“Brother, we must prevent the ignorant from blaspheming,” said the Bishop, with a mobile smile upon his mouth.
Christopher sniggered.
“Ah, my lord, I have had such troubles myself. The man must be muzzled, in the cause of the Church.”
“Drink the wine and break the pitcher, eh?—such is the fable. This watch-dog of mine has come crawling to my feet. I can spurn him anon, when the truth is out.”
Christopher comforted his superior with the ready glibness of an underling. He was a man of the world in the broader sense, had the wit to ignore unflattering veracity.
“David, my lord,” he said, “I regard as one of the most comforting figures in all history. As for St. Augustine, he enjoyed his youth. ’Tis the main purpose of a man’s life that tells. Many a river errs right and left before it finds the sea.”
“A beneficent doctrine,” quoth the other, with a glint of the eye.
Pandart had come through the wilds to Agravale, and had claimed private audience of the Bishop that day. The man had waited these three months in the island hermitage for Jocelyn and his men—who never came. The Bishop had sojourned over long in the madhouse in the mere, and had returned to Agravale without riding to speak with Rosamunde of the Seven Streams. He had sent a servant to warn Ogier and Tristan of his return, but the man had lost himself in the woods, and had trudged back to Agravale, weary and half-starved. Each day Jocelyn had thought to hear Ogier’s deep voice thundering through the court. Later he had scented treason, and had sent a company of “spears” to seek out the river hermitage and to bring Pandart to Agravale.
That same noon, Jocelyn, returning from the cloisters of St. Pelinore, found Pandart awaiting him in the private oratory of the palace. Sable curtains shut out the daylight. The coloured mosaics on floor and wall glimmered in the light of a brazen lamp. Jocelyn barred the door so that he should be alone with his minion before the little altar. He seated himself in a carved chair, so that his face was in the shadow.
“Come, whelp, what have you to tell?”