Time and Chance (35 page)

Marshal scowled at this pointed reminder of the calamity that had cost him an eye. Before he could retort, though, there was a commotion to the rear. Men were reluctantly moving aside, clearing a path for the king’s justiciar and the king’s uncle.

The Earl of Leicester and Rainald bulled their way through the crowd, trampling on toes and jabbing their elbows into ribs. “What in hellfire are you fools up to?” Rainald’s florid face was nearly crimson now. “Who told you to harry the bishops like this?”

Leicester was shaking his head in disgust. “The lot of you ought to be ashamed of yourselves, threatening men of God. Get out of here, and just hope this deplorable lapse does not reach the king’s ears.”

Some of the men did seem shamed by the justiciar’s tongue-lashing, others merely disgruntled. But none of them resisted, and within moments all were in retreat. Leicester strode to the door, rather ostentatiously slid the bolt into place. “The king sent my lord earl of Cornwall and me to discuss this lamentable impasse—fortunately for you, my lord bishops. I regret to say that feeling is running high against you amongst the king’s barons. Who’s to say what those dolts might have done if we’d not arrived when we did?”

Roger swallowed a skeptical rejoinder, for he suspected this entire scene had been staged for their benefit, a not-so-subtle warning of what could befall enemies of the Crown. “Uncle,” he said coldly to Rainald, while wishing suddenly that his other uncle, Ranulf, had been able to attend the Clarendon council. Mayhap Ranulf could have talked some sense into the king. It would not even occur to Rainald to try.

“What would you say to us, my lord earls?” Becket’s pallor was stained by blotches of hectic color burning across his cheekbones. “Do you speak on the king’s behalf?”

“Nay, my lord archbishop. I speak for myself,” Leicester said, his eyes sweeping the chamber, moving slowly and searchingly from bishop to bishop. “The king wishes to know how your deliberations are progressing. But nothing has changed. He’ll not give ground on this, my lords, for he has the right of it. In those lawless years under the usurper, Stephen of Blois, Crown prerogatives were lost and Church encroachments proceeded apace, if you’ll forgive an old soldier for speaking bluntly. It is only natural that the king should want to recover what was lost, to restore the—”

“This serves for naught,” Becket interrupted, with a rudeness that betrayed the shaken state of his nerves. “We already know the king’s views on this matter. If you have nothing new to offer, I see no point in prolonging this conversation.”

“How can you be so shortsighted?” Rainald glared at Becket. “My nephew is an honorable, God-fearing man, one who has the makings of a great king. But he is known to be . . . hasty in his tempers. Do not push him so far, my lords, that he takes measures he may well later regret.”

Leicester nodded grimly. “I must obey the king’s commands. I believe myself to be a good son of the Church, and it would not be easy to arrest an archbishop. But I would do it, my lords, if the order were given. I would have no choice.”

“You do what you must,” Becket said. “As will we.”

After Leicester and Rainald had departed, the silence was smothering. No one seemed to have the heart for further argument. Slumped in their seats, the bishops stared off into space, each man lost in his own dark musings. Roger’s head had begun to throb, and he rubbed his temples gingerly. How were they to escape this trap?

 

 

 

THE NEXT ONES to try their luck at breaking the bishops’ resolve were the Templars—the English Grand Master Richard de Hastings and Tostes de St Omer. With a solemnity that seemed more appropriate for a wake than a council, the two urged Becket and the other prelates to reconsider, to think of the good of the Church. That argument hit home with Roger, whose greatest fear was that this acrimony would poison the well for years to come. They had spoken with the king at great length, the Templars reported, and he was willing to be reasonable. If the bishops would agree to accept the customs, that avowal would be enough to satisfy the king.

“This we faithfully promise you,” the Templars’ Grand Master concluded earnestly, “and may our souls be condemned to eternal damnation if henceforth the king demands of you anything contrary to your will or your order.”

Becket heard them out in silence and then announced that he would go to the chapel to pray for divine guidance. The atmosphere lightened a bit after his departure. The Bishop of Winchester ordered wine and wafers to be brought in. He no longer seemed to harbor the political ambitions that had once helped to wreak such havoc upon the kingdom. Those days when he’d dreamed of the archbishopric of Canterbury for himself, the throne at Westminster for his brother, were long gone. Now in his life’s winter, he still retained a healthy appreciation for the pleasures of fine wine and good food, and he ate with a relish that few of the others could match.

Roger had no appetite. When Gilbert Foliot took the seat beside him, he found for the Bishop of London a crooked smile. “Well, it has been an interesting afternoon. Shall we toss a coin to see who gets to give the king the bad news?”

Roger’s flippancy didn’t go over well with Foliot, who was still silently fuming at the idiocy of it all. “As soon as Becket returns, we’d best go back to the hall and get this over with whilst we can still pretend to a semblance of unity.”

The Bishop of Winchester finished one wafer, reached for another. “Just be thankful,” he said, “that the king’s termagant mother is in Normandy. If you think Harry can be a raving lunatic, you ought to have seen the Lady Maude in one of her imperial fits of fury.”

His sarcasm struck a sour note with Roger; the Lady Maude, after all, was his aunt. It was also an impolitic reminder that Winchester had been on the wrong side in the great war that had torn England asunder for nigh on two decades. He was on the verge of an equally impolitic rebuke when the door opened and Thomas Becket entered the chamber.

He had the dazed look of a man bleeding from an inner wound, so ashen that even Foliot felt a twinge of involuntary pity for his plight. Waving aside Winchester’s offer of wine, he said abruptly, “If the king will have me perjure myself, so be it. I will agree to take the oath he demands, and hope to purge the sin by future penance.”

Roger was too stunned to speak. He stared at the archbishop mutely, having no idea what to say. Judging from the silence, none of the others did either.

 

 

 

BECKET’S SUDDEN CAPITULATION was greeted by Henry’s barons with surprise and jubilation. They sat upright on their benches, listening intently as the archbishop promised that he would “observe the customs of the kingdom in good faith.” Even his enemies would later remark that the man looked ill, but he spoke out firmly, loudly enough to be heard throughout the hall. Henry showed no emotion, his face impassive, grey eyes guarded. Once Becket had recanted, he said:

“You have heard the archbishop’s promise. All that remains is for the bishops to do the same, at his command.” And that was done. It was then that Henry startled them all, barons and bishops alike, by insisting that the customs should be committed to writing so as to avoid future misunderstandings.

The law, as they knew it, was oral tradition, passed down from one generation to the next. This was an innovation, one that stirred suspicion and alarm. But Henry had the momentum and the control of events, and his opponents were too demoralized by Becket’s volte-face to muster further opposition. This, too, was done as the king commanded, and the Constitutions of Clarendon were duly set down in a chirograph on January 29, the text written out three times on the same parchment and then torn so as to validate all three copies when joined together. With that, the historic and contentious Council of Clarendon drew to a close.

 

 

 

ROGER WAS SO TROUBLED by his friend’s despairing state of mind that he concocted an excuse to accompany the archbishop upon the first leg of his journey back to Canterbury. Becket had been bitterly assailed by some of the other bishops, accused of abandoning them in the midst of battle. Even his own clerks turned upon him, and as they rode toward Winchester, his cross-bearer, a fiery-tempered Welshman called Alexander Llewelyn, dared to accuse Becket of forsaking his flock and betraying his conscience, saying boldly, “When the shepherd has fled, the sheep lie scattered before the wolf.”

The archbishop offered no defense, flinching away from the words as if they were weapons. When Roger urged his mount closer so they might talk, Becket said huskily, “I have indeed betrayed my God, my friends, and myself. I do judge myself unworthy to approach as a priest Him Whose Church I have vilely bartered, and I will sit silent in grief until the ‘day spring from on high hath visited me,’ so that I merit absolution by God and the Lord Pope.”

Roger was taken aback by the emotional intensity of Becket’s remorse. But he did not doubt the other man’s sincerity and realized at once what this meant. His cousin the king may have won this battle, but the war would go on.

 

 

 

AN ICY FEBRUARY RAIN was drenching Winchester, turning the streets into muddy quagmires and driving people indoors, where they huddled around reeking hearths and cursed the vile winter weather. Within the castle, though, another storm raged, a battle royal between England’s king and his consort.

“I cannot believe,” Henry exclaimed, “that you are siding with Becket in this!”

Eleanor swore in exasperation. “Jesú! I am doing no such thing. I simply said that it might have been wiser if you’d concentrated upon a few important issues, such as the matter of the criminous clerks. You have the right of that argument and few save Becket would dispute it with you.”

“I have the right of all sixteen arguments—the Constitutions of Clarendon. They are indeed the customs of the realm from my grandfather’s time. I did not pluck them from the sky or invent them out of whole cloth.”

‘No, but you did a bit of embroidering,” she insisted, with a wry humor that he did not find amusing. “Harry, I think you overreached yourself, and for certes, you’d have done better not to have demanded that written recognition—”

“Christ on the Cross, woman!” Henry was stung by her criticism, for he was very proud of the Constitutions of Clarendon and could not understand why others were so leery of change. “How can rights be properly defined if they are not set down in writing?”

“But that makes compromise so much more difficult! Why can you not see that?”

“Because I have no intention of compromising with Thomas Becket, now or ever!”

“Like it or not, you may have to, Harry. The man is still the Archbishop of Canterbury . . . and whose fault is that?”

“I have admitted I made a mistake with Becket and do not need you to throw that in my face! But even the worst mistakes can be undone and I mean to undo this one.”

“I suppose it is too much to ask how you intend to bring this about? Why should you share your plans with me, after all? I am merely your queen!”

“Why should I want to tell you anything at all when this is the response I get—carping and disapproval?”

A timid knock on the bedchamber door interrupted the quarrel, although not for long; both their tempers were still at full blaze. Henry took the proffered parchment, dismissed the messenger, glared at Eleanor, and broke the seal. As Eleanor watched angrily, he moved toward the nearest light, a tall candelabra. His back was to her, but she saw him stiffen, heard his gasp, a cry broken off in midbreath.

“Harry?” When he didn’t answer, she moved toward him. “Harry . . . what is it?”

He’d crumpled the parchment in his fist. “Christ have pity,” he said, very low. When he looked up, his eyes were brimming with tears. “My mother has written to tell me . . .” He swallowed painfully. “My brother is dead.”

“God in Heaven! Will? What happened . . . a fall from his horse?”

“No . . . he sickened. He sickened and died on Friday last. My mother says he was not ailing long. According to the doctors, he had no fight in him, just gave up . . .”

Eleanor was shocked; Will was only twenty-seven. “I am so sorry, Harry,” she said, and put her arms around him. He held her so tightly that it hurt, burying his face in her hair. She could feel his breath rasping against her ear, could see the pulse throbbing in his temple. They stood in silence for a time and then he drew back. There were tear tracks upon his cheek, but his eyes were dry and hot.

“Will died of a broken heart,” he said. “Even the doctors think so. In denying him the wife of his choosing, Thomas Becket brought about his death.”

Eleanor did not argue with him. She reached out again, held him close, and let him grieve for his brother.

 

 

 

HEEDLESS OF THE CHILL, Ranulf stood in the doorway of the great hall at Trefriw, gazing across the rain-sodden bailey at the chamber he shared with Rhiannon. Faint light gleamed through the chinks in the closed shutters, the only signs of life. The wind and rain were all he heard, although he doubted that Rhiannon would do much screaming; Eleri had once confided that during her previous birthings, she’d bitten down on a towel to stifle her cries. Thinking of the proud, vulnerable woman in that lying-in chamber, laboring to bring his child into the world, Ranulf felt fear prickle along his spine. Rhiannon was almost forty-one. Women died in childbirth all too often, and the older the woman, the greater the risk. What would he do if the Almighty took her, if she traded her life for the baby’s?

“For the love of God, Ranulf, shut the door!” Hywel shivered as a blast of wind invaded the hall. He and Peryf had arrived in midmorning, only to learn that Rhiannon’s pains had begun before dawn. He assumed that the birthing was proceeding as it ought; Eleri’s occasional updates were hurried, not alarmed. He felt confident that Rhiannon would safely deliver her babe. But then Rhiannon was not his wife.