Ellis Peters - The Raven in the Foregate

ABBOT RADULFUS CAME TO CHAPTER, on this first day of December, with a preoccupied and frowning face, and made short work of the various trivialities brought up by his obedientiaries. Though a man of few words himself, he was disposed, as a rule, to allow plenty of scope to those who were rambling and loquacious about their requests and suggestions, but on this day, plainly, he had more urgent matters on his mind.

“I must tell you,” he said, when he had swept the last trifle satisfactorily into its place, “that I shall be leaving you for some days to the care of Father Prior, to whom, I expect and require, you shall be as obedient and helpful as you are to me. I am summoned to a council to be held at Westminster on the seventh day of this month, by the Holy Father’s legate, Henry of Blois, bishop of Winchester. I shall return as soon as I can, but in my absence I desire you will make your prayers for a spirit of wisdom and reconciliation in this meeting of prelates, for the sake of the peace of this land.”

His voice was dry and calm to the point of resignation. For the past four years there had been precious little inclination to reconciliation in England between the warring rivals for the crown, and no very considerable wisdom shown on either side. But it was the business of the Church to continue to strive, and if possible to hope, even when the affairs of the land seemed to have reverted to the very same point where the civil war had begun, to repeat the whole unprofitable cycle all over again.

“I am well aware there are matters outstanding here,” said the abbot, “which equally require our attention, but they must wait for my return. In particular there is the question of a successor to Father Adam, lately vicar of this parish of Holy Cross, whose loss we are still lamenting. The advowson rests with this house. Father Adam has been for many years a much valued associate with us here in the worship of God and the cure of souls, and his replacement is a matter for both thought and prayer. Until my return, Father Prior will direct the parish services as he thinks fit, and all of you will be at his bidding.”

He swept one long, dark glance round the chapter house, accepted the general silence as understanding and consent, and rose.

“This chapter is concluded.”

“Well, at least if he leaves tomorrow he has good weather for the ride,” said Hugh Beringar, looking out from the open door of Brother Cadfael’s workshop in the herb garden over grass still green, and a few surviving roses, grown tall and spindly by now but still budding bravely. December of this year of Our Lord 1141 had come in with soft-stepping care, gentle winds and lightly veiled skies, treading on tiptoe. “Like all those shifting souls who turned to the Empress when she was in her glory,” said Hugh, grinning, “and are now put to it to keep well out of sight while they turn again. There must be a good many holding their breath and making themselves small just now.”

“Bad luck for his reverence the papal legate,” said Cadfael, “who cannot make himself small or go unregarded, whatever he does. His turning has to be done in broad daylight, with every eye on him. And twice in one year is too much to ask of any man.”

“Ah, but in the name of the Church, Cadfael, in the name of the Church! It’s not the man who turns, it’s the representative of Pope and Church, who must preserve the infallibility of both at all costs.”

Twice in one year, indeed, had Henry of Blois summoned his bishops and abbots to a legatine council, once in Winchester on the seventh of April to justify his endorsement of the Empress Maud as ruler, when she was in the ascendant and had her rival King Stephen securely in prison in Bristol, and now at Westminster on the seventh of December to justify his swing back to Stephen, now that the King was free again, and the city of London had put a decisive end to Maud’s bid to establish herself in the capital, and get her hands at last on the crown.

“If his head is not going round by now, it should be,” said Cadfael, shaking his own grizzled brown tonsure in mingled admiration and deprecation. “How many spins does this make? First he swore allegiance to the lady, when her father died without a male heir, then he accepted his brother Stephen’s seizure of power in her absence, thirdly, when Stephen’s star is darkened he makes his peace—a peace of sorts, at any rate!—with the lady, and justifies it by saying that Stephen has flouted and aggrieved Holy Church… Now must he turn the same argument about, and accuse the Empress, or has he something new in his scrip?”

“What is there new to be said?’ asked Hugh, shrugging. “No, he’ll wring the last drop from his stewardship of Holy Church, and make the best of it that every soul there will have heard it all before, no longer ago than last April. And it will convince Stephen no more than it did Maud, but he’ll let it pass with only a mild snarl or two, since he can no more afford to reject the backing of Henry of Blois than could Maud in her day. And the bishop will grit his teeth and stare his clerics in the eyes, and swallow his gall with a brazen face.”

“It may well be the last time he has to turn about-face,” said Cadfael, feeding his brazier with a few judiciously placed turves, to keep it burning with a slow and tempered heat. “She has thrown away what’s likely to be her only chance.”

A strange woman she had proved, King Henry’s royal daughter. Married in childhood to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V, she had so firmly ingratiated herself with her husband’s people in Germany that when she was recalled to England, after his death, the populace had risen in consternation and grief to plead with her to stay. Yet here at home, when fate threw her enemy into her hands and held the crown suspended over her head, she had behaved with such vengeful arrogance, and exacted such penalties for past affronts, that the men of her capital city had risen just as indignantly, not to appeal to her to remain, but to drive her out and put a violent end to her hopes of ever becoming their ruler. And it was common knowledge that though she could turn even upon her own best allies with venom, yet she could also retain the love and loyalty of the best of the baronage. There was not a man of the first rank on Stephen’s side to match the quality of her half-brother, Earl Robert of Gloucester, or her champion and reputed lover, Brian FitzCount, her easternmost paladin in his fortress at Wallingford. But it would take more than a couple of heroes to redeem her cause now. She had been forced to surrender her royal prisoner in exchange for her half-brother, without whom she could not hope to achieve anything. And here was England back to the beginning, with all to do again. For if she could not win, neither could she give up.

“From here where I stand now,” said Cadfael, pondering, “these things seem strangely distant and unreal. If I had not been forty years in the world and among the armies myself, I doubt if I could believe in the times we live in but as a disturbed dream.”

“They are not so to Abbot Radulfus,” said Hugh with unwonted gravity. He turned his back upon the mild, moist prospect of the garden, sinking gently into its winter sleep, and sat down on the wooden bench against the timber wall. The small glow of the brazier, damped under the turf, burned on the bold, slender bones of his cheeks and jaw and brows, conjuring them out of deep shadows, and sparkling briefly in his black eyes before the lids and dark lashes quenched the sparks. “That man would make a better adviser to kings than most that cluster round Stephen now he’s free again. But he would not tell them what they want to hear, and they’d all stop their ears.”