The Winter Crown (29 page)

The men arrived, jostling the groom in their midst. Hamelin was laughing and taking the jests in good part, while Isabel presented the face of a modest, embarrassed wife, although her eyes were sparkling.

Gilbert Foliot, the new Bishop of London, attempted to bring sobriety to the proceedings, but the guests, intent on merriment and full of ribald advice for the couple, were reluctant to cooperate. Thomas Becket pushed himself forward. Being more sober than most because of his delicate stomach, he set about controlling the proceedings, which earned him glares from Foliot, and amused contempt from Henry.

‘Is there any area where you will not stir that spoon of yours, my lord archbishop?’ he asked.

‘I would prefer not to sup with the Devil, sire,’ Becket replied, ‘but oftimes in this world it seems I must.’

Henry arched his brows.

Becket continued smoothly, ‘For now I desire to wish the bride and groom well and leave them in peace, as I am sure we all do.’ He raised his voice on the last few words.

‘And we are all capable of doing so without your instruction, Archbishop,’ Henry said.

‘Sire.’ Becket bowed, and stepped back with a flare and swish of his gilded cope.

The guests finally brought to order, Hamelin and Isabel were placed side by side between the sheets and liberally sprinkled with holy water by Gilbert Foliot, who had reclaimed his role. Once blessed and exhorted to be fruitful, they were finally left in peace.

‘As far as weddings go, I think we escaped rather lightly,’ Hamelin said. ‘I’ve attended bedding ceremonies far more boisterous.’ He went to bar the door, and knelt to peer under the bed and make sure there were no surprises. ‘I’ve known people tie bells to the frame, so that every movement rings a carillon, or else put powders in the piss-pot to make it foam over.’ He climbed back into bed and turned to her. ‘My brother can be vile, and ride roughshod over everyone to attain his own desire, but I will love him forever for this gift. He promised me a great heiress many years ago before he was king, but I never thought it would come about like this.’

‘I too am glad,’ Isabel said. ‘I owe the Queen a great debt too, but I will not be sorry to leave court and live on my … our lands for a while.’

‘Indeed, I will not be sorry either. I am looking forward to having time to explore all that I never thought to have.’ He touched the golden hair net. ‘Will you … will you unbind your hair for me?’

Isabel slanted him a look. ‘No, my lord, I will not.’

He stared at her askance until she smiled. ‘It is your right to unbind it now – a husband’s privilege. No other man has seen my hair loose since I wed my first husband. Not your brother William and not the King.’

Hamelin swallowed, almost undone by her words. With trembling hands, he removed the fine metallic mesh and then one by one plucked out the gold pins securing her plaits. Slowly he unwound the heavy, dark braids each as thick as his wrist and inhaled a wonderful aroma of nutmeg and spices. He ran his hands through the strands to loosen them until he was looking at a shining brunette sheaf that spilled over her body like a second cloak and left him speechless with awe. This was all his: this woman, her beauty, her status, her virtue. What he had felt earlier when told he was to marry her, what he had felt on the bridge when he settled the terms of their relationship, was as nothing compared to now. It was like having a beautiful box and then opening that box and finding a sacred and precious jewel within it.

He unfastened the ties on her chemise and stroked the smooth shoulder that gleamed through her abundant tresses. She was like Eve in the garden. Her wide hazel-brown eyes; those slightly parted pink lips. She had never borne a child and even while she was knowing, she was virginal too. He pulled off his shirt and laid her down, and her hair spilled beneath them like a sable blanket.

‘This is sacred,’ he said. ‘This is for the rest of our lives.’

Isabel put her arms around his neck and drew him close. ‘It is forever,’ she said, and her voice was fierce. ‘You are mine, and from now on, you come first above all.’

The royal hunting lodge at Woodstock, eight miles from Oxford, had been a favourite domicile and retreat of Henry’s grandfather. He had feasted and entertained his barons here, gone hunting in the park, and pleasured himself with his mistresses. The complex had also housed a menagerie of exotic animals that had been his whim to assemble. Alienor was not a frequent visitor but she enjoyed the comfort and the idyllic surroundings.

The children loved Woodstock. There was plenty of room to play and ride their mounts in its rambling grounds. The menagerie, although a ghost of its glory during the old king’s time, was still a huge attraction. Richard was especially taken with the lions and loved to listen to their belching roars and lean over their enclosure to watch the keeper feed them bloody chunks of beef and venison. The stench was choking, but the children barely noticed. Alienor warned Richard not to lean too far over to watch, but smiled to see his affinity with these great beasts, the emblem of his bloodline.

‘When I am king, I am going to have a collection bigger than my great-grandsire had,’ Harry said, leaning beside Richard. ‘He had camels and a porcupine.’

‘You could ask Papa,’ Matilda said, tucking a strand of golden-brown hair behind her ear. ‘He might get some. What’s a porcupine?’

‘Like a hedgehog but a lot bigger and its spines come out and stick in your hand,’ said Geoffrey, who had been reading again.

Harry shook his head. ‘Papa would say no. He’s not interested in things unless they are useful.’

Alienor listened to her children with amusement. Harry certainly seemed to have his father’s measure.

‘You have to ask him in the right way at the right time,’ Matilda said in a superior tone. ‘Animals are useful to show off to your guests or to give as gifts – like the monkeys Papa gave to King Louis. And people are always giving Papa hawks and hounds for his hunting.’

Alienor approved of her daughter’s reasoning. And the child did have a way of getting around her father that no one else did, herself included.

Richard dismissed her with a wave of his hand. ‘You should rely on yourself to get things,’ he said. ‘If you wait for others it puts you in their power.’

‘I was relying on myself,’ Matilda retorted. ‘There is no harm in asking to start out.’ She made a face at him. ‘You don’t have to use siege weapons for everything.’

‘Mama.’ Geoffrey touched Alienor’s arm and pointed towards her constable Saldebreuil de Sanzay, who was approaching them at a brisk walk.

Alienor braced herself. For Saldebreuil to come in person, rather than sending a squire, the message was more than routine.

On reaching them, he bowed. ‘Madam, the Archbishop of Canterbury is here asking to see the King, but he is out hunting and has left no instructions. What shall I say?’ His intelligent dark eyes were full of speculation.

Alienor gnawed her lip. The trouble between Henry and Becket had continued apace since Clarendon. Becket had come to Woodstock to speak with Henry following their most recent quarrel and Henry had ordered the guards to turn him away, saying he did not wish to see him. Becket had then tried to leave the country, but been forced to turn back when the crew of his ship had thought better of incurring the royal wrath.

Since being a bridge and a peacemaker was one of a queen’s most important duties, it was incumbent upon her to act. ‘Admit him,’ she said, ‘and bring him to my chamber.’

‘You are certain, madam?’ Saldebreuil had been with her long enough to be permitted the leeway of a question.

‘No, I am not, but admit him.’

‘Madam,’ de Sanzay said neutrally, and went to see the order carried out.

‘Papa will feed him to the lions,’ Richard declared with a gleam of relish.

‘Your papa will do no such thing,’ Alienor answered sternly. She hoped not anyway. She handed the children into the care of their nurses, all save Harry. Since he was being groomed as Henry’s heir, he needed to observe diplomacy and government at work.

Looking at Thomas Becket as she entered her chamber, Alienor was shocked by the change in him since Clarendon. The lines on his face, superficial before, were deeply carved and his eyes were guarded and hard, lacking their glint of humour. His skin was grey and his bone structure sharp as if he was in the act of turning to stone. He reminded her of the fanatical Bernard of Clairvaux, whose intensity had always frightened her. There was no peace to be had here. As Henry’s chancellor, Becket had resembled a polished gem set in gold, shining and complacent. Now that he had found God instead, he was like a hard black flint, with razored edges that would cut to the bone.

He bowed and she kissed his bishop’s ring with its large blue sapphire. Harry followed her example and for an instant Becket smiled. ‘I have wondered about you, sire,’ he said. ‘Are you well and attending to your lessons with your new tutor?’

‘Yes, my lord archbishop,’ Harry replied, his tone polite but guarded.

‘I am pleased to hear it. To become a king as great as your father you must apply yourself with diligence.’

Harry raised his chin. ‘I shall be greater,’ he said.

‘Then you will be mighty indeed, sire.’

Alienor shot Harry a warning glance. ‘Wine, my lord archbishop?’

Becket shook his head and touched his stomach. ‘Just barley water, if you have it.’

Alienor sent a maid to fetch the requested drink and gestured Becket to a bench near the hearth. ‘The most I can do for you is grant you entry here,’ she warned. ‘Beyond that I cannot intercede between you and the King.’

Becket inclined his head. ‘I understand, madam, and I thank you. I deeply regret the quarrel between us, but if I compromise I am failing God, and He is the greatest authority of all.’

‘Spare me your justifications, my lord archbishop. This is not about God. It is about men’s desires and stubborn will to have the last word.’

Becket looked affronted. ‘Everything is about God, madam.’

Alienor was saved from having to find a diplomatic answer as Marchisa returned with a small crystal flagon filled with barley water.

Alienor took it from the maid and served Becket herself, presenting the cup to him together with a small napkin of fresh white linen. ‘The water comes from the spring at Everswell,’ she said. ‘I think you will find it palatable.’

‘Thank you, I have tasted the spring water before and it is always refreshing.’

The door opened and Henry arrived, muddy and flushed from his morning’s hunting. He had clearly received the news of Becket’s arrival, for there was a glitter in his eyes that boded ill for the likelihood of cordial discussion. That swift, hard glance flicked over Alienor and then back to Becket.

‘My lord archbishop,’ Henry said. ‘What a surprise to see you. Here I was thinking you wanted to leave my kingdom because you thought it not big enough to contain us both.’

Becket rose and bowed and Henry kissed his ring. Neither gesture was conciliatory. ‘Sire, my only wish is to have peace and understanding between us.’

‘Well, that is a fine wish for a beggar to ride,’ Henry snapped. ‘I too desire to see Church and State work together in harmony, and I thought when I appointed you to the primacy that it would happen, but I was wrong.’ He took a gulp of wine from the cup Alienor handed to him. ‘You do not look well, Archbishop. Perhaps your new-found piety is taking its toll on you.’

‘Indeed I am not well, sire,’ Becket responded. ‘My conscience troubles me deeply, as does this dispute between us. I have a duty and responsibility to my office and to God and I must do it to the best of my ability whatever the consequences.’

‘If that is all you have come to tell me, then you might as well leave,’ Henry said. ‘You have a duty and responsibility to your king also.’

‘Indeed, sire,’ Becket said. ‘It is of that duty and responsibility I would talk.’

Alienor sat in her chamber as the long, summer dusk grew into soft nightfall. The windows had oiled linen stretched across them to keep out mosquitoes and night-flying insects, although several moths had managed to blunder their way in to flutter around the lamps. A young Poitevan troubadour was singing a plangent
lai
about unrequited love in the blossom days of summer, while making eyes at her. She was amused and vaguely diverted. He was a good-looking youth with fair curls and blue eyes, and she had employed him to teach her children the musical arts. She enjoyed flirting with him, but he was no challenge, nor of particular interest; she only kept him for his delightful music and his looks.

The notes from the lute dropped on the evening air in liquid sweetness and, closing her eyes, she was transported to her chamber in Poitiers on a soft, spring dusk. She needed to be back there. It was like craving wine and knowing there was none in the barrel. North of Bordeaux, so few people played the lute. It was an instrument of the south, imported like precious rock crystal from the lands beyond Christendom.

The last note fell on the gathering darkness and the youth looked at her from under his tumble of blond curls and gave her a dazzling smile.

‘Beautiful,’ she said about both the boy and his music, and dismissed him with a smile and the gift of a small pouch of silver as Henry arrived to interrupt her dreaming. Earlier, he and Becket had been locked in deep argument that had looked as if it might continue all night.

Henry eyed the young man’s departure with a slight sneer and muttered under his breath about ‘pretty boys’. Having unfastened his belt, he slung it across the coffer.

‘Well?’ Alienor said. ‘I assume you are here to speak to me and not just to hurl your clothes about and cast insults at my lute player.’

Henry glowered. ‘He will not budge an inch,’ he said with frustration and disgust. ‘He refuses to yield over the matter of my right to try criminous clerks in my own courts. He is also refusing to cooperate on land claims made on the Church by my barons, even though he agreed at Clarendon they should go through my courts.’ His tunic followed his belt on to the coffer, and there was a tearing sound as a seam gave way. ‘Now my new chancellor tells me he has discovered evidence that Becket was milking funds from the Toulouse campaign to line his own coffers. The man is not fit to be an archbishop! Small wonder he wants to flee the country.’