, and hoped that he not only had been here during the time of the pestilence, but could remember if Wynkyn had passed through.
Guillaume was very fat—his head wobbled continuously atop four or five chins—but surprisingly agile for his bulk, and apparently very pleased to greet a visitor.
“Brother… Thomas?” he asked, his Latin well modulated and with not a trace of any accent that Thomas could discern. “What brings you to our humble friary? And from whence have you come? Please, do sit down. Brother Gerhardt will fetch some water—no, not to worry, it is perfectly clear and untainted—for you to refresh yourself. So … ?”
Guillaume sat down on a well-reinforced bench and looked inquiringly at Thomas.
“My home friary is in the north of England, Prior Guillaume—”
“Ah, a splendid country!”
“—but I have come from Saint Angelo’s friary in Rome.”
Guillaume stopped breathing for several heartbeats. His skin went a horrible waxy gray shade, and his cheeks waivered.
“Ah, so,” he finally said, and wiped his upper lip with his hand. “Prior Bertrand has finally sent for news of Brother Wynkyn.”
That was not strictly correct, but it served Thomas’ purposes well enough, so he merely nodded.
Guillaume heaved a great sigh. “Well, I shall tell you what I know, and then you
shall be on your way.”
No hospitality here, thought Thomas. Not when the visitor is connected with Wynkyn de Worde.
“Wynkyn left us at the height of the pestilence,” Guillaume said, “and carrying the pestilence himself. No doubt he died of it not overlong after he left here.” “And he went… ?”
Guillaume shrugged slightly, his neck disappearing as his shoulders rose. “He went north on the road to Bamberg, Brother Thomas. I do not know precisely where, or even if, he left it.”
“But surely—”
“Brother Wynkyn was a secretive man,” Guillaume said, “and he kept his secrets well. All I know is that he went north, as he did whenever he came to our friary, but this time he never returned. As I said, he would have succumbed to the pestilence he carried not many days after leaving us. He was a sick, sick man.”
Thomas shifted in frustration. “There must be something more you can tell me, Prior Guillaume.”
Guillaume opened his mouth to rebuke Thomas, when he did, indeed, remember something. “He once mentioned the village of Asterladen. It is perhaps a day’s journey on the road north. I am sorry, brother, but that is the best I can do. Will you be leaving immediately?”
“Shortly. There is one other thing. Wynkyn had with him a casket—”
“Ah!” Guillaume threw his hands up in the air. “That cursed casket! It caused me much misery. I should have burned it.”
“You did not, surely!”
“Nay. But I should have.” Guillaume heaved a great sigh, his fingers kneading deep into flesh where they rested on his thighs. “Wynkyn asked me, that if he did not return, which he did not—”