Time and Chance (30 page)

Much to Celyn’s discomfort, he and Ranulf were invited to dine upon the dais. It was a signal honor, but one Celyn could have done without. Shy and soft-spoken, he had never expected to be consorting with the princes of the realm. While he tried to pay heed to what he ate and what he heard, knowing Eleri would want a full report, he took little pleasure in the experience.

Ranulf was almost as tense as Celyn, although for entirely different reasons. He was taken aback to find Rhys ap Gruffydd and Owain Cyfeiliog at Owain’s hearth. It was true that Rhys was Owain’s nephew and Owain Cyfeiliog was wed to Owain’s daughter, Gwenllian. But they were political rivals as well as kinsmen, feuding with each other as well as with Owain. He’d not have expected to find either man dining at Owain’s table, and as he watched them over the stuffed capon and venison stew, he could not help wondering what their presence here portended.

Owain Cyfeiliog was a noted poet himself, and after the meal was done, he allowed himself to be coaxed into performing his latest poem,
The Long Grey Drinking Horn.
It was a rousing success, enthusiastically received, although one line in particular resonated unpleasantly in Ranulf’s imagination:
And many were the dead and dying there.
If war were to break out again between the Welsh and the English Crown, Owain Cyfeiliog’s poetry might well become prophecy.

“You are doing it again,” Hywel chided softly, catching Ranulf by the arm and steering him toward a window seat. “I can understand a man’s wanting to borrow a horse or a knife or a winter blanket, but you are the only one I know who likes to borrow trouble. Let it lie, Ranulf. Just as babies come in God’s Own Time, so, too, do wars.”

“That is very comforting, Hywel,” Ranulf said dryly, and Hywel thumped him playfully on the shoulder.

“You know I am right,” he insisted. “No war was ever averted by fretting about it beforehand. Tell me, instead, what happened at Woodstock after we departed. Has Becket’s quarrel with the Earl of Hertford been settled yet?”

“The dispute was resolved in the earl’s favor. A fortnight after Woodstock, he successfully pleaded before the Common Bench at Westminster that he held Tonbridge Castle directly of the king.”

Hywel grimaced. “A pity, for the earl is no friend to the Welsh. Whilst we were at Woodstock, Rhys ap Gruffydd’s nephew was treacherously slain in his sleep by one of his own men. The killer escaped and took shelter with the earl, who refuses to turn him over to Rhys for justice to be done. Is there any chance you could intercede with the king on Rhys’s behalf ?”

Ranulf had already heard of Rhys’s latest clash with the Earl of Hertford. He suspected that sooner or later Rhys would have found some reason for breaking faith with the Crown, but he had to admit that the earl had provided a particularly good excuse. He could only hope that when war inevitably flared up again between Rhys and Henry, it would be confined to Rhys’s southern domains and not spill over into Gwynedd. “I doubt that it would do any good, Hywel. These days Harry has no thoughts for anything but his upcoming council with Becket at Westminster.”

“What are they bickering about now?”

Ranulf sighed. “You’ll be sorry you asked. Harry intends to demand that Becket cooperate with him in resolving the danger posed by criminous clerks, men in minor orders who rob and rape and plunder and then plead their clergy when apprehended. The Church insists they be tried before ecclesiastical courts, but the punishment meted out is often ludicrously light. They cannot pronounce a sentence of blood, so a murderer knows he’ll not face the hangman, no matter how heinous his offense. And whilst Church courts can cast a man into prison in theory, it is rarely done in practice, owing to the expense of maintaining such prisoners.”

Hywel was entertained by Ranulf’s formal turn of phrase. “Feeding the poor bastards, you mean. Church law seems better crafted to find penance for sins than punishment for crime.”

“Now you sound like Harry,” Ranulf said with a smile. “The problem of criminous clerks has long been a thorn in his side, and he hoped to resolve it by putting Becket in Canterbury. He thought that by working together, they’d be able to come up with a solution satisfactory to the Church and Crown alike.”

Hywel grinned. “But then Becket experienced that inconvenient religious conversion or whatever it was that transformed him overnight from honey-tongued courtier to crusader for Christ.”

Ranulf nodded. “Becket has taken an utterly uncompromising stance, claiming that the king’s courts have no jurisdiction to try a man who has taken holy orders, even if that man has committed rape and murder.”

“It sounds as if you are speaking of a specific case.”

“Harry and Becket have clashed over a number of cases of late. The most outrageous one concerns a clerk in Worcestershire who raped a young girl and then murdered her father. Harry wanted the man brought before his court, but Becket ordered the Bishop-elect of Worcester, my nephew Roger, to imprison the man so the royal justices could not seize him.”

“That could not have been a popular decision, especially with the family and friends of the victims. Did people not protest?”

Ranulf shrugged. “Becket believes a principle is at stake and, to him, principles are obviously more important than people. This is not the first time he has intervened when a cleric ran afoul of the law. There was a clerk in London who stole a silver chalice from a church, a priest in Salisbury accused of murder, and then there was that canon of Bedford who was charged with slaying a knight.”

“I heard much talk of that case whilst we were at Woodstock,” Hywel observed, “more than I wanted to hear, in truth. The canon was tried in the Bishop of Lincoln’s court, was he not?”

“Yes, and acquitted by compurgation, when he found twelve respected men willing to swear on his behalf that he was innocent. But that did not satisfy the slain knight’s family, for compurgation is not a judgment based upon the evidence, and they appealed to the Sheriff of Bedford, Simon Fitz Peter. He agreed with them, and during an inquest at Dunsta ble, he tried to reopen the case. Philip de Brois, the accused canon, refused to plead and was verbally abusive to Fitz Peter, who promptly lodged an indignant complaint with the king. Harry was enraged and wanted de Brois charged with contempt of court and murder. But Becket refused to allow it, instead heard the case in his own court. He ruled that de Brois could not be retried for murder as he’d been cleared by the compurgation, and found the canon guilty of the contempt charge, depriving him of his church prebend for two years.”

“Somehow I doubt that the king thought the loss of income was a sufficient punishment.”

“No, he did not,” Ranulf acknowledged, with a wry smile at the memory of his nephew’s blazing fury. “The bishops realized that their defense of exclusive Church jurisdiction puts them in the awkward position of appearing to defend murderers and rapists, too. So Becket attempted to resolve the dilemma by inflicting harsher penalties than usual upon these particular accused. The Worcestershire clerk is still awaiting trial. But Becket ordered that the Salisbury priest charged with murder be confined for life to a monastery, and the punishment for the theft of the chalice was branding.”

Hywel blinked in surprise. “Canon law does not authorize such punishment, though.”

“No, it does not. In his attempt to placate the king and public opinion, Becket miscalculated. Harry was even more wroth with him after that, for he saw these acts as a usurpation of royal authority.”

Hywel shook his head slowly. “You’re right. I am sorry I asked.”

“My lord Ranulf?”

Startled, Ranulf got hastily to his feet, then gallantly kissed Cristyn’s hand while disregarding Hywel’s mocking smile. Cristyn acted as if her stepson were invisible, turning all of her considerable charms upon Ranulf. She asked solicitously about Rhiannon, offered her congratulations upon learning of the pregnancy, and made him promise to let her know when the baby was born so she could send a christening gift. Ranulf was puzzled, for he’d never gotten more than grudging courtesy from her before, and when she lured him away from Hywel, he followed willingly; curiosity had always been his besetting sin.

“I was wondering . . .” Cristyn smiled at Ranulf as if they were intimate friends and he found himself appreciating how adroitly she wielded the weapons God had given her. She did not let him forget for a moment that she was a beautiful, desirable woman, but one beyond reach, for she herself would never forget that she was the wife of Owain Gwynedd. Passing strange, he thought, that she could have birthed two sons so lacking in subtlety as Rhodri and Davydd. “What were you wondering, my lady?”

“I am somewhat shy of admitting it.” Her dimple deepened. “My lord husband does not like me to pay heed to gossip. But I heard an intriguing rumor from Cadwaladr’s English wife. She says that the Archbishop of Canterbury has forbidden the English king’s brother to wed the de Warenne heiress. Can this be true?”

“I am sorry to say that it is,” Ranulf confirmed. “I had a letter from my niece, the Countess of Chester, just a fortnight ago. Will is sorely distraught, for he had his heart set upon wedding Isabella and, in truth, I think he craves the lady as much as her lands. But unless the king can persuade Lord Thomas to withdraw his objections, the marriage is not likely to be. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the spiritual head of the Church in England, and his voice echoes loudest with His Holiness, the Pope.”

“Why does Becket oppose the marriage?”

“It offends the laws of consanguinity, for Will and Isabella are distant cousins, as was her late husband.”

Cristyn’s dark eyes shone with silent laughter. “Is that all? Owain and I are first cousins, for his mother and my father were sister and brother. But he did not let a minor matter like that deter him from taking me to wife. Poor Gwilym,” she said, making use of the Welsh equivalent for William. “I suppose he’d not dare to defy the archbishop? I confess that I was not much taken with this Thomas Becket at Woodstock. Is this why the English king is so wroth with him?”

“He is greatly vexed by the archbishop’s opposition to the marriage, for dispensations have been granted for those far more closely related than Will and Isabella. But this is just one more grievance amongst many.”

“You know the king so well,” she said admiringly, “from the skin out!” Ranulf wasn’t sure how to respond, for he still had not figured out what she wanted from him, sure only that she had more in mind than an exchange of court gossip. “Well, I am his uncle,” he said finally.

“Yes, but there is a closeness between you that goes deeper than blood. I saw that as soon as I saw you together at Woodstock,” she murmured and Ranulf suddenly understood her intent. She had revised her opinion of him after Woodstock, decided that he was worth cultivating on the off chance that she might be able to win him over to her side.

In light of his long-standing friendship with Hywel, Ranulf supposed he ought to be flattered that she thought it was still worth the effort. Their eyes met and he caught a glimmer—ever so briefly—of the steel beneath the silk. His gaze shifted from her face, across the hall to where Hywel was watching them, monitoring Cristyn’s maternal maneuverings with sardonic amusement, and he wished that his nephew had been blessed, too, with the ability to laugh at his foes. Mayhap then this looming confrontation between Harry and Thomas Becket would not seem so ominous, so fraught with peril.

 

 

 

FROM THE DAIS, Henry had an unobstructed view of Westminster’s great hall. The men seated upon rows of benches were princes of the Church and lords of the realm, the most powerful men in his domains. On this mild October morning, they had gathered in answer to his summons, ostensibly to heal a rift between Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Roger de Pont l’Eveque, Archbishop of York. But Henry had a more ambitious agenda in mind. Now that the preliminary ceremonies were done, he held up his hand, waiting for silence.

“I would speak now of a serious matter, a grievous threat to the King’s Peace.” A murmur swept the hall, a rustling of leaves before the wind, and Henry rose to his feet. “I have been England’s king for nigh on nine years,” he said. “Do any of you know how many murders have been committed by clerics in that time? My lord archbishop?”

Thomas Becket had been given a seat of honor upon the dais. At Henry’s unexpected query, he shook his head, almost imperceptibly.

“More than one hundred murders . . . committed by men of God, most of whom were never called to account for their crimes.”

“We all answer to the Almighty for our sins, my liege.”

Henry smiled, very thinly. “I naturally defer to you, my lord archbishop, in spiritual matters. But my concern is not with the immortal souls of these criminous clerks. Whether they be damned or saved at God’s Throne does not interest me much. I seek to keep the peace in my domains and to provide justice to my subjects. And royal justice is perverted when men can rape and murder and then plead their clergy to escape the punishment they deserve.”

Gilbert Foliot tried and failed to catch Becket’s eye. He feared that Henry was about to bring up the case of that wretched Worcestershire cleric, an embarrassment to them all. If worse came to worst and the king demanded that they yield jurisdiction to the royal court, he hoped Becket would have the sense to temporize, offer to put the matter before the Pope. Sometimes a principle could be best defended by making a strategic retreat; the trick was to give up ground they could afford to lose.

But Henry now chose to drag another skeleton out of the Church’s closet. “I daresay you all remember the scandalous case of the Archdeacon Osbert, accused of poisoning the Archbishop of York. Out of the great respect I held for Archbishop Theobald, may God assoil him, I reluctantly agreed that the man should be tried in a Church court. What was the result? A formal judgment was never reached, thwarted by the man’s appeal to Rome. If Holy Church cannot provide justice to a murdered archbishop, what hope is there for victims of lesser rank? You need only ask the kinsmen of the knight slain by Philip de Brois.”