"What is the order of precedence?" he mumbled. "As parish priest and chaplain to Sir Henry surely I should form part of his entourage?"
Roger laid a hand on his shoulder and swung him round to face the window. "Sir Henry can do without your breath, and his Grace the Bishop likewise, unless you wish to forfeit your position."
The newcomer protested, clinging nevertheless to the protection of the wall, then lowered himself on to the bench beside it. Roger shrugged his shoulder, turning to the companion at his side.
"It surprises me that Otto Bodrugan dares show his face," said his friend. "Not two years since he fought for Lancaster against the King. They say he was in London when the mob dragged Bishop Stapledon through the streets."
"He was not," replied Roger. "He was with many hundreds of the Queen's party up at Wallingford."
"Nevertheless, his position is delicate," said the other. "If I were the Bishop I should not look kindly upon the man reputed to have condoned the murder of my predecessor."
"His Grace has not the time to play politics," retorted Roger. "He will have his hands full with the diocese. Past causes are no concern of his. Bodrugan is here today by reason of the demesnes he shares with Champernoune, because his sister Joanna is Sir Henry's lady. Also, out of his obligation to Sir John. The two hundred marks he borrowed are still unpaid."
Commotion at the door made them move forward for a better view, small fry on the lower rungs of this particular ladder. The Bishop entered, the Prior beside him, sprucer and cleaner than when he had sat up in his tumbled bed with the scratching greyhound. The gentlemen made obeisance, the ladies curtseyed, and the Bishop extended his hand for each to kiss, while the Prior, flustered by the ceremonial, presented them in turn. Playing no part in their world I could move about at will, so long as I touched none of them, and I drew closer, curious to discover who was who in the company.
"Sir Henry de Champernoune, lord of the manor of Tywardreath," murmured the Prior, "lately returned from a pilgrimage to Campostella." My elderly knight stepped forward, bending low with one knee on the ground, and I was struck once more by his air of dignity and grace, coupled with humility. When he had kissed the extended hand he rose, and turned to the woman at his side.
"My wife Joanna, your Grace," he said, and she sank to the ground in an endeavour to equal her husband in humility, bringing off the gesture well. So this was the lady who would have painted her face but for the Bishop's visitation. I decided she had done well enough to let it alone. The wimple that framed her features was adornment enough, enhancing the charms of any woman, plain or beautiful. She was neither the one nor the other, but it did not surprise me that her fidelity to her conjugal vows had been in question. I had seen eyes like hers in women of my own world, full and sensuaclass="underline" one flick of the male head, and she'd be game.
"My son and heir, William," continued her husband, and one of the youths came forward to make obeisance.
"Sir Otto Bodrugan," continued Sir Henry, "and his lady, my sister Margaret."
It was evidently a closely knit world, for had not my horseman Roger remarked that Otto Bodrugan was brother to Joanna, Champernoune's wife, and so doubly connected with the lord of the manor? Margaret was small and pale, and evidently nervous, for she stumbled as she made her curtsey to His Grace, and would have fallen had not her husband caught her. I liked Bodrugan's looks: there was a panache about him, and he would, I thought, be a good ally in a duel or escapade. He must have had a sense of humour, too, for instead of colouring or looking vexed at his wife's gaffe he smiled and reassured her. His eyes, brown like those of his sister Joanna, were less prominent than hers, but I felt that he had his full share of her other qualities.
Bodrugan in his turn presented his eldest son Henry, and then stepped back to give way to the next man in the line. He had clearly been itching to put himself forward. Dressed more richly than either Bodrugan or Champernoune, he wore a self-confident smile on his lips. This time it was the Prior who made the introduction. "Our loved and respected patron, Sir John Carminowe of Bockenod," he announced, "without whom we in this Priory would have found ourselves hard-pressed for money in these troublous times."
Here then was the knight with a foot in either camp, one lady in confinement eight miles away, the other present in this chamber but not yet bedded. I was disappointed, expecting a roisterous type with a roving eye. He was none of these, but small and stout, puffed up with self-importance like a turkeycock. The lady Joanna must be easily pleased.
"Your Grace, he said in pompous tones, we are deeply honoured to have you here amongst us," and bent over the proffered hand with so much affectation that had I been Otto Bodrugan, who owed him two hundred marks, I would have kicked him on the backside and compounded the debt. The Bishop, keen-eyed, alert, was missing nothing. He reminded me of a general inspecting a new command and making mental notes about the officers: Champernoune past it, needs replacing; Bodrugan gallant in action but insubordinate, to judge from his recent part in the rebellion against the King; Carminowe ambitious and over-zealous — apt to make trouble. As for the Prior, was that a splash of gravy on his habit? I could swear the Bishop noticed it, as I did; and a moment later his eye travelled across the heads of the lesser fry and fell upon the almost recumbent figure of the parish priest. I hoped, for the sake of the Prior's charges, that the inspection would not be continued later in the Priory kitchen, or, worse still, in the Prior's own chamber. Sir John had risen from his knees, and was making introductions in his turn.
"My brother, your Grace, Sir Oliver Carminowe, one of His Majesty's Commissioners, and Isolda his lady." He elbowed forward his brother, who, from his flushed appearance and hazy eye, looked as if he had been passing the hours of waiting in the buttery with the parish priest.
"Your Grace," he said, and was careful not to bend his knee too low for fear of swaying when he stood upright. He was a better-looking fellow than Sir John, despite the tippling; taller, broader, with a ruthless set about the jaw, not one to fall foul with in an argument.
"She's the one I'd pick if fortune favoured me."
The whisper in my ear was very near. Roger the horseman was at my side once more; but he was not addressing me but his companion. There was something uncanny in the way he led my thoughts, always at my elbow when I least supposed him there. He was right, though, in his choice, and I wondered if she too was aware of his attention, for she stared straight at us as she rose from her curtsey, and the kissing of the Bishop's hand.
Isolda, wife to Sir Oliver Carminowe, had no wimple to frame her features, but wore her golden hair in looped braids, with a jewelled fillet crowning the small veil upon her head. Nor did she wear a cloak over her dress like the other women, and the dress itself was less wide in the skirt, more closely fitting, the long, tight sleeves reaching beyond her wrist. Possibly, being younger than her companions, not more than twenty-five or twenty-six, fashion played a stronger part in her life; if so, she did not seem conscious of the fact, wearing her clothes with casual grace. I have never seen a face so beautiful or so bored, and as she swept us with her eyes — or rather, Roger and his companion — without the faintest show of interest, the slight movement of her mouth a moment later betrayed the fact that she was stuffing a yawn. It is the fate of every man, I suppose, at some time or other to glimpse a face in a crowd and not forget it, or perhaps, by a stroke of luck, to catch up with the owner at a later date, in a restaurant, at a party. To meet often breaks the spell and leads to disenchantment. This was not possible now. I looked across the centuries at what Shakespeare called a lass unparalleled, who, alas, would never look at me.