Needle in the Blood (22 page)

Odo can see immediately that the likenesses are wickedly truthful, and in other circumstances might be amused by the mason’s cheek and impressed by his skill, but this morning Lanfranc’s delaying tactics only irritate him, and this irritates him further because he knows it’s what Lanfranc wants. He must not lose his temper.

“Your Grace, I must speak to you about Thomas of York.” Wishing his Latin, though fluent, had the same elegance and precision as Lanfranc’s.

“And what touching Thomas is so important to you?” Lanfranc rolls up the drawings.

“He writes that you have refused to consecrate him until he makes you a written profession of obedience.”

“Not me, Odo, but the See of Canterbury. It would be most presumptuous to exact such an oath to my person.”

“Frankly, I think it unacceptably presumptuous anyway. As far as I can understand, there is no precedent for York taking second place to Canterbury. York’s independence goes back more than three hundred years.” Odo starts to cough; after the long silences of his recuperation, his voice has lost the strength for argument.

Lanfranc waits for the fit to pass before asking, “May I ask why you are involving yourself in this matter?”

“Thomas was a canon of my cathedral in Bayeux, as I’m sure you’re aware, Your Grace. I sponsored his education. He approached me for advice. As his spiritual father. Which I am still, I suppose, as he remains unconsecrated.”

“But you have no ecclesiastical jurisdiction in England, Odo. It is none of your business.” He fixes his sharp, dark gaze on Odo. “Walk with me a little. I am afraid we shall be in Master Paul’s way if we stay in here. Take my arm,” he says as they leave the tracing house and begin to make their way around the boundary of the building site, treading cautiously on the slippery, rubble-strewn surface, stopping occasionally to peer into the craftsmen’s lodges and watch the stone carvers and carpenters at work.

“We’re like a couple of old men,” he remarks, “me with my rheumatism and you with your back. Propping each other up.” They pause to watch one of the carpenters planing a length of oak, delicately arched like the rib of a ship. “How old are you, Odo?”

Where is he going now? Patience. “Thirty-four my last saint’s day,” he replies after a pause; it had been his mother’s business to keep track of his age.

“Mmm.” He looks at Odo speculatively, tugging his beard. “You look older. And I am sixty.” Is he, or is it just the age he chooses to be, a neat, round number, not young, not senile? “Yet I am building for the future here and you look to the past. This tapestry of yours. A commemoration, is it not? You see, what Gregory III promised to Archbishop Egbert of York three hundred years ago is irrelevant. It’s past. We must go forward.”

“Surely the past, Your Grace, is our foundation. Otherwise, why did you school me in the classics and the Old Testament when I was at Bec? Didn’t you expect me to learn from them?”

“Yes, Odo, not to swallow them whole like a snake with a rabbit. You disappoint me.”

“Well, I’ve always done that, haven’t I?” The swish of the plane along the curve of the wood grates on his ears, his eyes are full of sawdust. He turns away from the carpenter’s lodge, though Lanfranc keeps hold of his arm, preventing him from moving on.

“Only because your ability is so great. You are capable of anything. William knows that. That is why I am Archbishop of Canterbury and not you. I am capable merely of carrying out the will of the king and, I trust, of God.”

A bell begins to toll, marking the next office of the day. Odo looks up at the sky; the wind drives rags of dirty cloud across the sun which has already reached its short zenith. He wants to conclude this business and be on his way. The carpenter lays his plane aside and composes himself for prayer before eating his midday meal. Lanfranc slips his arm out of Odo’s and drops to his knees in the mud and sawdust. Odo, whose only prayer is that his exasperation with this pantomime of modesty and obedience will not show on his face, does likewise, feeling the cold seep through his clothes as Lanfranc recites the
Deus in adjutorium.
God is merciful, and Lanfranc contents himself with this portion only of the office of Sext before rising, brushing himself down and resuming their walk.

“Regarding Thomas,” Odo begins again. “If you reject history as a justification for his autonomy, let us consider the fact that he was appointed directly by His Holiness. We are not talking about some provincial abbot here. You, on the other hand, have only my brother to thank for your elevation. It is an English affair.”

“Nevertheless,” says Lanfranc with a bitterness that takes Odo by surprise, “one of which His Holiness is in full support. I am not an ambitious man, Odo. Your brother alone could not have persuaded me to leave Caen to take up this responsibility. Indeed, I refused him, despite the fact that he is probably my best friend. I am here only on the direct orders of our Holy Father.” He gives a short laugh. “Another unruly pupil.”

“Can you prove this? Do you have letters? You have not been to Rome for your pallium.”

“Do I have to prove it? Is there no honour between us?”

“As I see it, this is a matter of law. Law must be proven, as you yourself taught me. There must be precedents and witnesses. Until you can produce these, I shall urge Thomas to swear no oath.”

“And I shall not consecrate him until he does. I assure you I have the king’s support in this. The king understands that the Church in England must be gathered under a single head, just as the people are gathered under him.”

“But who’s tune are you dancing to, Lanfranc? William’s, or the Pope’s?”

“Why, God’s, of course. It is very straightforward for me. I do not wear a bishop’s hat on one side of the Channel and an earl’s coronet on the other. You should consider the consequences of your actions more carefully, Odo.”

“Oh, I do, Lanfranc; believe me, I do.” Odo turns and walks away, his long cloak swirling about his heels, covering the ground a great deal more quickly now he is free of the older man. Lanfranc makes no attempt to follow him but returns by a different route to the refectory, reflecting serenely that he is going to be in trouble with his servant for making such a mess of the white gown. He is not worried by Odo’s clever questions and Delphic oratory. His duty is clear, as the Holy Father pointed out to him in his astonishingly speedy rejection of Lanfranc’s request to be allowed to return to Caen. Odo is merely a temptation, and he has always been dispiritingly strong at resisting temptation.

***

“A warm welcome, sir,” says Osbern. They can still hear the hubbub in the castle wards, muffled by the fine Flemish tapestry now covering the parlour window against the onset of the evening’s cold. The entire household turned out to welcome him, from Hamo and his lady and two sullen little daughters to the smallest spit boy from the kitchens. Everyone smiled and congratulated him on his recovery, some pressing the flanks of his horse or hanging onto his stirrups as though he were a hero returning from the wars. Planks of wood strewn with fresh straw had been laid over the worst puddles in the courtyard, newly cleaned out so it smelt more of damp earth than manure for a change.

The well had been decorated with ivy and winter jasmine, and Countess Marie awaited him there with a bowl of mulled wine. Leaning down from his horse to take it from her caused him a moment’s anxiety. To enable him to ride, Osbern had bandaged his midriff so tightly he was not sure he could bend without losing his balance. He was also wary of coming into contact with his pommel after the additional injuries inflicted by his encounter with Mistress Gytha. Countess Marie, however, is a tall woman and held the bowl up high, averting disaster.

He drank the health of all of them, lifting the bowl in every direction, but particularly toward Agatha and her embroiderers clustered outside their door like a flock of wood pigeons. But not Gytha. Why? Where was she? Realising her absence, a pain shot through him more sudden and intense, and unexpected, than any in his ribs or kidneys or his jaw when he smiled. But at least, he told himself with a gallows grin, appropriate to one of his bruised and aching parts.

“As warming as a fire built entirely of kindling, I think, Osbern,” he replies. “Now, for pity’s sake, get these bandages off me. I can hardly breathe.”

Osbern undresses him and removes the bandages, which he rolls and puts away discreetly in the bottom of the linen press. Odo has orders to join the king in Ely as soon as possible, to put down a rebellion of the East Anglians. There can be no question of damaging rumours about his fitness.

“Give me my dressing gown, then you may leave me to rest. I shall dine in hall tonight. Come back in an hour. No, on second thoughts, ask Lord Hamo to attend me, and a scribe.” Messengers must go out to his vassals no later than the morning ordering them to join him for the expedition to Ely.

Good, loyal, efficient Hamo with his pasty, pockmarked face and his Gascon harridan, the Countess Marie, whose marriage Odo himself had blest days before they embarked for England, though in Odo’s opinion, the only good thing to come out of Gascony is its horses. It is lucky he knows his lord’s vassalage almost as well as his lord does, because this evening Odo is curiously and uncharacteristically absentminded about who owes what in knight service and how long everyone is likely to need to assemble their forces.

“My lord,” he ventures, after pointing out for the third time that Ursulin FitzHugh is already in East Anglia and that therefore there is little point in ordering him to attend a muster in Canterbury, “should you be undertaking this campaign? Shall I go in your stead?”

Where is she? Why was she not there to welcome him? Could she be ill? Dead? “Hamo, you’re a good man, but I assure you I’m fine, just a little tired. Besides, I need you here. I have been considering replacing this castle. It’s inadequately fortified and damnably uncomfortable.”

How dare she have the gall to snub him? When he has been generous enough not to have her clapped in irons for attempting to murder him. Women. Whatever you give them, it is never enough.

“Yes, my lord.”

“There’s a suitable site just beyond Worthgate, with the Roman walls to the southwest and the river to the north, roughly. There’s nothing much there at the moment, a few small houses and a church. To Saint Mildred, I think. The houses can come down, and we’ll put another church in the castle ward. I’d like you to get things started: plans, land clearance, foundations and so forth. Find me a good, plain mason. No artistic temperament. I want to see the keep up by All Souls.”

“Possible if we use local stone, my lord, rather than bringing it in from Caen as you did for the women’s house.”

“Fine.”

But how would she excuse herself to Agatha? Has she told Agatha the truth? How else could she account for the fact that she no longer had the drawing? If she has, will Agatha be grateful to get her back, with her small hands so skilled at fine needlework, or will she account him a contemptible fool for letting her go?

“My lord, there is just the matter of cost.”

“If the money isn’t available, Hamo, levy a tax. We aren’t in a famine or anything, are we, and my people cannot expect me to defend them entirely at my personal expense? If there’s resistance, you hold my seal and command the garrison. You know what to do.”

“Right, my lord. That just leaves de Mortimer.”

Perhaps she was there after all, and it was just that he failed to see her because of her small stature, “De Mortimer?”

“For the muster, my lord. Only a dozen knights and their people, but as he’s not more than a day’s ride away from your northern border, well situated to reinforce you if necessary. I suggest you send to him to stand in readiness in his own manor, rather than bringing his force here.”

“Eminently sensible. See to it, Hamo.”

Nonsense. Of course she wasn’t there. He saw Agatha, didn’t he, and she is of a similar height? He will go to the atelier as soon as he finishes his business with Hamo. No, he won’t. It isn’t for him to go begging to her. But it would be only natural, expected, that he should want to see how the work has progressed during his absence. After dark? When he can see so much more clearly in the morning, by daylight?

Once Hamo has bowed his way out, Odo goes through to his bed chamber where Osbern is laying out his clothes for dinner in hall.

“Leave me.”

When Osbern has retired, he lies on his bed, cheek resting on his folded arms, staring into the darkness, feeling his back ache, feeling like a lovelorn adolescent. Feeling a fool. Feeling sorry for himself.

Feeling, he realises, lonely. He has never been, is never, alone. He is surrounded by his household, his priests, his soldiers, his vassals at every waking moment, dressing, eating, shitting. Fucking…? Thinking, reading, ruling his world. More often than not he is in the company of the king, from whom, the chroniclers tell him, he is inseparable. Even as a tiny boy he shared a bed, first with Agatha, later with Robert. Now Osbern sleeps outside his door every night, or on the other side of the hanging which partitions his tent, close enough for his breathing to lull Odo to sleep, certainly close enough to be the one who holds him until his teeth stop chattering when his nightmare visits him. Even now, in solitude and darkness, God is watching him.

Except that he has no sense of it. The crowds have dispersed from the wards, and it is so quiet. No rustle of angels’ wings, no muffled laughter, no one standing between him and himself. He feels abandoned by everyone. By William and Lanfranc in their reforming zeal. By Agatha, who cannot read his mind after all. By God.