The castle stood on a red cliff above a ford across the Wye placed strategically to overlook south-eastern Wales, Hereford and neighbouring English counties.
‘How little has changed,’ Henry remarked to his Chancellor who had ridden up beside him, in a ferment of curiosity to know more details of the King’s anger with Richard.
Maybe he’s jealous of him.
Henry said, ‘This is on the same line of defensive forts the Romans built almost a thousand years ago.’
The castle now presented as a tall, handsome edifice, all en fete to welcome him. The King’s standard flew from its turrets and red and gold banners were draped from its shooting slots. The grazing land surrounding Clifford was lush, the fields divided from each other with tall hedges and coppices. This autumn day was as hot as mid-summer, without a cloud, although far to the west, in Wales, the sky was bruised with an approaching storm.
Seeing the castle, the party quickened its pace, their horses breaking from a trot to a canter. The King stood in the stirrups and galloped his chestnut. He was almost at the gatehouse when a piercing scream from a coppice nearby made him rein back. The screaming was of children’s voices, whether girls’ or boys’ he couldn’t tell. He cantered over.
A boy about nine years old came rushing towards him shouting, ‘A viper has slain my sister!’ He turned and ran away. A few yards distant, lying in some long grass, was the form of a little girl. ‘She’s dead. She died,’ the boy said.
Henry leapt to the ground.
The child’s skin was white and her eyes were closed. He felt the pulse at the side of her neck. It beat faintly. ‘Where’s she bitten?’ he asked.
The boy pointed to his sister’s small bare foot, slender and delicate as a mouse paw. On a reddening heel were two punctures, each bright with a drop of blood.
‘Where’s the viper? What sort was it?’
‘It was brown, with a black pattern on its back. She and I were walking …’
Henry didn’t listen to the rest. ‘She’s not dead. Don’t touch her. Don’t allow her to move,’ he ordered. He pulled a kerchief from his pocket and tied it firmly around the tiny white ankle.
At that moment Becket, followed by Richard, arrived and dismounted. Richard rushed forward. ‘Sire,’ he said, ‘I know these parts. And I know that viper; it bites at this time of year. But there’s a cure.’
Henry’s whole body felt suddenly still. Inside his head he heard Rachel say, ‘When God sends an illness, at the same time He sends the cure.’
‘What is it?’
‘Artemesia cina, Sire. A poultice of the leaves and flowers soaked in hot water.’
‘It’ll grow nearby.’ Henry felt as if Rachel were speaking through him.
Richard was already snatching at some scrawny yellowish plants, gathering them into a fold he made in his cotton gown.
Thomas looked on, astonished.
‘Who are you?’ Henry asked the little boy.
‘I’m Gilbert de Clifford, sir. Who are you?’
‘I’m the King of England.’
The child burst into tears. ‘Daddy will beat me,’ he snivelled. ‘Rosie and I were meant to be dressed to welcome you. Your Highness. But we started to play and …’
‘Rosie is your sister?’
Gilbert shook his head. ‘Her name is Joan. Daddy and
Mummy call her Rosamund.’
Henry nodded. Walter de Clifford’s little saint is about to go to heaven, he thought.
Hearing her name, the girl opened her eyes. Henry felt his heart lurch. She had the most extraordinary eyes he had ever seen. The irises had no mark on them. They were a perfect blue, not the colour of sky, but of turquoise.
Don’t die! he thought. You’re too exquisite. Her hair was silver-white. Everything about her, her rosebud lips, her beautifully formed little hands, her small nose, her heart-shaped face, was of a magical perfection. He felt just by looking at her, the wounds in his heart had healed over. She was a miraculous child. A nymph.
His knights had already galloped to the gatehouse and were on their way back with a hastily assembled stretcher. ‘Keep her still,’ Henry ordered as they lifted her listless body. ‘Walk the horses slowly.’
Thomas asked, ‘Shouldn’t we cut the wound to suck the poison from it?’
‘That’s an old wives’ tale,’ the King snapped.
Thomas flushed as if Henry had struck him.
‘Your scribe knows what to do when it comes to snake bite.’
Richard, bending to nurse the plants he had gathered, had already galloped to the castle. By the time the party arrived with the girl, water was boiling and a poultice being prepared.
Henry ordered the Chancellor to stay beside him, outside the castle wall. ‘Should we not enter?’ Thomas said.
‘We must allow the family time to look after their daughter. You can’t expect them to welcome a monarch when their child is dying.’ He flung a glance at his vassal. ‘Sometimes, Tom, you’re an unfeeling idiot.’
I’m unfeeling? What about you! His lip trembled. ‘How can you speak to me like that after …?’
‘After what?’ The King’s eyes were as cold as rock.
With every hour that passed, what Henry had done to him the night before grew in the imagination of Thomas of London. It was not minutes, but hours. It was not once. It was repeatedly. He was not tied face down on a rough straw mattress that hurt his nose. They lay on silken sheets and they drank cups of wine … In the months he had stalked the King to be accepted into the inner sanctum he’d pictured the State secrets to which he would become privy, the slavish flattery from ambassadors and merchants, the opportunities for increasing his wealth, for buying glorious wines for his table and robes for his dinner parties. He’d not imagined he would ever be privileged to Henry’s ‘punishment’. He added, ‘It’s cruel, Henry. To pretend …’
‘God’s Teeth, man! If you had children … Oh, forget it. Let’s find the snake.’
The Chancellor blenched. ‘A deadly viper?’
‘Tom, we’re both wearing boots. We’re in no danger.’
It may jump. Thomas stared at the ground for a sign of movement. Henry strode towards the coppice, where thick grasses flourished at its verge. There was a shout. A moment later the King returned with a large snake dangling from the point of his sword. It was as the boy had described; brown, almost a yard long with a black zig-zag down its back. ‘There are twelve or more snakelets in there. We’ll catch them.’ Henry shook the dead viper to the ground and stamped on it making its innards spill from its cloaca. ‘C’mon,’ he urged.
The Chancellor hung back.
‘They’re tiny things. You can pick them up with your bare hands.’ A few minutes later he had two handfuls of small, squirming snakes. ‘Here, break their backs.’ He shoved a half dozen at Thomas, who backed away.
‘ I can’t touch them,’ Thomas announced in his most haughty tone.
Intense frustration filled the King’s face. As each small snake tried to escape he snapped it in two and dropped it to the ground. The Chancellor watched with an expression of disgust, while Henry looked more satisfied as his pile of dead vipers grew. ‘We’ll take them to the Cliffords to relieve their fears for their other children. You gather them up.’
Thomas took a deep breath and raised his chin. ‘I can’t.’
Henry said quietly, ‘That was an order.’
‘ Henry, I’m Archdeacon of Canterbury. You cannot command me to touch the manifestation of evil.’
The monarch turned red with fury. ‘You’re as pious as my piss bucket, you vain, thin-skinned maggot!’ He snatched the large viper by the tail and struck the Chancellor across the chest with it. ‘How dare you defy me!’
Thomas staggered backwards, shrieking. Droplets of the serpent’s blood spattered his face and clothes.
Henry began to laugh. He pulled a scarf from inside his linen blouse and dabbed it on the blood spots before he retied the bloodied silk around his neck. ‘There,’ he said. ‘Now we share Lucifer’s gore.’
His companion managed a weak smile, his nerves especially on edge because now he was terrified about the destrier that Richard had killed. He feared Henry had questioned him about it when he called him over during their ride to Clifford and whatever Richard had told him had so angered the monarch he’d shoved the poor boy off his horse. He darted a glance at his tormentor.
Henry was grinning. His flash of temper was over and he was in a mischievous frame of mind. Thomas felt such a pang of relief he staggered forward to throw himself on the King’s chest. Strong arms embraced him. He began to sob.
‘Come, come,’ Henry said. ‘I was just playing.’ He caressed the heaving back with long, rhythmic strokes.
‘When you stroke me I feel dizzy.’
‘You’ve got a hard on,’ Henry said suddenly.
‘I haven’t!’
Henry stepped back and drew his sword.
‘No!’ Thomas shrieked. ‘No that! Not your sword.’
The King turned away to slash at the foliage. ‘I HATE LIARS! YOU PROMISED NOT TO LIE!’
Thomas took deep breaths.
‘God’s eyes, man! What’s wrong with you?’ He glanced up from the foliage he was destroying and saw tears ran down his Chancellor’s face.
Thomas blurted, ‘I’m in love with you, but you don’t love me at all. You called me a maggot, and after what you did to me …’
Henry was dumbstruck. I swore at him after I killed the boar. I did call him a maggot. He resheathed his sword. ‘Of course I love you,’ he mumbled. ‘Tom, a King’s court is harsher than an Archbishop’s. I’m a fighting man. It’s important you understand that because you’ve been raised to my familiares, you must observe a certain code of honour.’
Thomas thought, What happened was my initiation! That’s what binds us together, as one man. He picked up Henry’s hand to press it against his wet cheek.
The knights who rode out to summon them into the castle found monarch and Chancellor lying on their backs with the sun on their faces. The King held Becket’s hand.
‘Has the child passed over?’
‘No, Sire. God be praised! She’s completely restored.’
‘In just over an hour? Perhaps the viper bit, but did not envenom. Or perhaps the poultice worked.’
The knight added, ‘The girl’s father believes it was a miracle, that the child herself, through her purity, neutralised its poison. He’s very excited and has called a priest to make a record of what happened. Many are saying it’s the sign she’s destined to become a saint.’
Another said, ‘Her brother swears she was dead before your arrival. Everyone concurs that the sudden appearance of Your Highness was the first sign from God she was meant to be slaughtered and return to life.’
Henry adopted a solemn expression. He had seen men and hounds bitten by vipers. They died in agony, sometimes paralysed, sometimes frothing blood. He believed the child had fainted from fright. ‘Well, here are the culprits,’ he said, pointing to the pile of limp bodies around which ants now gathered. ‘We’ll take them to the priest as further evidence.’
The Clifford family, parents and six children, plus senior household staff, stood before the front doors of the castle, all beaming happiness as Henry rode towards them. ‘Joyous day!’ they cried in unison. ‘Joy to our monarch!’ Walter de Clifford spread his arms wide. ‘His Highness brings us a miracle!’
Henry decided humility was appropriate. After greeting the family he asked gravely if he might hold in his arms the little saint-to-be, whose slip of a foot was still bandaged with the poultice.
‘We are honoured yet again!’ her father exclaimed.
He hunkered down and held his arms open to the child. She ran to him, flinging herself into his embrace. As he stood, her slight, soft body pressed against his chest, her legs around his waist, he felt again the momentary stillness that meant a being from the invisible world was present. The little girl gazed into his face with a look of adoration. He bent and very softly kissed her lips.
‘Will you marry me when I grow up?’ she asked.
Her mother cried, ‘Rosamund! You address the King!’
‘Will you?’ she persisted.
Your eyes are a turquoise sea. ‘I’d love to,’ he whispered. ‘We’ll seal it with a kiss.’ Gently he kissed her lips a second time.
‘Good, now we’re married,’ she said and began squirming.
Henry was relieved to set her on the ground. Clifford, he noticed, looked so puffed with pride he could burst.
‘Highness, will you forgive her childish …’
Henry waved the question aside. ‘As we were riding in, Sir Walter, I remarked to my Chancellor on a delicious aroma of roasting venison that seemed to be coming from this castle.’ He glanced at Margaret de Clifford. ‘I suspect your wife is not only beautiful but a peerless chatelaine. Am I wrong?’
She coloured.
Henry held his elbow out to lead her inside. When he judged the hubbub of conversation bouncing off the stone walls would cover his voice, he murmured, ‘I’d love to marry the mother.’
A shiver ran through her.
Neither he nor she exchanged a word during the banquet. A number of barons and their ladies from Wales were among the guests but not, he was relieved to see, the ravishing Eveline de Clare. He was saving her for when he moved across the river to Striguil Castle. Most of the conversation revolved around the miraculous recovery of the girl (now resting in the nursery), and the story of how the King slew the boar that had ravaged Hereford. Henry had offered its head to Foliot, who did not want it. Amid shouts of excitement from the guests he had his knights carry it into the hall and presented it to Clifford. Sir Walter was speechless.
Here goes, Henry thought. ‘If I’d had my mastiffs with me,’ he began. The dogs, lying behind his chair, knew the word ‘mastiff’. With a scrabble of claws they leapt to their feet, their calf-sized heads rearing above the table. They rested their throats on the oak board, glaring right and left.
‘Terrifying creatures,’ Clifford said.
‘They wouldn’t hurt a kitten. But …’ He looked down into his lap, as if blushing. The room was tight with silence. ‘I’m afraid my darlings have upset their stomachs with unfamiliar food on our journey. Every night they sleep beside my bed. Last night I was almost asphyxiated …’
The host began laughing, a signal for the whole company to do likewise. Henry grabbed one of the dogs by its muzzle and shook it from side to side. ‘You almost choked me, didn’t you, you naughty, FARTING beast!’ In the roars of laughter that followed Henry said to de Clifford, ‘I’d hate them to foul your floor. D’you think you could kennel them outside for me? Somewhere well away from where we sleep because they do howl when they’re not with me.’
‘Of course, Highness.’
‘And away from your own hounds,’ he added. ‘Despite what I said about kittens, they’re bred …’
An imbecile could see the mastiffs were trained killers. Clifford nodded vigorously. He held up an index finger. ‘I’ll have a pen built this afternoon. I know just the spot.’ He clicked his fingers for a servant and gave some orders in Welsh. As his head was turned away Henry glanced meaningfully at Margaret de Clifford. Her body was perfectly still but a smile curled the corner of her lips.
Henry turned and invited Walter de Clifford and any men he trusted for a private audience after the banquet. His host suggested the royal apartment.
As Henry had suspected, it showed every sign of being well occupied, with fine tapestries, cushions and vases of fresh flowers. ‘Where’s the sleeping chamber?’ he asked casually. Clifford led him along a hallway where a crimson curtained bed stood near a window. Connected to it was a smaller chamber with a smaller bed obviously the wife’s. ‘You’ll be totally secure in here, Sire, even without your guard dogs.’
There must be another entrance, Henry thought. He glanced at the walls; nothing was obvious.
In the audience chamber outside, Henry, Becket, Clifford and three men he had chosen settled over cups of light cider. Henry questioned them on attitudes among the Welsh aristocracy towards the English crown. ‘You understand, dear sirs, I’m no weakling Stephen Blois,’ he said. ‘I consider Wales part of my realm. While I’ll allow latitude to local customs and traditions – for it’s wrong to rule one province by the customs of another – I’ll not allow flouting of England’s laws.’
All warned him he would have trouble with Owain, the prince of Gwynedd, in the north.
‘When the old Earl of Chester was alive …’ one began.
‘My dearest friend,’ Henry said. ‘His heir is my ward.’ He could have added, But I’m not sentimental. He had decided to keep Chester’s territory for the Crown. ‘What sort of fellow is Owain?’
The local men looked at each other.
‘God’s Teeth!’ Henry exclaimed. ‘Speak frankly. I get lies enough at court. I don’t want them out here.’
‘He’s a born leader, Sire. And he has an uncountable number of sons, legitimate and bastard.’
Henry grunted. ‘A prince can have too many sons. Anyway, does he fight in the traditional fashion of the Welsh, like a brigand? Or has he learned from his English neighbours?’
‘He’s learned,’ Clifford said. ‘But he’s still a brigand.’
The King grew thoughtful. From his coronation day his justiciars had schooled him, Take your subjects with you, Henry. ‘Perhaps, good men, you’ll now benefit me with your opinions about Striguil Castle. It’s mine by inheritance from my grandfather. The Usurper illegally awarded it to the de Clares. I’m considering, however, that the family may have some affection for it and would keep it in good repair. I’d be interested in your comments.’ He had decided to put the Clares in charge of Striguil once more, but he wanted to have these barons believe they had a say in his policy.
The baron who had spoken up about Prince Owain replied, ‘You’d do well to turn it over to Strongbow, Sire. He’s a man any King would want as an ally.’
Henry nodded thoughtfully. ‘Thank you. I’ll consider what you’ve told me before I make a decision. Now, what of the local clergy. Are they pious? Do they fleece the poor? Are any guilty of murder, rape or theft?’
Clifford exclaimed, ‘Sire! It’s rightly said that since you took the throne such is the respect for the King’s law that a virgin may walk from one end of England to the other with her bosom full of gold and suffer no harm, and that wicked barons have vanished like phantoms. Are you telling us that in the east of the country men of the Church commit evil?’
Henry turned to Becket. ‘Archdeacon, would you like to answer our host?’
Thomas drew himself up. ‘Unhappily, what our King suggests is true. Outside the reach of his law, women and girls have been raped, men have been murdered, people have been robbed, unchastity among the clergy is rife.’
Henry added in quick Latin, ‘Pious clerics hump each other.’ Eleanor would have shivered with laughter, but out here no one understood. Thomas’s Latin is appalling, Henry thought.
Clifford crossed himself. ‘No crimes by clergy in these parts, Sire! Your kinsman, the Bishop of Hereford, keeps an eagle’s eye on his see.’
A baron said, ‘Walter, what about that girl …?’
Clifford flustered. ‘I beg your indulgence, Sire. There was a dreadful incident with a local priest. But it was reported to the Archbishop of Canterbury himself.’
Henry snorted. ‘Mother Church administers the flick of a lettuce leaf to a man of the cloth who’s committed a crime that in my court would entail the loss of his eyes. The benefit of clergy is overweening. One out of every six of my subjects claims it.’
The Chancellor shifted uncomfortably on his seat. ‘Lord King, I believe that’s …’
Henry glared at him. ‘The truth!’ Several men shuddered with fright. ‘Criminality among the clergy is widespread, as my Chancellor and Archdeacon knows from his years at Canterbury. Thanks to the misrule of Stephen their crimes go unpunished. In my grandfather’s day clergy and non-clergy were beneath the same law. The behaviour of men of the Church was better twenty-five years ago than it is today.’
Silence followed. In a quiet voice Thomas said, ‘The Church does punish her wicked sons. She casts them out. If they’re without land, they find whatever livelihood they can. Some end up as field labourers.’
‘Sometimes she casts them out,’ Henry added, grudgingly His jaw set hard. He was thinking of Roger of Pont l’Eveque, once Thomas’s bosom friend, who’d raped a boy and had him murdered when his mother brought a complaint to the local sheriff. He now was Archbishop of York.
He left Becket to question the marcher barons about the local economy. He wanted to take a nap.
Before lying on the curtained bed he lifted the tapestries and ran his fingers along the walls of the sleeping chamber. Don’t tell me I have to traipse across the park to a bathhouse to wash, he thought. But behind a tapestry he found a door leading to the bath. It had an oak tub and a looking-glass made of small squares held in place by slender beads of wood. It reached almost from floor to ceiling. It was old and tarnished, but still serviceable. He smiled as he imagined the cock pheasant admiring his fine endowment in it. He approached to examine how he looked himself. As his hand grasped the frame of the glass it shifted slightly. He gripped it with both hands and tugged cautiously. It swung away from the wall. Behind it a narrow stairway ran down to what he supposed might be a kitchen for heating water and preparing ‘small food’ for the private apartment. A little bell with a silk cord dropped down the side of the staircase. He pulled it. The tinkle still reverberated when an upturned face appeared. The servant said something in Welsh – or, if it were English, his accent was so thick Henry couldn’t understand him. He smiled, shook his head and closed the door. How will she get past the servants down there? he wondered. He remembered his father’s axiom: ‘Never underestimate the ingenuity of a bitch hound in heat or a woman who desires to lie with a man.’ The obstacles to Margaret Clifford’s arrival sharpened his anticipation. I like a woman with wit and the courage to use it.
After a short nap he returned to the main apartment where Richard was now seated beside the Chancellor, taking notes. The barons were talking crops and cattle. Everyone leapt to their feet when the King reappeared.
‘I was wondering, Sir Walter, if I could bathe before supper. I don’t see any …’
Clifford clapped his hands. ‘Sire, you will enjoy a magnificent bath at any hour you choose. Earlier today my wife herself offered to oversee the temperature of the water in your tub. The bathing chamber is behind a tapestry …’
Henry put on a look of astonishment to disguise his excitement over the arrangement he had agreed, almost wordlessly, with the Lady Clifford.
Afternoon light changed the castle, the trees along the riverbank and the river itself to gold, but in the distant sky above the mountains of Wales clouds boiled purple with a storm. Henry and Thomas stood together on a path behind a parapet, admiring the view. They strolled out of earshot of their host.
‘Much income to be gathered?’ the King asked.
‘Much.’ Thomas’s heart beat wildly. I’ve forgiven your vileness to me earlier. May the god in you embrace me again. But another thought struck him. I don’t need the god. I want the man.
‘Tomorrow you’re to interview the sheriffs,’ Henry continued. ‘You’re to discover, Tom, how much they’re stealing. By the way, how are your quarters?’
‘Most uncomfortable. I’m sharing a chamber with two of the children. Our host and hostess did not understand my status.’
‘Clifford has given his sleeping quarters to me. I could turn him out of his new bed for you. But he’ll hate me and I don’t want that. What about the royal tent? I could have it set up in the park.’ Thomas made a show of pondering this option although Henry sensed he was delighted. The royal tent. Exactly the conspicuous privilege in which you revel. ‘If that storm comes over, rain may drip through its roof. There’s been no time since leaving Brittany to mend it – but you’ll have your chou-chou to keep you warm, won’t you?’
The Chancellor choked a laugh. ‘Henry! You’re so naughty! You encourage me.’ He’ll not risk another visit here where there could be spies.
While the light lasted, the King and the knights played a local game with a leather ball that they kicked and threw to each other. The players punched and pummelled any man, even the King, who tried to snatch it from the members of one team to toss it to the other. ‘Beware my fists!’ Henry shouted. As evening shadows turned each of them into long, thin giants he clapped his hands for the game to end. The whole Clifford family, the Chancellor and some servants had been spectators, cheering wildly each time the royal team snatched the ball.
‘I need a hot bath,’ Henry announced. He was gratified to see Margaret Clifford pick up her skirts and run from the park towards the castle. Already the royal tent was rearing up beside the playing field. Men hammered in tent pegs as Henry strolled to his host. ‘Allow me, Sir Walter, a good hour for my bath,’ he said. ‘Long baths are a habit from my Anjevin childhood. The tub looks big enough for three or four. Perhaps tomorrow evening you and the Chancellor would like to join me?’
‘Sire! I would be more than honoured. No! Too honoured. I cannot accept,’ Clifford said.
Henry shrugged. ‘You, Tom?’
He felt faint. ‘I’m honoured to say yes, Sire.’
Henry intended to inform Thomas he was to remain in the sleeping chamber as a guard, while he and the lovely Margaret sported inside. He’d taken a good look at her since the morning. Despite six children her figure was trim, which meant she’d been bound after each confinement and had maintained the muscle tone of what most interested him.
The evening was still warm, although the first breaths of wind from the storm blowing across Wales made sallies now and then against the window shutters. Henry’s apartment had its candles lit and two pages waiting for orders. They had already laid out his clothes for supper. He allowed them to help him undress to his undergarments. ‘Go away now,’ he said. ‘I’ll summon you if I need your help in dressing.’ They appeared to be Welsh boys, very shy and obedient. When they’d left, Henry removed the rest of his clothes and walked naked to the bath chamber.
Somehow or other she had dismissed the bath servant and was waiting for him. There was nothing he liked more than to appear naked before a fully dressed woman – or to appear fully dressed before a naked one. He stepped in front of the glass, drew her to him and slowly rolled his tongue inside her mouth.
She began to pant.
He drew back to murmur, ‘How much time do we have?’
‘The quarter of an hour at most, Sire.’
‘Lift your skirt.’
She was of medium height. He bent his knees to enter her. As he straightened his legs, she gasped and fell back against his arm. Her feet rose clear off the floor. ‘My Lady, place one foot on the edge of the tub and one leg around my waist. I’ll give you deeper pleasure.’ Her back arched and the cry she had suppressed escaped her. He clapped his hand over her mouth and pushed the edge of his palm between her teeth. ‘Bite me,’ he whispered.
He came quickly, but stayed inside her until the pulsing of her muscles grew faint. His smiled was regretful as he withdrew. ‘I have to wash you,’ he said. ‘Squat above the bath. Piss if you need to – a lady’s piss is fragrant and exciting.’ He helped her balance on the edge of the tub, her skirts bunched around her hips. There was a sponge for washing that he dipped in the warm bath water and squeezed against her vulva three or four times. ‘You’ll smell less enticing to the mastiffs. They have an embarrassing habit of ramming their noses into places with odours they recognise. Time to leave, my beautiful. Perhaps you’ll send up a servant to wash my back?’
She looked as if he’d clubbed her. He took her by the shoulders and shook her gently. ‘Margaret. Take a deep breath. Take another one.’
She blinked. ‘May God forgive me,’ she murmured.
‘Don’t spoil it with feelings of guilt. I want you again tomorrow night. And the day after that.’ He raised an eyebrow. In her flushed face her eyes glowed. ‘You’ll find a way,’ he added. ‘You’re as clever as you’re beautiful.’
He waited a few minutes until her footsteps on the stairs had vanished before opening the mirror and pulling the tiny bell. The man who came to scrub him did not seem to understand English. Henry tried French. No response. He wanted his hair washed and the fellow would need to carry a pail of fresh water from the kitchen. In desperation, he tried Latin. The man’s Latin was fluent. He decided to question him about his employers. How long had he worked here? Was the lady kind? Was her husband? Was he kind to his wife? She had a sad feeling about her; why was that?
‘In truth, Lord King, Sir Walter treats her as a chattel, although as everyone in the district knows, it’s thanks to her that he owns this castle.’
‘So she finds solace in the Church?’
‘Yes, Sire. She has great Christian piety. Sir Walter makes a show of it. But he has little.’
‘Why were you defrocked?’ Henry asked suddenly.
The man became mute. At length he said, ‘Who told you?’
‘Only men who’ve studied in Rome speak Latin of such refinement.’
The servant had nothing to say.
‘Why did you break silence when I spoke in Latin?’
‘Because, Highness, my heart lifted in exultation to hear it spoken again. I’ve not entered a church in twenty years. She hates me. And I hate her.’
‘Are the Cliffords aware of your background?’
‘They’d throw me out.’
Henry took a quick look at the man’s hands; he’d lost no fingers. ‘Write to me if you hear something of interest.’
The bath servant gave a crooked smile. Most of his teeth were gone, but Henry could discern beneath the ravaged flesh that once he had been handsome.
‘I’ll tell you tomorrow how to address a letter so it reaches my eyes only. Now kindly dry my hair carefully, comb it so it has no knots and falls over my shoulders. I want to look impressive. Does my beard need trimming?’
‘A tiny amount, Highness.’
‘When my hair is done you’re to bind my temples with a length of wool. It protects my forehead from the crown. You’ve no idea how uncomfortable a crown is. Unless one sits as stiffly as a knight, the wretched things slip and slide. Lady Clifford will wear a blue gown, don’t you think? I’ll wear the crown with sapphires.’
When Henry made his entrance into the banqueting hall guests leapt up applauding. For an instant he saw himself as he appeared to them – a sleek, gorgeous, dangerous animal that had of its own mysterious volition manifested out of the dark.
During the ball game that afternoon someone mentioned that Strongbow, once owner of Strigul Castle, and his sister, Eveline, had forded the river and were expected at the feast that night. Henry was pleased that she was somewhere in the throng, watching him. The boar’s hideous head was on prominent display on a plinth, surrounded with a wreath of shiny dark leaves, the object célébre for the festivity. Guests were agog at its size. ‘Such honour for Sir Walter,’ they told each other.
Henry sat between a radiant Lady Clifford and her equally glowing husband. I hope she enticed him into bed in case she falls pregnant.
The chatelaine had become as talkative as she had been silent earlier. Watching them, Richard leaned to the Chancellor to whisper, ‘His Highness has lain with our hostess.’
Thomas felt nauseous. ‘That’s a wicked thing to say. His Highness would never …’
Richard replied, ‘Sir, look how she laughs and raises her chin to reveal her throat. If she hasn’t lain with him yet, she intends to.’
By now Thomas was studying Henry, how his eyes slanted to his hostess, how he turned with such amiability to his host, raising his wine cup to toast Clifford, touching his elbow, displaying to the company royal favour. He felt another spasm of nausea. ‘ Perhaps you’re right,’ he muttered.
The youth was seated slightly behind him, acting as interpreter for the Chancellor and a Welsh magnate, who spoke neither English nor French. The man owned some thousand head of cattle. ‘He stole them,’ Richard said quickly, in French. ‘Most Welsh pastoralists are still cattle thieves.’
The Chancellor smiled. ‘Congratulate him on his wealth.’
‘The Lord Chancellor greatly admires your prowess, sir,’ Richard announced. ‘He asks does your prince tax you for your cattle?’
The Welshman laughed at the question.
‘Get his exact name and where he lives,’ Thomas said. He raised his cup to the man for a toast.
Throughout the hall there was a rich air of merriment. Few could remember the last time a monarch had visited the district. Some thought it was The Lion, Henry’s grandfather, others William Rufus, his grand uncle, elder son of William I. Everyone was excited to see the descendant of the Conquerer; so brilliant, so military, so virile in his beauty, a true hero.
Clifford instructed pages to summon various guests for presentation, whispering a few words of gossip about each. When Strongbow strode forward the King rose slightly to lean across the table and grasp him forearm to forearm. ‘We’ll meet and talk a few days from now,’ he said.
The aristocrat bowed. He, of all the company, was able to look the King in the eye. Henry gave him a light, affectionate cuff on the shoulder. The ravishing Eveline stood directly behind her brother. Henry held his hand for her to kiss but ignored her, looking over her head towards someone else. She returned, flustered, to her seat. Clifford was so intoxicated with pride he had the temerity to nudge the monarch’s ribs.
‘I thought, Sire, you’d be impressed with Lady de Clare. Like her cousin in Hertford, it’s said she’s one of the greatest beauties in England.’
‘My wife is the greatest beauty in England,’ Henry replied.
His host, aghast, began to stammer a retreat.
Henry added calmly, ‘But in a few years, my little Queen-to-be will have that honour. Where have you hidden her, Walter? I want to have my fiancée on my knee.’
‘I’ll fetch her immediately, Sire.’
‘Walter, she’s asleep,’ his wife hissed. But Clifford was out of the banquet hall, pounding along a corridor to the children’s sleeping chambers. A page ran after him. Henry took the opportunity to stroke Margaret de Clifford’s thigh while he continued to offer his right hand to subjects to touch to their foreheads or to kiss.
A few minutes later the father reappeared carrying his sleepy daughter. The King stood, holding the child up for the hall to see her. People leapt to their feet but he gestured them to sit. The hubbub of conversation died. ‘Dear subjects,’ he began, ‘please take note of this beautiful and blessed child whom a deadly viper attacked. Through God’s grace and pleasure in her, its poison was neutralised. She returned from death to life.’
The hall reverberated with shouts of ‘Miracle!’
‘He does these things so well,’ Thomas muttered.
Richard could feel jealousy radiate from him. The old fool is jealous of a six-year-old. He suppressed a laugh.
Henry sat down and settled Rosamund on his knee. He stroked her silver hair and bent to her little face, intensely interested in whatever it was she said, which was, ‘Who are you?’
He kissed her forehead. ‘You’ve forgotten me already! Naughty Rosie. We’re to be married when you grow up.’
‘You look different,’ she said. ‘You smell nice. I’m sorry I didn’t recognise you. I still love you.’
He kissed her lips very lightly. ‘You’re very beautiful,’ he whispered.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘Daddy says God made me for a special purpose.’
Henry nodded and lifted her tiny hand for her to wave at the company. They roared again, waving back to her.
He passed the child to her father.
‘That was most kind of you, Sire,’ Margaret Clifford said.
‘People should know how special she is.’ He had moved his hand to her crotch.
‘Give ’em a show! Always give ’em a show,’ the Chancellor said to Richard. ‘He’s brilliant at it. They’ll go home bragging not only did they see the King and the head of the mighty boar he slew alone and on foot, they also saw a child who returned from death. It’ll be the talk from Cheshire to Dorset for the next five years.’
‘Our monarch is wily. He’s won the devotion of Clifford,’ the youth replied.
Thomas decided he despised Clifford. He was gratified Henry had already, or soon would, cuckold him.
But the King’s lavish attention to the Clifford family had a purpose neither his Chancellor or Richard suspected. He was determined to seduce Eveline de Clare. He calculated that, just as a haughty castle could not be taken by assault or siege, his tactic must be to undermine. He would ignore her. He would show favour to others, although with every glimpse of her he felt more hot with desire. His hand caressing Margaret’s crotch he imagined stroking Eveline’s. ‘Come to my bed tonight,’ he whispered to his hostess.
‘I’ll try,’ she murmured. At dusk he rose, nodded to the company and left. He was asleep when an hour later he wakened slightly as his hostess slid into bed beside him. She was wearing her evening clothes. Outside, the window shutters rattled from the first blasts of the electric storm that had arrived. ‘How long?’ Henry asked sleepily.
‘As long as you like, Sire.’ Her husband, carried away by his new social prominence, was drinking himself into a stupor with some knights. Henry shook himself awake. He wrenched his nightshirt over his head and flung it at the floor. The storm raged around the castle, drowning out Lady Clifford’s moans of pleasure.
Towards morning she told him her husband only came to her when he wanted a child. It was two years since their baby, Amice, was born, and as Clifford wanted no more, he had ignored her since then.
‘I sensed you were lonely when I first saw you,’ Henry said.
She began to weep.
‘Don’t cry. Your tears upset me. Let’s be happy. But we must take great care. We can’t allow our names to be sullied by rumours of adultery.’
She crossed herself and again asked God’s forgiveness. ‘I’d better return to my sleeping chamber.’ Her voice was a whimper. He caressed her forehead and allowed her to leave, kissing her hand as she slid away from him. The encounter had disturbed him. I should not have, he thought. It’s dishonourable to take a man’s wife while staying under his roof. His sleep was restless.
Next day the sky was of blinding brilliance, its air cleared by the night’s storm and, seeing it, Henry awoke feeling cheerful. The royal party spent the morning hawking for duck, crane and heron that paddled or waded the banks of the main river and its smaller tributaries. Henry loved to hawk at cranes because they fought back. Becket, now more expert in technique, cast his bird at one. The aerial combat between the creatures lasted almost twenty minutes, during which the King stood in his stirrups to shout encouragement to Thomas’s hawk. But it gave up and returned to the Chancellor’s fist. He was angered by her performance and gave her only half the ration of chicken flesh she had earned. She repaid him with a furious glare.
‘Be careful, Tom,’ Henry said. ‘If she takes a dislike to you she can take your eyes out before you blink.’ Moments later the crane fell from the sky. A greyhound fetched it and ran to the Chancellor, the large white body flopping between its jaws. ‘My Chancellor wins the hunt!’ the King shouted.
Thomas acknowledged the applause with a lordly nod.
‘How did you manage in the tent last night?’ Henry asked sotto voce.
Thomas gave one of his radiant smiles. ‘Very nicely,’ he said. ‘The storm was quite … thrilling.’ He pulled his scarf aside to show bruises from Richard’s teeth.
Henry punched his arm. ‘You bad dog!’ They laughed together, heads thrown back like two birds singing.
‘Boon companions,’ men remarked to each other.
The King grabbed the Chancellor and kissed both his cheeks.
Thomas’s heart thumped. Silently he addressed his mother.
Look at me now! Aren’t you ashamed you rejected me?
Richard, meanwhile, had spent a pleasant morning swimming; he captured a hare that he grilled for his breakfast and had time to write up his notes as a report to the justiciars that the Chancellor would sign later. Finally he composed a quick note to Gilbert Foliot. He had decided not to tell the Bishop that the Chancellor was now almost insane with jealousy of anyone to whom the monarch showed favour. He had little of interest to report, since he knew Foliot would not want to know that His Highness had seduced Lady de Clifford under her husband’s nose. ‘The King has won many hearts among local barons and the Chancellor is working hard,’ he wrote. Because he pretended to understand only English and Latin during their stay at Clifford Castle, Richard had heard interesting conversations among the servants, but these he decided to keep to himself.
Henry presented his hostess with the morning’s game. She had not risen at dawn as the men had, but had slept in and looked not only rested but ravishing with happiness. ‘If you could arrange a bath this afternoon as excellent as the one you arranged yesterday I’ll be forever in your debt, my Lady,’ he said. I hope your guilt has passed and we can just enjoy each other.
As he hoped, she’d enticed her husband to lie with her the night before while he was drunk, and now fussed over him, shepherding him towards his sleeping chamber with a promise that a page would bring dinner to his bed. It wasn’t guilt; it was fear, Henry decided. Not that there’s much difference for a pious woman.
He had no official duties for the afternoon. He spent a couple of hours making love to Margaret Clifford. His lust sated, he amused himself with mentoring her, for the chatelaine was as unskilled in the arts of love as a girl. Everything he did came as a revelation. ‘Oh God!’ she moaned repeatedly. ‘I’m in a dream. I’m in heaven.’ When the water in the bathtub cooled, they laid towels on the floor and continued there. ‘Let me show you something else,’ he said. He felt grateful to his father for insisting that a youth must study not only fighting, but the things that pleased women. He’d once asked Geoffrey, ‘Why do women fall in love, when we don’t?’ The Duke was tall and blond and deserved his nickname, Le Bel. ‘Being physically weaker than men, women have an instinct to disarm us with love, as a puppy rolls its belly to a savage hound. The more power a woman has, the less likely she’ll fall in love.’
Your problem with Eleanor, Henry had thought. And Louis’. And mine.
‘Never suggest this to your husband,’ he cautioned Lady Clifford. ‘It’s a specialty of my homeland.’
‘Oh, Sire! I cannot believe …’ She then spoke words he dreaded. ‘I’m so in love with you. I adore you. I’ll go mad with grief when you leave.’
‘When I leave, go to church,’ he replied in a tone that made clear what he said was a royal order. ‘Do not confess to your priest. Speak only in the silence of your heart to the Virgin. She understands love. She always forgives it and brings comfort.’
Margaret Clifford was snivelling as she left.
He told a page to summon Richard. The youth arrived with perspiration on his upper lip. He had run from the royal tent, where Thomas was interviewing the sheriffs while the youth wrote their answers in a code he’d devised. Sometimes he scribbled notes and passed them to the Chancellor. They read, He lies. His figures do not match his previous answer. Or, He conceals a large sum he extorted from one of the barons you questioned yesterday. His brilliance with figures, first noticed years earlier by Prince Eustace when, as Aelbad , Richard had served the Crown Prince first as page, later as code-breaker, had long since made the youth as invaluable to his new master as Becket was trying to make himself invaluable to the King.
Henry did not greet him, but nodded to a chair while he reclined on a divan. The familiar something about Richard still itched at him. ‘You delight my Chancellor,’ he said in a friendly tone. ‘You may sit down.’
Richard sat gingerly on the chair’s edge. He stared into his lap.
‘Remind me, how is it that you found work in the scriptorium at Canterbury?’ He wanted to tear his own hair in frustration. What is it about this boy? he berated himself.
‘Sire, it was through the kindness of your kinsman, the Bishop of Hereford, that I gained employment in Canterbury. He recommended me to the Archbishop.’
Henry suddenly laughed so loudly Richard jumped with fright. The King leaned forward and dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘I’ve a spy who will tell me who you really are.’ The youth’s white skin flushed and the perspiration on his upper lip increased. He slumped in his chair.
Why do I so often think of Rachel when I speak to him? Is it their beauty? Henry wondered. I’m taking a risk. ‘Whatever I discover of your background, you’ll have my royal amercement, on this condition – if I question you, you’ll tell me the whole truth.’
Richard wondered, Do I have to tell him what I did to the Chancellor?
‘Are you aware of the punishment for attempted regicide?’ he asked abruptly, not knowing why he had chosen this threat. Richard shook his head. He was perfectly still now. The monarch could see the scribe prayed in silence to whatever it was he had as his spiritual guide. ‘But you’ve heard of it?’
‘No, Sire.’
‘The criminal is blinded. His hands are struck off. He’s then thrown naked into a cauldron of boiling water.’
Richard pretended to faint. Henry hesitated a moment before throwing a jug of apple juice into his face.
‘I’m sorry, Sire,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve never fainted before.’
‘You didn’t faint then, you scoundrel.’
Richard gave a tiny smile. ‘No. But I wanted to, Sire. You terrify me.’
Henry whacked him across the ear. ‘No more play-acting. You understand?’
‘Perfectly, Highness.’
Am I making a mistake? Henry wondered. ‘On your knees, boy.’ He enclosed the strong, thin paws with his broad palms. ‘Repeat: I vow I am your man, King Henry of England. My life is at your disposal. If I break this vow to tell you the truth, the whole truth and only the truth, I am outlawed and any man may take my life with impunity. God is my witness.’
Richard repeated the words without hesitation.
Good memory, Henry thought. ‘Excellent,’ he said with a smile. A chance remark by Gilbert Foliot a few days earlier had alerted him to the scribe’s role as a spy for the Bishop of Hereford. ‘So, Richard, you report to Bishop Foliot on the Chancellor?’
‘Yes, Sire.’
‘And on me?’
‘No, Sire. Your kinsman desires to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury. His concern is that the Chancellor may influence you to put forward someone else. My master hates His Grace the Bishop, who humiliated him at Canterbury. He called him Toad. All the monks call him by that name behind his back.’
‘Foliot may hate him. But why do the Christ Church monks hate Thomas?’
‘They despise him because his Latin is poor. They’re envious of his relationship with the Archbishop. They disapprove of his extravagant way of life. He enjoys tormenting them with it. He says to them, “I was born for victory and power. I have an iron will. You lot, keep your humility. Keep eating beans”.’
‘And me?’
‘You fascinate the Chancellor, Sire, but he’s of an uncontrollably jealous nature. He grows angry when you show favour to others.’
‘He’s in love with you?’
‘No, Sire. As his personal scribe I have no choice but to do his bidding, although …’ For a moment he was embarrassed.
Henry nodded at him to continue.
‘He’s forced many other youths in Canterbury and in your palaces. His appetite is insatiable. I demand payment. The others do what he demands without fee.’
There are certain things I don’t want to know about my Chancellor, Henry thought. He decided to change the subject. ‘What have you learned from the servants’ gossip while we’ve been in this castle?’
‘That you made love to a woman here. The chambermaids found seed and fluids from a lady.’
Who was the woman?’
‘Nobody knows. But they say you had the mastiffs kept outside because you wanted to smuggle her in.’
‘Do you know who she was?’
He nodded. ‘Our hostess.’
‘How can you assert that?’
‘From observation, Sire.’
Uncannily intelligent. ‘What else?’
‘The Lady de Clare was downcast because Your Highness ignored her.’
‘I was most amiable to her brother.’
‘Yes, Sire. That made her extremely angry. She and her brother fought. He told her if she was not more docile and less arrogant no man would want her, whatever her beauty, and she’d end up in a nunnery, especially as he had nothing for her dowry. She became distraught and wept. He told her she should be agreeable to Your Highness, to soften your heart so you would be inclined to return their property. Then he’d have money for a dowry for her.’
‘I find this is all most interesting. However, I called you here to write a letter to my wife.’
The affectionate note he dictated to Eleanor was about the morning’s hawking, the excellence of his reception at Clifford Castle and the physical beauty of Wales from his view of it across the river. He signed it H and drew a falcon stooping from the sky. In his own hand he added, ‘My ardour for you’.
Several days later when the letter arrived Eleanor read it with a wry smile. I believed his note about the boar. But this? Nothing puts Henry in such a playful mood as a conquest. I wonder who she is?
At Clifford Castle that night Douglas came to his chamber while he was still awake.
‘Why are you going to Wales, Henry – apart from the fact that you want to lie with the girl with green eyes?’
‘I need to subdue the Welsh princes or they’ll attack the border lands of England again and degrade my authority.’
The Highlander grunted. ‘I notice you’ve pardoned the young murderer.’
‘Richard? Murder, was it? Who?’
Douglas’ expression was truculent. ‘Lad, there’s things better not talked about. Don’t ask him. He won’t lie. But he won’t tell you, either. He doesn’t know their names. Except for one.’
In an even tone and ignoring the colour that suffused the Highlander’s cheeks, Henry repeated, ‘Whose name is that.’
‘You’re a fool to ask. But since you have I’ll tell you. Eustace. He poisoned Prince Eustace. So Henry, yes, you feel sick now, you want to vomit – in part you owe the throne to that vermin. Stephen’s reign collapsed the morning Eustace died.’
Henry snatched at a jug of cider standing on a table beside the bed. He downed two cups. ‘Who was the boy’s father?’
Douglas grinned. ‘Wondered when you’d ask me that. The youth believes he’s dead because the Church spread a rumour he’d committed suicide. His mother believed it and went mad. He was a bishop. He fled to the court of Red Beard when the charge of Druidism was made. He’s a brilliant man. Terrifies the Pope.’
‘Such a father helps explains Richard’s intelligence.’ Henry realised he was talking to calm himself.
‘Go to sleep, lad.’ The Highlander rolled on his side and gave a loud snore.
Henry was astonished at how deeply he slept that night. He awoke joyous. He felt cleansed of something. Rachel was with me again, he thought.
But inside the royal tent that night there was turmoil. Lying in the bathtub the Chancellor made a grab for Richard but his scribe braced his feet against the oak sheaves of its side and pushed himself backwards. ‘Suck it yourself,’ he said.
‘How dare you!’
‘His Highness knows I lamed his horse, but he believes it was an accident. I told him I was helping you dismount. Now I’ll confess to him you ordered me to do it because you feared the boar hunt.’
‘You ungrateful slut!’
Richard dressed and slipped from the tent, ran across the thick-dewed grass to the castle where a sleepy nightwatchman opened the door. ‘I wish to pray,’ he said. The man grunted and pointed the direction to the chapel. Candles burned inside. Richard walked past the font and hesitated, waiting until he sensed the place to speak to the Dark Lady. It was near a side wall. ‘Lady, I ask forgiveness,’ he said aloud.
Instantly, she appeared, her honey skin, her blue gown, her abundance of black hair. As he gazed at her with the inner sight he’d had since childhood he felt faint once more, but from love of her. ‘Gratitude fills my heart, Lady, and I know it’s thanks to you. The King has pardoned my many transgressions.’
Over her huge, soft eyes the lids lowered so she looked at him from slits. ‘You and I know, Aelbad, you are an instrument of evil – and evil is necessary for good to assert itself. But you don’t know this, child – that at any moment I can reveal to Henry, with whom I converse every night while he sleeps, it was you who murdered me.’
‘No! I beg you.’
‘You are to observe your vow to him.’
He nodded, covering his crotch with his hands to hide from her that he had peed himself in terror.
She smiled. ‘Say “Amen”,’ she ordered.
‘Amen. Amen,’ Aelbad whispered. As he rose from his knees he realised someone watched him. He turned his head a fraction, the hairs on the back of his neck jumping up.
A voice growled, ‘Pissed yourself in chapel.’ There was a snort of laughter. Douglas had been keeping his eye on ‘Richard’ ever since they both arrived in Hereford. He’d been waiting for a chance to break his neck in a way that would not arouse suspicion and was appalled to learn that, without asking his advice, Henry had taken the young fiend under his protection.
‘Just remember this, scum, wherever I am, wherever you are, I’ll be watching you. Step out of line and you’re dead.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Richard whispered. Suddenly he added, ‘I’m sorry I tried to murder you when I was younger, when I worked for Prince Eustace. I deeply regret I tried to murder His Highness. I ask your forgiveness.’
‘I don’t give it.’ The Highlander gave another growl of disgust. Next morning he with three knights left at dawn to rejoin comrades in the regiment still guarding the midlands.
That afternoon, after fond farewells to the Cliffords, the royal party forded the Wye.