The antagonists stood breathing hard, Yves flushed and half rebellious still, de Soulis eyeing his attacker with a chill smile and narrowed eyes.
“My lord,” he said with smooth civility, “I had no thought of offending until this rash young man drew on me. For no sane reason that I know of, for I never set eyes on him before.” He slid his blade coolly into the scabbard, with a deliberately ceremonious gesture of reverence towards the bishop. “He rides in here from the street, stranger to me, and begins to abuse me like a kennel brawler. I drew to keep my head.”
“He well knows,” flashed Yves, burning, “why I call him turncoat, renegade, betrayer of better men. Good knights lie in castle dungeons because of him.”
“Silence!” said the bishop, and was instantly obeyed. “Whatever your quarrels, they have no place within these walls. We are here to dispose of all such divisions between honourable men. Pick up your sword. Sheathe it! Do not draw it again on this sacred ground. Not upon any provocation! I so charge you, as for the Church. And here are also those who will lay the same charge on you, as your sovereigns and liege lords.”
The great voice that had bellowed orders on entering the gate upon this unseemly spectacle had advanced upon the suddenly muted circle in the shape of a big, fair, commanding and very angry man. Cadfael knew him at once, from a meeting years past, in his siege camp in Shrewsbury, though the years between had sown some ashen threads in his yellow hair, and seams of anxiety and care in his handsome, open face. King Stephen, soon roused, soon placated, brave, impetuous but inconstant, a goodnatured and generous man who had yet spent all the years of his reign in destructive warfare. And that flash of bright colours in the doorway of the guesthall, Cadfael realized at the same moment, was, must be, the other one, the woman who challenged Stephen’s sovereignty. Tall and erect against the dimness within the hall, splendidly apparelled and in her proud prime, there stood old King Henry’s sole surviving legitimate child, Empress Maud by her first marriage, countess of Anjou by her second, the uncrowned Lady of the English.
She did not condescend to come down to them, but stood quite still and viewed the scene with a disinterested and slightly disdainful stare, only inclining her head in acknowledgement of the king’s reverence. She was regally handsome, her hair dark and rich under the gilded net of her coif, her eyes large and direct, as unnerving as the straight stare of a Byzantine saint in a mosaic, and as indifferent. She was past forty, but as durable as marble.
“Say no word, either of you,” said the king, towering over the offenders, even over the bishop, who was tall by most men’s standards, “for we’ll hear none. Here you are in the Church’s discipline, and had best come to terms with it. Keep your quarrels for another time and place, or better still, put them away for ever. They have no place here. My lord bishop, give your orders now as to this matter of bearing arms, and announce it formally when you preside in hall tomorrow. Banish all weapons if you will, or let us have some firm regulation as to their wear, and I will see to it that who ever offends against your rule shall pay his dues in full.”
“I would not presume to deprive any man of the right to bear arms,” said the bishop firmly. “I can, with full justification, take measures to regulate their use within these walls and during these grave discussions. In going about the town, certainly swords may be worn as customary, a man might well feel incomplete without his sword.” His own vigorous form and aquiline face could as well have belonged to a warrior as a bishop. And was it not said of him that his heart was already set on playing more than a passive role in the defence of the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem? “Within these walls,” he said with deliberation, “steel must not be drawn. Within the hall in session, not even worn, but laid by in the lodgings. And no weapon must ever be worn to the offices of the Church. Whatever the outcome, no man shall challenge another man in arms, for any reason soever, until we who are met here again separate. If your Grace is content so?”
“I am content,” said Stephen. “This does well. You, gentlemen, bear it in mind, and see to it you keep faith.” His blue, bright gaze swept over them both with the like broad, impersonal warning. Neither face meant anything to him, not even to which faction they belonged. Probably he had never seen either of them before, and would forget their faces as soon as he turned his back on them.
“Then I will put the case also to the lady,” said Roger de Clinton, “and declare terms when we gather tomorrow morning.”
“Do so, with my goodwill!” said the king heartily, and strode away towards the groom who was holding his horse within the gate.
The lady, Cadfael observed when he looked again towards the doorway of the guesthall, had already withdrawn her aloof and disdainful presence from the scene, and retired to her own apartments within.
Yves fumed his way in black silence to their lodging in one of the pilgrim houses within the precinct, half in a boy’s chagrin at being chastened in public, half in a man’s serious rage at having to relinquish his quarrel.
“Why should you fret?” Hugh argued sensibly, humouring the boy but warily considering the man. “De Soulis, if that was de Soulis, has had his ears clipped, too. There’s no denying it was you began it, but he was nothing loth to spit you, if he could have done it. Now you’ve brought about your own deprivation. You might have known the Church would take it badly having swords drawn here on their ground.”
“I did know it,” Yves admitted grudgingly, “if I’d ever stopped to think. But the sight of him, striding around as if in his own castle wards… I never thought he would show here. Good God, what must she feel, seeing him so brazen, and the wrong he has done her! She favoured him, she gave him office!”
“She gave office to Philip no less,” said Hugh hardly. “Will you fly at his throat when he comes into the conference hall?”
“Philip is another matter,” said Yves, flaring. “He gave over Cricklade, yes, that we know, but that whole garrison went willingly. Do you think I do not know there could be good reasons for a man to change his allegiance? Honest reasons? Do you think she is easy to serve? I have seen her turn cold and insolent even to Earl Robert, seen her treat him like a peasant serf when the mood was on her. And he her sole strength, and enduring all for her sake!”
He wrung momentarily at a grief Cadfael had already divined. The Lady of the English was gallant, beautiful, contending for the rights of her young son rather than for her own. All these innocent young men of hers were a little in love with her, wanted her to be perfect, turned indignant backs on all manifestations that she was no such saint, but knew very well in their sore hearts all her arrogance and vindictiveness, and could not escape the pain. This one, at least, had got as far as blurting out the truth of his knowledge of her.
“But this de Soulis,” said Yves, recovering his theme and his animosity, “conspired furtively to let the enemy into Faringdon, and sold into captivity all those honest knights and squires who would not go with him. And among them Olivier! If he had been honest in his own choice he would have allowed them theirs, he would have opened the gates for them, and let them go forth honourably in arms, to fight him again from another base. No, he sold them. He sold Olivier. That I do not forgive.”
“Possess your soul in patience,” said Brother Cadfael, “until we know what we most need to know, where to look for him. Fall out with no one, for who knows which of them here may be able to give us an answer?” And by
