AFTER HER ENCOUNTER WITH de Burgh, Bellebelle did not believe that life in the village of Bermondsey could continue on in its usual placid way. But it did. Swallows came in the spring; sheep were sheared in summer; hay harvested in the fall. Always on edge now, she saw no further sign of de Burgh but knew he was just biding his time, waiting for the king to return to England.
When her money was next brought from the chancery, and each time thereafter, the chancellor’s secretary delivered it. She never mentioned de Burgh and apparently the Fleming had said nothing to the secretary about her.
At first Geoffrey pestered her with questions about de Burgh: Where had she known him and why did he want to hurt her? Had he really murdered her mother? Was that why she had tried to kill him? Bellebelle told her son half-truths, vague about the details, never mentioning that she had been a whore, fairly certain, now that he was five, that soon he would no longer be ignorant of such things. What she did make clear was that she had been less than truthful with Henry about her past; it was possible the King would be displeased. After all, Geoffrey’s life might be turned upside down; he had a right to be forewarned.
“What do you think Father will do?” he asked.
“I don’t know, Son, and that be the truth. Henry do have a hot temper, you know that as well as I does.”
“Do. But he loves us, Maman—doesn’t he?”
“Aye, he do—does—that. But sometimes he does things without thinking them through like, then be sorry later.”
Geoffrey’s flint-colored eyes filled with tears. “That wouldn’t be fair to you, would it?”
“Mustn’t grumble, lad. Henry’s been good to us, and life not be fair or unfair. It just be like it is. We’ll be all right whatever he does.” She had no certainty of that but felt the need to reassure him. “Haven’t I told you time after time that you can’t have no wishbone where your backbone ought be?”
Geoffrey, still full of questions, was not satisfied, but seemed to understand there was nothing more she could—or would—tell him. Tall and bright for his age, he increasingly reminded Bellebelle of a youthful Henry. She had come to rely on him for almost everything: companionship, help about the cottage, and, ever since de Burgh’s visit, protection.
The day after the Fleming left she had told the couple from the village she would not need them any more. Terrified de Burgh might return, she did not want the couple spreading gossip about the village that might hurt not only herself but Geoffrey as well. It had been nothing less than a miracle that they had been gone when de Burgh came. Her son had struck up an acquaintance with an old woodman who cut wood for the priory school, and had persuaded him to bring kindling and logs to the cottage. A kindly soul who felt sorry for Bellebelle, the woodman, Old Ivo, had taken Geoffrey and her under his protection.
“You know, Belle,” Ivo told her one day when he was delivering a load of wood, “as you leads a quiet life, minds your own business, and doesn’t give yourself airs, people in the village saying you be none so bad.”
“I noticed that although most everyone still shuns me, a few greet me pleasantly. Sometimes they even stop to pass the time of day with me.”
Ivo nodded approvingly as he laid the pile of logs on the ground near the front door of the cottage. “That be a good sign. Won’t be long before they accepts you.”
So long as they never found out the truth. In time, the king’s doxy might come to be tolerated. But Bellebelle knew that growing up in a brothel, life as a practicing whore, and attempted murder were things respectable folk wouldn’t stand for. If they found out, and with Henry gone, the village folk might even try to drive her off—or worse.
“Why they take against me so?” she asked. “I never do them no harm.”
“No fault of yours, Belle,” Old Ivo said, straightening up with difficulty. “Comes from long before your time, it does. When I be a young lad, in the time of the Old King—the first Henry that is—there was a sickness swept through the village, mostly affecting the young ones. Many died, God rest them. There was a woman who lived alone in the woods, sold herbs she grew, and supposedly had the gift of healing. She were known to be the leman of the lord of the manor. Folk blamed her.”
“But why?”
Ivo shrugged. “She were different. The lord’s whore. No one protected her when he wasn’t there.”
Bellebelle stared at him. “What happened?”
“The village folk stoned her for a witch. In hard times, Belle,” said Ivo, “when folk be afraid, they turn back to the ways of their forefathers, the old gods.”
Bellebelle felt her skin prickle with goose bumps. It was a terrible tale and she wished she had never asked.
Now that the couple were gone, she cooked all the meals, having learned by watching the woman. Bellebelle knew she was not very good at it but at least they weren’t starving. With the woodman’s help she learned how to plant and weed the garden, milk the goat, snatch eggs from the hens, and even lay the fire properly. She was clumsy and had no feel for such work, but she was making do. When a few stunted cabbages, lettuces, and turnips appeared in her vegetable patch, she was filled with pride. The pear and quince trees bore fruit; the flower garden grew purple sweet-smelling lavender; parsley, sage, mint, and a rosemary bush thrived on their little plot of earth.
Bellebelle had bought herself two piglets last year and was going to have one of them butchered come Christmas. The woodman found a villein from the manor lands who was willing to help her for a fee. He had built a wattle fence around the cottage, which gave her a feeling of safety. She even made friends with the wolfhound, Valiant; after all, by his presence alone he had partially saved her life. Yet despite the fence, the wolfhound, and frequent visits from Old Ivo, the sense of threat remained, under the surface, like thunder in the air with no storm to be rid of it.
With Henry gone, Bellebelle received all the news of what was happening in the outside world from either Geoffrey, the woodman, or the village folk. Thus she knew that Louis of France’s second wife had died giving birth to his fourth daughter, called Alais, sister to Marguerite who was betrothed to Henry’s eldest son and heir. Folk said she was an unlucky child to have killed her mother and would come to grief. A month later the French king married his third wife, sister to the count of Blois-Champagne.
When Bellebelle stopped by the alehouse one October morning, in the year 1160, for her pitcher of ale, two women were there gossiping about the event.
“Such haste be shameless,” said one with a sniff, eyeing Belle-belle with hostile eyes.
“Oh, aye, that it be,” said the other, turning her back as if Belle-belle didn’t exist.
“T’won’t do no good neither.” The woman who brewed ale, a stout body of middle years with a red-veined nose and a ready tongue, shook her head. “The devil’s curse be on King Louis, else why do he have only girls instead of the sons he do need?”
All three women crossed themselves then made horns with their fingers. Bellebelle recognized the horns as the sign Morgaine had often made to avert evil. She had always been wary of the woman who brewed ale ever since she had called her the king’s whore in front of a whole crowd of people and shouted that Bellebelle had no right to a chimney. It was wise to tread carefully around the alewife, as the woman was a wealthy widow, of some importance in the village. One son ran the blacksmith’s forge next door, a dark cave with showers of sparks at the back of it. Another son was the reeve, chosen by the village folk to oversee all the work done by the villagers for the steward of the manor.
“Look what happened right here in England when the Old King had no sons,” the alewife was saying now. “Nineteen long years of trouble there was, when Christ and all His Saints—or was it angels?—slept, priest told us. Lord be thanked Lion and Eagle have so many.”
“Lion even have some on the wrong side o’ the blanket.” One woman nudged her companion with a knowing titter.
Bellebelle looked from one to the other in confusion. “Who be the Lion and Eagle?”
The alewife raised her brows. “King and Queen. Where you been keeping yourself?”
Bellebelle had never heard either Henry or Eleanor referred to by such names before, and suddenly flushed, realizing they had been talking about her own Geoffrey as born on the wrong side of the blanket. While the other two snickered at her obvious discomfort, the alewife’s beady blue eyes raked her face, missing nothing. Suddenly the alewife planted meaty arms on her ample hips and glared at the two women.
“You lot reminds me of two cats with their claws out. I say this poor lass be no worse than many another if truth be known. With her face and form I reckon the Horned One tempted her more than most. I dare say as them that points the finger at her would have been no better than what she been if they’d had the chance.” She raised an arm and one plump finger shot out jabbing the air. “I don’t see no king as coming after you two snaggle-toothed, skinny-shanked hags for his pleasure, now does I?”
The two women grew red and dropped their eyes.
“Didn’t mean no harm,” muttered one, and they scuttled away.
“Never you mind them old cats,” said the alewife, patting Belle-belle on the arm. “Jealous they be, plain as a pikestaff.”
Overcome, Bellebelle swallowed. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“That be all right.” The alewife paused, a wistful look crossed her face. “I never seen no chimney before.”
“Oh please, you be welcome in me house anytime. I’d be proud to have you.”
“Would you now. That’s right neighborly. You can call me Elfgiva. Old Saxon name, that.”
“I be Bellebelle.”
“So’s I’ve heard. That’s not a proper Christian name, if I does say so.”
“I was christened Ykenai. Me Mam, her name was Gytha. She was Saxon too.” Bellebelle looked down. “Me father was Norman.”
“Saxon names, right enough. Well, if that don’t beat all.”
Elfgiva’s eyes met hers. They smiled shyly at each other.
“Anyone as gives you trouble in the village you just tell me, hear?”
Bellebelle nodded happily and left with her pitcher of ale. Elfgiva was the first female friend she had ever made who was not a whore.
One day in late November while Bellebelle was clearing an overgrown section of the garden with the weeding crotch, Geoffrey burst through the gate, beside himself with excitement.
“You’ll never guess what’s happened! My half-brother’s married to the French princess, Marguerite. I heard at the priory that my father arranged it in such secrecy that Louis of France never even knew until it was too late. What do you think of that?”
Bellebelle straightened, rubbed the small of her back, and stared at him in bewilderment. “Your half-brother?”
“Prince Henry, my father’s heir.”
“But he be only five years old, and the French princess be mayhap two or three? What does it mean?”
“It means that my father has checkmated the king of France,” Geoffrey said, his eyes shining. “Now the Vexin will be returned to him, and he’ll get his own back for having to back down at Toulouse. He’s outwitted Louis yet again.”
“Well, I don’t see as why two children so young should marry just for a piece of land. Even Gilbert said he wouldn’t have no girl in his house ’afore twelve year.”
“Oh, Maman, you just don’t understand.” Geoffrey paused. “Who’s Gilbert?”
Bellebelle froze. How could she have been so careless? “Someone I knew long ago. And you’re right, I don’t understand. But you think what Henry did be clever?” she added quickly. “What be checkmate?”
“Oh, Maman, my father’s more than clever, he’s—he’s—” Unable to find the right word, Geoffrey frowned in frustration. “Checkmate is—like in chess. I’ve explained it to you, remember?”
“Oh, aye.”
Bellebelle watched him with a fond smile. Geoffrey was fascinated by anything to do with political intrigues and affairs of state. Sometimes she was in awe of his effortless grasp of matters that seemed unnecessarily complicated to her.
A gust of wind swept through the garden, rattling the bare branches of the pear tree, and setting the rosemary bush to quivering like silvery green spray.
“What else did you hear?”
Geoffrey thought for a moment. “The queen is back in England. At the priory they say that the king and his chancellor may return soon because the archbishop of Canterbury is ill.”
“Henry will be back? When—” She caught the note of alarm in her voice and stopped abruptly. There was a look of dread on Geoffrey’s face.
“He’s not been back—has he?”
Geoffrey did not have to say who “he” was. She shook her head. Both of them knew that when Henry did return, de Burgh would speak to him.
Geoffrey sniffed the air. “Is something burning?”
“Oh! The mutton pottage.” Bellebelle ran inside the cottage and quickly removed the smoking cauldron from the fire.
She hadn’t seen Henry in over two years; he had never been gone so long before. Bellebelle wanted him to return more than anything in the world, but when he did she had no idea what might happen. Would he understand? She prayed every night to the Virgin Mary-Eleanor that he would understand. But suppose he did not? Suppose he felt she had betrayed him? Suppose—suddenly she grabbed Geoffrey and hugged him as if her very life depended on it.
Theobold of Bec, archbishop of Canterbury, knew he was dying. Tended by his devoted clerics, he lay in his palace at Canterbury, heartsick that the obscure clerk he had befriended and helped to power should ignore the messages he regularly sent to Normandy, Angers, or wherever the chancellor might happen to be. Yet Thomas Becket made excuse after excuse, pleading that the king could not spare him from pressing duties. To Theobald, it was quite unthinkable that the youth whose royal mother he had so wholeheartedly supported should ignore him in this hour of his need, denying him the company of the man that he, the archbishop, had made chancellor.
In his last missive Theobald had explained that there would soon be a vacancy in the See of Canterbury and as an archdeacon of Canterbury it was Thomas Becket’s duty to come at once and help him choose a possible successor. In vain. It was now March of 1161 and he had last sent to Thomas just after Twelfth Night.
Theobald fingered the silver crucifix on his breast and signed himself. Such base ingratitude was beyond his comprehension. Without his help, Henry Plantagenet would never have mounted the throne. Who was it kept England safe when Stephen died? Arranged the peaceful transition from one reign to the next? How could that thoughtless boy deny him such a humble request during his last hours on earth?
“Put not your trust in kings and princes,” he said aloud. “Now we must add chancellors of England. My flesh is worn, my limbs wearied with age, and the end of my days is at hand. I ask only that I look upon Thomas’s face once more. Is it too much?”
“No, Your Grace.” One of his clerics sitting on a stool beside the great bed leaned forward.
“Perhaps I have not earned the right,” Theobald said in a quavering voice. “Perhaps I judge Thomas too harshly. Underneath my archbishop’s robe beats the heart of a simple monk, not a worldly prelate. The chancellor’s magnificence, his preoccupation with the trappings of power, such a life seems unworthy to me.” He shook his head and signed himself again. “I saw Thomas’s faults; I was never blind to his ambition, his lack of holiness, but there was good in him, surely I was not wrong about that?” He knew he was rambling but could not seem to help himself.
“No, Your Grace.” The cleric held up a goblet of wine to Theobald’s lips.
The archbishop sipped, feeling the cool liquid soothe his parched throat.
“But Thomas has done things that have disturbed me. He should never have agreed to tax the abbeys for the war in Toulouse. Never. It goes against our Order, whether or not it is right in law. Master Thomas never fails to side with kingly authority; he is devoted to Mammon, not God.” Taking strength from the wine, Theobald sat up straighter against the pillows. Indignation warmed his body.
“Get pen and parchments,” he said to the cleric, pleased with the note of determination he heard beneath the quiver in his voice. “I will send to Normandy once more. This time I will order Thomas to come, not beg him. If common humanity will not move him, threats may.”
“I think I should visit Theobald, Sire,” Thomas said. “After all, he’s sent to me I don’t know how many times by now. My conscience is beginning to trouble me.”
“As I’ve already told you, there’s no need,” Henry said in a lazy voice. “Archbishops are always issuing summons as though they’re the foremost canonical authority in Christendom.”
On this late March evening, they were seated round a fire in the clearing that housed the Old King’s hunting lodge in the Verte Forest, outside Rouen.
Thomas laughed. “I doubt Theobald aims so high.”
When, early this morning, Henry had suggested they go hunting together, just the two of them, Thomas had eagerly accepted. Since the ill-fated venture in Toulouse, which marked the first time they had had a serious quarrel, Thomas sensed a withdrawal on Henry’s part, subtle but unmistakable. They had been together numerous times on official matters concerning the realm, but there had been virtually no social intercourse between them. Thomas hoped that this invitation to hunt might be Henry’s way of healing the breach and restoring their friendship to its former intimacy. The question of whether or not to heed Theobald’s most recent summons had been under discussion for several days.
“Theobald has no standing here in Rouen,” said Henry. “As far as conscience goes, well, that is a luxury any chancellor of mine can ill afford.”
“Even at the risk of excommunication?”
Henry shrugged. “Theobald will never excommunicate you, Thomas, I think you know that. His bark is loud but his teeth are drawn.”
Thomas, watching Henry from under half-closed lids, thought he was probably right. The king, clad in a green hunting tunic girded by a belt with silver clasps from which dangled a knife in a leather sheath, blended perfectly with the silent, secret beechwoods that surrounded them. Only the ivory horn, dependent from his neck and swinging round one shoulder, looked out of place.
There was a sudden burst of flame as fat dripped into the fire from the haunch of doe threaded on a wood spit across burning logs. Above treetops brushed with gold, the sun was sinking in the west, the shadows lengthening across the clearing. The evening air was filled with the acrid tang of gray-blue wood smoke mingled with the scent of roasting meat. Three bloodhounds lay stretched before the fire, soft muzzles buried in their paws. At a distance from the fire two huntsmen were talking in low voices, testing birch-wood bows and counting the number of arrows left in the quivers. A groom curried the horses tied to several trees at the far end of the clearing.
“Regardless of my conscience, Sire, or lack of it, and leaving the threat of excommunication aside, Theobald is gravely ill. I owe him a great deal—”
“So do I, Thomas, so do I. But I have need of you here. The near-dead—if, in fact, that is how matters stand—must give way before the living. The worthy archbishop is not above exaggerating his condition for his own ends. You know what these old churchmen are.”
In truth, the selfless Theobald never acted for his own ends, only those of Holy Church, thought Thomas. But there was little point in telling that to a ruler who acted almost entirely to serve his own ends. As well as the weal of the realm, of course, although in Henry’s mind he and the kingdom were one and the same, their interests identical. What was beneficial for one must, perforce, be beneficial for the other.
What Henry failed to observe, however, was his own possessiveness, his need to be at the center of everyone’s attention. Affection for him must exceed affection for anyone else. How often had Thomas seen Henry’s jealous glance follow Eleanor, when she thought herself unobserved, noting whom she talked to, for how long, and with what degree of pleasure. Thomas had noted that Henry even resented the queen’s particular love for her son Richard.
Even the slut in Bermondsey was not exempt. Thomas had long suspected that Henry’s unusual interest in the Flemish knight, de Burgh, was connected in some way with Bellebelle—although he was not sure what the connection might be.
Now Theobald had become a target merely because Thomas wanted to visit him on his deathbed. No matter Henry’s justifications, Thomas, pricked by guilt, knew it was uncharitable to ignore the summons of his former master who had taken him in when he was a poor cleric with no prospects. Not only that, it was Theobald who had started him on the road to power when, seven years earlier, he had been planted as a quasi-spy under the guise of Henry’s chancellor. Not to visit his aged benefactor was an act of disloyalty; certainly that was how Theobald would view it. In a surprising twist of fate, Thomas had switched his allegiance from the archbishop to King Henry. This was where his loyalty—and his interests—now lay. Was it any wonder he felt guilty? Well, one could not serve two masters equally. He had chosen King Henry.
Dusk fell. The sky turned mauve then deep purple; the sun sank beneath the trees. A huntsman took the haunch from the fire and cut it into thick slices.
“I wonder if Theobald has an actual successor for the See in mind.” Henry took a swallow from a silver wine flask and held it out to Thomas.
“Unlikely he has a candidate for Canterbury, Sire. This was one of the reasons he wanted to consult me.” Although Thomas rarely indulged in wine, tonight he felt the need of some fortification. Was it the image of a dying Theobald? He could not tell, but moved close enough to Henry so that their shoulders brushed. He took the wine flask.
Venison juice dripped upon Thomas’s tunic as he carried a chunk of meat to his lips. During the past two years, whenever he was with Henry, he had started to eat the flesh of four-legged animals, a far cry from his earlier adherence to only fish or two-legged creatures, as prescribed by the Benedictine Order.
From Rouen Cathedral came the far-distant sound of the Vespers bell. The horses whinnied softly; the hounds awoke; soon they were snarling as they fought for scraps. The sky grew darker, a pale sliver of new moon appeared.
“I will send a message to Eleanor at Westminster and ask her to pay a visit to the archbishop,” Henry said in a conciliatory tone. “She’s a past mistress at diplomacy and will know how to explain why I can’t spare you.”
“I’m sure Theobald will appreciate it, Sire.” The very idea that the sensuous queen, whom, incredibly, Theobald had actually taken a liking to, would be a suitable replacement for himself was an affront.
There was no reason he could not be spared, Thomas wanted to say, irritated with himself for not doing so. At the moment matters fared very well indeed for the bold Plantagenets.
After the fiasco of Toulouse, Henry had at one stroke restored his prestige by secretly marrying young Henry to Louis’s eldest daughter by his late wife, while the French king, desperate to get a son, was hastily preparing for his third wedding to the count of Blois’s sister. The fact that Louis was making an alliance with the House of Champagne-Blois—which had produced King Stephen—threatened Henry’s sense of security, and he had acted with dispatch. Despite Louis’s subsequent rage and threats at the loss of the Vexin, which was restored to the Plantagenets upon the occasion of young Henry’s wedding, there was little he could do except make a feeble attack on Henry’s lands in Touraine—which Henry thwarted by a successful counterattack.
In fact, the French king’s marriage to a daughter of the House of Blois posed a minor threat, if any, as far as Thomas could see. But Henry’s virtual obsession with anything that concerned Stephen of Blois, his almost overpowering need to obliterate any and all reminders of this unhappy monarch, was a source of puzzling concern to Thomas. Along with his philandering and extreme possessiveness, it hinted at yet another unstable element in the king’s complex character.
“I keep meaning to tear this lodge down, as I told de Beaumont some time ago, but something always stops me.” Henry took another swig from the flask and passed it back again to Thomas.
“A link with the past perhaps?” Against his better judgment, Thomas took another long swallow before returning the flask to Henry. His head was starting to swim and his voice sounded thick.
“That must be part of it,” Henry said.
Thomas saw the huntsmen and groom wrap themselves in blankets some distance from the fire and curl up to sleep.
“You could spare me if you so desired,” Thomas said suddenly, amazed at his own audacity. It must be the wine. “I’m due to leave for England shortly in any case.”
There was a short silence.
“I daresay I could but I don’t choose to spare you, Thomas. Theobald can wait a while longer.” Henry reached out and roughly slapped calloused fingers across the back of Thomas’s hand. “What would I do without my boon companion, eh?”
Henry’s fingers seared him like flame. Before he knew what he was about, Thomas turned his palm up, his fingers opened, crossed, then interlaced with Henry’s. He could feel Henry’s start of surprise and initial withdrawal. Thomas grasped the harder and Henry let his hand rest.
“I thought you were still angry with me,” Thomas said in a throbbing voice he barely recognized as his own.
“Well, I was, Thomas, I was, no doubt of that.” With his free hand Henry took another pull at the silver flask and passed it again to Thomas.
“Yet it was only your honor I sought to preserve outside the walls of Toulouse.” Thomas took the flask, noting that his fingers shook.
“I don’t doubt it. But you know how I hate to be thwarted once I’ve made up my mind. One of my weaknesses, I fear—one of my many weaknesses. I’ll warrant you know them better than I do myself. Mea culpa, but you’ll forgive me my trespasses, I hope?” He gently withdrew his hand and gave Thomas an affectionate punch on the arm. “But that’s all over and done with now. We are like brothers again, eh?”
That was the incredible thing about Henry: he could disarm you so easily with his uncanny ability to confide his own faults. Thomas closed his eyes. He could feel a pounding in his ears. Was it his heart? He took another draught of wine, emptied the flask, then laid it aside.
“Are we brothers then?” he said in a low voice.
“Have I not just said so?”
“Blood brothers?” It was too dark to clearly read the expression on Henry’s face.
“I’m not sure I understand you, Thomas.” The king’s voice was edged with a kind of wary surprise.
“Shall we make a vow of blood brotherhood?”
Thomas was shocked, amazed, horrified at his own words. What had made him voice such an outrageous idea, suggestive as it was of sorcery, faith, passion, chivalry, even pagan ritual?
“The blood bond between brothers-in-arms? Didn’t the house-carls of the Saxon kings so bind themselves?” Henry paused. “The Knights Templar formed such a bond after exposure to the infidel during the first crusade.”
“A bond of comradeship, yes, that cannot be destroyed or disavowed.” Thomas didn’t add that it was also a pact of flesh and spirit, such as legendary lovers like Tristan and Isolde were said to have made; what one possessed belonged to the other, and they were sworn to protect one another. Sometimes they did not survive each other.
Henry laughed. Thomas thought he detected a trace of uneasiness.
“You never cease to surprise me, my lord chancellor. I’m sure your saintly Theobald would call such an act heretical. Isn’t there some sort of ceremony involved?” His words sounded a bit slurred.
“I believe so but I’m not familiar with the ritual. Of course, if you’re fearful—”
“I fearful?” Henry instantly withdrew his dagger from its sheath. “We’ll make our own ritual.” He pulled up the sleeve of his tunic and shirt, gashed his forearm with the sharp blade. In the glow from the fire, Thomas could see beads of blood spurt from the wound. “Give me your arm.”
Slowly Thomas pulled up the sleeve of his tunic and shirt and extended his arm. He choked back a cry as he felt the knife bite into his flesh. Henry pressed his wound against Thomas’s so that their blood dripped and mingled together. Thomas felt the violent leap of his heart. His head reeled with the fumes of the wine; the concealing darkness; the intense intimacy of the moment. Overcome, arms outstretched, he leaned yearningly toward the king. His fingers brushed the king’s hair.
“We’re joined by blood now, Thomas,” Henry said, jumping to his feet and pulling down his shirtsleeve. “Though I’m not sure what that means and I wouldn’t go trumpeting it to one and all.” He yawned. “Well, I’m suddenly very tired. It’s too late to return to the castle tonight.”
He strode across the clearing to his horse, opened one of the saddlebags, and took out a heavy blanket of unwashed wool. He returned, spread out the blanket before the fire, lay down and rolled himself up in it. “See you in the morning, blood-brother.”
Within moments he seemed asleep. Henry’s capacity to sleep anywhere or anytime reminded Thomas of a cat’s. The Lion, well named. A trickle of sweat ran from his forehead down his cheek. Had he gone mad? What demon had prompted him to so lose control? With trembling fingers, Thomas pulled down the sleeve of his tunic. In the darkness, lit only by the glimmer of the fire, had Henry seen that telltale motion, that outstretched longing toward him? If he had seen it, would he know what it meant? In truth, what did it mean? Nothing, Thomas told himself. It meant nothing at all.
Yet something inside him writhed in an agony of humiliation. He would never forgive himself for such a lapse. Never. To reveal, even for an instant, such a damning weakness was intolerable. No one, not his confessor, not the monk who scourged him, knew of his dark and hidden desires.
But if Henry guessed, even suspected—the possibility was unthinkable. Thomas had always been on his guard, never by word or look or gesture revealing his true feelings. That he should have so exposed himself …Tears welled up in Thomas’s eyes and he began to weep, hating himself. Because Henry might have witnessed his secret shame, he could feel the seeds of that hatred start to extend to the man he loved.