The Burning Time (17 page)

The Bishop raised his eyebrows in surprise. For a moment, he found it difficult to remember that he was facing an enemy. Rarely had he felt so recognized.

“Yes,” he admitted, “What you say is true. I discovered a new universe—one of delicate moral shades, more challenging yet more soothing than the simplistic blacks-and-whites of my youth, when I was so pathetically straining to live as a parody of Saint Francis. But no matter the path I chose, the Church was there before me, with answers to all my questions. I found my salvation, in this world as well as the next, through the one institution wherein a man might move from impotence to
power, to live and act as the equal of those who are born—callously, unjustly entitled—into it.”

“Like me,” Alyce said softly.

“Like you,” he answered, nodding. “Yes, Madam, those born to power like you. You can afford to play at being a peasant, you see. I was only a step up from
being
one. I know you as well as you know me, though with fewer specifics. I have met your type before among the nobility; ones who act beneficently toward their inferiors, but always for their own purposes—beguiling them in the process, as you did with my obviously corruptible, incompetent men-at-arms. You personify the ideal mistress to your serfs—but one day you will get bored with them, or the peasants you have indulged will actually begin to take themselves seriously. Then nobles like you fling the wretches out, back on Church alms again, which they need to augment the pittance you have allowed them, just to stay alive.”

Alyce flinched. But she chose to ignore this remark, pursuing her own strategy instead.

“Yet we have something in common, my lord. As you noted, we both struggled to become lettered. We both—”

“And we both became lettered. Highly educated, in fact. But here is the bitter joke, Madam: we were both educated
by the same institution
—one I embrace and you deny. What an ingrate you are, Your Grace! What a hypocrite! You would champion your allegedly defrauded widow—but if I
relent
, you
stand ready to abandon her
and
her case, summarily. Or will you seek her out and bribe her, too? You posture, you extort, you threaten, you bribe. A true noblewoman! So arrogant, indifferent, and immoral that you deign not even recognize your own malevolence.”

Alyce’s eyes flashed.

“Hearken to me, Papal Emissary. You and your Church leave a blood-soaked trail of forced conversions in your wake—and you call
me
arrogant? You hunt down people; you accuse them on evidence of rumours based in spite or envy; you torture them to extract confessions—and
I
am immoral? You coerce them to name other innocents, more victims for more condemnations; you condemn as a heretic anyone who dares dispute an Inquisitor’s verdict; you spill human agony from your cornucopia of conquest—and
I
am malevolent? You burn
alive
living human flesh—”

“Have you ever actually attended such an execution?”

“
Never
!”

“I have.” The Bishop rose. He walked slowly to the large bronze crucifix hanging against the far wall. There he paused for a moment, then turned and walked back to stand in front of his visitor, his hands clasped in front of him.

For a moment, Alyce glimpsed Richard de Ledrede as a young boy—a beautiful, somber child, all large eyes and hurt—and the image blurred disturbingly in her mind with Will’s face.

He stared at his hands and spoke quietly, intimately.

“You look on me with horror and contempt, Madam. Well, so be it, so you may—though I think that is a sluggish intellectual conclusion. But I do at least insist you acknowledge that I have not come to where I stand easily. I am no simpleton. I can tell you personally that the theologians and the poets need not imagine the Inferno. An execution
is
Hell. Livid, in life,
now
. Conceivable. Actionable. Unspeakable.… Although it becomes more … endurable with familiarity. Like any other hell, I warrant.” He suddenly lifted his head and muttered fiercely, “I vowed to be an instrument of the Lord’s
peace
. I vowed to
serve
people, to bring comfort, to end suffering. I stood ready to sacrifice my life for the Church.… That was naive. What was required was my soul. The Church was honest, admitting all along it craved my soul. But I did not yet comprehend how demanding the Church could be, how ensuring its survival outweighs
all
other concerns—for who else can be trusted to bring salvation to the world?
No matter
the sacrifice, the cost, the horror. No matter the terror I read in others’ eyes or the sorrow I wear carrying out my work. The Church is more important than my discomfort. Or
yours
, Madam. If in seeking out fiends to slay them, I become a fiend, so be it. Your denunciations are not new to me, I made them once myself. If I could care about anything but the Church, I still would not care that you judge me monstrous.
But sweet
Jesu
, woman! At least use your mind! You also are not a simpleton! Do you think I
enjoy
being trapped in such a—
grotesquerie
?”

There was silence as Alyce sought her answer.

“No. Yes.… I know not. I know only that there is no rationale on or off this earth that can justify such inhumanity. I hear your confession. But seek not absolution from me. Morality! How dare you claim you have faith in anything sacred, including in any god?”

“I have faith in the
Church
. God … God is an argument. I believe in what I can see. Satan too is an argument—except that Satan’s works are everywhere visible around us. Sometimes such evidence must be simplified, in order to educate man’s boundless stupidity—but you can certainly
see
it … I believe in what I can
see
. I believe in the honour and purpose of the
Church
.” He seemed to have found his old voice again. “This is the most efficient structure man has devised to establish order and peace, to address the yearning for a universal family beyond one’s tribe or nation. Miraculously, it has endured. Kings and conquerors come and go. But the Church
lasts
—a living record of the finest qualities of humanity. It
must
last, for another thousand years and
more
.”

“If the Church is living evidence, as you claim, of humanity’s finest qualities, it is also evidence of humanity’s capacity for acting with greed, corruption, violence—”

“—all of which are stages along the path to civilization. I do not claim the Church is a perfect structure. Divine Plan may have established it, but fallible man sustains it. Still, it is the best humanity can do.”

“The best! You truly
believe
we cannot do better?”

“I believe we can. But not yet. I believe this is the best we can manage so far. We need
centuries
to alchemize such a vision. Which is why I would do anything—
any
thing—to protect the Church.”

“I am trying to understand you, my lord Bishop. Can
you
in turn understand: so do I feel about protecting my people?”

“Your people! Your people are doomed! By
you
, Madam, and by your superstitious traditions. You and your people will vanish, while the Church will prosper and conquer the world, including those lands where now only infidels roam.” He stiffened with pride. “Impugn my integrity no longer. Take your bribes—of support and of trinkets—” he strode to where the ring and the pearls lay, picked them up and flung them into her lap, along with the scroll “—and take your threats as well. Return to your fiefdom. But not, I assure you, for long.”

“Then there is no way that we can—”

“There is no way. The Church does not bargain.”

“The Church bargains all the time, my lord—even with your own god.”

“Not with heretics, apostates, or infidels.”

She rose and looked him in the eye.

“I have tried. You know that from here there is no turning back.”

“There is no turning back from anywhere.
Iacta alia est
. It means—”

“ ‘—The die is cast.’ I know what it means.
Immo, domine. Vale
.”

“Vere. Vale, domina.”
He bowed.

She wheeled and swept out, the rustle of her train whispering in her wake.

Alone, Richard de Ledrede sank into a chair, breathing heavily. Only after some minutes did he straighten up to sit, staring, unseeing, at the crucifix. He was frightened of her next move. Yet he was also strangely excited, as if filled with the energy of his devout youth or the energy of battle—what he imagined warriors felt, preparing for attack. He had defended the Church. If martyrdom of his reputation was the cost, so be it.

This resolve helped buffer the blow when, the following afternoon, he learned that Lady Alyce Kyteler was formally reviving the charge.

The process did not take long. She dipped generously into her purse to hire a few well-connected legal advocates and numerous ink-stained clerks who scurried about, filing the proper writs. She did not even have to appear at the lawcourts.

Two days later, Richard de Ledrede—the Papal Emissary to Ireland commissioned with the task of rooting out heretics—found himself a prisoner in Kilkenny Castle. In full regalia, wearing his gold mitre and carrying his jeweled shepherd’s crook, he had stared straight ahead as he was escorted from the Cathedral and borne through gaping crowds to the rooms set aside for his confinement. At least power still respected power somewhat: he was not to be lodged in the dungeons with common thieves. But the civil authorities refused to permit his cook to attend on him—punishment in itself, considering the fare. Nonetheless, he would continue to carry himself as a martyr ought, with dignity.

Meanwhile, leaving matters in the hands of her newly hired lawyers, Alyce Kyteler returned home and changed back into comfortable clothes.

In her tower chamber, surrounded by piles of crushed and abandoned finery littering the floor, she savored her physical freedom. Yet she felt tired—too weary to plunge into all the manor work that awaited her attention.

She slumped down onto the low wooden chest at the foot of her bed. There she sat, legs dangling, eyes closed.

“What we call victory,” she sighed, and shook her head.

ONCE CONFINED
with the time to think about it, the Bishop discovered that he was, after all, not a man to welcome martyrdom, not even of his reputation. Reputation was ultimately a matter of history, and history was written by those who survived. So better to fight back—and better still to win. Nor was Richard de Ledrede a man to languish in jail, and he was nothing if not resourceful. Even from behind bars, he struck back.

Although imprisoned, he could not be denied visits from his priests and monks, to consult on bishopric matters. Alyce had miscalculated in overestimating the independence of Irish priests by basing her model on Father Brendan. The rabid Father Donnan was not alone in his zealotry; there were other priests closer to his temperament than to Brendan’s, and there were abbots and friars quite willing to use and be used by the powerful prelate from abroad. Consequently, de Ledrede—employing a repertoire of indulgences literal, figurative, and spiritual—had over two years built himself a loyal clerical following.

Through these intermediaries, and still wielding his diocesan seal and the signet of his bishop’s ring, he placed the entire diocese of Ossary under religious interdict. Every inhabitant was now in danger of excommunication and no one was allowed the full services and ministries of the Church.

To the heath-people this mattered little. But to the townsfolk it was cause for considerable unease. They had long grown accustomed to observing a combination of the old rites and the new, and now were confused and frightened by the open schism. Like most people, they disliked anything unfamiliar, disliked being trapped in the middle of a fight between powerful adversaries, and disliked having to choose sides. They found the situation particularly upsetting because Church affairs were intricately bound up with financial matters, tied to customers, favors, jobs, and land holdings. Consequently, the markets and taverns of Kilkenny and environs were loud with argument. Some people blamed the Bishop for this misfortune, some blamed Lady Alyce, and some began to blame the Wiccans. But whomever they chose to denounce, everyone felt cut adrift—as if a storm were about to break, with themselves shelterless in the open sea.

Meanwhile, Lady Alyce remained calm. She kept watch from a distance to ensure that her lawyers in town pressed the lawsuit through the courts, but she stayed at Kyteler Castle and threw herself into estate matters.

The late summer shearing had come and gone, with its attendant sorting and baling of different wools by crimp, lustre, and colour. The goats had suffered a temporary outbreak of foot-rot, due to soggy paddocks caused by summer rains, so Alyce spent hours pulverizing zinc to a powder for mixing into a foot-bath solution that was poured into low troughs of her designing. But then came the real challenge: cajoling, pushing, and bribing (with apple cores) the goats to enter the trough and stand for a few moments
in
the solution. Since goats, like cats, are serenely disinterested in not going where they ought and equally intent on going where they oughtn’t, the foot-bath procedure alone produced quite a few exhausted heathens. Then tupping time had filled the paddocks with randy goats and sheep—the does and ewes tripping along, glancing backward over their shoulders bemusedly at the bucks and rams who raced after them, nostrils flared, sniffing, snorting, and “Having at it,” as Maeve Payn archly observed, “with even more braying then certain lads I could name,
if
I chose.”