Time and Chance (25 page)

When the song died away, the hall erupted into applause. But for Hywel and Ranulf, the only reaction that mattered was Rhiannon’s, and she was smiling through tears.

 

 

 

IN SEPTEMBER, Henry met with the French king at the papal court in exile of Pope Alexander III, who’d been driven out of Rome by the Holy Roman Emperor and forced to take refuge at Montpellier in France. The meeting was civil, but the wounds left by the Toulouse war were slow healing. After that, Henry moved south to the great abbey of Deols, and then joined Eleanor at Chinon Castle.

 

 

 

AS SOON AS ELEANOR entered the great hall, she knew something unusual had happened. People were clustered together, voices raised. The first person she recognized was her husband’s half-brother. Hamelin was one of Geoffrey of Anjou’s bastards, acknowledged and well educated by the count until his untimely death, and then taken care of afterward by Henry. Hamelin was now in his early twenties and bore a remarkable resemblance to his other half-brother, Will. He did not have Will’s equable temperament, though, was far more excitable and impulsive. Eleanor liked him, for if he was quick to fire up, he was also quick to forgive, and his joyful zest for life usually made him good company. But at the moment, his cheerful, freckled countenance was clouded, and when Eleanor drew him aside, he could barely contain his indignation.

“What has happened, Hamelin?”

“You see that Augustinian canon over there? He was sent by Thomas Becket to return the king’s great seal!”

Eleanor was taken aback. “Are you saying that Becket has resigned the chancellorship?”

“Yes, my lady, he did. No letter, either, just the great seal. And when the king demanded to know why, his messenger said only that he felt scarcely equal to the cares of one great office, much less two.” Hamelin’s devotion to Henry was absolute, and he shook his head angrily. “Can you believe such ingratitude, Madame?”

“Yes,” Eleanor said tersely. “Where is Harry now?” When Hamelin shrugged and shook his head again, she went swiftly in search of her husband. The hunt proved harder than she’d expected. Kings were rarely able to escape the constant surveillance of the curious, but no one seemed to have seen Henry. It was only by chance that she happened to glance upward, saw him standing alone on the castle battlements.

Gusting winds sent her skirts whipping about her ankles, billowing out her mantle behind her. She stayed close to the parapet wall; although she would never admit it, she had a dislike of heights. The sun was redder than blood, haloed by flaming clouds as it blazed a path toward the distant horizon. Normally such a splendid sunset would have caught Eleanor’s eye, but now she never even noticed. “Harry?”

He half-turned, glancing toward her and then away. The view was breathtaking. Far below, the blue slate roofs and church spires of the town were still visible in the day’s waning light, and the river shone like polished brass as it flowed west to join with the Loire. Eleanor knew, though, that her husband was blind to the valley’s beauty. The hot color had yet to fade from his face, still scorching the skin above his cheekbones, and the hand resting on the merlon wall had clenched into a fist.

“Hamelin told me that Becket has resigned the chancellorship.”

He nodded, almost imperceptibly.

She hesitated, for in his present raw mood, whatever she said was likely to be taken wrong. But when she touched his arm, compelling him to meet her eyes, she saw in his face as much hurt as anger, and she found herself doing something she’d never have envisioned: making excuses for Thomas Becket. “What he said may well be true, Harry. He may feel overwhelmed by the obligations and duties of his office. It must be daunting to know that all are looking to him for spiritual guidance, for he was thrust into this role, not bred for it. If men find it hard at first to move from the plains up into the mountains, mayhap he needs time to adjust to the rarefied air on the heights of Canterbury.”

Henry frowned, but found her words were not so easy to dismiss. “I suppose there could be something in what you say,” he conceded grudgingly. “Thomas has always had to be the best at whatever he does, satisfied by nothing less than perfection. Mayhap he truly does fear that he could not do justice to the chancellorship and the archbishopric, too.”

Sliding his arm around her waist, he drew her in against him, and they watched together as the sun disappeared behind the trees. After some moments of silence, he said, “I still do not understand why Thomas did not tell me what he meant to do.”

And for that question, Eleanor had no convincing answer.

CHAPTER TWELVE

 

 

 

 

 

 

MAUDE SIGNALED to her servants to bring in the next course. Her cooks had been laboring since dawn, for she wanted this dinner to be an exceptionally fine one. Her guests were deserving of only the best, for they were family: her brother Ranulf, his wife and children, her son Will, and her niece and namesake, Maud, Countess of Chester.

The meal was an obvious success; they were eating the stuffed goose with gusto. Maude had not met Ranulf’s wife before, and had never understood why he’d chosen to wed a woman without sight. She’d occasionally wondered how Rhiannon coped with the challenges of daily living, but if her behavior at the dinner table was any indication, she managed surprisingly well. Of course it helped that it was customary for two guests to share a trencher; Rhiannon’s seat-mate was her husband, and he provided what assistance she needed with inconspicuous adroitness.

Watching as Rhiannon carefully laid a bone on the trencher’s edge, Maude smiled approvingly. Growing to womanhood at the imperial German court, she’d learned to place a high value upon etiquette and decorum, and she decided now that her Welsh sister-in-law’s manners were quite satisfactory. For certes, better than what passed for table manners in England, she thought disdainfully, remembering how often she’d seen bones thrown into the floor rushes, heard soup loudly slurped, seen meat dunked into the common saltcellar, the tablecloth used as a napkin. Maude had risked her life to reign over the English, but she had no love for the people of that island kingdom, and had not set foot on English soil since being forced into Norman exile, not even attending her beloved son’s coronation. She’d mellowed some in her sunset years, but she still had not learned to forgive.

She wanted to ask about the issue weighing most heavily upon her mind: if her son’s friendship with Thomas Becket had survived Becket’s elevation to an archbishopric. But Will had been monopolizing the conversation since the meal began, and she hadn’t the heart to interrupt; he’d always seemed so much younger than his years, in need of more coddling than his brothers.

Will was recounting their recent foray into South Wales to punish that unrepentant rebel, Rhys ap Gruffydd. “I would that all of our Welsh campaigns were so easy,” he enthused. Almost at once, though, he reconsidered and glanced apologetically toward Ranulf and Rhiannon. “No offense, Uncle. I know you are friendly with Owain Gwynedd. But Rhys is a horse of another color. He deserved whatever he got, and then some.”

Ranulf shrugged. “To tell you true, lad, I was glad to stay out of it. These old bones would rather sleep in my own bed, not on a rain-sodden field off in the middle of nowhere.”

“You’re not so old as that,” Will insisted, with more courtesy than conviction, for to twenty-six, forty-four did indeed seem much closer to the grave than the cradle. Having assured himself that Ranulf was indifferent to Rhys’s fate, he plunged back into his narrative with enthusiasm.

“In truth, it was more like a procession than an invasion, for we encountered little resistance. We even had Merlin on our side!” Will grinned at his mother’s puzzled expression. “It seems that Merlin had prophesied of ‘the coming of a freckled man of might,’ whose crossing of the ford at Pencarn would set chaos loose upon their lands. Of course we did not yet know of this prophecy and the ford was an ancient one, so Harry started to cross the stream at the ford in use now. But just then trumpets sounded and spooked his stallion, who balked at crossing. To calm him, Harry rode him along the bank and crossed at the abandoned ford—just as Merlin had predicted! After word of that got about, Rhys’s men lost heart and he had no choice but to surrender. How could he hope to defeat Harry and Merlin, too?”

“The fact that Rhys was badly outnumbered may have played a part in his decision,” Ranulf observed dryly, and Maude seized the opportunity to divert the conversation out of Wales, toward Canterbury.

“I am glad that Henry was able to punish this Welsh rebel with a minimum of bloodshed. I can only hope that he is as successful in his dealings with his new archbishop. You sailed with Henry back to Southampton in January, Will. I understand that Thomas Becket was there to greet Henry and Eleanor. Tell me how the reunion went. Did you detect any tension?”

Will shook his head. “No . . . not that I can remember. Harry and Thomas seemed glad to see each other, joking the way they always do.”

A faint frown creased Maude’s brow. As much as she loved her youngest son, he was not the ideal eyewitness, blind to nuance and oblivious to undercurrents. “What of you, Ranulf ? You saw Henry ere you sailed for Barfleur. What is your judgment? Think you that their friendship is still intact?”

“That is not an easy question to answer. They’d both probably insist it was, if asked. When Harry proposed that Gilbert Foliot be chosen to fill the vacant see of London, Becket agreed to his translation from the see of Hereford. And when Becket attacked the abuses of multiple benefices and demanded that the king’s clerks yield them up, Harry did not object. He did insist, though, that Becket ought to practice what he preached and surrender the archdeaconry of Canterbury. I suppose you could argue that this shows they are both striving to be reasonable. But it is not an argument I could make with much conviction.”

Maude leaned toward Ranulf, her gaze intent. “I’ve heard troubling rumors about Becket’s efforts to reclaim those Church lands lost during the chaos of Stephen’s reign. I am not faulting him for that, mind you. But if the stories are true, he has been arbitrary and high-handed, ordering his men-at-arms to seize disputed estates rather than seeking to regain them in court. What do you know about this?”

“The stories are true. He has revoked all leases for the Canterbury demesne. In some cases, I think he merely meant to renegotiate the terms, but many are complaining that they have been denied legal process.”

“And he has rashly challenged the Earl of Hertford,” Maud interjected, “laying claim to the castle and Honour of Tonbridge. Admittedly, I do not know the particulars, so I cannot judge the validity of his claim. But surely it would have been more prudent to seek recovery in the king’s court? Instead, he demanded that Hertford do homage to him for Tonbridge. You can well imagine, Aunt Maude, how the earl responded to that!”

Maude could, indeed; she’d had a lifetime of dealing with prideful, thin-skinned barons. “That was foolishly done,” she said disapprovingly. “What does Henry think of these doings?”

“He has been flooded with complaints and petitions coming out of Kent, and he is understandably vexed. Yet he is puzzled, too. When he granted Becket a royal writ to regain alienated Church property, he never expected Thomas to go about it in such a tactless and overbearing way. So far he is trying to give Becket the benefit of every doubt. I’ve been surprised by the patience he has shown, I’ll admit. But then he still thinks of Thomas as his friend.”

“Not for long, I’d wager.” The Countess of Chester took a swallow of hippocras. “That flag of friendship may still be flying, but it is becoming more tattered by the day. Harry has been trying to convince himself that Becket just needs time to settle in, that once he feels comfortable as archbishop, all will revert back to the way it was between them. But how much longer can he cling to that hope?”

Maude was silent for a time, reflecting upon what she’d heard. “It sounds as if Becket is bound and determined to assert his independence at every opportunity. Whilst that may be understandable, it is also foolhardy and does not bode well for the future.”

The silence that followed was a somber one, broken only when Rhiannon asked her husband to cut her another piece of bread. At home, she would have done it herself, but she felt self-conscious in the presence of Ranulf’s formidable sister. Will had begun to fidget, for he knew from past experience that discussions about Thomas Becket might drag on endlessly, and he had news of his own to share.

“Tell me, Mama,” he said quickly. “How would you like to start planning a wedding?”

“A wedding? Whose?”

“Mine,” he said cheerfully. “Harry has found me a wife. I am eager for you to meet her, Mama, for she is as close to perfect as mortal woman has the right to be: fair to look upon and sweet-natured and soft-spoken and pious and—”