Prior Odo hastily whispered to one of the monks, who quickly fetched a penitential whip, a leather thong attached to a short handle. When he offered it to the Bishop of London, Gilbert took it as if he’d been handed a live snake. Seeing that he’d have to be the one to initiate the scourging, Henry said tersely, “Do it,” and then knelt by the tomb, thrusting his head and shoulders into one of the wall openings. It was an awkward position and his back began to ache before the first touch of the whip, but it had the advantage of shielding his face from his audience, one small indulgence that he hoped the Almighty would not begrudge him.
With a murmured “ Deus vult,” Gilbert struck his king’s bared back. It was a light blow, as were those that followed, for all of the bishops seemed determined to make the scourging a symbolic one. Prior Odo was no less gentle, and the first few monks to wield the whip were either intimidated by the circumstances or were never partisans of the archbishop, for their lashes barely touched Henry’s flesh. In the beginning, Henry was trying to keep count of the blows, but he’d soon given it up. There were at least seventy monks, which added up to more than two hundred strikes, and he decided that was enough to know. When the first blow sliced into his skin and drew blood, there were indignant protests from some of his men that subsided only when he demanded silence.
He discovered he could measure a monk’s devotion to St Thomas by the strength of his blows. Most were cautious or prudent, but occasionally one of the monks would employ the whip with enough enthusiasm to raise welts. Despite the care that the majority were taking, his back was soon stinging from the sheer number of the strokes. But his real discomfort came from his hunched posture, and before long, he felt as if his spine were breaking in two. The trapped, musty air of the tomb was bothering him, too, bringing on several prolonged coughing fits. At the start of the scourging, he’d sought solace in prayer, but it was difficult to concentrate when his body was anticipating the feel of the lash, and eventually he stopped trying to think altogether, just focused upon enduring the ordeal. It actually came as a surprise when he heard Prior Odo declare that it was done.
It was not easy to straighten up, so stiff had his body become. For a moment, he felt light-headed and had to grip the tomb for support. Staggering over to the central pillar, he squatted down upon the floor and refused those who would have offered water or wine. “My penance is not over,” he said hoarsely. “I shall stay here all night, offering up my prayers to the Almighty and St Thomas.”
After they hurriedly conferred, Prior Odo announced that they would be honored by his presence and they would make sure that other pilgrims were kept away so he might pray in private. When Henry interrupted with a curt, “No, let any enter who wish,” Odo looked troubled, but he assured Henry it would be done. He beckoned then to two new arrivals, and Henry watched as an elderly woman and a younger man timidly drew closer.
“My liege, this is Mistress Rohesia and her son John. You sent for them,” the prior added, and only then did Henry realize they were Thomas Becket’s sister and nephew. She had none of her brother’s innate assurance, the poise and polish that had made it so easy for him to walk with kings and talk with princes of the Church. When Henry had reacted with fury to Becket’s latest outrage and expelled all of his family and retainers from England, this stooped, shy woman was one of the chief victims of his vengefulness. He was shamed now by that memory, further disquieted by the recollection of a heated quarrel he’d had with Eleanor, who’d argued in vain against the expulsion, claiming that “This interminable feuding with Becket has well and truly addled your mind!”
“You may approach,” he said, as kindly as he could, called her “gentle sister,” and asked for her pardon and grace. She stammered out something unintelligible, and he realized that he was only frightening her all the more, for she did not know how to treat a king like a supplicant. “I deeply regret the wrong I’ve done to you and your family. I would make amends the only way I can-by granting you the king’s mill that stands by the River Stour. You ought to be able to collect at least ten marks a year in rental payments. Take it with my blessings.”
Rohesia looked dumbfounded, but her son’s smile was bright enough to light the darkest shadows of the crypt. He began to declare their eternal gratitude, but Gilbert Foliot accurately read the exhaustion on Henry’s face and tactfully steered them away.
“My lord king?” Willem was leaning over, looking so concerned that Henry somehow managed to find a smile for him. “What would you have us do now?”
“You may go, Willem. There is no need for any of you to remain.”
The earl frowned. “I do not want to leave you alone, my liege.”
“I will not be alone,” Henry said, stifling a cough. “I will have St Thomas to keep me company.” Once Willem would have been sure that was a jest; now he no longer knew.
All afternoon and well into the evening, pilgrims were admitted to the crypt, where they made offerings to the monk keeping vigil by the shrine, prayed to St Thomas, and watched the King of England do penance. Some were surreptitious about it, others gawked openly, but Henry was always aware of their eyes upon him. Kneeling by the tomb of the man who’d once been a beloved friend, then a hated enemy, he’d silently entreated the Almighty to forgive him, interspersing these pleas with the Latin prayers he’d learned in childhood. Refusing to eat or drink or even to pass water, he lay full length upon the cold floor of the crypt as he uttered the familiar words of the Confiteor.
The other pilgrims did not share his knowledge of Latin, but they knew the responses to the Mass and so when he whispered, “Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, beatae Mariae semper Virgini, beato Michaeli Archangelo, beato Ioanni Baptistae, sanctis Apostolis Petro et Paulo, et omnibus Sanctis, quita peccavi nimus cogitatione, verbo et opere: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa,” they understood that he was confessing to God, the Blessed Mary, the archangel, the apostles, and the saints that he had “sinned exceedingly, in thought, word, and deed.”
He’d begun by alternating pleas to God and St Thomas, but after a while he’d stopped praying to Thomas, for he felt as if his words were falling into a void. The archbishop did not seem to be listening. His fatigue was beginning to affect his thinking; when he recited the Litany of the Saints, he found himself unable to remember who came first, the patriarchs and prophets or the apostles.
After Vespers, the tide of pilgrims slowed to a trickle. But a new monk had taken up the vigil and he was a talker. Introducing himself as Brother Benedict, he informed Henry that he was collecting accounts of St Thomas’s miracles so that they might be saved for posterity. Pointing to a pile of crutches stacked in a corner, he explained that they had been abandoned by cripples who’d been healed by the saint’s mercy. With his own eyes, he’d seen people cured of leprosy, blindness, the palsy. A canon of Oseney was cured of the falling sickness, and a Templar from Chester was healed of a bowel ailment. But he only included those miracles that could be verified, he assured Henry. He did not intend to report one of his favorite stories, alas, for he could find no witnesses to confirm its accuracy. He then proceeded to tell Henry a preposterous tale of a starling that had been taught to recite a prayer to the Blessed Martyr. The bird had been attacked by a hawk-a kite, he believed it was-and invoked the prayer as it was caught in the kite’s talons. The hawk was at once struck dead, he recounted breathlessly.
Henry did his best to block out that droning voice, unwilling to give way to anger during his time of penance. Brother Benedict was not making it easy, however. As the night wore on, his body ailments were becoming more and more difficult to ignore. His lacerated back was throbbing; so was his head. His gashed feet had begun to bleed again, and his bladder felt full to bursting. Although he’d eaten nothing but bread for almost a week, he was not hungry. But his thirst was well-nigh intolerable. He’d put his shirt on again; it did little to shield him, though, from the damp chill of the crypt. With a flicker of very grim humor, he recalled Ranulf’s warning and entert
ained himself by imagining the great scandal should he be found dead on the morrow.
With an effort, he came back to the here and now, troubled that his thoughts were wandering like this. He ought to be thinking only of his sins. His muscles were cramping and stiffening, so that he had to pull himself upright by holding on to the marble top of the sarcophagus. Brother Benedict was still chattering on, describing the drowning of a little boy of Rochester; he’d fallen into the River Medway in mid-afternoon, had not been dragged out till Vespers had rung. But his mother refused to despair and measured his body with a thread and promised St Thomas a silver thread of the same length if he saved her son. And lo and behold, the child moaned and stirred and vomited up a barrel full of river water, even though they’d first hung him by his feet and not a drop did he spit out.
“Not that the Blessed Martyr is one to be trifled with. There have been sinners who sought his aid, and then did not fulfill their vows as promised, and retribution was always swift. I myself witnessed a sad case where a lame boy fell asleep with his head on the tomb. He had a vision of St Thomas, who rebuked him for his disrespect, and said, ‘Go hence, I will do nothing for you.’ His parents pleaded, but our saint would not relent.”
Henry began to recite the Pater Noster, the first prayer to come to mind, in hope of drowning the monk out. “Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra,” he murmured, the words coming from memory as his thoughts began to stray again. Was there a way to murder Brother Benedict and make it seem as if he’d been smitten by the wrath of the unforgiving Thomas? A vengeful saint was surely a contradiction in terms, but he alone seemed to think so. He was no longer shivering, and when he put his hand to his forehead, it felt hot. He’d been running a fever intermittently for days now, and he supposed neither the drenching nor the hours spent on his knees had done his aching body any good. Focusing again upon prayer, he began to repeat the Litany, almost at random. “Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis.”
And to his great relief, the Son of God heard his plea and showed mercy, for Brother Benedict rose from his post and excused himself, saying that there would be no more pilgrims that night and he hoped to get a few hours sleep before Matins. Gathering up his offerings, he politely wished Henry God’s Peace and shuffled off to bed, leaving Henry alone in the crypt with the dead and the ghost of the murdered archbishop.
At least, it seemed that way to Henry. He had not been able to invoke the saint’s presence, but it was easier to imagine Thomas’s earthly spirit lurking in the shadows, watching his abasement with sardonic amusement. For Thomas had once had a quick wit, a playful humor, a droll sense of mockery. He’d lost that humor, though, as soon as he’d put the sacred pallium about his neck, yet another mystery that Henry could not fathom. Had the man he’d known and trusted and loved ever truly existed? Or had he been a fiction from the very first, a chimera conjured up out of cobwebs and moonbeams? Henry desperately wanted to know the answer, an answer only Thomas Becket could give him.
“It is just the two of us now, Thomas. No one else can hear our secrets, so why not talk to pass the time? We have hours to go till dawn, time enough for honesty if nothing else.”
Pushing himself away from the tomb, he walked toward the center of the crypt, noting with bemusement that he left a trail of blood and mud. “Ranulf said something once that I’ve never forgotten. He thought that his Welsh friend Hywel-you remember the poet-prince-saw you with the clearest eye, saying that you reminded him of a chameleon, changing your color to reflect your surroundings. The perfect clerk. The perfect royal chancellor. And then the perfect archbishop. Was he right, Thomas?”
He cocked his head, hearing only the silence of the grave. “I suppose you’d rather talk about the killing. Fair enough. I never wanted your death. I swear this to you upon the lives of my children. But you know that already. Why am I so sure? Because Roger showed me a letter written by your subdeacon, William Fitz Stephen. I’ve restored him to royal favor, by the way. In fact, he and his brother Ralph are co-sheriffs of Gloucestershire now. Life goes on.
“What was I saying? Ah, yes, the letter. Fitz Stephen wrote that you told the killers that you did not believe they came from the king, from me. So there really is no reason to swear my innocence upon holy relics, is there? You know the truth. Of course Roger knew the truth, too, and was the one man with the ballocks to say it straight out to my face. I may not be guilty, he pointed out, but neither am I innocent. I daresay you agree with him, no?”
He waited, heaving a sigh that echoed in the stillness. “Come, Thomas, hold up your part of the conversation. You need not do anything dramatic, like loosing a thunderbolt or performing one of your miracles. But at the least, you could extinguish a few candles to show me you are paying attention. Surely that is not too much to ask?”
He was feeling light-headed again, and sank down upon the floor, slumping back against one of the pillars. “I sound like a drunkard or a madman…mayhap both. But just between you and me, talking to a ghost makes as much sense as talking to a saint. What else do you want to know, Thomas? Did I grieve for you? No, I did not. My grief was for myself, for I knew at once that you’d trapped me well and truly. For you are not innocent either, my lord archbishop. You sought your martyrdom, you craved it, even lusted after it for all I know. You could have escaped, Thomas, had so many opportunities to evade your killers. But you did not, did you? You had to confront them, had to taunt them. Was it true that you called Fitz Urse a pimp?”
Henry laughed unsteadily, ending in a cough. “They went unpunished, you know. You insisted that only the Church could punish its own, so I could do nothing to them, and the Pope could only send them off on pilgrimage to the Holy Land with a stern warning to mend their evil ways. Christ Almighty, Thomas, surely you see the irony of that? The lunacy? For I will not lie to gain your pardon. I was right to want to try degraded priests in my courts. Your way turned justice into a farce, and I will never understand why you could not see that.”
Henry leaned forward, rested his head upon his drawn-up knees. He was either burning up with fever or losing his mind. “Sancte Thoma,” he mumbled, “requiescat in pace.” But there was as much pain as mockery in his voice, and when he looked up, he saw the crypt through a haze of hot tears. “Do you know why I did not grieve for you when you died, Thomas? Because I’d already done my grieving. I trusted you, I had faith in you, I loved you more than my own brother. And then you turned on me. But it need not have been that way. You could have served both me and the Almighty, and what a partnership we could have forged, what we could not have done together!”
Getting to his feet with difficulty, he had to hold on to the pillar, for his head was spinning. “When I told you that I would raise you up to the archbishopric, you said you would not want to put our friendship at risk. And I assured you that it would not happen, that I was not so prideful that I saw God as a rival. Do you remember what I said? That the Almighty and I would not be in contention for your immortal soul. Why could you not believe me, Thomas?”
His tears were falling faster now, but there was no one to see them. “I am truly and grievously sorry that our path led us to this place, this night. I do mourn you, Thomas. But do I think you are a saint? God’s truth, I do not know. You are the only one who can answer that question, my lord archbishop. We both know you could never resist a challenge. So take it up. Prove my doubts are unfounded. Prove me wrong.”
Dropping to his knees, he winced at the pain that action caused his fevered, battered body. “St Thomas,” he said in a low, husky voice, “guard my realm.”
Henry heard mass at daybreak the next morning, warned the citizens of Canterbury that there was danger of a Flemish invasion, and advised them to move their goods beyond the River Medway. He set out for London then, reaching the city the following day, where he was welcomed enthusiastically by the citizens, who escorted him through the streets to his palace at Westminster. By this time he was running a high fever, and utterly ex
hausted, body and soul, he took to his bed.
Henry had been bled by his physician earlier in the day and advised to rest until he regained his strength. But even when he was ill, he found it hard to stay abed, and by the afternoon, he was up and dressed, conferring with his court officials and getting reports from his scouts, who were watching for the Flemish fleet. The soles of his feet had been badly bruised and cut by the Canterbury cobblestones, and so he made one concession to his body’s needs and remained on the settle in his bedchamber while he conducted affairs of state. He was still awaiting word from the North, where the Scots king was menacing the royal castle at Alnwick, but he was finding it difficult to recapture his sense of urgency. He felt numb, depleted of all his reserves, as if he’d gambled everything on one roll of the dice and lost.
Soon after Vespers, the arrival of the Bishop of Worcester was announced. Roger swept into the chamber like a summer wind, dark eyes glowing, as elated as Henry had ever seen him. Striding forward, he engulfed Henry in an exuberant embrace, behavior so unlike Roger that Henry voiced no complaints, although his cousin’s hug was pressing painfully against his injured back. Releasing him at last, Roger sank to his knees and kissed Henry’s hand.
“I have never been so proud of you, Cousin,” he said. “I know what courage it took to humble yourself like that. Whatever else you may accomplish in this life, I truly believe Friday was your finest hour.”
“So you are saying that from now on, it is all downhill?” Henry’s attempt at humor could not disguise the pleasure that Roger’s words had given him; his cousin had never been one for lavish, effusive, or fawning praise. Retaking his seat, he gestured for the other man to join him on the settle, and signaled for wine.
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