Beloved Enemy (64 page)

So long as she did not actually
know
anything for certain, she could persuade herself there was nothing to know. That had been the trouble with seeing Bellebelle’s name in the Pipe Roll. Eleanor had managed to put the thought of this bawd from her mind—most of the time. Now she wondered if Henry had had a child by her, but could not bring herself to ask.

“
I
can tell this fortunate child will look like you.” Henry examined the babe’s sleeping face. “A veritable Helen of Troy. Now—if only she has my disposition—”

“Your
disposition? What’s wrong with mine, pray?”

Henry grinned at her over the top of the babe’s head. “I would never survive two imperious beauties in my household. Thank Heaven Matilda is of a mild and meek manner—as a girl should be.”

Eleanor, resting on the bed in the small solar at Domfront, could see that Henry was pleased with this new daughter. It never ceased to amaze her how affectionate and indulgent a father he had turned out to be, spoiling and petting all his children—with the exception of Richard, whom he continued to ignore.

Handing the babe over to the wet nurse, Henry walked to the bed, sat down, and took Eleanor in his arms.

“You grow more beautiful each year, I swear you do,” he said, nuzzling her neck. “Do you practice some secret spell or other witchcraft to still look so young and desirable?” His hands curved round the outline of her breasts. “You certainly continue to bewitch me.”

“Flatterer.” She patted her stomach muscles, still loose and weak from the birth. “This is hardly young and desirable. It will take weeks of riding and hawking to harden.”

“Then you won’t mind returning to England when you’re fully recovered? I’ve lots or riding for you to do there.”

“England again? Not without you. I absolutely refuse. Send your beloved Thomas.”

“I’ve other plans for my beloved Thomas.” Henry gave her light little kisses all over her face and neck. “I need you in England.”

“What plans?”

Henry said nothing but continued to fondle her breasts. Eleanor felt herself responding to his ardor and, knowing he was attempting to distract her, resolutely removed his hands.

“That won’t cozen me.” She searched his face. “What schemes are you up to? Tell me.”

“God’s eyes, you’re like a bloodhound worrying a bone.” He bit his lip and sat back. “You must not speak of this to anyone, especially to Thomas.”

“I never talk to him unless I must.”

“As you know, since Theobald’s death last April, the See of Canterbury has remained vacant. The pope is pressing me to fill it. He favors Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of Hereford.”

“A good choice I should think. His entire life is a model of rectitude: never imbibes wine or eats meat, and keeps a most austere household.”

Henry nodded his head impatiently. “Not to mention being a great scholar, a distinguished politician, and noted for his high moral standards of behavior. I know all of this.”

He rose and began to pace up and down beside her bed.

Eleanor followed his movements with a puzzled look. “Well? What more could you ask?”

“I’ll tell you what more.” Henry swung around and jabbed a finger at her. “Gilbert Foliot, this prince among ecclesiastics, swore allegiance to my mother when he was ordained, yet broke his vow by later doing homage to Stephen for his temporal possessions. Do you tell me this is not perjury? It is. No matter how valid his excuses.”

“That was a long time ago. He has served you well since, has he not?” Eleanor had long noted that Henry was unrelenting toward anyone who had broken faith with his mother to serve Stephen. It was an obsession with him. Her uncle’s words flashed briefly through her mind.

Henry came to rest beside the bed. “I never forget an injury.”

“I was just thinking that.”

“Then our minds run a similar course.” He paused. “In any case, it is in my mind to appoint”—he paused and took a deep breath—“Thomas Becket.”

Eleanor was mystified. “Appoint him what?”

“Archbishop of Canterbury.”

She could not have been more stunned had he named her. “But he’s your chancellor! You can’t mean that.”

“I always say what I mean. The advantages are—well, they defy number. You know I’ve always followed an aggressive policy in any conflict between Church and sovereign. Thomas has never failed to side with me. To have as archbishop someone who is also chancellor—”

“Ensures you of Church support under all circumstances. I well understand the situation.” Eleanor had such a sense of foreboding that the whole chamber suddenly felt shrouded in a thick gray fog of doom. “Henry, listen to me. In theory, what you propose is every monarch’s dream, but there are problems—”

“The Holy Roman Emperor’s chancellor is also the archbishop of Mainz. From what I hear—and my mother still has contacts in the empire—there are no problems.” Henry sat on the bed.

“This is
England,
not the empire! Has there ever been a chancellor here who was also archbishop?”

“A first time for everything.”

Eleanor pulled herself up higher against the pillows. “Like crowning young Henry while you still live? You seem set on breaking one precedent after another. Not that I object when there’s need, like trying that case in York, but this …” She threw up her hands.

Henry suddenly dropped his eyes. “I refuse to be strangled by hidebound traditions.”

Eleanor raised her brows. “How many times have I heard you refer to the good old customs of your grandfather? You cannot have it both ways.”

“I don’t see why not. You’ll have to do better than that, Nell.”

“All right. Canterbury does not like Thomas. He was an archdeacon who worked in Theobald’s household, where he was known mainly as a lawyer and diplomat. Now he is your chancellor. By Church standards he is not suitable. Worldly, ambitious, hardly a pious man, these are but a few of the epithets leveled against him by the monks. You will have trouble if you attempt this. I was recently at Canterbury and I know whereof I speak.”

Henry rubbed his chin. “I believe you.” He sighed. “I should have seen Theobald before he died. I should have let Thomas see him. It was not politic.”

“Not politic? Sweet St. Radegonde, it was cruel! You broke that old monk’s heart.”

Henry frowned, and scratched his head. His lips were pursed in a pout, and guilt was writ large on his face, like a small boy who has been caught in the act of misbehaving. She knew the expression well.

“Mea maxima culpa. I can be vicious sometimes. When I want something—or fear it—” He shrugged and rose to his feet. “There’s naught I can do about it now. The monks of Canterbury must make the best of it.”

As usual, his unblinking look at the less favorable aspects of his character disarmed her. Her voice softened. “Henry, I know you believe this to be a shrewd stroke, but if you make Thomas archbishop you will regret it to the end of your days.”

Henry resumed his pacing. “I’m not blind. I’m well aware you have never liked him, nor he you, for that matter. In truth, he has served me, and the realm, very well indeed. Give me one specific reason, a fact not based on your personal bias, and I will listen.”

Eleanor searched frantically for some incident or fact that would move him. “How do you know he shares your views on, say—need for reforms in matters of law? There’s always conflict between the civil and Church courts. You told me yourself that the corruption and greed of many Church officials was widespread. Also he’s not a priest.”

“You’re clutching at straws, Nell. Thomas has been scrupulous in his attempts to win back for the royal courts all that had been lost to the Church courts in Stephen’s reign. As for not being a priest—that’s easily remedied.” He gave a dismissive wave of his hand.

“As your chancellor he has supported the crown. What will he do as archbishop of Canterbury?”

Henry paused in his pacing. “But he’ll be both! It won’t do, Nell. You have no valid reason for disputing my choice. In fact, I thought you would be pleased to have him out of our lives and safely tucked away at Canterbury.” He sat back down on the bed and took her hand. “I will see much less of him. In fact, I will be losing my blood brother and you will have less occasion to be jealous.”

Eleanor flushed. Had her jealousy been so obvious? “Blood brother?”

“Last spring, before Theobald’s death, we were flown with wine and bonded ourselves as blood brothers.” Henry paused, frowning, as if he would say more.

“Was there something else?” Her heart skipped a beat.

“Not really—nothing specific. I do regard him as an elder brother in many ways, a father and mentor even. After all, he was with me from the first day of my reign.”

“Yes, I know. So was I.” Eleanor felt vaguely disquieted but did not know why. Blood brotherhood. She knew very little about such bonds. “Before you make a final decision, please consult your mother.”

The Vespers bell rang and Henry rose. “I never expected to hear you say that, but I intend to. I need not decide at once. Will you attend evensong?”

“I think not. I still feel very weak.”

Eleanor watched him walk toward the door, stopping for a moment to chuck his little daughter under the chin. It would indeed be a relief to have Becket at Canterbury, but she knew with an absolute certainty that to appoint him archbishop would be a fatal error. If only she could have thought of …

Suddenly she remembered her uncle Ralph’s suspicions about Becket’s veiled desire for Henry. Should she tell him? He had reached the door now. She hesitated. Ralph’s opinion was not based on known fact. Nor was her uncle a man Henry held in high regard. He might think that jealousy prompted her, a desire to destroy Becket’s reputation. What should she do? By the time Henry had opened the door and left, the moment had come and gone.

The weeks passed and Eleanor was soon back on her feet, feeling fit and filled with her old energy. Henry had still not finally made up his mind about Becket, and in November she allowed him to persuade her to return to England. Still a prey to unease, Eleanor set sail for Dover, taking baby Eleanor and two nursemaids with her. Henry stood waving on the shore. As his figure grew smaller and smaller, she wondered if the day would come when she would regret her silence concerning Thomas Becket.

I
NITIALLY, IT HAD NOT
been Henry’s idea to tempt Thomas Becket into losing his virginity, but when a knight in his entourage had suggested it, he had given his wholehearted agreement.

The day after seeing Eleanor off to England, Henry returned to Rouen in the company of his chancellor and three knights. He had decided to say nothing about the vacant See of Canterbury until he had talked to his mother. As he had told Eleanor, there was no hurry. After all, while the See remained vacant, those revenues flowed into the coffers of the king’s treasury—although the pope would start complaining in earnest if the appointment were delayed too long. At the moment his domains remained quiet on both sides of the Channel and he was filled with a sense of well-being and accomplishment.

As Henry approached the gates of Rouen this windswept November morning, he hoped Eleanor was having a gentle voyage to England. The weather was uncertain this time of year when the Channel was often troubled by autumn gales—although he doubted there was a storm in heaven daunting enough to challenge the redoubtable Eleanor of Aquitaine. He smiled at the thought. Odd. His wife had been queen of France and was now queen of England. Yet he always thought of his Nell as Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Henry was struck by the realization that whenever she was gone he sorely missed her, although it was a great deal quieter in her absence. No challenges, no adversarial confrontations, no threats to his authority. No excitement either, for that matter. In fact, the atmosphere was dull as plainsong—or would be if Thomas weren’t here.

Despite Eleanor’s stubbornness, her attempts to control him and his affairs—especially where Aquitaine was concerned—her obvious ambition generally to get above herself, he loved her with the same passionate awe and loin-tingling excitement that he had at the beginning. The number of children she had borne had not, in his eyes, diminished her beauty or desirability. Of course she looked older than when he had first met her, and her body, though still slender, was no longer taut as a whip, but it never failed to arouse him as no woman’s ever had. Just thinking of her now sent a pulse of heat through him and he knew he would be visiting a bawd tonight.

Trumpets sounded; guards flung open the gates. Henry rode into the streets of Rouen. Thoughts of Eleanor turned, as they often did, to thoughts of Bellebelle. God’s eyes, how he missed her as well! He had not seen her in over two years at least, nor little Geoffrey. He now had many bastard sons—or so the various wenches claimed—but Geoffrey was his favorite by far. He loved this son as much as his children by Eleanor, and the mother too if it came to that.

His feelings for Bellebelle were vastly different, of course, than his feelings for Eleanor. But no less loving, no less meaningful to him. If Eleanor was fire and storm, unpredictable and challenging, Bellebelle was a cool forest stream, nurturing, soothing, and always predictable. He had rescued her from a life of degradation and poverty; she owed him everything. Eleanor, on the other hand, had come to him as an equal. Sometimes he felt that she did more for him than he for her—when it should be the other way round. There was nothing so gratifying than to know a woman was totally in your debt.

The ducal palace lay ahead, the gold-and-scarlet banner flying from the battlements to show the duke would be in residence. A light rain started to fall.

“Can you recommend a bawd?” he asked a knight riding beside him. “Someone new. I grow tired of the same old strumpets.”

“There’s a skilled tart called Millette, my lord duke, young and mettlesome, newly arrived in Rouen from Brabant. She plies her trade in the old quarter not far from the cathedral.”

“Sounds promising.” After being called Sire or Majesty in England, Henry always found it strange, at first, to hear himself called Duke in Normandy, or Count in Anjou.