Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [278]
It was certainly true that this puritan wing of the old Roman Church could become a source of irritation to well-meaning laymen like the knight. But Bingham had only smiled sympathetically. He was too worldly wise to take sides on any issue of reform.
Of all the narrow-minded and dogmatic priests however, both men would have ranked Portehors amongst the first.
For if Christ came with a sword, to the canon religion was to be used like a knife.
As he surveyed the knight before him now, he sensed a possible victory and it exhilarated him. He had read the constitutions of Grosseteste to the letter and he knew what he must do. Pointing his finger at first Godefroi and then the two Shockleys he suddenly cried:
“The sin of pride, Jocelin de Godefroi. I see it in you. And you, Edward Shockley: avarice is in your soul.” He paused. Then his gaze rested upon Peter Shockley. “Lust,” he shouted in triumph. “I see the sin of lust.”
“There’s lust in every eighteen-year-old boy,” Godefroi muttered irritably.
But now Portehors had worked himself into a state of righteous authority:
“Do penance for your sins,” he ordered peremptorily. “And do not presume to disturb God’s work with your schemes:”
There was an awkward pause. The crowd was growing. Godefroi hesitated. The Shockleys watched anxiously and Osmund held his breath.
It was then, quite unaware of the drama taking place, that Aaron rode round the corner. He ambled to Godefroi’s side, bowed courteously to Portehors, gazed at Osmund and remarked pleasantly to the knight:
“Is this the young fellow who’s going to build our mill?”
And now Canon Stephen Portehors, disciplinarian and enquirer into morals, saw it all; the depravity of what he saw acted upon him as though he had been stung.
“Usurer!” he shouted at Aaron. No crime was worse in his eyes. “Miserable sinners.” He shook his long finger in fury at them all.
Aaron gazed at him coolly. The implied insult did not worry him, but there was a flicker of irritation in his eyes which he could not quite conceal and which the sharp-eyed priest did not miss. Portehors felt free to insult him further. He turned to the crowd.
“See how the ungodly Jews try to steal our labour and destroy God’s work!”
Aaron of Wilton had a fault and it was one that his father had warned him against. “Never argue with a fool, Aaron,” he had cautioned: “you will win.” For though he was a kind and gentle man with his family, and scrupulously honest in his dealings with men like Godefroi and Shockley, he had an intellectual arrogance that sometimes made him seem harsh when he was confronted with a fool.
Because he perfectly understood the island’s need for capital investment, and because he could see equally perfectly into the narrow walls of the canon’s inflexible mind, he could not resist exposing Portehors’s stupidity.
“Yet the Jewish community at York – before they were massacred,” he remarked drily, “did God’s work. They financed the building of nine Cistercian monasteries.”
This was true. The great sheep-farming monasteries in the north had done a huge and successful business with the Jews in financing their magnificent buildings. But this had mostly been two generations ago, when relations were better.
Portehors looked at him furiously.
“The Church has no need of your money now,” he retorted.
“Although the fourth Lateran council in Rome,” Aaron went on coolly, “asked us to pay tithes to the Church.”
“Which you refused to do,” Portehors spat back.
Aaron smiled grimly at his inconsistency.
“True, we had contributed enough already,” he replied softly. Having made his point, he was about to leave, but Portehors, blind to the fact that he was being worsted, was now aroused.
“Your only interest is to steal the land of Christians as security,” he accused.
Aaron stopped. How easy it was to make a fool of Portehors.
“Land? Not at all,” he answered blandly. “The Bishop of Ely, you may remember, offered the relics of the saints themselves as security for a loan.”
This, too, was a fact. The evil Bishop Roger