Beloved Enemy (81 page)

He watched as Thomas conferred with several prelates in his entourage. Then the archbishop started walking slowly across the sand. Henry knew that his old friend had heard a tale or two about his violent reaction to the return of the chancellor’s seal and the excommunication of his tenant in chief, William Eynsford; Thomas would already have seen ample evidence of the king’s displeasure. A wary stiffness about the shoulders, the magisterial pace, all indicated that Thomas was anxious about his reception. As he well might be. This is only the beginning, my friend, Henry said to himself.

Since receiving his chancellor’s seal in July, Henry’s initial rage had cooled into a firm resolve. In order to spare himself the continued entreaties and pleas of his womenfolk, he had allowed them to think their wisdom had prevailed: that he had accepted the inevitable and would let bygones be bygones. It never ceased to amaze him how easily women—even highly intelligent women—deceived themselves into believing what they wanted to.

When he judged that Thomas had covered more than half the distance, Henry began walking toward him. He reminded himself of Nell’s Roman proverb about revenge being a cold dish. Yes. Let the archbishop think that his former master’s anger was under control; that he was even restored to favor in the king’s affections. On no account must Henry reveal his intention: to make Thomas grovel or face ruin.

“Well met, Thomas—or would ‘Your Grace’ be more apt?”

Henry held out his hands and set an anticipatory smile upon his face, a smile that quickly disappeared when the former chancellor was standing directly in front of him.

It was virtually impossible to conceal his shock. Although Henry had heard tales of how drastically changed was the archbishop since he had last seen him, he was unprepared for the reality. Thomas’s black cowled robe hung like sackcloth on a frame gaunt to the point of emaciation. His grayish hollow-cheeked face appeared to have aged ten years in the last seven months. What with his long feet blue with cold in their thong sandals, he looked like a fasting anchorite. The tales of excessive efforts to mortify his flesh were obviously true.

“Well met, Sire—” Thomas’s whole body, quivering like a taut bowstring, suddenly went lax. His relief was palpable.

The mellifluous voice was the same, as were the deep-set dark eyes and the hawk nose. The elegant hands that reached out were icy cold, yet the clasp was strongly familiar. A wave of his old affection overcame Henry. It was all he could do to resist the treacherous impulse to give in to it, to throw his arms around his old friend whom he had sorely missed, to weep at the sight of the frightening apparition standing before him.

“I feared you might—” Thomas did not finish his sentence; his eyes were eloquent as they met Henry’s.

“Indulge in a display of the famous Angevin temper? I did, Thomas, I did. As I’m sure you have heard. Well, you know how I am—indeed, none better, eh? But when have I ever taken back a love once given?” Or forgiven an injury, Henry silently reminded himself. “That madness has passed, and I am delighted to see you.”

“And I you, Sire.” Thomas pointed a finger farther up the shore. “I’ve brought horses for you and your men.”

“As always, you think of everything.”

They were walking across the sand when Henry became aware of an unpleasant odor coming from the archbishop. Certainly Thomas had never offended in this manner before. On the contrary, his fastidious habits were well known. Had he given up cleansing himself altogether in an effort to mortify his flesh? Then widespread rumors of the hair shirt he never removed were probably correct as well.

Henry was even more shocked when instead of mounting a magnificent Arab stallion—he had possessed one of the most noteworthy stables in all England—Thomas climbed onto the back of a poor cob.

“Is it true you have given up all recreation, even chess?” Henry asked suddenly.

“Yes, Sire.”

“But you were the best chess player in all England,” he said inanely. “Well, my equal certainly.”

“‘Vanity of vanity, all is vanity,’ sayeth Holy Writ. All my time is devoted to the business of God.”

“Your time would be better spent as my chancellor,” Henry blurted out, although he had not intended to say anything of the kind.

“ ‘If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out …’ ” Thomas intoned.

What was that supposed to mean? Henry hardly knew how to answer such a non sequitur, so he held his tongue. In silence he rode to Westminster, Thomas a black shadow beside him. How he wished Nell were with him; he had hardly left Rouen and already he missed her reassuring presence. In truth, he did not know how, exactly, to handle the crisis of a defiant archbishop on his own. Once he would have turned to Thomas for advice on such matters. Again he wished Eleanor were there, although he already knew what she would advise.

When they arrived at Westminster it was growing dark and the vespers bell was ringing. The archbishop went immediately into the chapel—“to pray for him,” he told Henry. Morose, Henry decided to avoid the service and sat down to supper in the great hall surrounded by a few attendant lords. He picked at slices of smoked venison and roast partridge, and sipped indifferently from a goblet of red wine from a cask that, the steward said, was newly arrived from Gascony. He could not escape the emptiness in his heart. Nor the uncomfortable feeling that if he turned his head he would see his former chancellor, dressed in his favorite scarlet robes with the silver seal of his office around his neck, seated beside him at the high table rubbing his hands together in anticipation of the wine.

“The finest vintages come from Gascony and Bordeaux,” Thomas would say as he had so often before. “Whatever else one may say of your wife, her duchy of Aquitaine produces the best wines in Europe.”

Henry knew very well that Eleanor and Thomas had always disliked each other, and they frequently gave him conflicting views on a similar subject. The result of this opposition had led to some of his wisest decisions. What action should he take now that would best serve the realm?

“If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out,” Henry said aloud to no one in particular.

Was that the answer? It seemed to be Thomas’s. Perhaps, yes, perhaps it should be his as well.

T
HE MOMENT ELEANOR ARRIVED
at the manor house of Woodstock on Oxfordshire in late May she sensed trouble brewing.

Accompanied by all her children, as well as a small entourage of attendants, she had hardly dismounted when the sound of raised voices swept through the open doors.

She turned to Earl Robert of Leicester, co-justiciar of England, who had limped into the courtyard to greet her. “King Henry holds a meeting of his council, madam,” said the earl, in answer to her startled look.

“I need not ask if Thomas attends.” Eleanor followed Earl Robert into the hall where the central fire was burning brightly.

“Archbishop and king are already at it hammer and tongs.”

“And I was hoping for a few peaceful months in Oxfordshire with Henry and the children.” She took a goblet of wine offered by a servitor.

Leicester sighed. “You’re not likely to find much peace here—not at the moment, anyway. Although the king has had a victory of sorts in that he persuaded the archbishop to absolve his tenant in chief and restore him to the bosom of Holy Church.”

“Thank God for that.”

Eleanor and the children had left Normandy a sennight earlier, eagerly looking forward to their stay at Woodstock. Late spring was a most pleasant time of year in England; the manor house, especially charming at this time, resembled a burnished jewel set in the surrounding diadem of greenery and wildflowers. With a reluctant sigh, Eleanor settled her older children into various chambers, keeping the younger ones with her in the solar, then helped her women unpack the boxes and saddlebags. The door opened and her future daughter-in-law, Marguerite, walked hesitantly into the chamber, followed by the empress. Daughter of the king of France and his second wife, when she came of age Marguerite would be married to Eleanor’s eldest son, young Henry, whom they called Harry.

“
Ma petite,
I’m so pleased to see you,” Eleanor said, clasping the child to her. “I was hoping to find my son here. Where is he?”

“Harry is in the council with the king, madam,” Marguerite said in a piping voice. Flaxen-haired and fair-skinned with pale blue eyes, she was small for her age and very fragile-looking.

“Such a pretty child,” said Maud fondly once Marguerite had left. “Quite biddable, I’m thankful to say.” The empress glanced at Eleanor. “Does she resemble your daughters with Louis?”

It always came as a shock to Eleanor whenever anyone mentioned her marriage to Louis of France. She had almost forgotten those fifteen years of misery. Eleven years had passed since the marriage had been annulled, and she had been forced to leave her daughters with the French court as the price of her freedom to marry Henry. Louis had never forgiven her for wedding Henry Plantagenet and allying the vast wealth of her duchy of Aquitaine with Henry’s lands of Normandy and Anjou. The French king steadfastly refused to allow her to see her girls.

“When my children were little, they did not resemble Marguerite in either looks of personality. Far more robust then, but Marie will be eighteen and Alix is fourteen. Who can say what they are like now?”

The empress’s face broke into a broad smile. “Sweet Marie,” she swore, “your girls will soon be of an age to marry and then they can please themselves. It won’t be long before you see them.”

Eleanor’s heart skipped a beat. She longed to see her daughters again, but would they want to see her? In their eyes no doubt they felt their mother had abandoned them. How would they feel about her after so long? She retreated from this painful speculation and concentrated on the fact that all her children with Henry were together at Woodstock. Eleanor prayed they might have an enjoyable time despite the storm signals already in progress. She prayed the atmosphere would not be as turbulent as it had been in the ducal palace at Rouen.

When she entered the great hall at supper she could hardly believe her eyes. Eleanor had not seen the archbishop since he left Normandy in the late spring of 1162. Naturally she had heard—as who had not?—of his wasted look and the extreme penances he visited on himself. Nevertheless, seeing him in the flesh for the first time was a shock. Thomas Becket looked a grotesque shadow of his former self.

“Quite a sight isn’t it?” The bishop of Oxford, seated next to her at the high table, raised his brows. “He lacks only sackcloth and ashes.”

Not to mention a crown of thorns, Eleanor refrained from saying. “The archbishop’s appearance has taken me by surprise.” Having just lost her appetite, she nibbled on a wing of guinea hen.

The torches flaring in their sconces on the walls cast flickering shadows over the high table, covered with a snowy cloth and set with silver saltcellars and a variety of dishes. Under the table, hounds snarled and fought for scraps of food.

“If one did not know Thomas for such a self-seeking opportunist, one might be moved,” said the bishop, giving her a sideways glance.

Eleanor took a sip of wine from a pewter goblet, then gave the bishop a guarded smile. She had no intention of letting him goad her into an indiscretion.

“But even his martyred appearance does not entirely ring true, does it?” The bishop’s lip curled. “As God is my witness, there lies a hidden motive behind this display, of that I am sure. Thomas is as ostentatious in depriving himself as he was in flaunting his luxuries as chancellor. I wonder if our saintly archbishop brought his whip with him. You know that he flagellates himself—or has it done?”

Eleanor, who had heard the rumors, wholeheartedly agreed with the bishop’s observation: something about Thomas’s demeanor did not ring true.

“Be more discreet, my lord bishop,” said the earl of Leicester, who sat on the bishop’s other side and had followed the exchange. “Everyone knows you wanted the primacy for yourself. Heaven forefend that anyone should suggest you speak from disappointed hopes.”

Eleanor bit back a smile.

The bishop, a robust man, simply dressed in a black habit and hood, a silver pectoral cross his only adornment, merely shrugged. “Perhaps some prelates are jealous of what they consider a parvenu’s undeserved success. Others, like myself, simply wait for the inevitable.”

“You mean on his rise to power the archbishop has made enough enemies only too ready now to see him brought down?” Eleanor glanced at the bishop, curious to see how he would respond.

“I have always admired your political acuity, madam. Thomas has made foes, of that you can be sure. And now the king is among them.” The bishop speared a sliver of hare stewed in greens. “The pack scents blood. As God is my witness, troublous times lie ahead.”

Eleanor feared the bishop was right.

One evening a sennight later, Henry came to their bed red-faced and aflame with resentment. Eleanor, lying naked under a blue silk coverlet, in the small but well-appointed solar at Woodstock, watched him sit heavily on a stool and angrily tug at his scuffed black boots.

“We just finished another argument. To do with the sheriffs! My God, that man is so puffed up with pride.”

“What did he do?” she asked.

His boots finally off, Henry stood up and practically tore the rust-colored tunic from his body. “What does it matter what he did? It is his attitude. He thinks he is king, he thinks he is God!”

He was prickly as a porcupine and Eleanor knew she must tread carefully. With a great effort, she refrained from pointing out that antagonizing Thomas over every little thing that arose was a grave error. She watched Henry with troubled eyes and a heavy heart. It was unusual for him to be so blind to his own best interests, but any reasonable argument was wasted upon him. In his present state of mind, he would never admit he was wrong.

“What do your magnates say to his—his attitude?”

“Well, of course, they don’t want to get on the wrong side of the Church.” Henry blew out the candle sitting in its silver holder on the oak table and crawled into bed.