She gave him a playful smack. ‘Absolutely not!’
Before he had time to frame his words of gratitude, she turned to look up to the musicians’ enclosure, waving a handkerchief at them. The soft harp music, to which nobody had been paying attention, changed suddenly to a rowdy song of celebration. The table stopped to stare at a troubadour, whose voice filled the hall. William’s upturned face split with a smile.
Eleanor beckoned a page. When the boy whispered to her brother-in-law, he leaped from his seat with a shout of delight.
Her message was: ‘You and I shall dance. Someone watches us.’
They bowed to the King before they began a quick-stepping southern reel. At its conclusion, the table erupted with ‘Encore! Encore!’ but the Queen shook her head and returned to her seat at the King’s side. ‘Well done,’ he murmured. ‘If the breadth of Willi’s shoulders and the length of his legs didn’t impress the lady of Warenne, nothing will.’
Hidden by the dim light and her black clothing, the Countess was invisible, but Becket noticed that several times the King looked up in the direction of the balcony. There’s someone up there, he thought. They’re keeping secrets from me. Nothing has really changed. He pretends to trust me, as I pretend fidelity to him.
In the musicians’ gallery, Isabel wept, rebuking herself. ‘How could you? Your dove only a year in his grave, but already you gaze with delight on a new spouse!’ She gathered her robe and left, hazarding the rickety wooden stairs alone. Once back in her chamber, she wrote her hostess a note: I must not see him again. She gave it to her maid to place on Eleanor’s bed.
In the banquet hall, Eleanor turned to Becket. ‘As we were discussing …’ She smiled, her radiance momentarily overwhelming his loathing for her. ‘I’d like you to speak to Louis again, as England’s ambassador. Don’t look so surprised. You did it before with superb elan. Of course, if you’re unwilling, we’ll send the Earl of Leicester. Now, Tom, I suggest it’s time for you to talk to the man on your left. Henry thinks he’s evading taxes.’ She turned away.
William had come to squat beside her chair. ‘Thank you, dear sister.’
‘Henry kept watch while we danced. The Countess observed the whole of it, then left the enclosure.’ Eleanor became aware of a silence on her left-hand side. The Chancellor was listening.
More music was played, some of it from Germany. The King gave a speech of welcome to his Queen and ‘our most esteemed guest, the ambassador of the Holy Roman Empire’. He and Eleanor danced a stately round. The table fell silent, spellbound, as if they watched immortal beings solemnly pass before their eyes.
Dessert was a confection of honeyed and spiced pears poached in red wine. Festive garlands of leaves surrounded the broad silver dishes that pages paraded before setting them down in front of the royals.
Becket took the opportunity of the noisy table to say in English to Eleanor, ‘I have the information His Highness requires. The number of his chateaux and hides, the extent of his herds and orchards.’
‘No terrier after a rat is more tenacious than you when it comes to shaking out information, Tom.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
‘It is.’
On the Queen’s right side the King suddenly gagged. He turned his head to spit something onto the floor.
‘What is it, husband? Not my pears?’
Henry’s face screwed in disgust. ‘This apple!’
Normandy apples, often so big a lady needed two hands to hold them, were famous throughout western Europe. If properly stored, they retained their crispness a whole winter. The King ate one daily.
‘Bring a torch,’ he ordered his page. The boy lifted a torch from its sconce and brought the flame close to the apple that Henry now held at arm’s length. The even arc of his bite was visible, as was the brown pulp of frass left by a worm. ‘Rotten! Rotten within,’ he said angrily. ‘Fetch the rest of the barrel.’
Four pages went running, returning with a cellar man who carried a barrel on his shoulder. The hall was silent.
‘Hand every guest an apple,’ Henry ordered. ‘Let each one be cut with a knife. If it’s clean, it can be eaten. If not …’
The guests took their eating knives and cut into the apples. All were perfect.
‘Try yours,’ he said to Eleanor. She cut a small wedge in the fruit. Like the King’s, beneath the skin was brown mush. ‘How is it that the Queen and I are served rotten apples?’ he demanded.
‘Sire, they were at the top of the barrel,’ the page whimpered. Like all their pages, he was a clean, well-mannered boy of aristocratic lineage.
Henry grunted. He reached in front of the German ambassador to snatch William’s apple and tossed it to the lad. ‘Here, eat a good one.’
Becket addressed the Queen. ‘Highness, please take my apple.’
Momentarily the expression of regal calm fell away. ‘Destroyed within,’ she murmured.
‘Your father, Highness …’
‘Yes, a hermit cursed my father. He prophesied his descendants would have no joy in their offspring. You refer to that? You suggest our fruit is rotten within?’ Her eyes were furious.
The Chancellor paled with fright. ‘I knew nothing about such a prophecy.’
‘Our fruit is not rotten! Our children are exquisite.’
‘I was about to say that your father was a great troubadour, and maybe some more of his music …’
‘Thank you. We need music and dancing.’ She signalled once again to the balcony.
As the troubadour began his song, the Chancellor fondled Leo. The Sow is much distressed. He smiled to himself.
Next day, when Becket returned with Chancellor-Archbishop Rainald, the Empress rose to receive her foreign guest, laying aside the gold thread with which she was embroidering an altar cloth of fine linen.
‘I was overwhelmed with joy that you brought me a lock of my first husband’s hair,’ she told him.
She gestured to the hard wooden chairs of her small audience chamber. Beside her grey satin armchair a capacious bag with balls of coarse grey wool and horn knitting needles lay open on the floor. ‘For the poor,’ she said, dismissively. ‘Caps and scarves. My nun is teaching me. I’m still rather a novice.’ She pulled its drawstrings closed.
She and Rainald spoke only in German. Becket watched their expressions to guess at how the meeting was going. They talked together for what seemed a week, often laughing. Once Matilda shed a tear. Five times Rainald crossed himself. Twice they raised their voices to sing together. For refreshment there were lumpy cakes and bitter cider. Finally, Matilda rang a little bell to summon her nun to prepare to farewell the guests. The men rose. She extended her hand for the Archbishop to kiss. When he did so, he clicked his heels.
‘How I love that sound!’ Her voice was coy. ‘The Emperor greeted me with it when I arrived in his empire as a girl of twelve. No man this side of the Rhine ever does it.’ She blushed. ‘Rainald, my dear, I found a tiny gift I’d like you to present with my compliments to His Imperial Highness.’ She bent to forage inside the knitting bag, drawing something from under the balls of wool and placing it on her lap. It was large and ovoid and wrapped in crimson samite. ‘Go ahead. Open it.’
The ambassador began to tremble. Becket realised he was holding his breath.
‘Here, let me,’ she added. She folded back the shimmering cloth. Inside was a lump of clear green stone, a gem the size of an egg from an estrich bird. An emissary from Egypt had murmured as he presented it to the Emperor Charlemagne, ‘We believe, Great King, that it graced the summer palace of our last queen, the lady Cleopatra.’
Rainald burst into tears.
I’ve triumphed! Becket realised with joy. Henry will esteem me as in former times. I take a step towards vengeance.
CHAPTER NINE
As protocol demanded, the monarchs had been the first to leave the welcome banquet. ‘I’ll come to your chamber,’ Eleanor said.
‘I’m honoured,’ her husband replied. He slid
his eyes down to her face, but his smile was not returned.
Once the servants had been dismissed and they were alone behind locked doors, the Queen announced, ‘Henry, you promised the Crown Prince to Becket to raise in his household without asking my advice. Now you’ve palmed off my youngest daughter to that barbarian in the east. I won’t stand for your high-handedness with my children.’ Her feet were planted apart. She stared up into his face.
‘Lady, I only do what is necessary. You and I have agreed to build a strong house that will stand after us, not some shoddy makeshift like King Stephen’s that crashed as soon as he did.’
‘So overturn your promise to Becket of raising our prince and send him instead to Robert of Beaumont. I love that earl. And I hate Becket.’
‘It would be dishonourable to go back on my word.’
She dropped her expression of majestic serenity. ‘Are you aware that Becket, who can barely stammer a sentence in Latin, is organising support for himself to be nominated Archbishop of Canterbury when Theobald passes?’
Her husband smiled with relief. ‘How excellent is your network of informants, my dear.’ He reached inside his robe and withdrew a parchment. It was a copy of Herbert of Bosham’s most recent letter to the Chancellor, in which he referred to Eleanor as ‘Grand Sow’. ‘I hesitate to show you this objectionable note …’
She almost snatched it from him. When she had read it, she handed it back. ‘This is the problem you refuse to contemplate, Henry. Becket craves power. As a man who refuses congress with women, he’ll have no children or grandchildren to remember his name, to hold him in their hearts with love. He must make himself memorable in his lifetime.’
‘Such men are useful to the throne.’
‘Henry!’ She stamped her foot. ‘You must promise me you’ll never allow that man to be elected Archbishop of Canterbury.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Why ever do you imagine I would?’
‘Because you believe you can use him to reform the English church.’
He shrugged. ‘I thought, wife, fool that I am, you wanted to discuss our daughter and the Emperor of Germany. How is it we have moved from across the River Rhine to Kent?’
‘We’ve not seen each other face-to-face for months. There’s much to discuss.’ They fell into silent brooding. ‘What’s done is done,’ she added. ‘I’ve accepted that Becket will be foster father to little Henry, and Joanna may be traded off to Barbarossa. But what is not yet done …’
Henry dropped his head, looking at her from under his brows. ‘What you say is reasonable, Eleanor. Although Theobald wants it – I’m sure you know that already – I’ll never allow Becket to succeed him at Canterbury. Even as a bishop, Bec would be troublesome.’
She heaved a sigh. ‘His heart is black with envy. You must keep him chained, husband.’ His large hand enfolded her small one. She snatched it away. ‘I sleep alone, Henry. Alone.’
Back in her own apartment, she collapsed onto her bed. She nearly always won arguments with her husband, but doing so exhausted her. It’s like staring down a bull as he paws the earth in front of you, she thought. Her maid had run up to remove her silk shoes.
‘You’re troubled, my lady? May I do something?’
‘Nothing ails me. But I worry about the Crown Prince.’
‘Everyone adores him, Highness. When he’s grown, he’ll be the handsomest prince in Europe.’
Eleanor was thinking again, as she had for months, that even at his tender age, it was clear the boy had charm but no character. It had not been obvious three years earlier, but now it was one of her great fears for her son in Becket’s household. ‘The rotten apples at the banquet were an ill omen, Buttercup. They were destroyed from within, as a family is. As a country can be.’
‘My lady, you can’t heed what a hermit said to your father thirty years ago. He was probably drunk.’
The Queen fell to sighing again as she moved to her toilet table. ‘My husband’s great-grandmother was rumoured to be a witch. When his mother took Henry for a blessing, Father Bernard of Clairvaux proclaimed that he came from the devil.’
Orianne stroked a brush though Eleanor’s thick chestnut hair. ‘Father Bernard used to drink a liquor called water-of-life that made him try to perform miracles that didn’t work. Don’t pay attention to what he said, my lady. Everyone recognises that heaven loves the King.’
Under her rhythmical stroking, the Queen relaxed. ‘According to his wet nurse, my third boy, Lord Richard, grows like a young Hercules.’ Her voice became languorous. ‘I yearn to see him again. As soon as a letter comes from the Count of Toulouse guaranteeing safe passage to the Countess of Surrey, you and I will take ship for England.’
After her grooming, she summoned Isabel to her bedchamber. ‘What size escort would you like, dear sister?’ She knew Isabel had sailed to Normandy with a chest full of gold.
‘Two knights and a lady companion in addition to my maid.’
‘You’re too modest. The Count of Toulouse is young, brutal and arrogant. He believes he defeated my husband’s siege. He did no such thing. He hid inside his city with King Louis beside him, making it impossible for Henry to attack. He’s a man of great vulgarity of mind, therefore display impresses him. May I suggest you take ten men and five women, plus their maids? You and your ladies will wear widows’ weeds, but the knights should be magnificent in dress and armour.’
‘I bow to your wisdom.’
The Queen gave a silvery laugh. ‘He cannot refuse a request from you to build a shrine on the spot where your husband died. Spare no expense. Let it stand as a rebuke to the Coward of Toulouse.’
The Countess’s heavy-lidded eyes flashed with something sharper than amusement.
‘I knew getting you out of England for a while was a good idea. Your mind will clear from the weight of your vow to mourn three years – now you’ve glimpsed your fiancé.’
At Rouen docks, under a pink dawn sky, Becket, flanked by William and a mounted honour guard, farewelled the German ambassador. The envoy was so delighted with the success of his mission that he did not dismount, but like a triumphant general rode his stallion up the ship’s gangplank. At the top, he turned to wave his hat to those on the wharf below.
‘An English princess and a stolen gem in exchange for a pope and a war,’ Thomas remarked to William. ‘His Highness has the cunning of a fox.’
‘Your persuasion worked on my mother when mine did not. Perhaps you’re the fox.’
Becket laughed. His broken front tooth gave sudden, unexpected youthfulness to his face. ‘I’m a panther cat.’ Riding knee to knee with the young Viscount made him feel light-headed.
William was looking quizzically at the animal inside the Chancellor’s shoulder bag.
‘I thought that puppy belonged to Baron de l’Aigle.’
Thomas decided to lie. ‘I took such a liking to Richer’s dog that he gave me his litter brother.’
‘Litter brother? As Marshal of Anjou, I tax lapdog breeders. They’re so expensive, the Baron’s pair makes me wonder if there’s a breeder who evades my sheriffs.’
At heart, as watchful as the King, thought Becket. Like all you vile Plantagenets. ‘Y-y-you run a tight ship, my lord.’
When they reached the palace, a page told the Chancellor the King wished to see him. In the softly glowing audience chamber from which weeks earlier Becket had been expelled, a smiling Henry waited. They were alone in the rosy light cast by long red blinds that covered the windows in the cold of winter and the chill of early spring.
‘You did very well with the German, Bec. I now require you exercise your powers of persuasion on Louis.’
‘When?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Henry, that’s impossible. I spent so much time with His Grace, I’ve had to let all the accounts—’
‘The accounts can wait. A war with France cannot.’
‘May I take William with me?’
‘Of course. You must take Richard also.
No word used in Louis’ court will escape him. I’ll order him to alert you to every nuance.’
‘Henry, did you notice the way Rainald looked at Richard? As if he knew something about him? Richard is—’
The monarch held up his hand. ‘I’ll hear nothing against my scoundrel. You’re to treat him with civility in front of King Louis, who by now will know I’ve been in contact with Barbarossa. He’ll assume I’ve pledged support for Red Beard’s pope. You, Tom, are to assure him I made no such promise.’
‘The proposed marriage of your daughter …?’
Henry snorted. ‘A girl in exchange for a war? Even Louis will appreciate the sense of that.’
‘The planned alliance, however, will alarm the King of France.’
‘You’re to pour oil on the troubled waters of Louis’ soul.
Together we soothed Barbarossa. Before the fighting season begins in another few weeks, Louis and I must be friends. There must be no war this year. I can’t afford it.’ Henry’s eyes narrowed. ‘You massacred the inhabitants of Quercy. I suggest you start mollifying Louis by begging his mercy for that.’
‘I’m at your command.’ Thomas gave a playful grin. ‘Sire.’
The King began his restless prowling. ‘I’m thinking,’ he growled.
Becket murmured, ‘On my last embassy to Paris, I travelled in grand estate.’
‘You travelled like an emperor.’ Henry’s mood swerved. ‘It cost half England’s revenue for a year. But it worked. We got Louis’ princess as fiancée for our son.’ Abruptly he laughed, then shook his head in disbelief. ‘The Norman Vexin as her dowry! Louis closed the chink in Normandy’s armour when he assigned that territory to his daughter on her marriage to our Crown Prince. I don’t know how you did it, Tom. But you did!’
Becket realised the audience was over. ‘H-H-Henry …’ His words burst forth in a rush. ‘I can’t express my delight that you’ve once more entrusted me—’
‘I was very angry with you. I’ve forgiven you, but the memory of my rage …’ The King gazed at the pleading brown eyes. ‘You may kiss me.’ He held out his hand. The Chancellor pressed his cheek against it before he kissed. ‘Now piss off, sweetheart. In the great hall I have twenty plaintiffs and five sheriffs waiting for me to hear their cases.’
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