expected, ‘His Grace Theodore and you both know the truth of the matter. After all,
I looked again at the ceiling and then back at Sophronius. It might be worth trying for an attack of tiredness. No one thought ill of Theodore if he kept dropping off. But I clicked my false teeth together and put the thought finally out of mind. Some refusals, after all, are best for not being delayed. ‘Look here,’ I said, ‘if you want me to set my name to an attack on the Imperial Government, you’re asking a year too late. I’m not a refugee any more. The position now is that the Church in England is looking after me on behalf of the Emperor. There’s been a grant of money for my upkeep, and I rather think I’m being written back into the official histories. In any dispute between Pope and Emperor, my duty is to remain neutral. Besides, I’m so old, no one would take me seriously. If you want an authoritative account of the Council of Athens, you should write one up yourself and get Theodore to sign it. After all, he is a bishop — and he also was there.’
‘If I might be so bold, Brother Aelric,’ the man pressed on, ‘your rehabilitation within the Empire has given much weight to your own testimony. And no one can claim that your memory of the proceedings at Athens might be at fault.’
I gripped the table and pulled myself to my feet. ‘Be that as it may, Sophronius,’ I said, ‘you must accept my refusal to get involved. Now, if you would be so kind as to find Brother Jeremy, I will return to my lodgings and get ready to go back to Jarrow. My life as an actor in the world is well and truly over. I can only apologise that you had to come all the way from Rome to hear this.’
Sophronius looked up at me. Slowly, he got to his own feet. Then he bowed. If he was trying for a show of respect, it was spoiled by his delay in getting up, and by his gloating smile. For the first time in our conversation, I felt a slight pricking on the back of my neck. ‘You are, of course, a free agent,’ he said. ‘If you will not help us, Holy Mother Church can do no more than seek the best means of assisting you back to the monastery in Jarrow.’
‘My dear Sophronius,’ I said, keeping any appearance of strain out of my voice, ‘I was brought here by young Brother Jeremy. I have the fullest confidence in his ability to take me back.’ Forcing a smile on to my face, I stared back at him very hard. Though as yet with no facts to organise, my mind was beginning to work faster.
Sophronius broadened his own smile. He reached inside his robe and took out a small object. With another bow, he placed it on the table. I looked at it and sat down again. I sat down because the conversation was nowhere near ended — and to hide the trembling of my aged legs.
‘Oh, Brother Aelric,’ he said, in a mournful tone that fitted ill with the wolfish look now spreading over his face, ‘do please examine this object, and try to recall if it might be your property.’ Still on his feet, he bent forward and pushed it across the table. He watched closely as I stared at it. ‘This was recovered four days ago from the eye of one of His Majesty’s dearest servants,’ he explained.
Not bothering to touch it where it lay before me on the table, I stared at my bronze pin. No one had bothered cleaning it. Getting the dried gore off it would take a good soaking in vinegar.
‘The tollman on London Bridge was not able to say very much before he died,’ Sophronius went on. ‘The facts, however, may speak for themselves.’ He stopped and sat down. He reached forward and pointed at the elaborate, gilded head of the pin. ‘This is surely of Eastern workmanship, is it not, Brother Aelric?’ he asked with a close inspection of my face. ‘Are these not the Greek letters
Oh, sod, bugger, damn! I could have kicked myself. I’ll grant that it’s hard, in the most settled places, to tell the difference between tax-collectors and bandits. But I, of all people, should have known that you never leave a wounded enemy alive. I sat back and leaned against the chair. A mouthful of Theodore’s French red would have been very welcome. I had to make do with yet another stare up at the ceiling.
‘If, with the palsied hand of age,’ I said quietly, ‘I lost an object that should have been of great worth to me, please do accept my thanks for its safe recovery. But do also explain how its finding could disarrange the plans for my return to Jarrow?’ How Sophronius kept himself from peals of triumphant laughter would normally have been worth considering. For the moment, I noted the fact and waited for the inevitable.
It wasn’t long in coming. ‘His Majesty, of course, is outraged at the insult to his dignity. There is no possibility that a man of the Church could be handed over to any secular authority. The agreement negotiated many years ago with King Ethelbert the Saint will stand for ever. But the young man’s crime will be treated by the Church as a sin of the utmost gravity.’ Sophronius paused and allowed himself an ecstatic roll of his engorged frame. ‘You will surely agree that it is fitting for any who would serve God and the Church of God to maintain at all times a spirit of the utmost humility. When that spirit is lacking within, there are penances to instil it from without.’ He stopped and put both hands on the table. He leaned forward and stared into my eyes. ‘The nail that sticks out,’ he said with quiet relish, ‘must be hammered flat.’
I looked stonily back. I thought of that poor sod in the square before the big church.
‘It seems, my dear Brother in Christ,’ I said, ‘that there were no witnesses to what may have been a sad misunderstanding. But I can assure you that Brother Jeremy was in no manner to blame for whatever may have happened on London Bridge. Though not admitting to anything at all, I do take full responsibility.’
Sophronius stopped me with a sad shake of his jowls. ‘Oh, Brother Aelric, your supreme goodness of heart is famed throughout the world. Even otherwise, though, do not imagine that a man of your venerable years could possibly be credited with the blame for so dastardly a crime as the one committed on London Bridge. If any must suffer for the crime, it shall be young Brother Jeremy.’
Till now forgotten in his chair, Theodore cried out weakly in Syriac:
‘It’s the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer,’ I explained helpfully. Sophronius bowed. Obviously, the old dear was fast asleep, though, and this was the limit of any distraction I could expect from him. Sure enough, Theodore drifted into a stream of gibberish about his ‘mother’ before trailing off altogether. Sophronius was looking hard at me again. I sighed and took the pin from his hand. ‘Your fluency in Latin is most admirable,’ I said. ‘I therefore assume that your statement about suffering was deliberately in the conditional.’ His mouth fell ever so slightly open, showing the neat brown of his teeth. ‘Bearing in mind the absence of witnesses within the desolation of London to what may or may not have taken place there, I might suggest that the matter should be regarded as the mystery that it surely is.
‘After all, if I am to set forth in writing that Pope Benedict — neither by himself, nor by his servants or agents or any of them — never embraced the Monothelite or any other heresy, I cannot be in any sense perturbed by external considerations.’ I looked yet again at the ceiling. It saved me the vexation of looking at Sophronius. Not a decent bath in England, I reminded myself. Instead, we’d raised up men like this. Since I’d been partly responsible for the origins of the system, I should have felt at least some pride.
When I looked back at him, he’d managed to contain his triumph. ‘My Lord Alaric,’ he said with all the softness of one who gives absolution, ‘it shall, I promise, ever be our own little secret.’ He breathed out softly and rested more of his weight upon the table.
Two can keep a secret, if one be dead, I thought, recalling another old Kentish song. But I’d given in to the man. He had no reason to grass me to the King.
He beamed and sat back again. ‘I have taken the liberty of having your possessions moved from the Monastery of Saint Anastasius,’ he said, now briskly. ‘There is a suite of reasonably decent rooms upstairs in this building. I hope that you and Brother Jeremy can be made entirely comfortable during your stay. I understand that your preference for extended composition is to write in Greek on papyrus. I have commandeered every sheet of papyrus in Canterbury. More can be obtained in France. As for Greek, we can bring in scholars of sufficient learning. I am sure that, if questions of translation should arise, you will be ready to assist. In any event, as your account is to be summarised for publication to an Imperial audience, Greek will be the most convenient language.’
I moistened a finger and rubbed some of the sticky mess from the gold head of my pin. The boy who’d commissioned this for me still had no idea of my plans for him when he’d given it to me. But it can’t have been by accident that he’d had its bronze body sharpened to that nasty and convenient needlepoint. I clutched the whole pin in a hand that trembled very slightly. Over in his chair, Theodore shifted again and babbled in Syriac that he’d lost
