“My lord, these are the honesty of England,” said Stephen. “Truest men on live. Trust them!”
“Yonder 's one with a brand on 's brow,—I see it, T!” cried the boy. Then he covered his face and shuddered.
“They have opened the prisons,” said Stephen. “Oh, sire, judges err, and wherefore not these poor? Do but come out to them and hear what they would ask of thee, and thou shalt see how they 'll be led like little children.”
“And would I not so, an I had my way?” Richard cried. “But old Salisbury saith they 're rebels and 't is not meet the King should bend to their will. And Simon Sudbury lives in fear of his life, and so he saith they seek mine also.”
“They will not have it they 're rebels, sire, being risen in the name of the King.”
“What for a riddle is here?” sighed Richard, but also he smiled. “Shall we say to these, my kinsmen and guardians, that the King hath bidden his people to rise against the kingdom?—Dost think I 'll be called a fool?—Nay!—Neither am I a babe to believe that thou and I and yon ragged rout may rule England in despite of mine Uncle Gaunt, and Earl Percy, and other the flow'r of England's chivalry,—for all Will Langland's Vision of Ploughmen.”
“But these folk do not demand to rule, my lord,” protested Stephen. “'T is to be made free men, no longer villeins and serfs.”
“The Archbishop saith 't is more than this,—for that John Ball and Wat Tyler be desperate men and they have made a plot to slay all nobilité. If they do so shall not I be as truly in bondage as now I am? And how vile bondage! Faugh!—filthy hinds!—Canst smell their stench even now?”
Stephen leaned on the battlement pondering what he would say. At last he spoke, his eyes fixed always on the hill and the restless throng thereon:
“'T is very true,” he said, “that there be certain among them are consumed with the s-sin of envy and lust of power, but the most part of the people m-meddleth not with these subtleties. Freedom is their desire, and not to be called villeins; and when they have obtained these, they will return to their homes. For W-Wat Tyler and Jack Straw and John Ball, they weigh not a fly as against King Richard in the hearts of the people.”