Time and Chance eoa-2

by Sharon Kay Penman

  “I remember something that the Bishop of Worcester said to me last year. He said that any friend of the archbishop’s was an enemy of the king’s, with one exception… himself. And he was right. The king is fond enough of Lord Roger to overlook his dual loyalties. I think that also holds true for you and Lord Thomas. We both know that he and the king share the same creed: ‘He that is not with me is against me.’ But I can truthfully tell you that I have not heard Lord Thomas speak against you, not once in all those years of our exile. He does not doubt your fidelity, Will,” the Welshman said seriously, and then laughed. “Much to Master Herbert’s dismay!”

  “God grant it so,” Fitz Stephen said softly. “I rejoiced to hear of the archbishop’s accord with the king, Sander, for I’d given up hope that it would ever come to pass. Herbert called it a ‘false peace.’ Is there truth in that?”

  Alexander’s amusement vanished as if it had never been. “I fear so,” he said at last. “We’ve been back in England less than a fortnight, and little has gone as it ought. There is continuing strife with the de Brocs. They still hold Saltwood Castle and they’ve shown no willingness to surrender their grip on the diocese as the king ordered. They even went so far as to collect the Christmas rents in advance from the archbishop’s tenants! And they have been harassing our lord in ways both petty and great. The king sent wine as a gift to the archbishop and they seized the ship and cargo, throwing the crew into gaol at Pevensey. They have stolen Lord Thomas’s hunting dogs, poached his game, felled his trees. And I am sorry to say that the young king has so far done nothing to rein in their malice. That is why we are at Southwark, Will. Lord Thomas means to go to the young king’s court at Winchester and assure him that there is no truth in the rumors the de Brocs are spreading, that he intends to overturn Hal’s coronation.”

  “The de Brocs are evil men,” Fitz Stephen said grimly, “verily spawn of Satan. Did you know that Robert de Broc is an apostate Cistercian monk? It is only to be expected that they are stirring up as much trouble as they can. I thought the king was supposed to return to England with Lord Thomas. Why did that not come to pass?”

  Alexander grimaced. “When we got to Rouen, the king was not there. He sent a message from Loches in Touraine, claiming that he’d had to hasten to Auvergne to fend off an attack by the French king and telling Lord Thomas to go on to England with the escort he’d provided. You care to guess who the escort was, Will?” When Fitz Stephen shook his head in puzzlement, he said, after a dramatic pause: “The Dean of Salisbury, John of Oxford.”

  Fitz Stephen’s response was all that Alexander hoped for. He gaped at the Welshman in disbelief. “But Lord Thomas loathes John of Oxford! He even excommunicated him once! Whatever possessed the king to make such a choice? Was it meant as a deliberate insult?”

  “That was Lord Thomas’s suspicion, too,” Alexander admitted. “He was quite indignant at having such a man foisted upon him. And that was not all. The king had promised our lord that he’d give him five hundred marks when they met at Rouen and take care of the debts he’d incurred in exile. But there was no money and our creditors had trailed after us all the way to Rouen. The Archbishop of Rouen was so embarrassed that he offered Lord Thomas three hundred pounds out of his own funds.”

  “Hellfire and damnation,” Fitz Stephen muttered. There was much that he admired about his king, but he deplored Henry’s bad faith. He was not so naive as to believe that all promises were hallowed. Men of intelligence and goodwill understood which ones could safely be broken and which ones must be honored. Alas, the king did not.

  “It does not sound like an auspicious beginning,” he said, and Alexander gave a short laugh.

  “You do not know the half of it, my friend. Whilst we were waiting to take ship at Wissant, the Count of Boulogne warned Lord Thomas that the de Brocs and the Sheriff of Kent were planning to arrest him upon his arrival at Dover. As a precaution, we landed instead at Sandwich, but word soon got out and the de Brocs, the sheriff, and one of the king’s justiciars, Reginald de Warenne, came galloping up from Dover with a force of armed men.”

  “Jesu! What happened?”

  “Well… we wronged the king by doubting his motives in sending John of Oxford with us. John proved to be a godsend. He stopped them in their tracks, for all the world like a broody hen protecting her chicks!” A reminiscent grin crossed his face. “He would not even allow them into the archbishop’s presence until they’d disarmed. He insisted upon accompanying us all the way to Canterbury to make sure there would be no further trouble. Lord Thomas was impressed enough to write to His Holiness the Pope and commend his good services, and I never thought I’d live long enough to hear him speak well of John of Oxford!”

  Fitz Stephen was not easily roused to anger, but he felt a deep, slow-burning rage beginning to kindle, directed at the archbishop’s enemies, wolves harrying one of God’s own. Because it was in his nature to look for flowers among weeds, he sought to reassure Alexander by saying resolutely, “Once men find out that the archbishop has been restored to the king’s full favor, these provocations will cease.”

  “It is rather more complicated than that.” The Welshman lowered his voice to the confidential tones of one privy to secrets of consequence, and then revealed that Thomas Becket had dispatched letters of censure for the Archbishop of York and the Bishops of London and Salisbury.

  Fitz Stephen was stunned. “Are you saying that the archbishop excommunicated them on the eve of his return to England?”

  Alexander’s smile was beatific. “Indeed he did, and I’d have been willing to beg my bread by the roadside for the chance to witness their Judgment Day at Dover!”

  Fitz Stephen did not share his friend’s satisfaction. “I know the depths of his anger toward them, justified anger. But… but why would he strike out at them now of all times, just after making peace with the king?”

  “He’d not intended to do so. Remember that I said this was ‘compli cated’? When Lord Thomas first heard of the illegal coronation of the king’s son, he was told that Henry had perverted the coronation oath, demanding that his son swear to observe the ancient customs of the realm as set forth in the Constitutions of Clarendon. He wrote to His Holiness the Pope of this, with understandable outrage, for that would indeed have been salting the wound.”

  “I agree. But the traditional oath was sworn, with no mention made of those accursed Constitutions!”

  Alexander smiled ruefully. “I know. We soon learned that the first report was in error. But in the press of events this summer, getting ready to meet the king at Freteval, Lord Thomas forgot to advise the Pope of this mistaken claim. In October, the papal letters reached him at Rouen, suspending the Archbishop of York and five other bishops and ordering that the Bishops of London and Salisbury relapse into the excommunication that had so recently been lifted. Lord Thomas at once wrote to the Holy Father, asking for another set of letters in which no mention was made of the customs of the realm or the perverted coronation oath, giving him the choice of suspending or excommunicating the offending bishops at his own discretion.”

  Fitz Stephen was frowning. “Then how did this come about? He could not receive new letters of censure until after Christmas, at the earliest. So he must have made use of the first letters, the ones based on faulty information. Why, Sander? Why would he do that?”

  “Because he learned that the three of them were going to advise and aid the king in his plan to fill the six English bishoprics that are still vacant.”

  The pieces were coming together for Fitz Stephen, in a pattern as ominous as it was familiar. The king had acted with his customary arrogance, and the archbishop had reacted with fury as calamitous as it was understandable. “Clearly, word of these excommunications has not become public knowledge, for I’d heard nothing of them. Does the king know yet, Sander? You realize that he will take Lord Thomas’s actions as a declaration of war?”

  “I do not know if the king has heard yet. If not, he soon will, fo
r all that the bishops would prefer to keep this quiet in hopes of pressuring Lord Thomas to relent. That was the chief demand made upon him by the Sheriff of Kent and the others when they confronted him at Sandwich. As for the king’s rage, I do not doubt that it will be spectacular. But the archbishop has more than one arrow in his quiver. When he made peace with the king at Freteval, the king agreed to let him discipline those bishops who’d taken part in the coronation.”

  Alexander delivered this last revelation with the complacent pride of a court jongleur who’d just demonstrated an impressive sleight-of-hand trick. Fitz Stephen did not respond as expected, though. “He consented to further excommunications?” he said, sounding so skeptical that Alexander’s smile faded.

  “Well, no, not exactly… not in those words. But he did concede that the archbishop could exact punishment upon them for defying the Pope.”

  Fitz Stephen shook his head slowly. “And you truly think that is one and the same? Even if I did not know the king, I could tell you that he’d never equate a vague, ambiguous term like ‘discipline’ with the most lethal of the Church’s weapons. Knowing him as I do, I can say with certainty that there was no agreement, for there was no meeting of the minds upon this.”

  Alexander shrank back in feigned horror. “Saints preserve us, you’re sounding like a lawyer again! Be that as it may, Will, it is done and the archbishop is not likely to undo it. He told the sheriff and that whoreson de Broc when they threatened him at Sandwich that the sentences were passed by the Pope and so only His Holiness could absolve the bishops.”

  To Fitz Stephen’s legally trained mind, such an argument was a sophistry, for the archbishop had set the censures in motion by seeking them from the Pope. There was nothing to be gained, though, by saying so. He found it very easy to understand his lord archbishop’s fury and frustration, his need to strike out at his foes. But if only he’d stayed his hand! If only he’d waited until the storm provoked by his return had passed. Fitz Stephen suppressed a shiver, for he feared that Lord Thomas had given to his enemies a sharp sword indeed.

  There was a sudden stir at the end of the hall. Fitz Stephen jumped to his feet, nervously smoothing the crumpled folds of his mantle as Thomas Becket appeared in the doorway of the Bishop of Winchester’s private chamber. He was flanked by Waleran, Prior of St Mary’s of Southwark, and Richard, Prior of St Martin’s, a respected cleric from Dover. Fitz Stephen tried to take heart from their presence-physical proof that his lord did not stand alone-and reminded himself that not all of the bishops would side with the king. For certes, the Bishops of Winchester and Worcester and Exeter would hold fast for the archbishop, he concluded, and tried to shut out the insidious inner voice whispering that Winchester and Exeter were elderly and ailing and Lord Roger far away in Tours.

  Trailing after Alexander, Fitz Stephen threaded his way through the crush toward his lord. Once there, he stopped as if rooted in place, eyes stinging with tears, for the archbishop’s face was etched with the evidence of his travails; he looked haggard, even frail, all too intimate with pain of the body and soul. Like one consumed by a flame from within, Fitz Stephen thought sorrowfully, and cried out hoarsely, “My lord!”

  “William!” As Fitz Stephen knelt, Becket gestured for him to rise. His smile was warming, blotting out the years of separation as if they’d never been. “I am gladdened by the sight of you,” he said. “Have you come to welcome me home?”

  “Yes, my lord, and to serve you… if you’ll have me.”

  “There is always room in my heart for a faithful friend.” Fitz Stephen was still on his knees and Becket reached out, offering his hand. “It is well that you are here,” he said. “ ‘You also shall bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.’ ”

  Becket sent the Prior of St Martin’s to the young king at Winchester, preparing the way for his own arrival. The prior returned to Southwark with unwelcome news for the archbishop: he’d been received very coolly and soon dismissed, being told that a reply would be dispatched by a royal messenger. The court of the young king was hostile territory, he recounted. Geoffrey Ridel, King Henry’s chancellor, was utterly opposed to allowing the archbishop to meet with the young king, and in that, he seemed to have many allies. Only the lad’s greatuncle, the Earl of Cornwall, had spoken out in favor of the proposed visit.

  The prior’s pessimistic report was soon borne out. A delegation of high-ranking lords rode in from Winchester. The young king, the archbishop was told, did not wish to see him. He was to return to Canterbury straightaway and remain there upon pain of incurring the royal wrath.

  Becket was very troubled by his failure to see the young king; Hal had once been educated in the archbishop’s household and he was quite fond of the boy. He’d known that there were many in England who resented his return, men who’d profited by his exile, others who bore him grudges for past disputes. But he’d not realized how well entrenched they were at Hal’s court. Not a man to accept defeat easily, he decided to send Prior Richard back to try again. And since the Earl of Cornwall seemed most amenable of the young king’s advisers to reason, he sent a trusted confidant to the earl, his personal physician, Master William.

  Rainald had accepted the hospitality of the Augustinian canons at Breamore, not far from Fordingbridge where the young king was then residing. He was so alarmed by the arrival of one of the archbishop’s men that Master William was easily infected by his own panic. Dismissed by the earl, William wearily set out for Canterbury, bearing a message that seemed heavier with each passing mile. He reached the archbishop’s palace at dusk on Saturday, the nineteenth of December, and was ushered into Becket’s bedchamber to deliver his bad news.

  The archbishop was attended only by one of his oldest advisers and friends, the noted scholar and cleric, John of Salisbury. They were seated by the hearth, his lord’s chair just scant inches from the flames, for his extreme susceptibility to the cold made winters an ongoing ordeal. He smiled at the sight of William and beckoned him forward.

  “Come sit with us, William, and warm yourself. John, you remember my physician. He is the one who treated me when my jaw became inflamed at Pontigny. William has just returned from a covert visit to the Earl of Cornwall and, to judge by his demeanor, his mission was not a success. Do not try to sweeten the brew, William. If it is as bitter a draught as I fear, it is best to drink it fast.”

  Master William gratefully settled onto a stool, stretching his feet toward the fire. “You are right, my lord. I bring troublesome tidings.”

  John of Salisbury stiffened his spine, like a man bracing for bad news. But Becket’s face remained impassive. “Go on,” he said. “Tell us all.”

  “Earl Rainald was not pleased to see me, my lord. He was blunt-spoken and said that you had created a great disturbance in the kingdom and that unless God intervenes, you will bring us to eternal shame. He went so far as to say that we should all end up in Hell because of you. Later, when we spoke in private, he told me in confidence that your enemies are plotting against you. I asked him if the young king gave credence to their charges and he shrugged, saying that he was but fifteen and not much interested in political matters. There is a real fear amongst his advisers that you mean to undermine royal authority. Some believe that you will seek to overturn the coronation, and there is much talk about your evil intent, talk that you are riding with a large army.”

  “A large army?” John echoed indignantly. “We took five knights as an escort back to Canterbury-five!” Becket remained silent and, after a moment, William resumed.

  “Earl Rainald said that there was much sympathy at court for the bishops; men were irate that you acted so unfairly and vengefully, especially in the season of Advent. He said that he was not necessarily voicing his own views, merely telling me what others were saying.”

  He paused uncertainly until Becket nodded, signaling him to continue. “The next day the young king sent over from Fordingbridge a gift of venison for the earl, and by mischance
, the bearer recognized me, crying out loudly, ‘That is Master William, one of the archbishop’s household!’ He was assured that I was the earl’s doctor, but the earl was greatly disturbed by this incident, not wanting others to believe he was your ally. He insisted that I leave at once, telling me to get as far away as I could. And… and he bade me warn you, my lord, to look after yourself. He said that you are not the only one in danger, that so are John of Salisbury and Alexander of Wales, and if they are found by your enemies, they will be put to the sword.”

  John gasped, his eyes flooding with tears, but Thomas Becket regarded William calmly. Stretching his neck, he tapped it lightly with the palm of his hand, saying, “Here, here is where they will find me.”

  On Christmas morning, Becket preached a sermon to the townspeople of Canterbury, assembled before him in the cathedral nave, based upon the text Peace on earth to men of goodwill. He then excommunicated again those men who had transgressed God’s Laws: Rannulph and Robert de Broc; Henry’s chancellor, Geoffrey Ridel; and his keeper of the seal, Nigel de Sackville; and he published the papal censures against the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of London, and the Bishop of Salisbury.

  “Christ Jesus curse them all!” he proclaimed, and flung the lighted candles to the ground where they flickered and guttered out.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  December 1170

  Canterbury, England

  William Fitz Stephen was seated at a table in the great hall, drafting a letter to the Archbishop of Sens. Once it was done, he would take it to the archbishop and if it met with his approval, it would then be turned over to a scribe who would make a final copy. Fitz Stephen was a gifted Latinist, far better than Becket, and it pleased him greatly to put his skills at the service of his lord. He was so intent upon his task that he did not look up until his name was called close at hand.