do, and my purpose is to encourage him to do some one of them. Hubert: you can appeal to the Cardinal- Archbishop, you can look for sanctuary, you could even tell the Abbot you've changed your mind and just see what happens, or you can run away to North-England or West-England, you can hide in the woods above the farm and we'll bring you food. You can fight, whatever happens at last. You must fight.'
'This is the Devil's counsel, Hubert,' said Mark.
'No,' said Decuman. 'No. It's the counsel of almost everyone and everything we really understand, whether we feel we understand it or not.'
'Remember your feeling as you sang in the Agnus Dei, Hubert,' said Thomas.
There was a longer silence than before. Finally Hubert said, 'Is there any TR for us?'
'Nothing new,' said Thomas. 'I must go to Ned again.'
'I'll go,' said Hubert.
Chapter Four
Brother Collam Flackerty, friar of the Augustinian Order, sat behind his cabinet desk in the Archiepiscopal Palace of Westminster, an extensive Egidian building situated half a mile up river from the Cathedral of St Peter and the House of Convocation. He was a small, narrow-framed person with carefully-combed fair hair at the fashionable shoulder length and cheeks rouged perhaps a little more than was fashionable. Today he wore an olive-green silk cassock, selvedged with the traditional black, that had cost him four and a half guineas at one of the new bottegas in Chelsea village. He also wore an expensive scent that was too delicate to contend with the emanations of the lilies of the valley, pink moss roses and reseda hanging in baskets from the blue-starred ceiling or lining the window that looked out over the Thames. Before him was an open manuscript book to which he occasionally referred or added a note. With his hands clasped against his chest and his head on one side, he said in a voice that held no trace of a West-English accent, though he had been born in Dublin, 'So let me sum. Here's the order—not easy to come by, as I expected. The Abbot goes at first to the Domestic Office of Convocation and fetches his document, his paper. When he has it signed, he takes it back to the Office and takes in return another paper. This gives the surgeon leave to act; it's a non senza. Now, the point where the order can be checked is when the first paper goes back. The Office may call it void and refuse to grant the second paper, giving no reason. The Abbot may then appeal to the Lord Intendant, who may, or may not, place a tribunal, citing whom he pleases. There's no appeal against whatever the tribunal finds.'
Father Lyall nodded and rubbed his upper lip. 'This question of the refusal of the second paper. Would the grounds I attest be sufficient?-that I and only I am qualified to sign the first one and that any other signatory must be an impostor.'
'If that other signatory is your Master Anvil's chaplain in succession to you, how is he an impostor?'
'He can't be the established confessor of the Anvil family—the word in the paper is 'habitual'. Can duties discharged only for a matter of days be called habitual? It must be that the provision was designed to prevent just such a contingency.'
'It might be, and it might or might not be so arguable.' Flackerty looked down at his notebook. 'Why has Anvil not sent you away before this?'
'That I've considered. He dislikes the course of replacing me by a man who'll follow his wishes. That would make me his enemy, and to have an enemy in the Church, of however little mark, would trouble him. He'd prefer me to change my mind and sign, and he hopes and believes that at last I will.'
'But you won't.'
'No.'
The Augustinian was watching his former fellow-seminarist closely. 'Why not?'
'I have my reasons.'
'Oh, merda. What reasons? If I'm to move at all I must hear them. And don't say your conscience or anything that touches the child, who for all I see will do no less well without his stones than with them.'
'It's the Abbot. Crossing him tickles me. Him and that bum-kissing choirmaster of his.'
'No doubt you are tickled, but the spite in your nature isn't strong enough to beat the sloth. I know of only one force that is. I deduce that Dame Anvil is both good to look at and strong-willed.'
Lyall grinned without replying.
'And given to whims and conceits, or she'd simply be glad at the chance for her son, no? Come on and tell me the whole tale, Matthew: we've plenty of years in common.'
'The lady's past experience of men has been small and disappointing.'
'I catch.'
'But as things now are she's set on not having the boy denied that part of his future.'
'You must indeed have pleased her.'
'It's more than that, Collam. She loves me.'
'Well, so she should.'
'No: I mean something more serious. She talks of her soul being transformed,' said Lyall in a neutral tone.
'I hope you rebuke the blasphemy as often. as you hear it. And the dire use of words. What scrawler does she read?'
'She means what she says.'
'Tanto peggio. And what of it?'
'It's this love that the boy must not miss, not the carnal pleasure alone.'
'She must give you a pot of the latter if you're used to letting her sing such airs.'
'Well, you know what women are like.'
