Beloved Enemy (54 page)

Nor a wife, forgive, Thomas repeated to himself. If such an opportunity ever presented itself—Thomas’s gaze met his secretary’s and he looked quickly away. “
Benedicite.
Sufficient unto the day, William, sufficient unto the day … I cannot silence every tongue in England.”

William nodded and perused the next document.

While Thomas watched the clerks stitch newly made copies to the great roll of the pipe, he thought he heard the nearby clatter of hooves. Impossible. It sounded as though the horse was inside the chancery. Thomas looked toward the entrance to the chancery, and half-rose from his seat.

By God’s wounds, a horse
was
standing in the entrance to the large chamber! The clerks jumped to their feet.

“Sit still everyone. We can clear you if you lower your heads and don’t move.”

Henry, crouched flat over a small brown palfrey, leapt neatly over the table. The horse’s hind hooves grazed a corner, scattering stacks of parchment to the floor. The clerks scrambled to retrieve them while Thomas, seething, forced himself to smile. Henry knew that his chancellor hated to have his morning routine disturbed, yet how typical of the king to play such a trick. To bring a horse inside the chancery! By the Mass, he was still such a child at heart. Thomas eyed the palfrey with wary eyes, but the well-trained beast was standing perfectly still in a corner of the room.

“I have a new lady love, Thomas, a gyrfalcon fresh from Iceland, and I want you to help me fly her. No one is better at luring a falcon than you, my friend.” Henry lifted his head and gave Thomas one of his engaging grins.

“I would like to oblige, Sire, but I have to plan for my June trip to Paris, then there are some dispatches for the queen, just arrived, that I must deliver—”

“Excellent. We can discuss the Paris journey while we fly my new lady. I haven’t seen Eleanor myself for several days so we can both pay a visit to her when we’re done.”

“I hadn’t expected you back from Bermondsey so soon,” Thomas said. He had a full morning’s work ahead of him and the prospect of flying a new falcon was far from welcome.

“I grew restless so I left at first light this morning. It’s a fine day, not a breath of wind. Perfect for flying. You mustn’t be overly zealous in poring through musty documents, Thomas. I won’t take no for an answer.”

Thomas picked up a sheet of parchment with fingers that twitched in suppressed anger. Overly zealous! Poring through musty documents! Is that what Henry thought he was doing? Jesu! It wouldn’t hurt to remind the king exactly in whose vineyards he labored.

“Poring over musty documents would not begin to describe—I was just drafting an answer to the father of Mistress—let me see—” Thomas held the sheet close to his short-sighted eyes. “Mistress Margaret of Ripon. It seems you promised him a fief.”

“Good God, did I really? Mea culpa. In truth, I barely recall the man, much less his daughter. Hardly what you’d call a memorable experience, eh? A plot of land with a few sheep and pigs will most certainly suffice. The wench wasn’t worth an entire fief.”

Henry grinned again at Thomas. “However, such matters are best left in your capable hands. What would I do without your expertise, my friend?” He glanced at the table of clerks who had been watching this exchange with bated breath. “What would we all do without our beloved chancellor, eh?”

The clerks nodded vigorous agreement.

By God’s wounds, the man was totally impossible. But how could he resist? Against his will, Thomas found himself smiling at Henry, his anger dissipating as he succumbed, yet again, to the king’s infectious charm. “Yes, all right, I’ll be with you in a moment. While you’re here, Sire, perhaps you would glance at this letter to your brother in Anjou—”

“My lady from Iceland cannot wait upon my brother Geoffrey’s ambition, which will keep, I’ve no doubt. We can discuss that renegade later. See you outside.”

Before Thomas could protest, the palfrey jumped over the table again and Henry vanished.

“Do what you can without me, William,” Thomas said in a resigned voice as he picked up the sheafs of parchments for the queen and stuffed them into the scrip attached to his belt. “I probably won’t be back until tomorrow.”

East of London, on the outskirts of a marsh, Thomas watched while the Icelandic gyrfalcon, a fierce white specimen with an impressive wing span, soared upward into a cloudy gray sky. She circled in a dazzling display of loops before targeting her prey, a heron, flying well below her. The gyrfalcon towered for an instant before stooping in a vertical dive to the kill. Her speed took Thomas’s breath away.

“God’s eyes, have you ever seen the like?” Henry, standing upright in the stirrups, his eyes shining, was transported. “She’s magnificent, one of a kind. I’ve called her Eleanor.”

Thomas gave him a sharp glance, but Henry was entirely serious and obviously meant it as a great compliment. Privately he thought the name all too apt. Eleanor struck him as having the potential for being as predatory and rapacious as any gyrfalcon.

Recovering the bird was a tedious business for she was willful and slow to lure. Even Thomas could not bring her to him. The peregrines that Thomas owned were far less colorful, their performance not as impressive, but they were easier to control and more like sporting partners. He preferred the serviceable, more practical birds, who were biddable and less arrogant. Hunting with a gyrfalcon was like accompanying a wild creature while it stalked its prey, and held no allure for him. But gyrfalcons alone were a symbol of monarchy. Thomas knew that anything that reminded young Henry that he was king—still new and exciting after three years—was immensely satisfying. Not to mention Henry’s penchant for the untamable, his love of risk, his inability to refuse a challenge.

By the time the gyrfalcon, her feet tangled in the long leather jesses, was lured and hooded, even Henry’s patience was sorely tried, and Thomas could cheerfully have wrung the creature’s snowy neck. The king’s party then headed for the Tower.

Riding across East Smithfield at dusk, their attendants some way behind them, Thomas noticed a lame beggar bent over a crooked stick barring their way. His garb was so threadbare that patches of bare skin showed through the filthy rags.

“Can you spare a penny, good sirs?” the beggar asked. “’Afore God, but it’s a cold night.” Henry reined in his stallion. “Where do you hail from, fellow?”

The beggar paused, searching Henry’s face with a sly look. “Why—Le Mans, my lord. Came to London as a mere youth then—reduced to begging as a result of King Stephen’s plundering Flemings, God curse the lot of them.”

“Le Mans is my own birthplace! And I too came to London as a mere youth. As for the Flemings, well, I couldn’t agree with you more. Do you know who I am?”

“A great and noble lord, even a beggar can see that.”

Thomas eyed the beggar, who had a ready tongue and a cunning eye. Le Mans indeed! A likely tale if ever he’d heard one. He doubted the rogue had ever set foot out of London in his life, and he was quick-witted enough to know just the right tale to appeal to the king—whom he’d obviously recognized. Henry was naive enough, apparently, to be taken in. Thomas held his tongue, not averse to letting this knave take advantage of Henry’s inexperience with London’s wily poor.

“On this bitter night wouldn’t a warm mantle be of more use to you than a penny?” Henry smiled at the beggar. “As you can see, my own cloak is a poor thing, almost as threadbare as yours. But the chancellor here, Archdeacon Thomas Becket, of whom no doubt you’ve heard, has a magnificent mantle lined with gray squirrel. You can see for yourself. As he is also the most charitable of men, greatly inclined to alms giving, I feel certain he’ll have no objection to letting you have his cloak.”

Henry moved his horse so that the two beasts stood neck to neck. He twisted sideways in the saddle and tried to pull the scarlet mantle away from Thomas’s shoulders. Dumbfounded, then suddenly outraged at this wanton encroachment of his rights, Thomas grabbed Henry by his sinewy wrists in an effort to stop him. The horses plunged and reared while the two grappled. Henry’s stallion, snorting in alarm, arched his neck. Henry, already half out of the saddle, lost his balance and slipped; pulling Thomas with him, he tumbled to the ground. The beggar backed well away while Thomas and Henry wrestled on the frozen earth. By the time their attendants had galloped up, torches in hand, the two men were laughing so hard they could hardly draw breath. Finally they collapsed on top of each other. Henry rolled over then sat astride Thomas.

“Do you yield?” His voice rang out in the clarion call of a knight triumphant in the lists.

“I do, my lord, I do.”

“Sir beggar, take your spoils.”

Henry stood up and pulled the cloak off Thomas’s shoulders. With a flourish he handed it to the beggar, who bent to kiss Henry’s hand then bounded away—without the use of his crutch, Thomas noted.

“If that fellow’s from Le Mans I’m from the bogs of Ireland. He’s a lying rogue but I’ll forgive a quick wit anytime.” Henry chuckled. “For a tall stick of a cleric you’ve a power of strength in you, my lord chancellor.” He helped Thomas to his feet and gave him a playful punch on the arm.

Thomas brushed himself off with a lofty smile, trying to hold back tears of joy by adding a layer of dignity. Despite their close working relationship as chancellor and king, this was the very first time Henry had actually behaved as if he were a true companion—an equal.

“I’ll order a new, more splendid cloak from the finest tailor in London, Sire,” Thomas said. “Then put it down in the records as a debt of the king for grievous assault.”

Henry threw back his head and shouted with laughter. “God’s eyes, you’ve an answer for everything!”

“Naturally, or I wouldn’t have come as far as I have.”

“Nor would you be my chancellor.”

They grinned at each other, then mounted their horses. They continued on their way to the Tower, the bond of fellowship strong between them.

Night had fallen by the time Henry and Thomas reached the royal residence. They climbed the spiral staircase to the topmost floor of the Tower, entered the chamber, and found the queen, attended by two women, sitting up in the royal marriage bed. An ever-present troubadour was softly strumming his lute while the official court reader, Master Wace from Normandy, read aloud from his own Anglo-Norman translation of the story of King Arthur.

Observing Eleanor amid the lace-trimmed pillows and fur-lined coverlets piled on the bed, Thomas could hardly believe she was thirty-four years old. Her skin was as fine and smooth as that of a damsel of eighteen; her hair, which was usually confined in a wimple, fell in a shimmering chestnut cascade over her shoulders. When one looked at her body, it was impossible to believe she had borne Henry four children, and Louis, two. Her waist was still supple and slim, her breasts high and firm, clearly outlined through a beribboned silk robe lined with ermine.

Thomas noted that Eleanor looked first at Henry then at himself, as if sensing the new-formed bond between them. Henry seemed unaware of her scrutiny, but Thomas felt a wave of guilt wash through his body, almost as if she could read the dark, secret thoughts that disturbed his nights.

After a moment the queen dismissed the troubadour, reader, and attendants, nodded curtly to Thomas, and patted a place beside her on the bed. Henry sat down; he took her white hand with its tapering jeweled fingers into his own grubby one and brought it to his mouth.

“In bed already? Are you unwell?”

“Nothing of import.”

“What ails you?”

“My stomach is queasy, slight chills, and the most rapid palpitations—”

Henry put his lips against her forehead. “There’s no fever.” He laid his hand across her chest; Thomas saw his fingers involuntarily spread toward the peak of her breast. “But your heart still beats like a hammer.”

Eleanor smiled. “Now that you’re arrived it’s grown far worse. Are you surprised?”

Henry’s face became flushed; a finger touched her nipple thrusting against the fabric of her robe.

Feeling like an intruder, Thomas saw their gaze lock, the passion between them so intense it was like watching a streak of lightning pass from one to the other. He was sure they had forgotten him. Yet only moments ago he and Henry had been so close …Despite a stern admonition to his will, Thomas felt his treacherous loins stir with impossible longings as carnal images rose, unbidden, to cloud his mind. The scourging was obviously not enough. He must tame his body with longer work hours, continued fasting, more strenuous activity. Temptation must be beaten down again and again and again like the savage beast it was.

After a few moments Thomas regained control. Observing that Eleanor and Henry were still engrossed in each other—she was now whispering in his ear and Henry’s face lit up like a candle at whatever she was saying—he wondered, as he had so often before, what insidious demon drove the king to pursue other women. Obviously this imperious creature was the one he loved—in his fashion—the one whom he still fiercely desired, which Eleanor obviously returned with equal fervor. Even the minor whore in Bermondsey, whose claim on Henry’s affections baffled Thomas, did not cast the same heady enchantment as did the Aquitainian. Why then did Henry continue to behave as he did? It boggled the mind.

Thomas coughed. “I’ve brought some recent dispatches, Madam.”

His words broke the spell. Henry, breathing heavily, hastily rose to his feet.

Eleanor reached out her hand for the documents. “Thank you.”

“Perhaps you will tell me what the dispatches contain? If it concerns the king’s business …” Thomas stopped at Henry’s barely perceptible frown.

“I’m aware of all that. We had a similar conversation several days ago, I believe.”

Did the king hear the antagonism in her voice?

“What have you been up to in Bermondsey, my dear?” Eleanor asked Henry. “You can’t know how I’ve missed you.”

Henry smiled. “Some matter I needed to attend to concerning the manor house there. Today Thomas and I have been hawking, Nell. I have a wondrous new gyrfalcon I’ve named Eleanor in honor of you.”