Blanche d’Alpuget is an acclaimed novelist, biographer and essayist. She has won numerous literary awards, including the inaugural Australasian Prize for Commonwealth Literature in 1987. Her books include Mediator: A Biography of Sir Richard Kirby (1977); Monkeys in the Dark (1980), which won the PEN Jubilee Award; Turtle Beach (1981), which won The Age Novel of the Year Award and the South Australian Premier’s Award; Robert J. Hawke: A Biography (1982), which won the New South Wales Premier’s Award; Winter in Jerusalem (1986); and White Eye (1993). She has twice won the Braille Book of the Year award, and Turtle Beach was made into a feature film in 1992 featuring Greta Scacchi and Jack Thompson. All her novels have been translated into other languages.
The Birth of the Plantagenets series by Blanche d’Alpuget
The Young Lion
The Lion Rampant
The Lions’ Torment
TO COME
The Lioness Wakes
Her Cubs Roar
Ventura Press
PO Box 780, Edgecliff
New South Wales, 2027 Australia
www.venturapress.com.au
Copyright © Blanche d’Alpuget, 2019
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any other information storage retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher.
Cover design by Design by Committee
Map artwork by Stephen Dew
Page design, family tree and typesetting by Shaun Jury
Typeset by Working Type
Typeset in Dante
ISBN: 9781925384802 (paperback)
ISBN: 9781925384819 (ebook)
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This book uses the techniques of a novel to retell one of history’s most notorious murders. With the exception of transients, plus two men and a pair of ladies’ maids, all the named characters are drawn from contemporary accounts and almost every event described happened in some form, or is employed to delineate a character. Naturally, to turn history into a novel I have been obliged to dramatise and invent descriptions of some actions and players to illustrate the behaviour and morals of that era. In many aspects they were vastly different from those of the twenty-first century. Even coastlines have shifted. In England the town of Sandwich was on the seaside, as was the castle of Caen in France. Now both are inland. However, even a cursory reading of events in the twelfth century reveals that ambition, political conniving, avarice and family feuds have resisted change.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Henry II: King of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, Count of Anjou and Maine; son of Geoffrey the Handsome, Duke of Normandy (deceased)
Eleanor: Queen of England, former Queen of France, Duchess of Aquitaine, wife of Henry
Empress Matilda: Henry’s mother, widow of the Emperor of Germany, widow of Geoffrey, Duke of Normandy
Hamelin the Merlin: Henry’s illegitimate brother
Viscount William: Henry’s younger brother
Geoffrey: Henry’s eldest child, illegitimate son from his ‘first wife’ Rachel
Princes Henry, Richard, Geoffrey and John: legitimate sons of Henry and Eleanor
Princesses Matilda, Eleanor and Joan: legitimate daughters of Henry and Eleanor
Louis VII: King of France, Eleanor’s ex-husband
Constance of Castile: Louis’ Queen
Adela of Champagne: Louis’ Queen
Philip Augustus, ‘God Given’: Louis’ son
Philip: Count of Flanders, Henry’s cousin
Barbarossa: Holy Roman Emperor, King of Germany, overlord of Burgundy
Rainald: Barbarossa’s Chancellor and Archbishop of Mainz
Pope Alexander III: often in exile from Rome
Malcolm: King of Scotland
Isabel: Countess of Surrey, widowed sister-in-law of King Henry
Thomas Becket: Chancellor of England
Robert de Beaumont: Earl of Leicester, royal justiciar
Richard de Lucy: royal justiciar, a baron
Richer de l’Aigle: a degenerate baron
Roger de Pont L’Évêque: Archbishop of York, enemy of Thomas Becket
Richard: Henry II’s linguist, code-breaker and spy
Richard de Brito: vassal of Viscount William
Theobald: Archbishop of Canterbury
Gilbert Foliot: Bishop of Hereford, later London
Henry Blois: Bishop of Winchester
John of Salisbury: scholar
Herbert of Bosham: scholar
Douglas: Scottish highland warrior and a merlin (shaman)
Orianne: Queen Eleanor’s personal maid
Hilde: personal maid to the Countess of Surrey
The Normans
CHAPTER ONE
The snow had stopped falling, leaving the world outside enchanted, every crease erased to a beguiling, smooth whiteness. Shafts of sunlight changed trees into glittering miniature castles. At the top of the hill from which their wagon had descended, the palace of Rouen swelled to a luminous mountain from which smoke wandered into the hushed, still air. The vehicle jolted across a bridge behind a pair of huge horses warmed in shaggy winter coats. Iron wheels creaked softly; hooves fell like paws on the planks. As the wagon jerked forward, the air shivered with tinkling harness bells.
Baron Richer de l’Aigle – the Eagle – stroked his white lapdog. ‘The die is cast, you say?’
The second man, his head resting on the wooden backboard of the cabin, his body collapsed among cushions, groaned. He was a few years younger than his aristocratic companion, who persisted, ‘D’you recall who first used that expression, alea iacta est?’ Receiving no reply, he answered his own question. ‘Julius Caesar, darling. At the moment he decided to attack Rome.’
Thomas Becket, Chancellor of England and Archdeacon of Canterbury Cathedral, began to weep. ‘Now you torment me. Caesar marched to victory. I’m flung out like garbage. Expelled from court. Ruined.’
He suddenly banged his head against the back of the wagon. ‘He never loved me! He only pretended. I adored him. I thought of him day and night – his beauty, his strength, his strategic cunning, his courage in battle; how to please him, how to help him reign. He filled a castle to the brim with his vitality and animal energy. Now he’s destroyed me. If you could see inside my chest, you’d see his dagger in my heart.’
The wagoner heard the thud of the Chancellor’s head against the cabin and wondered if he should rein in the horses. Perhaps one of the lords had fallen ill and needed help.
Becket ripped off his fur cap. His bejewelled fingers tore at his hair as he descended further into misery. ‘I was seven years old when my mother told me, “Tom, one day you’ll be the greatest man in England.” And now, at almost forty, what am I? A worm, squashed into the mud. Six years of my life wasted on the liege lord I worshipped. Richer, I stand on the edge of an abyss.’
The Baron drew back his arm and struck the Chancellor’s face so hard his palm stung. ‘You were blind with love for a man who would never love you in the way you wanted. And not just a man. A king. You became angry and insulted him. I warned you that friendship with the mighty is perilous, especially for those of our kind. Men like him know how weak we are when in the grip of love for them. We love something we can never have.’ His thin, sour lips turned down with satisfaction. ‘Here, have a cup of wine.’
The Chancellor’s hand trembled. He swallowed the wine in one gulp and the Baron poured him more. He downed that too. Silence settled. The dog nestled its babyish face into its master’s belly and pretended to sleep. The vehicle stopped, then moved forward again. The two men listened to the creaking of the wheels and the soft groans o
f the planks beneath them. At last they were across the half-frozen river, off the bridge and bumping along an old Roman road over a vast white plain. The sky was sullen and snow began falling again.
‘I must have vengeance.’
The Baron grinned. ‘Problem is, Tom, how can a commoner revenge himself against a king? Not to mention that the King is the man he is in love with.’
‘Still you torment me.’
‘If you’d forget your injured heart for a moment, and think …’
Thomas was silent.
‘Well?’ Receiving no answer, Baron Richer de l’Aigle gave his own. ‘You must seize a weapon mightier than his sword – and there’s only one. The Cross!’ He grinned again. ‘I see a light begins to dawn in you.’
‘Henry kills anyone who challenges his power,’ Becket replied.
His companion nodded.
Standing behind a parapet high above, two men watched the progress of the wagon. One remarked, ‘They’re heading for Bonsmoulins.’
The other turned to him. In a voice so deep it seemed to emerge from beneath the earth, he rumbled, ‘Tom’s not such a fool as to flee to Louis’ court. With matters as they stand between England and France, we could arrest him for treason.’
The first replied sulkily, ‘I’m going indoors before I freeze.’
Inside the wagon, Becket sat up. The tears on his cheeks had dried. ‘I’d like to kill him,’ he said.
The Eagle smiled. ‘Vengeance is patient, Tom. It keeps its own counsel and walks like the panther cat.’ The skin around his reddish-brown eyes bunched and almost softened with amusement. ‘Maybe you can. Kill him.’
The hint of a smile appeared in Becket’s own eyes, large, oval and unusually beautiful. ‘I could ruin him.’
‘You could ruin the most admired prince in Europe?’
‘You don’t know what I do.’
‘I know you fell in love with a glowing sun when he was hardly more than a boy. You believed you could seduce him.’ L’Aigle cawed with laughter. ‘How our little group used to giggle about that. Seduce Henry Plantagenet?’
Becket pressed his lips together.
‘If you’re ever to take revenge and seize the mightier sword, you must return to court.’
‘I won’t. He’d only wound me again.’
Richer turned towards his companion to stroke the cheek he had struck; he picked up a ring-heavy hand, running his fingers across it. ‘So soft,’ he murmured. ‘To please the King, thousands have died at the command of this white hand.’
The Chancellor ignored his companion’s observation. ‘When I was a member of the royal familiares, he promised me I was to rear the Crown Prince as my foster son. I would have moulded that child so he adored me; so that when he took the throne, he’d do my bidding.’
‘You’d be England’s regent!’ exclaimed the Baron. ‘And sooner rather than later, were the King to die in battle. Or from something else,’ he added. No one was more skilled than Becket in the dark arts of the courtier.
He watched his friend’s mind dwelling on his own unspoken thoughts. Suddenly the Chancellor said, ‘Pour me another cup of wine.’ A deep pain still stamped his features, but his voice had regained its authority. ‘It’s written in the Bible: “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.” The Almighty will ensure my revenge.’
‘Actually, it’s a warning that vengeance should be left to Jehovah,’ Richer murmured.
Becket was only half listening. He smiled to himself, a chipped front tooth making his expression disarmingly boyish. ‘Let’s drink to Jehovah,’ he said.
CHAPTER TWO
One of the lookouts at the top of the palace of Rouen was Hamelin, the King’s illegitimate brother, known as ‘Bullfrog’. He was tall, and maddeningly handsome, and wore an ermine hat. Beneath the fur his long black hair flashed with a streak of white that hung over his left cheek, hiding a battle wound that had left him half blind. The other lookout showed only intelligent pale eyes between his cap and a blue woollen scarf wrapped from the bridge of his nose to his neck.
‘Good riddance, swine. England needs a new chancellor.’ The scarf muffled the excitement in the man’s voice.
Bullfrog ignored his remark. ‘I foresee the possibility of war with either France or Germany over this schism in the Church. Another war will be ruinous. That wretch down there is Henry’s best weapon to deflect catastrophe.’
The shorter man snorted. They walked in silence along a path from the east to the north of the building, where the snow was deepest.
Hundreds of feet beneath them, a boy was building a snow castle, its ramparts and keep already complete. He called out and a churl hurried towards him with two more buckets. Even from high above, the lookouts recognised the King’s eldest child, a motherless bastard, and that the royal master mason was overseeing the lad’s snow castle. It represented King Louis’ arsenal, Chaumont-sur-Epte. Bullfrog said, ‘When it’s finished, they’ll besiege and destroy it. Thus do boys learn the arts of war.’
Suddenly snow began falling heavily. The castle builders abandoned their efforts and dashed indoors. The lookouts ran down five flights of stone stairs, arriving at ground level with watering eyes. Outside the King’s chamber, both flung off fur cloaks. A guard grasping a halberd stepped aside. ‘Lord Constable,’ he murmured. Bullfrog wrenched the door open.
The King was pacing his private audience chamber on his hands, his copper hair trailing across the rushes on the floor, his legs straight as spears inside their red hose. ‘How fares your kingdom, brother, when you turn it upside down?’ the Bullfrog asked. With a thrust of his wrists, Henry backflipped onto his feet. He slid into the lambskin robe and soft boots he’d tossed in a corner, then jammed a dagger into a belt inside his tunic and sat down behind his desk.
‘When reality is torn in two it can seem slightly nauseating. As ever, I keep my head cool. Paris?’
Hamelin draped himself along a couch, loose and easy as a basking cat. ‘They’re travelling south-west.’
‘To the Eagle’s nest of Bonsmoulins. A peacock weeping on an eagle’s shoulder. How bizarre.’ Henry laughed heartily. ‘That frees me to sail to England.’
‘Brother, Bec could be useful in these threatening times. I urge you to recall him.’
Henry grinned. ‘Sweetheart, he insulted me. He betrayed my trust, and God knows, I trusted him as much as any man in the realm. But he’ll come crawling back. When he does, he’ll discover my floor is hard on his belly.’
They eyed each other until Henry stood and slowly prowled from behind the desk. Unlike Hamelin’s sumptuous green velvet robe, embroidered with gold thread and lined with coney fur, the King’s dress was as drab as a shepherd’s. His brother stepped towards him and the monarch enfolded him in an embrace. Since childhood, this man, son of their father’s Spanish concubine, had been Henry’s protector. Once he had had the most beautiful singing voice in western Europe, but he had lost it, along with the love of his life and the sight in one eye, during a battle in Wales. Forest people had spirited his body away, crones muttering an incantation: ‘For unity to take place, everything nearest and dearest must be destroyed.’ So it was for Hamelin: his silver voice, his eye, his skill as a warrior, his fascination with and for women, all gone. And most painful of all, the Welsh princess who had warned him that he was riding into an ambush, destroyed also, every bone in her body smashed up before she died. Hamelin had wanted to join her in the afterlife, but the forest women had nursed him back to life. From their rough, skilled hands he arose with a slash of white hair falling over his blind eye, a voice like rocks rubbing together, and the powers of a merlin. At night he communed with the unseen world.
Plantagenet men were jovial. Hamelin now rarely laughed.
‘Darling Bullfrog, can’t you lighten my spirits by lying to me, like everyone else?’ Henry kissed his neck. ‘Guard Normandy. I must cross the Narrow Sea tomorrow. There’s not much breeze. Send pigeons to my wife.’
When she was Queen o
f France, Eleanor of Aquitaine had gone on pilgrimage to Outremer and discovered the wonders of a mighty civilisation. As practical as her first husband, King Louis, was mystical and superstitious, she decided to introduce to Europe two eastern novelties that would change lives for centuries. One was the chimney. Eleanor ordered chimneys installed in all palaces and royal residences in France. As they spread from stately mansions to ordinary houses, the health of her subjects improved from the cleaner air.
Her second innovation invited a degree of horror from the monarch and the princes of the Church. Eleanor had observed how the Saracens trained pigeons to take messages for them, the creatures travelling enormous distances, at great speed. She brought back twenty breeding pairs. Prelates declared the ‘infidel birds’ a pagan depravity. Louis ordered her to wring their necks. Instead she sent the pigeons, and two men to train them, to her duchy of Aquitaine, where her subjects called them ‘our lady’s butterflies’.
Within a decade, the secret was out and every noble house in western Europe wanted its own butterflies. Eleanor made a pretty penny from the sale of chicks and the hire of vassals who could train them. Her second husband, England’s King, understood immediately the value of pigeons in communicating across his vast territories. In calm weather, a flock could traverse the Narrow Sea in less time than it took to hold a Mass, but during storms and gales they were guarded inside their brick towers, bobbing and cooing, softening the air with a mantle of gentle sound.
They had become so familiar that nobody bothered to call them ‘butterflies’. The Pope himself owned a flock of hundreds.
As Hamelin strode off towards the pigeon loft, the King opened a secret drawer in his desk and reread a letter from Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury. England’s high priest was loosening the ties of earth. Since Henry’s coronation at the age of twenty-one, Theobald had been his staunch supporter. He had crowned Henry; he had felt the mystical second body that heaven bestows upon a king descend on the young monarch. He could not see it, but from the near-swoon of the new sovereign, he knew Henry had encountered his royal body, the Guardian, and it had spoken to him.
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