Warden of Time (The After Cilmeri Series Book 8) Read Online Free PDF Page A

pattered on the back of my head and shoulders, soaking my hair. But the rain was cooling my temper and felt cleansing after the sights and smells in the alley.
    “Whatever the outcome of this conversation you’re about to have with the legate and Peckham, it might be some time before he is able to get word back to Pope Boniface of the extent of your disagreement with him,” he said.
    “That’s supposed to cheer me up?” Yet even as I spoke, I laughed, glad that Callum had stirred me out of my melancholy. I was tired of it myself, which meant my advisers had probably been throwing up their hands in frustration with me. “You do realize that this meeting is probably going to end in my excommunication. The legate being ill is only putting off the inevitable.”
    Carew spoke from my other side. “You could reconsider your present course of action.”
    “I have considered it and reconsidered it,” I said, a hard edge returning momentarily to my voice. “You know my reasoning, and you also know why I will not back down from my stance on this issue.”
    Carew bowed his head, admitting defeat. “Yes, my lord.” Then he looked at me sideways and said, sounding more like himself, “You don’t have to be so cheerful about it.”
    I reached out a hand and clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t give up on me just yet.”
    “Never, sire,” Carew said.
    The issue before us was freedom of religion. To say I was in favor of it was to grossly understate the case. I’d been fighting a rearguard action for years against the prejudices of this time. Having talked my father into admitting the Jews into Wales back in 1284, I’d lifted all restrictions on their activities and fields of employment once I’d become King of England.
    Unlike previous kings—in England and in most countries on the Continent—I also didn’t require anything different from the Jewish community than from the Christian one in terms of behavior or distinguishing clothing. For example, Jews no longer had to wear a badge on the outside of their coats as King Edward had required.
    My position towards Jews had been taken quietly by Archbishop Peckham and the Church up until now. Even better, in the eight years since my father’s edict had welcomed Jews into Wales, I was even beginning to think that the level of distrust among the general populace had lessened. Canterbury—as well as London, York, and Chester—had become more diverse in recent years, as people from across Europe had come to take part in our prosperity. It was harder to be prejudiced against people who were your neighbors.
    Plus, it wasn’t just Jews whose lives had changed. Women could vote for representatives to Parliament now, as could people who didn’t own land. A Jewish man had even been elected by the Christian majority in Shrewsbury. Maybe I was fooling myself into thinking the culture here had changed. Maybe anti-Semitism remained just below the surface, and Canterbury could explode into violence tomorrow if the economy crashed. It had happened before. Still, even if I was naïve, the job of a king was to lead , and the decision to treat people of all faiths equally had been, quite frankly, one of the easier decisions I’d made.
    The real issue before me at this hour, however, wasn’t the status of Jews in England. It was heresy, which could be defined as beliefs that were at variance with Church doctrine or customs.
    I understood the Church’s problem—really, I did. Because there was only one church at this time, many heretics were setting up mini-churches inside the Catholic Church and declaring they had the real truth. It was like camping out in the middle of the nave during a priest’s sermon and telling everyone not to listen to the guy in the black robes near the altar.
    The pope was free to kick out people in his church who didn’t believe the doctrine. His house, his rules. I was cool with that part—but only as long as the people were free to make their own