Tristan, leaning against a stone pillar by the door, stared hard at the man seated in dead Ronan’s chair. The Lord Bishop of Agravale was a comely cleric, black of chin and bright of eye. A broad beak of a nose overhung a pair of full red lips. There was a sensual and feline smirk upon the face, an opulent and unctuous pride that shone from curved nostril and twitching mouth. His face was the face of a man who lived rather for his loins than for his soul. An affected dignity served to impress the mob with the ascetic sanctity of the episcopal honour.
Bishop Jocelyn and Benedict of the Marches sat cheek by jowl, debating together over a state letter to the Pope. At intervals the Bishop cast a rapid sentence into the ear of the Canon at his elbow, a pearl of sapience that the discreet cleric hoarded on the parchment under his hand. A silver bell tinkled from the Bishop’s table. Silence descended on those assembled. The throng of armed men parted, giving way before two guards who brought forward a man with his hands bound behind his back.
Tristan knew the fellow for a smith and armourer in the town, a rugged, cross-grained ranter, a stout follower of Samson in the path of heresy. The man had a bloody cloth bound about his head and his yellow beard bristled under his sullen face.
Bishop Jocelyn, lolling in his chair, considered the prisoner at his leisure, under drooping lids. He tilted his carnivorous nose with the air of a vulture, sniffed, and spoke with a high-pitched and priestly drawl, throating forth his words as though they came from his Mass Book. Tristan mistrusted the voice as a watch-dog mistrusts the persuasive cajolings of a thief.
“Friend,” said the Bishop, moistening his lips, “God prevent you from being damned to eternal torment. The Mother Church is merciful even to those who rebel against her care. Tell us, good son, why the people of Joyous Vale have rebelled against our Father the Pope.”
The man before the daïs was no panderer to the power of prosperity. He was as stubborn rock, quarried out of the very mountains that circled Joyous Vale. Moreover, he was sustained by pride in the primitive faith for which he was ready to stake all the tangible benefits of existence. From sheer native obstinacy of soul he was ordained a martyr.
“Priest,” he said, with blunt disrespect, “put off your gold chain and the rings from your fingers. Wash the hypocrisy from your face. Then I will speak with you as man to man.”
The churchman flushed a little under his smooth skin, pursed up his mouth, made a sign of the cross before him in the air.
“My son,” he said, with superb pity, “we are not here for obscenity and abuse, but for the controverting and purging of error. God pardon me if I am as iron with a froward flock. I will put such questions to you as will prove your heart.”
“Prove what you will,” said the smith with a frown; “you would damn the Christ, were He set here in my place.”