Ranulf was almost as tense as Celyn, although for entirely different reasons. He was taken aback to find Rhys ap Gruffydd and Owain Cyfeiliog at Owain’s hearth. It was true that Rhys was Owain’s nephew and Owain Cyfeiliog was wed to Owain’s daughter, Gwenllian. But they were political rivals as well as kinsmen, feuding with each other as well as with Owain. He’d not have expected to find either man dining at Owain’s table, and as he watched them over the stuffed capon and venison stew, he could not help wondering what their presence here portended.
Owain Cyfeiliog was a noted poet himself, and after the meal was done, he allowed himself to be coaxed into performing his latest poem, The Long Grey Drinking Horn. It was a rousing success, enthusiastically received, although one line in particular resonated unpleasantly in Ranulf’s imagination: And many were the dead and dying there. If war were to break out again between the Welsh and the English Crown, Owain Cyfeiliog’s poetry might well become prophecy.
“You are doing it again,” Hywel chided softly, catching Ranulf by the arm and steering him toward a window seat. “I can understand a man’s wanting to borrow a horse or a knife or a winter blanket, but you are the only one I know who likes to borrow trouble. Let it lie, Ranulf. Just as babies come in God’s Own Time, so, too, do wars.”
“That is very comforting, Hywel,” Ranulf said dryly, and Hywel thumped him playfully on the shoulder.
“You know I am right,” he insisted. “No war was ever averted by fretting about it beforehand. Tell me, instead, what happened at Woodstock after we departed. Has Becket’s quarrel with the Earl of Hertford been settled yet?”
“The dispute was resolved in the earl’s favor. A fortnight after Woodstock, he successfully pleaded before the Common Bench at Westminster that he held Tonbridge Castle directly of the king.”
Hywel grimaced. “A pity, for the earl is no friend to the Welsh. Whilst we were at Woodstock, Rhys ap Gruffydd’s nephew was treacherously slain in his sleep by one of his own men. The killer escaped and took shelter with the earl, who refuses to turn him over to Rhys for justice to be done. Is there any chance you could intercede with the king on Rhys’s behalf?”
Ranulf had already heard of Rhys’s latest clash with the Earl of Hertford. He suspected that sooner or later Rhys would have found some reason for breaking faith with the Crown, but he had to admit that the earl had provided a particularly good excuse. He could only hope that when war inevitably flared up again between Rhys and Henry, it would be confined to Rhys’s southern domains and not spill over into Gwynedd. “I doubt that it would do any good, Hywel. These days Harry has no thoughts for anything but his upcoming council with Becket at Westminster.”
“What are they bickering about now?”
Ranulf sighed. “You’ll be sorry you asked. Harry intends to demand that Becket cooperate with him in resolving the danger posed by criminous clerks, men in minor orders who rob and rape and plunder and then plead their clergy when apprehended. The Church insists they be tried before ecclesiastical courts, but the punishment meted out is often ludicrously light. They cannot pronounce a sentence of blood, so a murderer knows he’ll not face the hangman, no matter how heinous his offense. And whilst Church courts can cast a man into prison in theory, it is rarely done in practice, owing to the expense of maintaining such prisoners.”
Hywel was entertained by Ranulf’s formal turn of phrase. “Feeding the poor bastards, you mean. Church law seems better crafted to find penance for sins than punishment for crime.”
“Now you sound like Harry,” Ranulf said with a smile. “The problem of criminous clerks has long been a thorn in his side, and he hoped to resolve it by putting Becket in Canterbury. He thought that by working together, they’d be able to come up with a solution satisfactory to the Church and Crown alike.”
Hywel grinned. “But then Becket experienced that inconvenient religious conversion or whatever it was that transformed him overnight from honey-tongued courtier to crusader for Christ.”
Ranulf nodded. “Becket has taken an utterly uncompromising stance, claiming that the king’s courts have no jurisdiction to try a man who has taken holy orders, even if that man has committed rape and murder.”
“It sounds as if you are speaking of a specific case.”
“Harry and Becket have clashed over a number of cases of late. The most outrageous one concerns a clerk in Worcestershire who raped a young girl and then murdered her father. Harry wanted the man brought before his court, but Becket ordered the Bishop-elect of Worcester, my nephew Roger, to imprison the man so the royal justices could not seize him.”
“That could not have been a popular decision, especially with the family and friends of the victims. Did people not protest?”
Ranulf shrugged. “Becket believes a principle is at stake and, to him, principles are obviously more important than people. This is not the first time he has intervened when a cleric ran afoul of the law. There was a clerk in London who stole a silver chalice from a church, a priest in Salisbury accused of murder, and then there was that canon of Bedford who was charged with slaying a knight.”
“I heard much talk of that case whilst we were at Woodstock,” Hywel observed, “more than I wanted to hear, in truth. The canon was tried in the Bishop of Lincoln’s court, was he not?”
“Yes, and acquitted by compurgation, when he found twelve respected men willing to swear on his behalf that he was innocent. But that did not satisfy the slain knight’s family, for compurgation is not a judgment based upon the evidence, and they appealed to the Sheriff of Bedford, Simon Fitz Peter. He agreed with them, and during an inquest at Dunsta ble, he tried to reopen the case. Philip de Brois, the accused canon, refused to plead and was verbally abusive to Fitz Peter, who promptly lodged an indignant complaint with the king. Harry was enraged and wanted de Brois charged with contempt of court and murder. But Becket refused to allow it, instead heard the case in his own court. He ruled that de Brois could not be retried for murder as he’d been cleared by the compurgation, and found the canon guilty of the contempt charge, depriving him of his church prebend for two years.”
“Somehow I doubt that the king thought the loss of income was a sufficient punishment.”
“No, he did not,” Ranulf acknowledged, with a wry smile at the memory of his nephew’s blazing fury. “The bishops realized that their defense of exclusive Church jurisdiction puts them in the awkward position of appearing to defend murderers and rapists, too. So Becket attempted to resolve the dilemma by inflicting harsher penalties than usual upon these particular accused. The Worcestershire clerk is still awaiting trial. But Becket ordered that the Salisbury priest charged with murder be confined for life to a monastery, and the punishment for the theft of the chalice was branding.”
Hywel blinked in surprise. “Canon law does not authorize such punishment, though.”
“No, it does not. In his attempt to placate the king and public opinion, Becket miscalculated. Harry was even more wroth with him after that, for he saw these acts as a usurpation of royal authority.”
Hywel shook his head slowly. “You’re right. I am sorry I asked.”
“My lord Ranulf?”
Startled, Ranulf got hastily to his feet, then gallantly kissed Cristyn’s hand while disregarding Hywel’s mocking smile. Cristyn acted as if her stepson were invisible, turning all of her considerable charms upon Ranulf. She asked solicitously about Rhiannon, offered her congratulations upon learning of the pregnancy, and made him promise to let her know when the baby was born so she could send a christening gift. Ranulf was puzzled, for he’d never gotten more than grudging courtesy from her before, and when she lured him away from Hywel, he followed willingly; curiosity had always been his besetting sin.