Within a fortnight Eleanor was riding and at the end of May her birthing cloths were unwound. She was slender and flexible again. It was late in the year for hawking, but she rode with Henry on deer hunts. One hot day at the beginning of June he cantered up beside her. ‘Let’s dismount,’ he said. The mastiffs danced around them as they walked to the shade of a tree. ‘Something tells me …’ he began.
She recognised the gleam in his eye and lifted her chin defiantly. ‘Maybe I’m bleeding.’
‘You’re not bleeding, Lady,’ he said. ‘The dogs would sniff at you if you were. They don’t. But I want to.’
The rest of the hunting party vanished when Henry dismounted and held cupped hands for the Queen’s foot.
By July Eleanor knew she was with child again.
Her husband surrendered his days to the demands of royal office, its complicated burdens, demands, risks, nauseating flattery, the requirement to maintain a regal demeanour with all but his inner circle. Most of the week he began work as soon as the prime prayers ended. ‘The plod of life,’ he muttered. ‘The plod.’ There were documents to be read and signed, decisions to be taken, tactics to devise. One day he burst out to Theobald, ‘Everyone lies to me!’
‘Of course, dear boy,’ the Archbishop said. ‘You’re the King.’
‘Do they lie to you?’
‘They tell me they’re chaste when they’re not. They deny they keep catamites. Their bastard children they claim are nephews and nieces. They say they’ve been in prayer when they’ve been asleep. They gluttonise and assert they’ve been fasting. The lies you’re told are of a more practical nature I presume?’
Henry grunted. Theobald, he thought, was not above a small, practical lie himself if it were to the benefit of Mother Church.
Theobald had called on the King to check on his protégé. ‘Thomas does well as Chancellor?’
‘Exceedingly. His restoration of the Palace of Westminster will bring it to a state more beautiful than ever before. And our treasury …’ His eye gleamed. ‘Nigel, our Treasurer, has restored the machine and keeps it running perfectly. But it’s your Thomas who devises power to drive it forward. He brings me gossip from the city and he makes me laugh. He’s invented names for everyone at court. Not my justiciars, of course, but all the pompous bishops, magnates and ambassadors.’
At least once a week the Chancellor sat beside the King at a table covered with chequered cloth, the same one used by the barons of the exchequer; the cloth’s pattern had given its name to the government function. Becket used whatever came to hand as counters. He would pile onto a square that represented, for example, Kent, a handful of acorns. ‘Each of these, Highness, represents five hundred marks. That should be our income. But you see, I have to take away two, because the cost of rebuilding Westminster Palace …’ In his head he could do figures for which Henry needed an abacus. Sometimes the King ordered, ‘Slow down!’ One day he remarked, ‘You have wonderful eyes, Tom. They’re the shape of that fish the English call Dover sole.’ He paused and leaned towards Becket’s ear. ‘What a pity you’re not a woman.’
Thomas blurted, ‘I’d love to be yours, Lord King.’
Henry laughed. ‘Shameless scoundrel!’ He cocked his head to one side, a light, sardonic grin on his lips. ‘I’m not a virgin in that respect, Chancellor.’
Thomas was so astonished his jaw dropped, making Henry laugh again.
‘Yairs. When I was twelve years old one of the grooms in our castle in Anjou invited me to join a game called ‘Use the loser’. It was a wrestling match village boys played on Saturday evenings. Whoever won could use the one he’d beaten as a woman.’ He halted, watching the Chancellor’s face.
Becket felt his breathing stop.
‘I won every match – until a groom about eighteen years old shouldered his way into our group. He was twice my size. He beat me.’
The Chancellor reddened. ‘So, my Lord, you’ve experienced …?’
‘He made sure I experienced everything.’
‘And?’
‘I broke his nose with a lump of wood.’
Becket swallowed. ‘That was rather …’
‘That, Chancellor, was justice. Nothing that lacks justice is morally right. The lout had cheated. He’d broken the rules of the game. It was for hairless boys who wanted to kiss and fondle each other as practice for when they would be fondling girls.’
‘What further …?
‘What further punishment? I told my father. He said, “If he’ll mistreat a lad half his size, he’ll mistreat our horses.” He was banished from Anjou.’I’m telling him this so he begins to understand justice. At Canterbury all they talk of is mercy. He has no concept of the rule of civil law.
But the Chancellor thought, He confides in me his secret love of men.
‘Anyway,’ Henry continued, ‘the young brute became a mercenary in Louis’ army and some years later I had the melancholy duty of overseeing his burial.’
Becket’s heart pounded. Melancholy duty. If he hated the groom, why ‘melancholy’?
The King’s mind had already moved on. ‘What’s next? We spoke last week about Roger Whatshisname. You were to determine his wealth.’
The Chancellor collected his wits. ‘You’ve destroyed two of his castles, Highness. Whathisname has two more, plus a manor house and extensive grazing land.’
‘For refusing to destroy all his castles the Crown punishes him by seizing everything.’
‘Excellent, Sire. His cattle are the best in England for making cheese.’
Henry squeezed Becket’s thigh. ‘All mine. Draw up the documents.’
Half a dozen scribes worked in the chamber. Had he been alone, the Chancellor would have leaped in the air and clicked his heels. He turned to the scribes and barked an order instead.
Becket had confided to the Archbishop that his goal was to be accepted into the royal familiares. After dinner that day he wrote to Theobald.
Dear Father, as you predicted, the King is warming to my presence. Today he spoke to me of intimate matters. He is exceedingly generous with physical endearments to everyone, so I place no great weight on the affection he sometimes shows me. He kisses his dogs, horses and hunting birds, and often embraces the justiciars, kissing de Beaumont and de Lucy on the lips. But I do rejoice in the familiarity with which he treats me. I heard him refer to me as ‘a touchstone’. He meant I keep him informed of the mood of his low-born subjects in the city. Dear Father, if you happen to discuss me again, would you suggest to his Highness that I can be his ‘magic lantern’, shining light into the dark recesses of his subjects’ lives. The term has a certain mystique that will appeal to him.
A few hours later the monarch returned to read through the royal decree that the baron’s honours, manor houses, chattels and beasts were forfeit to the Crown. When he’d read it Thomas ordered, ‘Wax!’ A scribe hurried to wax the parchment. The Chancellor held out a quill for the King, but Henry suddenly drew his sword. Those in the chamber leapt backwards.
Henry slashed HR into the wax. ‘What’s wrong with you all!’ he yelled.
‘S-S-Sire! You make us seem like m-m-midgets.’
The King did a little dance, singing, ‘M-m-m-midgets! M-m-midgets. How I love my midgets and their quills.’ He snatched a young scribe from his stool to twirl him around the scriptorium. Others leapt up, squealing with excitement, and began to dance. An inkhorn fell to the floor. The monarch dashed to the writing boards and flung all the inkhorns down. ‘MIDGETS! MIGHTY MIDGETS!’ he sang at the top of his voice. Guards stationed in the courtyard heard the gleeful cacophony and glanced at each other, wondering if they should investigate.
Before he left Henry pinched Becket’s cheek.
The Chancellor lay awake most of the rest of the night.
The following evening Becket invited Richard once more to dine with him. He gave him two cups of wine. ‘I must leave now, sir,’ the youth said, but the Chancellor discerned a sly smile in his eyes.
‘Why must you?’
‘People will misconstrue my presence here.’ Richard looked coy and nervous, but Becket was heady with power.
‘To hell with them.’
Richard cringed against his dining chair. The Chancellor was tall, athletic and easily able to overpower his scribe.
‘To hell. Because, little Lord, I’m going to take you to heaven.’ In a soft, smooth voice he added, ‘In my arms, Richard, you’ll die.’
And inside a secret pocket of my robe, you shit, I conceal a stiletto, from which, if I choose, you’ll die much faster. The youth allowed himself to be led towards the sleeping chamber. He felt a fit of giggles coming on but managed to turn the shaking inside his chest to a sound like a sob of terror. ‘Please don’t hurt me, sir,’ he whispered. His glance darted around the room. A brazier warmed it and on a side table stood a large pot of goose grease.
‘What’s that?’ he asked.
‘Don’t be impatient, naughty boy. I may have to spank your bottom.’
Later that night, at the Chancellor’s door, Richard murmured demurely, ‘Do I get a reward? For being a good boy?’
Thomas chuckled. ‘I’ll give you a coin.’
‘A gold one?’
For a fleeting instant the Chancellor wondered if Richard really had been a virgin.
‘Of course a gold one.’
Night after night the Chancellor gazed at Richard’s angelic face as he fell into the little death. ‘Die for me, sweet boy,’ he whispered. He stopped counting the number of coins he gave his little Lord.
After a fortnight the scribe became playful. ‘Wear a blindfold, sir,’ he said.
‘No, I enjoy watching you too much.’
‘So, sir, I’ll wear the blindfold.’
Laughing, the Chancellor agreed.
‘Who are you?’ Richard asked.
‘I’m Thomas of London. Your handsome Thomas.’
‘No, sir. Someone else.’
Thomas chuckled as, abruptly, he realised the purpose of the game. ‘I’m the Earl of Leicester!’
‘Yes!’ Richard replied. To his paramour’s astonishment the boy then mimicked Leicester’s deep voice, murmuring into Becket’s ear, ‘Hullo, you handsome creature.’
‘Brilliant!’
Behind his blindfold Richard laughed. ‘Before my voice broke I sang frequently. I entertained great lords and ladies and I learned—’
‘What! What did you learn?’
I’ve said more than I should have. ‘How to exercise my vocal cords. I suppose I’ve …’ He shrugged. ‘I dunno.’
They played ‘Who am I?’ for many nights. Richard expertly and Thomas inexpertly imitated voices and mannerisms of imagined partners. Thomas liked to dress up in bits and pieces of finery that could be attributed to the character he or Richard would nominate. At last every bishop, most of the baronage, even the Bishop of Rome had been played. But when Thomas repeated, ‘Gilbert Foliot, Skinny Shit’. Richard whispered, ‘That’s cheating, sir. We’ve done him already. Someone else.’
‘I can’t think of anyone.’
In a deep, silky voice the youth said, ‘You’re Guillaume Plantagenet.’ The hairs on the Chancellor’s neck stood up. It could have been the King’s brother himself who spoke.
‘You mustn’t say that!’ He tried to wrench the blindfold from Richard’s face but the boy was preternaturally strong and held the cloth hard against his eyes.
‘All right, I’m Henry,’ Richard said.
The Chancellor recoiled. ‘Get out of my chamber!’ he shouted. ‘You vile, treasonous—’
For weeks afterwards in the scriptorium the Chancellor ignored his finest scribe. With time on his hands, Richard took the opportunity to write to Foliot.
When T is with me in his private quarters he plays a game in which he pretends I am His Highness. I find it most embarrassing. Is it treason, Your Grace? I fear to be implicated, but do not know how to stop him. He threatens to send me back to Canterbury if I do not cooperate with him, and I know you want me to remain in the royal scriptorium. Please advise me.
The Bishop of Hereford read the parchment three times, his hands trembling. When he had memorised it he flung it into a brazier where the stench of burning skin was as sickening as the message written on it.
On Sundays Henry rode to Windsor to see his mother and his bastard, Geoffrey.
The Chancellor accompanied the monarch, en route discussing the costs of restoration of royal property, the masons, carpenters and weavers he had hired. Henry said, ‘It’s fortunate you weren’t born a man of rank, Tom. A court needs men with experience in the world of low-born people. In Normandy my father and I knew our vassals. We visited them. We ate in their hovels. We paid physicians to care for them when they were ill and hired midwives when they had a baby due. If their animals were injured we had them attended by our own men. We understood their lives.’ He sighed, staring into the distance. ‘Here there’s so much to be done I’ve no time to get to know my subjects of low rank.’
When he glanced at Becket the King realised he’d injured his Chancellor’s feelings. How vile his life, Henry thought. His self-esteem is entirely dependent on the approval of others, most especially mine. A second thought came. He’s crippled inside. A spasm of pity rushed through him. Suddenly he felt a cool breath on his cheeks and the hairs on the nape of his neck rose. An unseen speaker whispered, ‘Only Death can straighten that man’.
Henry turned, smiling. ‘But you, Tom, are not of low rank because I value you so highly.’
‘My prayer is that you will use me, Sire, as a lantern to see into the lives of your lowly subjects.’
‘That’s it!’ Henry exclaimed. ‘I have scores of spies, but none can do what you can because all of them have specific tasks. But you, Tom … what did Tibult say to me the other day? “Tom’s a magic lantern for the throne”.’
Becket flushed with excitement. He murmured some words of thanks to the King and they rode on in silence for a while. As they did the monarch observed his horsemanship. When out hunting, Henry was too focused on the chase to give attention to the Chancellor’s use of a horse. But as they continued their journey he began to frown. ‘Loosen your reins,’ he said. ‘You’re hurting his mouth.’
‘Highness, I wasn’t—’ The Chancellor had no time to blink. The King slashed Becket’s reins with a dagger. The stallion tossed its head as Thomas tried to clasp it around the neck. The escort of knights shouted derision.
Henry turned to the knights. ‘Shut up! Not one of you could do in an hour the calculations he does in an instant, in his head. He fills our treasury. And your bulging stomachs.’ He turned back to Becket. ‘Dismount,’ he ordered. He swung down from his own horse, handing its reins over. With a leap, he mounted the un-reined stallion. ‘Now, Tom. I’ll teach you how to ride.’
At first, shock and humiliation made Thomas unable to concentrate on the monarch’s instructions. That didn’t matter because while Henry appeared to be talking to the man, he was communicating in mental pictures with his horse. ‘Walk slowly and evenly,’ he told it. ‘When he pulls your mouth, jerk to a stop.’ To the Chancellor he said, ‘You see, Tom, the most spirited stallion is as sweet as a damsel if you treat him gently.’
A new flood of excitement brightened Becket’s eyes. Tom. He keeps using my diminutive. He began to relax as the stallion obeyed the slightest pressure on its mouth and flanks. In silent exultation he cried to himself, ‘The King gives me his horse to ride!’ He could feel something odd about its saddle. Surreptitiously he pressed his groin down and a concave dip greeted him. It’s true! His saddles are made to accommodate his private parts. Becket felt breathless.
‘Not bad,’ Henry was saying. ‘Now, very gently, as if you were riding a virgin …’
He darted a glance at his Chancellor. Their eyes met and for a moment both laughed. They broke into a trot.
Matilda watched their approach from behind a parapet at Windsor Castle. As soon as she was alone with her son she demanded, ‘What were you thinking, Henry! Allowing a man of no rank to ride your destrier?’
‘I was thinking I want my Chancellor to stop tearing horses’ mouths,’ he replied.
‘You’ll give him wrong ideas.’
‘Such as?’
‘That he’s becoming part of the royal familiares.’
To annoy her he answered, ‘What if he were?’
‘Henry, I’ve known Thomas of London much longer than you and I understand men of his stripe. Haggard with ambition, craving grandeur. Don’t promote him to the familiares but do hint you may consider it. He’ll work twice as hard to please you.’ Their eyes locked. ‘You bedazzle him. You’re the sun in his firmament. If he were an earl he’d see you for what you are.’
‘And what is that, Mother?’
‘A man of twenty-two who neglected to control his wife.’
‘You are hateful.’ Henry picked up Little Geoffrey. ‘We’re going to shoot arrows at trees,’ he told his son and left the Empress without saying goodbye.
The letter Eleanor wrote to Erasmus was simple.
The outcome you foresaw threatens. I am blackmailed.
When Guillaume arrived in Paris, as a courtesy he visited the palace to pay his respects to his liege lord. Louis sent a member of his royal guard to say he was out hunting, although anyone could see the Oriflamme flying from the turrets, announcing His Highness was at home. It suited both of them not to meet.
Guillaume left his horse and his fine riding cloak with his squire and made his way on foot to the guild, where he asked directions to the chamber of the Master of Philosophy. The scholar who conducted him, a young German, assumed he was a former student.
‘Whom shall I announce?’ he asked.
‘Eleanor’s brother-in-law.’
The German stiffened. It was hardly a polite message to the Master. But when he glanced at Guillaume’s tunic and boots, the gold rings on his fingers and the confidence with which he strode across the flagstones he decided not to remonstrate.
‘Certainly, Lord,’ he muttered, hastening to the door.
The Master’s apartment was furnished more lavishly than Guillaume had anticipated. It had rich carpets and many strange and lovely objects from Outremer, all in colours much brighter than one would find in Paris, except in the houses of nobles. Erasmus stood up from the desk at which he was working to walk round it to greet Guillaume with a curt bow. He nodded to the German to leave. He had wine on a side table. Guillaume noticed his hand shook as he poured them each a cup.
‘I apologise for interrupting your work, Master.’ Guillaume sniffed. On the desk, laid out on a thin, straight board was the body of a small dead animal. ‘What’s that smell? What are you doing, exactly?’
‘This kitten died from poison. By dissecting it I’m attempting to discover which of its organs were affected.’
‘And what is that?’ Guillaume nodded at the small fine blade the Master held in his palm.
‘I call tell you the word in Persian. In French there’s no name for it. In this country such implements are unknown.’ The blade was the length of Guillaume’s thumbnail. Erasmus snapped it back inside its ivory handle and laid it on the desk beside the smelly kitten.
In silence Guillaume took the proffered drink and handed Erasmus the Queen’s letter.
In the half second it took him to read it, Erasmus seemed to age ten years.
When he looked up Guillaume’s fury with him softened slightly. ‘So, Master,’ he said. ‘What does your philosophy suggest? You took advantage of a lonely woman, whose husband was naive and eager to please her. He was happy. He wanted her to be happy too. He allowed her a certain liberty out of his natural generosity. He was young, he respected her sagacity and experience. He expected her to use liberty wisely. You ruined all that. She’s lied to my brother that the child is his. He knows it’s not.’
Erasmus swallowed. ‘How is the boy? How is his health?’
‘Excellent. He looks more like his father every day. Meanwhile the King has a question for you. How long were you his wife’s lover? You attended her when she was Queen of France. Did you lie with her then?’
‘No! no! I swear that …’ he dropped his gaze. ‘Only once did I ever …’
‘Once! Don’t insult my intelligence, Master.’
‘I caressed her. Just caresses. But I swear, only once. One night in Poitiers.’
‘You fed her a sleeping draught and raped her?’
‘That’s an odious suggestion!’
Guillaume regarded him a long while, silent. An aphrodisiac? he wondered. Eastern people are famous for them. He also knew the temperament and pride of his sister-in-law. Eleanor’s too haughty to allow a commoner to mount her. Something strange took place. ‘The royal bloodlines may not be contaminated. Only those of royal blood can …’ Guillaume halted . I’ve gone dangerously close to revealing a secret, he thought. Calmly he continued, ‘The King, through his mother, has lineage to the first of the kings of the English, Cerdic. He’s determined your child can’t endanger offspring of his own blood with a claim to the throne.’
‘So I may have him?’
Guillaume shook his head. ‘The King’s instructions are that he is not to cross the Channel.’ There was another silence. ‘The Queen is due to give birth again in late February or early March. I come to request you attend as Her Grace’s physician.’
‘If I refuse?’
‘I was being polite.’
‘I have time to return to my village to say goodbye to my family?’
‘Master, my brother and I don’t give a fig for your family.’ Guillaume stood to leave. ‘I’ll send an escort in good time for you to arrive in England before Her Highness is due.’
‘King Louis may refuse me leave.’
Guillaume regarded him as if he were witless. ‘Kings are different from other men, Rumlar. They may hate each other, but when majesty is at stake, they’re brothers. Especially, I suspect, in the case of a queen they’ve shared.’ He gave Erasmus half a smile. ‘If word were to reach the ear of Louis that you lay with his wife …’
‘No, no!’
‘You may try to convince your colleagues of that, but I suspect you’d be hard-pressed to prove your innocence in France, since your guilt in England is already established. Adultery with a queen is a capital offence in both countries. For both parties. For a queen, the charge is treason.’
‘She wasn’t a queen when she … when it happened.’
Guillaume was a head taller than Erasmus. At the doorway he placed his hands on the Master’s shoulders and bore down, forcing the older, weaker man to brace himself to retain his footing. ‘She is now. Don’t leave Paris,’ he said. ‘Kings have long arms.’
When the door closed Erasmus sat with his head in his hands. For a long while he was still as a stone. But at length he felt an earthquake travel the length of his torso until it tore open his head. What gushed from his eyes, nose and mouth could have been water or blood.
An hour later his German student opened the door and found him curled on the floor. Beneath his face the carpet was wet through. The youth rushed to him. ‘Did that man assault you? Should I escort you to the infirmary, dear Master?’
‘Not necessary. In my other chamber I have all the herbs I need.’ The youth was so alarmed Erasmus knew he must make an explanation. ‘My visitor brought terrible news.’
The young man nodded as if familiar with every terror of life. He took a deep breath. ‘Sir, you have a class. We are already waiting. Shall I …?’
Erasmus stood. ‘Thank you for reminding me. I’ll be there shortly.’ As he gathered his documents he thought, How apt. They were due to study a description of the execution of Socrates. From a locked cupboard in his second chamber he lifted out a handful of foul-smelling seeds.
He swept into the hall of restive students, feeling an antic mood fall on him. ‘My noble scholars,’ he began. He opened his palm. ‘These unremarkable seeds that develop inside white roadside flowers in Outremere are the most famous murder weapon in history!’ He was prepared for the objections of the monks: surely The Cross bore that ignominious title.
‘Yes, Brother, reason out your case. Start with how Our Lord died, from what physical causes.’
‘Loss of blood?’
‘You’re getting close.’
‘Pain?’ someone else tried.
‘One doesn’t die from pain.’ Erasmus realised he was enjoying himself. How sweet it is to know one’s death is near, he reflected. These poor fools have been taught from infancy that death is the gate to Hell. Only the most illuminated know it is indeed, but that they are living on its inside, and once they’ve passed through, they’ll be free. As I will be a few months from now. He knew the Plantagenets would have him murdered.
‘Our sins?’ another ventured.
The Master held up his hand. ‘It was suffocation that killed our Lord. What is it we all need for life? Breath! The nails through the Saviour’s flesh caused traumatic tension in His arms and shoulders. In such circumstances, the body releases huge quantities of fluid that makes it way to the lungs. Unable to move, his lungs filled so He was unable to breathe. His was a slow and agonising death, drowning in His own body fluid. The Romans were clever and cruel, were they not? The Greeks, as we will now discuss, were more humane in their executions.’ He opened his palm to show them the seeds of hemlock.
Once back in his chamber he went to his desk to continue dissecting the kitten. The scalpel had vanished. He sat quietly, returning in memory to the day of his son’s birth – the church bells ringing so loudly the bones of his skull had reverberated as he lay on a narrow bed in the Poitiers tavern. A smell of grilled fish wafting from the back of the building had made the August air even more stifling. Unable to sleep, he had composed a letter to his wife; that he had been detained and would not be coming home for another year. His family had no need of his salary. Their landholdings were extensive, and unlike western people they owed homage to no one. They owned five hundred goats, olive groves and oil presses, vineyards and fishing boats. Over the years kings and nobles had presented Erasmus with the objects they valued most; hunting birds, war horses, jewels. He sold them for books, fishing nets or more goats. Sometimes he bought his Parisienne concubine a gift; fabric for a gown, soft sheets for her bed, a fur cloak. He had taught her to read and before he left for the south she was learning to write. Once he had given her oil of the Herb of Grace. But he had prepared it himself from fresh ingredients and had administered it in the correct way – one drop blown through a clean straw onto her cervix. ‘It’s red hot!’ she’d screamed. After that he persuaded her that at certain times an alternative was the better option. ‘Will I go to hell?’ she’d asked. ‘No,’ he’d assured her. ‘Only priests go to hell.’ He and a Greek colleague discussed the oddities of the Franks whom they strived to educate. Out of caution, they conversed in Persian. ‘The Church enslaves their minds with an iron yoke,’ Erasmus said. His colleague was sardonic. ‘Rome has fallen. Rome has risen. Her centurions carry swords disguised as crosses.’ The Rumlar had laughed in response. ‘And her army is as mercenary as ever.’
He recalled conjuring his concubine’s sweet face, her forehead bunched in concentration over a parchment, while outside the bells chimed on and on. Bands of grief crushed his chest. He had loved Eleanor from the moment he first attended her when she was Queen of France. ‘I’ve had my share of paradise on this earth,’ he had told himself. Finally the bells had faded into silence and he fell into the arms of Hypnos.
He had woken late in the afternoon, soggy with perspiration, but calm, knowing there would be no urgent message from the Duchess calling him back to the palace. He could breathe again and he felt blessed. He had fathered a noble child, one who brought joy to a woman sublime in her beauty and refinement.
Next morning he had set out for Paris, arriving before the start of the Michaelmas term. ‘Another little Rumlar?’ his colleagues smirked. He’d replied with a cryptic smile and a line of Arabic poetry none understood. All Paris was talking about the Duchess of Aquitaine’s son and the death, three days later, of Bernard of Clairvaux, the holiest man in Christendom. King Louis was inconsolable. He wailed with grief, but whether for the birth of the heir he had failed to sire or for the passing into eternal life of the man who had launched him on the calamitous Second Crusade, nobody was certain.
Erasmus began preparations to rescue his son. He went to the library of the Abbey of St Denis where he asked to see maps of England – to study the number of its monasteries, he said. The country was dense with churches, abbeys, cathedrals and nunneries, Benedictine, Cluniac, a few Cistercian. Aware of the curiosity of the monks, he took copious notes, but what he was memorising was the geography of southern England, especially its smaller roads and seaports. He packed one saddlebag with a selection from his pharmacopoeia, a second with a monk’s cowled cloak and warm clothes for a child. His brain carried the maps.
In England, the King bade farewell to his wife and Prince Henry and set out for the coast. He was escorting his mother back to Normandy, in charge of her illegitimate grandson, the motherless Little Geoffrey. When he had settled them in Rouen, he rode for France.
Envoys from both countries had already travelled back and forth, clearing the path for a meeting between the monarchs that, if it failed, would lead to war. At stake was Henry’s title as Duke of Aquitaine and his overlordship of Anjou. Robert de Beaumont and a grey yearling filly accompanied him.
Louis was enthroned under the mighty elm on the border of Normandy. Beneath its branches Kings of France had parleyed for decades with the Men of the North Wind whose ancestors had arrived by night in dragon boats to rape and plunder. After years of terror the heirs of Charlemagne had decided caution was the better part of valour; they ceded the marauders a broad swathe of coastal territory in exchange for the security of the Ile de France. No French monarch could ever afford to forget that Vikings had sailed up the Seine to the very gates of Paris – and only left when awarded the territory the French entitled ‘Normandy’.
A crowd of knights surrounded Louis. Snow still lay on the ground, but the day was otherwise mild and windless. Louis was so well wrapped in fur only his eyebrows and eyes were visible. Henry wore a heavy riding cloak and fur-lined boots. The filly, in a scarlet padded caparison to keep her warm, stepped daintily, her small hooves indented the snow in a series of cups. Her nostrils twitched with nervousness. Between her ears a crown of festive red-dyed ostrich feathers bobbed as she tip-toed towards the King of France. When Henry reached Louis he handed her reins to him and fell to his knees in the snow.
‘I, Henry of Normandy, am your man, Sire. I defend your life with my own.’ Louis bent forward to kiss Henry’s forehead, then his lips.
‘Duke of Aquitaine. Arise.’ He stood too and they embraced. Several hundred men of France and Normandy shouted applause. The noise made the filly shiver with fright, her ears laid back against her head.
‘I hope you find pleasure in this small gift, Lord King,’ Henry said.
Louis was running an expert eye over her. ‘A grey! And part Arab. Henry, my dear, you could not have pleased me more with bags of gold.’
Henry bowed. ‘Her dam, Selama, sends you greetings, Highness’ he said. They began to chuckle. ‘She would love to meet her husband, Jason, again. I believe, if he asked her politely, she would—’
‘You!’ Louis said. ‘You stole him while I was negotiating with your father! But then, the way you gave him back; I couldn’t help laughing.’ He took Henry by the arm and together they crunched across the snow to a spot where they could converse in private. ‘I’ve accepted your brother as Count of Anjou. He’s been pestering me for five years.’
Henry nodded. ‘Highness …’
Louis said, ‘Call me Louis, dear boy. After all, we’re both kings.’
‘Louis, my liege, in the event someone were to attack the Count of Anjou …’
‘As long as no army were to cross the borders of the Ile de France, we would remain calm.’
‘I wish I’d brought you two foals!’
Louis smiled. He raised an eyebrow. ‘But you have two sons from Eleanor.’ He was no longer the timid novice monk whom she’d terrorised for thirteen years. He was an experienced monarch, adept at dissimulation.
Henry felt a surge of confidence that now was the moment to out-manoeuvre Louis, not by triumphalism, but humility. ‘I have one son. The first born is a cuckoo.’
The French King crossed himself. ‘It’s true then,’ he murmured. ‘I didn’t want to believe the prattle of my courtiers.’
A rush of desire to continue overwhelmed the English king. ‘As a husband I’m in despair,’ he said. ‘She longs for the freedoms we men take for granted. I watched it embitter my mother, denied a throne because she’s female. As you know, Eleanor’s father raised her like a son so she could rule the men of Aquitaine. Privately she still calls herself “Duke”. She’s resigned to providing me with children, but I know she dies of thirst for power. Quemadmodum desiderat cervus …’
‘As the hart panteth after the fountains of water,’ Louis murmured. ‘In the thirteen years of our marriage she panted with longing to be her own master. I loved her with every particle of my being. But my devotion was a matter of indifference to her.’
Henry knew what he would say next would shock Louis, but unburdening himself had brought a flood of something like bliss. ‘I met the love of my life when I was seventeen, but she was cruelly taken from me. I had neither love nor desire for Eleanor. Of course I could …’ he shrugged, ‘… perform. But because I loved my concubine I told Eleanor that providing she was discreet, I had no objection …’
Louis swallowed. Henry’s unchastity, not as frightful as his father’s, but frightful all the same, bewildered him. That he had encouraged it in Eleanor – who needed so little encouragement – was, Louis believed, punishment from God. He remained mute until he felt he could speak without rancour. ‘You have learned a lesson?’ His tone was mild.
‘I have. It’s unhappy consequences are yet to be determined. Meanwhile, I am a changed man. I …’ He was about to say, I am determined to control everything and everybody, but realised this was an intimacy too far. They regarded each other in silence. Suddenly the older King gathered the younger to his chest. Henry felt hot tears from Louis’ eyes wetting his cheeks. ‘Only those who’ve suffered as we have from that woman can speak with such candour,’ he whispered.
He’ll always love her, Henry thought. That means … He could not grasp what it meant, for a strange, unfocused feeling had come over him. As they loosened their embrace Louis looked quizzically into the younger king’s face. A cool radiance emanated around him.
‘I sense, Henry, we have company. Does he always travel with you?’
Henry felt gauche, unsure how to follow whatever the Guardian was telling him. But suddenly he was aware that he had been following His instructions all along. A voice inside him said, Louis can never defeat you if your war is just. He drew himself erect. That means, he thought, I may one day become King of France. That’s what Eleanor craves.
The moment of intimacy evaporated. They were no longer men. They were monarchs and rivals.
They strolled back arm in arm to the waiting throng, mounted now and ready to depart. Guillaume was among them, having ridden five days earlier to Paris to fetch the Master.
‘Went brilliantly,’ Henry muttered to his brother. ‘We can take down Geoffrey with impunity. He’s given his word he won’t intervene.’ The air was cold enough for him to feign he did not notice that behind them two Norman knights rode either side of a dark-skinned man they had manacled to the saddle of his horse.
In English palaces, where the court saw glimpses of Prince William, whispers came from the walls. One day, players set up a stall in the London horse market with puppets of a man and a baby. The man asks the baby, ‘Who’s yer father, then?’ His hair is red, the baby’s is black. A woman enters. ‘He’s yours. I found ’im under a cabbage.’ She whacks the man. ‘Found ’im under a Turk, more like!’ The man whacks her and she falls backwards off the stage. Thomas of London was in the crowd with the horse master, purchasing destriers for the royal stables. ‘Call a sheriff,’ Becket said. ‘Those players are to be arrested.’
‘But sir, it’s just a bit of fun,’ the horse master said. ‘Don’t mean anything.’
Thomas gave him a sharp look. ‘You’re right. A bit of fun,’ he agreed.
That night Orianne discovered another letter. It demanded a bag of gold. Eleanor had a list of those whom she suspected. Her Aquitaine midwives and ladies were still the most likely culprits, although as far as she knew none of them could write. The blackmailer must be using a scribe or some minor courtier. She looked again at the note. It was in a different hand from the last one, a clumsy hand and there was a grammatical mistake. She felt a thousand ants crawl over her body. The whole court talks about my darling William!
She threw the parchment into a brazier.