The Last Days of Magic

by Mark Tompkins

  “Of course not. If the news agitated him, he’d have my head,” replied Chaucer. “You’re going to have to carry the day yourself. But take heart, it’s unlikely that he’ll execute an envoy of Rome.”

  “Let’s hope not,” replied the legate, unable to remove the anxiety from his voice. “Best tell me how to play the king’s new game.”

  “Richard and his amusements,” Chaucer intoned, his mind clearly elsewhere. “The king sits brooding while before him await courtiers, petitioners, guests, and the like, until suddenly he looks up with a shout, and if he looks at you, you have to immediately drop to your knees. Too slow and you suffer a penalty, one he makes up on the spot, and it’s always painful, either financially or physically. This can go on for hours.”

  “Worth remembering,” said the legate.

  “Unlikely that game will be on today, though. We’re not going to the palace. The king’s at the Tower,” said Chaucer. “And don’t forget, Richard has changed his title from ‘Your Highness’ to ‘Your Royal Majesty.’ Get that wrong and even you will suffer a penalty.”

  The legate hated going to the Tower of London. You never really knew if you were going to be let out. “Why the Tower?” he asked.

  “Sir John Clanvowe is to be executed today for being a follower of the Lollard heresy. Also, I believe, for opposing the king’s high taxation to support his opulent court.”

  “But Clanvowe is one of your closest friends.”

  “Was one of my friends.” Chaucer set his mouth in a tight line and looked out the carriage window at the rain starting to fall. The legate barely heard him mumble, as if to himself, “Death is the end of every worldly pain.”

  They remained silent until their carriage rattled onto the cobblestone road through the outer gatehouse of the Tower, across a stone bridge spanning the moat, through a second gatehouse set in the outer curtain wall, across the outer yard, through a third gatehouse set in the inner curtain wall, and into the inner yard, where three canopies had been erected next to the post-and-arm.

  “Damned rain,” said Chaucer, climbing out of the carriage. “Now we’ll have to wait.” Chaucer led the legate through the drizzle to the largest tent, decorated with the king’s banners, where members of the inner court were gathered. He and the legate accepted goblets of wine and moved to the edge of the canopy, where they examined the instrument of Clanvowe’s imminent execution.

  “After being sentenced to death, Clanvowe petitioned the king, requesting that he be allowed a beheading,” said Chaucer. “A petition the king denied. You see, this is a game as well. If the condemned shows courage in the face of his suffering, Richard will grant him an early end to the pain.”

  The legate considered how he might twist today’s event to his advantage. The Lollard heresy, if used strategically, could strengthen his arguments to the king. The Lollards had defied the Roman Church and committed their ultimate sacrilege, translating the Bible into English. Freed from the need of priests to explain the words of God, some Lollards—whose secret membership included both peasants and knights—had started thinking they did not need a king either.

  “How come the king’s attempts to counter the growth of the Lollards?” the legate asked.

  “He hunts them down and destroys the translated Bibles when he can find them,” replied Chaucer. “But they’re proving to be surprisingly resilient.”

  Richard would get better results, thought the legate, if he simply outlawed learning to read. An enhanced strategy for persuading Richard was forming in his mind.

  “Where is your new marshal keeping Kellach?” asked Chaucer.

  “I made arrangements for them to wait in Conwy Castle.”

  “And any news on Orsini’s plan for Patrick’s Bell?”

  “No, so don’t bring it up.”

  “Why don’t you just send King Solomon’s Ring with the fleet, if the invasion ever goes forward? It has enough power to protect the whole armada.”

  “Orsini would never leave Rome unprotected without the ring, nor would I want him to. Lord knows what demons would seize the opportunity to attack.”

  The rain had faded, and they were interrupted by the sound of horns. The assembly bowed as the royal procession entered the courtyard led by the twenty-four-year-old king, the incestuous issue of Edward, “the Black Prince,” and his cousin Joan, “the Fair Maid of Kent”—the pope had granted them dispensation to marry. Lanky and pale, with delicate features, Richard settled himself in a large, elaborately carved chair at the front of the canopy. To his right sat Anne of Bohemia, his queen. They had been married nine years earlier, when she was sixteen, yet she remained without child. It was whispered, not too softly because Richard did not seem to care, that this was because he preferred the bed of Sir Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, who sat in the chair to Richard’s left. Still, Anne was known to be devoted to Richard and he to her, perhaps because she did not mind Richard’s eccentricities and even, it was also whispered, joined in them.

  Drums announced the entrance of Clanvowe, who walked unchained toward his slow death. Three men carried chopped wood from a storage shed and waited for him to inspect it. “Good and dry. A hot and high fire, if you please,” Clanvowe announced in a loud, clear voice, handing the executioner a gold noble, worth six shillings and eight pence. Clanvowe removed his hat and gave it to one of the woodsmen, his jacket to another. He walked on, paused, pulled off his boots, hopping a bit as he moved from one leg to the other, and gave them to the third. Barefoot, he defiantly mounted the five steps up to the small platform of the post-and-arm.

  “Chaucer, tell Us of Sir Clanvowe,” called Richard in French, without looking away from the continuing preparations.

  “He was a valiant knight of the court before being corrupted by Satan,” replied Chaucer as required, but his voice carried a caustic edge.

  “A valiant knight of the court,” Richard repeated with a smile to de Vere. “Then We think he will surely die well. What say you, Chaucer? Do you wish to place a wager?”

  “I am sure Your Royal Majesty is correct. I would not dream of wagering against you.”

  “Hm. Become king and no one will wager with you anymore. Oh, well, let Us begin.” He gave a small wave, and a torch was pushed into the stack of wood over which Clanvowe was now suspended.

  Richard leaned forward, relishing his victim’s attempt to resist the flames. When Clanvowe broke down and began to thrash about, Richard applauded, and his applause was quickly taken up by the entire assembly. “Not bad. Not bad. We have seen better, but not bad. We will let him go for just a bit longer. . . .” he said. “There. Captain, you may help the poor man out. His sins are atoned.”

  The captain of the guard ended Clanvowe’s anguish with a quick thrust of a pike. A smoking fragment of his tunic drifted up in the hot fumes.

  Richard rose from his seat. “Let Us escape this stench,” he said. “Anne, you will return to the palace. Chaucer, We will meet with the Vatican’s legate now in Our receiving room. De Vere, join Us.”

  The assembled nobles rose and bowed just a bit deeper and longer than they had earlier.

  . . . . .

  De Vere followed Richard, the legate, and Chaucer inside the neighboring building to a long, dark-wood-paneled room, where fireplaces at each end gave off a heavy warmth for which de Vere was grateful. Executions left him chilled.

  “Leave Us,” commanded Richard, gesturing to the servants. He strode to a table stacked with food and began pulling breast meat from a roast hen and stuffing it into his mouth.

  De Vere poured wine into a goblet, placed it on the table next to the eating Richard, then turned to the legate. “Legate Migliorati, His Royal Majesty welcomes you. Your business must be very important to bring you personally all the way to London.”

  “The Lollards are not the only ones to threaten England and the True Church,” said the legate. “The Ir
ish Christian Church also grows in power across all of Britain and Europe. It owes its allegiance to Armagh, not Rome.”

  “You have your own mercenaries. Take the monasteries in Europe, and then His Royal Majesty will consider taking the monasteries in England and Wales for you.”

  “Monasteries are but a small part of the problem. Just as with the Lollard conspiracy, it is their ideas that are the real risk. The Irish Church and its Celtic allies are spreading their heretical philosophy as we speak. Attacking the monasteries in Europe and Britain will only embolden them.”

  De Vere glanced at Richard, who continued to tear at the food trays. Having someone killed always arouses my king’s appetites, thought de Vere, feeling his own cravings awaken. He would have to conclude these futile discussions quickly. “What is the Church suggesting, then?” he asked.

  “It is critical that His Royal Majesty invade Ireland and destroy the Irish Church at its root.”

  A piece of half-chewed hen hit the legate on the cheek as Richard broke into laughter, coughed, and spat the rest of the food from his mouth onto the floor. He coughed twice more while bending over with his arms on his knees and then resumed laughing.

  The legate furtively wiped his cheek.

  Richard brought himself under control with obvious effort, took a long drink of wine, and collapsed into a chair.

  “The Church has lost its mind,” said Richard. “They tried that with Our Norman predecessors and failed completely. Not even the Roman legions, at the height of their power, were able to take Ireland.” Richard waved the back of his hand at the legate. “This audience is over,” he said, turning his eyes to de Vere.

  “As you know, Legate Migliorati,” said de Vere, “His Royal Majesty has always been a devoted supporter of the Church, but what you suggest is, of course, impossible.” De Vere extended his arm as if to show the legate out.

  “And what if it is not impossible?” the legate asked, standing his ground. “What if the Vatican could guarantee you a safe landing on the Irish shore? What would that do for Your Royal Majesty’s empire?”

  De Vere cringed at the emphasis on the word “empire.” It hinted at Richard’s failed attempt to invade Scotland and his retreat from France. Dangerous ground for anyone but a high representative of the Vatican. De Vere dropped his arm and narrowed his eyes. “The Church issued such a guarantee to Strongbow.”

  “It did not. It simply gave him permission to go,” the legate insisted.

  “What makes the Church think the result would be any different this time?”

  “Strongbow was guided only by the deposed king of Leinster, a mortal king who did not even have enough power to hold a regional kingdom. A human.”

  The legate addressed Richard directly, “Your armies, Your Royal Majesty, will be guided by a powerful Sidhe king, ruler of all the Skeaghshee, the Wood Sidhe. He has the power to safely land an armada, and his people will fight alongside your army.” He went on to explain the attack on Aisling and the destruction of Anya’s heart.

  The legate was describing the rescue of King Kellach with pride when Richard rose from his chair and slammed his wine goblet down on the table. “And what if we land safely? What then?” Richard shouted, glaring at the legate, then at Chaucer. “Do you want another slaughter? Is that your plan? Our forces would still be facing the combined armies of the rest of the Sidhe, the Celts, and the Irish Church. Not to mention those horrid Fomorians. Why should We do this . . . this favor, for the Church? Chaucer, did he pay you to bring this idiocy before Us?”

  “I am sure Your Royal Majesty’s spies will report no sudden increase in my purse,” replied Chaucer, a hurt look having appeared on his face.

  “We will see. So what do you say to Rome’s madness?”

  “I would not presume to render an opinion. My humble role is simply to deliver Rome’s esteemed envoy into your royal presence.”

  “And We thought poets were supposed to be braver than bureaucrats.”

  “Your Royal Majesty,” interjected the legate, “just eighty miles off your coast, the ideas coming out of Ireland threaten your kingdom even more than they threaten my Church. You have experienced the damage that the Lollards have done to your authority by transcribing just a few copies of their English Bible for their members. Imagine what would happen if all your subjects could read it themselves. The Irish Church educates everyone, even women and slaves.

  “What would happen to the very concept of a monarchy appointed by God if the writings of heretics like the Lollards were cheaply and easily available to peasants who could read? Even now, in the Orient, they are perfecting a machine that can produce whole books, hundreds a day, without the need of scribes. The Arabs have mastered making paper much cheaper than vellum and in mass quantities by using water-powered mills. Soon anyone will be able to afford and obtain books.”

  “We will outlaw such books,” said de Vere. “The Church can declare it a mortal sin to possess even one.”

  “Books are easy to hide,” replied the legate. “The spread of literacy itself must be stopped. It is the sacred right of only priests, nobles, and, of course, kings. Whoever controls literacy controls history, and the future.”

  “Then we will just have to stop this at our shores,” said de Vere.

  “Impossible,” declared the legate. “Just as with the Lollard problem, you cannot stop ideas as long as the Irish Church keeps spreading them. The Irish Church also supports the Celtic heretical practice of allowing anyone to increase his station through effort, while it is truly only God who determines a man’s station, and that is through his birth. The Irish Brehon laws are based on the principle of Is ferr fera chiniud—‘A person is not his birth.’”

  “That will never happen in Our England as long as We are king,” declared Richard.

  “May your rule be a long one, Your Royal Majesty. But what if these ideas continue to spread? Do you want to spend the rest of your life fighting one uprising after another? I am sure you are already aware that the Irish Church is a strong supporter—a promoter, even—of the Celtic practice of electing their kings. If your nobles should get the idea that they could be elected to the throne, not to imply they would be successful, but still, it would cause a constant irritation to Your Royal Majesty.”

  “Hm,” mumbled Richard, turning back to the food table. “We will give your words proper consideration.”

  The legate bowed to Richard’s back.

  “Are you in London long?” asked de Vere, ushering the legate and Chaucer to the door.

  “I will be staying at the Westminster Priory for the next two days. I understand that the abbey is almost finished, and His Holiness the pope is anxious for me to inspect it.”

  Having escorted them out of the room, de Vere returned to Richard. The king, no longer eating, was leaning against the table looking thoughtful. “Your thoughts, dear friend?” Richard asked.

  “If Ireland could truly be taken,” said de Vere, “think of the land and income that would be gained. It would be a mighty addition to your kingdom. Memories would fade of the unfortunate events in Scotland and France.”

  “True,” said Richard. “And a new war would stop the nobles from grumbling about taxes, if there were land for them to gain.”

  “And if the Roman Church secretly paid for the war, all those taxes would fatten your treasury,” said de Vere.

  “If Ireland could really be taken.” Richard picked up a dish of miniature fruits sculpted out of colored sugar and almond paste and handed it to de Vere. “Go find out if it is possible.”

  10

  London, England

  The Same Day

  Carrying the dish of sugar fruits across the inner yard of the Tower of London, de Vere noticed that Clanvowe’s corpse, now headless, lay smoldering on the remains of the fire. He knew that the blackened head would already be on a spike above the outer gatehouse.


  De Vere entered a low, windowless stone building. To the guard sitting inside, he said only, “Third cell.” De Vere pulled a ring of keys out of his pocket, selected one, and handed it to the man. Following the guard down the short corridor, de Vere drew a violet-scented handkerchief from his sleeve and covered his nose against the rancid smell.

  The guard unlocked the cell, placed his torch into a wall bracket inside, returned the keys to de Vere, and left without comment. The flickering torchlight penetrated the darkness just enough to reveal an ancient figure sitting with his back against the far wall, his only clothing a dirty, tattered loincloth. Both legs had been chopped off above the knee, the scarred flesh having withered to expose nubs of bones into which were set iron rings. A chain led from the bone rings to a bracket in the center of the cell floor.

  De Vere placed the dish on the stone floor. The prisoner turned his face toward the sound, sniffed the air, and began to crawl toward de Vere, dragging the chain behind him. Reaching the dish, he drew it to his nose and examined its scent cautiously, then propped himself up against the wall next to the door.

  “Sugar, my last pleasure,” said Oren, turning to face de Vere as if he could still see out of the scarred hollows that once held eyes. “What do you want?”

  MORE THAN THIRTEEN HUNDRED years earlier on Anglesey Island, Wales, in the year CE 60, Oren leaned heavily on the oak branch he was using as a crutch. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on pushing away the wave of pain threatening to overwhelm him. Regaining control, he looked back across his homeland. Smoke billowed from scores of fires where Roman legionaries were burning the sacred groves. Behind him the sun was setting.

  Dawn seemed like an age ago, when he had stood with his now-dead father on the bank of the narrow strait, no wider than a river, that separated Anglesey Island from the western coast of the Welsh mainland. Young, in his first century, facing his first battle, Oren had been full of excitement and confidence. Proudly clutching the new blade his father had made for him, he had been impatient for the Romans to show themselves on the opposite bank.