Canterbury Papers

by Judith Koll Healey

  His brow was bereft of the shock of black hair I recalled constantly falling forward into his child’s eyes. His hair, though still thick, was now laced with gray, and it swept back from his face with a certain authority. The fierce, dark eyebrows seemed permanently knit in a subtle frown, which lent him overall a skeptical attitude. A line carved his face on each side from under his cheekbones to the corners of his mouth, giving him a look of natural severity that only deepened when he smiled. And smile he did, as my aunt and he parried over the menu.

  I was rather more tired than hungry, so I was pleased when William waved off the last of the servants and the turmoil of their service died down.

  “Alaïs, tell me how goes it now that you have been back at Paris for—can it be?—five years already,” Charlotte asked while she appeared to focus on the pheasant breast in front of her.

  “Seven,” I mumbled, savoring the taste of a small chèvre covered in herbs on the rich brown abbey bread.

  “Yes, of course, how time does slip off. Rather like wealth. How is your dear brother? He stopped to see me only last year when he was passing Fontrevault. But I haven’t seen you for…” She paused. “And tell me again, why are you here at Canterbury?”

  I peered across the table at her. With the candles flickering between us, it was difficult to determine her expression. She must know of Eleanor’s letter. Tom of Caedwyd had said she and Eleanor were close since Eleanor had moved to Fontrevault. But her features reflected only mild curiosity.

  “I was just explaining to the prior as you arrived, Aunt. I decided to make a pilgrimage to Becket’s tomb.”

  “Vraiment?” My aunt had a way of using inflection that vastly extended the meaning of a single word. “Whatever for?”

  “Abbess, please,” said Prior William, feigning offense. “It’s not such an outrageous intention. Many people make pilgrimages here. Becket still is revered as a holy man.”

  “So I understand. The people all come, do they not! The peasants come because they believe. The nobility come to be in vogue.” Charlotte turned her large brown almond-shaped eyes in William’s direction. “You knew him well, Prior. Do you think he was a holy man? Do you seriously think he deserves all of this adulation?”

  “In some ways, toward the end of his life, I think he began to embrace holiness.” William took his time answering, breaking his bread slowly between his strong fingers. “In his earlier years, perhaps not. But—if you recall your Plato—what is important is the ideal, not the actuality. If any one of us can call others to greater holiness after our death, who is to speak against it? And given our lives of imperfection”—he flashed a look in my direction and winked—“who of us is fit to cast the first stone against Becket?”

  “Nonsense.” Charlotte speared a fish with her Italian fork and nibbled at it. “If he hadn’t been killed by those hotheaded knights of Henry’s, he would be remembered in the chronicles as an ecclesiastical troublemaker. He nearly wrecked a kingdom with his pride.”

  “I was just asking the princess the purpose of her visit when you arrived.” William had decided to move the conversation along. He was, after all, prior of Becket’s abbey. Yet, withal, he seemed reluctant to embrace the role of defender of its hero.

  “As a matter of fact, there is a definite purpose for my visit at this time.” Suddenly I was inspired. “It’s been nearly twenty years since King Henry and I were here. He came then to do penance for Becket’s murder. I thought I would come to renew that penance in his name, as well as do penance for my own misdeeds. It is in honor of King Henry that I make this visit.”

  Both heads snapped up in surprise.

  “I thought Henry denied responsibility for Becket’s death,” Charlotte said. “I heard him say so himself, on more than one occasion. In fact, that is the only reason we allowed him to be buried at Fontrevault Abbey.”

  That and a substantial endowment, I’d wager, I thought. But I said only, “Henry did not believe he was responsible for Becket’s murder. Those knights of his who crossed the Channel were rogues. He never ordered that killing. They misinterpreted his words.” I took a swallow of wine to calm my rising voice.

  “Imagine the scene,” I continued. “The happy Plantagenet family keeping Christmas at Bures, feasting and laughing, when suddenly the whole contingent of English bishops trails in, led by an angry Roger of York. They told the entire court their astonishing tale. It seems when Becket arrived back in England, he had immediately excommunicated them all. That had been no part of his agreement with Henry to end his exile. The bishops demanded immediate redress from the king. Henry flew into a fury. But he never told his knights to kill. I was only a child, but I witnessed the scene. He did not order the killing.”

  “Still, it was Henry’s knights who did the deed.” William passed a silver platter of herbed greens to my aunt.

  “Yes, but you know he would never have touched Becket. Above all else, Henry was too skilled a politician. He knew that if Becket were martyred, it would make more trouble for him in England than ever Becket could make if he were alive.” I licked the almond cream from my spoon, feeling quieter now. “And the last thing he wanted was the satisfaction of seeing Becket made a martyr, after all he did to polarize the kingdom.”

  “Peut-être tu as raison,” the abbess said, looking thoughtful. “So why do you think he did the penance here all those years ago?” She was looking at me, but it was William who answered.

  “He needed to placate the people. Becket’s popularity was growing, the myth of the saint was spreading. And Henry was considered guilty of the murder by most people. So a few years later, he agreed to abase himself here and allowed the monks to apply the discipline, in penance for whatever role his thoughtless words had played.”

  The abbess wiped her fingers daintily on her napkin. “That corresponds with what I was told at the time,” she offered.

  “And being King Henry”—I shook my head—“when he came to atone, he held nothing back. I could draw for you the picture right now if I had charcoal in my hand. I was here. I will not forget the scene.”

  They were silent.

  I closed my eyes. “Picture Henry, naked, stretched on the floor of Becket’s still-bloodstained chapel. A long ribbon of courtiers and monks winds down the center of the cathedral and curls around the side aisles. Solemn faces, expressionless as always in ritual punishment, as if no one of them is responsible for his action. You can hear the echo of lashes as the monks, one by one, pass by, each savoring his one stroke of the silk-corded discipline on the bare back of the prostrate king.”

  I paused, aware of our common breath. “It was an early spring night like this one, and the whish of the whip was echoed by the April wind whistling outside. I remember standing stiff as a rock, my cheeks scarlet, as Henry’s daughter Joanna pressed her fingers into my arm. We kept each other from fainting.”

  I was surprised to hear a quaver in my voice. Charlotte looked down, turning the handle of her fork over and over.

  “So”—I assumed a blithe tone—“I thought I would come here in memory of the king and do penance as he did. And also penance for my own sins, not as famous as the King Henry’s but still a burden to me.”

  William looked at me for a long moment. I thought he was going to say something kind, but instead he remarked, “I certainly hope you’re not going to cast yourself naked on the floor of Becket’s chapel and wait for the lash.”

  I was startled by his flippancy. I closed my eyes briefly and saw again that image I had just described. In the background, among the courtiers, perhaps there had been a tall, dark-haired cleric watching with pain, as I had watched, the difficult scene. When I opened my eyes, William had turned to my aunt to respond to a question I had not heard. I forced my attention to their conversation.

  “And Aunt Charlotte”—I took my turn at our question game at the first opening—“what brings you to Canterbury in this cold spring weather? Surely this is not the most opportune moment to visit Kent f
or you either.” I was determined to quell the mysterious feelings aroused by the memory of Henry’s penance and of all the events of that fateful year. “And I believe I am safe in assuming that you did not come to revere the martyr’s tomb.”

  The abbess’s expression was momentarily comical, but she recovered admirably. “I have business with Prior William. There is a plan to hold a convocation of abbots and abbesses in all of England and Normandy within the year, to discuss certain problems. Although Fontrevault is not a Benedictine abbey, we have been invited to participate. Prior William and I are conferring on arrangements.”

  William caught the moue my aunt had made when I teased her about praying at Becket’s tomb.

  “What occasioned that look, Abbess?” he asked as he applied garlic sauce to the pork with gusto.

  “My niece considers me too secular, I think,” she replied, with no hint of irritation. “She sees my love of finery and imagines that I have little piety. I’ll wager—”

  “No, not exactly, Aunt,” I broke in. “It’s just that I know your history, and no part of it includes prostration before anyone, with or without clothes.”

  William chuckled. After a draft of wine, he applied his serviette to his lips with an elegant gesture. “That’s very interesting.” He glanced my way. “Tell me more about your aunt. I had no idea her past had such color.”

  I sallied forth, aware that my aunt might not want her colleague to hear her story. But I thought it added to her cachet and could not help but make William hold her in even higher regard.

  “My grandfather, King Louis, he who was called le Gros, made an early marriage for Aunt Charlotte to a count in a southern province.” I looked at the abbess across from me. Impossible to read her expression. “Correct me if this is not true. But it is the story my father told my brother not long before he died.”

  “Go on,” said Charlotte, now shaking with silent laughter.

  “The marriage turned out to be an unfortunate affair. The count was given to drinking Armagnac spirits for weeks at a time, shut up in a tower with his favored mistress. He would emerge from the tower periodically to harry and beat his royal wife, then retire again to his favorite pastimes. Not surprisingly, they had no children—or at least none that survived.” I glanced again at my aunt. Perhaps I was too cavalier with these painful events. But she seemed unruffled.

  She even took up the story. “Eventually the dreadful man died. The count’s son from a previous marriage took over his father’s château and, it was said, the mistress and tower as well. I was sent back to Paris posthaste and with little ceremony, like a rejected package.”

  “Charlotte returned to Paris a stronger woman than she had left,” I stated. “She announced to her father that if his plans for her included another marriage, she wanted none of it. When he tried to arrange other marriage contracts for her and brought forth suitors, she produced prodigious tantrums, screamed and tore her hair, and so frightened the nobles, old and young, that they all fled. After a time the word in France and Normandy, and as far down as Gascony, was to avoid overtures from King Louis about marriage with his daughter—at all costs.”

  “Oh, no, surely not as far as Gascony,” she murmured, easing her plate away from her.

  “Finally, in desperation,” I continued, “my grandfather endowed the abbey at Fontrevault with enough money to buy the seat of the abbess. He told Charlotte to go there and run it, and not to come to court again unless he summoned her.”

  At that the abbess laughed out loud, a hearty sound for such a refined woman.

  “Is this true?” The prior raised his fork in question to our companion.

  “Close enough,” she admitted. “I would have embroidered the story somewhat. It sounds dull in the telling.”

  “I am astonished,” William said, looking not at all astonished. “It was clearly the Paris court’s loss, Abbess,” he said, signaling for the servants. “I will show proper respect from this point. Such a forceful will should inspire only awe.”

  “Speaking of forceful wills,” I interjected, “I understand there is trouble here in England with King John’s use of coercion against the abbeys.”

  A swift look passed between my companions. It was William who answered. “What sort of trouble?”

  “I’m not sure. I simply heard rumors that John is pressing the abbeys for silver and that there is resentment building here on the island and in Rome with his current policies.”

  “We hear the same rumors, although Canterbury has been spared his importuning,” William said, leaning back in his chair. His long body seemed restless after sitting for a period of time. “That must be another benefit of having the martyr’s tomb here. Even King John does not want to disturb the ghost of the archbishop and raise the specter of another fight between church and state, one that might well lead to another episcopal murder.” He turned toward the abbess. “But others, especially the Benedictine abbeys in the north, have been pressed. And they are not happy.”

  I wondered if the proposed convocation of the heads of the large monasteries across the north country had anything to do with John’s campaign.

  “And, of course, John could always turn in this direction.” He spoke as if to himself.

  Suddenly I recalled my thought to find an Islamic scholar at this abbey, who could tell me more about Ibn al-Faridh.

  “Prior William, I have another errand, besides the prayers I wish to say at the martyr’s altar. You must have many scholars here who have traveled or studied in the south.”

  He tilted his head and frowned. “Ye-es, there are a few who have been for some years in Italy. But travel is dangerous of late, if one is not a knight on crusade with an army alongside. So we have been restricting our scholars. What is it you seek?”

  “I’d like to talk with someone who knows Arab poetry, one who could tell me something about this jewel and its history.” I fingered the pendant lightly.

  “It’s a handsome piece. I noticed it earlier. It appears quite rare.” At the mention of jewels, my aunt became interested, leaning forward to look more closely.

  “I believe so, too. The man who made it was a poet as well as a jewelsmith. There is one line of a poem on the back of this, and I would like to know more about the entire work.” I made every effort to appear nonchalant. I had no intentions of telling my companions of the intense interest expressed by Master Averroës in my gem nor of the strange sack of my chamber in Havre.

  William rose and went to his writing table, there to make a note on an open parchment. “I think the man you want is Father Alcuin. He spent many years in the Benedictine abbey in Sicily, near Cefalù. He speaks Arabic and can probably quote the poem you want.” He grinned. “He also speaks English and French, so you won’t have to guess what he is telling you. I’ll have Dermott take you to him tomorrow, sometime before the dinner hour.”

  He didn’t return to the table but extended his arms to the cushioned chairs near the fire. “Abbess, Princess, please let us remove ourselves to the hearth. Sitting too long at table is difficult for me.”

  But I found myself quite suddenly without energy to sustain further conversation. I mumbled my excuses and prepared instead to depart, looking around for my cloak. William reached the bell pull to call for Brother Dermott, but the abbess forestalled him.

  “I can walk with my niece, William. My guesthouse is next to hers, and I will see her safely home.” I wondered if I had enough strength left to endure a private exchange with Charlotte.

  A servant brother had just presented the prior with my cloak, and he was casually placing it around my shoulders when suddenly I remembered my vigil and turned to face him. We were now quite close, and I was forced to look up.

  “Prior, I nearly forgot. It is proper that I ask for your formal permission for my vigil of penance at Becket’s altar tomorrow even. I intend to keep watch through the night, alone. I hope you will agree.”

  “At Becket’s altar, did you say?” He moved slightly awa
y from me and leaned against the wall on one shoulder. “Why not the tomb? You perhaps do not know that we moved his body after the great fire. It is no longer buried under the altar.” He chuckled. “It’s quite a grand tomb.”

  “I’m certain it is, but I prefer the altar. It has a more direct connection to my past.” I gathered the collar of the cloak about me. “As I have explained this evening.”

  He glanced over my shoulder at my aunt and then shrugged. “Yes, if you insist. In memory of Becket—and Henry, too—I give you permission. Though I warn you, it will be a cold vigil. Your bones might resist. None of us is a child, as we once were.” There was an air of impudence about his tone that did not sit well with me.

  “Prior, speak for yourself. I feel quite up to the challenge, despite what you consider my advanced years.”

  He only laughed and brushed his lips to my hand, like any courtier. He did the same to the abbess, and then he lifted a small lantern from its wall hanging. But my aunt protested. She said that there was no need for him to see us down the stone stairs; she was quite capable of finding her way out as she had already found her way in. She took the lantern from him smartly, and we gathered our cloaks about us.

  When I turned back for one last look before the door closed, I caught the prior still standing with his hand on the ornate hearth mantel, watching us thoughtfully and without a trace of any smile.

  Our cloaks flew out behind us like falcons’ wings as we moved quickly along the darkened cloister walk. The abbess had the lantern in one hand and the other on my elbow in an iron grip. I was not certain if it was for her aid in walking or to bind us more closely in conversation. There was a footfall behind us, and I slowed, would have turned, but with her hand she pressured me on.

  “The prior will have sent us an escort, despite my protests,” she said, as if she could read my very thoughts. “He has a mind of his own. And he wants to be sure of our safety. Should he misplace two women of the royal house of France, he would have a lot to answer for.”