As the National Anthem began to play, Jennifer turned off the radio. “Perhaps if Hooper wants you so badly,” she said, “the least we can do is get out of England.”
Michael hadn’t understood the bulletin. But he nodded. “In France,” he said, “we can regard ourselves properly as man and wife.”
Man and wife! Jennifer had often wondered about marriage. But a proposal after barely four days of a courtship that had mostly been spent running away! She reached for Michael’s hand. It all seemed right and proper to her. Everything seemed right and proper in ways it never had before.
Chapter Thirty Seven
Once the engine was off, there was nothing to hear but the calling of the birds high above. Jennifer thanked the young pilot of the speedboat. He smiled and pointed at the tall priest who, standing up to his knees in the surf, had watched the boat on its approach to the shore of France. “I’ll go first,” Michael said. As he jumped from the boat, the sailcloth cape he’d put on against the cold of the crossing fell off, and he reached the priest looking almost as if he’d just swum the Channel. There was a brief conversation, and Michael pointed back at Jennifer. The priest, though, pointed at a small tent placed where the beach gave way to main undergrowth of the shore. Michael looked at her. But the priest spoke again, and Michael waved reassuringly, before darting straight for the tent. Jennifer watched him run. It was as if he were chasing the ball in some beach game.
She was still watching him when the priest transferred his wooden crucifix to his left hand and reached out to help her down. “Thank you for everything, Father,” she said in Latin.
“Think nothing of it, my child,” he said in an English more clipped than she’d heard outside old films on the television. His clothing had said Outsider. But he might have flown Spitfires before taking holy orders. He grinned and gave a little bow. “The Church protects all those it takes under its wing.” She turned and looked nervously back over the wide sea to the low darkness on the horizon that was England. She looked up into the blue sky, clear of everything except the wheeling birds. “And don’t worry about that,” he said cheerfully. “The health and safety officer in Dover has announced a fault in the airship that ought to keep it grounded till Monday.”
He looked closely into her face. “You are Jennifer Baldwin, if I’m not mistaken.” She nodded. “Well, you can call me Father Lawrence. I am, among much else, Vicar Apostolic in partibus infidelium. But that’s neither here nor there between us.” He led her beyond the line of the waves, to where the sand became white and powdery
Jennifer looked again at Michael. He’d stopped outside the tent, and was embracing what seemed to be old friends. One of them was trying to get a blue robe over his head. “Who are those men in funny clothes?”
“Those are His Excellency’s companions,” Lawrence answered. “The elderly one is Alexius, his late uncle’s under-secretary. The younger ones are the embassy guards.” He laughed and took her hand again. “Dearest child, Holy Mother Church overlooks nothing. We got a coded message from London the night before last. We had plenty of time to get everything ready.” He led her towards where, one after the other, Michael was embracing everyone again. They stopped in a place where the sand was held down by scrubby grass. “Every priest between here and the borders of Orthodoxy will soon be ready to do whatever it takes to get these people safely back to Constantinople. Urban II won’t become Pope for some while to come. Indeed, things may already have changed in ways that will get someone else crowned. So far as we’re concerned, though, the Crusades have already started. Deus vult!” he cried softly and almost self-mockingly. “Deus vult!”
Michael looked up at Jennifer’s approach. He quickly wiped his eyes and hurried forward. “Alexius,” he said in Latin, “here is the Lady Jennifer. Though we shan’t be officially married till we can stand before the Patriarch in the Great Church, she is already to be treated as my wife.”
The secretary bowed gravely, and silently tried the unfamiliar syllables of her name. “I greet you as My Lord’s Lady,” he said. Lawrence frowned slightly.
Leaving Jennifer with Alexius, the priest took Michael aside. “I have to warn you,” he said in Greek, “that the Church is not all-powerful on this side of the water. We have influence, but this can be ignored almost at random by the secular power. Neither Duke William nor the Count of Flanders can be regarded as allies. And, for all he dislikes them, His Majesty of France dare not stand against the Normans. With this in mind, my advice is not to retrace your steps along the short route into Italy. You’ll have to strike out east, towards Germany. The authorities there will be more understanding, and will do nothing to slow your journey towards the Empire’s Bulgarian provinces.”
They were at the point where beach merged with the land. Lawrence sat on a clump of grass and took out a wad of paper from his robe. He unfolded this into a map of many colours in the English style, and secured it against the breeze with heaps of sand at each corner. Michael sat down beside him and looked at the map. Bearing in mind the uncertainty of the scholarship that, after so long, had gone into its drawing, some of the colours might be conjectural. The Empire’s northern borders were a matter of uncertainty even for him. But he knew he could implicitly trust this map’s objective features, and the distances it measured between places. As usual with maps of this kind, nearly everything was marked in Latin.
Lawrence traced a long curve through what had to be mostly dense forest. “I’m afraid we can’t manage better than this. It is absolutely necessary for you to be out of hostile territory, and too far inland for anyone to try finding you from the sky. There is also the obvious benefit of taking a more or less unexpected route.”
“Thank you, Father.” Michael looked about for the right words. “I know there have been differences between your church and mine. But I hope we shall be able, once I’m back home, to put these all away.”
The priest laughed quietly. “My dear boy, I still live half in a world where the mutual anathemas of eleven years ago were jointly withdrawn fifty two years ago.”
He stopped, as if waiting for a look of confusion to come over Michael’s face. But Michael smiled steadily back. “Reverend Father, bearing in mind what’s going on in London and in Baghdad, can we not forget the past few centuries, and try to avoid the next nine? If you want the word filioque in the Latin Creed, please be my guest. There are matters of secular authority that require much compromise on both sides. But, unless I’m locked up for mad when I’ve made my report, I don’t think anyone in Constantinople will be inclined to dig his heels in over the theological issues. Our joint interest lies in settling everything in almost the same time as might be needed to draw up the right form of document.”
Lawrence beamed at him and began folding his map away. “I can tell you that the spirit of reconciliation is mutual. I was in Rome a few weeks ago. His Holiness regrets the impetuosity of Cardinal Humbert, who seems, in any event, to have exceeded his brief.” He paused and looked over at the sea. Now they were farther up the shore, the dark shadow of England was clearly visible. “Yes, Humbert was a fool,” he sighed. “His orders were to go to Constantinople and find out what your Patriarch was up to. He had no instructions to drop a bull of excommunication on the altar of the Great Church. I might add that your man Cerularius was also a fool. He was lucky to die before he could stand trial for treason. You simply don’t want to know the centuries of evil that followed those anathemas.”