As he set off steadily plodding round the cloister to the dark yawning door of the Cathedral he dared not look behind, for the slightest sign of hesitation would have brought his comrades to a halt; but he heard footsteps following, and knew that the war-cry and the brandished sword had done their work.
Within the Cathedral the monks were scattering, seeking dark corners in crypt or clerestory where they might escape the massacre. Henry of Auxerre, leaning on the great Metropolitan cross which he had been commanded to carry, tried to discern the bearing of the leader who stood beside him. In the murk he could see nothing of his face; but his figure had stiffened, so that his great height would make him unmistakable in any crowd. What was worse, the Archbishop was not attempting to hide; instead he made a stately and unhurried genuflexion, and began to walk eastward toward the High Altar.
With a sob of sheer misery Henry of Auxerre pushed the cross from him and took to his heels. As it swayed the silver pole flashed in the candlelight, and Grim of Cambridge caught it before it could touch the ground.
Holding the cross erect in both hands, Grim marched with dignity toward the High Altar, first in a little procession of four; behind came William fitzStephen and Prior Robert of Merton, and last of all the Archbishop. They had reached the steps leading from the north transept to the choir when the door behind them was suddenly filled with armed men.
‘Where is Tom Becket?’ called a mocking voice. ‘Where is Tom the Londoner?’ ‘Where is Tom of Cheapside?’ ‘Where is Tom the son of the drysalter?’ The gloating voice continued its insults. Then someone shouted, more seriously: ‘Where is the traitor, the Archbishop of Canterbury?’
Thomas recognized that voice. It came from Reginald fitzUrse, his sworn vassal. The indignity that such a felon should shout after him, a felon who drew his sword on his own lord, was more than he could endure. He turned to shout back: ‘Here am I, no traitor, but priest and Archbishop.’
His heart was pounding as it had pounded when he rode out to joust with Engelram de Trie. The time for flight was past. He was a knight, a Norman, and a warrior. He would face these recreant murderers, to answer them as they should be answered. He turned to walk westward, that he might meet his fate standing. His three companions turned also, and walked behind him.
‘What do you seek of your lord, Reginald my vassal?’ he called contemptuously. The answer came from several throats, ‘Absolve the Bishops, or you die.’
‘I choose death,’ said Thomas readily; then his long training in the schools asserted itself, and a little speech followed, composed without conscious thought in his excited mind.
‘I accept death in the name of the Lord, and I commend my soul and the cause of the Church to God and Blessed Mary and the patron saints of Canterbury. But by the authority God has given me I forbid you to harm my followers.’
As he spoke he turned aside to stand before a little altar of Our Lady, cut off from the nave of the long church by a low party-wall.
Four knights, faceless in their great helms, loomed over him in the dark; they held their shields high, and their swords were raised. Before the terrible menace of those anonymous figures William fitzStephen and Prior Robert flinched away, to melt into the gloom. Only Grim of Cambridge remained by his lord, holding aloft the Metropolitan cross as though it were a standard on a hard-fought field.
The very air of the Cathedral reeked with the scent of fear, for the great building was full of frightened men. Only Thomas, and Grim his squire, confronted death with unmoved hearts. The attacking knights were as frightened as any monk; they had blundered into a position where the King’s law would hang them, and at the same time they imperilled their immortal souls. Reginald fitzUrse, snatching at a last chance of pardon, still sought to win the King’s favour by capturing the Archbishop alive, even at this eleventh hour. He threw down the hatchet which hampered his shield-arm, and as he came within reach launched a swinging blow with the flat of his sword.
The Archbishop’s skullcap fluttered to the ground, but the blow had missed its mark. Thomas still stood erect and defiant.
Three knights closed round him, tugging at his cowl to lift him bodily on to the shoulders of Tracy, who waited with bent back to carry him from the Cathedral. Grim seized him from behind, and the whole group wrestled together, grunting. Suddenly Thomas, that statue of Christian suffering, came to violent life. With both hands he caught fitzUrse by the skirts of his mail, pushing so strongly that his enemies staggered back.
For a moment he stood alone, save for Grim crouched at his back. ‘Reginald, you pander,’ he growled through set teeth, ‘you have struck the lord to whom you swore service!’
FitzUrse answered doggedly: ‘I owe you no service against the service I owe to the King my liege-lord.’ It was the excuse that had beaten through his brain since he left Normandy, his only excuse for the supreme crime against knighthood, a crime much worse than the mere murder of an unarmed clerk. Presently the King would forgive and reward him, and after that he would be free of reproach.
‘Realz!’ the attackers shouted again, to hold their courage to the sticking-point. ‘In the Lord’s battle I shall fight it out toe to toe!’ answered Thomas, in the clarion voice of a knight calling his war-cry. ‘Out, Holy Cross!’ added Grim in English, as his grandfather had long ago cried at Hastings.
Reginald heard movement at his back, and stole a hasty glance over his shoulder. There was no time to lose, the great west porch was filling with townsfolk, unarmed burgesses who feared to oppose mailed knights, but who might intervene if some brave man gave them a lead. The attackers were experienced warriors, and Hugh de Morville ran back, unasked, to hold the nave against rescue until the deed was done.
As swords swung aloft for the kill Thomas raised his hands to his eyes. His racing brain showed him a little I picture of all this happening a long way off, to little figures who were knights, clerks, and an Archbishop; the mannikin of an Archbishop must play his part worthily so long as he, Thomas, could control his actions. But no warrior trained in swordcraft, as he had been trained at Pevensey, could watch a sword descend on his head without dodging or throwing up an arm to parry. If he was to meet his doom erect he must cover his eyes.
He felt a smarting rap on the crown of his head, right across his priestly tonsure. It did not seem to be death, though that could not be long delayed. His brain was still working with astonishing clarity, and he commended his soul to St. Denys and St. Alphege, choosing without hesitation from the whole Calendar two saints who were his peers as martyrs and Archbishops.
The first blow, struck by fitzUrse, had failed because Grim interposed the Metropolitan cross to parry it; but the English clerk was not a trained swordsman, and he held the cross aslant; the sword glanced down the staff to bury itself in his arm. Grim tell to the ground, still grasping the cross with a hand from which blood spouted.
Then Tracy swung his sword again and again. At the third stroke Thomas pitched forward. A last shred of consciousness reminded him that he was an Archbishop in the act of martyrdom. ‘For the Holy Name of Jesus and the safety of His Church I offer myself to deaths,’ he murmured. His legs groped as he gathered them under his cowl, that his body might lie decently until men came to carry it to burial.
Reginald leaned on his sword, breathing hard. This was not what he had planned, but perhaps it might please the King. Anyway, they were all in it together. Then he recalled that Richard le Breton had not struck a blow; an eyewitness who bore no guilt for the murder might afford inconvenient evidence. ‘Strike,’ he murmured, laying a hand on Richard’s shoulder; and Tracy added, ‘Strike, or lie with the Archbishop.’
Richard le Breton heaved up his sword. It was hard to hate that crumpled figure on the stone pavement, but he summoned up again the grievance which had brought him from Normandy. ‘Take this,’ he shouted, ‘for love of the King’s brother, who died of grief because you forbade his marriage.’
Impelled by hysterical rage, the sword smashed throug
h the skull, striking the pavement with such force that the point snapped from the blade. With an oath, Richard flung the useless weapon to lie by the shattered body.
The murderers lingered by the corpse. It was hard to imagine that this messy bundle of rags and torn flesh was Thomas, the great Chancellor, the gallant knight, the skilful falconer, the holy Archbishop; he might yet get up to denounce them. Then from the shadows of the west porch stepped Hugh of Horsea, the brigand-clerk who was known as the Evil Deacon. He had followed the murderers because he delighted in murder. With the point of his sword he scrabbled inside the smashed cup of the skull, scattering white brains on the pavement. Then he addressed the faceless helms around him, saying cheerfully: ‘Come on, boys, let’s go. That fellow won’t get up again.’
Then the Cathedral was quite silent; until presently the sacristan crept out from under a choir-stall to remove, as reverently as his shaking hands would permit, the Pyx which might not remain in this desecrated House of God.
Epilogue: Thomas Forgives
In June 1174, more than three years after the crime which had shocked Christendom from Iceland to Sicily, King Henry staggered out through the west door of Canterbury Cathedral, bleeding and exhausted. He wore only a shirt, from which blood dripped to his naked feet. But the pain of his lacerated body was nothing to the apprehension and misery which filled his mind; and the greatest anguish of all was the conversation of the Prior of Christ Church, who walked beside him and would not stop talking.
‘Of course we did not like to make any structural alterations until last year, when Rome pronounced the formal Canonization,’ he was saying, as he offered his arm to support the fainting King. ‘Since then we have moved pretty fast, I consider. By the way, have you heard the story about the first Mass sung in honour of St. Thomas the Martyr? It’s a pleasing tale, though I’m not sure I believe it. They say that, when he heard of the murder, the Pope commanded a Requiem Mass in his cathedral of the Lateran. It was to be a most solemn affair, and all the Canons of the Lateran assembled in choir, wearing the black vestments of mourning. But when they began to sing the Introit, Requiem in Aeternum, the roof opened to Heaven and the Angelic Choir appeared singing Laetabitur Tustus, the Introit proper to a martyr. The Canons naturally joined in, and looking down saw their black vestments had changed by miracle to Martyr’s red. A nice story, but I have never met an eyewitness. However, I was telling you about the changes in the Cathedral. Besides the shrine, and the Altar of the Martyrdom, we have another altar where Richard le Breton’s broken sword is dedicated as a relic; the hatchet dropped by fitzUrse is kept in the Treasury in a splendid reliquary. Yes, I think we have done all that could be expected. But perhaps you were too occupied to notice these things.’
For the first time in his life King Henry made a serious effort to keep his temper. What had occupied his mind was a scourging on his bare back, the strokes laid on by seventy choir-monks. Was this silly Prior deliberately baiting him?
Outside the Cathedral the Prior turned to him again. ‘Do you seek absolution, my son? Your penance has been worthily performed, and I will absolve you with all my heart.’
‘No, you blasted fool, I do not seek absolution,’ the King answered shortly. ‘Two years ago, in Normandy, I was absolved from all guilt in the murder; and anyway I was never guilty.’
‘Then why, my lord, did you suffer this scourging?’ The Prior was certainly mocking him, but never again would he lose his temper.
‘Because St. Thomas, my old friend and Chancellor, still keeps up in Heaven the feud which came between us during his last years on earth. I have done everything demanded of me. Appeals go freely to Rome, and clerks are tried in the Church courts. In addition, as penance for driving the holy man into exile, I have promised to go on Crusade if I can leave my realm in safety, to pay the wages of two hundred knights in Outremer, and to found at least three monasteries. I am paying the knights now, and arranging to found the monasteries; but with my realm so troubled I may never be able to start on Crusade.’
‘And did you show your abhorrence of the murder by punishing the murderers?’
‘Well, no, because they were never in my power. Of course they lost their positions in my household. They fled to Scotland, and finally surrendered to the Church. The Pope sentenced them to go and join the garrison of Jerusalem until they died. Three of them are there now, absolved, and as far as I know happy and prosperous. Reginald fitzUrse must be in Hell, because he died in Naples, still excommunicate; he had sworn to go to Jerusalem, but he thought there was no hurry. The other three have their chance of Heaven like the rest of us.’
‘Then our St. Thomas has been lenient to the miscreants who struck him down. What makes you think he still wages war on you?’
The King’s eyes bulged, and his hands knotted into fists; but he took a deep breath, and answered in a calm though shaking voice:
‘Do you in Canterbury never get news of the outer world? Three years ago I was the mightiest King in Christendom, and my power stretched from Scotland to Spain. Now my false Queen has forsaken me, three of my sons are in rebellion, and all my realm is in peril. As I knelt before your altar to receive the scourging which I admit I deserve, I recalled that the castellan of Rouen begs me to hasten oversea to deliver his city, closely besieged by the King of France; and the castellan of Alnwick begs me to hasten north to deliver his castle, closely besieged by the King of Scots. My rebellious sons hold all Aquitaine and Anjou. I have not a friend in the world, and my most dangerous foes are of my own family.’
He shook his head to clear it, and forced his mouth to smile. He must not mar this holy occasion by a display of rage.
‘Father Prior,’ he continued graciously, ‘is there any favour you seek for your community, from its secular lord?’
He told himself that he had endured more than his middle-aged health could stand, for his eyes seemed to be playing tricks on him. The Prior suddenly shot up to a great height, and grew the hooked beak and bushy eyebrows of an old friend. A voice from his youth issued from the changed mouth:
‘Well done, Henry. At last you have kept your temper under provocation. The feud is ended, and I shall help you in Heaven as I helped you before Toulouse.’
The King staggered, and as he recovered was surprised to notice the onlookers staring past him (for a King is accustomed to being stared at, everywhere, all the time). A dusty horseman pushed his mount through the throng, waving a letter and shouting:
‘The King of Scots is a prisoner, and his army in full flight. In thick fog he rode into the midst of our army before Alnwick. The north is safe!’
‘Thank you, my dear Thomas,’ Henry murmured. ‘In future I shall always keep my temper.’
In fact he did not, but at that moment he meant what he said.
Copyright
First published in 1955 by Faber & Faber
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Copyright © Alfred Duggan, 1955
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