The Lions' Torment

by Blanche d'Alpuget

  ‘Willi, my marriage was white for the first three years,’ she murmured.

  ‘My lady, if you wish it to be white with me at first, I accept the condition.’

  ‘I don’t!’ she replied. ‘But I swore an oath I would not remarry until the third anniversary of widowhood.’

  He swallowed. ‘In the meantime, maybe we can …’

  ‘Yes!’

  That afternoon, William went searching for Hamelin, whom he found playing a cittern. The merlin took the young man’s hand and stroked it against his velvet sleeve. ‘Just like this,’ he said. ‘Slowly and evenly. Her arms. Her back. Her waist. Don’t try to touch her breasts.’

  ‘Only the outside of her clothes?’

  His half-brother swept a long, fine hand through his ribbon of white hair, revealing the blind eye beneath it. ‘Don’t try to lift her skirt.’ He gave a lazy smile. ‘We men of the House of Plantagenet are blessed with fine endowments, brother. Ask her if she’d like to rub yours through the fabric of your gown. If she’s too shy, wait. Enquire if she’d like to see it first. She may say no again. Like cats, ladies are curious but cautious. When a cat enters a room, its first instinct is to determine how it can escape. Ladies are similar. They know what they want, but you must allow them time to explore their position.’

  ‘I’ll go mad. I think of her night and day.’

  ‘There are obstacles, Willi.’

  ‘What obstacles?’

  ‘I don’t know. But when I’m shown the path between you two, I see boulders.’

  When William left, Hamelin thought, I wish I’d kept my mouth shut.

  Having spent the day considering his position, Becket decided humility was his only option. I will swallow my pride like burning poison, he told himself. He wrote in his own hand a letter of apology to Henry. The page who delivered it returned quickly with a message that His Highness would like to see the Chancellor before the night-time entertainments began.

  As Thomas entered the room, the King came forward, his arms outstretched. ‘Tom-Tom,’ he said. ‘I ruined your beautiful robe.’

  Becket felt pain the length of his body. Henry’s massive arms wrapped around his visitor, while one hand crept up his back, pushing gently on the Chancellor’s neck. As his head bent forward, Henry kissed his lips.

  Becket trembled. ‘Stop it,’ he murmured.

  ‘Why? I love you. You know I love you, Tom. I’m sorry I threw the inkwell. I’ll buy you three new robes.’

  Becket’s chest heaved. The pain was in his chest, his thighs, his feet. I feel crucified.

  ‘Why do we do this to each other?’ he whispered.

  Do what? Henry wondered. ‘My terrible temper!’ he said. ‘I hate it. And now I’ve hurt you. Do you forgive me?’ He adopted the rueful expression of a small boy caught doing something forbidden.

  I live in fear of him. Always. Always in fear. ‘I’m wax in your fingers.’

  ‘Ha! Some wax. I wouldn’t like to drag a stylus across you.’ Henry was grinning. ‘You’re not wax, Tom. You’re hard stuff. Like me.’

  This is how my life will continue. The victim of his whims. But I shall overcome, as the dream told me. ‘You’re iron. I don’t believe I am.’ Becket managed to smile. He had noticed the aquamarine was back on Henry’s thumb.

  Henry slapped his back. ‘You’re gold, my dear. Pure gold.’ He pulled Becket’s face to his a second time and kissed him again, holding him by the earlobes.

  I shall not be aroused, Becket told himself. He might as well have told the wind to stop blowing.

  Henry’s eyes slanted at the Chancellor’s crotch. ‘I’m happy to observe that you’re in good health,’ he said. He paused. ‘Because you and I must get to work as soon as all this revelry is over. I have a feeling Louis prepares for battle.’

  In Paris, Louis announced to his court, ‘The Angevin, in league with treasonous Templars, has stolen the Norman Vexin. The county of Blois and my kinsmen there are now at the mercy of Anjou. With the Vexin castles in Henry’s hands, sweet France, our sacred land, is under threat. Sons of Charlemagne, I must alert you that as soon as God’s Peace concludes, we go to war.’

  Adela began the applause, following it with shouts of ‘Shame! Shame on the Angevin.’ Strong male voices followed her lead until the whole court rang with yells of ‘Shame!’

  Henry’s meeting with Becket continued. ‘You and I will spend the next six weeks making plans.’

  The Chancellor smiled. ‘Our finances are now excellent, thanks to the gold inside Chaumont-sur-Loire. It took days to discover it. That is,’ he added with lowered eyes, ‘I discovered it.’

  ‘Was it you who cut out the guard’s tongue?’

  ‘Certainly not!’

  ‘You merely ordered it after he’d shown you the hoard of treasure.’

  ‘It seemed a wise precaution.’ Becket gave the King a look that was almost coy. ‘I can offer seven hundred of my own household knights, plus twelve hundred hired cavalry. I have funds for four thousand sergeants for forty days.’

  ‘You’re richer than I am.’

  ‘H-H-Henry, I am not! I’ve earned every silver penny.’

  ‘In every major town I build cathedrals, churches and hospices for the indigent. I repair city walls. Throughout Aquitaine I’m replacing local administrators with my trustworthy Normans. D’you think I don’t earn my own silver pennies?’

  He smacks me verbally, but his eyes are so tender my heart turns over. ‘I’m more than aware of the arduousness of your work, Henry, because it is I who organise it.’

  ‘You work me like a donkey, you fiend.’

  Becket giggled.

  The King continued. ‘We demoralise Louis’ senior knights by making it known that the Pope, through his legate cardinals, approved the children’s marriage. It would also be advantageous if his Seneschal and others think Louis now lives under the thumb of his new queen and her brothers.’

  ‘Easily arranged, Henry. Easily arranged. I have many little friends in Paris. With busy little tongues.’

  ‘I’m glad we’re friends again,’ Henry remarked.

  Becket could come up with no reply. Friends? he thought. I adore you. I detest you.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  In Canterbury, the Christmas celebrations were the most lavish in memory, ‘thanks to the benevolence of our Archdeacon,’ Herbert and his friends whispered to junior clergy, oblates and the faithful who thronged the cathedral to watch at midnight the magic of fire given birth in cavernous darkness. Bells pealed and clouds of incense filled the air. In the pit of night, heaven smiled again on all mankind and the Day of Judgement was delayed another year. Dread lifted from people’s hearts. Once back in their homes with their families, they drank mead, for which they had saved all year.

  They drank and drank. It was the same throughout the realm, and in the Midlands there was trouble.

  Later, it was difficult to piece together what had started it, but the consensus was that a priest was at fault. He was drunk. So were his parishioners. As people were leaving his church, he called a young woman a whore. Her father was large and hot-tempered.

  ‘You’re a lecherous swine,’ he said loudly. ‘You’d rut every woman in this church if you were allowed.’

  The priest struck the man across the face. His blow was returned with a punch. After that, nobody really knew what happened, but suddenly the congregation, male and female, turned back inside the church and looted it. Like wild animals they ran out across the snow, hollering with excitement as they held aloft golden candlesticks.

  Somehow word spread to the next village, and the next.

  December had been unusually cold, and for weeks people had stayed inside their hovels, shivering, eking out winter food. Abruptly they discovered an adventure. In a town outside Lincoln, a man stood on a barrel in the square and shouted, ‘There is no Day of Judgement! It’s just priests’ lies!’ Others cried, ‘Let’s take back what we gave!’

  The snow of a few days
earlier stopped falling and the sky cleared. ‘A sign,’ they told each other.

  The magical fire they had watched kindled at midnight now burned across the Midlands. Farmers stole the animals of their lords. Others looted the grain stores of unguarded manor houses, watchmen having left to spend Christmas with their families. Even some castles were left without household knights and fell prey to mobs. But churches were easiest to rob, and when priests tried to protect their sacred vessels, people beat them.

  The winter riot flared, burned for a week, then, as suddenly as it had started, petered out. Villagers looked at their stolen treasures and trembled. Gold chalices were hidden in swine pens. Hens brooded with silver patens beneath their straw. Through bare forests, rain and biting winds, the fastest post riders crisscrossed the country, taking letters from bishop to bishop, until every senior prelate in England knew the jeopardy in which Mother Church now found herself. Roger of Pont L’Évêque summoned a conclave to assemble as soon as the Day of Epiphany had passed. By then, the upheaval was over, but the bishops were in a panic and the baronage enraged.

  As was the King. News of the riot reached him while he was still in Le Mans. He ordered his most trusted bishops in France to gather, to give advice. It was Barfleur, a man he had known and respected for decades, who spoke the words of truth all wanted to hear. ‘My lord, your English church runs around like a rooster whose head has been chopped off – dead, but apparently alive. You need a rooster with a head on its neck.’

  Soon afterwards, men from England arrived, having braved gales in the Narrow Sea: the Archbishop of York, the bishops of Hereford, London, Chichester and Durham, and the chief justiciars.

  Robert de Beaumont, Earl of Leicester, senior justiciar and the greatest magnate in England, was an aristocrat of wisdom gained through decades as a courtier, observing and exercising his mind on questions of law. With him was his junior, Richard de Lucy, quick-witted but more emotional. On the frightful crossing, followed by a long ride to Le Mans, these two had agreed on their advice to the King. ‘I could tear my hair out – what’s left of it,’ the Earl said.

  As a matter of courtesy, Henry received the prelates before the justiciars. The churchmen had no specific plan, beyond demands that the King enforce harsher punishments against his unruly subjects. They digressed, they argued out niceties. Their complaints took up a whole day. The following morning, as soon as lauds was over, Henry invited the justiciars to a private audience. He wrapped Leicester and de Lucy in a bear hug. ‘What a joy to be with men of understanding!’ he said, kissing them in turn.

  The Earl sat heavily, shaking his head. ‘It’s going to ruin, Henry. The King’s Law that over the six years of your reign you have so assiduously constructed is no longer a castle that can defy siege.’ He paused and glanced at de Lucy. ‘The breach began with the Church. And the Church must staunch the flow of blood.’

  ‘You seem to agree with my bishops on this side of the Narrow Sea.’

  ‘My dear,’ Beaumont said, ‘I realise you enjoy collecting Canterbury’s rents for the treasury, but they come at high cost. With summer, when the populace will move about easily, Lord knows what we’ll face in England. You’ll have to station infantry throughout the country. The King’s Peace, for which your subjects love you, for which they are proud to call themselves Englishmen, is under threat. You cannot delay an appointment to Canterbury. Rage against leaderless priests has caused these riots.’

  ‘My kinsman Gilbert Foliot should fill the post?’

  The justiciars exchanged glances. ‘I never dreamed I would be saying this, but he is not the man, Henry.’ Leicester looked at de Lucy to make the next move.

  ‘He’s too arrogant. Too fascinated by history. Too stiff and dry. He has little time for the faithful, whom he considers a sinful nuisance, or at best a burden on his time.’

  The King gave a wry smile. There was something they did not know about the learned Bishop of Hereford, but their assessment of his character in other respects was accurate. ‘Whom do you suggest?’

  Beaumont slumped in his chair. ‘Henry, I believe you should nominate a man I personally dislike. I think you need Becket. And the senior barons of England agree.’

  The King jumped up to pace back and forth. If he had a tail, he would be lashing it. ‘I can’t. I won’t. It’s only a couple of weeks since he asked me himself to nominate him and I laughed in his face. He insulted me. I lost my temper.’ Henry was snorting with anger.

  ‘Wait till he calms down,’ the Earl whispered. ‘He’ll listen to a reasoned argument.’

  ‘The Queen loathes him!’ Henry exploded. ‘I’ve promised her I won’t nominate him. And not just the Queen. My mother. England’s bishops will laugh in my face. They’ve never forgiven him for the scutage he imposed on the Church for the Toulouse campaign.’

  ‘That’s true,’ de Lucy murmured. ‘They regard him as the enemy.’

  ‘But Canterbury is turning like a weathercock,’ Beaumont replied soothingly. ‘Theobald’s dying wish—’

  They had imagined Henry so embedded in his thoughts he wasn’t listening to them. Abruptly he spun round.

  ‘You know about that, do you?’

  ‘We and many others,’ de Lucy answered.

  ‘There is even a monk, Gervase, who’s fallen beneath Becket’s spell. He writes of him as “glorious in the sight of all, extremely wise and admired by everyone for the nobility of his soul … most formidable to the monarch’s enemies and rivals, because he is the King’s friend and deputy, indeed his tutor and almost his master”. It’s sickening. And where there’s one, there will be others.’

  Henry’s face was immobile. ‘I’d like to hear your thinking, not that of a monk.’

  ‘You need a man on whom you can rely to enforce your will. Who understands the importance of the King’s Law. Who is ruthless but charming. Becket fulfils these requirements.’

  ‘Loathsome flatterer that he is,’ Beaumont added.

  Henry said, ‘I think it’s stopped raining. I need some fresh air.’

  Instead of going outdoors, Henry made his way to Hamelin’s quarters. He heard the song his brother was composing before he knocked.

  ‘Come for a walk,’ he said.

  They changed into rough boots before leaving the chateau to squelch through mud. Two pages ran after them. ‘Go back,’ Henry ordered. Once they were clear of listening ears, he said, ‘They’ve panicked. A few churches in the Midlands were looted. A couple of grain stores were robbed and some animals stolen. England has become so used to the King’s Peace, bishops and even my justiciars think it’s the end of civilisation. God’s eyes, they should try living on this side of the Narrow Sea! Rebellions everywhere in my domains and I’ll be at war against France in another few weeks.’

  ‘If you even hint to Becket that you might reconsider Canterbury, he won’t fight,’ Hamelin rumbled.

  ‘I realise that, Bullfrog. I need his cavalry and infantry to ensure I defeat Louis. And I need him to lead them. He’s not bad at acting like a general. He sits well on a horse. He has dramatic flair. His knights and men are proud of him. They seek to win his approval by fighting hard.’

  ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

  ‘That’s impossible. You know everything, idiot.’ The King stamped in temper, spraying himself and his brother with mud. ‘Comfort me,’ he muttered.

  Under the bare limbs of an elm the merlin hugged him, one hand stroking the copper hair that hung from under a lynx fur hat. Cheered by the hug, an antic mood took hold of the younger brother. He prodded Hamelin, who, since his blinding, had become as ticklish as a child. Both men squirmed with laughter, giggling like little girls.

  The King strode back into the audience hall, muddy and smiling. ‘My dears, some bracing air has cleared my mind. We’ll move to a larger chamber and invite the prelates to join us.’

  When all were seated and served with bread, wine and compotes of winter fruit, Henry said, ‘My lords, I thank you from t
he depths of my heart for alerting me to these crimes in England. This morning I have listened to my learned justiciars, whom I now invite to address you.’

  When the Earl of Leicester declared the view of the baronage was that Thomas Becket should become Archbishop of Canterbury and take the Church in hand, three bishops covered their ears. One gasped, but Foliot retained a stony inscrutability. Henry turned to the Archbishop of York. ‘Roger, my dear, would you like to explain the reaction of your brothers?’

  ‘He’d rape our Mother!’

  ‘You mean financially?’

  ‘Financially. Selling off sees, preferment for nephews for a good price, the manufacture of sacred relics …’

  Henry nodded. ‘Thomas does have a way with finance.’ His gaze turned to rest on the Bishop of Hereford. ‘You, Gilbert?’

  ‘He is totally objectionable. A layman. An ignoramus of vaulting ambition—’

  ‘But also of high intelligence and great diligence,’ Henry interrupted.

  ‘Granted.’

  ‘He could overcome his lack of learning with these qualities.’

  Foliot stared at his kinsman as if he had lost his wits. ‘Henry, that fellow has not an iota of piety in him. Not one. He does not possess a priestly nature. His nature is worldly. Always was. Always will be.’

  ‘Hmm,’ the King said. ‘It seems, my lords, that the two swords clash. England cannot function in such conditions. May I suggest you spend the holy month of Lent in contemplation. Your priests should announce that if looted treasures are returned in good order, the thieves will be forgiven, as our Saviour forgave. King Louis prepares to wage war on me. If I lose, he will give England’s throne to the House of Blois, with whom he is now united through marriage. You’ll have another King Stephen or a Prince Eustace as your monarch.’

  His words fell like the blow of an axe. King Stephen and his Crown Prince, Eustace, had raped the Church.

  Beaumont was the first to speak. ‘I’m sorry, my dear. News from the Île-de-France has been scant. I think I can speak for all of us when I say we had no idea …’