The novel

The Novel


Preface
The sound of shovels working the earth made little sound on the last day of December 1384. Wesley Channing stood there watching the men spoon dirt over the casket that held the body of his mentor and friend, James Wycliffe. Ash trees grew around Lutterworth’s little graveyard. Knobby olive-gray branches with tight black buds trembled in the mercilessly soggy wind. The pallid-gray bark on the trunks of the trees was hard and stiff with age. Wes let the rain drip down from his black mourning cloak onto his face, down his nose. He should have visited his friend sooner. After all, Lutterworth was not that far from where he lives. Even if he lived on the

opposite side of the world, Wes owed his entire adult life to James, and should have been willing to travel the distance to see him. It is easy to commit to something after it is no longer relevant.
A peal of thunder jarred Wes from his thoughts. He blinked away rain and his own self-condemnation. Wesley realized that he had been standing there, unblinking, for nearly five minutes and looked up. Besides the gravediggers, Wes was the only one left to watch the end of the life of the greatest theologian he would ever know. He noticed, amongst the ash trees, sad, white willow trees that drooped almost lifelessly over long buried Englishmen. Staring at the willow trees, Wesley traveled back eleven years to his first days at Balliol College at Oxford.


Chapter One



For the entirety of his life, Wes would remember what springtime is like in Oxford. Wesley Channing’s arrival at Oxford happened on a pleasant and breezy afternoon where clouds, in layers, drifted across the sky. There were wide patches of blue in between the clouds, and when the sun shone, it became very warm.
The building, though serious and resilient, also had fantastic “fancifulness…variety… [and] richness” (Bump 672). No one could ever say that Balliol was simply a building. It was an adventure story written in the language of pointed arches and gabled roofs. Wesley’s room was pleasant and secure. Wesley laughed: ‘secure’ was just another word for ‘small’.
Outside the lancet window, on the ground below, Lent lilies had begun to open their pale petals and expose their yellow centers. Wesley thought they might be soft to the touch. His room smelled like mint, probably from the tunics his mother packed before he left. Mum liked to
scent his clothes with mint. Leaving his satchel on the cool stone floor, Wesley propped his lute carefully against the wall, so as not to scratch it. His father had given it to him before he left, nearly a fortnight ago. Wes walked over to a scarred mahogany chest of drawers set in the corner of the room; he used the stale water sitting on the chest of drawers to cleanse his hands. It is because of God’s grace that he was here this day. Wes was about to receive an education from some of the finest intellectual geniuses in the country and he would not bemoan a little musty water. He crossed over to the window again.
The view from his window was remarkable, Wes remembered. The spring had turned the countryside into a sweet and verdant green, and the quad was no exception. The courtyard had endured England’s fickle winter gracefully. Even the cherry trees recovered from their battering, took heart, and spread their branches in the sun.
The window itself was striking to look at. It was ample in width, and reached beyond his room to the room above his. Wesley knew, by looking across the greens at the other windows, that his window would also be crowned with a pointed arch. The roof supported clusters of thin turrets that reached to the gathered clouds. They looked akin to the tallows his mum sent with him to school for night reading, Wesley thought. He could see a pointed entrance hall leading from the courtyard into the part of the quad where, Wesley assumed, the students received their lessons.
Such poise there was to this entryway! The arch was many layers deep and met at a humble point, but the stonework that echoed the arch in a steeple-shaped dripstone seemed to reach for the sky as if trying to reach
toward heaven. Between the arch and its hood, chiseled carvings pictured artistic foliage and decorative tracery left creative holes in the stone. Wait, was that a griffin?!
Chills ran down and then back up Wesley’s entire body, and the tiny hairs on the back of his neck rose in
reaction to the inanimate statue. Wes had always been spooked by the eagle-headed, winged, clawed, lions. They were the monsters in childhood anecdotes and causers of mischief; griffins were “demons that would carry off sinners” (Griffin 1). In a word: they were just scary. Wesley was not sure how he could close his eyes knowing that the creature would be staring at him through his window while he slept. He would think about it anon.
Wes could not wait to make the acquaintance of Mister John Wycliffe, the celebrated theologian who was to tutor him in the intricacies of religion and philosophy (Great Men 1). Wycliffe had secured Wesley’s spot here at Oxford. After a series of correspondences, Wycliffe was convinced that a young boy with as much intelligence and
religious dedication as Wesley should be at his school. How lucky he was to be granted stay at the college without having to pay the excessive tuition that is required of most students. Balliol has always educated the poor, but Wesley could never have imagined himself here, in such magnificence, even a sennight ago (Great Men 1). It was ill fated that Wycliffe was no longer master of the school, even if he was a Doctor of Theology and the Warden of Canterbury College. He would have prized every moment of additional time to speak with Doctor Wycliffe about his sensational views on the hierarchy of the Church.
When Wesley arrived at Balliol that day, he knew he would have an extraordinary life in Oxford. Yet, he never would have guessed that one day he would be helping John Wycliffe, Morning Star of the Reformation and despised church heretic, translate all of the Scriptures from Latin into English so that the common man could have a direct relationship with God without priestly intervention (Church 2). Neither could he have imagined
that, in just eleven years he would be burying the same man.



Last Journal


Dear Journal, Jan 7, 2004
I really think this book will happen! George Bernard Shaw once said, “England and America are two countries separated by the same language” (Smith 1). I can certainly believe that. As a student living in a world almost six hundred and fifty years in Wesley Channing’s future, I have no idea how novel an idea a college education would have been. Children in America, in this century, get an education handed to them on a silver platter; it takes more effort to refuse higher education than to receive it. Still beyond that, I feel privileged to be female and in college. It was not so long ago that women were not allowed within the walls of a university, even with an adult escort. Beauty is anywhere and anytime. Looking at Gothic relief carvings or watching the sun on a campus building, in the year 1373 or 2004, nature has a way of softening, brightening, and invigorating an experience.

Alice2

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