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With a heart that I could hear beating, I turned my back on the bay, and, crossing the little drawbridge, craved of a warder at the gate half fisher, half ecclesiastic, in a frayed frock and seamen's shoes an audience of my Lord the Archbishop for the delivery of a missive from the Abbot of the Vale, that must be delivered into his hand alone. Of my Lord Maugher and his Familiar Demon.
But thou wilt learn, that words and censures of Holy Church are too oft like daggers and knives in the hands of evil men in high places of the Church and such was this censure of the marriage of Matilda in the hand of Maugher. He would have cut his way with it dost thou know whither, son?" "Whither, Father?" "My son, to the dukedom itself, Churchman though he was."
Yet tales went round, and gathered force as they went, ill tales that took scant time to travel; and we lads, innocent of mind, were full of shame for what was common talk, and we were ready to believe that here was no common sinner. We knew there were witch women whom men justly burn for sin. And of Archbishop Maugher men said a spirit of evil ever went with him, or was at his hand.
Then he recovered himself. "And the monks are shut in by the Moors?" he said to me. "My lord duke," I said, "they and all thy loyal people of Guernsey are near starving, and this vile Moor calls himself lord and master of the Norman seas." "Does he?" said William. "Tell me more of Maugher." "He speeds on the treachery. His devils are seen in the Sarrasin's castle.
Now, in due course of travel I reached that high point of the isle whence through the trees one can look down on all sides save the south, and see the blue waves and the distant islands, and there lay, I knew, the earthworks of an ancient fort, that the first tenants of the isle used for defence in days long past yea, and their wall of stone circled the space this way and that, and the roofless walls of some building a temple perhaps stood near, wherein they worshipped the false god of the sky or the hearth; here awhile I rested, and after brake again into the path, and made for the Bay of the Saints, where Maugher dwelt.
"But Maugher will be missed," I said. "Yea; and a meeter tale than this will serve," said Hugo. "A false step, a squall at sea anything but this." He pointed to the body. "Wilt thou keep silence?" "If it be thy will," I said. "Assist me, then," said Hugo.
There hath joined him Maugher, once archbishop. "Thou wilt know how best to protect thine honour. The bearer hath for his years done wondrous chivalrously in this enterprise. Delay not, duke, to hear him." Such was the letter that I bore, signed with the names of the two abbots.
And, suddenly, before one window, my eyes were held captive, and I could not turn them away. A man in a fisher's tunic was gazing out on us, and I had not even to ask myself where I had seen his face before, for I knew that it was Maugher. My eyes fell before his, and I blushed and trembled at his sight. "Uncle, uncle! my lord vicomte!"
A fair place was L'Ancresse in the days of Abbot Michael, false Maugher, and the Grand Sarrasin. And a good school of manners and of learning of books and piety, that may aid men in their earthly life, was the Vale Cloister.
Son, dost thou know why this Maugher lies here in exile?" "Ay, Father, was he not like St. John of old, who said, 'Thou shalt not have her: to King Herod?" answered I, as I thought aptly. "Indeed, my son, they said so, and strong were the archbishop's words when Duke William wedded against God's law.
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