When Gilbert Foliot heard that Henry had raised Thomas of London to the inner sanctum he felt like cancelling the welcome feast he had arranged for the King. Henry swept into the hall, crowned and wearing miniver. Magnates and barons from Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire were among more than a hundred guests who leapt up gawping at the demi-god who stood before them.
They paid him homage. Henry introduced Thomas to each man and woman as ‘The Royal Chancellor and member of my inner circle’. The favoured one responded to their awed expressions with a gracious nod. However, Becket was in a rage with Foliot, who had announced there was room inside his palace to accommodate only knights; the Chancellor would have to sleep in a tent. Thomas ordered Richard to keep his ears open for gossip about the Bishop that could be useful in future. ‘No man of such ostentatious purity is clean within,’ he confided. The scribe looked solemn. He was wondering how much he could demand of his lover for information he had known for years about the prelate.
At the welcome banquet one couple caught the King’s attention. ‘Who are they?’ Henry asked his host.
‘Sir Walter Clifford and his wife, Margaret,’ Foliot answered.
‘He appears as vainglorious as a cock pheasant.’
The Bishop nodded. ‘But he has three useful castles – one in Hereford and two in Wales. He’s a sycophant who ill-treats men of lower rank; kiss up, kick down. But he’s well connected with the Welsh aristocracy, if one can call them that.’
‘God knows, England needs every friend she can get in Wales,’ Henry grumbled. During Stephen’s two decades of rule almost no English authority survived there. ‘I’m told the native rulers, if not overtly hostile to us, are covertly so.’
‘Befriend Clifford publicly, Henry, and he’ll be your devotee. He believes himself especially favoured by God. On what he bases the idea is a mystery – except, it’s said, he’s exceptionally well endowed in the region of his groin. He takes every opportunity to allow other men to view the thing, jumping naked into rivers, strutting about bathhouses without a towel. Appearances are of great moment to Sir Walter. If he can brag of friendship with the King …’
It was Margaret Clifford, a delicately formed, rather timid woman whom Henry guessed to be about the same age as Eleanor, who attracted more of his attention. She quaked as she was presented, so nervous she was mute. She had light brown hair, pretty blue eyes and pleasing contours to her face. Henry noticed her husband glared at her for her lack of aplomb. When she did find her tongue she prattled contrived inanities. In other circumstances the King would have dismissed the lady, but he felt a pang of sympathy. Your husband bul ies you, he thought. Instead of a cold stare he smiled and kissed her hand. Standing behind her, Walter Clifford bowed reverently.
‘Most adroit,’ Foliot murmured. ‘I do observe, Henry, monarchy becomes you.’
Henry answered in Latin, ‘The husband’s pissing himself with excitement. Which is their most comfortable castle?’
‘Clifford.’
Henry beckoned a page, gave an instruction, and from the corner of his eye – because by now he was engaged with other people – watched the exclamations of excitement from the Cliffords as they were informed they were to host the King.
‘I don’t want to arrive without meat. What’s the best game nearby?’
‘Deer and plenty of boar. One of them killed a bull the other day.’
The King whistled. ‘That’s an enormous boar …’
In an airy tone the Bishop added, ‘On another subject, I hear the latest member of your familiares has land and vassals sufficient to be considered a Baron.’
Henry returned his kinsman’s expression of raised eyebrows with a hard stare. ‘He’s earned it.’
Foliot pinched the bridge of his nose as if to calm a headache. ‘He travels with a catamite.’
‘Gilbert, I know. And I don’t care. It’s probably a sin, but not a crime. Crime is my concern. Sin is yours.’
His kinsman decided to try a different approach. ‘Sinister intent taints all Thomas does, Henry. Would you care to know he wagered with the infamous Richer de l’Aigle he’d be promoted to your inner circle? Wagered for Richer’s best property in England?’
The King whooped with laughter. ‘The Eagle’s best English property! I burned his Normandy château for stealing my horses. I love Thomas for clipping Aigle’s wings, Gilbert. I know Bec’s a scoundrel. But he’s my scoundrel. Kings need such men to do dirty jobs in order to keep their own hands clean.’
The Bishop snapped, ‘Nephew, I warn you, his ambition is so frenzied he regards himself as last in the race if there’s just one man ahead of him. And there is one. It’s you.’
As soon as he’d spoken Gilbert realised he’d made a faux pas. ‘I meant, I implore you …’
The King’s voice was sarcastic. ‘Uncle, you see me overthrown by a …’ for a moment he needed to search for an appropriate description of his Chancellor. ‘A villein I plucked from the gutter and raised up because of his outstanding talent? You seriously imagine that?’
He stood, the Bishop scrambling to his feet beside him. The hundred guests leapt up. Henry raised his arm in a military salute and Church and Crown progressed side by side past the rows of trestle tables. On the way out Henry stopped to rest his palm on Clifford’s shoulder.
Afterwards Foliot spent time in prayer, asking the Lord how to overcome his too frank speech to the monarch. No answer came. When he judged Henry’s temper would have cooled he went to the royal apartment. Two knights and Richard were standing outside. He asked, ‘Is the Chancellor with His Highness?’
‘The King summoned him immediately after the banquet and …’ Richard gave a swift pale glance to the knights. He and Foliot walked ten paces from the door. ‘… and upbraided him for not bringing his favourite milking maid.’
‘And the Chancellor’s response?’
‘Your Grace, he ordered me to find a woman. I fetched a dairymaid. I said, “Would you like to exchange a cow for a king?” His Highness looked the girl up and down. She trembled with fright. Then he lowered his head and bellowed Mooo! and she began to laugh. He tickled her until she was helpless with laughter. Our King is very clever with women, Your Grace.’
‘Your opinions about our monarch offend me.’
Richard mumbled an apology, adding in northern Gaelic, ‘Stinking old shit.’
‘What did you just call me?’ the Bishop demanded.
‘Your Grace, sir. I said “Your Grace”. Perhaps accidentally I spoke another tongue.’
‘Yes, there are many tongues in that clever head of yours.’ The Chancellor does not know the danger you are to him. Momentarily he felt a pang of guilt, for a curious thought had come into his mind. Richard may murder the Toad. If that were to occur I would bear some responsibility as it was I who set him on Becket. My motives were pure; I wished to protect the King and the Church. But … the Bishop decided he needed the guidance of prayer once more.
While waiting for the dairymaid to arrive Henry read in the famous library of England’s most erudite prelate. Over decades Foliot had acquired rare manuscripts, some of them saved from the destruction of the great library of Alexandria. He employed a man who travelled Lombardy and even Outremer searching out ancient texts in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. He had arranged them according to their languages. Henry went to the Latin section where he came across a speech by a Roman with whose name he was unfamiliar, Marcus Tullius Cicero. He was instantly smitten. When he laid the scroll aside to reflect on the ancient’s analysis of the majesty of law, his eye chanced upon another, some poetry. The author was a certain Catullus. Henry began laughing to himself as he read. ‘My uncle is a man of broad tastes,’ he remarked to the knight who waited on him. But before he could settle to the enjoyment of elegiac couplets about ‘Lesbia’ a post-rider arrived with letters from his justiciars. They reported the Chancellor made no differentiation between what belonged to the realm and what belonged to him. The treasury was bulging, but at political cost to the Crown, for many barons considered his taxes onerous and, to the outrage of the clergy, he had begun taxing some parts of Mother Church. In his own hand Henry wrote to de Beaumont and de Lucy, ‘He’s helping us restore the concessions, gifts, liberties and customs of my grandfather. With his aid we’re turning a broken country into a prosperous one. Of course he’s ruthless and greedy. He learned it not in my court, but in Canterbury.’
That evening Thomas, in the hearing of the royal knights, said, ‘Henry, I beg you, take me tomorrow on the boar hunt.’
‘Out of the question.’
‘I’m expert with hawking.’
‘There’s no comparison between casting a falcon at a duck and hunting boar. Men need the courage that’s developed only in military training …’ He observed with exasperation that the Chancellor was wounded. ‘God’s feet! I don’t question your courage, Tom. But you’ve never experienced …’
‘Henry! I keep lions!’
‘In cages. They were born and reared in cages. And if you approach them you do so with a flaming torch. But wild boar, Tom …’
The Chancellor bowed. ‘I’ll see you at supper, Sire.’ He stalked away.
Staring at his receding form Henry thought, Tom lacks virility. He’s old enough to be my father, but there’s something infantile about him. He’s not childish because he’s a sodomite. King William Rufus was anything but a child. He was a virile man, who preferred men. But Tom … These thoughts dampened his mood.
As the sun descended towards the mountains of Wales it set the River Wye ablaze. The royal party of twenty knights, plus a few others who had ridden over from the east, the Chancellor among them, gathered for supper overlooking the sinuous waterway that at this point marked the boundary between England and Wales. Trees along its banks were in the warmth of autumn colour, as was the forest behind the palace. Henry had forgotten his huff with Foliot. Quietly they had agreed not to mention the bull-killing boar, for the hunt was to be a festive occasion, a tournament of courage and skill for the monarch and his knights.
‘I suspect it’s a rogue,’ the Bishop confided. ‘The sows could have banded together and cast him out of the sounder for eating their young. Whatever the case, he’s exceptionally aggressive.’
Boars, being crepuscular beasts, required the hunters to rise before dawn. Not all the company were willing to hunt them, especially in unfamiliar terrain. A half dozen elected to chase deer instead. As the excitement and nervousness of the boar hunters increased, they began drinking heavily. Henry took only one cup of cider.
‘How many animals in the sounder?’ men asked.
Foliot said there could be thirty or more dwelling in a forest to the northeast. They would gather at dawn at the river to drink before disappearing for the daylight hours into their hiding places. Most were sows, with a dominant male and a half dozen younger males.
‘Sows, if they’d farrowed, are dangerous, too,’ Henry added.
A blather of boar stories followed – one man had seen a pack of wolves in Germany bring down a huge boar by ripping out its perineum. ‘Blood spurted like a fountain.’ Others nodded. ‘Can’t take a boar from the front,’ they agreed. ‘Must be from the flank or the hinder parts.’ ‘Tusked heads, bone too thick to smash, curved teeth sharp as swords …’
Sobriety crept over them. They asked for cups of apple juice.
‘How many limers can you give us?’ Henry said. As a bishop, Foliot was forbidden to hunt and as a Reform man he considered the chase demeaning of human dignity. He kept a pack of bloodhounds as a courtesy for guests.
‘Twenty-five. Will you take the mastiffs? Those animals could bring down any boar.’
‘Unfortunately, Gilbert dear, my mastiffs are more valuable than your limers. They’ll stay kennelled.’
That evening, before the sky turned from red to grey, a dozen men nominated to pursue the boars, including a young knight recently married, his wife already with child. He confessed to the company it would be his first experience of hunting boar.
‘Bravo!’ men shouted. ‘Your lady will be hot when she welcomes you home.’
I’m obliged to let Tom prove his virility, Henry thought. Suddenly he announced, ‘Our Chancellor also wishes to ride with us to show his courage.’
Thomas gasped. ‘Lord King, I-I-I have no w-w-weapon …’
‘You have me!’ Henry bellowed. The huntsmen clapped and laughed, banging their drinking cups on the table.
At compline Foliot prayed, ‘Lord, may our monarch return in safety from the hunt. And guide me in preventing the worst of the crimes that Toad will put into his mind.’
No answer came. He went to sleep soon afterwards, as did the rest of the company, with the exception of the Chancellor and Richard.
‘Darling boy, I’m sure your father hunted boar. What am I to do? My honour will be besmirched if I plead a sick stomach – although I will have a sick stomach.’
‘Sir, it’s simple. I’ll ride at the rear of the party where I won’t be seen. Hang back a little when they set off in pursuit. When all are out of sight, I’ll lame your horse and gallop away. You can dismount and lead it home. Once you’re clear of the trees it’s less than half a mile to walk.’
‘Thank you, thank you, sweet child.’ Becket gave Richard a peremptory kiss and fell asleep.
At two o’clock next morning the boar hunters stacked their weapons outside the chapel door with bangs and clangs. All had long swords; some had spears, others had bows and arrows. They stepped into the fragrant, sacred space for matins where the Bishop prayed for them. Sleepy monks chanted a Psalm of David that begged the Almighty’s protection from dangerous foes. Outside in the courtyard the mastiffs howled. An hour earlier the bloodhounds, leashed, had left for the river. They would flush the boars and run them until the huntsmen caught up and went in for the kill.
The men mounted by torchlight and followed the King through misty morning air.
A slight drizzle of cold rain fell on their faces. All wore fur riding cloaks. To celebrate his first hunt with the monarch as a member of his familiares, the Chancellor had chosen his finest riding garment, a scarlet samite cloak lined with brown badger fur. ‘You stay beside me and do exactly what I tell you,’ Henry told him. His own cloak was tan leather outside, ram’s fleece within. He had chosen a horse for Thomas that was half-brother to the destrier he rode, but of calmer temperament. A boar could panic a horse and make it bolt. He handed Thomas his own spear, a heavy oak shaft with a long iron blade at one end. A crossbar curved to fit against a shoulder was at the other.
Shabby, Thomas thought.
‘With that spear my father killed a boar, alone and on foot, to win the hand of my mother.’
The Chancellor’s disappointment with the undecorated weapon turned on its head. For a moment he wondered if he should change the arrangement he had with Richard, and actually join the hunt.
The King ordered, ‘Once we’ve left the park, nobody is to speak unless in danger. Boars are unpredictable.’ He could feel Becket’s nervousness rising. ‘Tom, you’ll remember this day for the rest of your life. No man forgets his first boar hunt.’ He patted Becket’s cheek with a gloved hand.
Not only the men, but the horses were on edge. Henry could sense them communicating in their own language. The animals were well protected with iron-spiked canvas around their bellies. Some hunters had donned a hauberk beneath their outer clothes. Henry had chosen to ride light and advised Becket not to worry that he had no hauberk. ‘It’s more important to be agile. A hauberk is an encumbrance.’
Their ears caught the first eerie baying of bloodhounds as it rolled through the morning mist. Henry’s horse was a fiery young chestnut, always keen for a fight. It skipped from a trot to a light canter following the direction of the ghostly calls. In minutes they were among the autumn trees. ‘Stay close!’ Henry ordered the Chancellor a second time. Suddenly he crouched along his horse’s neck as it broke into a gallop. He weaved and ducked to avoid low branches. The bloodhounds, unleashed, had rushed along a track beside the riverbank. For a moment Henry glimpsed a huge humped back in front of the pack. Then it vanished. The piteous scream of a hound followed a moment later. Then a second death howl. ‘Two already! God’s Teeth!’ he muttered. The pack had stopped running and was a swirling fury of snarling, baying and teeth. The boar had manoeuvred himself behind a fallen tree where only one hound at a time could attack him. ‘It can’t be taken from that spot,’ Henry shouted. He thought Thomas was behind him, but when he looked round, the Chancellor was nowhere to be seen. He put his horn to his lips and blew the five notes that signalled ‘Retreat’.
The hounds came loping back to the huntsmen, now gathered around the King. ‘Where’s the Chancellor?’ he demanded.
‘Sire, I heard him shout his horse was lame.’
Henry cursed with exasperation. The knight who reported Thomas’s lame horse was the young father-to-be on his first boar hunt. The King said, ‘Ride back and help him climb a tree and retrieve the spear I loaned him. I need it. Now we’ve got the hounds off the boar, he’ll emerge. He wants to get back to the sounder and his only path is through these trees.’ He was thinking, If Tom’s on foot a boar, even in flight, may charge him.
Dawn had broken and birds of all sorts welcomed the new day with song. The drizzle stopped and it became light enough to see the blood spattered on some of the hounds.
‘How many has he killed?’ Henry asked.
‘Three, Sire.’
Henry knew what he wanted to do to take down the boar, but also knew the knights would shout objections that it was too dangerous, that he must consider the safety of the Realm. He sat fuming with frustration, walking his horse in a slow circle. Suddenly the chestnut flashed an image into his mind. The picture was so unexpected he closed his eyes, and tried to flash it back. The young destrier repeated its message. On top of a boulder a huge black boar watched the huntsmen and the hounds. That’s what the horses were telling each other, Henry thought.
‘What to do? What to do?’ he asked himself. He nudged his mount. It jerked its head irritably, then pulled to the left. He loosened the reins and tossed the horn to the knight closest to him. ‘Just going to investigate something,’ he said. He motioned the men to stay back. They looked at each other, grumbling. Suddenly the boar from the riverbank broke cover and came hurtling towards them. The group barely had time to grab their weapons and go after him when a second boar came rushing through the trees. They were remarkably nimble. Mounted men were at a disadvantage, needing to manoeuvre their horses around trunks and duck low branches. They and the pack of hounds split into two groups, one after each boar. In the boiling excitement of the chase nobody noticed the King was missing.
Henry’s chestnut continued at a leisurely trot, unguided by him. A few minutes later he discovered the catastrophe. His young knight lay dead, eviscerated from his crotch to his throat. The giant boar, its snout low, hooked its tusks into the man’s lips, flung its head backwards and tore off the man’s face up to the eyebrows. It flicked its tail as if with glee, grunting as it ate the knight.
Henry drew his sword and spurred the chestnut to charge. The boar was so concentrated on its feast they took it by surprise. For a moment Henry felt he could read its mind: Attack? Retreat? it seemed to ask itself. It gave the answer in a fraction of a second: Retreat. Its lair was ten yards behind it, three boulders leaning against each other. It bolted towards them and vanished.
Now it had seen the enemy up close, the chestnut lost courage. It jerked to a halt and would make only tiny, diffident steps – one step, stop, another step. Stop. ‘C’mon,’ Henry urged. He sheathed his sword. He had his bow in one hand and an arrow ready to shoot. But the horse was increasingly skittish, already flipping its ears back and forth. He stroked its neck to calm it. It was a heartbeat away from bolting.
Henry dropped the reins and flashed an image of himself dismounting. The horse relaxed enough for him to jump to the ground with his bow held firm in one hand. He moved behind the horse to fit an arrow. Suddenly the horse shuddered and began walking backwards. The boar had stepped out, but now onto the top of the rocks, looking down on them. Its tiny eyes were pits of ferocity. Henry loosed his shot with enough power to bring down a stag. The boar jolted, but nothing more. He shot a second arrow. A third. A fourth. A fifth. He had no more arrows and the monster was unharmed. Its dense fur, its thick hide and inches of summer fat meant the arrows had not penetrated to its muscle. I must have the spear! he thought.
He snatched a look at the dead knight in case the young man had retrieved his weapon from the Chancellor. There was no sign of it on the ground beside him. He dared not kneel to turn the corpse over to look. The boar was pawing at the rock. Henry’s horse reared. Standing on hind legs, it suddenly screamed. Perhaps the boar had never heard the scream of a fighting stallion. The beast stopped pawing. In the silence there came another sound, the dry creaking of a tree branch breaking, then a human voice yelling. The boar’s attention swung immediately to the new distraction. Henry dared not take his eye off it. ‘Help me, Henry! Help!’ Thomas wailed. Henry did not look back at him. With one hand he drew his sword again. With the other, he unfastened the clasp of his riding cloak. The boar’s gaze, weakening as the light of day bloomed, was now focused on the bright red thing lying on the ground. It vanished inside the boulders once more. Henry took a quick glance behind to locate his Chancellor and turned back to watch the point from which the boar should emerge. Maybe it has two exits. He moved a yard to his right. His horse began backing away from the rocks. Henry made a wild guess at what the boar’s trajectory towards Thomas would be. He flung his cloak in a sail above him. The heavy wool and leather landed on the beast’s head. It stumbled and fell forward to its front knees, its hindquarters raised, hind legs kicking furiously as it tried to free itself. Henry rammed his sword through its perineum. With a kick, the boar keeled to its side and lay still. Henry shook his head to clear gore and muck from his eyes.
The birds’ dawn chorus was over. The only sounds were the distant baying of hounds, a hunting horn’s mournful cry and, close by, the noise of Thomas screaming in terror.
Henry knelt by his dead knight to ask forgiveness. He lifted a cold, dead palm to his lips; inside the hand his tears formed a red puddle. The King continued to kiss the hand, weeping as the skeletal face stared vacantly at the sky.
The Chancellor looked on. Now his panic was over he felt an ice of jealousy around his heart. While his hero continued to mourn, he managed to stand and hobble forward. ‘Henry, you saved my life. Your c-c-courage is greater than any man alive.’ He collapsed and began to beat his head on the ground.
The King stared at him out of a face dripping blood and ordure. ‘You imbecile! Where’s my spear?’
Thomas was speechless. ‘And where’s the horse I lent you?’
‘It went l-l-lame. By mistake.’
Henry turned away. He wrenched his sword out of the boar, grimacing at the fouled rubies and sapphires of its hilt. ‘Give me your cloak,’ he ordered. The Chancellor handed it over and watched, aghast, as the King used it as a rag to wipe his face then to clean his sword. Samite and fur ripped against the blade. He tossed the ruined cloak to the ground and set to removing his own cloak from the dead monster. He had to disentangle it from the arrows, which he did by standing on the carcass and smashing their shafts with a rock. When the cloak was free he laid it over the knight’s chest and head, covering skull bones that only an hour ago had been a fresh young smiling face.
He once more knelt in prayer.
Thomas knelt beside him. Everything had a special aura, as if torn away from reality. For moments Thomas was overwhelmed with love for Henry, at others he felt engulfed in a trance of dread, like the sudden realisation a deadly spider is climbing up one’s naked thigh. But mixed with love, terror and unreality was intense agitation. I’ve seen a man slaughtered! The thought clanged inside his head. This is what war must arouse. This is what makes men warriors. His body trembled with excitement. As he watched the King he felt he could burn to death with adoration-of-the-warrior. And hatred of the man.
Henry stood and returned to the boar. He pulled a dagger from his belt and began to hack its head from its body. The job was almost complete when the first of the bloodhounds came running through the trees, baying to the hunters who thundered behind them.
‘Thanks be to God!’ men shouted when they saw their liege. They knelt beside their fallen comrade.
Despite urging from them, Henry was too heartsick to speak, except to order that the boar, having consumed human flesh, be burned there in the forest, until nothing was left of it. ‘It’s bones are to be ground to powder and spread across the earth. But take the head. The local people will want to see it.’
The beast’s skull was so heavy it took two men to heft it onto a horse.
Back in the episcopal palace the King wandered to the bathhouse.
‘Where’s the spear? And where’s the horse?’ Thomas asked Richard in an urgent whisper when they snatched a moment alone.
‘I returned to the trees and found the spear. But the horse …’
‘Where is it?’
Richard gave the Chancellor his most winsome look. ‘I sold it,’ he said.
‘You sold the King’s destrier!’
‘It was useless.’
‘You’re lying!’
‘Yes,’ Richard agreed. ‘I killed it. I hated the look of it limping. So I lead it to the river and sliced its jugular.’
The Chancellor had to sit down. ‘You murdered the King’s horse? Its body will be discovered! What will I …?’
Richard patted his hand. ‘Sir, don’t upset yourself. An ebb tide was running and it floated away. It will float out to sea. Nobody will find it.’ He lifted his lips for a kiss but the Chancellor turned his face away.
Foliot managed to extract from the youth a lie about the missing spear, now safely returned to the King, but not the missing destrier. Richard knew that the Bishop, like all aristocrats, esteemed destriers only slightly less than themselves.
‘So it’s lame and lost in the forest?’
‘I believe so, Your Grace.’
‘We found the other horse that belonged to that poor knight. I’ll send a search party to find the Chancellor’s. It’s not his, but the King’s.’
Henry was expressionless and subdued when he reappeared. He’d had bath servants wash his hair, pumice his hands, trim his nails and barber him, but he refused food and drink as penance for the knight’s death.
Thomas wailed in a loud, jagged voice. He beat his chest with his fists. Tears flooded his cheeks. Other men began weeping. ‘Our King risked his noble life to save me!’
Foliot’s thin, well-bred features turned white with fury.
A knight, elder son of a magnate, said, ‘It was your fault, Chancellor. You could have caused the death of our King. We heard you beg His Highness to let you ride. Therefore he was bound to protect you, at whatever cost to himself and the Realm. It’s our code of honour. A city man wouldn’t know that, would he?’
‘How dare you address me with such disrespect! I’m a member of His Highness’s familiares.’ His tone was as haughty as if he were upbraiding a lazy monk, but when Henry stood and walked away in silence he began to tremble. All the knights turned their backs on him.
In his chamber the King wrote a letter to the Queen.
Dearest Eleanor,
Today I slew a mighty boar, alone and on foot, without a spear. Later I contemplated the fine thread by which our lives hang, and on what trivialities we waste them. God willing, I’ll be home for a Christmas Court and a marriage bed in which we’ll make another prince or princess to bring joy to our hearts and to our subjects.
Your loving husband, H
He ate some eggs for supper and retired again to his apartment before the sun had set.
In his own quarters the Chancellor also wrote a letter. His was to the monarch.
My dearest Henry, from his unworthy brother, Thomas,
I beg your forgiveness for my foolishness in demanding to accompany you on the boar hunt and the disastrous consequences for the poor young knight you sent to find me. I want you to punish me in whatever way you find appropriate.
Your loving friend, T
Richard watched with interest as he wrote. ‘Take this to His Highness,’ the Chancellor said, ‘and wait for his reply.’
The scribe wondered if he could simply throw the note away and say the King had refused to accept it. But a better idea occurred to him. He waited the time it would take for a trip to the royal chamber, an audience, and a return to the Chancellor, spending it composing in his head exactly the phrases he should use.
He was panting and there were beads of perspiration on his brow when he dashed back into Thomas’s tent. ‘Sir! His Highness is in great rage! He’s discovered everything that happened. He orders that you wait for him here, in the tent. He ordered me to blindfold you and gag you. He was flexing between his hands a hound whip …’
‘He’ll whip me?’
‘He or one of the knights. It’s their code of honour.’
‘When!’
‘I don’t know, sir. Soon.’
Thomas moaned as he allowed Richard to blindfold him and tie a gag across his mouth.
‘Oh, I forgot, sir. He said you were to strip yourself naked. To lie face down on the mattress and sir, I don’t know how to do this, but your wrists and ankles are to be tied out wide.’
‘So I can’t move while I’m scourged!’ Thomas began to weep. ‘I’ve seen it done to monks. It’s, it’s …’
‘Sir, I have some salve. As soon as it’s over I’ll dress your wounds.’
‘Thank you, dear boy.’
‘How will I tie your ankles and wrists?’
‘Here, use these belts.’
Richard’s fingers worked fast. ‘Sir, I’ll wait by the tent door to be ready for His Highness or whoever he sends to punish you.’
The Chancellor lay concentrating on his racing heart. A short time later he heard Henry’s voice mutter, ‘Out of my way, villein!’ He heard the King’s light footsteps approach the mattress. I must not scream when he whips me. I must not! I must show courage.
He heard the swish of the whip and a sting of fire across his buttocks. He screamed. The whip burned him again and again. He lost count of the number of lashes.
What happened next was so unexpected he could barely believe it was happening. It was over in minutes. He heard the canvas flap as it was opened and closed again behind the King.
Soon afterwards Richard rushed to untie his mouth, the blindfold, then the belts that had held him spread-eagled. ‘Sir! Are you injured?’
The Chancellor rolled over, sat up, and blinked. Slowly a smile spread across his face. ‘You didn’t see what happened?’
‘No, sir. I saw His Highness enter the tent. No knight accompanied him.’
Thomas nodded.
‘Did he beat you hard? I couldn’t hear …’
‘Our King was most merciful with me.’
‘Let us thank the Virgin, sir.’
‘Indeed.’
As it was not seemly to address Her when naked, Thomas donned a nightshirt and his best evening robe and knelt beside Richard, who sang a soulful Ave Maria. The Chancellor sighed in deep contentment. ‘I’m exhausted. Off you go, my sweet. I sleep alone tonight.’ He needed to wash himself and wanted the boy gone so he could do so in private. When he was sure he was alone he murmured aloud, ‘Part god, part angel, part savage.’
The King was sleeping soundly when Douglas entered his chamber. The mastiffs opened their eyes but at a gesture from the Highlander dropped their muzzles to their sleeping mats. He had seen everything on the boar hunt; seen the youth lame the Chancellor’s horse and throw away the spear, seen him lead the injured animal towards the river, seen the rogue boar and readied himself to charge it with his battle axe, but seen that Henry would kill it himself. He lay down, and at midnight, they met and conversed.
Afterwards Henry had a dream in which every terrifying thing that had happened to him since childhood seemed to repeat itself, especially the perpetual anxiety he could not live up to his family’s expectations. Rachel died in his arms and he went mad with grief. Towards dawn the dream changed colour, from the lurid flashing of an electric storm to luminous softness. A silken girl bearing at her shoulder a goblet walked towards him. The goblet radiated light. She laid it on a table where it lit up the chamber as brightly as a sun. She stretched on the bed beside him, he felt her honey breath against his cheek and her luxurious, satin skin. He sunk his fingers into the black ringlets of her loosened hair.
‘Soon, Henry,’ she whispered.
‘What?’ he asked. ‘Soon you’ll meet her.’
‘Who?’
‘She whom you’ll love to the day you die.’
His breath caught in his throat. ‘And you must forgive the boy.’
‘What boy?’
‘Ask Douglas.’
He could feel her slipping from his arms.
‘Rachel!’ he cried out. The mastiffs leapt to their feet.
Rachel’s phantom and the glowing goblet disappeared.
I cried aloud, Henry thought. She really did lie beside me. But she’s the one whom I’ll love to the day I die. The rest of what she’d said had vanished.
When he and the Chancellor met at the breakfast table the King nodded stiffly. Thomas blushed and gazed into his lap. The knights remarked in whispers to each other that His Highness must have given his Chancellor a tongue lashing over the death of the young knight. Becket remained speechless throughout breakfast.
Richard, who ate with the servants, waited for his master outside the eating hall. ‘Sir, if you’re not in too much pain, let’s walk over to see the cows before we leave. They’re quite beautiful and remind me of my childhood, when my father owned many cows and two huge bulls.’
They were just out of earshot of the company when Thomas exclaimed, ‘He pretends nothing happened!’
Richard stared, round-eyed. ‘Pretends he did not whip you, sir?’
Becket shivered. ‘I think I’ll go mad.’
‘Maybe you need more salve for your injuries.’
‘I don’t, you little fool!’
An hour later the royal party set out for Clifford Castle, three leagues away. Their sumpter wagons had left immediately after the hunt. One carried two boars, a stag and some deer, the meat hanging from poles and kept wholesome with a cover of wet muslin. A second wagon carried the King’s clothing, bed linen and bath towels. To distract himself from the memory of the knight’s slaughter Henry memorised the family history of the Cliffords – the ‘de Cliffords’ as they called themselves – and the names of their children: Walter, Richard, Gilbert, Joan, Amice and Lucy. He called the Chancellor. ‘Ask your sweetheart what he knows about our hosts,’ he said.
‘My sweetheart? Henry, you’re so witty. My sweetheart …’ From the King’s blank expression he realised he should say no more.
In one of his hare-brained moods, Henry thought.
Richard noticed the Chancellor only half-attended to him, that his attention was fixed on the King. He wanted to giggle, but forced himself to adopt a serious tone. ‘The lady is of the vast de Tosny family and married beneath herself. That is, her husband married well. He was nephew of a tenant, but flattered his father-in-law into granting him the Lady Margaret, whose dowry was Clifford Castle. He changed his surname after marriage. He also flattered two fine castles out of the Earl of Hereford.’
‘Interesting man. Anything else?’
‘They have a daughter named Joan with eyes like a cat, except they’re blue. People call her “The Rose of the World”. Her father believes she’ll be a saint.’
‘How so?’
‘Paternal vanity, sir. People say although she’s a child once you’ve seen her eyes you never forget them.’
‘At that rate, my sweet, your eyes could be a saint’s!’ Becket chortled.
The King, riding just one pace ahead of them, paid close attention to their conversation. An odd thought struck him. There was something uncanny about Richard’s eyes; they could appear trustful, like a lamb looking at its rightful executioner, as if the lad had an infinite capacity to obey. He thought, I wonder if he enjoys being Tom’s catamite or merely surrenders because he’s coerced? As he allowed his mind to wander around the Chancellor and Richard, he reflected on something else about the youth’s eyes. Behind their innocent blue, there was a wall of darkness. He may have an infinite capacity to obey but he also has infinite capacity to rebel, he thought. And then, a thunderbolt. I have encountered him somewhere before! The circumstances were horrific. I knew it the moment I saw him at Tom’s swearing-in. I should have asked Douglas. But Douglas had already left earlier that day.
Henry turned in the saddle. ‘Scribe, come here.’ As Richard drew alongside, the King reached over and took him roughly by the chin, turning his face so he could look into the pale irises. ‘Where did I met you in the past?’ he demanded.
‘You never met me, Sire.’
‘Don’t lie to me, boy!’ He shoved him with a force that made the youth tumble from his horse. The Chancellor watched, horrified.
As Richard picked himself up he prayed to the Dark Lady.
‘You’ve been wicked,’ she answered. ‘I forgive your transgressions, I guide you to better conduct, I protect you from those who would strike you down. But you delight in evil.’
‘I can’t help it,’ he told her as he dusted himself down and remounted. ‘It just happens.’ He could feel she had turned away from him and a sob escaped his throat.
‘Why did His Highness do that to you?’ Becket demanded.
‘As punishment, sir. He knows I lamed his horse. He said if ever I displease him again he’ll have my hands cut off and my tongue pulled out.’
‘Dear Lord!’ Becket crossed himself. But their conversation was over, for just then around a bend in the river Clifford Castle came into view.