The King arrived back from France in high spirits but Eleanor was so heavy with child she could barely rise to greet him. He looked at her belly. ‘What did we make last summer?’
‘I fear it’s a daughter.’
He grunted. ‘Daughters are useful. You look wan. Drink some mulled wine.’
She shook her head. That morning two rough Normans had brought Erasmus to her apartment. ‘Lord Guillaume said he’s your physician, Highness,’ one announced. He flicked a dagger across Erasmus’s wrists, cutting the leather thongs with which they had bound him. ‘Told us to deliver him to you safe and sound.’
‘Thank you,’ she murmured. ‘Leave. And the rest of you.’
Erasmus stood with bowed head. He felt he’d fallen off a cliff. He’d broken his fall when he grasped a branch and now clung to it, swaying above a bottomless chasm. He wanted to say, ‘I’ll do anything to save him’. Instead he remained mute.
Eleanor spoke, ‘So which will come first. Delivery of my next child? Or the disappearance of William?’
He had rehearsed a thousand times what he would say but now the moment arrived to tell her how he would escape with the boy, his voice died.
‘Come, man. Find your tongue.’
‘Your child must be delivered first,’ he croaked. ‘May I …?’ He approached the bed to take the pulses in her wrists and ankles. His fingers tingled from contact with her.
‘My midwives say labour will probably start tonight.’
Through the bedclothes he rested his fingers on her belly, his heart swelling enough to choke him. He stood upright and nodded. ‘I agree. I’ve brought my pharmacopoeia. You’ll feel no pain.’
She snorted. ‘Why did you allow me to go through agony before?’
He responded with silence. Can she still read my eyes? His eyes told her the herbs were for the devastation she would feel after he had taken their child. Abruptly a shudder ran through her. She understands. ‘May I see the older boy?’ he asked.
‘The older boy, as you call him, may be the next King of England.’ Her voice was edgy. She rang a small bell and, moments later, Orianne’s face peeped through the door. ‘Bring Willi,’ she ordered.
The child rushed from his nurse and climbed onto the bed. ‘Mama!’ he shouted. ‘Mama has a new baby for me!’ He turned to look at Erasmus. ‘Who’s that man?’ he whispered to Eleanor.
‘My physician, darling.’
‘I don’t like him.’
‘Shh, don’t be impolite.’
‘He’s staring. That’s impol …’ He couldn’t pronounce the word. ‘Naughty,’ he said.
The nurse stood back against the wall, astonished at the resemblance between her charge and the foreign man. Eleanor could see her thinking, The things they say about the Queen and little Willi might be true. ‘Nurse, you may leave.’ When the woman closed the door she asked, ‘Did Guillaume threaten you?’
He nodded. I believed myself rational: I judged, I mocked, I considered myself superior to common frailties. But all life is an oscillation between fear and desire. Now cowardice imprints itself on every other feeling. I jump at shadows. ‘He informed me of the obvious – adultery with a queen is a capital offence in both England and France, for both parties. Your husband or one of his men will murder me, after torture, I expect, as soon as the new child is safely delivered. Is that not so?’
‘My husband is of violent temper, but he’s not rash, Erasmus. He knows you’re a favourite with Louis and he’s determined to remain on good terms with him.’
He grimaced. ‘How foolish of me to forget the machinations of politics.’ He added, ‘And you? What will happen to you?’
She gave a shrug of indifference. ‘My neck is safe. The King needs me – for prestige in Aquitaine, and for breeding. Mostly for breeding. Were I to die, he’d inherit my lands – but the Barons of Aquitaine and Poitou would rebel and Louis and his kinsmen from the House of Blois would support them. So far, Henry’s won the fear of my vassals. He’s not yet won their love.’
‘Mama is sad,’ William said. ‘I feel it in my tummy.’
Erasmus’s speech flowed suddenly from his heart to his tongue. ‘Eleanor, help me escape with him! I have a razor. I’ll tonsure myself and we’ll travel disguised as a monk who accompanies an orphan. I’ve studied maps of England. We’ll ride north to the town of Norwich and from there sail to Flanders. From Flanders we’ll ride to Germany and sail down the Rhine, cross to the Danube and into Hungary. It’s but a few days from Pest to Byzantium …’
‘How shall I ever find him again? Where will you hide him?’
‘In a monastery of the Orthodox faith. If he wants to enter our Church he may marry and have children. Our religion resists your heinous rules of celibacy. More likely he’ll become a scholar. I have the funds to educate him. For a man of no rank, I’m rich.’
Tears streamed from her as William climbed over her belly to clasp her neck. ‘Mama, mama,’ he keened. She gained control of herself in a few minutes. ‘Get down, darling,’ she ordered. She again rang the small bell beside her bed and his nurse reappeared. The Prince glared at his father as he ran to the woman’s arms. The door closed behind them.
‘Erasmus, you’ll be watched day and night. You’ll have no idea who it is who watches you. A man. A woman. A little girl. A page. This is a …’ she was going to say ‘prison’. ‘Palace. So how will you do it?’
‘I’ll drug the nurse and give the child a sleeping draught.’
She wrung her small, strong hands. ‘Will that work? Will that work?’ She was talking to herself, overwrought, not unexpected, but undesirable so close to a birth.
‘Of course it will,’ he said firmly. ‘You need to drink an infusion of lime flowers and take a warm bath in rosewater.’
She stretched out her hand to him. In Latin she whispered, ‘I loved you. I could never tell you before.’
He fell to his knees beside her bed. For the first time since childhood he whispered, ‘Kyrie eleison. I am healed. Eleanor, I am healed.’
Outside her chamber Guillaume was seated, a frown of concentration between his dark brows. A citern was across his knees. He plucked, paused, plucked again. He smiled at Erasmus when he came out. ‘I’m composing a song to celebrate the birth of … what do you think, Master? Prince or Princess?’ He pretended he’d not noticed the Master was wiping tears from his cheeks.
‘God shall reveal that.’
‘Indeed. There’s a little sun outside. Why don’t we take a stroll in the park?’
Is this when he’ll do it? Erasmus wondered. Behind some tree? ‘May I fetch a cloak?’ he asked.
‘You won’t need it.’
The park was walled. It was toward the wall’s southern side, where espaliered vines already covered their grey limbs in new leaf, where the sun was warmest, that Guillaume led Erasmus. He remarked amiably, ‘I hope you said nothing to Her Highness that upset her.’
Erasmus glanced at the towering palace behind them. They were standing in full view of twenty chambers. He can’t murder me here. ‘Nothing at all.’
‘Perhaps you confided your intention to steal the child and, disguised as a monk, spirit him away?’
It took Erasmus a moment to gather the import of this bland statement. ‘So you’ve searched my chamber! It’s locked. This is the key!’ He pulled it from a pocket, as if its existence in his hand proved that Guillaume could not have had his chamber searched and found the monk’s clothing.
The King’s brother shrugged. Erasmus was so shocked he had nothing to say. For a few minutes they stood in silence, faces tilted to the sunshine. Guillaume sighed. ‘You’ll have to dream up some other plan.’
Erasmus nodded. ‘Perhaps I should thank you for warning me against—’
Guillaume nodded. ‘You wouldn’t have got very far.’ He pointed at a larch sapling. ‘Not further than that. You would have been arrested. That would have led to all manner of gossip and ill-feeling in both England and France.’
‘Quite,’ Erasmus replied curtly. He found it hard to decide which of the Plantagenet brothers he found more monstrous – the restless, volatile King or this cool, elegant bastard who without a quiver would slaughter him. They turned and strolled back along a stone path to the oak door from which they had emerged. Each of its wings had been freshly carved with a gilded lion crowned in gold. One had to walk between bared teeth and claws to enter.
‘There is …’ Guillaume took Erasmus by the arm, turned and led him back towards the wall. ‘… one solution. I’d hoped, from what I said in Paris, you may have discerned it.’
Erasmus felt bewildered.
‘I told you the King would not tolerate a boy who could endanger his other heirs. Only men able to sire offspring may become kings. I thought you knew that.’
‘I do. But …’ Suddenly the Master understood. He turned to face Guillaume. Like a beached fish, his eyes bulged and his mouth gasped for air.
I’ll never forget this, Guillaume thought. He shoved both hands under Erasmus’s armpits to stop him falling to the ground.
‘I’m to do it? You’ve brought me here to castrate my son?’
‘It would seem so,’ Guillaume replied.
Erasmus felt him press something into his palm. He knew what it would be, but he looked anyway. His scalpel. He filched it from under my nose.
Guillaume took hold of his elbow and walked him back to the doors of the palace.
When Erasmus arrived at his chamber the door was still locked and inside there was no sign anything had been touched. He felt in his saddle bag. The monk’s robes, the hooded cloak, the warm clothes for a child, the razor for tonsuring his head, even the looking glass he had brought for shaving, were all in place. His pharmacopoeia was intact. He glanced around at the bed, the chair, the writing table, the tall cupboard in which clothes and extra bedding could be stored. He recalled it had been shut when he left the room, but now one door was slightly ajar. He opened it and pulled out the pillows and some rough fur bedcovers. Behind them was a wooden backing, slightly out of plumb. He tried pulling it towards him before realising he should push it away. It shifted so quickly he had to snatch its edges to stop it from crashing to the floor. There was no wall behind it, only the back of a tapestry. He quickly replaced the false backing and stuffed the pillows and furs against it. He lay on the bed and babbled to himself. ‘“Above all, do no harm.” I swore that oath when I was awarded the title Master Physician. To be forced to rob my own son of the joy of manhood, of love …’
Orianne came to his door at midnight. At six o’clock the following morning a princess was born.
Henry took a good look at her, carrying her still wet from the tub to a window. She was bald, but the image of Matilda. ‘That’s what we’ll call her,’ he told his hollow-eyed wife. The gaze he rested on her was tender with sorrow, but he tried to hide his feelings with a laugh and after that, shouting the words of the song Guillaume had composed. ‘Princess Matilda! Matilda our darlin’ …’ he bellowed. Eleanor smiled wanly and covered her ears. Someone rushed to the nearest church and bells began to chime the melody that announced the birth of a royal girl. Eleanor felt indifferent to the new child. She had spent the hours waiting for her womb to discharge its burden dwelling on the idea that she could not see her first-born son again until he was a man. But I’ll find him, she promised herself. If I have to return as a penitent to Jerusalem, I’ll find William.
While bells rang through the city Erasmus, closeted out of sight of the King, examined the cord and the afterbirth. He told the midwives, ‘She needs lady’s mantle to help heal her uterus.’ They nodded, familiar with the herb he gave them. ‘I think mugwort as a protection from pelvic inflammation and to stimulate her liver. I’d also recommend nettle soup, rosemary and a rosehip cordial.’
As soon as Henry left to celebrate with his subjects Erasmus returned, followed by William and his nurse. ‘Drink this,’ he said to Eleanor. ‘You’ll sleep. Your Princess can suckle just as well if you’re asleep or awake.’ To the nurse he said, ‘I noticed yesterday that the Prince has a slight squint in his left eye. I have a cordial that’s excellent for correcting squint. It will grow worse if you don’t treat him now.’
The nurse noticed with what confidence the Queen took the medicine prescribed for her to sleep, and how yesterday the foreigner had calmed her with herbs.
‘Will you give it to him, or will I?’ Erasmus asked her.
‘I’ll give it, sir.’
‘He’ll sleep most of today. That’s all to the good. His mama is tired and won’t want him climbing on her to prattle about his new sister.’ He handed the woman the flask of cordial he had prepared. ‘I think he should take it now.’
Erasmus watched as the nurse coaxed, ‘Come, Willi. Here’s a honey drink for you.’
William sniffed it. ‘Smells funny,’ he said.
‘From special bees.’ She held the flask above her head as if she’d changed her mind and would not allow him to have the treat.
‘Give me!’ He stamped a little foot. ‘I want honey!’
When she lowered it to his mouth he downed the whole flask. Erasmus realised he had been holding his breath. ‘Soon he’ll sleep. When he wakes, his squint will be mended.’
The nurse bobbed. ‘Thank you, Master.’ She picked up the boy. He was already drowsy as she settled his head against her shoulder. Erasmus rested his palm a moment on his mass of black curls. ‘May the Lord bless you and keep you,’ he murmured.
He returned to his chamber and lay down. After some time a sensation of glory flowed through him. He felt the energy in his body disconnect from the earth to mingle with the sun, the moon, heavenly bodies beyond them, the fixed and the moving stars. He felt himself rising up from the earth and in that blissful state he stood, picked up the razor that was to tonsure his head, cutting his throat from ear to ear.
Next day, when her son’s grey corpse was brought to the Queen’s chamber she went mad, dashing her head against the wood of the bedframe until blood flowed. She jumped from the bed to run on all fours around her chamber, beating the floor with her fists. ‘He killed my William!’ she howled.
Alerted by a guard, Henry flew through the door, picked up his wife and flung her towards the ceiling. A thin scream escaped as she descended. The King caught her before she struck the floor, and again threw her into the air. She screamed in terror. But the third time she remained silent until her husband’s arms broke her fall. The hysteria was cured.
‘Put me down,’ she hissed. As soon as her feet were stable she struck him across the face.
He carried her to the bed and gently laid her across it. ‘Bring rosewater for her eyes,’ he called over his shoulder. He snapped his fingers at Orianne. ‘She’s bleeding between her legs. Fetch warm cloths.’ He pulled the warmest furs over her and stretched beside her.
‘You’re a murderer,’ she muttered. ‘You had William murdered. My first son, my glory …’
‘That’s a lie. His father did it.’
‘You forced him!’
‘Shh,’ he said. He beckoned Orianne. ‘As soon as she sleeps you’re to take my place.’
Within a few minutes the King and the maid changed places. Henry jerked his head to the gaggle of servants who had gathered in the bedchamber, indicating them to follow him into the Queen’s dressing room. The closet was capacious, as she had asked Becket to ensure it would be, but there was barely room for them. They pressed back against the racks of velvets, silks and furs, all fragrant from rose petals. Among the crowd were two house churls, one of whom had discovered Erasmus’s corpse. Henry kicked the closet door shut and stood against it. From beneath his tunic he pulled a dagger. He took a step forward. His blue eyes were bloodshot.
‘I personally shall cut the tongue of anyone who speaks of what he or she saw today,’ he said. ‘If anyone breaks this command I’ll punish all of you, regardless if you are the guilty one or not. You have collective responsibility. Is that clear? It’s not just, but at times the interests of the realm outweigh justice. Do you understand that?’
‘Yes, Lord King,’ they whispered. Their eyes fixed on the dagger; they were already stinking with fear.
‘You are to say the Queen suffers deep grief over the death of her first-born son. Nothing more. If someone asks did the physician accidentally poison him, you are to answer you don’t know. You don’t know!’
‘We don’t know, Highness.’
‘You have no idea why the Prince died in his sleep. He just did. It happens.’ He glared at a churl. ‘Do young children die unexpectedly?’
‘Frequently, Sire.’
Henry’s chest heaved. ‘A tragedy has befallen our beautiful Queen. In all your orisons pray for her recovery and for the soul of her son. He’s to be buried beside his great grandfather, The Lion, in Reading Abbey.’ He turned, ready to leave. ‘The foreigner has vanished,’ he added.
‘Vanished,’ they echoed.
He opened the door and strode out.
Guillaume and Richard de Lucy waited outside the Queen’s quarters. ‘Call de Beaumont,’ Henry said. When he had both justiciars with him he asked, ‘What do we do with the suicide?’
‘He can’t be buried in hallowed ground.’
‘How about the Thames?’ Henry said.
They nodded. ‘Wait until dark and the ebb tide. He must be weighted. Two men can throw him while a third steadies the boat. Should I write to Louis?’
Richard de Lucy said, ‘I’ve taken the liberty of drafting a letter on our finest white vellum. My hand is passable. I think Louis will understand why you’ve not used a scribe.’ Henry ran his eye over de Lucy’s writing and added a postscript in his own hand.
‘He committed this crime for reasons you, my brother Louis, comprehend. He murdered with poison the child whom he’d fathered, then cut his own throat. The Queen is mad with grief.’
Henry sealed the letter and had it wrapped in a red velvet pouch tied with a cord that was held secure with a second royal seal. Wax was brought. Carefully and slowly he inscribed HR with a quill. ‘Post haste,’ he said. ‘I want Louis to hear of this first from me, before courtiers get in his ear.’
‘I’ll take it,’ Guillaume said. The brothers embraced.
Henry buried his head against Guillaume’s chest. ‘As long as Eleanor recovers this has worked out for the best,’ he whispered.
Guillaume’s eyes were red from weeping.
Henry spent the rest of the day prostrate before the altar of the Virgin, refusing food and drink. He dared not speak aloud the secrets he whispered to Her. Eleanor’s accusation had rent his heart like a knife. Into the hole something unspeakable had found its way. To the Madonna he said, I caused a child to be murdered. I caused a man to commit the crime of taking his own life. My wife is a lunatic. Aloud he moaned, ‘Have mercy, have mercy.’ He lay on his belly on the stones. Despite five charcoal braziers, the chapel was freezing. Richard de Lucy entered followed by two churls encumbered with sheepskin rugs.
‘A King half-dead with quinsy is unable to make decisions,’ de Lucy said.
Henry allowed the chamberlains to arrange the rugs beneath him and to cover his body with other furs. For some hours he dozed, but running through his mind was one thought. I have sunk to the evil once prophesied of me: ‘From the Devil he comes; to the Devil he will return.’
His mind wandered in another world where hideous images filled it. He watched an eyeball flick from its socket at the point of his dagger. He saw a thief, perhaps a man of noble rank or a villein, hold out an arm while Henry slashed off his hand. The face of the stranger registered ghastly incomprehension as he gazed at the hand. The palm seemed to watch him as it lay in the mud. Henry almost laughed aloud. These imaginings, and worse, he experienced with roiling, murderous pleasure. I’m going mad myself, he thought. ‘I came to you, Virgin, begging mercy. Instead you push me into the pit of hell.’ To hell with You.
The statue continued to gaze down, every contour of its painted face radiating the serenity of love. ‘Wooden idol,’ Henry muttered. ‘I no longer believe in you. Or your son.’
When the bell for vespers chimed the Chancellor tip-toed into the chapel and prostrated himself on the stones beside the King.
Henry sat up. ‘What do you want?’ he asked.
‘I pray for our grieving Queen.’
‘You should pray for me.’
Thomas gazed at the King. The brilliant, swaggering monarch was a dishevelled wreck who flinched when his hand accidentally touched the Chancellor’s. A malign anger emanated from him, forcing Becket to brace himself not to recoil. Trembling, he knelt and dragged to his chest the leaden body of his liege. He stroked the broad back, his hand smoothed the thick copper hair. ‘My darling boy.’ He whispered too softly for the guards to hear him. ‘You are loved. God and his angels love you. The whole court loves you. I love you.’
The King lay fainting in his arms.
Thomas lowered the heavy body to the fleeces. He laid his palm on a cold, wet forehead. He kissed eyelids that were shut. They lay together many minutes, Becket crooning and kissing. When guards shuffled their feet uneasily, the Chancellor ignored them, a rebellious triumph riding over him. I, Thomas of Cheapside, hold the monarch in my arms. In this chapel, none can stop me. He felt love flow from his heart into the heart of the King. Something strange overcame him; a sense of divine enslavement. Never have I loved so intensely.
After almost an hour the monarch opened his eyes. He registered astonishment to find himself gazing up at the Chancellor, who cradled him like a baby. He frowned, pulled away and, without a word, walked out.
No acknowledgement at all! Thomas remained in the chapel, calming his injured feelings. Perhaps he doesn’t even remember I held him and kissed him.
Henry felt numb. He thought he remembered that Becket had come to the chapel and said something kind to him. He didn’t really care. Nobody ever told him the truth. Except Guillaume, the justiciars and Douglas. If his mother did, it was only to hurt his feelings. As a matter of noblesse oblige he called in again on his wife.
‘She’s no longer agitated. But listless, Sire,’ Orianne said. As he was about to leave she plucked at his sleeve.
‘Lord King, perhaps the troubadour, Ventatour, could sing Her Highness to a better spirit?’
He nodded. ‘You have my permission to ask him to come from Aquitaine. Go to the scriptorium and dictate a letter.’
‘I can write it myself, Your Grace. The Queen has taught me.’
‘Has she, indeed?’ I should get rid of you, too, he thought.
Eleanor did not regain her vitality and spirit. The court physicians were at their wits’ end. She drank listlessly the tonics they prescribed – Melissa cordial to purge melancholy, elderflower for the heavy hearted and vervain to strengthen her nerves. She picked at her food, sending most of it away. She refused the company of her ladies. She refused to leave her quarters to walk in the open air. She even refused to play with her cats. One day, as she stared unseeing out her window, Orianne opened the door and an apparition appeared. It threw back its cowled cloak to reveal a face half black, half white. Painted black tears ran down the white side of its face, painted white tears down the black. The garment beneath the apparition’s cloak was also of two colours, black and white. Eleanor stared. She was so lost in misery the apparition barely aroused her curiosity. Then Ventatour began to sing, not a song in langue d’oc from Aquitaine, but in Latin. ‘Have mercy upon me, O Lord; for I am weak: O Lord, heal me; for my bones are vexed. My soul is also sore vexed: but thou, O Lord, how long? Return, O Lord, deliver my soul: all the night make I my bed to swim: I water my couch with my tears.’
Eleanor had not shed a tear since the morning of William’s death but as Ventatour’s voice entered her she began to weep. ‘My tears are black!’ she whimpered. ‘My heart’s so filled with rage that black spills from my eyes.’
‘No, Highness. Your tears are pure as crystal,’ Orianne said.
The apparition sang on, sometimes Psalms, sometimes lullabies, sometimes love songs her father had written. Sometimes songs that he and she had sung together when she was a child. He sang all day. Eleanor lay on her bed, listening and weeping, speechless. She had not greeted him, even when she realised who he was. As darkness gathered she held out her hand. The troubadour approached and knelt to kiss it. ‘Return tomorrow,’ she murmured. Her fingers lingered a moment on his painted face. ‘You understand me, Bernard. You always did.’
‘Because I’ve always worshipped you.’
Outside the chamber Orianne said, ‘Sir, did you notice a little light returned to her eye?’
His face from a hidden world smiled sadly. ‘I never thought to see her in this state. She used to be luminous with joy and gaiety. She made the angels happy.’ His speaking voice was like dark, shining water in the base of a well. But it was warm and its warmth emboldened the maid.
‘Bring her joy back, sir!’ Orianne said. She lowered her voice and added, ‘The King cannot. He doesn’t know how to cheer her, so he avoids her. In his heart he’s hot with shame that his wife is …’ She could not utter the word.
‘Women often grieve when a beloved child dies and your mistress is more sensitive than ordinary women. Grief cuts more deeply into her soul.’
‘She’s sworn she’ll never love another child, prince or princess,’ Orianne whispered.
Ventatour was big man. His chest was as broad and deep as a warrior’s. He laid his viol aside to wrap the girl in his arms. ‘May I kiss you?’
She nodded. He kissed her deeply and tenderly. She knew that in his imagination he kissed the Queen. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve made your face …’ She turned to a glass and saw she was smudged black and white. ‘Come to my chamber. I have a lotion that removes paint.’
When she was certain her mistress slept soundly Orianne returned to Ventatour that night. He seemed to her very old, but he made love with more ardour than the young guardsman who had been visiting her. Each morning he sat before a Lombardy glass and spent an hour painting his face. ‘I’m not human, am I?’ he said. ‘I’m from the mysterious world where her mind keeps company with angry ghosts.’
Orianne sat enthralled as he painted his face, transforming himself from a human into a fantastical being from another realm. Today his face, his neck, even his hands, were blue and yellow. At night she sank her fingers through his long, dark hair and laid her almond-white skin against the curly pelt that covered him from neck to groin.
‘The priest, sir …’
‘The priest?’
‘Says it’s devilish. He’s sent a complaint to the King.’
‘And the King?’
‘Told the priest he was “a hollow vessel, a creature of futility”. He said that if prayers reached the ear of God, the Queen would not need you to relieve her heart.’
Ventatour smiled. Each day he introduced a new love song to his repertoire.
Eleanor, bound tight in after-birth cloths for six weeks, was unable to sing. But one day she hummed. There was light in her eyes; the bitterness that had hooked down the edges of her mouth straightened itself. Her lips were beautiful again.
The morning she was unbound she said to Orianne, ‘Tell Bernard not to paint his face today.’
His voice, soaring into the late spring air, made people outside the castle stop and look up. Some crossed themselves. ‘An angel!’ they exclaimed.
By that night a rumour ran through London’s taverns that an angel had entered Westminster Palace to comfort the Queen for the death of her first son. Gossips had said the Queen was a harlot and the child a cuckoo, but if that were true God wouldn’t send an angel to her, would He?
Henry visited his wife. Her eyes, newly alight with life, regarded him coldly as she sipped from a glass of cordial. It was an antique Abbot Suger had bequeathed her. The faint gold outlines of crosses and doves were still visible around its sides. Henry stared at the languid hand she allowed him to hold. Neither spoke. At length he said, ‘You are unjust. I didn’t murder your cuckoo. The Rumlar did. You broke our agreement, yet you blame me for the consequences.’
‘I never want to see your bastard, Geoffrey, again. And I’ll never forgive you.’
His face flushed. ‘Perhaps, wife, I’ll never forgive you. You’ve poisoned my soul. A lower being has entered me that was not there before. I find pleasure in depraved imaginings—’
‘I’m unsurprised. You’re a descendant of the witch, Melusine. You and all the House of Anjou.’
‘It didn’t stop you rutting with my papa, another descendant of Melusine.’
She chose to ignore the bait. ‘Our dream …’ She laughed scornfully.
‘We’re corpses strapped together by wedding bands,’ he muttered. ‘We must pretend we’re alive and that we love each other. It’s our duty as monarchs.’
‘ I can receive you in another week or so.’
‘I wouldn’t mount you if I hadn’t spilled seed for a month.’
She smiled sardonically. ‘That’s one mercy God gives women; to submit to our husbands even when we detest them.’
He snorted. He found, now, he could look her in the eye. ‘Do you want the troubadour for practice? You won’t make the same mistake twice, you prideful slut.’
The glass that three centuries earlier had quenched the thirst of a bishop of Rome missed his head to shatter against the floor. When her husband left and the broken shards had been swept up, the Queen told Orianne to fetch her looking glass, and to leave her. She spent almost an hour staring at the face, reminding herself of what she had already overcome – King Louis, the Parisian courtiers, the Pope, shipwreck, pirates. ‘I’ll make my birth prophesy come true,’ she said aloud to the beautiful woman who gazed at her. ‘My name will be celebrated for a thousand years. The fruit from my womb will populate the noble houses of Europe.’
Finally she rang the silver bell for Orianne. ‘Child, summon my couturier,’ she said. ‘I need a suite of new robes. I hate all my old ones. Select some for yourself and give the rest to my ladies. Also, I want my hair arranged differently. Bring me parchment and a quill. I’ll draw for you the new fashion I’ve imagined. The ladies of England will be very excited when they see it.’
Ventatour stayed on in the palace. He sang to the Queen in her chamber and out of doors when she walked in the sunshine, where a crowd would gather, hands clasped to their mouths or over their hearts. As the days grew warmer they rode together into the fields around Westminster.
Some weeks after he had lain, faint, mad and grieving in the chapel, Henry suddenly remembered what had happened there; that Thomas had cradled his head as tenderly as his father when once, aged about ten, he had a fever. He decided not to mention it. But he felt differently about his Chancellor. I’ll give him some land in Kent, he decided. Near the Cathedral. He realised, with a sense of shame and frustration, that for weeks he had neglected royal duties, leaving all but the most pressing matters to the justiciars and the Chancellor. But England is now calm, he consoled himself. He turned his mind to the challenge that confronted him across The Narrow Sea. He felt suddenly eager to reach Normandy, where Guillaume had assembled an army to fight their brother, Geoffrey, Count of Anjou. There were a few days of leisure before he had to leave for battle. He sent a note to the Chancellor, ‘Time for some sport, Tom.’
As they rode out for falconing he mused to Becket about a brief, successful war to reclaim his ancestral land, then a call on Louis to do homage for it.
‘I’ll sail from Brest to Gloucester in late summer or early autumn,’ he said. ‘If you have financial matters in hand, you can meet me there and accompany me through the marcher lands into Wales.’ His memory of the secret smile in the green eyes of Eveline de Clare enchanted him. He saw himself standing behind her, cupping her breasts in his hands. But the image was so arousing he had to distract himself. ‘Now, Bec, I’ve taught you to ride. I’ll teach you how to cast a bird properly. Watch my elbow.’
Thomas gasped as the white gyrfalcon leapt from the King’s gauntlet, its wings beating with a force that blew the cap from Henry’s head. ‘When she sights her prey …’ He squinted into the cool morning sunshine where hundreds of feet above them the huntress folded her wings against her body. ‘Look! She’s seen something.’ Henry stood in the stirrups and galloped towards the spot to which the bird plummeted. Behind him his hair streamed like a river turned to copper by the sun. The ten other men who had ridden out with them galloped too, hounds bounding beside them.
‘This is the world I imagined, ’ Becket said to himself. I live inside a brilliant gem. He still hoped the King would make reference to what had happened in the chapel, but on reflection realised it was ineffable, too deep and precious for words. They continued to spend hours each week poring over plans and accounts. His Highness was always amiable, but he showed no special affection. How am I to progress? Thomas asked himself twenty times a day.
The pheasant was retrieved. The gyrfalcon balanced on the King’s left wrist, her talons dug into the leather of his gauntlet. He murmured affectionately to her. She fluffed her feathers and snatched the morsel of raw flesh he pulled from the pouch on his belt. ‘What do you say, Tom? Another cast?’ He handed his prize bird to the Chancellor.
‘God’s teeth! Lift your elbow, man!’ he barked.
Thomas laughed out loud. He entrusts the royal falcon to me! His knights are yellow with envy.
Later in the evening, after vespers, he asked if he could have the honour of sleeping at the King’s feet.
‘If you snore or fart, I’ll kick you.’ Henry’s tone was curt. ‘A churl will tell you when you may enter.’
‘Sire.’ Becket could not stop himself. Everyone else had left the chapel and they were alone. He seized Henry’s hand and kissed it.
‘Kiss it again.’ The King’s eye glinted with mischief. ‘There is coming and going from your quarters at night. Do you receive secret visitors, Chancellor?’ He hooked his forearm around Becket’s neck. The scent of fresh sweat came from his armpit.
‘Sire, a scribe sometimes for letters I must dictate.’
The monarch cocked an eyebrow. ‘A scribe? I can’t imagine which one.’ He gave a hearty laugh.
‘Our relationship is not what the palace gossips say.’
‘Isn’t it, indeed? Courtiers are of vile character, are they not?’ Henry’s face was full of amusement as he reached down and squeezed hard on the Chancellor’s private parts. Becket’s eyes watered with pain. ‘You want to be raised to my familiares, Tom? You have to speak the truth to me. I don’t give a fig who you have in bed.’
Thomas suddenly realised the King was looking past his shoulder to someone standing in the dim light of the chapel. Turning, he saw a huge man whose beard covered half his chest, the one who had ridden to Winchester with Guillaume to secure the sacred Hand. Henry was watching his face, nodding, as if they were having a conversation. In a cold voice he announced, ‘I have important business.’
‘Sire?’
Henry ignored him. He strode from the chapel, followed by the stranger.
That night a house churl came to Becket’s quarters earlier than he expected. ‘His Highness says you may enter.’ The Chancellor threw a gorgeously embroidered robe over his nightclothes and followed the man on the five-minute walk to the royal bedchamber. The mastiffs leapt up as the door opened and on silent paws strode towards him. They bunted their muzzles against him, sniffing his hands, his crotch, his waist. Satisfied, they turned and in the same fearsome silence returned to their sleeping rugs on either side of the bed. The churl pointed to a hard bench. ‘There,’ he said. In the dim light of candles Thomas could see two forms already asleep on the King’s bed. ‘Who’s that?’ he whispered. The churl, one hand shielding the candle flame from the King’s eyes, shot him a glance of contempt and made no reply. He loitered, waiting until the visitor stretched out on the bench. His expression became amused. He had been in royal service since childhood and recognised an underling worming his way into a monarch’s favour. He smirked as he closed the door, recalling a man from Stephen’s reign who had offered to wipe stool from the royal arse.
Thomas’s disappointment in finding another person sleeping beside the King was so sharp it took him much of the night to drift into fitful slumber. His dreams were lurid but what they were he did not recall. At the hour for lauds he suddenly woke in fright as groans reverberated quietly around the royal chamber. The person who had slept beside the monarch had vanished and the King was taking his morning medication from the hand of a maid while a royal physician checked his pulses and kept a sharp eye on her work. The mastiffs squatted beside the milker, watching with avid curiosity. As soon as her job was finished she flicked her tongue around the King’s penis and turned to spit into a small silver bucket placed on the floor. ‘Excellent. A youth of sixteen could not have better humours,’ the physician announced. Both he and the milker left as silently as they had entered. Henry lay spread-eagled for a few moments as if enjoying sensations rippling through him. Then he leapt off the mattress and grabbed his Chancellor by the shoulder. ‘Wake up, you good-for-nothing!’ he said. ‘You lie snoring like a sow when you should be on your knees in the chapel.’ His thighs and buttocks were naked below his nightshirt.
‘You should have asked me to milk you,’ Thomas blurted. Henry flung back his head in laughter.
‘You! You great, hairy thing.’ He snatched the Chancellor’s right hand and examined it. ‘Smooth,’ he remarked. ‘That girl’s palms were a little rough.’
Thomas took a deep breath. ‘You ordered me to tell the truth, Sire, so I will. I love you.’
The King raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s gratifying to hear. It’s natural for loyal subjects to love their king. He’s the good shepherd of the flock, is he not? He exerts all his power for the welfare of his realm, does he not?’ His tone announced he was no longer interested in the discussion. ‘I have military matters on my mind,’ he added and began to sing: ‘Chinon. Mirebeau. Loudun.’ He did a little dance around the chamber. ‘Chinon, Mirebeau, Loudun, Loudun, how my heart, da-da …’
‘I beg your pardon, Highness?’
The King looked startled, as if he had forgotten Thomas’s presence. ‘The castles I’ll take from the maggot Geoffrey, temporarily Count of Anjou.’
People like me don’t count for a grain of wheat with you. ‘Highness, may I call for a special Mass to bless your forthcoming victory?’ the Chancellor asked.
‘Yes. If you stop trying to peer at my cock.’
‘I w-w-wasn’t …’
‘Oh, shut up!’ Henry said. ‘D’you think I’m blind?’ He gave the Chancellor a sharp clip on the ear. ‘Tom-tom, stick to your personal scribe.’
Becket allowed himself to fall backwards onto the bench. He grasped at his throat as if he were choking. ‘I’m going to cry!’ he wailed.
Henry yelled with laughter. He snatched Thomas’s hand and pulled him to his feet. ‘C’mon. Let’s dance,’ he ordered. ‘Chinon, Mirebeau, Loudun …’
Two churls had entered and stood with eyes lowered as the King wearing his nightshirt twirled the Chancellor around the floor, singing in his loud, flat voice, ‘Loudun, how my heart, da-da …’
In English, in his own hand, Thomas wrote that day to Theobald. ‘Serving His Highness is filled with joys and surprises I had never imagined. He allows me to sleep at his feet.’ To Richard he boasted. ‘You’ll never guess where I slept last night, my angel.’
Richard wrote to Foliot.
T rejoices that His Highness has allowed him to sleep at the foot of his bed. But his ambition, Your Grace, is to sleep not at the King’s feet, but beside him. So he confided to me.
Before mid-summer Henry had defeated Geoffrey Plantagenet and paid homage to Louis as the Count of Anjou. He and the King dined together in Paris where they addressed each other as ‘Brother England’ and ‘Brother France’. Henry asked for the pleasure of meeting Louis’ new daughter by his young second wife, Constance of Castile, a lady to whom he paid elaborate courtesy, complimenting her complexion, her eyes, her pure and gentle heart. She was just out of childhood.
As the English King rocked the French infant in his arms, making kissing noises to her, a plan began to form in his imagination. He had a son. Louis had a daughter. There was no possible objection of a blood-bond between the infants. He snuff led over her downy head, inhaling the ambrosial scent of a newborn. ‘More beautiful than a lily,’ he murmured to the young Queen. ‘From which constellation did your soul summon her?’ He was thinking, My Prince Henry, your Princess Margaret. Little Princess, through you I can secure France for the House of Plantagenet without going to war. Around himself he felt The Guardian’s cool glow.
On his return journey Henry called in at Rouen. ‘The Chancellor is driving me mad with his obsession to be raised to the familiares,’ he told his mother.
‘I can only repeat my warning that you should not. His ambition is insatiable.’
‘He couldn’t be working harder. He announces in every letter that I’m his hero. And he was most loving to me when …’
‘… the cuckoo died?’
Henry nodded.
‘What else does he love?’
‘His catamite is a scribe, a youth of angelic beauty and evil character. Richard de Lucy tells me the boy extracts a fortune from Thomas. I assume the Chancellor loves him.’
Matilda adjusted the silvery pink veil covering her hair. ‘Perhaps if you banish the catamite you’ll discover how devoted your Chancellor really is.’
She did not mean him to take the suggestion seriously. Some weeks earlier their kinsman, Gilbert Foliot, had crossed the sea to visit her. He had described the scribe’s talents. They were too valuable to allow out of service to the House of Plantagenet. King Louis, the Scots, even Red Beard would pay a fortune for him, no matter how wicked he was. ‘If worst comes to worst, better he does not exist than goes into service for the House of Capet,’ she had confided to the Bishop. ‘There’s a Highlander who’ll dispose of him for us.’
Henry was studying his mother. He could see she was keeping something from him but knew if he pressed her they would fly into another argument about legitimising little Geoffrey. The issue he had come to discuss was elevating Becket to the royal circle. ‘Mother, I’ve listened to you and I don’t accept your reasoning. I underestimated Tom at first, but now I’ve seen his brilliance. He’s my magic lantern. He dresses in what he calls his “beggar’s clothes” to bring me news from the markets and from city hovels that no one else can provide. Frankly, I can’t do without him. He negotiates our trade with foreign ambassadors. Our exports burgeon. He helps me build the realm.’
‘He builds his fortune.’
Her son brushed this aside. ‘He needs grand houses for entertaining. He gives banquets I can’t be bothered with.’
‘Like all parvenus he adores display and grandeur. But I thought you had a wife to organise your festivities.’
‘She’s busy.’
‘I’ve no doubt.’
Henry decided to ignore that, too. ‘Mother, I can’t keep him dangling on a string forever. It’s dishonourable. When I return to England he’ll join me in Hereford. If his work has been as excellent in my absence as it was before I left, I’ll promote him. Did I tell you he’s in love with me?’
Matilda gave a small, sarcastic smile. ‘My boy, you’ve been in many battles already. I thought you might have learned by now that men only love each other when they fight shoulder to shoulder, risking their lives for each other. My father told me that. Your father told you. Thomas doesn’t know one end of a sword from the other. If he loves anyone, it’s himself. What he truly loves is your approval.’ She made the sign of the cross over her heart. ‘To be a king at the age of twenty-one is not easy, Henry. Up till now you’ve mostly demonstrated wisdom. The Queen, well, she’s a different issue. But like all kings, you’re surrounded by sycophants and their praise has gone to your head. You’re guilty of hubris in imagining Thomas loves you.’
‘That’s your final word of advice?’ he asked sarcastically. Both were turning red with anger.
‘No!’ she shouted. ‘Reflect on his flamboyant behaviour! Look at his clothes!’ Her hand moved to a long pearl necklace. ‘He’s ravenous to be the cynosure of every company he enters.’ Abruptly she yanked the pearls from her neck and flung them at Henry. ‘That’s my final word of advice.’
Her son bent to gather the gems, hiding from his mother the tears that had sprung to his eyes. She took them from him without a word. On that note of anger and distress, they parted.