Murder in the cathedral

December 29th was the date of one of the most shocking events of the Middle Ages, the murder of Thomas Becket in his own cathedral. Henry’s angry, heedless words had set it in motion and he would pay a high price for his careless rage, Becket’s death casting a shadow across his reputation, stirring up all sorts of trouble with the Church, and probably causing Henry some personal grief himself, for it was said of him that once he loved, he never entirely turned his affections away from that person. I think he likely mourned the Becket he remembered, the friend who’d been as close as a brother. I was originally planning to post a scene from Becket’s death in Time and Chance, but instead I think I’ll go with Henry’s penance scene the following year at Canterbury Cathedral. Humbled and shaken by the rebellion of his own queen and sons, he made a spectacular act of contrition, submitting to a flogging by the monks and then holding an all-night vigil by the slain archbishop’s tomb. (Marsha, this one is for you!)
Devil’s Brood, pages 246-247
* * *
He’d not been able to invoke the saint’s presence, but it was easier to imagine Thomas’s earthly spirit lurking in the shadows, watching his abasement with sardonic amusement. (omission) Had the man he’d known and trusted and loved ever truly existed? Or had he been a fiction from the very first? Henry desperately wanted to know the answer, an answer only Thomas Becket could give him.
“It is just the two of us now, Thomas. No one else can hear our secrets, so why not talk to pass the time? We have hours to go till dawn, time enough for honesty if nothing else.”
(omission)
He waited, heaving a sigh that echoed in the stillness. “Come, Thomas, hold up your part of the conversation. You need not do anything dramatic, like loosing a thunderbolt or performing one of your miracles. But at the least, you could extinguish a few candles to show you are paying attention. Surely that is not too much to ask?
(omission)
Henry leaned forward, rested his head upon his drawn-up knees. He was either burning up with fever or losing his mind. “Sancte Thoma,” he mumbled, “requiescat in pace.” But there was as much pain as mockery in his voice, and when he looked up, he saw the crypt through a haze of hot tears. “Do you know why I did not grieve for you when you died, Thomas? Because I’d already done my grieving. I trusted you, I had faith in you, I loved you more than my own brother. And then you turned on me. But it need not have been that way. You could have served both me and the Almighty, and what a partnership we could have forged, what we could not have done together!”
(omission)
His tears were falling faster now, but there was no one to see them. “I am truly and grievously sorry that our paths led us to this place, this night. I do mourn you, Thomas. But do I think you are a saint? God’s truth, I do not know. You are the only one who can answer that question, my lord archbishop. We both know you could never resist a challenge. So take it up. Prove my doubts are unfounded. Prove me wrong.”
Dropping to his knees, he winced at the pain that action caused his fevered, battered body. “St Thomas,” he said in a low, husky voice, “guard my realm.”
* * *
And Becket did, at least in the eyes of his medieval contemporaries, for at the same time that Henry was praying before his tomb, the Scots king was being captured at the siege of Alnwick, thus effectively ending the rebellion against him.
In our time, December 29th is significant because tonight my green birds are going to win their division title and advance to the playoffs in their rookie coach’s first season. Fly, Eagles, fly.