Brother Cadfael 10: The Pilgrim of Hate Read Online Free PDF

has spoken no word. Death is so common a matter now, even by stealth and treachery in the darkness, this will be forgotten with the rest. And the next day our council closed with sentence of excommunication against a great number of Stephen's men, and the legate pronounced all men blessed who would bless the empress, and accursed those who cursed her. And so dismissed us," said Radulfus. "But that we monastics were not dismissed, but kept to attend on him some weeks longer."
    "And the empress?"
    "Withdrew to Oxford, while these long negotiations with the city of London went on, how and when she should be admitted within the gates, on what terms, what numbers she might bring in with her to Westminster. On all which points they have wrangled every step of the way. But in nine or ten days now she will be installed there, and soon thereafter crowned." He lifted a long, muscular hand, and again let it fall into the lap of his habit. "So, at least, it seems. What more can I tell you of her?"
    "I meant, rather," said Hugh, "how is she bearing this slow recognition? How is she dealing with her newly converted barons? And how do they rub, one with another? It's no easy matter to hold together the old and the new liegemen, and keep them from each other's throats. A manor in dispute here and there, a few fields taken from one and given to another... I think you know the way of it, Father, as well as I."
    "I would not say she is a wise woman," said Radulfus carefully. "She is all too well aware how many swore allegiance to her at her father's order, and then swung to King Stephen, and now as nimbly skip back to her because she is in the ascendant. I can well understand she might take pleasure in pricking into the quick where she can, among these. It is not wise, but it is human. But that she should become lofty and cold to those who never wavered - for there are some," said the abbot with respectful wonder, "who have been faithful throughout at their own great loss, and will not waver even now, whatever she may do. Great folly and great injustice to use them so highhandedly, who have been her right hand and her left all this while."
    You comfort me, thought Hugh, watching the lean, quiet face intently. The woman is out of her wits if she flouts even the like of Robert of Gloucester, now she feels herself so near the throne.
    "She has greatly offended the bishop-legate," said the abbot, "by refusing to allow Stephen's son to receive the rights and titles of his father's honours of Boulogne and Mortain, now that his father is a prisoner. It would have been only justice. But no, she would not suffer it. Bishop Henry quit her court for some while, it took her considerable pains to lure him back again."
    Better and better, thought Hugh, assessing his position with care. If she is stubborn enough to drive away even Henry, she can undo everything he and others do for her. Put the crown in her hands and she may, not so much drop it, as hurl it at someone against whom she has a score to settle. He set himself to extract every detail of her subsequent behaviour, and was cautiously encouraged. She had taken land from some who held it and given it to others. She had received her naturally bashful new adherents with arrogance, and reminded them ominously of their past hostility. Some she had even repulsed with anger, recalling old injuries. Candidates for a disputed crown should be more accommodatingly forgetful. Let her alone, and pray! She, if anyone, could bring about her own ruin.
    At the end of a long hour he rose to take his leave, with a very fair picture in his mind of the possibilities he had to face. Even empresses may learn, and she might yet inveigle herself safely into Westminster and assume the crown. It would not do to underestimate William of Normandy's grand-daughter and Henry the First's daughter. Yet that very stock might come to wreck on its own unforgiving strength.
    He was never afterwards sure why he turned back at the last