Ivo Taillebois winced. He had just stolen a manor from the monks of Crowland, and meant to keep it.
“Church lands belonging to abbeys or sees, whose abbots or bishops are contumaciously disobedient to the Holy See, or to their lawful monarch, he being in the communion of the Church and at peace with the said Holy See. If, therefore,—to come to that point at which my incapacity, through the devious windings of my own simplicity, has been tending, but with halting steps, from the moment that your Majesty deigned to hear—”
“Put in the spur, man!” said Ivo, tired at last, “and run the deer to soil.”
“Hurry no man’s cattle, especially thine own,” answered the churchman, with so shrewd a wink, and so cheery a voice, that Ivo, when he recovered from his surprise, cried,—
“Why, thou art a good huntsman thyself, I believe now.”
“All things to all men, if by any means—But to return. If your Majesty should think fit to proclaim to the recalcitrants of Ely, that unless they submit themselves to your Royal Grace—and to that, of course, of His Holiness, our Father—within a certain day, you will convert to other uses—premising, to avoid scandal, that those uses shall be for the benefit of Holy Church—all lands and manors of theirs lying without the precincts of the Isle of Ely,—those lands being, as is known, large, and of great value,—Quid plura? Why burden your exalted intellect by detailing to you consequences which it has, long ere now, foreseen.”
“——” quoth William, who was as sharp as the Italian, and had seen it all. “I will make thee a bishop!”
“Spare to burden my weakness,” said the chaplain; and slipt away into the shade.
“You will take his advice?” asked Ivo.
“I will.”