Warden of Time (The After Cilmeri Series Book 8)

by Sarah Woodbury

  “They’re probably looking for a tree,” Callum added.

  We sprinted through the gate, which the guards had left open, and across the road towards the cathedral grounds. Bounding through that open gate, we entered the graveyard on the south side of the cathedral.

  The crowd had grown since it had left the palace courtyard. What had started out as a hundred people had become more like two or three hundred, with people streaming towards the commotion from all directions, though all had to fit a few at a time through the gateway. Canterbury was a Benedictine monastery, and a few of the monks were just realizing that something was amiss and starting to appear too.

  The ringleaders had found a tree near the east end of the graveyard past the well. One of the ringleaders had thrown one end of the rope over a branch of a great oak tree that overhung the monastery wall. The other end was looped around the young man’s neck.

  I hung back for a moment while my guard dispersed into the crowd ahead of me, and then I loped forward, Carew and Callum on either side of me. Taking a page from Justin’s book, Carew put his fingers in his mouth and blew a whistle that was so loud it might have scorched the leaves on the tree. My ears rang, and I had to restrain myself from putting my hands over my ears.

  “Sorry, sire,” Carew said, with a glance at me.

  “No apologies,” I said.

  Carew’s whistle had managed what Acquasparta’s feeble protestations could not. The jeers and shouts among the crowd didn’t exactly stop, but a good third were now paying attention to us rather than to the imminent hanging. The hangman stopped too, which was the most important thing, and there was a second of silence in which Callum inserted, “Make way for the king!” as he began to shove his way through the crowd.

  I threw off my mantle—a little earlier than I’d intended since I was still stuck in the middle of everyone—but the people needed to see that I was, in fact, the king.

  My guard had slipped in among the crowd such that I couldn’t distinguish more than a handful of their faces anymore. At Callum’s shout, they took up the call as I’d asked. “The king!” “It’s the king! “Make way for the king!”

  “Kneel before the king!”

  I knew that voice. It belonged to a Welshman in my guard named Rhys, whose barrel chest was more than broad enough to produce the sound, though he himself was hardly taller than five and half feet.

  The shocking bark worked. Those closest to me went down on one knee, and like a wave at a football stadium, those behind bent down in response to the actions of those in front. The several executioners remained, pumped up on adrenaline, the color in their faces high and their eyes wild with hatred. The one who’d thrown the rope over the branch had caught the end and held it, though thankfully he hadn’t yet hauled the prisoner into the air. It would take a bit of work to do so, but as the heretic’s hands were tied behind his back, it was also possible that a single jerk on the rope could snap his neck.

  The executioners gazed out over their suddenly silent crowd, shocked into stillness themselves, and then the ringleader’s eyes went to mine as I made my steady way towards him. He stared at me for a second, as if not sure what he was seeing, and then his eyes widened. In a swift movement, he dropped to one knee and bent his head. Callum reached him a second before I did, took the rope from his hand, and tossed it back over the branch so that it fell in a tangle at his feet.

  I turned to the crowd. Heads came up, but I didn’t lift my hand to allow them to rise. I had several choices before me: I could shame them; I could chastise them; I could appeal to their better natures, if they had them; or I could deflect them. I didn’t know if there was a right way to go about this. I’d never saved a man from a hanging before, but I wanted to make sure this didn’t happen again, not in Canterbury. Though at some point I was going to have to address the fact that if it was happening here, towns up and down England might be facing a similar riot if the underlying tinder of prejudice was lit.

  “I hear this man is a heretic.” I don’t know what they expected me to say, but that clearly wasn’t it. A murmur of conversation filled the square, and I lifted both hands and dropped them to lower the volume. “Can any one of you tell me what that means?”

  Dead silence. And then, “He defies God!” That came from the back of the crowd.

  “Could be.” I looked down at the heretic, who’d fallen to his knees too, the noose still around his neck, and scrapped in an instant the speech I’d been prepared to make. These people wouldn’t understand it, and it wouldn’t get to the heart of the matter for them—which wasn’t heresy. They really didn’t know what that meant. I put a hand under the prisoner’s chin and brought up his face so I could see into it. “Where are you from?”

  “G-g-gascony, sire,” he said with a thick accent.

  Some of the men in the front rows murmured—something about foreigners, I suspected. I brought my own head up, knowing now that I had my key to them. “How many of you knew this man came from France?”

  Nobody moved.

  “Come on. I want a show of hands.” I raised my own, and a dozen or so near me followed suit, perhaps too afraid not to.

  “So the rest of you thought he was an Englishman?” I exaggeratedly shook my head. “If you admit to that, you’d have to admit to murdering a fellow citizen in cold blood. Last I heard, that was against the law. I’m sure you don’t want that.”

  Now they were confused, worried that they were damned whether or not they raised their hands, but most of them did anyway.

  “That’s better.” I rubbed my chin as I looked at them: three hundred English folk. Ninety-nine days out of a hundred, they went about their daily business without a hitch, but like the heretic, they’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time and had been caught up in Acquasparta’s schemes. At one time or another, many had probably spoken to the man they’d been about to kill. My own men remained on their knees among them. I could have had them rise and posted them at the edges of the crowd, a silent threat, but I didn’t want the people afraid of anything but what they’d done.

  I looked down at the heretic again and then to the men behind him. “Remove that noose.”

  The ringleader hobbled forward, still on his knees, hastening to obey. When I held out my hand for the rope, he gave it to me. I held it up to the crowd. “I invited this man to England because France wouldn’t have him. Personally, I like thumbing my nose at France.”

  That actually got a bit of a laugh. They were beginning to wonder where this was going and if maybe they were going to come out of it alive.

  “But when I opened our doors to people who believe differently from you and me, that made him my guest, and every one of you has just made a mockery of my invitation.” I paused, and then overrode the shuffling and mumbling that followed that statement, “The truth is, I don’t care what this man believes. I don’t care what you believe. I intend to create an England where every man, regardless of where he was born or who his parents are, has the right to believe what he likes.”

  “As long as he pays his taxes.” That was Rhys again.

  A dozen people gasped. I felt the air leave my own chest in a huh at my guard’s audacity, but I recovered quickly, pointing to him and grinning. “Even so. You do your job, and I will do mine. But this—” I held up the rope again. “This is not for you. Your job is to welcome foreigners, particularly Frenchmen who wish to give us their allegiance.” I tossed the rope to the ground. As before in the anteroom at the palace when I’d spoken to my men, the silence was absolute. I gazed out at my people’s bowed heads.

  “Stand up.” I gestured with both hands. “Up! Up!”

  “King David! God save King David!”

  My men came through, bellowing the call until the people around them joined in. I lifted my hands again to raise the people to their feet, even as Carew and Callum pulled the heretic away, through the gateway in the wall behind me that separated the graveyard from the monastery grounds. I had none of my men bes
ide me, but I didn’t need them. The people were on their feet, bowing as I passed them, and the threat was over.

  I couldn’t help thinking it wasn’t what I’d said, but because I’d been the most recent person to speak to them. They’d been about to lynch a man on the word of Acquasparta. Like any crowd, they were quick to anger, slower to calm, but eager to follow whoever was willing to lead them.

  For the last few minutes, that person had been me, but it had been touch-and-go there for a minute and could have just as easily ended badly. I’d been lucky.

  I’d also just defied, in the most blatant and open way possible, those who wanted to see the Inquisition in England. I’d thrown down my gauntlet at Acquasparta’s feet. Even if I wanted to, there was no turning back now.

  Chapter Eight

  I strode back into the great hall of Canterbury Castle, my heart still pounding from the encounter with the mob. We’d brought the heretic with us, along with the ringleaders who’d been about to hang him, for no other reason than because I couldn’t simply release them all into the city again. They were cooling their heels in separate rooms in the barracks—probably adjacent to the room where Mike and Noah had been left—until we could figure out what to do with them.

  In faltering English, the heretic had said his name was Martin. Once we switched to French, he became more voluble, explaining that he’d come to Canterbury from Gascony with his family, having heard that England had become a refuge for those who believed as he did. He swore he’d never shared his beliefs with anyone, and it wasn’t clear how Acquasparta had learned of them. After hearing that he had a family, I’d immediately sent men to find them and bring them into the castle too. With the crowd subdued and dispersed, I hoped we could put the incident behind us.

  William de Bohun, my squire, was waiting for me a few paces inside the hall. He looked to top out in height at about five foot ten, a few inches shorter than I was, but he’d filled out in the last year. Soon I would have to knight him and find myself a new squire. Before he could speak, I pointed at him. “I need my sword.”

  He bowed, “Yes, sire,” and scuttled away to do my bidding.

  I turned around to find Callum, his face calm, looking at me. His eyes flicked right and left, drawing my attention to the various onlookers in the hall. I wasn’t doing a very good job of hiding my emotions, and an angry king was a fearful sight. I’d been king for only four years, and many still remembered the towering rages of King Edward. By contrast, I worked hard not to expend my temper on my underlings and never in public.

  Instead of speaking—because I didn’t trust myself to speak—I stalked towards the doorway that would take me to my receiving room, Callum on my heels. Once inside, I dismissed my various secretaries who were laboring over today’s papers and turned on my friend. “What was that?”

  “An ambush, my lord.”

  I waved a hand at him. “Don’t call me that. David. I’m David to you right now.” I paced to my throne but didn’t sit, instead turning back to look at Callum. “Why did Acquasparta arrange for that man’s arrest? Why the three untenable requests?”

  Callum took in a breath and let it out. “He arrested that man in this city within your vicinity to test the limits of your position. He wanted to bring the matter of heresy to a head and dispatch it.”

  “Well, he sure did that.” I was already calming down. I ran a hand through my wet hair and came to a halt before the fire, which was smoldering low in the hearth. It wasn’t a cold day, but the rain, which had lessened while I was speaking with the papal legate, had picked up again during the ride back from the cathedral to the castle.

  Callum added, “I do not believe he foresaw any of the events that followed, neither the mob nor the extent of your determination to prevent him from pursuing heretics in England. Fortunately for us, whatever plan he did have backfired, and now Acquasparta has nothing to show Boniface for his efforts.”

  “He doesn’t?” I said. “Why do you say that?”

  “You saved a man from a lynching,” he said. “You gave a speech too, first to your men in front of Romeyn, which before today I wouldn’t have recommended, and then to a crowd of commoners. But none but they heard it, and who among them could understand more than one word in three? It gives us breathing space.”

  I scoffed under my breath. “I would have preferred a direct challenge. I don’t want breathing space.”

  “You do, actually,” Callum said gently. “We need time to figure this out, especially after the murders.”

  He’d brought me back down to earth. A quiet knock at the door at the back of the room did the rest. Callum went to open it, revealing Lili standing on the threshold. She looked past him to me, and I held out an arm to her. She hurried forward and wrapped her arms around my waist, hugging me. I kissed her temple. “I’m okay.”

  “Carew told me what happened. First with Mike and Noah and then at the Archbishop’s palace. You—” She broke off, seemingly at a loss for words.

  “I did what I had to,” I said.

  “I know that, but you could have been hurt!” Her voice went high on the last word, and I heard tears in it.

  “Nobody was going to harm me. They had no weapons—”

  “Nor did you! And you didn’t know that at the time.” She gave a very Welsh ‘ach’ at the back of her throat and pounded me on the chest with the flats of both hands. “Why do I even bother? You will do what you think is right.”

  I took both of her hands in mine and kissed them. “I have to.”

  She blew out her cheeks. “I know.”

  “If it’s any comfort, Acquasparta seemed to have been taken by surprise by the vehemence of the crowd,” Callum said. “He intended to arrest the heretic in front of David, not kill him.”

  “Why?” Lili said, which had been my question, but before Callum could answer, Lili waved a hand. “Never mind. I know why.” She looked up at me. “To test Dafydd.”

  I released a sigh and walked to one of the ornate chairs near the fire to sit, very tired where before I’d had too much energy to contain. “Everyone’s motivations are murky. I can’t figure out the purpose of the pope’s demands either. Why put me in a corner, first by asking something of me he knows I can’t give easily, and then by forcing me to show—in public—how far I’m willing to go to protect a heretic?”

  “What demands?” Lili said.

  I regaled her with the tale of Acquasparta’s three issues.

  Her brow furrowed. “He wants you to refuse. He wants you to deny the requests.”

  Callum gave a low growl. “She’s right. The latter two, in particular, are outrageous. He has to know that you would never agree to them, and that you could never agree to them.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question,” I said. “What happens when I do refuse? Does the pope retaliate by excommunicating me? By placing all England under interdict? What would he gain by that?” While an England under interdict meant priests couldn’t perform sacraments and ceremonies, the populace would still belong to the Church. Excommunication, on the other hand, would mean I was thrown out.

  “The pope would gain England,” Lili said, “or at the very least, control over it.”

  Callum nodded. “Either you capitulate, giving him authority you are currently withholding, or a fight with the Holy See could be the tipping point that forces your barons to unseat you. I wouldn’t have said you were weak at home, but perhaps he knows something we don’t.”

  “He doesn’t,” Lili said.

  I tapped a finger on the arm of my chair. “And if the barons unseat me? What then?”

  “He would seek a more malleable king,” Lili said, “someone he could control more easily.”

  “Does he know my barons?” I said, with a laugh.

  “Maybe not, but whomever he found might not be so quick to defy him. He would see what happened to you and be more conciliatory.” Callum looked at Lili. “Particularly if he was young like Thomas, Edmund’s son.”

&n
bsp; “Pope Boniface has to know about my family’s rocky relationship with the papacy, I suppose,” I said.

  “How could he not?” Lili said.

  At King Edward’s request, the previous pope had excommunicated my father twice, in 1276 and again in 1282. My great-grandfather had been excommunicated once too for the same reason: refusing to kowtow to the English king.

  “Boniface has to be wondering how much of your father’s son you are,” Callum said.

  Lili nodded. “He would want to nip any rebellion on your part in the bud.”

  “My personal ancestry aside, English kings have a long history of taking a hard line against papal decrees they don’t agree with,” I said. “In fact, Edward persuaded the last pope to excommunicate my father in the first place by putting pressure on him through his moneylenders, who threatened to call in his loans if he didn’t do as Edward asked. Boniface will know that too and think it sets a bad precedent.”

  “The new king wouldn’t be placing his throne in jeopardy over a few heretics, either,” Lili said.

  “What Boniface really wants is for you to acknowledge his secular power,” Callum said. “We know that. He hasn’t said it out loud yet, but we don’t need him to do so to know what he is thinking.”

  Lili looked from Callum to me. “You’re talking about something that happened in Avalon’s history?”

  I nodded, my eyes still on Callum. “There’s still something we aren’t seeing. I think he does know something we don’t. He feels he has an advantage over me, beyond his ability to excommunicate me, though I can’t see what that might be.”

  “Acquasparta wasn’t exactly forthcoming,” Callum said.

  “Did you speak to him or Peckham after you saved the heretic?” Lili said.

  “No,” I said. “We left as quickly as we could.”

  “Was that wise?” she said.

  I laughed. “I don’t know. I wanted to let him stew a bit, to have him unsure of what I was thinking for a change. Besides, I couldn’t see talking to him after what happened.”