Theodore closed his eyes and settled back into his pillows. ‘Don’t you understand the enormity of your crime, Alaric?’ he whined. ‘You have murdered a deacon of the Church. You have committed a crime that cries aloud to Heaven for punishment. Are you not willing to make some atonement for this unspeakable sin?’
‘Oh shut up, Theodore!’ I answered. I turned to Wulfric. ‘If you don’t bring me something drinkable,’ I said in my chilliest voice, ‘I’ll find someone in Canterbury to take you by the scruff of the neck and smash your teeth out against a shithouse wall. Now, wipe that insolent smile off your face and get out of my sight!’
I looked back to Theodore and smiled. ‘Listen, my boy,’ I said slowly and in Syriac, ‘we both know very well that, seventy-six years ago, I got the Pope of that time to agree, by his servants and agents, that the Will of Christ might be an aspect of His Person, and therefore singular. This means that he also agreed that any claim that His Will was an aspect of His Nature, and therefore dual, might be a misunderstanding of the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon. It doesn’t matter what side deals attended this agreement. What does matter is that, if the Monothelite position is heretical, Pope bloody Benedict of Blessed Memory was willing not to anathematise heresy. You allowed that bag of shite now rotting before our eyes to pressure me into lying my head off about what happened at the Closed Council of Athens. You people would then use this to embarrass the Emperor in his dealings with the Syrian Church. Well, I gave in last spring, because I was pressed, and because I hoped you’d snuff it before I needed to deliver. But you’re still alive — sort of — and so I’ve had to remove the pressure by other means; and there’s bugger all you can do put it back on me. If you try to push things any further, I’ll raise a stink that will poison dealings between the Church and the Kentish Crown for generations to come. After a lifetime of knowing me, you should be aware that I can and will do that.’
He managed to raise his good hand for silence. ‘Alaric,’ he sobbed, ‘you committed both blasphemy and treason this morning. I beg you to reconsider your remarks.’
‘Tough titty, My Lord High Bishop!’ I laughed. ‘All I did today was let slip a dirty little secret your sort have kept from my people for a hundred years. When my royal kinsman Ethelbert was baptised all those years ago, he was told it was a step up in the world. He could get rid of his tribal witchdoctors and steal a march on his neighbours. No one told him, or any of his successors, he was putting himself under a theoretical jurisdiction from Constantinople that might one day be used to drive a wedge between him and his pious subjects. The next time you allow Gebmund to convene that fiddled inquiry of his, I will stand up and recite the relevant passages from Agapetus and a dozen of the Church Fathers, both Greek and Latin, until no one is in any doubt of the position held in Rome as well as in Constantinople. And I’ll do it in English too!’
Wulfric came in with another jug, this one filled with rich, red wine. I thought of getting the boy to taste it. But I doubted if any of these scared old women would join poisoning to blackmail — murder was my speciality. I slobbered in one mouthful, and then another. So what if much of it ran out again? There’s nothing so heady as wine drunk in triumph.
‘Drop the whole matter,’ I said with final emphasis. ‘Give up on toadying to the Pope’s advisers — they’ll be humming a different tune next year in any event. Send me back to Jarrow. I’ll shut up, and you can find someone here with a dash of learning ready to lie about the true relationship between King and Emperor.’
‘Never!’ Theodore whispered.
I got up, still holding my jug. ‘Then I dare you to make Gebmund reconvene his inquiry,’ I said. I pointed at Wulfric, then at my stick, and waited for him to make the obvious connection. I held my stick in one hand, and my jug in the other, and took a step towards the door. ‘You know where to find me.’
But Theodore wasn’t finished. Incredibly, he struggled and sat up. ‘I curse the day I let you persuade me to give you refuge in England,’ he cried loudly in Latin. ‘It’s only because you were born here that I didn’t send you straight back to the Emperor — and — and — because of what we used to be to each other. Oh what a fool I was!’
‘There’s no fool like an old fool,’ I sneered, ‘And don’t give me any of that crap about the “happy days of old”. We both know how those ended. You’re bloody lucky I didn’t have you killed.’
He fell back in a faint that might shut him up for the rest of the day. I jabbed Wulfric in the chest. ‘Show me out,’ I said. ‘He won’t be needing you.’
Chapter 4
Brother Jeremy picked at one of his spots and tried to think. ‘But why did you have to kill him?’ he asked. He looked at the blood under his fingernails. ‘Also, I can’t hide your report forever. Everyone knows how you used up every sheet of papyrus in Canterbury, and how more had to be brought over from France.’ I pulled a face and carried on looking out of the window at the moon. No sneeze resulted, worse luck. I’d have to give him an answer.
‘Because, dear Jeremy,’ I said, leaving slight gaps between my words, ‘Sophronius told me that, if I didn’t finish his report, he’d have you flogged to death for that customs officer he said you killed in London.’ I stopped his reply. ‘It’s a minor detail that I killed him as well as Sophronius. All that counts is that, since the Deacon couldn’t have his report, it was him or you. Can I have some thanks for choosing as I did?
‘As for storing the report, I trust you put it where I told you. It’ll be safe enough there.’ I looked out of the window again. I finished my wine and let out a long and subdued burp of happiness. If only wine jugs were made of glass, the world would look such a fine place through their bottoms.
Jeremy squeezed his eyes shut and made a supreme effort at rational thought. ‘Can I ask, Brother Aelric, why we need to store the report? Why not destroy it? No one would ever see it then.’
I put my jug down. It spared me the temptation of hitting him with it. ‘Can’t do that,’ I said firmly. ‘It’s a very fine piece of writing — yes, very fine: important source material for historians, and all that.’ I changed the subject. ‘But, Jeremy, you’ve taken my dictation in English. It really is time for you to climb down that ivy and run off to spread my news of today’s proceedings. You can start in the alehouse beside the western gate.’
Oh, shit! Someone was coming up the stairs. ‘Get under the bed,’ I whispered. ‘Try not to breathe.’
Of my three visitors, Ambrose was first through the door. ‘Oh, but it’s the greatest honour that ever was,’ he bawled. ‘To think our monastery’s been chosen above all others in the land.’ He staggered from the drink he’d been soaking up, and nearly fell over. He gave me a look of slow-witted confusion. ‘Why are you burning lamps this time of night?’ he asked. ‘Don’t you know the price of mutton fat?’
‘Sod off, Ambrose!’ I yawned. ‘And shut the door, and let me hear you go downstairs.’
I ignored Gebmund, who was looking utterly crushed, but smiled into the angry though scared face of young Aelfwine. ‘Greetings, My Lord Aelfwine,’ I said. ‘I take it you’re standing in for Cousin Swaefheard. I’ve heard ever so much about him in the months I’ve been stuck in his kingdom. Diplomacy isn’t one of his strengths. But I’m sure you can supply that in his place. Sorry we’re right out of anything to drink — not that I suppose this is a family get-together.’
Aelfwine sat on my bed. Was that a yelp I heard? ‘Why are you fucking us over, Aelric?’ he asked. ‘We’ve done nothing to you. Just confess to keep old Theodore happy. We’ll see you right about the penance. You are family, after all.’
I told my shaking fingers to behave and turned the lamp full up. Aelfwine had a face like thunder. I smiled again. I waved about the bare room. ‘Stop listening to silly old Theodore,’ I said, ‘and I’ll stop making you choose between a massacre of King Swaefheard’s loving subjects and having to explain to His Holiness in Rome why half of Canterbury is a pile of smouldering ashes.’