He waited until they finished, stilled them with a gesture. "My poor friends," he cried in a voice that was hoarse and cracking from strain, "things cannot go right in England, nor ever will until everything shall be in common. And there shall be no more lords and vassals! How ill they've used us! Ragged starvelings that we be, we swink in wind and rain that they may loll in furred velvet, warm in their snug manors, glutting their bellies. Ay, by the Holy Rood, my poor friends, we shall change that now!"
They had heard all this many times before, but never with the growing frenzied hope. Now as the fierce preacher's voice trembled and failed him, their leader Wat, the tiler from Maidstone, climbed up on the stump and rehearsed to them their last instructions.
They had sent to the King a list of the men who must be delivered to them for vengeance - the traitors who were deluding and defrauding their little King.
They had demanded the heads of Simon of Sudbury, the archbishop-chancellor who had instigated the poll tax and who had imprisoned John Ball; of Robert Hales, Treasurer of England and prior of the hatred Templars of St. John, where sly money-grabbing lawyers were bred. They demanded the death of twelve others whom they had cause to hate - and the head of John o' Gaunt. They all greatly feared the wicked Duke who was so bloated with lands and power, and yet who traitorously craved to be king - as everyone knew. A monster of villainy, they thought him. Like the first John who had plotted against another royal Richard and ground all England into misery.
Wat shouted out the list of heads that they had demanded from the King, and at each name the crowd roared until the doors rattled in the rustic cots along the heath. They stamped until dust rose in clouds as thick as the smoke of their bonfires and torches.
But when he named John o' Gaunt, sharp cries mingled with their uproar. " 'Tis sooth, by God, we'll have no king called John!" "Never more a king called John on English soil! We shall slay that traitor first and pull his castle down about his ears!"
When they simmered down and listened again, Wat went on to remind them yet once more of the corner-stone that supported all their purpose. Soon, he said, there would be an answer from King Richard, who would surely meet them for a parley this time. Here they groaned. They had been sorely disappointed when the King's barge turned and put back to the Tower without greeting them this morning.
"Yet all must be seemly done in our revenge!" cried Wat. "No plundering, no ravishing! Commons be not thieves, remember! Commons be honest men who right a fearful wrong as surely as ever a knight went on crusade!"
They stamped and bellowed and waved their St. George pennants. Wat reached over from the stump and seized the King's standard; he raised it high into the sky until all could see the royal lilies and leopards. "And commons be loyal!" he shouted. "Our little anointed King'll be our true liege leader like his blessed princely father was. God rest his soul!"
Wat put the standard down and cupping his hands around his mouth, he roared out, "With whom holdes you?"
In one mighty voice they answered with the watchword.
"With King Richard and the true commons!"
Wat nodded heavily and got down off the stump. He glanced at the preacher, whose face was upturned to the pale new stars, and saw that John Ball was praying, open-eyed, while slow tears ran down his cheeks.
"Christ's mercy, but I hope them aldermen'll soon open the Bridge," Wat murmured.
Even as Wat spoke, a voice cried out, "To the Marshalsea, men!" and another called, "Yea! Burn the Marshalsea and on to Lambeth! When they city cravens see what we'll do on this shore, they'll not tarry in coming to terms!"
The rabble shifted and wavered, a dozen broke away and began to run towards the western road. Others followed brandishing torches, some armed with rusty old swords, with picks and hoes and cudgels; here and there a bowman, but the bows were warped and aged, the arrows nearly featherless.
The crowd grew dense that thundered off towards Southwark, and Wat watched uneasily. "An' they do more harm'n we meant," he growled, biting his lips, " 'twill mayhap hurt our cause."
John Ball started. Hearing the tiler's words, he lowered his head and looked to see what was happening.
"Not so," he whispered hoarsely. "Naught can harm our cause, for it is God's. They'll but root out the noxious weeds that choke our crops - mind ye, tiler, what the Blessed Christ has said! 'I came not to send peace, but a sword.' He will guide us aright."
Wat's misgivings were silenced, and he thrilled to the confidence that John Ball inspired, but Wat was a man of action, and his mind darted to practical matters. "What of Jack Strawe, Sir Priest?" he asked anxiously. "Think ye his men've entered the city yet by Aldgate?"
This was their plan, long a-growing and ripe at last, that the men who had rallied in Essex should broach London by her eastern gate, while the southern army crossed over on the Bridge.
"If they have not, they soon will," answered the preacher with calm certainty. "We shall succeed in all our aims!"
Katherine awoke suddenly and for no reason in the dawn hour of that Thursday, June 13, which was the Feast of Corpus Christi. She listened drowsily for some time to the sound of distant bells and thought that the church processions were starting early in honour of the Blessed Sacrament, and that this day she would certainly go to Mass. She had been lax too long.
Gradually it seemed to her that the rhythm of the bells was somewhat violent and clamorous to be the usual summons to Matins, or yet to signalise the start of a procession. She sat up in bed and pulled the velvet curtains back. Already the brief June hours of darkness had faded; grey light sharpened the forms of the furniture, the gilt carved tables and chairs, the ivory prie-dieu. She glanced towards the window and was mildly surprised to see the sky flushed with redness. It must be later than she had thought if this were sunrise.
She started to ring for Mab, who slept on a pallet in the passage, but instead she slipped out of bed, and flinging her chamber robe around her, padded on naked feet across the tiles and peered curiously out of the window. She blinked and stared again.
Down-river, in the neighbourhood of Southwark, the sky was lurid, and dense smoke billowed up against pale lemon coloured streaks of dawn. While nearer, in a different place to the south past Lambethmoor, she saw high leaping tongues of flame.
"Jesu - -" she whispered. "The Surrey bank's afire!" She flung open the leaded window and thrust her head and shoulders out. Still too dazed by sleep and astonishment to comprehend, she thought, Can it be Lambeth Palace burning, or Kennington? Nothing else to the south could cause so great a fire. She looked again down-river and saw a shower of sparks wing up into a brick-red sky.
She shut the window and turned uncertainly back, staring into the familiar, beautiful room. Her bare feet were cold on the tiles and she shivered, then walked to the bedside, where her brocaded slippers lay. Thank God the fires're safely across the river, she thought. I must send some of our men over to help.
She jumped as there came a banging on her door. It flew back and Brother William stalked in.
Katherine's chamber robe dropped open as she whirled around; the friar averted his eyes from the glimpse of white nakedness, and said, "Dress yourself quickly, Lady Swynford - and the child - there's danger."
She clutched her robe around her. "What's happened?" she whispered. "There's fire out there."
The friar glanced towards the window's ruddy light and said grimly, "There's a deal more than fire. The peasant army's pouring into London. Hasten - don't waste time in chatter!"
She stared into his eyes, saw that his haggard face was as grey as his habit, yet that he breathed fast as though he had been running. She obeyed him blindly, forcing her hands to quietness as she dressed herself in the garde-robe. Where's Mab? she thought, and forgot the woman. She put on a linen shift, and by instinct pulled down from the perch the plainest of her gowns, an old loose one of dark green wool in which she had nursed Blanchette during the worst of the illness.