Michael Jecks - The Prophecy of Death

Yes, he was safe from that gloomy ending, being discovered one morning under a hedge hard and cold as ice, like his old friend Walt. It was discovering Walt that had made Nicholas seek a more reliable occupation than mere preaching.

It had not been an easy transition, but he had ever been fortunate. Nicholas had been sent to college when he was still young, and had proved a shrewd academic and philosopher already. It took little persuasion of his prior to win a place at Oxford when he had shown his abilities, and once there his intellect made him rise above so many of his peers. There was no point concealing the fact that he was remarkably fast to understand complex concepts, and the fact that the masters and tutors were occasionally behind his own reasoning was enough to prove that he was possessed of an unnatural brilliance. And so he was elevated, and found himself soon employed in researches of some arcane material. Such as the oil of St Thomas.

Now he could curse the day he found that reference, for it had led to so much hardship for him, even this present disaster, in truth, but at the time he had instantly comprehended the potential of the marvellous fluid.

The King, Edward II, had been widely respected and adored when first he came to his throne almost twenty years ago, but that had instantly changed when the character of his friend, Piers Gaveston, was better understood. Suddenly the barons began to withhold their favour, and tried to impose restrictions on the King himself that would control his rule. He could not comply with those who sought to clip his wings — and why should he? He was King, anointed by God. If God chose him, Nicholas was content with God’s choice.

But his reign went from bad to worse. While the Scots destroyed the Royal Host in some foul backwater called Bannockburn, while they invaded his Irish colony and imposed the reign of Edward Bruce on an unwilling population, his own barons grew more fractious. And then it was that Nicholas found the reference to the oil. St Thomas’s oil.

Such a simple solution to all the King’s problems. That was how it appeared to Nicholas that day when he learned the whole story. A frayed and worn parchment told of the gift, the wondrous gift, passed to St Thomas in exile. The man must have been almost an angel to have been granted such a vision and so magnificent a treasure from the Holy Virgin herself! No one else would have been vouchsafed a vision of her, let alone a gift. But St Thomas took it, and straightway obeyed her injunction, delivering it to a monastery where it could be buried for safekeeping until it was needed.

And here it was in London, brought especially for the King. And when brought, it remained unused !

Dear Christ in Heaven, the fools who had withheld it must have rued the day they were born. If only they had delivered it to the King on the day of his coronation, his reign would have been blessed, and all the catalogue of disasters, from his choice of advisers, to his inept war-leadership and failures over his French territories, would have been reversed. But no, some baron or other must have decided that the King had no need of such a great boon, and had rejected the oil. For preference, they made use of the normal holy oil used for his predecessors. That baron must be kicking himself now, Nicholas thought to himself as he scurried to the King to tell him all about the wondrous discovery he had made.

The King had appreciated the importance in an instant. And under Nicholas’s prompt urging, had agreed to send Nicholas to the Pope with a request for his aid.

It had taken an age, that journey. All the way to Avignon to the Pope’s palace, and then returning with the sad response which had ruined Nicholas’s life.

The unfairness of it was shocking. Truly shocking. All Nicholas had tried to do was help others, and yet here he was, sent on his way home with the Pope’s message: ‘If you wish to be anointed, pray be so. It can do no harm. But I cannot spare my cardinals at present to do it for you.’ That was the gist of the courtly Latin which Nicholas had to read out to a dumbfounded King on his return.

Dear God, it was as close as he had ever been to being murdered, from the look on the monarch’s face. Nicholas had already heard of the King’s tempers, even though this was before the terrible revenge which he visited upon his enemies after Boroughbridge, and the fact that the Pope had elevated Nicholas to papal penitentiary, as well as giving him a licence to allow him to take Cambridge University clerks and install them in vacant benefices, did not affect the King. No, he would have nothing to do with Nicholas of Wisbech. His career was ended.

It had taken him all his courage to come here to Beaulieu to visit the King and to try to persuade him to look upon him more favourably. After all, it was not his fault that the Pope chose not to comply with the King’s request. The Pope had made it plain that he wouldn’t help by sending one of his own cardinals, but he did give permission to the King to have any of his bishops in the land conduct the ceremony and anoint him. So the mission was not a complete disaster. Nicholas had secured that. And all the King need do was arrange for a bishop to visit him with the oil, and all would be well. Surely, if he was touched by the holy oil of St Thomas, his reign would be cured of malignancy and treachery, and King Edward could reign contentedly from then on.

But he wouldn’t so much as meet with the friar. To the King, Friar Nicholas was dead. It was so unjust that he could burst from simple indignation.

Third Monday after Easter 15

Eltham Palace

Earl Edward strode along the passageway and burst in through the door to his tutor’s chamber without ceremony. ‘Richard?’

Seated behind his desk, the clerk made little impact, the Earl thought. There were many others who had tried to teach him in the past, but none had managed to affect him in the same way as this man from Bury.

There was a seriousness about him that was reassuring. Most of the others by whom the Earl had been tutored had been more frivolous. They sought to win his friendship, rather than his respect. Perhaps, he considered, they already respected his own position too much to be able to treat their own with any great devotion. They were mere servants, and could not see themselves attain any higher ambition or post.

Richard was different, though. For one thing, he clearly viewed the Earl as malleable. He did not seek to bow to the Earl’s will at every opportunity: to his mind, the Earl was a bright, intelligent twelve-year-old, and as such was demanding of instruction. And for that, Bury sought to ensure that the Earl’s mind was filled with material suitable to his station. And to the prophecy.

There was so much bound to his name, the Earl knew. He respected the prophecies, naturally, but at the same time he was a calculating realist. It was his calculation that the fact of the prophecies would make people regard him in a subtly different light than that by which they viewed others, and that, for a man who was to become King, was a very useful point. Certainly, he had already heard men whisper comments about him which showed that they were alive to the differences between him and his father. ‘A dragon, then a goat,’ they said. All knew what that meant. There was an inevitable sequence in life: after a strong, virile King there tended to follow an unfortunate one. Perhaps the successor would be incompetent, or more likely badly served by his advisers, but that made little difference. The fact was, that there was a recurring fluctuation in the fortunes of succeeding kings. And Earl Edward’s father was not a fortunate ruler.