Canterbury Papers

by Judith Koll Healey

  Both William and Charlotte had risen, but I held up my left hand to them. With my live hand, I grabbed the queen’s arm and forced her to turn back to me, though not enough to hurt her at all.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but I held up my withered hand to her as well. It was always—as I have said before—an act that arrested conversation.

  “You know I had no choice with the king.” I spit out my words. “I was his prisoner every bit as much as you were. It wouldn’t have mattered whether I wanted to be his concubine or not. He would have what he chose. But what matters, in the end, is that he was good to me at a time when I had lost everything.”

  To my complete horror, I heard my voice breaking and felt hot tears rising, tears I had felt only twice before in all the years since my child was taken from me. But I pressed on, through my sobbing.

  “You have reason in your anger. I did a terrible thing, and I ask your pardon. But at least in my actions, confused as they were at the time, I had an honest heart. I came to love the king. And I knew you had not loved him for a very long time.”

  The queen stood impassively before me, but it was my aunt who came to my side and put her arm around me. She spoke to the queen in a matter-of-fact manner as she held my shaking body.

  “Truly, Eleanor, there is enough blame on all sides. Alaïs is right. Your love for Henry was dead. Indeed, you hated him. You know it was only your pride that was wounded.” The abbess gently pressed me to her. I saw William standing, his arms folded, watching me gravely across the table. “Why not stop this high-handed playacting and tell Alaïs honestly what you knew. Put this matter behind you both.” My aunt could feel me in danger of collapsing, and she guided me into the chair.

  I buried my head in my folded arms, my face hidden, silent now but unable to stop the warm water flowing from my eyes. Then I felt the queen’s hand briefly on my neck, a gentle brushing action as she passed by. When I looked up, I saw her back in her chair. I saw also what the effort to confront me had cost her, with the shaking of the palsy back and more pronounced than before. She passed her slender, blue-veined fingers across her eyes and then looked at me. She began to speak in quiet, measured, almost musical tones, as if chanting plainsong.

  “At the time, Alaïs, I did not know that your child lived. If I had known, I would have told you. Although I was angry with you, I never meant harm to either you or the child.” She pulled a piece of lawn from her inner sleeve and passed it across the table to me. I took it, as a sort of peace offering, and used it to blot my hot, wet face.

  “I heard of your affair with the king while I was imprisoned in Old Sarum, as you know from the letters you found. But I, too, was told by him that the child had died. He swore to me on his father’s grave. He was most convincing. He had one of his famous temper tantrums when I questioned the truth of his avowal. I think”—she paused here, as if searching in the dim reaches of her mind—“that he genuinely wanted to protect your son. If everyone thought the child dead, he would be safe, Henry reasoned. And so he was, for years.”

  “But I was the child’s mother,” I almost wailed, ashamed of my lack of control even as I spoke. “Why did he keep this from me?”

  “You? You were the most dangerous of all,” she said in that hard, quiet voice. “You were the one who could least be trusted, for keeping the babe would be your concern above all. And if you did so, others were bound to learn of it. And therein lay the threat.”

  “How did you find out he was still alive?”

  “John uncovered the secret in recent weeks. As he was gathering information on the Templars, to use to persuade them not only to relent in their pressure on him but to back him financially, he was told by a trusted informer that the highest officers in the Templar ranks were shielding one who could be a threat to the throne.” Here her eyes flashed at William, who seemed unperturbed, examining his fingernails.

  “If John spent more time governing the country as a good king should and less time running around trying to identify and hold up his enemies, he’d have fewer of them,” he drawled.

  “John is trying to be a good king,” Eleanor said, “and anyway, who do you have in your officers’ trust who has such a loose and flapping tongue? I suggest you look to your own house and straighten it before you inspect mine.” She had no sooner begun her harangue than William brought his fist down on the table.

  “God’s bones, Queen Eleanor! Stop shielding that overgrown juvenile from the consequences of his own actions. It’s going to wreck the kingdom that you and Henry worked so hard to consolidate. Do you want to see your own efforts lost in your lifetime? Whose side are you on? You can’t be wanting that impetuous little rabbit Philippe Auguste to take all of England too?” He seemed to remember us momentarily and glanced my way. “Sorry, Princesse,” he muttered. “Sorry, Abbess.”

  Eleanor sighed. My aunt rolled her eyes heavenward. And the earnest, intelligent face of François crossed my vision. For just a moment, I felt a brush of sympathy for Eleanor, the mother of so unworthy a son.

  “All right, suppose I do agree to convince John that there is no child, no little bastard brother that grew old enough to threaten him. Suppose I tell him that such a child, in truth, lived once but died in his infancy. John will ask me how I have come upon this information.” She placed her hands upward on the table. “What do I tell him?”

  “The grave has been found,” William said without a pause, as if he had been thinking of nothing but this since he rose that morn. “The grave was in the north of England, with markings that are unmistakable. And a letter from the grand master of the Templars was intercepted and delivered to you, acknowledging these facts. I myself will pen the letter, if you bring me parchment,” he added.

  “Write the letter,” Eleanor said as she signaled one of two servants hovering by the doorway to approach the table. “John will have it by nightfall, along with my own.”

  “Once he has convinced you that he believes, and gives up this wretched search, I’ll sign the bond for his loans.” William folded his arms in front of his chest. Almost as an afterthought, he added, “Oh, and he must release the abbeys from the quarantine he has placed on them. They must be free from this unfair tax he levied last year.”

  “That may be even more difficult,” Eleanor said, a smile breaking her somber expression. “John loves to oppress abbeys.”

  “John has always loved to oppress anyone,” I said, joining uninvited.

  She turned her head stiffly toward me, as if she suddenly remembered something. “Alaïs, I did not send you to Canterbury so that John could abduct you.”

  “No? Then why?”

  “Tell her why, William. It was your doing.” Her voice quavered, as if her palsy extended to her throat.

  “I must confess it was,” he said cheerfully. “I let it be known at Fontrevault that certain letters from Queen Eleanor to Becket had been discovered but that we were allowing them to rest behind the altar where they had been found.”

  “For what reason did you give out this information?”

  “So that John would be distracted from this business about Henry’s son and come in pursuit of the letters for his mother. He would not want anything damaging to come to light about his mother’s relationship with Becket whilst he was in such a tenuous position as king. The people might revolt.”

  “So you thought John would take the bait and raid Canterbury. And then what? You would catch him in the act and embarrass him?”

  My voice must have betrayed my amusement, for William looked momentarily chagrined. Then he shrugged, a benighted look on his rosy face.

  “God’s good feet, a stupid plan if I ever heard one! And this is what the great Templars produce when they play at cloaks and daggers.” I had to laugh out loud.

  “Eleanor could see through that one,” Charlotte said. “So we decided to send our own messenger to retrieve the letters. One we could trust. And one who would not arouse suspicion.”

  “I never dreamed s
he would send you,” William said to me, not laughing now.

  “And to get you to go, we had to promise dramatic news.” Eleanor added. “I had only the rumors about the Templars to go on, but it was something.”

  “And would you have told me that?”

  “Yes, I would have kept my word.”

  “But John’s throne…”

  “I didn’t think you would truly find any other news. The Templars are a close-knit group. I never thought they would give you enough information to find the child.” She looked at William with her imperious expression. “I hadn’t counted on you.”

  “Life is full of surprises for all of us, Your Highness.” He spoke to her but looked at me.

  “So I will have those Becket letters now, as part of our agreement here,” Eleanor said, tapping her fingernail on the table. And as if he expected it, William produced a small roll of letters from his worn leather purse.

  “All right, so the child is dead and I have the letters to Becket. You will sign the bond before you leave this house.”

  “No. I will sign the bond when I have John’s assurances that he will lift the tax on the abbeys and accept that there is no one who can threaten his throne other than himself. I will let you know where I rest for the next fortnight. You can send the papers there.” William began to rise.

  “What is to stop John from finding you and cutting your throat in your sleep?” I could not forbear from asking.

  “Even John is not so great a fool as to kill the grand master of the Knights Templar of England and Normandy.” The corners of William’s mouth twitched. “I have one more piece of news for you, which Queen Eleanor may not be able to give you.”

  I rose, too, although, to tell the truth, I did not even know if I was to leave with him or stay with the old women.

  “Eleanor did not prevent your marriage to Richard, as you said earlier. It was Henry himself who refused. Even though you were no longer living with him, he would not allow Richard to have you.”

  “Henry?”

  “Yes. I was there. He and Richard had their last confrontation before Henry’s death at Chinon. I was there and witnessed all of their conversations. Philippe was there, too, and both Richard and Philippe demanded of Henry that he allow the betrothal to be fulfilled. Richard was to have you as his bride. And Henry absolutely refused to give you up. Richard knew that you’d had Henry’s child, but he wanted you anyway. Whether it was a deep love or that his pride was wounded, he demanded you. When Henry refused, Richard vowed that his father had now broken every oath and promise he had made to him and that it would be a fight to the death.” William picked up his heavy velvet-and-fur cloak, which had fallen to the floor, shook it out, and threw it over his shoulders. “It’s hard to forgive Richard’s turning on his father in his last days, but in some ways that scene always made it easier for me to understand.”

  “And so it was,” Eleanor said softly, catching my attention. “A fight to the death between them.”

  “And so it was,” William repeated.

  “Alaïs.” It was my Aunt Charlotte who broke the silence. “I have letters your father wrote me years ago when he was married to your mother. I think you are entitled to know what is in them. Wait, and I will have the servants bring them from my chamber.”

  I thought about my father and my mother, and my uncle Robert, who had been rumored to love my mother. I thought about the mysteries surrounding all those who went before us. And I thought, briefly, of the rights of the dead to keep their own counsel. Perhaps that was what requiem in pace truly means.

  “Stay, aunt,” I said, busying myself with my own cloak. “I think I will leave those letters with you.” She looked puzzled. “After all is done,”—I knew that my sadness shone through the smile I managed—“the dead must keep some secrets. I no longer have wish to know them.”

  “Come, Princesse,” William said. “I’ll see that you are returned to Paris.”

  But we had to pick our way to the door, for the women insisted on accompanying us. And the queen’s walk was mightily slowed.

  When we came to the doorway, each of the women in turn embraced me, my aunt and my stepmother. And in my sincere return, I knew I was embracing the whole of my life.

  .24.

  Opportunities

  We mounted and waved back to the old women, a royal portrait in their elegant colors, with sleeves trailing as they raised their hands in farewell. As we rode out of the courtyard, I could see that William was in a hurry, as always, and I was challenged to keep up with him.

  When we came to the edge of Poitiers, I knew not which road we would take. I rode up alongside William and stopped him with my hand on his bridle. “I would like a favor,” I said.

  “Only ask.” He looked at me with that grave, courteous expression he assumed from time to time. “What is it?”

  “I would like to ride in the fields before we continue.”

  “And what fields would those be that you seek?”

  “I know a place, not two leagues from here, where the wheat is cleared and the trees are sparse and the horses could have their heads.”

  “But you haven’t been here since you were a girl.”

  “No, but I have faith that this field is unchanged. I know that it is in the same spot and that it looks the same still.”

  William looked long at me. “You’re full of surprises. And full of faith. All right. Let us see if the field is still there.” He wheeled his horse around and followed my lead, and we cantered down a side road for some time.

  We found the meadow, and it was as I remembered. Then we raced our horses together, hooting and shouting like children. We would no sooner finish one race than one of us would shout out a new target and we would begin again. William always won, of course. But I made a fair showing and once nearly pulled in front of him.

  Finally I called a halt, partly because I was laughing so hard. We dismounted, and I threw myself on the good, rich meadow grass. He followed suit. First we embraced, and then we lay like children side by side. The sky had cleared, and all traces of the rain washed away. Hefty white clouds beaten about by the wind made patches in the sky.

  “Are you content, then, Princesse Alaïs?” he asked, his mouth close to my ear.

  “Yes, close to content.” I smiled.

  “And you no longer desire aught but me?”

  I didn’t answer immediately.

  “Ah.” He withdrew, just slightly, so he could see my face. “You still want the jewel.”

  “No,” I said slowly, in full knowledge that I spoke the truth. “I no longer need the talisman. But I am still stunned that my uncle gave the order to steal it.”

  He rolled on his back to scan the sky.

  “He is grand master in France, is he not?” I persisted.

  “Alaïs, you know more about the Templar order than most of the Knights by now. Yes, he is. You heard that fool Destriers. But I cannot punish him, for he was acting under orders from his own commander that countered mine. And he belongs to the Frankish Knights. Duke Robert and I will have a talk. It is a delicate situation.”

  “And you forbade your knights to take my jewel?”

  His voice softened. “Call me a fool. I knew that Richard had given it to you. It seemed unfair that it should be taken from you just to serve the whim of a tyrant. Like stealing a piece of your past, your very heart.”

  I turned to him. “All of the past is but a memory. And that memory shifts every time I understand something new about those long-ago events.”

  “I hope none of my men sees me here,” William said, his hands comfortably locked under his head. “Resting in the grass with an errant princess is not the kind of leadership activity they expect.”

  “If they raise the question,” I said with a sly look, “just tell them you are making plans.”

  “And what plans are those?” he asked. “Have they to do with you?”

  “I don’t know how they could,” I said. “The Templars are
committed to celibacy.”

  “As you have seen, that principle is honored more in the breach, even by their leaders.” He seemed to be reading the clouds, not looking at me, so I turned my attention back to the sky.

  “William, I have a question that has been burning for the better part of this afternoon.”

  “Ask anything, Princesse. My life is an open book.”

  “Hmm.” I gazed upward. “It’s true that Jacques Destriers followed me from Paris and had my room searched looking for the pendant he so wanted.”

  “Yes, and so cleverly unmasked he was by you this very afternoon. So much has happened that I neglected to compliment you on your astute reasoning.”

  “Well, that same astute reasoning leads me to another conclusion.”

  “Which is?”

  I rolled on my side to look at him. “Today at the House of Lyons, I saw by your face that you were surprised when I accused that man of the theft.”

  “Alaïs, I would never have countenanced his actions. Thieving from women is not how the Templars accomplish their negotiations.” William now turned his body to face mine. “And I would never have allowed such an invasion of your privacy.”

  “I do believe that. But there is one thing we still need to discuss. My room was sacked twice. Once at Havre and once at Canterbury.”

  “And neither time was the thief successful.”

  “But Destriers could not have been the person who tore my belongings apart at Canterbury. He was in the town, but he wasn’t at the abbey. You would have known.”

  “Mayhap it was the Arab who was later found dead.”

  “No, he would not have been lurking in the garden when he was killed if he had a chance the previous evening to search my room.”

  “So what do you think?” His tone committed him to nothing.

  “Whoever searched my possessions at Canterbury was not a thief. That performance was for another reason altogether.”

  “But who did it? And why?”

  “Why, you did, of course.”