Beloved Enemy (62 page)

“Lion even have some on the wrong side o’ the blanket.” One woman nudged her companion with a knowing titter.

Bellebelle looked from one to the other in confusion. “Who be the Lion and Eagle?”

The alewife raised her brows. “King and Queen. Where you been keeping yourself?”

Bellebelle had never heard either Henry or Eleanor referred to by such names before, and suddenly flushed, realizing they had been talking about her own Geoffrey as born on the wrong side of the blanket. While the other two snickered at her obvious discomfort, the alewife’s beady blue eyes raked her face, missing nothing. Suddenly the alewife planted meaty arms on her ample hips and glared at the two women.

“You lot reminds me of two cats with their claws out. I say this poor lass be no worse than many another if truth be known. With her face and form I reckon the Horned One tempted her more than most. I dare say as them that points the finger at her would have been no better than what she been if they’d had the chance.” She raised an arm and one plump finger shot out jabbing the air. “I don’t see no king as coming after you two snaggle-toothed, skinny-shanked hags for his pleasure, now does I?”

The two women grew red and dropped their eyes.

“Didn’t mean no harm,” muttered one, and they scuttled away.

“Never you mind them old cats,” said the alewife, patting Belle-belle on the arm. “Jealous they be, plain as a pikestaff.”

Overcome, Bellebelle swallowed. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“That be all right.” The alewife paused, a wistful look crossed her face. “I never seen no chimney before.”

“Oh please, you be welcome in me house anytime. I’d be proud to have you.”

“Would you now. That’s right neighborly. You can call me Elfgiva. Old Saxon name, that.”

“I be Bellebelle.”

“So’s I’ve heard. That’s not a proper Christian name, if I does say so.”

“I was christened Ykenai. Me Mam, her name was Gytha. She was Saxon too.” Bellebelle looked down. “Me father was Norman.”

“Saxon names, right enough. Well, if that don’t beat all.”

Elfgiva’s eyes met hers. They smiled shyly at each other.

“Anyone as gives you trouble in the village you just tell me, hear?”

Bellebelle nodded happily and left with her pitcher of ale. Elfgiva was the first female friend she had ever made who was not a whore.

One day in late November while Bellebelle was clearing an overgrown section of the garden with the weeding crotch, Geoffrey burst through the gate, beside himself with excitement.

“You’ll never guess what’s happened! My half-brother’s married to the French princess, Marguerite. I heard at the priory that my father arranged it in such secrecy that Louis of France never even knew until it was too late. What do you think of that?”

Bellebelle straightened, rubbed the small of her back, and stared at him in bewilderment. “Your half-brother?”

“Prince Henry, my father’s heir.”

“But he be only five years old, and the French princess be mayhap two or three? What does it mean?”

“It means that my father has checkmated the king of France,” Geoffrey said, his eyes shining. “Now the Vexin will be returned to him, and he’ll get his own back for having to back down at Toulouse. He’s outwitted Louis yet again.”

“Well, I don’t see as why two children so young should marry just for a piece of land. Even Gilbert said he wouldn’t have no girl in his house ’afore twelve year.”

“Oh, Maman, you just don’t understand.” Geoffrey paused. “Who’s Gilbert?”

Bellebelle froze. How could she have been so careless? “Someone I knew long ago. And you’re right, I don’t understand. But you think what Henry did be clever?” she added quickly. “What be checkmate?”

“Oh, Maman, my father’s more than clever, he’s—he’s—” Unable to find the right word, Geoffrey frowned in frustration. “Checkmate is—like in chess. I’ve explained it to you, remember?”

“Oh, aye.”

Bellebelle watched him with a fond smile. Geoffrey was fascinated by anything to do with political intrigues and affairs of state. Sometimes she was in awe of his effortless grasp of matters that seemed unnecessarily complicated to her.

A gust of wind swept through the garden, rattling the bare branches of the pear tree, and setting the rosemary bush to quivering like silvery green spray.

“What else did you hear?”

Geoffrey thought for a moment. “The queen is back in England. At the priory they say that the king and his chancellor may return soon because the archbishop of Canterbury is ill.”

“Henry will be back? When—” She caught the note of alarm in her voice and stopped abruptly. There was a look of dread on Geoffrey’s face.

“
He’s
not been back—has he?”

Geoffrey did not have to say who “he” was. She shook her head. Both of them knew that when Henry did return, de Burgh would speak to him.

Geoffrey sniffed the air. “Is something burning?”

“Oh! The mutton pottage.” Bellebelle ran inside the cottage and quickly removed the smoking cauldron from the fire.

She hadn’t seen Henry in over two years; he had never been gone so long before. Bellebelle wanted him to return more than anything in the world, but when he did she had no idea what might happen. Would he understand? She prayed every night to the Virgin Mary-Eleanor that he would understand. But suppose he did not? Suppose he felt she had betrayed him? Suppose—suddenly she grabbed Geoffrey and hugged him as if her very life depended on it.

Theobold of Bec, archbishop of Canterbury, knew he was dying. Tended by his devoted clerics, he lay in his palace at Canterbury, heartsick that the obscure clerk he had befriended and helped to power should ignore the messages he regularly sent to Normandy, Angers, or wherever the chancellor might happen to be. Yet Thomas Becket made excuse after excuse, pleading that the king could not spare him from pressing duties. To Theobald, it was quite unthinkable that the youth whose royal mother he had so wholeheartedly supported should ignore him in this hour of his need, denying him the company of the man that he, the archbishop, had made chancellor.

In his last missive Theobald had explained that there would soon be a vacancy in the See of Canterbury and as an archdeacon of Canterbury it was Thomas Becket’s duty to come at once and help him choose a possible successor. In vain. It was now March of 1161 and he had last sent to Thomas just after Twelfth Night.

Theobald fingered the silver crucifix on his breast and signed himself. Such base ingratitude was beyond his comprehension. Without his help, Henry Plantagenet would never have mounted the throne. Who was it kept England safe when Stephen died? Arranged the peaceful transition from one reign to the next? How could that thoughtless boy deny him such a humble request during his last hours on earth?

“Put not your trust in kings and princes,” he said aloud. “Now we must add chancellors of England. My flesh is worn, my limbs wearied with age, and the end of my days is at hand. I ask only that I look upon Thomas’s face once more. Is it too much?”

“No, Your Grace.” One of his clerics sitting on a stool beside the great bed leaned forward.

“Perhaps I have not earned the right,” Theobald said in a quavering voice. “Perhaps I judge Thomas too harshly. Underneath my archbishop’s robe beats the heart of a simple monk, not a worldly prelate. The chancellor’s magnificence, his preoccupation with the trappings of power, such a life seems unworthy to me.” He shook his head and signed himself again. “I saw Thomas’s faults; I was never blind to his ambition, his lack of holiness, but there was good in him, surely I was not wrong about that?” He knew he was rambling but could not seem to help himself.

“No, Your Grace.” The cleric held up a goblet of wine to Theobald’s lips.

The archbishop sipped, feeling the cool liquid soothe his parched throat.

“But Thomas has done things that have disturbed me. He should never have agreed to tax the abbeys for the war in Toulouse. Never. It goes against our Order, whether or not it is right in law. Master Thomas never fails to side with kingly authority; he is devoted to Mammon, not God.” Taking strength from the wine, Theobald sat up straighter against the pillows. Indignation warmed his body.

“Get pen and parchments,” he said to the cleric, pleased with the note of determination he heard beneath the quiver in his voice. “I will send to Normandy once more. This time I will order Thomas to come, not beg him. If common humanity will not move him, threats may.”

“I think I should visit Theobald, Sire,” Thomas said. “After all, he’s sent to me I don’t know how many times by now. My conscience is beginning to trouble me.”

“As I’ve already told you, there’s no need,” Henry said in a lazy voice. “Archbishops are always issuing summons as though they’re the foremost canonical authority in Christendom.”

On this late March evening, they were seated round a fire in the clearing that housed the Old King’s hunting lodge in the Verte Forest, outside Rouen.

Thomas laughed. “I doubt Theobald aims so high.”

When, early this morning, Henry had suggested they go hunting together, just the two of them, Thomas had eagerly accepted. Since the ill-fated venture in Toulouse, which marked the first time they had had a serious quarrel, Thomas sensed a withdrawal on Henry’s part, subtle but unmistakable. They had been together numerous times on official matters concerning the realm, but there had been virtually no social intercourse between them. Thomas hoped that this invitation to hunt might be Henry’s way of healing the breach and restoring their friendship to its former intimacy. The question of whether or not to heed Theobald’s most recent summons had been under discussion for several days.

“Theobald has no standing here in Rouen,” said Henry. “As far as conscience goes, well, that is a luxury any chancellor of mine can ill afford.”

“Even at the risk of excommunication?”

Henry shrugged. “Theobald will never excommunicate you, Thomas, I think you know that. His bark is loud but his teeth are drawn.”

Thomas, watching Henry from under half-closed lids, thought he was probably right. The king, clad in a green hunting tunic girded by a belt with silver clasps from which dangled a knife in a leather sheath, blended perfectly with the silent, secret beechwoods that surrounded them. Only the ivory horn, dependent from his neck and swinging round one shoulder, looked out of place.

There was a sudden burst of flame as fat dripped into the fire from the haunch of doe threaded on a wood spit across burning logs. Above treetops brushed with gold, the sun was sinking in the west, the shadows lengthening across the clearing. The evening air was filled with the acrid tang of gray-blue wood smoke mingled with the scent of roasting meat. Three bloodhounds lay stretched before the fire, soft muzzles buried in their paws. At a distance from the fire two huntsmen were talking in low voices, testing birch-wood bows and counting the number of arrows left in the quivers. A groom curried the horses tied to several trees at the far end of the clearing.

“Regardless of my conscience, Sire, or lack of it, and leaving the threat of excommunication aside, Theobald is gravely ill. I owe him a great deal—”

“So do I, Thomas, so do I. But I have need of you here. The near-dead—if, in fact, that is how matters stand—must give way before the living. The worthy archbishop is not above exaggerating his condition for his own ends. You know what these old churchmen are.”

In truth, the selfless Theobald never acted for his own ends, only those of Holy Church, thought Thomas. But there was little point in telling that to a ruler who acted almost entirely to serve his own ends. As well as the weal of the realm, of course, although in Henry’s mind he and the kingdom were one and the same, their interests identical. What was beneficial for one must, perforce, be beneficial for the other.

What Henry failed to observe, however, was his own possessiveness, his need to be at the center of everyone’s attention. Affection for him must exceed affection for anyone else. How often had Thomas seen Henry’s jealous glance follow Eleanor, when she thought herself unobserved, noting whom she talked to, for how long, and with what degree of pleasure. Thomas had noted that Henry even resented the queen’s particular love for her son Richard.

Even the slut in Bermondsey was not exempt. Thomas had long suspected that Henry’s unusual interest in the Flemish knight, de Burgh, was connected in some way with Bellebelle—although he was not sure what the connection might be.

Now Theobald had become a target merely because Thomas wanted to visit him on his deathbed. No matter Henry’s justifications, Thomas, pricked by guilt, knew it was uncharitable to ignore the summons of his former master who had taken him in when he was a poor cleric with no prospects. Not only that, it was Theobald who had started him on the road to power when, seven years earlier, he had been planted as a quasi-spy under the guise of Henry’s chancellor. Not to visit his aged benefactor was an act of disloyalty; certainly that was how Theobald would view it. In a surprising twist of fate, Thomas had switched his allegiance from the archbishop to King Henry. This was where his loyalty—and his interests—now lay. Was it any wonder he felt guilty? Well, one could not serve two masters equally. He had chosen King Henry.

Dusk fell. The sky turned mauve then deep purple; the sun sank beneath the trees. A huntsman took the haunch from the fire and cut it into thick slices.

“I wonder if Theobald has an actual successor for the See in mind.” Henry took a swallow from a silver wine flask and held it out to Thomas.

“Unlikely he has a candidate for Canterbury, Sire. This was one of the reasons he wanted to consult me.” Although Thomas rarely indulged in wine, tonight he felt the need of some fortification. Was it the image of a dying Theobald? He could not tell, but moved close enough to Henry so that their shoulders brushed. He took the wine flask.

Venison juice dripped upon Thomas’s tunic as he carried a chunk of meat to his lips. During the past two years, whenever he was with Henry, he had started to eat the flesh of four-legged animals, a far cry from his earlier adherence to only fish or two-legged creatures, as prescribed by the Benedictine Order.