Roger glanced then toward the man in the center of the storm. Thomas Becket was very pale. His cheekbones were thrown into sudden prominence, and his eyes shone with feverish brightness. Roger knew, as few did, how delicate his friend’s health was, and he feared that the older man might fall ill under the strain. For the full brunt of the king’s wrath would come down upon those thin, squared shoulders. If they did not yield, what would their defiance cost them?
As troubling as that question was, there was one that weighed even more heavily upon Roger. What damage would be done to the Church as a result of this dangerous breach with the king? His eyes again sought out Becket. As much as he admired and liked the other man, he did not fully understand him. Although loyalty kept him silent, he agreed with Foliot that this was a battle that need not have been fought. But now that they were forced to fight it, they could not afford to lose. All they could do was to hold fast to their faith and hope that the king’s rage would cool enough for him to see reason.
The tension was such that they all flinched at the sudden loud knocking. Becket gestured for one of his clerks to open the door, frowning at the sight of Roger de Clare, for the Earl of Hertford flaunted his enmity like a battle flag. “What do you wish…,” he began coolly, then got hastily to his feet as the earl pushed past the clerk into the chamber, with others on his heels.
“We’ve grown tired of waiting,” Hertford declared combatively. “Do you mean to obey the king or not?”
Roger had risen, too, moving to stand at Becket’s side. He recognized most of these intruders: the Earl of Salisbury; the king’s bastard half-brother, Hamelin; the one-eyed John Marshal, a Wiltshire baron with the soul of a pirate; the Earl of Essex, whose father, Geoffrey de Mandeville, had died in rebellion against his king. Behind them, more men were seeking to crowd into the chamber, shoving and pushing and cursing. The bishops instinctively recoiled; only Becket, Roger, Gilbert Foliot, and the aged Bishop of Winchester stood their ground.
“We are not answerable to you,” Becket said sharply. “When our deliberations are done, we will return to the hall, not before.”
“What is there to deliberate? Either you are loyal to our lord king or you are not. Which is it?” Hamelin’s freckled face was suffused with angry color, his eyes narrowed accusingly; he looked so much like his elder brother that the Bishop of Norwich could not suppress a gasp, shrinking back in his seat as if to escape notice. Several of the other bishops were also trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible.
But the Bishop of Winchester reached for his cane, glowering at this threatening mob with the icy aplomb of a man in whose veins flowed the blood of William the Bastard, England’s conqueror. “Be gone from here,” he said scathingly. “You honor neither your king nor your God by this churlish display.”
“We have no intention of going anywhere,” Hertford insisted, “not until you agree to obey the customs as your predecessors and betters did!”
“We have nothing to say to you.” Becket sought to stare the earl down, without success. “Your intrusion into this chamber is an affront to the Almighty. Withdraw at once, lest you imperil your immortal souls!”
A few of the men had begun to squirm. But John Marshal sneered, “Better you should worry about yourself, priest! Your skin will bruise and your bones will break like any other man’s. Even the Pope will bleed if cut.”
“How dare you threaten the archbishop!” Roger found he was gripping his crosier as if it were a weapon, so great was his outrage. “If ever there was a man heading for Hell, it would be you, John Marshal. And the fires of Hell will be even hotter than the flames in that burning bell tower!”
Marshal scowled at this pointed reminder of the calamity that had cost him an eye. Before he could retort, though, there was a commotion to the rear. Men were reluctantly moving aside, clearing a path for the king’s justiciar and the king’s uncle.
The Earl of Leicester and Rainald bulled their way through the crowd, trampling on toes and jabbing their elbows into ribs. “What in hellfire are you fools up to?” Rainald’s florid face was nearly crimson now. “Who told you to harry the bishops like this?”
Leicester was shaking his head in disgust. “The lot of you ought to be ashamed of yourselves, threatening men of God. Get out of here, and just hope this deplorable lapse does not reach the king’s ears.”
Some of the men did seem shamed by the justiciar’s tongue-lashing, others merely disgruntled. But none of them resisted, and within moments all were in retreat. Leicester strode to the door, rather ostentatiously slid the bolt into place. “The king sent my lord earl of Cornwall and me to discuss this lamentable impasse-fortunately for you, my lord bishops. I regret to say that feeling is running high against you amongst the king’s barons. Who’s to say what those dolts might have done if we’d not arrived when we did?”
Roger swallowed a skeptical rejoinder, for he suspected this entire scene had been staged for their benefit, a not-so-subtle warning of what could befall enemies of the Crown. “Uncle,” he said coldly to Rainald, while wishing suddenly that his other uncle, Ranulf, had been able to attend the Clarendon council. Mayhap Ranulf could have talked some sense into the king. It would not even occur to Rainald to try.
“What would you say to us, my lord earls?” Becket’s pallor was stained by blotches of hectic color burning across his cheekbones. “Do you speak on the king’s behalf?”
“Nay, my lord archbishop. I speak for myself,” Leicester said, his eyes sweeping the chamber, moving slowly and searchingly from bishop to bishop. “The king wishes to know how your deliberations are progressing. But nothing has changed. He’ll not give ground on this, my lords, for he has the right of it. In those lawless years under the usurper, Stephen of Blois, Crown prerogatives were lost and Church encroachments proceeded apace, if you’ll forgive an old soldier for speaking bluntly. It is only natural that the king should want to recover what was lost, to restore the-”
“This serves for naught,” Becket interrupted, with a rudeness that betrayed the shaken state of his nerves. “We already know the king’s views on this matter. If you have nothing new to offer, I see no point in prolonging this conversation.”
“How can you be so shortsighted?” Rainald glared at Becket. “My nephew is an honorable, God-fearing man, one who has the makings of a great king. But he is known to be… hasty in his tempers. Do not push him so far, my lords, that he takes measures he may well later regret.”
Leicester nodded grimly. “I must obey the king’s commands. I believe myself to be a good son of the Church, and it would not be easy to arrest an archbishop. But I would do it, my lords, if the order were given. I would have no choice.”
“You do what you must,” Becket said. “As will we.”
After Leicester and Rainald had departed, the silence was smothering. No one seemed to have the heart for further argument. Slumped in their seats, the bishops stared off into space, each man lost in his own dark musings. Roger’s head had begun to throb, and he rubbed his temples gingerly. How were they to escape this trap?
The next ones to try their luck at breaking the bishops’ resolve were the Templars-the English Grand Master Richard de Hastings and Tostes de St Omer. With a solemnity that seemed more appropriate for a wake than a council, the two urged Becket and the other prelates to reconsider, to think of the good of the Church. That argument hit home with Roger, whose greatest fear was that this acrimony would poison the well for years to come. They had spoken with the king at great length, the Templars reported, and he was willing to be reasonable. If the bishops would agree to accept the customs, that avowal would be enough to satisfy the king.