‘The danger is clear,’ Edmund Rich admitted. ‘Though, my lord King, when it hath passed away, I will remind your majesty again
that in the matter of the prerogatives of the Church against the Crown I will be as strong a champion of Bishop Robert’s views
as ever I was before. But let us put that to one side for this day. Prater Marsh, thou art not without influence in the Bishop’s
household. Canst not prevail upon him to be less drastic? This is our quarrel too; and our just grievance with Rome will hardly
be mitigated if the Bishop himself, our strongest spokesman, knows not that he promulgates in England the newest and most
perilous of Papal oppressions.’
‘I sorely misdoubt me that the Capito can be influenced of anyone in this,’ Adam said heavily. ‘His righteous wrath is at
its hottest, as indeed how could it not be, considering the magnitude of these evils he upturneth daily at the synods? Nor
would the rede of Earl Simon be calculated to moderate his holy fury. This is a saintly man, as your lordship knows well,
and as we all seek to be. He’s nat to be wooed by arguments from expediency; is from the outset far too great a logician, maugre the affront to the moral laws he’d smell like brimstone smoking up from the very first such word.’
Henry was drumming on the table again.
‘Thou wilt try this course, most Christian Adam,’ he said.
‘Certes, my lord King, I will. Lack of zeal be’eth not my cross this day, but only misfaith in the efficacy of what’s commanded.
Can all these wise heads here think of
nothing
better?’
Henry’s fingertips beat a soft rataplan. ‘We will sit here,’ he said, licking his moustache, ‘until they do.’
This had been announced as a relatively ordinary midday meal, but nothing could be entirely ordinary in which the King was
involved. True, the gathering at the dais was not large, consisting only of Henry, flanked by two knights; Simon and a trusted
captain of his father, his devotion formed during the Albigensian campaign; the counterfeit baron, uncompanioned; Matthew
Paris; Edmund Rich and his lawyer-clerk; Eleanor of Leicester and her handmaiden, and Adam Marsh. Only a dozen in all; but
this was reckoning without the entourages of the King, Simon, the Archbishop and the baron all assembled at the lower tables,
their usual tumult of banging tankards and bragging not greatly subdued by the royal presence. Add to these, too, the bread-cutters
and the water-carriers, the squire at the hall dresser who poured the wine and gave out the cups and spoons, the usher at
the door, the waiter and two servitors at the high table, and even a clerk to count Simon’s silverware on and off. It was
not such a crush as Adam had survived at Beaumont, but in his present liverish spirits it was sufficient to threaten him with
a headache.
And the food came on without let or respite: black puddings, roasts of venison, herrings in wine, trout with almonds, spiced
pottages, ducklings in verjuice, vegetables in vinegar and fruits in wine sauces, turnip jam and pumpkin jam, sweetmeats,
pastries, wafers and entremets, all sifted over with ginger, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, pepper, galingale or sugar, even
the meats; and more wine than Adam would otherwise consume or see consumed in a six-month.
Nor was this all of his trouble; for this was for Simon an occasion of state, and where by ordinary his lady would have sat
by her lord, today he had found it more fitting that she should be attended by their joint confessor, at the other end of
the table. It was of course unthinkable that Adam should not discourse with her at all; though this was his inclination now,
neither the amenities nor his duty to her soul permitted that. Nevertheless, he was at a loss for words, and
filled with a sudden, ill-defined resentment toward Robert Grosseteste.
She did not allow this long. Reaching out a narrow white hand, she plucked a sweetmeat from his neglected dish and nibbled
it judiciously.
‘The Father is contemplative today,’ she said without looking at him, licking her fingers daintily. ‘Whence this wintriness,
most Christian Adam?’
Adam shrugged. ‘In sooth, I know not,’ he said uneasily. And in fact, he realized, though he was not without some skill and
craft as a diplomat, he fathomed himself not half so well as he often understood others. He knew well, for instance, that
Roger Bacon and many older men often had found him somewhat of an enigma; that was easy to read in their faces. He wondered
if they would be amused to know that his soul baffled himself as much as it did them. ‘Belike ’tis this confrontation with
thy royal brother.’
‘I sensed it was going ill, and much regret to have it so.’
‘There may be more. He is being white-faced and scrupulously polite.’
Eleanor crossed herself. ‘Yet that’s nat the all of it, I wis,’ she said. ‘’Tis plain, that’s but the rope that turns the
windlass, by which we ken there’s water in the bucket though it be never so far down in the well.’
Adam was forced to smile by the outrageous trope; like many another noblewoman, Eleanor evidently could listen to minstrels
more often than was good for her.
‘Bail away, my lady,’ he said, ‘though I’ll warrant thee, there’s naught below but mud.’
‘Gems are born in that,’ she said, with some determination. ‘Well, then, I’ll confess thee, good Father! Examine thy soul,
and speak it.’
This was probably safe ground. At the least, they were exchanging words, no matter how like they were to gibberish, which
would look more in keeping to Simon than his former sullenness.
‘I was thinking when first thou spakest, my lady, of the Bishop of Lincoln,’ he answered dutifully. ‘In this there’s
naught surprising, sithin we’ve talked with the King about naught else all day.’
‘True,’ she said. ‘And the noble Robert is thine oldest friend, thy teacher, thy spiritual father. How now this coldness?’
‘Coldness?’ Adam said, astonished.
‘Certes; an thou hearest it not in thine own voice, remarkest thou on how thou spakest not of a man, but only of an office.’
‘Thine ears be sharp indeed, my lady. ’Tis true I feel a certain distance, though I wis nat why or wherefore. Again, belike
’tis only this foredoomed occasion; for he bath all unwittingly caused me to appear before the King to answer to him, and
utterly without those recourses which the King ne’ertheless demands of me. But stop, these are the reasonings of a child,
to hold the Bishop responsible for my small embarrassment, that he wots nat of, and never meant to cause. ’Tis all this wine
that bath me by the wits.’
‘Fear not, I’ll shrive thee for thy gluttony,’ she said, and lifted a goblet to her own lips with a smile. ‘I’ll press thee
more yet, Father, for now at least thou’rt plaudering with me. Art thou alone in this?’
‘I fail to understand.’
‘What Henry wants, he would from thee alone?’
‘Nay,’ he said slowly, ‘nay, nat so. He would have it from any man here, could any bring it him. But none can.’
‘Then still thy coolness is unplumbed, most Christian Adam, for e’en unwittingly the good Robert bath not singled thee out;
yet speakest thou as if he had. Why is this so?’
These questions were verging upon impudence from a penitent; yet she was in her own house, as he was not. He must abide the
course; indeed had consented to it. Perhaps it was indeed the wine, but for whatever reason he felt impelled to give her a
little of the answer – not all, not all –as it began to appear to him. Though such a course was as hazardous as rope-dancing,
that too seemed to urge him forward.
‘No man can wholly love justice,’ he said slowly, ‘e’en
from the mouth of his confessor and brother in Christ. I did confess to our saintly Robert; and until this day, I deemed I
had done my penance in sufficiency. Mayhap my heart seeks now a drop of mercy, and findeth it not, and so blames Grosseteste.’
‘Now I’ll not ask thee what that sin was, Father, for a game is but a game,’ she said, her face instantly grave. Surely she
had no notion that it was in this cast of mind and countenance that she most wrung him. ‘I perceive I played at
bric
with fate-straws, and will cease; forgive me.’
‘Nay, I thank thee for thy goodness,’ Adam said. ‘Thine innocence is proof against offence; and truly, what transpireth here
hath no connection with this expiation, a burden I wrought solely for myself. I told thee, there was naught down there but
mud.’
But at the same moment, the rope broke under his weight and, falling, he saw. With it his voice broke too, beyond all hazard
of his mastering it, as he tried to cross over the last five words.
She turned her head and gazed at him, her delicate brows lifting slightly. He tried to look away, but could not. When at long
last she spoke, it was in a whisper, so that he could not hear her over the noise in the hall; but he could read the movements
of her lips.
‘I know it,’ she said. ‘I know it. Otherwise how could it matter here? It is I. I am the occasion of this sin.
It is I.’
No power on Earth or under it could have prevailed upon him to peril her by the faintest sign of assent; but there came to
him no Power from Heaven by which he might have summoned the strength to deny it. For a few falls of grains through the neck
of the glass, there were no powers, and they two were the only living things in Kirkby-Muxloe, or in all the world.
Henry would have left by nightfall, but that no course forenenst Grosseteste had emerged which was agreeable to all; so that
now he would have to stay another night in Kirkby-Muxloe.
‘Very well,’ he said, arising at last from the table. We will make our own composition of this matter, as time and again we
are driven to do. We will have the sheriff of Lincoln serve a writ upon Grosseteste, requiring this Bishop to show forth upon
what grounds lay persons of his diocese are forced to take oaths against their wills. And if that serveth not, we will direct
our sheriffs in general to allow no layman to appear before this Bishop to answer any inquiries under oath – nay, even to
give statements on other matters, maugre marriages and wills, against the customs of the realm and to the prejudice of the
crown. That, we hazard, will put this
teste synodak
to the halt; think you not, gentlemen?’
He did not wait upon an answer.
After some while, there was the five-fold sound of breathing being resumed. At the sound they smiled at each other, tentatively,
ruefully.
‘Ne doubt it will,’ Simon said.
‘Ne doubt it will,’ Edmund Rich agreed sadly. ‘And equally surely, will inflame anew the quarrel between Grosseteste and the
King.’
‘Canst thou not forewarn him, holy Edmund?’
‘Impossible. He’s still afield with Roger de Raveningham and five other clerks, turning up fresh scandals. Nor could that
help us now. These acts the King proposeth, he’ll see as fresh interference with the rights and liberties of the Church, to
the detriment of her disciplines. And he’ll be right.’
‘Ne doubt the good Grosseteste hath justice on his side,’ Simon said gloomily. ‘Yet his case would be the more defensible,
had he himself been less careless of the rights of his majesty. Witness the dischurching of the sheriff of Rutland.’
‘I am unfamiliar with the instance, my lord earl.’
‘I wis it well,’ Adam said. ‘A clerk, his name unknown to me, was deprived of his benefice for incontinence, during a visitation;
but refused to surrender it, whereupon the Bishop excommunicated him, and ordered the sheriff to imprison him. But this sheriff
of Rutland was a friend of the contumacious
clerk and refused to act; whereat, Grosseteste excommunicated the sheriff as well. An arbitrary act, I thought then, and I
think now; yet what else could the Bishop have done?’
‘Why, simply what precedent would dictate,’ Simon said. ‘That is, a letter to the King, asking for royal assistance, and setting
forth the cause. Henry then orders the chancery to issue a writ
de excommunicato capiendo,
ordering the sheriff to seize the clerk—’
‘Would he in sooth have done so?’ Adam asked.
‘Henry? Why should he not? He would under those circumstances have had no cause for anger. You see him misfortunately, when
he’s most crossed, and then he’s wood, I’ll nat deny what’s writ on cedar; but grant him what’s a king’s, he can be reasonable
then. And here, look you, the king’s bailiff cannot be summoned before an ecclesiastical court in a secular matter, as in
fact Innocent IV had to remind the Bishop in this very affair. And hear me, my lords, though canon law’s a mystery to me,
I ken the civil as well as I can find my own bum in the dark, and this testifying under oath we’ve been debating all day so
fruitlessly is just as clearly illegal.’
‘My lord earl hath read this law aright,’ Matthew Paris said quietly.
‘Be still, gossip; and leave us.’ Paris smiled and gathered up his quills and biblions. When he had gone, Adam said:
‘And what of the King’s appointing abbots as itinerant judges, withdrawing them from the cure of souls to collect money for
the King’s ever-empty purse? That in the long run is what led to that Passelew affair, as your grace doubtless knoweth.’
Edmund nodded heavily. Simon sighed and said,
‘We need better scholars on both sides, meseemeth; though none like that I put out the door, I’d trust him nat to sell me
a dead horse. And I myself lack time to be a lawyer, and bear sword besides. Tell me, most Christian Adam: what hath been
the fate of thine aforetime familiar, that Roger Bacon who put the tinder to the Poitevins? There perhaps
was the ilk of sightly and forward student that we most lack for now; and ’twas not long years past I heard the papal legate
say the same, that is a friend to all of us, no man may grant less.’
‘Forward and sightly and scholarly, that I ne gainsay,’ Adam said; but by now of this day his heart in his breast was hot
and black as a lump of peat-coke. ‘And hath joined the Franciscans, as he writeth me, as a lay brother. Yet never have I seen
any novice more unpromising for these our purposes, or e’en for those of Holy Church alone. If the King fears the Inquisition
rightly, Roger’s very presence would be a danger; he is arrogant, disputatious, impatient, cold of mien, condemnatory.… Not
my first election for a man of God.’