4.

The autumn of the year had set its damp upon the country, sunset-colored forests and frost-barren fields, icy drizzles driven from the Atlantic, grey skies. John struck out for Brixwell, determined to promote his position against Aisdian of Brixwell, a nobleman educated at Wesxhall. Aisdian of Brixwell had traveled to both Canterbury and Rome, the center of the once great empire, fallen by that time into a confusion of small governments, occasional invasions, and powerful merchant families. Once there, Aisdian of Brixwell had gradually adopted Catholic customs and abandoned his Mercian background. He insisted upon the celebration of the feast of St. Paulinus of Rhodes a week earlier than that of the Mercians. He had proceeded to Lyons for three years on his tentative journey home, enjoying the mild climate, serviceable roadways, and sweet dark wines of the Mediterranean peninsula. Once returned, he hoped that his victory at the synod would solidify his claim of a bishopric once promised him by a drunken Roman prince who was vaguely related to a seventeen-year-old Pope. He did not expect an eyebrowless hunchback to thwart what would have otherwise been a leisurely political stroke.
The debate, conducted entirely in Latin, proceeded alternately in civil and nearly violent terms over a period of weeks. A council of twelve mostly-sober and politically-minded men huddled around a great oak table. They remained there for as long as the thin light lasted each day in the dripping cold chambers of the stone abbey, where everything smelled of urine, rotten food, and shit. The affair was overseen by a temporal authority who would ultimately decide the question, the King of Brixwell, Gerald the Apologetic. He was naturally more sympathetic toward Aisdian of Brixwell, who was a native kinsman, but it became apparent that Aisdian of Brixwell had also become intolerably cosmopolitan and accordingly more irritating to the young king. The king had never been more than a few miles from his seat of power in a nearby tower, which had become under his auspices little more than a hunting lodge where he and his friends held endless drunken  revels.
The eleven others, who included Gregory the Lesser, Thomas the Effervescent, and Brendan the Cautious, soon realized that they were faced with a distinct problem in the person of John. He babbled right through the first day’s meeting, and, when interrupted, simply used the interrupter’s point as a motive for a new and even more fantastic digression about the digestion of angels and images of humpbacked cherubim that would one day decorate churches in a more enlightened age. When finally able to interject, Aisdian of Brixwell began his brilliant argument, fashioned after those of the Latin masters, founded upon the teachings of St. Peter and other Church leaders. This approach incited John to an academic frenzy in which he told continually and pedantically of his vivid inspirations derived from reading John the Evangelist and St. Columba. Others of varying rank who had been drawn unwillingly away from their own abbeys were content to allow these men of seemingly inexhaustible energy and conviction to carry on between themselves. After the first three interminable debates, the young King Gerald chose to hunt deer with a party of visiting friends, sending an emissary who apologized profusely for his absence. After several more days, the others began to make excuses as well. Some were conveniently called away on urgent business. On a cool bright morning of the second week, the first of its kind in a month, only six of the original twelve remained, gazing out through the windows or awkwardly rearranging themselves in their seats as the two continued their battle. John knew that this worked to his advantage, since most of the council had close ties to Rome and were disposed against his ideas. The longer he rambled, the greater his chances of victory.

By the third week, Aisdian of Brixwell had grown tired of the circuitous chattering of John, and he began to suspect that John’s going-on at such length over unimportant doctrinal points was actually a plan to drive the others away with the bludgeoning instrument of sheer boredom. By then, only three others remained. He attempted to reduce John’s arguments to their presumably more simple cores. He repeatedly insisted that John display more brevity when addressing the group, but nothing could prevent each day’s freight of fantastic words, of mystical images and obscure theological references. On the first day of the fourth week of the synod, John made mention of the Confessions of Berninus. Aisdian of Brixwell saw this as an occasion to expose John as a fraud. He declared that he knew of no extant copy of this work in Britain and hadn’t met a single man in all of Rome who could admit familiarity with it. He had begun to doubt that it had ever existed at all. How, therefore, could John be acquainted with it? Perhaps he had been less than truthful on other subjects. Aisdian of Brixwell asked if any of the other three remaining members of the council had read the book. Not one could profess first-hand knowledge of the work. What Aisdian of Brixwell had done amounted to a small heresy, but all were pleased to see John assuming a defensive position. Aisdian of Brixwell turned to the lumpy quarrelsome man and asked him where he had found a copy of this elusive, if not altogether illusive, work. When confronted with this question, however, John showed no signs of agitation and merely answered that he knew what he did of Berninus through the obvious conduit of St. Pancras’s epistles to Polycarpian when the latter was Bishop of Smyrna, recounted in the extensive history of the period compiled by Charles of Lastingham in the previous century. He had, of course, spent some time over this work during his time at Wesxhall. Aisdian of Brixwell had been educated at Wesxhall. Why had he not read this history when there? He went on to explain that St. Pancras’s meditations, written in the weeks before his martyrdom at the hands of the Emperor Diocletian, contained numerous references to contemporary observances of the feast of St. Paulinus of Rhodes, all coinciding with the date he himself had set out to defend.

No one is certain, but according to the three surviving first-hand accounts, it was at this precise moment that Aisdian of Brixwell lunged screaming at John and attempted to throttle him. Never had those present seen such a desperate and fateful act performed by a man of Aisdian of Brixwell’s composure and urbanity. The two toppled to the floor and flailed about like animals. It was soon obvious that Aisdian of Brixwell meant to kill the hunchback, but even after this became apparent, those in the room were suspiciously slow to intercede in the uneven match. Eventually, after several minutes of pummeling on the part of Aisdian of Brixwell and feeble counter-pummeling on the part of John, Brendan the Cautious wrenched the inflamed Aisdian of Brixwell from the trembling body of his opponent. For some time, John remained motionless, and those present thought that this inert state was a sure sign from heaven that John had gone on to face his Judgment. This brief hope passed, however, and John rose. They expected him to throw himself against Aisdian of Brixwell and attempt to kill him, as would any man who had been beaten in such a manner. Instead, he crossed himself, felt his neck delicately, and suggested that they continue with the proceedings after a brief interval, during which time he would collect his thoughts for a thorough rebuff of any objections Aisdian of Brixwell might choose to raise against the veracity of his lexical claims. At this, Aisdian of Brixwell hurled himself at John once more, emitting what one witness described as “a most eville and maliciouse crie, as like unto that of a Devil or a man Possessed by a Devil.” It is purported that he may even have told John that he hoped he would rot in the depths of hell until Eternity brought silence at last upon his cursèd lips. He was restrained once more by Brendan. Despite this, no maledictions were returned by John, who serenely collected his things and walked (one witness suggests he limped proudly) from the hall. Aisdian of Brixwell’s curses and damnations continued for some time afterward, eventually alerting the young king Gerald, who had just returned from the day’s first hunting foray. He demanded an account of the fight, and seemed pleased with the story. The one point upon which they all agreed was that no one among them could condemn poor Aisdian of Brixwell, as such urges could have befallen any of them. Gerald decided to end the tiresome synod right there by settling in favor of Aisdian of Brixwell and the other recently-departed Roman partisans. In closing, he made it clear that he hoped that this decision would foster closer ties to Rome and its model of ecclesiastical organization, terms he had learned from Aisdian of Brixwell. He commemorated the moment, and hoped that just as the Synod of Whitby hundreds of years before had resulted in the organization of the Church into bishoprics after the Roman system, another fact he had absorbed from Aisdian of Brixwell, this decision would result in fewer tithes being levied against individual landowners such as himself.
Upon his return to the debating chamber, John was curtly told by Thomas the Effervescent that his presence was no longer required in Brixwell. He was to return as soon as possible to Etheria in order to institute the ruling of the synod. John wrinkled his hairless brow and insisted that this was all very irregular, that he would, if necessary, inform the Archbishop of Canterbury. His pocked face reddened to match what hair remained on his head. His eyes grew bright with energy. The date of the feast was set at the world’s Creation, he persisted, as Thomas turned his back and prepared to exit. God had determined the exact date of the martyrdom of the upstart scholar from Rhodes in Eternity. This was not a matter for debate. John did not understand why he had been drawn into such earthly troubles and was now witnessing an abomination. Of all his travails, he had never encountered anything so profane. He resigned himself to the notion that this was all a test, an obstacle set on the path to the City of God. He informed Thomas that he would return to his quarters, collect his few things, and be off. Once John had taken his leave, Thomas informed the others and several bottles of strong Rhenish wine were opened and passed around.

It was three days later, a heavy storm stirring to the west, that Aisdian of Brixwell was wakened from his late sleep by cries and commotion. Brendan entered and told him that horror had descended upon the abbey of Brixham. John had roused the monks of the impoverished nearby monastery of Colman, who, after a long speech by John, refused to accept the ruling on the feast date. Thus provoked, the underfed men made north with him. Before he left, John and several of the rebel monks had broken into the reliquary of Brixham and taken the bones of St. Oswald, which had been moved from their original tomb thirty years before and placed in the reliquary by Clement, a Roman priest who erected the present stone abbey. The monks had also set fire to several of the surrounding homes and raided the food stores of the abbey. A messenger was sent to King Gerald, who, delighted by the excitement, organized a group of men-at-arms and rode north into the rising storm to find the rampaging monks. Aisdian of Brixwell immediately set about composing a missive to Rome requesting immediate excommunication of John and his allies and funds to compensate for the loss of the relics and other damage incurred during what he termed a heretical insurrection. Aisdian of Brixwell was astounded that a man of so many words and so little action could have committed such an atrocity. By the time Gerald had reached the nearest borough, the storm had ascended into a flurry of snow and ice, and, lost in the darkness, he was forced to abandon his pursuit and return to Brixham.

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