Brother Cadfael 10: The Pilgrim of Hate

pledged his word to God and men that King Stephen would honour and revere the Holy Church, and maintain the good and just laws of the land. In which undertaking, said Henry, the king has shamefully failed. To his great chagrin and grief he declared it, having been his brother's guarantor to God."
    So that was the way round the humiliating change of course, thought Hugh. All was to be laid upon Stephen, who had so deceived his reverend brother and defaulted upon all his promises, that a man of God might well be driven to the end of his patience, and be brought to welcome a change of monarch with relief tempering his sorrow.
    "In particular," said Radulfus, "he recalled how the king had hounded certain of his bishops to their ruin and death."
    There was more than a grain of truth in that, though the only death in question, of Robert of Salisbury, had resulted naturally from old age, bitterness and despair, because his power was gone.
    "Therefore, he said," continued the abbot with chill deliberation, "the judgement of God had been manifested against the king, in delivering him up prisoner to his enemies. And he, devout in the service of the Holy Church, must choose between his devotion to his mortal brother and to his immortal father, and could not but bow to the edict of heaven. Therefore he had called us together, to ensure that a kingdom lopped of its head should not founder in utter ruin. And this very matter, he told the assembly, had been discussed most gravely on the day previous among the greater part of the clergy of England, who - he said! - had a prerogative surmounting others in the election and consecration of a king."
    There was something in the dry, measured voice that made Hugh prick up his ears. For this was a large and unprecedented claim, and by all the signs Abbot Radulfus found it more than suspect. The legate had his own face to save, and a well-oiled tongue with which to wind the protective mesh of words before it.
    "Was there such a meeting? Were you present at such, Father?"
    "There was a meeting," said Radulfus, "not prolonged, and by no means very clear in its course. The greater part of the talking was done by the legate. The empress had her partisans there." He said it sedately and tolerantly, but clearly he had not been one. "I do not recall that he then claimed this prerogative for us. Nor that there was ever a count taken."
    "Nor, as I guess, declared. It would not come to a numbering of heads or hands." Too easy, then, to start a counter-count of one's own, and confound the reckoning.
    "He continued," said Radulfus coolly and dryly, "by saying that we had chosen as Lady of England the late king's daughter, the inheritor of his nobility and his will to peace. As the sire was unequalled in merit in our times, so might his daughter flourish and bring peace, as he did, to this troubled country, where we now offer her - he said! - our whole-hearted fealty."
    So the legate had extricated himself as adroitly as possible from his predicament. But for all that, so resolute, courageous and vindictive a lady as the empress was going to look somewhat sidewise at a whole-hearted fealty which had already once been pledged to her, and turned its back nimbly under pressure, and might as nimbly do so again. If she was wise she would curb her resentment and take care to keep on the right side of the legate, as he was cautiously feeling his way to the right side of her; but she would not forget or forgive.
    "And there was no man raised a word against it?" asked Hugh mildly.
    "None. There was small opportunity, and even less inducement. And with that the bishop announced that he had invited a deputation from the city of London, and expected them to arrive that day, so that it was expedient we should adjourn our discussion until the morrow. Even so, the Londoners did not come until next day, and we met again somewhat later than on the days previous. Howbeit, they did come. With somewhat dour faces and stiff necks. They said that they represented the whole commune of London, into which many barons had also entered as members after Lincoln, and that they all, with no wish to challenge the legitimacy of our assembly, yet desired to put forward with one voice the request that the lord king should be set at liberty."
    "That was bold," said Hugh with raised brows. "How did his lordship counter it? Was he put out of countenance?"
    "I think he was shaken, but not disastrously, not then. He made a long speech - it