To prove herself, she told him a story: “A bishop sees a floating bladder; he follows it over hedgerows and fences, through sties and meadows, till he comes to a witch. The bladder stops and sinks to the ground. The bishop says, ‘Is this your bladder?’ The witch replies, ‘Yes.’ The bishop says, ‘How do you make it float?’ The witch says, ‘It’s easy.’ ‘Could I do it?’ ‘Certainly, go ahead.’ He tries but nothing happens.”

Philip asked, “Why not?”

“That’s what the bishop in the story asks. ‘Because you have no faith.’”

Philip stared a moment, then laughed and danced a little jig. He decided to send Margery to Lambeth Palace, to Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury—“And pray him to give me leave to grant your request.”

15

Margery and John entered the hall at Lambeth Palace in the afternoon. The walls were painted in blue and gold diamonds and a sideboard stood at the back. Clerks and yeomen swore oaths that tortured Jesus’s golden flesh. Margery took sins against language personally.

“Do you know how God was made?” A squire pumped his finger into his fist. “Fucking and shitting!”

Margery said, “You will go straight to hell!” She harangued the crowd with images of ruin and begged Jesus for mercy on their behalf. They gaped at her as though towers were already toppling. A Spanish woman lurched forward; she had black eyebrows and wore heavy silver jewelry. The woman felt sick; a skull jeered its way through her flesh. “I wish you were in Smithfield—and I would bring a bundle of sticks to burn you with!”

Margery stood trembling. Whenever the Spanish woman had a problem she looked for a devil to blame. She singled Margery out and led the mob. (Later she took a turn for the worse and leprosy broke out all over her body. She wanted to hold up a lantern in the darkness to isolate Margery’s face.)

Just then the Archbishop sent for Margery. The Spanish woman stretched her arms towards heaven and fell on her knees. The police state was just beginning and she assumed Margery was meeting her doom.

Arundel was a prelate of royal blood. Twelve years earlier, in 1401, he’d rushed an act through Parliament that authorized the burning of heretics. Nine days before the act became law, he burnt a priest from St. Margaret’s, Margery’s church, for saying good men are holier than angels. Later, in 1410, he burnt Bradly the Tailor, a Lollard who said a spider and a toad are worth more than the consecrated host since they are alive.

Arundel invited Margery to sit in his garden. He had chalky skin and a red nose, the patrician bearing and tight gray ringlets of a schoolmarm.