Ashes of Time (The After Cilmeri Series) Read Free Page A

taxes is higher, for him and for the pope.”
    “ The Church wants David to
let them prosecute heretics. But other than that, the separation of
Church and State in England might be easier to accomplish now than
after the Reformation,” Meg said. “Peckham has stood by our
acceptance of the Jews.”
    “ That’s only because we’ve
become the banking capital of the world,” Anna said. “It’s hard to
argue with success.”
    “ That may be,” David said,
“but Aaron is keeping his ear to the ground nonetheless. He’s heard
frightening whispers among his kin in recent months.”
    Aaron, a Jewish physician, had befriended
Meg when she’d come to the Middle Ages the second time and had
helped her to return to Llywelyn. Through his contacts among his
co-religionists, Wales—and now England—had become a haven for Jews
wishing to practice their religion in peace.
    “ I would have said my
biggest problems today—not necessarily in order,” David said, “—are
the ongoing unrest in Ireland, for which my Norman barons are much
to blame; the barons themselves, who own the vast majority of land
and resources in England; and the inquisition.”
    Anna nodded. “The Church,
like I said. Heretics and Jews aren’t
welcome here .”
    “ Well,” David said, coming
to a halt and facing Anna, “both are welcome here .”
    “ Which is going to cause
you more problems than you already have if your enemies use
prejudice to incite unrest,” Meg said. “Look at
Germany.”
    In 1287, a wave of anti-Semitism had swept
across Germany, resulting in the murders of hundreds of Jews in a
hundred and fifty different towns. In that other world where David
wasn’t the King of England, King Edward had expelled the Jews from
England in the year 1290. David was hoping that because that
expulsion hadn’t happened, other European countries wouldn’t expel
their Jewish people either. David was particularly worried about
France where the medieval inquisition had its strongest hold.
    This inquisition, however, wasn’t so much
about Jews as about heretics—people who didn’t abide by the
doctrines of the Church. David and Llywelyn had welcomed people of
all religions and beliefs into Wales and England, and it was
driving the Pope crazy that David refused to allow his minions to
arrest them.
    “ Give us your tired, your
poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” Bronwen said.
The Americans around the table nodded. They lived and breathed that
quote. Even if America had yet to be colonized, and somehow it
might be their descendants rather than their ancestors who would do
it, they could never allow themselves to forget where they’d come
from.
    Though not as economically and
technologically advanced as nineteenth century America,
England—with a population of only three million—had room to spare
if people were willing to work. And people could work here as well
as in France, Spain, or Germany. Recent immigration under David’s
benevolent eye had made London a sprawling capital of freewheeling
mercantile expansionism.
    Llywelyn lifted a hand. “It may be, then,
that this rebellion we’re facing is a blessing in disguise.”
    “ How might that be?” Meg
didn’t see how war could ever be a blessing.
    David answered for his father, “If my dream
is to create a peaceful, united Britain, then fighting a little war
now—putting down a small rebellion now, maybe even before it has a
chance to gain a real foothold—could send a clear message to every
other baron who might be entertaining the idea of fostering a
similar revolt.”
    Llywelyn nodded. “You made an example of
Valence. We may have to make one of Rhys and Madog too.”
    Before anyone could add to his comment—or in
Meg’s case, protest the very idea of a ‘little war’—a knock came at
the door to the inner ward. Since Anna was already standing, having
risen to retrieve Bran and plop him back into his place on the
bench, she went to open the door. Meg