For the first time in many long, terrible years Thomas felt some measure of peace.
God and his angels had reached out and embraced him. offering him warmth and succor and purpose where before his life had lacked all of these things. His life without God had been a disaster. Now he had a chance to redeem himself.
Thomas rose very slowly to his feet, stumbling a little from his cramped muscles.
He had no idea why God had chosen him for this mission, why He’d chosen a man so heavily weighted with sin, but Thomas had no thought of refusing St. Michael’s command.
Offered both redemption and peace of mind, and given a fight in which he could lose himself, there was nothing now that Thomas would not do for God.
CHAPTER TWO
The Saturday after Plow Monday
In the forty-ninth year of the reign of Edward III
(Saturday 27th January 1377)
to
The Saturday within the Octave of the Annunciation
In the fifty-first year of the reign of Edward III
(Saturday 27th March 1378)
THOMAS TOLD NO ONE of his experience in St. Peter’s. If Satan’s imps—
demons—roamed among mankind, then who knew which among his brother friars worked for God, and which for evil? So Thomas remained silent, sinking deeper into his devotions and burying himself in his studies within the library of St. Angelo’s friary. Here were the ancient books and manuscripts that might cast some light on what the archangel had revealed to him. Here might lie the key to how he could aid the Lord.
He watched and listened, and learned what he could.
His feet healed, and his hands, and somehow that disappointed Thomas, for he would have liked a lingering ache or a stiffness in his joints to remind him of his duty to God, and also, now, to St. Michael.
In the year following his ecstatic vision, the archangel did not appear to Thomas again. Thomas was not overly concerned. He knew that the Lord and his captains, the angels, would again approach him when the time was right.
In the meantime, Thomas did all he could to ensure he would be strong and devout enough to serve.
Prior Bertrand observed his new arrival with some concern. He had been instructed by Father Richard Thorseby, the Prior General of the Dominican Order in England, to keep close watch on Brother Thomas Neville. Thorseby, a stern disciplinarian, did not entirely trust Thomas’ motives in joining the Order, and doubted his true piety.
Whatever Thomas’ motives for joining the Order—and Bertrand agreed with Thorseby that they were dreadful enough for Thomas’ fitness for the Order to be suspect—Bertrand could not fault Thomas’ piety. The man appeared obsessed with the need to prove himself before God. Every friar was expected to appear in chapel for each of the seven hours of prayer during the day, beginning with Matins in the cold hours before dawn, and ending late at night with Compline. But the Dominican Order, while encouraging piety, also encouraged its members to spend as much (if not more) time studying as praying, and turned a blind eye if a brother skipped two or three of the hours of prayer each day. Dominicans were devoted to God, but they expressed this devotion by turning themselves into teachers and preachers who would combat heresy—deviation in faith—wherever it appeared.
But Thomas never missed prayers. Not only did he observe each prayer hour, he was first in the chapel and last to leave. Sometimes, on arriving for Matins, Bertrand found Thomas stretched out before the altar in the chapel. Bertrand assumed he had been there all night praying for… well, for whatever it was he needed.
At weekly theological debates held between the brothers of St. Angelo’s, sometimes including members of other friaries and colleges within Rome, Thomas was always the most vocal and the most passionate in his views. After the debates had officially ended, when other brothers were engaged in relaxing talk and gossip, or wandering the cloisters enjoying the warmth of the sun and the scent of the herbs that bounded the cloister walks, Thomas would seek out those who had opposed his ideas and beliefs and continue the debate for as long as his prey was disposed to stand there and be berated.
Bertrand admitted to himself that he was frightened by Thomas. There was something about the man which made him deeply uneasy.
On occasions, Thomas reminded him of Wynkyn de Worde. That Bertrand did not like. He had fought long and hard to forget Wynkyn de Worde. The man—as sternly pious as Thomas—had frightened Bertrand even more than Thomas (although in his darker moments Bertrand wondered if Thomas would eventually prove even more disagreeable than Wynkyn).
In the years following the great pestilence (and the Lord be praised that it had passed!), Bertrand had spent the equivalent of many weeks on his knees seeking forgiveness for his deep relief that Wynkyn had never returned from Nuremberg.
He’d heard that the brother had reached Nuremberg safely, but had then failed to return from a journey into the forests north of the city.
Brother Guillaume, now the prior of the Nuremberg friary, had reported to Bertrand that Wynkyn had been consumed with the pestilence when he’d left, and Bertrand could only suppose the man had died forgotten and unshriven on a lonely road somewhere.
No doubt he’d given the pestilence to whatever unlucky wolves had tried to gnaw
his bones.
Bertrand spent many hours on his knees seeking forgiveness for his uncharitable thoughts regarding Wynkyn de Worde.
He did not know what had happened to Wynkyn’s book and, frankly, Bertrand did not care overmuch. Guillaume had not mentioned it, and Bertrand did not inquire. It was not within his friary’s walls, and that was all that mattered.
So Bertrand continued to watch Thomas, and to send the Prior General in England regular reports.
He supposed they did not ease Thorseby’s mind, and Bertrand did occasionally wonder what would happen to Thomas once the man journeyed back to Oxford to resume a position of Master.
Piety was all very well, but not when taken to obsessive extremes.
BERTRAND WOULD have been surprised to know that there were moments when Thomas let down his obsessive, pious guard—it was just that he was generally very careful to whom he showed the more vulnerable part of his nature.
In an effort to get Thomas out of the chapel, Bertrand sometimes asked the friar to attend the friary’s small herb garden. There was not much to attend, merely two or three dozen pots of herbs placed against a warm wall in the courtyard, but it was enough to keep Thomas occupied for a few hours, pruning or setting out seedlings if it was not too cold.
Surprisingly, Thomas enjoyed the time he spent in the herb garden. Handling the small, delicate plants gave him a sense of peace that he didn’t always get in prayer.
The herbs were undemanding, and the time outdoors was pleasant, even in the cold, and Thomas generally spent his hours with the herbs in a more peaceful reflection than at any time else.
One day the friary’s only novice, Daniel, was helping Thomas. Daniel was a thin, awkward and overly nervous boy who had, nonetheless, developed something of an admiration for Brother Thomas. Daniel knew of Thomas’ past, his military exploits, his position within the highest nobility of England, and was utterly awed by him.
Here was a man who had experienced life, a man vastly different from most of the other friars Daniel came into contact with.
For his part, Thomas was somewhat amused, and not a little flattered, by Daniel’s obvious adulation. On this day, as they stood side by side tending rosemary plants, Thomas glanced sideways at Daniel. The boy worked with plants like a gardener born—Thomas was very much aware that at least three of the plants he had worked on this morning had been saved from total annihilation by Daniel’s quick (and apologetic) intervention—and wondered why the boy had chosen to join the friary.
“Do you have family, Daniel?” he asked, his eyes now back on the plant he tended.
“Aye,” said Daniel. “A father, and an older brother.”
“Do you see them now?”
“Of course not!” Daniel said, stuttering a little, and Thomas cursed himself silently.
The boy would have thought the question was a test to see whether or not he had violated the friary’s strict rules regarding contact with anyone beyond the friary.
“Do you miss them?” he asked, his voice much softer now.
Daniel did not immediately respond, and Thomas thought he was ignoring the question as the most expedient way of responding. But then he saw the boy lift a hand to one of his eyes, and wipe away the dampness there.
Thomas averted his eyes, not wanting to embarrass the boy.
Daniel eventually nodded, jerkily, obviously not trusting himself to speak.
“Then what do you here?” Thomas said, keeping his voice as gentle as possible.