TWO DAYS AFTER BISHOP Geoffrey had come to see her, Eleanor received word that all was in readiness for their departure. At cockcrow the morning she was due to leave for Canterbury, she let Amaria wash her hair and body and massage her with fragrant oils and rose water. A drab gray gown and wimple, typical pilgrim garb, had been provided for her.
“Here, madam, why don’t you take this with you.” Amaria held out a jeweled cross hanging from a fine gold chain.
Eleanor stared at it in amazement, then nodded. “I had forgotten all about that treasure.”
Usually kept hidden in an ivory casket, the cross, which was set with rubies, pearls, and sapphires, was one of the valuables sent to her by Henry’s half sister, Emma of Anjou, when she had first been imprisoned in Salisbury five years earlier. Eleanor’s grandfather, Duke William of Aquitaine, the Troubadour, had ordered the cross from a master goldsmith in Limoges as a Christmas gift for her grandmother. The chain was rumored to have been given to Duke William by a Moorish princess as a token of her affection and esteem. Eleanor’s grandfather possessed attributes for which he had been well known among the ladies. Her grandmother, who had the great gift of being able to turn a blind eye, had prized it and so did Eleanor. Now she took the chain from Amaria and slipped it around her neck under the gown.
When Geoffrey came to fetch her, he scrutinized her attire carefully. “I doubt whether anyone who has known the dazzling queen of England would recognize you.” Eleanor kissed her maid farewell, covered herself with her attendant’s worn brown cloak, picked up the wooden bucket Amaria usually carried, and followed Geoffrey down the winding staircase into the courtyard. It was still dark. Yawning guards sent her an incurious glance, obviously assuming she was Amaria, then ignored her. She and Geoffrey walked toward the wing that housed the kitchen, turned a corner, and were no longer in sight of the guards. In the kitchen courtyard, Eleanor could make out a small group of knights on horseback and two waiting litters. She set down the bucket and was hurried into one of the litters. Once she was inside, its curtains were drawn tight and the litter jolted forward. Geoffrey had told her the party would consist of a deacon from Geoffrey’s own See of Lincoln, an armed escort, and two elderly women from the parish of Salisbury who had been waiting to join a group going to Canterbury.
They crossed the Salisbury Plain under a light drizzle, skirted Winchester, and spent the night at an inn halfway to Horsham. When they started the next day after prime, Eleanor opened the curtains of the litter. Under a cloudless curve of blue sky, a bright sun bathed her face. The weather was warm for late November, one of those unusual autumn days in England that still held the memory of summer. Piles of gold and flame-colored leaves lay on the ground. Bundles of corded hay lay stacked in stripped fields. A swineherd drove a horde of pigs into a stretch of woods so they could forage under the beech and oak trees. The next night they spent at East Grinstead, a walled town that still preserved a market cross where Roman streets had intersected.
Geoffrey, riding a white palfrey beside the litter, did not try to engage her in conversation except once. “Would you care to open your mind to me, madam, as we are now alone? I make a good listener and do not judge. Amaria said she thought you might have had some sort of unpleasant—”
“Thank you. There is nothing I have to say.” She could not bring herself to tell him—or anyone—what had happened. Not if she lived to be a hundred.
Next day they reached Wincheap Street on the outskirts of Canterbury and entered the town through Worthgate. The streets were thronged with pilgrims; some on foot, some on horseback, others, like her, in litters. There were also groups of sandaled monks leaning on wooden staffs, black-robed prelates mounted on tall Spanish donkeys, and a procession of choir monks singing psalms as they headed toward the main cathedral.
“I have been here many times,” Eleanor said to Geoffrey in surprise. “And I have seen Canterbury crowded before, but never like this.”
“That would have been before the Martyr’s assassination.”
Dumbfounded, Eleanor made no response. It was impossible to connect either the worldly chancellor who’d kept the best table in England or the cantankerous archbishop in exile who had relished wounding her with this multitude of devoted worshippers.
“Saint Thomas,” she said wonderingly. “He has come a long way since I first met him as a humble lawyer-clerk.”
“An excellent illustration of the teaching of the Gospel,” Geoffrey replied with a faint smile. “Now it is getting close to vespers and we have had a long journey. There is a guesthouse not far from the bishop’s palace that we will stay in for the night. Tomorrow you will go to the cathedral.”
Eleanor sighed. “You have been very kind. But let me say in all honesty I have little expectation for—for miraculous change.”
He gave her a gentle smile and did not comment.
They continued on, Eleanor recognizing familiar landmarks: Tiern Cross, the Jewish Quarter, Guildhall, and the Royal Exchange. By the time they reached the guesthouse the vespers bell was ringing. That night, lying on a stack of straw pallets in company with numerous other women, listening to the unceasing sound of bells and chanting, coughs and moans, Eleanor hardly slept at all. The next morning she was exhausted, wondering why she had ever let herself be persuaded to undertake this useless journey. But there she was, for better or ill, and she would go through with whatever happened. Or did not happen, as was more likely.
When Geoffrey arrived to escort her to prime in the cathedral she told him in no uncertain terms, “I hope it is understood that I will not pray at Thomas’s tomb.”
“Perfectly understood. I might, however, suggest a visit to the Lady Chapel.”
Eleanor nodded. The sky was fair with white feathery clouds, and a crisp wind that held the promise of approaching winter. Ahead, stark against the blue, rose the spires and newly rebuilt arches of Christ Church Cathedral, still undergoing construction since a fire damaged it four years earlier. There was a massive crowd gathered—priests, yeomen, goodwives, nobles, highborn ladies in velvet mantles—Were they all here to pray at Thomas’s tomb?
When the service was over, Geoffrey took her to the refurbished Lady Chapel set up against the Rood Screen. The altar of the Annunciation of Our Lady was in the south aisle and there were many other women kneeling inside the pews. These poor souls truly sought guidance and help, and Eleanor felt like an impostor. With a growing sense that both Geoffrey and Father Matthew had taken advantage of her weakened state, Eleanor reluctantly took a seat next to one of the women. She closed her eyes and knelt. Help me, she sent out a silent cry to the Holy Mother. Then waited. Nothing happened. After what seemed like an endless time, she cautiously opened her eyes. Everything looked and felt exactly the same. Disappointed but not surprised, she rose and walked out. She had expected nothing; she had received nothing. Had the Holy Mother heard her? Perhaps she didn’t deserve to be heard.
In the main part of the cathedral the crowd swept her up and carried her along. She passed near to Thomas’s tomb and turned her head to look. It was rumored that on the day of his murder Thomas’s blood had seeped into the marble and no amount of washing would remove it. Eleanor tried to soften her heart, wishing she could ask him for help, guidance, succor, something, anything. But all she could think of was the bitter struggle she and Thomas had waged for Henry’s attention and companionship, each seeking to be equal in his need for them. The realization that she had ever stooped so low as to compete with an ambitious nobody from the London streets, even if he was now canonized, was so demeaning, so painfully humiliating, that she could only retreat from the shameful memory.
A moment later she was outside on the broad stone steps. Geoffrey was nowhere in sight. What was she to do now? She began to walk aimlessly in the direction of the main gate, past Christ Church Priory. On the other side of the gate near the buildings housing the brewery and bake house, away from the crowds, she noticed a group of four women seated on a blanket. They were chatting amiably together, tearing pieces of bread from a long loaf and drinking from a leather flask they passed around. As Eleanor wandered past them, looking uncertainly about her, one of them called out:
“Ye looks lost, dearie.” She was a raw-boned woman of middle years with sharp brown eyes, clad in a threadbare gray cloak and worn gray gown. Her voice had a rough edge. Cheapside, Eleanor guessed, or possibly Southwark. “Can we help ye?”
“I must be lost. My escort has vanished.”
“Care for a chunk o’ goat’s cheese and maslin bread? Simple fare, but filling if ye feels peckish.”
Eleanor hesitated. “Ah, thank you—but I’m not sure—”
“Well, come on then.” The woman patted the blanket with a red, chill-blained hand. “We won’t bite and don’t have no fleas, does we Aggie?”
“You be a caution, sister,” said the woman she had called Aggie.
Eleanor forced a polite smile and gingerly sat down on the blanket, which smelled of unwashed sheep’s wool. When she was offered a flask and a thick slice of brown bread with white crumbly cheese, she took it with reluctant fingers. The bread was chewy but tasted surprisingly good. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was.
“Are you all together?” she asked.
“Lord bless ye, no,” said the sharp-eyed woman. “From different parts o’ England. But as we been together at the Martyr’s tomb for the last sennight we become friendly. I be Meg from West Cheap in London. Here be me sister Agnes.” She pointed to the woman next to her, several years younger, with sallow skin and a look of sadness about her gaunt face.
“I am Ragenhild from Coventry, where my husband is a well-known burgher,” said the youngest and prettiest of the four with a shy smile, brushing back wisps of corn-colored hair that had escaped from her wimple. Dressed in a gown and cloak of fine gray wool, she held a fur muff in her lap and looked to be about five months gone with child.
“Dame Cicily, from Exeter,” said the fourth, a robust woman with gray-blue eyes and a haughty air about her. “My husband is one of the king’s justices,” she added proudly. Clad in a fur-lined gray cloak with a jeweled silver cross hanging from her neck, both she and Ragenhild were obviously of more affluent means, unlike the London sisters.
“Are ye from close by?” Meg asked.
After a moment’s hesitation Eleanor replied, “Salisbury.”
Meg scrutinized her with interest. “From foreign parts ’afore that, I reckon.”
Eleanor smiled. “You have a good ear. I was born in Aquitaine but have lived here a long while.” She took a drink from the leather flask. Sour wine, but oddly refreshing.
“Me husband traveled in foreign parts. An archer he were, master o’ the longbow,” Meg said, her voice filled with pride. “Wounded in Brittany six year ago, fighting for the old king in the war against his sons and French Louis.”
Eleanor repressed a start. By the old king Meg must mean Henry, she realized, never having heard anyone call him by that title.
“Salisbury, you say?” Ragenhild sat forward with interest. “Isn’t that where the queen is caged?”
Eleanor’s heart froze. “Ah—yes. Yes, it is.”
“And what did ye come for then?” Meg pursed her lips. “Be ye pilgrim or penitent?”
“Really, sister, mind ye manners.” Agnes elbowed Meg in the ribs. “Always had a mouth on her. Do forgive her boldness—did ye say your name?”
“Nell. And I don’t mind the questions.”
“Short for Eleanor, isn’t it?” Cicily asked. “Like the queen’s.”
Now Eleanor could see that the woman’s left eye had a cloudy covering over it. After a moment she glanced covertly at the women’s faces, wondering if they would make the connection between her and Queen Eleanor incarcerated at Salisbury. No. It was ridiculous to assume anyone could identify her.
Meg made a face at her sister. “Now then, madam high-and-mighty, we all be penitents or pilgrims. All come to the Martyr’s tomb for healing or to forgive our sins, what else we be here for, eh?”
“Relics! Relics from the Martyr!”
They all turned. Walking toward them from the direction of the north gate was a greasy-haired man with a large wooden tray of relics slung over his shoulders.
“Can I interest ye ladies in the Martyr’s relics?” He held up a lock of black hair tied with a dirty piece of string. “From the Martyr’s tonsured head.” Then he showed them a pointed ivory tooth, suspiciously large, Eleanor thought. “From the saint’s own mouth. Bring ye all the good fortune in the world, this will.” He rummaged in the tray and held up a fingernail. “A nail from a finger o’ the blessed hand.”
“Which finger?” Eleanor couldn’t resist.
For an instant the man was at a loss for words. “Ah—why—the middle finger, to be sure. Or here be a piece o’ the black robe he wore when the murder be done.” He held up a square of black cloth with a large stain in one corner. “Ye can still see the blood.”
“Yes, I’ll take that,” said Ragenhild in an awestruck voice, crossing herself.
“Ye keep that by ye, madam, and ye’ll never want for divine protection, and that be God’s own truth.”
Eleanor watched in amazement as Ragenhild paid the relic-hawker several silver pennies, then tucked the relic into a gray cloth bag sitting on the blanket next to her. Dame Cicily bought a vial of the Martyr’s blood. The two sisters from West Cheap whispered together then reluctantly shook their heads. The relics were obviously beyond their means.
When the man went on his way, Meg turned again to Eleanor. “Agnes here have a canker in her breast. I come with her to pray at the Martyr’s tomb for her healing and also me husband’s. Lost a leg he did in Brittany and the stump pains him something fearful.”
“I’m going blind in this eye.” Cicily touched the eye with the cloudy film over it. “Curing blindness is one of the miracles Saint Thomas is said to perform on a regular basis.”
“I lost my last three babes before they were born,” said Ragenhild. “I pray daily to the Martyr that I bear this one safely.”
Eleanor could not let these comments pass. “And you honestly believe that Thom—the Martyr can really help you? From all I’ve heard, he was no saint in his life, you know. Quite the contrary.”
The women all agreed that this was so.
“But that be the point,” said Meg, looking at her in surprise. “The Martyr know about human frailty, as the priests do call it. Perhaps he had him evil thoughts, maybe even done wicked things, like we all does. Easier to ask an old sinner for help, isn’t it? I mean, we ask Our Lady too, o’ course, she be Our Lord’s mother, after all. But she be perfect. Tom Becket now, he be born and bred in London, same as Aggie and me. A poor lad he were, from East Cheap, not far from where we lives. Still be Beckets there, I hears tell. Nothing come easy to him, people says. Well, that make him like one o’ us, in a manner o’ speaking.”
Eleanor would have liked to point out that the very origins Meg praised, Thomas had been only too anxious to forget.
“So what you come for then, Nell?”
They all looked at her expectantly. It was the second time Meg had asked and Eleanor did not see how she could refuse.
“I am not sure—” Before she had even made a conscious decision to tell them, Eleanor heard herself pouring out the whole sorry tale, omitting only the titles of the people involved: how she had taken a French girl under her wing, loving her as her own daughter, raising her to marry her own son. Finally the horror of finding out that her husband and her son’s betrothed had become intimately involved with each other. Although it was not the first time her husband had been unfaithful, this was incest in the eyes of Holy Church. Unlawful in the sight of God and man. Her son did not know, but she feared he might find out, and if he did the consequences would be disastrous.
“I suppose you could say that I have been—in a decline ever since. A—bishop who is also my friend convinced me to take this—this pilgrimage to Canterbury,” she finished in conclusion, astounded that she had been able to reveal so much. To cast aside the identity of queen and duchess, and expose herself as only a heartbroken woman—the sense of relief was so overwhelming that a lump came into her throat.
There were murmurs of outrage and sympathy but, to Eleanor’s astonishment, no one looked shocked or even surprised.
“God-fearing people are loath to talk about it openly,” said Dame Cicily, after a moment’s hesitation. “But such wicked behavior does happen more often than you might suppose. My husband’s brother, an alderman of the church, may God assoil him, seduced his own daughter. The scandal was hushed up but everyone in our town knew. He got off lightly, in my opinion, with no more than a stiff penance and a heavy fine. His daughter, of course, was sent in disgrace to a convent, where she bore her father’s child. Her life was ruined and through no fault of her own.”
“If truth be told, I am no stranger to such doings in Coventry.” Ragenhild crossed herself. “My own brother, may he rot in hell for his sins, if I do say so, took liberties with our little brother. No one believed the poor lad except me. He was never the same afterward. God knows it is fearful thing to have no one to protect you.”
“Oh aye. We knows about that, doesn’t we, Aggie?” Meg rolled her eyes heavenward.
“You are very understanding. I had no idea—” Eleanor swallowed, unable to go on.
Meg reached over and patted her hand. “Never mind, lovey, we all knows how ye feel. It do be a weary old world and we each does the best we can, with God’s grace o’ course. But—He can’t be lookin’ out for us every minute now, can He? Best we learn to protect ourselves, too.”
“Like Meg did.” Aggie gave her sister an admiring glance. “After our Mam died, our Da has carnal knowledge o’ us. Two, three, four times a week. After a fortnight o’ being forced, Meg got her a long sharp knife, stole it from a butcher stall in Cheapside. She be eleven then and the oldest.”
Meg took up the story. “Me Da come in one night, stinking with drink, like usual, only this time he make for our youngest sister, only seven she were then, and sleeping like an angel. He already soil Aggie and me and now he try for the little one. To this day, I swear as God and all His saints was behind me, else I don’t know where I gets the courage, but I say to me Da, ‘Ye touch her or us ever again and I cuts it off, see?’” She held up her hand and brandished a piece of bread about. “I shows him the knife and he lunge for me and I stuck it right in his thigh. Aiming for his member, I was, but I miss. Fell to the floor, he did, bellowing like a stuck pig, and bleed like one too, but he leave us alone after that.”
Agnes began to laugh. “I never forgets the look on his face when that blade tear into him. Too bad she didn’t cut off member and stones, I says.”
“May God forgive me, but I wanted to do just that to my husband’s brother, lecherous old bull,” Cicily said defiantly. Then, obviously shocked by her own words, she clapped her hand over her mouth.
Meg started laughing along with Agnes, and Cicily and Ragenhild followed. Eleanor joined in the laughter, the five of them rocking back and forth, doubled over with mirth. She had never laughed so hard in her whole life. Without warning, her laughter abruptly turned to tears, tears frozen since that fateful night outside Henry’s chamber. To her complete humiliation, she started sobbing, keening like a wounded animal, drowning in a flood of grief.
Someone patted her on the shoulder, another squeezed her hand, then Meg’s voice: “That’s right, lovey, give yourself a good old cry.” She took Eleanor—who could not have resisted if she tried—into her arms and held her.
The weeping went on and on and on. After a long time the tears slowed and finally stopped. Meg’s cloak was soaked through. Someone thrust a large cloth into Eleanor’s hands and with a shuddering breath she sat up and wiped her face. She felt exhausted, purged, and calmer than she had in months. Aggie gave her the flask and she drank thirstily. No one spoke but all the women looked at her with glistening eyes. Eleanor was about to apologize, to explain, to justify but saw that it was not necessary. In a silent exchange that went far beyond words, she knew they had shared the moment with her, and understood.
A few moments later Eleanor caught sight of Geoffrey, his deacon, and two other clerics walking toward the main gate, glancing anxiously around them. Quickly drying her eyes, she rose to her feet with a wave, shaking out her crumpled skirts.
“Madam, we have been looking everywhere for you. Are you all right?” Geoffrey, clad in his episcopal robes, glanced from Eleanor to the group of women who scrambled to their feet in awe as he approached.
“Very much so, Your Grace. I’ve just been sitting with—with these good women here who kindly shared their bread and wine with me—and far more than that. We have become fast friends.” She walked over to each one, Cicily, Ragenhild, Agnes, and lastly Meg, hugged them in her arms, and kissed them on each cheek. “How can I ever thank you? I will never forget you. Never.”
The women smiled and hugged her back. But it was not enough. There was something more that was needed. Suddenly inspired, Eleanor reached around her neck and slipped off her grandmother’s jeweled cross. She laid it on Meg’s palm and closed the bony red fingers with their broken nails tightly over it. For the briefest instant she felt her grandmother’s imperious presence—and wholehearted approval.
“I cannot give you all what I would like to, but I think Meg and Agnes are in the greatest need. Take this gift, my dear friends, and sell it or use it in any way you see fit. Go well. All of you.”
The women stared at her in openmouthed wonder, their eyes brimming with tears. The bells began to ring for nones as Eleanor retraced her steps through the main gate. She turned and waved at the women.
Geoffrey gave her a curious glance. “That cross was a substantial gift. What did they do to earn your gratitude?”
“I’m not sure I can explain.” Which was true enough. “They helped me. Enormously.”
“Yes, I can see that. You look so different, madam, much more like your old self.” He signed himself. “Father Matthew will be so pleased. Canterbury was his suggestion, after all.”
“Father Matthew talked of miracles at the Martyr’s tomb and the like. This was an earthly healing, I assure you.”
They reached the litter and Geoffrey helped her inside. “It was his belief that if you asked for help at Canterbury you would receive it.” He smiled at her. “That is what happened, isn’t it?”
Eleanor stared at him while he mounted his horse. The litter slowly moved forward.
“Well, I suppose . . . yes, it is.”
She leaned back against the cushions, turning his words over in her mind. It came to her then that she had carried the burden of her enemies long enough. Too long. What said Holy Writ? “To every thing there is a season . . . A time to be born and a time to die . . . A time to keep, and a time to cast away . . .” The time had come for her to let go of the past. Impulsively, as they passed Holy Trinity she sent out a silent message in the direction of Thomas’s tomb. “If we have wronged one another—let there be peace between us now.”
It was a start.