“Not likely,” she said. “He has already dispatched a protest to the Pope and, for now, plans nothing else. Although the papal letter had to be sealed in a fireproof lead casket, lest the royal courier leave a trail of flames from Bures to Frascati.”
Raoul grinned, thinking that her jest was not far off the mark. He was in sympathy with the Angevin, for once, could not blame him for reacting with volcanic temper to Becket’s latest outrage. “I think the king would do well to send a doctor to the good archbishop,” he said, “for he must be suffering from a brain fever. How else explain his behavior?”
He needed to display no discretion in speaking of the archbishop, for Becket was being damned in all quarters at Bures; men eager to curry favor with the king were outdoing themselves in the virulence of their abuse. That was not a game that Eleanor cared to play, though, and she shrugged, thinking that Harry had brought so much of this upon himself by his stubborn refusal to take her advice. She’d warned him that he was making a great mistake in entrusting Becket with such power, but Jesú forfend that he pay heed to a woman . . . or anyone else, for that matter.
Just then there was a commotion outside, sudden shouts penetrating the normal noise level of the hall. Eleanor turned toward the sound with jaded curiosity, wondering what fresh trouble was about to be dumped at their door.
GEOFFREY RIDEL and Richard of Ilchester had no compunctions about speaking their minds even as excommunicates. Lent eloquence by their anger, they had taken turns accusing the Archbishop of Canterbury of sins running the gamut from bad faith to outright treachery. But Gilbert Foliot and Jocelin of Salisbury were far more scrupulous about adhering to their proscribed status as spiritual exiles.
“My lord king,” the Archbishop of York asserted, “I was suspended from my sacred calling, but I may still defend myself and my brothers in Christ.” He gestured toward the two bishops, standing mute and miserable behind him. His dramatic declaration was needless, for everyone in the hall knew that an excommunicate was not only denied the holy sacraments, prayers, and burial in consecrated ground; he was also deprived of the right to participate in the common blessings of the Christian community.
York drew a deliberate breath, making sure all eyes were upon him. “My liege, Thomas Becket has done us a great wrong. Nor does he mean to confine his vengeance to us. It is his intent to excommunicate all who consented to the coronation of the young king, your son.”
“Does he, indeed?” Henry’s scowl put Eleanor in mind of lowering storm clouds. “If all who were involved in my son’s coronation are to be excommunicated, I am not likely to escape, either.”
“That would be an evil way to repay you for the many kindnesses you’ve done him over the years. He owes all to you. How could a man of his humble pedigree ever aspire to the most exalted office of the English Church? But he seems to know nothing of gratitude. He even dared to claim that you’d agreed at Fréteval that he could cast my brethren out into eternal darkness!”
“He did what?” Henry said, in so ominous a tone that those closest to him began to back away. “He said that he had to discipline them for defying the Pope. Nary a word was said about excommunication!”
“Alas, my liege, Becket’s veracity is only one of our concerns. I have grave doubts, too, about his motives. Many believe that he has it in mind to overturn the young king’s coronation.”
“No.” Henry was shaking his head impatiently. “I gave him the right to re-crown my son. There is no need to annul the coronation.”
“I am sure you are right, my lord. It may be that these suspicions are unwarranted. But you cannot blame men for taking alarm, not after Becket has been riding about your realm with a large armed force—”
“An armed force?” Henry echoed incredulously. “This is the first I’ve heard of that!”
“Indeed, my lord. He took a large escort on his procession to and from London. Moreover, he disobeyed your son’s order to return straightaway to Canterbury and remain there. Instead he went from Southwark to Harrow to meet with the Abbot of St Albans. Once more he shows his contempt for royal authority—”
Again there was an interruption. This time it came from the Bishop of Salisbury, who was stricken by a fit of coughing. Jocelin de Bohun was elderly, not in robust health, and many in the hall began to mutter indignantly. A man darted forward from the crowd and assisted the bishop toward a seat. As he turned around, Eleanor recognized Reginald Fitz Jocelin, the bishop’s son.
Reginald was his father’s archdeacon and had once been in the Archbishop of Canterbury’s service. Salisbury’s friends had long insisted that Becket’s animosity toward him was the result of his son’s defection to the king’s service in 1164. The situation was further complicated by Reginald’s claim that he’d been born before his father’s ordination as a priest, a claim Becket hotly disputed. It occurred to Eleanor now that in the race to make enemies, her husband and his archbishop were heading for the finish line neck and neck.
Salisbury allowed Reginald to seat him on the nearest bench, but when his son attempted to help him drink from a wine cup, he shrank back, vehemently shaking his head lest that be interpreted as sharing a meal, a transgression which could taint Reginald with his own pollution.
Reginald’s face was streaking with tears, but his voice was harsh with rage. “Look, my lords,” he cried, “look how they have ill-used my father! What has he done to deserve such cruel treatment? We all know why he has been persecuted by Thomas Becket—because of me! The archbishop seeks vengeance for my loyalty to the king.”
The Archbishop of York reclaimed center stage now by saying, loudly and combatively, “Nor is that likely to change. This man Becket has naught in his heart but hatred. It spews from his lips like venom, sparing neither the righteous nor the just. His own words convict him. He has called the Bishop of London and myself ‘priests of Baal and sons of false prophets.’ He slandered Reginald Fitz Jocelin as ‘that bastard son of a priest, born of a harlot’ and he invariably refers to Archdeacon Geoffrey as ‘that archdevil.’ When he learned that the Bishop of London had been absolved of his unjust excommunication at Easter, he even reviled the bishop as ‘Satan.’ Again and again, he has resorted to the rhetoric of the gutter, the vulgarisms of infamy!”
That was too much for Eleanor’s uncle. Raoul nearly strangled trying to stifle a laugh, amazed that the bombastic York could make such a charge without even a trace of irony. He nudged Eleanor playfully, but she ignored him, unamused by what was occurring. This was too dangerous a discussion to conduct in a public forum, where collective outrage could easily ignite a veritable firestorm. She signaled to one of her children’s attendants, who swiftly gathered up Joanna and John and led them from the hall. She saw no indication, though, that her husband was going to do the prudent thing and hear the rest of this incendiary report in private. Doubting that he’d have listened to her cautionary words, she remained silent, a witness both intent and oddly detached.
“The Archbishop of York speaks true, my liege,” Geoffrey Ridel exclaimed. “We earnestly beseeched Thomas Becket to absolve the bishops, reminding him that these excommunications were contrary to the peace made at Fréteval. He knows nothing of good faith, nothing of gratitude. I, too, have heard that he has been raising an army, and I cannot help wondering what use he means to make of it.”
Henry could not believe that a fire he’d thought finally quenched was flaring again. Savagely damning Becket to the hottest abode in Hell, he retained just enough control to keep from saying it aloud. Swinging back toward York, he demanded to know what they would advise him to do. Salisbury and Gilbert Foliot were looking more disturbed by the moment, but York seemed quite calm, almost complacent.
“We think you ought to take counsel from your barons and knights, my lord king,” he said sententiously. “It is not our place to say what should be done.”
Richard of Ilchester had brought a stool out for Gilbert Foliot, insisting that he seat himself. Foliot resisted at first,
but he was in his sixth decade and soon capitulated. He was so flushed that he looked feverish, so obviously shaken that he aroused considerable sympathy in the hall. Richard gestured angrily toward the older man. “Here is yet another victim of Becket’s vengeful scheming. Bishop Gilbert has devoted his entire life to Holy Church, first as Abbot of Gloucester Abbey, then as Bishop of Hereford and now London. None have ever questioned his faith or besmirched his integrity—none but Becket! He even dared to accuse Bishop Gilbert of the vilest sort of treachery. His very words to Bishop Gilbert were: ‘Your aim has been all along to effect the downfall of the Church and ourself.’ Notice how he equates the Mother Church with his own selfish interests!”
Engelram de Bohun stepped forward to add his voice to the fracas. As the Bishop of Salisbury’s uncle, he felt that he had more right than most to vent his spleen against his nephew’s enemy. Like the others, he made a point of calling the archbishop “Becket,” spitting it out as if it were a curse. Eleanor understood why quite well. It went beyond denying him his rank as a prince of the Church. By making use of the surname Becket himself shunned, his foes were emphasizing the archbishop’s greatest vulnerability: his shame at being the son of a mere merchant.
As a descendant of Charlemagne, the proud daughter of a prideful and ancient House, Eleanor agreed, of course, that bloodlines were of profound significance. But she found herself feeling a growing sense of exasperation with all concerned. She had learned through painful lessons that words must be weighed with care and that actions had consequences. Looking back upon the rash, headstrong girl she’d once been, she winced at the naïveté and foolhardiness of that younger, indiscreet self. How was it that Harry and Becket had learned nothing from their own mistakes?
Others were joining now in the chorus. The young Earl of Leicester admitted that his late father, the justiciar, had been too solicitous of the archbishop, but vowed that he himself would never associate with an enemy of the king. Men dredged up memories of Becket’s past offenses and dwelt upon them at considerable length. Reginald Fitz Jocelin accused the archbishop of every sin but lust, and several even cast doubt upon that exemption. Mention was often made of the archbishop’s “English army.” Arnulf, the Bishop of Lisieux, lamented the archbishop’s obstinate, willful nature, and the Archbishop of Rouen and the Bishop of Évreux expressed anger that the Holy Father had been misled by the archbishop in the matter of the young king’s coronation oath. Geoffrey Ridel and Richard of Ilchester bitterly blamed Becket for their own excommunications. The only men in the hall who did not speak against Becket were the two that he’d silenced by anathema, the Bishops of London and Salisbury.
As his court denounced and damned Becket, Henry paced before the open hearth, his anger rising with every insult, every stride. When was this going to end? Was he never to be free of Becket’s malice? How many times must he play the fool and put his trust in this faithless friend and disloyal subject?
Engelram de Bohun had worked himself up into a frenzy and was bellowing that the only way to deal with a traitor was to find a rope and a gallows. A Breton lord, William Malvoisin, was recounting a rambling story of his return from the Holy Land, saying that in Rome he’d been told of a Pope who’d been slain for his “insufferable insolence.” That brought down the wrath of several bishops upon him. While they castigated Malvoisin, the Archbishop of York drew closer to his king and said softly, as if sorrowing over his message:
“I fear, my lord king, that whilst Becket is alive, you will never have a peaceful kingdom.”
“I know!” Henry snapped. “Christ smite him, I know! No matter what I do, he betrays me at every turn. He owes all to me, but repays me with treachery and deceit.” Stalking so close to the hearth that he kicked one of the fire tongs, sending up a shower of sparks, he glared at the barons and knights milling about the hall. “What miserable drones and traitors I have nourished and promoted in my household, who let their lord be mocked so shamefully by a lowborn clerk!”
ELEANOR WAS already in bed, her long hair braided into a night plait. Her ladies, Renée and Ella, were asleep on pallets piled high with blankets, for there was no fireplace in the bedchamber. When Henry and his squires finally came in, Eleanor was still awake, for she wanted to learn the outcome of his council. He had belatedly retreated from the turmoil in the great hall, gathering the most trusted of his barons and bishops and crowding into a small antechamber where they could determine in privacy how best to deal with the crisis. Once again Eleanor had found herself relegated to the outer perimeters of power, and she did not like it at all.
She lay still, listening as Henry’s squires assisted him in undressing and then bedded down themselves. There was a pale flicker from a solitary candle as the bed hangings were parted and the mattress shifted under Henry’s weight. As soon as he drew the hangings back, they were cocooned in darkness. Eleanor waited for several moments before saying, “Well?”
Henry started and then sank back against the pillow. “Good God, were you trying to make my heart stop beating? I thought you were asleep.”
“What did you decide to do about Becket?”
“I am going to give him an ultimatum. Either he absolves the bishops from their lawless excommunications or he shall be arrested.”
“That is likely to go well.”
“What do you expect me to do, Eleanor? Let him defy me with impunity?”
“Are you actually asking for my opinion, Harry?”
“What ails you, woman? I have troubles enough with that whoreson Becket, need none from you!”
It was a strange sort of quarrel, one conducted in utter darkness and the illusory intimacy of the marriage bed. After an aggrieved silence, Henry said testily, “On the morrow I am sending Richard de Humet to England to let Hal’s advisers know of my will. At the same time, the Earl of Essex and Saer de Quincy are to guard the ports in case Becket seeks to flee to France again.”
“Do you truly think he would?”
He exhaled an exasperated breath. “If I could penetrate the maze of that man’s brain, do you think we’d ever have come to this? I know not what he is likely to do. Nor do I care.”
That was such an obvious untruth that Eleanor chose to let the matter drop. She asked no more questions and their argument waned, a fire damped down but not entirely extinguished. They lay side by side in a suffocating stillness charged with foreboding, and it was nearly dawn before either slept.
THE LAST Tuesday in December, the morrow of Holy Innocents, was chill and grey. The sky was mottled with clouds, and a high wind was tearing the last of the leaves from an aged mulberry tree in the outer courtyard of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s palace. William Fitz Stephen was hurrying along the south range of the cloisters, shivering in the wintry morning air, when he saw a figure slumped upon a bench in one of the carrels. Recognizing the cellarer, he swerved in that direction, for this was not a day to be enjoying the outdoors.
“Richard? Is something wrong?”
The cellarer looked up, his face as ashen as the sky, and Fitz Stephen sat down hastily beside him on the bench. “What has happened?”
“A cousin of mine is wed to a retainer of the Lord of Knaresborough, Hugh de Morville. He sought me out last night in Canterbury to warn me that the archbishop is in grave peril.”
This was even worse than Fitz Stephen had expected. “What did he tell you?”
“Hugh de Morville and three other lords and their knights landed at Winchelsea yesterday and rode straight for Saltwood Castle. They told the de Brocs that they’d come from the king’s Christmas court, that he had sent them to arrest the archbishop. But Martin—my cousin’s husband—said that he’d begun to doubt this was true. He overheard them talking amongst themselves and was no longer sure they were doing the king’s bidding. His misgivings finally became so strong that he slipped away from Saltwood and came to alert me to the danger.”
“You’ve gone to the archbishop with this?”
“Of course I did! H
e heard me out and seemed to believe me. Yet he has done nothing to protect himself, Master Fitz Stephen, nothing! There is no use in seeking aid from the Sheriff of Kent, for he is an avowed foe of the archbishop and hand in glove with the de Brocs. We could still rally the townspeople, summon the knights who owe fealty to the archbishop, send urgently to the young king’s court. But Lord Thomas will not even bar the gates to the priory!”
FITZ STEPHEN was sitting at a table in the great hall, staring vacantly off into space. It was his inactivity, so unusual in one of the most industrious of the archbishop’s clerks, that attracted the attention of Edward Grim. Although they were only recently acquainted, the two men shared much in common: an excellent education, a reluctance to demonize their foes, spiritual piety entwined with secular ambition, and an abiding faith in the rightness of the archbishop’s cause. There was concern as well as curiosity, therefore, in Grim’s quiet query.
“Will? I do not mean to intrude, but you seem sorely troubled. May I help?”
Fitz Stephen looked up dully, then gestured for Grim to join him. No sooner had the young priest seated himself than the words came pouring out, each one more alarming than the last. By the time he’d finished, Grim was staring at him, aghast.
“You talked to the archbishop about this?”
Fitz Stephen nodded. “So did John of Salisbury and Robert of Merton, his confessor. He heard us out, but paid us no heed. We are not exaggerating his danger, Ned. Either these men are plotting to murder him in the hopes of gaining royal favor or they are acting at the king’s command. Whichever is true, the outcome is likely to be the same, for I do not think Lord Thomas will allow himself to be arrested.”