Canterbury Papers (10 page)

“But you have changed,
ma chérie.
I remember you as a girl, long-legged and gawky as a young colt. Now”—she raised her elegant hands as if in blessing—“you are a woman.”

“Bonsoir, chère tante Charlotte,”
I replied, retreating slightly, eager to put one of the prior's tall chairs between myself and my aunt's enthusiasm.

I may have appeared altogether different, but my aunt Charlotte had not changed one whit since last I had seen her twenty years earlier. She still looked magnificent. She was tall, straight-backed, and bold. Although slender, she gave the impression of being very large. This was accomplished by her extravagant gestures, her booming voice, and her astonishing clothes. She refused to wear a religious habit and dressed instead in the finest wools and furs. In the summer she was known to wear silks from head to toe. The abbess was one of those women who filled any room she entered. And afterward everyone wondered how she did it.

Her one concession to religious life was to minimize the jewels she displayed, it was said. But this evening there was no evidence of such reticence. Her fingers glistened in the reflected light of the many torches and candles. The twinkling, jeweled clasp on her cloak reeked of royalty. I was glad I had left most of my own jewels in their casket for the evening, for I could not compete with her! I fingered my modest Arab pendant, as if to protect it from comparison with its newly arrived cousins.

“And what a beautiful woman you have become,” my aunt was saying. She bestowed her glorious smile on me. “Please, come sit beside me and tell me everything that has happened to you since last we met.”

She nodded briefly to William and then sought her chair, opening the brilliant brooch and dropping her cloak. Brother Dermott, who had observed her entrance with evident amusement, rescued it before it hit the floor.

My aunt caught me glancing from her to the prior and laughed, a kind of throaty, infectious sound.

“Oh, do not fear for my manners. The prior and I have already greeted each other. In truth, we have just spent the entire afternoon conferring. I am not ignoring him by paying attention to you. I am just eager to hear all your story.”

“I have a better idea,” William said, offering my just-seated aunt his hand. “The princess must be tired after her journey. Let us all to table, and the servants will bring our dinner.”

Even Charlotte, who appeared to operate on a trajectory of her own, could not refuse Prior William in his own chambers. And so the three of us awkwardly made our way to the table, jostling one another as we arranged ourselves.

“Please, across from each other.” William made a gracious gesture to the two chairs. “I'll sit here at the head.” It was clear he was used to commanding.

As if by magic, the large double doors at the end of the room opened and servants appeared with steaming platters of poached lamprey and shrimps, followed by equally attractive platters of poultry and meat and deep flagons of rich red wine. William chose for us, deferring occasionally to my aunt's interjections. This process took some time, during which they both ignored me. It gave me a chance to study William, which I did with interest.

His mature face was long, with a deeply chiseled look to his bones. I saw little of the whey-faced orphan I remembered. Only the strong bend of the nose (had one of the Plantagenet princes broken it for him when he was young?), the prominent cheekbones with hollows beneath them, and the piercing quality of those deep-set eyes seemed the same.

His brow was bereft of the shock of black hair I recalled constantly falling forward into his child's eyes. His hair, though still thick, was now laced with gray, and it swept back from his face with a certain authority. The fierce, dark eyebrows seemed permanently knit in a subtle frown, which lent him overall a skeptical attitude. A line carved his face on each side from under his cheekbones to the corners of his mouth, giving him a look of natural severity that only deepened when he smiled. And smile he did, as my aunt and he parried over the menu.

I was rather more tired than hungry, so I was pleased when William waved off the last of the servants and the turmoil of their service died down.

“Alaïs, tell me how goes it now that you have been back at Paris for—can it be?—five years already,” Charlotte asked while she appeared to focus on the pheasant breast in front of her.

“Seven,” I mumbled, savoring the taste of a small
chèvre
covered in herbs on the rich brown abbey bread.

“Yes, of course, how time does slip off. Rather like wealth. How is your dear brother? He stopped to see me only last year when he was passing Fontrevault. But I haven't seen you for…” She paused. “And tell me again, why are you here at Canterbury?”

I peered across the table at her. With the candles flickering between us, it was difficult to determine her expression. She must know of Eleanor's letter. Tom of Caedwyd had said she and Eleanor were close since Eleanor had moved to Fontrevault. But her features reflected only mild curiosity.

“I was just explaining to the prior as you arrived, Aunt. I decided to make a pilgrimage to Becket's tomb.”

“Vraiment?”
My aunt had a way of using inflection that vastly extended the meaning of a single word. “Whatever for?”

“Abbess, please,” said Prior William, feigning offense. “It's not such an outrageous intention. Many people make pilgrimages here. Becket still is revered as a holy man.”

“So I understand. The people all come, do they not! The peasants come because they believe. The nobility come to be in vogue.” Charlotte turned her large brown almond-shaped eyes in William's direction. “You knew him well, Prior. Do you think he was a holy man? Do you seriously think he deserves all of this adulation?”

“In some ways, toward the end of his life, I think he began to embrace holiness.” William took his time answering, breaking his bread slowly between his strong fingers. “In his earlier years, perhaps not. But—if you recall your Plato—what is important is the ideal, not the actuality. If any one of us can call others to greater holiness after our death, who is to speak against it? And given our lives of imperfection”—he flashed a look in my direction and winked—“who of us is fit to cast the first stone against Becket?”

“Nonsense.” Charlotte speared a fish with her Italian fork and nibbled at it. “If he hadn't been killed by those hotheaded knights of Henry's, he would be remembered in the chronicles as an ecclesiastical troublemaker. He nearly wrecked a kingdom with his pride.”

“I was just asking the princess the purpose of her visit when you arrived.” William had decided to move the conversation along. He was, after all, prior of Becket's abbey. Yet, withal, he seemed reluctant to embrace the role of defender of its hero.

“As a matter of fact, there is a definite purpose for my visit at this time.” Suddenly I was inspired. “It's been nearly twenty years since King Henry and I were here. He came then to do penance for Becket's murder. I thought I would come to renew that penance in his name, as well as do penance for my own misdeeds. It is in honor of King Henry that I make this visit.”

Both heads snapped up in surprise.

“I thought Henry denied responsibility for Becket's death,” Charlotte said. “I heard him say so himself, on more than one occasion. In fact, that is the only reason we allowed him to be buried at Fontrevault Abbey.”

That and a substantial endowment, I'd wager, I thought. But I said only, “Henry did not believe he was responsible for Becket's murder. Those knights of his who crossed the Channel were rogues. He never ordered that killing. They misinterpreted his words.” I took a swallow of wine to calm my rising voice.

“Imagine the scene,” I continued. “The happy Plantagenet family keeping Christmas at Bures, feasting and laughing, when suddenly the whole contingent of English bishops trails in, led by an angry Roger of York. They told the entire court their astonishing tale. It seems when Becket arrived back in England, he had immediately excommunicated them all. That had been no part of his agreement with Henry to end his exile. The bishops demanded immediate redress from the king. Henry flew into a fury. But he never told his knights to kill. I was only a child, but I witnessed the scene. He did not order the killing.”

“Still, it was Henry's knights who did the deed.” William passed a silver platter of herbed greens to my aunt.

“Yes, but you know he would never have touched Becket. Above all else, Henry was too skilled a politician. He knew that if Becket were martyred, it would make more trouble for him in England than ever Becket could make if he were alive.” I licked the almond cream from my spoon, feeling quieter now. “And the last thing he wanted was the satisfaction of seeing Becket made a martyr, after all he did to polarize the kingdom.”

“Peut-être tu as raison,”
the abbess said, looking thoughtful. “So why do you think he did the penance here all those years ago?” She was looking at me, but it was William who answered.

“He needed to placate the people. Becket's popularity was growing, the myth of the saint was spreading. And Henry was considered guilty of the murder by most people. So a few years later, he agreed to abase himself here and allowed the monks to apply the discipline, in penance for whatever role his thoughtless words had played.”

The abbess wiped her fingers daintily on her napkin. “That corresponds with what I was told at the time,” she offered.

“And being King Henry”—I shook my head—“when he came to atone, he held nothing back. I could draw for you the picture right now if I had charcoal in my hand. I was here. I will not forget the scene.”

They were silent.

I closed my eyes. “Picture Henry, naked, stretched on the floor of Becket's still-bloodstained chapel. A long ribbon of courtiers and monks winds down the center of the cathedral and curls around the side aisles. Solemn faces, expressionless as always in ritual punishment, as if no one of them is responsible for his action. You can hear the echo of lashes as the monks, one by one, pass by, each savoring his one stroke of the silk-corded discipline on the bare back of the prostrate king.”

I paused, aware of our common breath. “It was an early spring night like this one, and the whish of the whip was echoed by the April wind whistling outside. I remember standing stiff as a rock, my cheeks scarlet, as Henry's daughter Joanna pressed her fingers into my arm. We kept each other from fainting.”

I was surprised to hear a quaver in my voice. Charlotte looked down, turning the handle of her fork over and over.

“So”—I assumed a blithe tone—“I thought I would come here in memory of the king and do penance as he did. And also penance for my own sins, not as famous as the King Henry's but still a burden to me.”

William looked at me for a long moment. I thought he was going to say something kind, but instead he remarked, “I certainly hope you're not going to cast yourself naked on the floor of Becket's chapel and wait for the lash.”

I was startled by his flippancy. I closed my eyes briefly and saw again that image I had just described. In the background, among the courtiers, perhaps there had been a tall, dark-haired cleric watching with pain, as I had watched, the difficult scene. When I opened my eyes, William had turned to my aunt to respond to a question I had not heard. I forced my attention to their conversation.

“And Aunt Charlotte”—I took my turn at our question game at the first opening—“what brings
you
to Canterbury in this cold spring weather? Surely this is not the most opportune moment to visit Kent for you either.” I was determined to quell the mysterious feelings aroused by the memory of Henry's penance and of all the events of that fateful year. “And I believe I am safe in assuming that
you
did not come to revere the martyr's tomb.”

The abbess's expression was momentarily comical, but she recovered admirably. “I have business with Prior William. There is a plan to hold a convocation of abbots and abbesses in all of England and Normandy within the year, to discuss certain problems. Although Fontrevault is not a Benedictine abbey, we have been invited to participate. Prior William and I are conferring on arrangements.”

William caught the
moue
my aunt had made when I teased her about praying at Becket's tomb.

“What occasioned that look, Abbess?” he asked as he applied garlic sauce to the pork with gusto.

“My niece considers me too secular, I think,” she replied, with no hint of irritation. “She sees my love of finery and imagines that I have little piety. I'll wager—”

“No, not exactly, Aunt,” I broke in. “It's just that I know your history, and no part of it includes prostration before anyone, with or without clothes.”

William chuckled. After a draft of wine, he applied his
serviette
to his lips with an elegant gesture. “That's very interesting.” He glanced my way. “Tell me more about your aunt. I had no idea her past had such color.”

I sallied forth, aware that my aunt might not want her colleague to hear her story. But I thought it added to her cachet and could not help but make William hold her in even higher regard.

“My grandfather, King Louis, he who was called le Gros, made an early marriage for Aunt Charlotte to a count in a southern province.” I looked at the abbess across from me. Impossible to read her expression. “Correct me if this is not true. But it is the story my father told my brother not long before he died.”

“Go on,” said Charlotte, now shaking with silent laughter.

“The marriage turned out to be an unfortunate affair. The count was given to drinking Armagnac spirits for weeks at a time, shut up in a tower with his favored mistress. He would emerge from the tower periodically to harry and beat his royal wife, then retire again to his favorite pastimes. Not surprisingly, they had no children—or at least none that survived.” I glanced again at my aunt. Perhaps I was too cavalier with these painful events. But she seemed unruffled.