Satan in St Mary

talking sessions where the community of the realm could discuss matters. Our Lord, the King, has taken over such an idea but not in the way that de Montfort intended; he wanted the cowl-makers, the cobblers, the carpenters and the masons to take over in government not just be involved in it. "
    "But de Montfort died, smashed to pulp like some rotten apple at Evesham!" Corbett exclaimed. "He, his family and his followers were destroyed by the King!"
    "No, " Burnell replied. "Many survived, spread their radical theories and still do here in London, exploiting the city's dreams and aspirations. " He stopped and picked up a piece of parchment. "This was pinned to Saint Paul's Cross yesterday. Listen!" Burnell jibed, opening the crumpled greasy vellum. "Know you, Citizens of London, how you are despised and ill-treated by the endless greed of the Lords and the King They would take from you, if they could, your share of the daylight and tax the very air you breathe. These men, the King, and his Spanish Queen to whom we render forced homage, feed on our substance, have no thought but to glitter with gold and jewels, build superb palaces and invent new taxes to oppress this city. Their priests are no better, shepherds more interested in fleecing their flocks than caring for them. But the Day of Liberation is at hand when the worms of the earth will most cruelly devour the princely lions, leopards and wolves, for the common folk will destroy all tyrants and traitors!" The Chancellor finished speaking, his face slightly purple, his chest heaving.
    "The writer?" Corbett interjected.
    "We do not know, " the Bishop angrily replied, "but this is treason! Something is beginning to rise from the dark and murky depths of this city!"
    "Is that the reference to the Day of Liberation?" Corbett interrupted.
    Burnell snorted. "Day of Liberation! From what, I ask you?"
    Corbett thought of what he had seen while touring the shires and walking through the midden heaps of London. The common people, in one-storey, timber-framed houses, with thatched roofs and plaster walls, taxed by sheriffs, haunted by bailiffs and royal purveyors. Their lives were pitiless, he had seen a line of peasants once at the bar of an assize court at Kenilworth, standing like roosters soaked in the rain, heads hanging, bedraggled and dirty. A fellow clerk had joked that a peasant's soul could not go to either heaven or hell, for both angel and demon would refuse to carry it because of the smell. Corbett reflected but wisely forbore to answer the Chancellor and turned to another matter.
    "I know about Fitz-Osbert, " Corbett said. "A devil worshipper from over a hundred years ago, but what has he to do with this?"
    "Fitz-Osbert was a rebel as well as a devil worshipper!" Burnell replied. The Chancellor picked up a small carved crucifix from his desk. "There are thousands of these, " he began, "in castles, homes, hovels throughout this realm. There are monasteries, nunneries and abbeys the length and breadth of the country. There are cathedrals in every city, and a church in every village. Yet Christianity is only skin deep.
    There is still the old religion; we met it in Wales, the worship of dark forces and the constant harking back to ancient ways!"
    Burnell nodded towards the narrow slit windows. "Even the Abbey itself is built on an ancient place of worship. Go through the records of its church courts and you'll find superstition there: the man who placed the sacred host in his garden in the hope it would ward off marauding insects: the woman who made wax images of her husband in order to cause him pain, or the countless references to people consulting witches, wizards, warlocks and the like. Fitz-Osbert lives on in such practices, he was a rebel because the Church condemned him and the Church is protected by the State. So, attack and destroy the State and the Church is vulnerable. What worries and puzzles me, " concluded the Bishop, "is why the spy mentioned both de Montfort and Fitz-Osbert in the same breath? What did he know? If only he could have told us more!''
    "Who was he?" jibed Corbett. "Some poor clerk who was sent in blind, knowing nothing of the facts or the danger?''
    "No, " Burnell smiled. "A yeoman, a squire, Robert Savel. These rebels, whoever they may be, are bringing arms into the city. A cartload was taken by stealth from Leeds Castle in Kent, others from castles round London. "
    "So, Savel was assigned to find out if these arms were brought to