by Sarah Bower
“Fit for Saint Peter himself, my lord.”
“On the contrary, I feel we’re giving Saint Peter a good run for his money. I think we shall go home tomorrow, Osbern. I feel so much stronger. And the king has business needing my attention. Make the necessary arrangements.”
“Certainly, my lord.”
“And Osbern.” He stoops to pick up Agatha’s crumpled drawing from the floor and tosses it onto the brazier where it flares up briefly before crumbling into ash. “Get this room cleared up. I want that revolting sweet wine out of here and the physician’s instruments of torture returned to him. He’ll have no more of my blood for now.”
“No, my lord.”
***
“Such a beautiful, beautiful night,” remarks Gytha and as she and Leofgeat make their way back through the town, two men in Odo’s livery preceding them. The moon is full, sharp-etched in a cold, cloudless sky. An O-shaped moon, an Odo moon, open as a mouth for kissing. Beneath it, Canterbury lies bewitched, still and blue and silver.
“Cold.” Leofgeat shivers. “There’ll be a frost.” She shifts her basket to her other arm. “My back aches.”
“Give me the basket.” Though it is heavy with stone jars of preserved plums from the Archbishop’s excellent orchard, and a blood pudding sent by Lord Odo to his sister to aid her recovery, Gytha swings it effortlessly from one hand to the other, striding out to its rhythm as though pulled along by its weight. She starts to sing. She wants to dance. Her bones are full of music. She is reprieved, reborn, a new life beginning, lit by this bright, fat moon. “Look at the man in the moon,” she says, “grinning like a jackanapes.”
“Just listen to my stomach rumble,” Leofgeat complains, “and supper will be long over by the time we get back.”
***
Odo enters the chapel late, attended by two of his pages and Juno. Having read Thomas’ letter, he is in no mood for appeasement and if he wants to take his dog into church, he will. She attracts no more than a cursory glance, however, from some of the younger novices whose powers of concentration are not yet well developed and for whom Archbishop Lanfranc’s exalted guest is a boundless source of lurid speculation. As the hound is just a hound, and the pages boys much like themselves, and the Bishop of Bayeux has neither horns on his head nor a tail behind, they quickly lose interest.
The congregation is singing the first of the psalms, the men’s and boys’ voices in harmony, swelling to fill the incense fragrant arch of the nave. If incense had a sound, thinks Odo, this would be it. The plangency of the men’s voices makes the air tremble in ecstasy, the purity of the boys’ soars to heaven. And hears his own voice, faltering, broken, then gaining in confidence, merged with the rest. Commune with your own heart and be still.
Compline is a short service. Having missed the start of it, he does not feel ready to leave the chapel after the Dismissal and, as the rest of the congregation makes its way to the dormitory for the first sleep of the night, he goes forward to kneel at the altar. No questioning eye catches his; he is not a member of the order nor bound by its rule. His two pages, having received no signal from him, hover at the west door until Lanfranc puts an arm round each, like a hen gathering her chicks, and ushers them out. Juno, not so easily influenced, lies at the altar rail with her head on her outstretched paws, beside her kneeling master.
He does not pray, not in words, but, in the stillness of the Great Silence that will now hold the abbey till Matins, he tries to offer his day to God. He starts with what he can see when he lifts his head and opens his eyes, the rood screen carved with scenes from the Passion, leading the eye up to the tall east window whose stained glass shows Christ coming in glory, though it is a muted and human sort of glory now that night has fallen and only moonlight illuminates it. The acolytes have snuffed out the candles; there is no light in the church but the red pinpoint glow of the lamp burning before the Host. Odo kneels back on his heels, head bowed, hands loosely clasped in front of him, and waits for the cool wings of God’s compassion to brush him in the darkness.
But it does not come. All there is in the day now ending is confusion. A woman tries to kill him, and he responds by making love to her, and then shies away like some silly virgin unable to make up his mind. Was that God’s intervention? Should he give thanks that he has been turned aside from sin? But fornication is only a venal sin, and besides, neither he nor the woman is committed to anyone else. And besides, if God had intended him to be celibate, surely he would not have given him John. God knows better than most the seductive agony of having a son to love. So what? Guilt about Godwinson? Ridiculous. He sees again the man’s great hands with their freckled backs lying on the gold filigree reliquaries beneath their embroidered silk shrouds and feels sick.
“Today is the Feast of Saint Agnes the Virgin, who resisted the blandishments of Rome to dedicate her life to Christ. Do you meditate on Saint Agnes, my son?” Lanfranc. The music of his Latin, the flat of his hand resting lightly between Odo’s shoulder blades, the smell of his unwashed, old man’s body. He does not answer immediately; he has lost his voice somewhere among all the other voices clamouring inside him. Eventually he says, “Meditation is too strong a word for it, I think, Father. I am simply waiting for things to make sense.”
“Is it not enough for you that your life makes sense to God? Can’t you trust him even that far?”
“To be honest, Father, He hasn’t given me much cause.”
“That is where faith comes in, Odo.”
“And if the consequences of faith call faith itself into question? If, in doing what I understood to be my Christian duty, I have fallen from grace?”
“Then your understanding is mistaken.”
“So easy to say, Father. We priests, we say these things to our flock every day. We never let them see our struggles, though, do we? Even in confession we hide behind the form of words.”
“I will allow, Odo, that in your case the way has been made harder by another’s intervention. You should have been allowed to complete your education. Find your vocation in your own time, as I have no doubt you would have done.”
“‘What if, is an absorbing question, but not a very useful one. I have a more practical matter I should like to discuss with you before I leave tomorrow.”
“I rejoice in your recovery, my son.” A clipped, business-like note entering his voice, the edges of his words hard and clearly defined. He cannot allow himself to be seduced for long by the satisfactions of giving priestly counsel; he is an Archbishop now. “Come to me after Chapter in the morning, and I shall be glad to hear you. Now I shall leave you to your prayers. I do recommend you give some thought to Saint Agnes.”
“Goodnight, Father. God grant you rest.”
“And you, my son.”
***
God grants Odo an imperfect rest, filling his mind with Thomas’ complaints, William’s summons to him to join him in arms as soon as possible to put down an uprising in the Fens; and with half waking dreams of Gytha that seem to brand the shape of her lips and eyes and breasts into his flesh, leaving his blood clinging in his veins like hot oil and his nerves so raw he feels as though his skin has been flayed. Eventually, as dawn sifts through gaps in the shutters, he rouses Osbern and sends him to the well for cold water in which he douses himself repeatedly until the fire in his body is extinguished and his mind is clear. He dresses soberly and, wrapped in his sable-lined cloak, lets himself out of the house.
He walks in the Archbishop’s garden, the cold air scouring his lungs, among frost-blackened roses with a few scarlet hips still clinging to their branches. He pauses to pick a quince from a leafless bush and tosses the golden fruit from hand to hand as he walks, pearly mirrors of honesty catching and breaking against the hem of his cloak as he passes.
***
Lanfranc also rises before Prime and summons his personal servant to the bath house to help him remove the hair shirt. It is a slow and painful process. The rough hair-cloth has delayed the heali
ng of the wounds he inflicted on himself by scourging, so that the shirt is now embedded in a sticky mass of blood and putrescence and has to be peeled away from the Archbishop’s tender skin like a plaster. Though the servant winces and groans, and has occasionally to turn away from the mess of mortified flesh, Lanfranc, naked but for the shirt and braced against the clammy bath house wall, neither moves nor utters a sound.
As his servant washes and binds his wounds, his mind is fixed on the coming interview with Odo. He has a shrewd idea what direction it will take, for which he is much indebted to one of the cellarer’s boys, who overheard a member of Lord Odo’s household talking about letters from Thomas of York and saw fit to report his intelligence. God has rewarded Lanfranc’s abasement with Odo’s recovery; now he must substitute soft wool for hair-cloth, politics for prayer, and resume his temporal mission. The pain is transitory.
***
They stand in the master mason’s tracing house on the site of Lanfranc’s new cathedral. A chilly breeze slices through the unglazed windows, setting up dust devils in the corners and swirling the men’s skirts around their legs. Odo draws his cloak closer, the fur silky against his neck and jaw. Lanfranc, clad in a white habit embroidered in gold thread, shivers. Odo ignores him; he appraises the older man’s solid, square body and is satisfied that Lanfranc has no need of his pity or his cloak. The masque of frailty is merely the opening performance in the play they are about to enact.
“Let me show you the designs for the corbels in the nave,” says Lanfranc, riffling through the heap of dust-covered parchments on the long worktable beneath the windows. “I find them most amusing. You see? Caricatures of members of our community here. You’ll recognise Brother Thorold. And the Prior. And this, I fear,” pointing a finger whose joints are swollen with rheumatism, “is me.”
Odo can see immediately that the likenesses are wickedly truthful, and in other circumstances might be amused by the mason’s cheek and impressed by his skill, but this morning Lanfranc’s delaying tactics only irritate him, and this irritates him further because he knows it’s what Lanfranc wants. He must not lose his temper.
“Your Grace, I must speak to you about Thomas of York.” Wishing his Latin, though fluent, had the same elegance and precision as Lanfranc’s.
“And what touching Thomas is so important to you?” Lanfranc rolls up the drawings.
“He writes that you have refused to consecrate him until he makes you a written profession of obedience.”
“Not me, Odo, but the See of Canterbury. It would be most presumptuous to exact such an oath to my person.”
“Frankly, I think it unacceptably presumptuous anyway. As far as I can understand, there is no precedent for York taking second place to Canterbury. York’s independence goes back more than three hundred years.” Odo starts to cough; after the long silences of his recuperation, his voice has lost the strength for argument.
Lanfranc waits for the fit to pass before asking, “May I ask why you are involving yourself in this matter?”
“Thomas was a canon of my cathedral in Bayeux, as I’m sure you’re aware, Your Grace. I sponsored his education. He approached me for advice. As his spiritual father. Which I am still, I suppose, as he remains unconsecrated.”
“But you have no ecclesiastical jurisdiction in England, Odo. It is none of your business.” He fixes his sharp, dark gaze on Odo. “Walk with me a little. I am afraid we shall be in Master Paul’s way if we stay in here. Take my arm,” he says as they leave the tracing house and begin to make their way around the boundary of the building site, treading cautiously on the slippery, rubble-strewn surface, stopping occasionally to peer into the craftsmen’s lodges and watch the stone carvers and carpenters at work.
“We’re like a couple of old men,” he remarks, “me with my rheumatism and you with your back. Propping each other up.” They pause to watch one of the carpenters planing a length of oak, delicately arched like the rib of a ship. “How old are you, Odo?”
Where is he going now? Patience. “Thirty-four my last saint’s day,” he replies after a pause; it had been his mother’s business to keep track of his age.
“Mmm.” He looks at Odo speculatively, tugging his beard. “You look older. And I am sixty.” Is he, or is it just the age he chooses to be, a neat, round number, not young, not senile? “Yet I am building for the future here and you look to the past. This tapestry of yours. A commemoration, is it not? You see, what Gregory III promised to Archbishop Egbert of York three hundred years ago is irrelevant. It’s past. We must go forward.”
“Surely the past, Your Grace, is our foundation. Otherwise, why did you school me in the classics and the Old Testament when I was at Bec? Didn’t you expect me to learn from them?”
“Yes, Odo, not to swallow them whole like a snake with a rabbit. You disappoint me.”
“Well, I’ve always done that, haven’t I?” The swish of the plane along the curve of the wood grates on his ears, his eyes are full of sawdust. He turns away from the carpenter’s lodge, though Lanfranc keeps hold of his arm, preventing him from moving on.
“Only because your ability is so great. You are capable of anything. William knows that. That is why I am Archbishop of Canterbury and not you. I am capable merely of carrying out the will of the king and, I trust, of God.”
A bell begins to toll, marking the next office of the day. Odo looks up at the sky; the wind drives rags of dirty cloud across the sun which has already reached its short zenith. He wants to conclude this business and be on his way. The carpenter lays his plane aside and composes himself for prayer before eating his midday meal. Lanfranc slips his arm out of Odo’s and drops to his knees in the mud and sawdust. Odo, whose only prayer is that his exasperation with this pantomime of modesty and obedience will not show on his face, does likewise, feeling the cold seep through his clothes as Lanfranc recites the Deus in adjutorium. God is merciful, and Lanfranc contents himself with this portion only of the office of Sext before rising, brushing himself down and resuming their walk.
“Regarding Thomas,” Odo begins again. “If you reject history as a justification for his autonomy, let us consider the fact that he was appointed directly by His Holiness. We are not talking about some provincial abbot here. You, on the other hand, have only my brother to thank for your elevation. It is an English affair.”
“Nevertheless,” says Lanfranc with a bitterness that takes Odo by surprise, “one of which His Holiness is in full support. I am not an ambitious man, Odo. Your brother alone could not have persuaded me to leave Caen to take up this responsibility. Indeed, I refused him, despite the fact that he is probably my best friend. I am here only on the direct orders of our Holy Father.” He gives a short laugh. “Another unruly pupil.”
“Can you prove this? Do you have letters? You have not been to Rome for your pallium.”
“Do I have to prove it? Is there no honour between us?”
“As I see it, this is a matter of law. Law must be proven, as you yourself taught me. There must be precedents and witnesses. Until you can produce these, I shall urge Thomas to swear no oath.”
“And I shall not consecrate him until he does. I assure you I have the king’s support in this. The king understands that the Church in England must be gathered under a single head, just as the people are gathered under him.”
“But who’s tune are you dancing to, Lanfranc? William’s, or the Pope’s?”
“Why, God’s, of course. It is very straightforward for me. I do not wear a bishop’s hat on one side of the Channel and an earl’s coronet on the other. You should consider the consequences of your actions more carefully, Odo.”
“Oh, I do, Lanfranc; believe me, I do.” Odo turns and walks away, his long cloak swirling about his heels, covering the ground a great deal more quickly now he is free of the older man. Lanfranc makes no attempt to follow him but returns by a different route to the refectory, reflecting serenely that he is going to be in trouble with his servant for making such
a mess of the white gown. He is not worried by Odo’s clever questions and Delphic oratory. His duty is clear, as the Holy Father pointed out to him in his astonishingly speedy rejection of Lanfranc’s request to be allowed to return to Caen. Odo is merely a temptation, and he has always been dispiritingly strong at resisting temptation.
***
“A warm welcome, sir,” says Osbern. They can still hear the hubbub in the castle wards, muffled by the fine Flemish tapestry now covering the parlour window against the onset of the evening’s cold. The entire household turned out to welcome him, from Hamo and his lady and two sullen little daughters to the smallest spit boy from the kitchens. Everyone smiled and congratulated him on his recovery, some pressing the flanks of his horse or hanging onto his stirrups as though he were a hero returning from the wars. Planks of wood strewn with fresh straw had been laid over the worst puddles in the courtyard, newly cleaned out so it smelt more of damp earth than manure for a change.
The well had been decorated with ivy and winter jasmine, and Countess Marie awaited him there with a bowl of mulled wine. Leaning down from his horse to take it from her caused him a moment’s anxiety. To enable him to ride, Osbern had bandaged his midriff so tightly he was not sure he could bend without losing his balance. He was also wary of coming into contact with his pommel after the additional injuries inflicted by his encounter with Mistress Gytha. Countess Marie, however, is a tall woman and held the bowl up high, averting disaster.
He drank the health of all of them, lifting the bowl in every direction, but particularly toward Agatha and her embroiderers clustered outside their door like a flock of wood pigeons. But not Gytha. Why? Where was she? Realising her absence, a pain shot through him more sudden and intense, and unexpected, than any in his ribs or kidneys or his jaw when he smiled. But at least, he told himself with a gallows grin, appropriate to one of his bruised and aching parts.
