Becket

Elspeth glanced up from the stall of sweetmeats and spotted her nursemaid, parting the crowd with her sour expression and determined stride.

Inwardly Elspeth sighed, resigned to yet another scolding and ear-tugging. Editha had cared for her from birth and considered herself mother, guardian, and, if necessary, gaoler, to her young charge. Elspeth knew very well - was reminded daily, in fact - that she had every reason to be thankful to her stalwart nursemaid. Recently, though, the dogged guard kept upon her had begun to chafe.

Elspeth was as conscious as her father or Editha that she was approaching the age of marriage and that she had to be vigilant in protecting her reputation and person. Much to those august persons’ chagrin, Elspeth was far less aware of her own burgeoning beauty. “A pretty face and a pretty figure to go with it,” sighed Editha. Elspeth also remained unaware of the stares she caused among her father’s knights, as well as the hidden bets and fiery speculations among them. So far as Elspeth knew, she had never caused any man but her father to take any notice of her, and, at the age of fourteen, she was beginning to dislike that.

A sudden rebellion arose in her breast and Elspeth glanced around the busy marketplace for a means of escape. Editha had not yet spotted her and was still casting eagle-eyed glances about her. Editha would be furious, of course, but Elspeth decided that a few moments of stolen freedom would be well worth the scolding and extra needlework.

Glancing to her left, Elspeth noticed a small door in the side of Canterbury’s great cathedral. She dashed between the stalls of wares and tugged on the door latch. It was unlocked.

Just inside the door, Elspeth allowed her eyes to adjust to the sudden dark. The gloom of the late December afternoon had not the strength to penetrate the great stained-glass windows of the church. Elspeth did not mind the weak light, though. It suited her desire for quiet solitude.

She pulled her fur-lined cloak tighter about her, for the December chill outside seemed to have been intensified and concentrated by the stones which surrounded her inside the cavernous church.

She could hear the steady chant of a mass going on, the sound echoing and fading and re-echoing throughout the church. Elspeth thought of the ghost stories she had loved as a child and shivered as the haunting notes rose and fell and faded.

When she could see sufficiently in the half-light, Elspeth stepped forward, carefully silent, and moved to stand behind a pillar, hidden equally from worshipers and priests.

Elspeth closed her eyes and breathed deeply, inhaling the sharp cold as well as the heady incense.

Suddenly, a door slammed, the sharp report jerking Elspeth into alertness. Her first thought was that Editha had discovered her hiding place and meant to overturn the entire cathedral, mass or no, to find out her ward.

That thought was quickly dismissed as she heard the angry shouts of men, the clank of armor, and the heavy thud of booted feet. The sounds of the mass ended abruptly and a low murmur of alarm arose.

Elspeth edged forward and peered cautiously around her protective pillar. From there she could see the Archbishop, Thomas Becket, as haughty as ever, though his body was rigid with tension. He was standing on the steps before the great altar. Behind him, the monks and priests who had halted their holy service, looked in horror toward a point in the choir directly opposite Elspeth’s position; in fact, toward the door which led to the cloister.

Elspeth could not see the speaker, but she heard a harsh, militant voice demand,

“Absolve and restore to communion those whom you have excommunicated and restore powers to them which you have suspended!”

The Archbishop curled his lip and answered in an equally strong voice,

“There has been no satisfaction and I will not absolve them.”

The answer came swiftly.

“Then you shall die and receive what you deserve.”

Immediately, the men surrounding the Archbishop shrank back, and most turned and fled. The Archbishop spared not a glance for those who had deserted him. He stood and watched as four knights, mailed and armed, advanced upon him.

As the knights drew closer to the Archbishop, they came into Elspeth’s view. She looked to see what Christian would dare enter the house of God with drawn sword and bloody intent. She could not see their faces from this angle, but she was certain that no honorable knight of her or her father's acquaintance would be involved in such a blasphemous endeavor. The Archbishop and King Henry may have had their differences, and, undoubtedly, they did, but even he, the King of England, would not dare such a thing.

Elspeth stood in horrified fascination, her heart pounding in her throat, watching the scene enacted before her. There stood the great Archbishop of Canterbury on the very steps of his sanctified cathedral, and there before him stood four knights, fully armed and apparently prepared to shed blood.

The knights had paused in their advance, evidently uncertain, now that the moment had come, of how to proceed. A sudden silence gripped the cathedral. Elspeth felt as though the stones themselves waited breathlessly for what would happen next.

The Archbishop looked steadily into the faces of his attackers, his thoughts inscrutable.

Finally, he broke the silence.

“I am ready to die, but in the name of God, I forbid you to hurt my people, whether cleric or lay.”

This statement galvanized the knights into action. They seized the man of God and tried to propel him forward in order, as they later claimed, to carry him outside so as to leave the sacred precincts of the church. Whether they intended at that moment to kill him or carry him prisoner to King Henry, no one could afterward ascertain. They had not, however, counted on the strength or stubbornness of Thomas Becket. As they passed close to a pillar, Becket grabbed ahold and refused to be pried away.

In the ensuing brawl, Elspeth heard the Archbishop speak, somehow managing to retain the dignity of his office even in the face of such violence.

“Touch me not, Reginald; you owe me fealty and subjection. You and your accomplices act like madmen.”

Elspeth stifled a gasp of recognition. Reginald fitzUrse had dined at their home many times, had teased her and pulled her braids, and, although his intent glances in recent months had made her feel slightly queasy, they were glances only and easily ignored. She would never have thought him capable of this action.

Elspeth suddenly remembered her father saying that Reginald fitzUrse had, indeed, at one time sworn fealty to Becket, given him his solemn oath to protect and defend his liege lord. Sin upon sin. To betray his liege lord as well as a man as holy and untouchable as the Archbishop were sins which no amount of penance, no number of indulgences, no length of time in purgatory, could ever absolve.

Across the width of the choir, Elspeth could see fitzUrse’s face suffused with rage.
“No faith,” he ground out, “nor subjection do I owe you against my fealty to my lord, the King.” His voice rose to echo through the church until he shouted, “the King,” whereupon, he raised his sword and brought the flat of it down heavily on the Archbishop’s head.

Immediately, two of the other knights raised their swords and swung at the wounded Archbishop.

Elspeth covered her eyes, trying, and yet unable, to block out the horror being enacted before her.

She heard the sounds of voices, filled with hatred, the crash of a blade striking the stone floor, the ragged breathing of desperate men. No sound could she distinguish from the Archbishop, save a strangled cry, and then silence.

After a long moment, another voice said with cruel nonchalance,

“Let us away, knights; he will rise no more.”

Afterward, Elspeth could not remember how she had escaped the cathedral, exiting through the small door which had promised a simple respite, so long ago, it seemed now. Outside, she faced a scene of chaos. The sight of armed men entering the church had been enough to rouse a good number of curious onlookers. But the Archbishop’s murder threatened to turn the merely curious into a raging mob.

Frantic with the need for safety and comfort, Elspeth searched the crowd for Editha. Several times in the press of the crowd her cloak was pulled and nearly torn from her, but she held on to it tightly. Indeed, she had been gripping it fiercely since she had left her place behind the pillar, hoping that the lush rabbit fur might ease the deep chill which had taken root inside her.

Finally, the dear face appeared, and Elspeth ran to her nursemaid. She buried her face in the older woman’s shoulder and clung to her, surprising Editha into forgetting the severe scold she had been composing for the last half hour.

“What is it, Ellie? Are you all right?”

Elspeth pulled away reluctantly and attempted a shivery smile.

“I’m fine. I’m fine. I just want to go home.”

Editha looked closely at her charge, feeling that more than simple homesickness was at the heart of the problem. With armed knights murdering men of God, though, now was not the time to be standing in the street, discussing. Rumors flew through the streets, and, if even half were believed, there would not be a man, woman or child left alive in England by the morrow.

“Aye, we’d better be getting home.” The two women turned and hurried away from the crowd, which was more and more unruly in its outrage.

Editha never was able to learn what had upset her Ellie so much. The girl always insisted that she had simply been frightened by the crowd.

Elspeth, though she often dreamt of it in years after, never spoke of a certain afternoon in late December when she had witnessed the murder of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury.