‘You must eat,’ Herbert scolded. ‘You’ll be on your feet for hours. You could faint.’
Becket forced himself to swallow a honey cake, some strawberries, curds and wine. Outside he glimpsed the populace as it surged into the courtyard. ‘Look at their numbers! Their faces shine with hope,’ he exclaimed. ‘They want me!’ Tears sprang to his eyes.
He turned away from Herbert and others who gravitated around him to fuss with his clothes. He felt his mother’s presence so strongly he could barely breathe: she stood smiling in a corner of his bedchamber.
‘Leave me,’ he told his attendants. As soon as they were gone, he fell to his knees.
‘I told you, Tom,’ his mother said. He bent over, jerking with sobs.
‘Mother, all these years it’s been your words that have kept me from going insane. From killing myself. From—’
‘Hush, dear. The day has come. The sky is as blue as the robe of the Queen of Heaven, a beautiful day for a beautiful soul.’ He reached to touch the hem of her garment. ‘My handsome Tom. My boy born for greatness.’ He dared to glance up. She had vanished.
The liturgy was as magnificent as they had planned: the hundreds of beeswax candles, the clouds of incense, the bells, the chanting. To be inside the huge vault that day was to experience the joys of heaven. The crowd swayed in a mild ecstatic trance, their eyes focused on the grandiose figure in red who would soon bring harmony to every parish. As was the custom, a young priest opened the gospel at random, obliged to read the verse upon which his eye first fell. It was Christ’s curse on the barren fig tree, the horrendous Mathew 21:19. In a voice that quavered, he read, ‘Let no fruit grow on thee henceforth for ever.’ The cathedral fell into silence. Foliot! Becket thought. You’ll live to regret that. A dignified calm, the smallest of smiles, lit his face.
‘Ring the bells!’ someone hissed.
The bronze boom of Joy! Joy! Joy everlasting thundered above. The Archbishop announced, ‘To celebrate this day of joy for all England, we hereby declare this the Feast of the Holy Trinity.’ The inhaled breath of a thousand souls released itself. With this new feast day the Archbishop had opened another channel for them between heaven and earth.
Thomas realised he was completely calm. I am an emperor who returns in triumph from battle, he told himself. I am the mighty Caesar riding home from conquered Gaul. Below, gazing in awe, is my army. An assistant lifted the lid of the gold ciborium and the new High Priest held aloft the wafer, his voice carrying across the hushed cathedral. ‘This is my body.’ He broke the bread. ‘Broken for you.’ A sigh swept up, a wave of reverence for the magic they had just seen.
Thomas was first to take communion. My heart glows as a burning coal, he thought. ‘The body and blood,’ he whispered as he drank from the communion cup.
People said to each other, ‘How dignified he looks.’ Others replied, ‘He was born for it.’
Hamelin and Richard had a place well back in the crowd, but Richard slipped out part way through the service. As the dismissal was being read, he weaved his way back to Hamelin’s side. ‘Did you get what you wanted?’ Hamelin asked.
‘I believe so.’
The merlin inhaled through his fine straight nose. ‘If my sense of smell does not deceive me, so did he.’
Richard gave a winsome flutter of his eyelashes. ‘A royal knight’s body is at the service of his monarch at all times.’
Such was the surging, struggling excitement in the cathedral’s courtyard, it was almost an hour before they reached their horses. As they mounted in silence, Hamelin felt someone looking at them and turned. He caught a glimpse of a fine horse caparisoned with what looked like an eagle, but the crush hid its rider.
After a while Richard said, ‘Bec knows how to court the populace. Two hundred silver pennies were thrown to the crowd.’
Hamelin nodded. ‘What did you hear?’
‘People gasping at the ill-omened verse, bells, music, excitement for the pennies.’
The merlin’s jaw clenched. ‘I heard something quite different. I heard the sharpening of a sword.’
In the spring, the Countess of Surrey had bought herself another property, a manor house in Rouen. As Seneschal of Normandy and younger brother of the Duke, William was entitled to live in the palace of Rouen, but he chose to stay closer to the people and bought a mansion in the town, close to Isabel’s, both houses once the pride of the city’s most prosperous merchants.
Richard acted as the lovers’ go-between. Isabel’s slow-witted maid, Hilde, now performed certain intimate duties that Orianne had carried out for Eleanor in earlier days. William’s bedchamber servants expected their young master to have company in his bed and thought nothing of it when they observed that he had. As summer blossomed, it became more difficult for them to visit each other unseen by townsfolk, until Richard found a pathway through an orchard.
William had to travel the duchy. In his retinue of knights, hound masters and other servants there was often a veiled lady. Sometimes the Countess elected to stay in Rouen to make daily visits to William’s mother. Years earlier, Isabel’s aunt had given the Empress refuge during the civil war when, to escape King Stephen, Matilda had walked three miles through snow with her shoes on backwards. She had taken a strong liking to her future daughter-in-law, ‘despite your stealing my most treasured child’. And she always had news: no ripening womb in Paris yet; a disheartened French King; Barbarossa’s temper worse than ever, a sign it was said, that he regretted his anti-pope; Alexander, meanwhile, winning the admiration of prelates throughout France. ‘But our new English Pope will be a thorn in Henry’s side.’ She shot a glance at Isabel. ‘You enjoy a warm relationship with Bec’s one-time favourite, Richard?’
The Countess nodded. ‘He loves your son as if William were his younger brother, Empress, although they are the same age.’
When the Viscount was in Rouen, he, Isabel and Richard took supper à trois, Richard amusing them with tales of his life in England’s forests during the civil war. He would wait while they trysted to accompany Isabel to her house, or William to his.
One night as the lovers lay in her bedchamber, Isabel said, ‘Our servants know we lie together.’
‘Of course they do,’ William replied sleepily. Abruptly he became alert. Into her ear he whispered, ‘Is there something you wish to add?’
The Countess rolled away from him. As he reached to pull her back, he realised with a jolt that it seemed more than four weeks since she’d bled. Gently he cupped the breast nearest to him. ‘Isabel?’
She nodded.
‘My love! My heart! I burst with joy.’
She began to snivel. ‘My vow must be broken.’
‘Stop! We’re blessed with a child. What rapture!’ He went to the end of the bed, where he kneeled to kiss her feet. ‘My English goddess, whose skin has the fragrance of apples. You bring a child to perfect the circle of our love.’
Her tears stopped and she smiled a little, then a lot. ‘Willi, I too am overjoyed. I’m only a week late, but I know.’
Waiting below, Richard heard the young Viscount’s voice lift in song, and moments later the floorboards creaked as the couple began to dance.
He was asleep on a couch when William came downstairs in the cold dark before dawn. ‘Come on, Ricky. I’ve got to get home before it’s light – and you must go to England.’
‘What!’
‘We’re to be married. I need the letter of dispensation from Bec.’
‘Willi, your beloved is …?
‘Yes!’ William hugged him. ‘My heart sings. I feared that if we waited much longer we would never have a child.’ He became serious. ‘I must leave her for a couple of months while Henry and I fight the Welsh. But we can marry as soon as I return.’
Richard nodded. ‘It’s four or five months before a woman’s condition shows.’
‘Exactly!’ William laughed. ‘We can wait until autumn if necessary.’
Although slower than riding through
town, the most discreet way to reach William’s house was across the orchard, where trees were still in blossom and fragrant even at night. Richard said, ‘I believe your lady should not travel at this delicate stage but stay here in Normandy. How will your mother take the news?’
‘She’ll be delighted. She’ll order one or two of my sisters to leave their husbands and keep Isabel company.’
‘I’ll call on her marshal and reeves in England to ensure the management of her estates is in order.’
‘Thank you, dear friend.’ William pressed into Richard’s hand a ring set with a pearl the size of a quail egg.
Richard, armed with a letter from Henry, sailed to Dover, disembarked with his horse and rode straight to Canterbury, arriving in the dark after vespers.
‘His Grace the Archbishop declines to receive you,’ a member of the eruditi told him as he waited beneath a tree in the courtyard.
Richard shrugged. ‘Give him this,’ he said, and handed over the letter. Once the scholar was out of sight, he strolled to the scriptorium. A few scribes were working late, among them his snub-nosed protégé. Torches and reeking tallow candles focused light only on the parchments on which they worked, making it easy for him to enter unobserved. He jerked his head to his friend, who laid aside his quill and followed him outside.
‘You must be starving,’ Richard said. ‘I’ve brought you something.’ He undid a bundle he carried. In the dark, the scribe could not see what it was, but his mouth began to water. ‘Need a knife?’ Richard asked. A stiletto appeared in his hand. They moved towards a torch in a sconce, where he deftly sliced the smoked pork, the scribe moaning with pleasure as he ate. ‘When I worked here I was always hungry for meat, and we never worked such late hours.’
‘He works us like draught animals. Letters by the score every day. Manuscripts he demands we copy and decorate …’
‘Speaking of letters, there’s another one I’d like you to write.’ Richard placed his hand around the scribe’s greasy fingers, closing them over a gold coin. When he whispered into the youth’s ear what it was he wanted, the scribe drew back with a gasp.
A week later, a Canterbury acolyte hand-delivered a letter to the palace of Rouen. He had sailed in one of ‘the Lord Archbishop’s’ ships, but it had not been large enough for his stomach. His complexion was green.
The King was hearing a serious case of land theft by a magnate from eastern Normandy. He interrupted the plaintiff to read what the letter said. ‘Attend me,’ he ordered the wan messenger, whom a guard led away.
When Henry had finished hearing both sides of the case, he announced, ‘I need to reflect on the evidence presented.’ The court rose. A servant conducted him to the chamber where the acolyte lay with a wet cloth covering his face. When the King entered, he leaped up – and vomited.
Henry lifted his tunic and drew a dagger from beneath it. In his left hand he held the white vellum letter. With his right he slashed it in two. He tossed the pieces to the floor. ‘Piss on them,’ he ordered.
The acolyte trembled. ‘Sire, I cannot. It’s from the Lord Archbishop. And my bladder is empty.’
Henry beckoned to a churl. ‘Bring a beaker of small ale.’ He glared at the young man until he had drunk the whole beaker. ‘Now you’ve got piss. Use it. Right there. On that turd you just delivered.’
The acolyte squatted for modesty, aiming his stream away from the letter.
‘Stand up and piss straight,’ Henry shouted. He turned to the churl. ‘Hold his cock for him.’ The servant grinned as he moved towards the slender black-clad Englishman, his callused palm stretched ready to grab. The acolyte crossed himself, mumbled a prayer and peed.
Henry had a bucket of water thrown on his face to return him to consciousness. By the time he could stand unaided, the urine-soaked letter was wrapped in tan leather and waxed with the ducal seal of Normandy and the royal seal of England. ‘This is my reply,’ Henry said. ‘You’re to leave Normandy immediately and never return. The ship on which you arrived has already sailed, but there’ll be a craft ready to take you to the English coast by the time you reach the docks.’
It was a fishing smack with a ruffian crew. One man, known as ‘Nostrils’, had had his nose cut off. The acolyte spent the trip bent over the gunwale, dry-retching. ‘Feed the fish!’ the men yelled. ‘Don’t sing at ’em. Fish got no ears!’ They decided to ensure he did not lose their Duke’s message by tying it around his neck with a length of rope. At Dover, two of them carried him ashore and dumped him face down on the shingle close to the waterline, where a sloshing tide soaked his feet and calves.
In Rouen, Henry had already summoned Eleanor and Hamelin. When both were seated, he announced, ‘The Archbishop of Canterbury warns me against the marriage of Isabel and William. He has had scholars work on their family trees and discovers they are sixth cousins. The Church demands seven degrees of separation. He wrote that “incest is a mortal sin”.’
The Queen paled. ‘Husband, the genealogy of our families is more complicated than an eagle’s nest. He must have had someone study it for weeks. I myself don’t know if what he says is true.’
‘It’s true,’ Henry growled. ‘The family trees were in his letter, showing their intersection. The point is, wife, you and I are more closely related than William and Isabel. Fourth cousins, are we not? You and Louis are fifth. But after thirteen years of marriage and two daughters, Mother Church deemed your union illegitimate on grounds of consanguinity.’
Eleanor began to tremble. ‘I warned you Bec could endanger us. He may declare our own marriage incestuous and—’
‘All our children illegitimate!’ Henry stormed.
‘You’ve created a monster,’ she whispered.
Hamelin took her hand. ‘Dear sister, what you say is both true and not true.’
‘True and not true!’ Henry shouted. ‘This is not a moment for riddles. Speak clear!’
For the only time Henry and Eleanor could remember, Hamelin appeared embarrassed. ‘Becket is a type of monster. But Henry did not create him. Since childhood he’s believed it his destiny to become the greatest man in England.’ He stopped abruptly. Eleanor turned such a glare on him his voice rumbled back into life. ‘He believed it because it was a truth spoken to him by the unseen world.’
The Queen was dumbstruck. Henry dropped his head in his hands. ‘What you say, brother, is that I am his instrument? He is not mine?’
‘Yes.’
The King began tearing at his hair until Eleanor cried, ‘Stop it! This is not a moment for self-rebuke. It’s time for tactics and strategy.’
‘I’ll appeal to the Pope,’ Henry said. ‘Alexander can make the Archbishop’s ruling vanish.’ He glanced at Hamelin. ‘Brother, did you foresee this?’
‘I warned William I saw obstacles on the path between him and Isabel. They appeared to me as boulders blocking the road on which they rode.’
‘We need the Lout. His knowledge of the machinations in Canterbury is better than my own.’
Richard listened, his classical beauty as still as a statue’s. ‘Highness, Bec has not yet received his pallium from Alexander. Without it he does not have full papal authority. He should have realised that before he wrote to you. He should have known his role as Archbishop is not quite secure.’
‘We shall return to the audience hall, amiable and majestic,’ Henry announced.
The waiting courtiers, plaintiffs, defendants, sheriffs and hangers-on fell silent as the Duke and Duchess entered. Henry said, ‘Before I can continue to hear this case, I need some information.’ He sent for a bishop. ‘Where is His Holiness staying at this moment?’ he asked.
The magnate who had stolen the land crossed himself and genuflected. ‘Lord Duke, shall I be excommunicated by the Pope?’
Henry eyed him. ‘So you admit your guilt?’ The man nodded. ‘Your demesne is confiscated along with the chattels of your household. Sheriff!’
As the man was led away, the bishop gave his answer. ‘Our Fat
her is in Montpellier, Lord Duke.’
‘Far distant. What a pity. Thank you, Your Grace.’
When the prelate had left, Richard said quickly, ‘Someone will have told Bec about the pallium and he’ll have requested it by now. Archbishops go in person to collect it.’
‘Not this time. I forbid Bec to travel. Letters go to all of England’s ports. And to Becket himself. You, Piglet, will ride as my messenger to His Holiness.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
When the King’s letter arrived in Canterbury informing the Archbishop he was not to leave England, Becket summoned his confidants. ‘My mighty men, the King’ – he held out the parchment for them – ‘has tasted my sword of gold. Now he declares war.’
‘We shall defeat him!’ Herbert bellowed. The others echoed him.
In Normandy, meanwhile, Richard was objecting to his role as royal messenger. ‘Sire, perhaps someone else would be more appropriate than I. Holy men often take a dislike to me.’
‘Alexander is not a holy man. He’s a lawyer. He’ll probably find you charming.’
‘In that case, sire, I could be more convincing if you knighted me. Some months ago, after you captured Chaumont, you mentioned you would.’
Eleanor splayed her fingers to study her rings.
‘Fetch a sword,’ Henry growled. Those in the audience chamber, about one hundred men and a few women elbowed each other with excitement. They were about to witness a royal knighting. When Richard was on his knees before him, Henry asked in Latin, ‘What do you want as your surname?’
‘The Bastard will do.’ Richard looked up with a bright smile. ‘Or the Conqueror.’
‘Lout! Something dignified.’
‘Of Bath.’
Richard swore to defend the King’s life and limbs and all his property against every enemy. A couple of those present knew Latin well enough to understand what the Duke-King was saying, and chuckled. ‘For your services to me personally, for your courage and mendacity in pretending to swim when you couldn’t, for your word puzzles, for your brilliance with languages, for your intolerable insolence, for your love of me and my brother, William, I make you a knight.’ He tapped him on each shoulder. ‘Arise, Sir Richard of Bath.’
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