Captive Queen (23 page)

“The Queen is a woman of the world,” Henry declared confidently. “She is not easily outraged.” Thomas knew this too; he had not forgotten what he had heard in Archbishop Theobald’s household, from his friend John of Salisbury, who had worked for the Papal Curia when Eleanor was trying to obtain a divorce from Louis. John had confided to him several interesting, even scandalous, pieces of information that he could never repeat. And there had been colorful rumors going the rounds for years. Becket had heard them repeatedly, from many people. If ever a man needed evidence that women were frail creatures, what Thomas had learned of Eleanor would suffice.

“Do you think me a fool to acknowledge my son?” Henry asked, fixing his steely gaze on his friend.

“I should have advised discretion,” Thomas said candidly. “But it is a private matter for my lord himself to decide.”

“I intend to advance the boy. He could prove useful to me in time. I remember my bastard uncle, Robert of Gloucester. He was a rock of support to my mother in her quarrel with Stephen.”

Becket glanced down at the child; the boy was listening intently. He had intelligent eyes. A child to watch, certainly. Henry was right.

“Might I suggest a career in the Church?” he ventured. “Although his bastardy might be a bar to high ecclesiastical office.”

“Popes can be bought,” Henry said. “I could make young Geoffrey here Archbishop of Canterbury! Or even chancellor, when you are in your dotage, Thomas!” He winked, then began chuckling. “My barons won’t approve, of course!”

“Then they will have to do as the Queen must, and put up with it,” was the apposite rejoinder. The King smiled ruefully. As ever, Thomas had got his measure.

“I think the Queen does not like me,” Thomas said.

“Nonsense!” Henry replied. “You have been a staunch friend and a great support to me. How could she not like you?”

“I fear she resents my influence. I suspect she would like to be first in your counsels.”

“I dare say she would,” Henry said, “but she is a woman, with a woman’s limitations, although she is more able than most. She has no need to be jealous. I sleep with her, don’t I?” Becket winced, but Henry did not notice. “And I allow her considerable power. I trust her to rule in my absence, and even when I am here, she can issue writs and official documents under her own name and seal. I’ve even told her she can sit in my courts and dispense justice if she wants, and settle disputes on request. So why should she resent you?”

“Then mayhap I have imagined her resentment,” Thomas conceded, keeping his doubts to himself. He suspected that Eleanor already regarded him as a rival. God knew, that was how he regarded her.

“The Queen knows you are invaluable to me,” Henry went on. “Where else would I find a man of such diligence and industry, experienced in affairs, and able to discharge the duties of his office to the praise of all? Who else is such a staunch friend to me? Thomas, I tell you, you are my right-hand man. I put all my trust in you. Together, we will make this kingdom great!”

“My lord flatters me,” Thomas said, with that slow, gentle smile that was so endearing. “I am ever happy to be of service with my small talents.”

“You speak like a courtier!” Henry scoffed. “Accept praise where it is due, man. You earned it by your merits.”

They rode on companionably for some time, past the peasants toiling on their strips of land, and beasts grazing in the fields, with Henry pointing out butterflies, cows, and pigs to the inquisitive Geoffrey, and answering his persistent, incisive questions.

“This child is clever!” he announced delightedly. “He wants to know everything. Young William is all bombast and will make a great warrior, but this one has a brain.”

“I shouldn’t let the Queen hear you saying that!” Thomas warned.

Henry laughed, then drew his habitual short mantle around him. It was unseasonably cold for June. He felt a momentary yearning for the warmer climes of Anjou and Aquitaine.

Presently, the sky darkened and it began to rain. Soon it was sheeting down, and fearful of being soaked to the skin, they tethered their horses under a tree and sought shelter in a church porch, huddling in their cloaks. Suddenly, they realized that they were sharing their sanctuary with a beggar, shivering in his meager wet rags. He regarded them hopefully, as if he had guessed they were persons of some importance.

“Who is that man?” Geoffrey asked.

“He is a poor vagrant,” Henry explained.

The poor vagrant continued to regard him with speculative eyes. The King turned to his friend.

“Would it not be an act of merit to set the boy an example and give that poor old man a warm cloak to shield him from the rain?” he asked, a glint of mischief in his eye.

“It would,” Thomas agreed, missing the glint, and thinking this was uncharacteristically generous of Henry.

“Yours be the merit then!” the King announced gleefully, and whipping Becket’s expensive cloak from his shoulders, thrust it at the astounded beggar, who gathered it around him and scuttled off without a word, leaving Thomas with no choice but to accept his loss; but he was angered and shocked, realizing in that moment that Henry could be unthinkingly cruel. It was the first time he had felt anything other than love for the younger man, and he was further grieved with Henry for making him feel that way. As he stood there, shivering in the damp porch, it even occurred to him to wonder how far his unpredictable master, in times to come, might put their friendship to the test.

   Eleanor stared as her husband stood before her, giving the strange little boy a push in her direction.

“Bow to the Queen,” he instructed, as the black-haired child stood there uncertainly. Henry grabbed him by the collar and jerked his head forward. “Like that!” he said. “Eleanor, this is Geoffrey. He is my natural son, born before our marriage. I have brought him to court to receive an education and to be company for our boys.”

Eleanor froze. She knew that kings and lords took mistresses as a matter of right and sired bastards unthinkingly, especially those whose arranged marriages were unhappy. Her father and grandfather had done it, and to prove it her two illegitimate brothers were even now in her household, eating her out of house and home. No prude herself, she knew too that Henry had had mistresses in the past, and accepted that, but being confronted with the living evidence of his rutting with other women was a shock to her. In a flash she realized what the true purpose of the hunting expedition had been.

“I bid you welcome, Master Geoffrey,” she said coolly, stiffly on her dignity. It had been impressed on her as a child, by Grandmère Dangerosa, that a wife never upbraided her husband for his infidelities, but maintained a lofty silence. That was all very well, but only up to a point. There were questions that had to be asked.

“Who is his mother?” she asked lightly, as if this were a normal conversation to be having with her husband.

“The lady of the manor of Akeny in Oxfordshire,” Henry told her, his tone defensive. “I was lonely on my forays into England. I took my comfort where I could. I’m sure you can understand that.”

“I can,” she replied, her tone softening. “How old is Geoffrey?”

“He is five years old.”

Eleanor relaxed a little. The child smiled at her winningly. “I can read, lady,” he told her proudly.

“Can you now?” she responded, warming to his sunny nature despite herself.

“He is a marvel,” Henry declared, clearly bursting with pride, “and will be a fitting playmate for William and Henry, who will benefit by his example.”

Eleanor, still schooling herself to the dignified acceptance that Dangerosa had enjoined, rang the tinkling little bell she kept for summoning her damsels.

“Welcome to court, Master Geoffrey,” she said. “I hope you will be happy here.” She told herself she could hardly blame this little lad for his father’s sins, and that Henry had in no way betrayed her; he had just omitted to tell her of the boy’s existence. When Torqueri arrived, she instructed her: “This is Master Geoffrey, our Lord the King’s son. Take him to the nursery and tell them to treat him with honor, and kindness, for he may be missing his mother.”

Hiding her astonishment, Torqueri took Geoffrey’s hand and led him away.

“We have a new litter of puppies,” she could be heard saying. “The Lord William will enjoy showing them to you.”

When they were gone, Eleanor looked at Henry.

“Am I to expect any other additions to my children’s household?” she asked.

“No,” Henry lied, knowing there might one day be several moments of reckoning in regard to a number of other bastards he had carelessly sired, but confident that he could bluff his way through them if or when the time came.

He rose and walked over to his queen; he still found her utterly beautiful with her coppery locks loose, her deep-set green eyes regarding him seductively—he thought—and her full lips ripe for loving. He bent and kissed her.

“You are my lady,” he whispered hoarsely. “You have my heart. None can touch you.” It was true, and he meant it absolutely. Frantically fucking Avice de Stafford in a garderobe when overcome by lust did not count at all against his sexual cherishing of his wife. He tightened his arms around her, wanting her urgently.

“Send your women away,” he murmured in her ear. “I can hear them clucking in your bedchamber. I want to be alone with you, and get another heir to England!”

   An hour later, as they lay peacefully entwined between the tumbled sheets, Henry gazed down at his lovely Eleanor and traced a trail with his rough fingers from her breast to her hip.

“If only all my other kingly duties were as pleasant!” He grinned.

“And my queenly ones!” She smiled back.

Henry caught sight of the hourglass on the table and frowned. “My God, I had best go. I’m already late for a meeting with my barons of the Exchequer to discuss improving the coinage.”

He stood up and stretched, the sunlight from the window anointing his muscular, naked body. Eleanor gazed at him lazily, admiring the perfection of his broad shoulders and taut buttocks.

“Will you join me for dinner tonight, my lady?” he asked, pulling on his clothes.

Now it was Eleanor’s turn to grimace.

“If the food is palatable,” she said. These days Henry was busy all the time and didn’t care too much what he ate, usually gobbling it up and leaving the table within five minutes. Consequently, the fare served at his court was poor, and she had taken to having her own meals prepared by her own cook, and eating them with Petronilla and her chief ladies in her solar. When he had leisure, Henry would join her, but as he had explained, a king had to have a visible presence at his court, so it was expedient that he made it his usual habit to dine in the great hall with his household. On feast days and holy days, though, Eleanor always took her place there at Henry’s side, and put up with the appalling food. This day was neither feast day nor holy day, but she sensed that he wanted her to be with him after that ecstatic session in bed, and knew that she should seize the moment.

“I will expressly order my cooks to make sure that it is to your liking,” he promised, pulling on his boots. “And we will have some music, to delight you.”

“You delight me,” she told him, rising in all her naked beauty and clasping her arms about his neck.

“Witch!” he growled, kissing her. “Would you detain me with your wiles? What of the coinage? My barons await me.”

“They can wait a little longer,” Eleanor purred, employing her tongue to artful effect and pulling him down with her once more on the bed.

At the board of the Exchequer, the lords sat looking at one another and drumming the table with impatient fingers, watching the sand drizzling slowly through the hourglass and wondering what had become of their king.

   At his place at the high table on the dais, Becket, watching Henry’s unruly barons arriving—half drunk already—for dinner, reflected that his friend John of Salisbury had been right when he’d compared the English court to ancient Babylon. All scandal, debauchery, and frivolity were here, encouraged by sensuous music and bawdy mimes and dramas. He had heard that they were to have some entertainment later this evening—more ribaldry, he supposed—but that was fortuitous in a way, since it would ensure that the King actually sat down to eat, and everybody else could finish their meal—although, thought Becket with distaste, perhaps that was not such a boon.

He could only disapprove of the excesses he witnessed at court, and regretted that Henry did nothing to curb them. But, of course, the King would do no such thing, for he indulged in such excesses too, swearing, drinking himself into oblivion, and whoring with the best of them. It was not dignified behavior in a king. That was why Becket was happier when he could entertain Henry in his own house, and afford him the elegance, luxury, and sophistication that were deplorably lacking at court. He sensed, though, that Henry cared far less for these things than he did, and that the person who gained the most pleasure from them was himself. It flattered his vanity to be able to lavish such bounty on his king, and show him how things
should
be done.

The company was standing now—or trying its best to—as Henry entered the hall, holding the Queen by the hand. They’ll have to be on their best behavior now, Becket thought, amused, knowing how Eleanor was a stickler for observing the courtesies. Someone belched loudly, and she glared, quelling the unfortunate culprit, who hung his head in unaccustomed shame.

Henry escorted her to her seat at his right hand; Becket, standing to his left, bowed as she sat down. He heard her murmur to her husband, “Your barons could at least comb their hair before they come to table. They’re a disgrace.”

As Becket suppressed a smile, Henry looked about him, puzzled.

“I hadn’t noticed,” he said. “As long as they serve me well and do as I tell them, their appearance matters not one jot to me. But since it obviously does to you …” He rose to his feet and raised one hand.

“Silence!” he bawled above the hubbub, and upward of fifty faces turned toward him.