The Fool (Bailey)/Chapter 20

N the next day Becket was bidden to the King and he came. In black monk's gown with sandals on his feet and one priest for all his company he stood before the King. "You are swift, my lord, and we thank you for it." The King looked him over hungrily. "By my faith, Thomas, you keep no more state than I." He held up his own stained worn gown and laughed.

"I keep the state of my Master," Becket said.

"Why, we need no state now. Let us be alone. Sit you down, man. Aye, that is well. I think of old days, Thomas, good days to me. And you, do you remember?"

"What I was and what I am," Becket said.

The King halted a moment. "Nay, if I have set you high, you served me well. You know me, Thomas. Do me right. I think you know me just."

"To all men of yours," Becket said.

"Why then, trust me, man!"

"I do most humbly trust you, my lord, save in that which I may trust to no man. What would you have of me?"

"I would have your heart again."

"I have a treasure to guard. And where the treasure is there is the heart also."

"Be it so." The King looked at him long. "We may still deal justly together."

"I shall not fail, my lord."

"I count on you, Thomas. There be those who would set you against me. Some folk of yours have given refuge to one Philip de Broc."

Becket threw back his head. "So it comes," he said scornfully. "Hear me, my lord. The man is a clerk. He was pursued by your officers against the custom of England and the law of Holy Church. He has taken sanctuary with me as his right is. I dare not deny him nor I will not."

"The man is a murderer."

"I do not know that, my lord."

"You shall know it," The King started up and bade bring in the woman Gytha, and when she came: "Tell your tale once again, Gytha. Tell it to the priest here. My lord Archbishop is he. Nay, never kneel. Speak out boldly." And gazing at Becket's haggard face she spoke.…

"Aye, you have tears, Thomas," the King said. "I had no tears, I. But I promised her justice."

"God pity you, my daughter," Becket said, and stood up towering above her and raised his hand and blessed her and she fell on her knees. "God give you peace and St. Mary comfort your heart."

"My father, my father," she muttered and kissed his feet. "I am alone!"

"None of us is alone, for Christ lives."

She looked up at him through tears. "Oh, help me, help me," she sobbed.

"Be sure that I will help you." He raised her and led her away. "Here is one will bring you to my house," and he gave her to his chaplain.

"Well said, Thomas. Stand for her and I am content," the King smiled. "Aye, there is a man's heart under the monk's gown."

"I dare not deny her. She is a woman and poor and stricken and I am a priest."

"Now you know him what he is, this Philip de Broc."

"I know what I knew, my lord. The man is accused, not judged."

"God's my life, was that woman lying?"

"I doubt her not. I say he is not judged."

"Why, God have mercy, that is my plaint, not yours. Give him up and judged he shall be."

"I dare not, my lord. The man is a clerk, the man is of the church and must not answer to the courts of this world."

"What now? Look how you turn upon yourself. You wept over the woman, you swore her help and now you deny her."

"Not I, my lord."

"She asked for justice, she asked vengeance on this rogue who slew her man."

"I heard her and heard not that. Not vengeance she asked, but help."

"Her man's blood cries out from the ground."

"It cries to God, not man."

"What, shall a knave murder and man not do justice upon him?"

"The man is not in man's hand. He is of the Church and the Church is not under man's law."

"Aye, now you speak your heart. You will have no King nor law over you."

"None but God," Becket said, and crossed himself and bowed his head.

"Go!" the King shouted. "Go! By the holy rood, you have lit a fire that shall burn you up."

"Peace be with you, my son," Becket said.

He went out from the palace alone and men drew away from him as he passed and muttered and scowled. Only Bran knelt to ask his blessing and Bran he did not see, so high he held his head.

"A shrewd jest, my lord," said the justiciar, telling the King of it. "When he saw that none other of us knelt, then knelt the fool. And all the world will remember it against Master Thomas that he hath but a fool to his friend. A cunning fool is Bran."

"Say you so?" The King bit his nails and Bran looked round the door. "Show yourself, brother. For whom are you?"

Bran stole in and sat down at the King's feet and caressed his knees. "When a man is strong, he needs no friend, when a war is long all lose in the end."

"Aye, you jangle your riddles."

"For the world is a riddle, and, hey diddle, the good men they fight for the wicked's delight and, read me aright, never may what they might, never will what they would, never can what they could, never shall what they should."

"Peace where there is no peace, fool," said the King angrily. "It is for peace I fight."

"A hard fight, my lord," the justiciar said, "for he is a proud man and bold."

"Aye, aye, set a beggar on horseback and he will ride to the devil."

"But short, I dare hope. He makes no friends and when he stands against the law and the King there is not one that will know him."

"Sooth, sooth," Bran said. "Do him no wrong and he will have no friend."

"This fool is a wise fool," the justiciar purred, and they fell to talking of ways and means.

And indeed when it was found that the King's will was set Becket was left alone. His very Bishops, some hated him, some feared strife, none thought it a cause to die for that churchmen should not be under the law, bade him yield. Forsaken, he promised to swear obedience to the old law of the realm and the King called Bishops and barons to hear him swear.

What he should swear and how he should swear he disputed for three days in that council at Clarendon and then would swear nothing. The King cried out, "Mock not, that you be not mocked," and strode from the council room growling threats, and the barons followed him and with Becket none but the Bishops were left and they faint of heart. In the courtyard swords were out and men talked of death for the traitor. The Bishops heard the clash of steel and some wept and begged him yield and Gilbert of London cried out: "You have lit the fire; now you feel the flames." Becket started up then. "This man had among the brethren the place of Judas," he said, pointing his lean hand, and they shrank from him and babbled while he paced to and fro.

But where the King sat alone gnawing his hands: "The man will yield," said the justiciar coolly. "I see it in his wavering. He is unsure of all men and of himself most unsure."

"Sooth, sooth, brother," Bran said. "But what if he yield in his death? His death shall do more scathe than his life. Hear the swords."

The justiciar smiled. "Aye, fool, die he must not. But let him fear death and be shamed. I will find trusty fellows," and he went down into the courtyard and in a little while two barons broke into the council chamber and cried out that a hundred swords were out to hew down the Archbishop if he would not own the King and the law.

Then Becket's friends gathered about him and beset him on their knees. "God deliver me, God deliver me," he cried, "what is all this work? I am ready to keep the old laws of this realm."

So they ran to the King and told him, and the King came down into the council room and in disarray, with blood upon his lips, he stood over against Becket, Becket swart and haggard, and his black gown all trembling about him. "Swear you," the King cried; and the throng of the barons behind him surged forward a little way.

"I swear to keep the old laws of England," Becket said hoarsely. The room was full of murmurs and one of the Bishops lifted up his voice and prayed.

The King stood and said no word and smiled, and Becket hid his face in his hands. And after a while: "What you have sworn it is written, Thomas," said the King quietly. "Here are the laws written by wise men," and the justiciar held out a parchment.

Becket's hands fell and they saw his eyes gleaming through tears. Becket started back. "A trap, a trap!" he cried, and flung the parchment down. "I have not sworn what I have not read."

"By the bones of God, you have sworn. You do not make the laws but obey the laws. Sign and seal."

"By the omnipotent God, while I live I will never set my seal to it."

The King laughed. "Tricks serve you no more. Before God and man you have sworn. Give him his token and let him go."

So the justiciar tore the parchment down the middle and put one half in his bosom and the other half he held out to Becket. "Be it so," Becket said in a moment. "This I take neither consenting nor approving." He turned upon the Bishops: "By this you may know the malice of the King," he cried, and he swept out.

He vanished from men's eyes. He shut himself in a monastery and put on sackcloth and lived on bread of affliction and water of affliction and did penance for his weakness. And when this was told the King he made merry. "He hath found his trade at last. Let him be a monk and have done."

But Bran shook his head till the bells jingled. "If that be done we are all undone. I fear no sinner under the sun. When my foe turns saint, it is time to run."

"The devil is sick, the devil a saint would be," the justiciar smiled. "But of this sickness there is no healing, master Bran."

And the King had his will. "Then was seen," the friends of Becket wrote in the bitterness of their hearts, "the mournful spectacle of priests and deacons who had committed manslaughter, theft, robbery and other crimes carried in carts before the King's officers and punished as if they had been ordinary men." But the ordinary men were well content. Out of his sackcloth Becket published protest and lamentation and no man in the realm stood for him. Then he fled. On a dark night he stole out of Canterbury, two priests for all his company, and at Sandwich they hired a little open boat and came safe in her to France. The French king had reasons good and old to hate Henry. France must back King Henry's enemy and commend him to the Pope. France could menace all Henry's realm and if the Pope should be persuaded to use excommunication and interdict in Becket's cause, Henry must bend or break. If France would make war and the Pope make it a holy war, then there must be victory most glorious.

"Here is our saint," said Henry with a great oath, when he heard of Becket's flight, for he saw the plan far off and feared it, and girded up his loins for a long struggle in diplomacy and intrigue. He was the man for that, tenacious, patient behind his fits of passion, very cunning and through his craft of the moment seeing far and true.

He knew what he could count on. King Louis was no fighting man. The Pope would make peace for his Archbishop if he could. But any hour might bring Becket the chance to manœuvre them into a place where they must fight for honour. So the King went warily and was all things to all men and always mild. But the need fretted him and he had his enemies at home, barons whose power he had curbed and who longed for the old days of disorder and rapine, honest men who bore it hard that the head of the Church should wander in exile. He was eager for peace if peace could be had. And he went out to meet Becket in France.

In the good land of Touraine they met on St. Mary Magdalen's day amid a great concourse of French barons and Bishops. Becket was weary of exile. He had found out that his champions would not fight, he had learnt that he must be in England to have power in England, he had no faith left in policy.

"There rides a man of sorrows," Bran said as he came. "That is his art, fool," the justiciar laughed. "He is grown more cunning. A sad brow looks sadder against a bright robe over that monk's gown he used of old."

In his primate's splendour Becket rode and when he came to the King lit down and made to kiss his foot. But the King was too quick for him and sprang down and held his stirrup for him to mount again. "It is fit the less should serve the greater, Thomas," he said.

"Your servant am I, my lord, and your true servant," Becket looked down at him.

"If so you be, you shall be welcome to my realm," said the King.

"I ask no more than my just place and power, my lord."

"No man lacks justice of me and you last of all, Thomas."

"To England I may not come unless I have my see and all that is mine of right."

"If you do aright in the affairs of the realm, all that was yours of right you shall have again."

"Alas, my lord, you speak to me with closed teeth," Becket said. "You trust me not."

"As you shall do I trust you. By what you shall do you may earn my heart again."

"I am a lonely man in my days," Becket said. "You may have of me what you will as you had of old."

"My lord, my heart tells me that I go from you as one whom you shall see no more in this life."

"What now?" the King cried. "In peace we are come. Do you hold me a traitor?"

"That be far from you, my lord. I pray you give me the kiss of peace."

The King leaned from the saddle and kissed his sunken cheek and he crossed himself and turned his horse and rode away and the concourse cheered and trumpets blared, but he rode with his head bowed.

To the monastery of the Cistercians where he lay that night came Bran and found him alone making his supper of a bowl of pulse. "Is this a fast day with you, my lord?" said he.

"Welcome, wise man. Nay, gluttonous and a wine-bibber am I. But I grow old, Bran."

"You should have many years, lord."

"I shall have what is appointed and gladly go."

"Is it not good to live, lord?" "Nothing is good in this world but to do. You have learnt that, wise man."

"Nenny, nenny. For Bran it is good to be, yea, to be poor Bran the fool."

"Then why are you here, brother? Something you would do. And in all the years I have known you, you would ever be doing."

"Why, look you now, what ill have I done you ever?"

"You wish me well, brother fool. But you wish all men well. What would you have of me now?"

Bran looked up at him wistfully: "Is it peace, lord?" "I am weary of strife, brother. I would be at peace with all men but those who war upon God."

"How shall a man know them who they are?"

Becket drew back. "You make cunning questions, master Bran."

"I am answered," Bran said sadly. "Na, na, Bran lays no traps. Bran would live at peace and be kind. Oh brother, my brother, what help for this torn realm in strife?"

Becket laid his hand on the fool's head. "I would I were what you are, brother. But God hath taken me to do his work. He has appointed what awaits me."

"It is a sad world you live in, lord."

"It is a sad world where sin is."

"Na, na. A good world it were if men lived at peace and were kind."

"Quoth the fool," Becket said fiercely. "Who bade you tempt me, wise fool?"

"God have mercy, here is none but poor Bran; and naught but good will, lord."

"Here is the fiend," Becket cried. "Oh wise man, have you heard tell of one who was sent not to bring peace but a sword? And the devil showed him all the kingdoms of the earth and the glory of them and said, 'All these things will I give thee if thou wilt make peace with me.'"

"I have heard, lord. And I have heard of one who said that the meek are blessed and bade turn the other cheek to him that smote one."

Becket leaned his head on his hand. "You have said. Go your ways. You have said. What is for me I cannot tell. There is no help in man, no, nor in mine own thought. I shall do what it is appointed. Whether I go to peace or destruction I know not. You have done what you could. God be with you, wise man."

And Bran kissed his gown and stole away silently.