Seated at a side table, one of the clerks of the chancellory, William Fitz Stephen, was exchanging discreet gossip with John of Salisbury, Archbishop Theobald’s secretary. The dinner was clearly a great success. Yet Fitz Stephen had been hearing an undercurrent of disapproval directed at their host. It was no secret that the archbishop was deeply disappointed in his protégé. Theobald had recommended Becket as chancellor in the belief that he would be a strong advocate of the rights of the Church. Instead, Becket had become the king’s man in word and deed. Although the archbishop retained his fondness for his former clerk, some in his inner circle were bitter at what they saw as Becket’s defection to the Crown, and they were not loath to criticize the chancellor even while enjoying his hospitality.
Fitz Stephen was disdainful of these disingenuous critics, for he scorned hypocrites and his loyalty to the chancellor was wholehearted. But because John of Salisbury’s own friendship with Thomas Becket dated back to their years together in the archbishop’s service, Fitz Stephen did not feel he had to be on his guard with John. And so when John made passing mention of the Bishop of Chichester’s failed case against Battle Abbey, Fitz Stephen did not become defensive, as he might have done with others in Theobald’s household. He contented himself by merely reminding John that even the archbishop had disapproved of Chichester’s perjured denials.
“Chichester has less backbone than a conger eel,” John said scornfully. “His panic notwithstanding, the underpinnings of his argument remain sound. It sets a poor precedent to exempt an abbey from episcopal jurisdiction, and I’d not be surprised if this comes back to haunt us. Already the king is showing undue interest in the Scarborough case.”
Fitz Stephen was familiar with this particular case. When the king had been in York in January, a Scarborough citizen had petitioned him for justice, contending that a local dean had extorted money from him by falsely accusing the man’s wife of adultery and then demanding a payment to withdraw the calumny. Henry had wanted the dean charged and had been enraged when the Treasurer of York insisted the king could not punish the dean because he was in holy orders and thus subject only to Church discipline.
Fitz Stephen sighed, for like his master, Thomas Becket, he was both an officer of the Crown owing loyalty to the king and a subdeacon owing loyalty to the Church. He sometimes felt like one of those rope dancers who entertained at fairs, balancing upon a tautly drawn cord high above the ground, knowing that a single misstep could result in a nasty fall.
“I agree that we do not want the Crown intruding into the Church’s domains,” he said quietly. “But the complaints about lawless clerics are too often justified, as with that Scarborough dean using his position in the Church for extortion. If we took better care to discipline our own, people would not be coming to the king with their woes and he’d have no opportunity to meddle in matters best left to ecclesiastical courts.”
John, too, deplored the way unscrupulous men could plead their clergy to elude punishment for crimes against the king’s peace. But when he weighed the evils, his fear that the Crown might erode Church liberties was far stronger than his reluctance to see guilty clerics escape a temporal reckoning.
Just then a commotion erupted outside, loud enough to swivel all heads toward the unshuttered windows. Two servants were hurrying to fling open the doors. John looked baffled, but Fitz Stephen was grinning, for this was a familiar occurrence in the chancellor’s household. They were about to have a royal visitor.
As the doors swung back, the noise intensified, male voices nearly drowned out by the baying of hounds. Much to John’s astonishment, a horse and rider appeared in the doorway, hooves striking sparks against the flagstones. Maneuvering the stallion with ease, Henry guided it over the threshold and into the hall. He was clad in a sweat-stained green tunic, a soft, stalked cap, knee-high cowhide boots, a quiver slung over his shoulder, a bow carried casually in one hand, and his face was streaked with dirt, his eyes unreadable in the blinding, bright sunlight streaming into the hall behind him.
“Another feast, my lord chancellor? My invitation must have gone astray.”
John of Salisbury gasped. It was not so long ago that he’d been in severe disfavor with the king, relying upon his friendship with Thomas Becket to appease Henry’s anger. He was alarmed now to think that Becket might have drawn that very same anger down upon himself, and he reached out, his hand closing around Fitz Stephen’s wrist in an instinctive bid for reassurance.
Fitz Stephen did not share his anxiety. Nor did the target of Henry’s pointed query. Thomas Becket was regarding his king with complete composure. “Had I invited you, my liege, you’d have been compelled to pass the afternoon on a cushioned seat, dining on pike in doucette and Galantine pie. As it was, you were able to eat on horseback, washing down strips of dried beef with English ale.”
John spun in his seat, staring at Becket’s wine cup. He knew the chancellor was sparing in his own habits, yet if he were not drunk, what had possessed him to offend the king like this? His moment of consternation was brief, however, for Henry had already begun to laugh.
“When you put it like that, my lord chancellor, I am in your debt!” he said, and as Becket joined in his laughter, John realized that this was an old game between them, played out for their amusement whenever they had a credulous audience.
Rising, Becket detoured around the table, offering his own wine cup with a flourish. “Will you dine with us, my lord? I’m sure we can squeeze in another place if we try.”
Accepting the wine cup, Henry pretended to ponder the invitation. By now the others in his hunting party had followed him into the hall, although they’d made a more conventional entrance, having dismounted first. Gesturing toward his justiciar, his brother Will, and the Earls of Salisbury and Leicester, all of whom were just as bedraggled and disheveled as he, Henry shook his head ruefully. “You’d have to feed that wolf pack, too, if I stay. No, better that we depart whilst you still have some leftovers to distribute to the poor gathering at your gate.”
Handing the cup back to Becket, Henry turned to salute the Archbishop of Canterbury, who responded with a paternal smile, and singled out a young priest, Roger Fitz Roy, for some brief badinage. Roger, brother of the Earl of Gloucester and the Countess of Chester, shared with his sister a finely honed wit and he more than held his own with his cousin the king. Henry then exchanged greetings with several of the other guests before bringing his attention again to Theobald.
“We need to talk, my lord archbishop, about that rapacious dean up in Scarborough. My justiciar tells me that the Treasurer of York thinks I’m meddling in matters best left to the Church.”
Theobald had won his archbishop’s mitre during two of the most turbulent decades in English history, and it was not by chance that he had steered Canterbury and the Church through the worst of the civil war. While he could be sharp-tongued and abrupt in private, he’d long ago learned a valuable lesson, that a soft answer was particularly effective in turning away royal wrath. Showing none of his inner disquiet, he smiled easily.
“I would hope that the treasurer did not express himself in such intemperate terms, my liege. The king’s concern for justice in his realm can hardly be considered ‘meddling.’ But it is true that many in holy orders feel very passionately about the need to safeguard the Church’s exclusive right to deal with its own. I would, of course, be pleased to discuss this case with you at greater length, and I will dispatch one of my clerks to your court to arrange a meeting upon this matter.”
Henry’s smile was no less politic than the archbishop’s. “I look forward, my lord archbishop, to these discussions, as I have utter confidence that you will bring your customary prudence and wisdom to bear upon this thorny issue. And now I ask you all to resume your meal, for I’ve too long kept you from my chancellor’s fine fare.” With another salute for the archbishop and Becket, he turned his stallion in a semicircle, tossing a nonchalant “Godspeed” over his shoulder as he headed toward the door.
An oppressive silence settled over the hall, for Becket’s guests were all men of the cloth, experienced in the shifting nature of boundaries and the predatory practices of kings. Theobald’s shoulders slumped, and for a moment, he showed every burdensome one of his more than sixty years. His gaze came to rest upon the tall, courtly figure of Henry’s chancellor, and he felt a surge of sadness, a baffled regret that Thomas had not been more outspoken in his defense of the Church.
Becket was standing alone in the middle of the hall. When he called out, “My lord king!” Theobald’s hope flared in a sudden spark of faith; he still believed that the heart of his pious, dedicated clerk beat on in the chest of the king’s worldly chancellor.
Reining in his stallion, Henry glanced back at Becket, his expression quizzical. “My lord?”
“You did not tell us, my liege, how the hunt went.”
Their eyes held steady for a moment, long enough for Theobald’s hope to gutter out. And then Henry grinned. “I got,” he said, “what I aimed for, Thomas.”
THIS WAS RHIANNON’S second visit to the English court, but it was still alien territory. Cities like Winchester were cauldrons always on the boil, alarming places to a woman accustomed to the seclusion and stillness of the Welsh countryside. She’d long ago learned to deal with the calloused curiosity of strangers, but it was easier, somehow, to deflect the hurtful, heedless questions if they were posed in her own language. Even as a welcome guest, aunt by marriage to the King of England, she never felt so vulnerable as she did on English soil.
On this warm August evening in the great hall of Winchester Castle, she was doing her best to play the role expected of her, but so far events seemed to be conspiring to shred her poise. Ranulf had been waylaid by Henry and soon swept away, for trying to resist his nephew was like bat tling a headwind. Left in the care of Ranulf’s brother Rainald, Rhiannon found herself being coddled and cosseted until she yearned to startle Rainald by some outrageous act. She did not, of course, constrained by courtesy and her ironic awareness of the reason for Rainald’s clumsy kindness: his own wife was addled in her wits, given to fits of weeping and melancholy and irrational fears.
She’d finally been able to evade Rainald’s well-meaning clutches. Listening to the music swirling around her, she slowly began to relax. The shock was all the greater, therefore, when she caught snatches of a nearby conversation, malicious gossip that targeted her as “Ranulf’s blind Welsh wench” and marveled how she’d ever ensnared him into marriage, speculating whether it was by drink or the Black Arts.
From the way they were bandying her husband’s name about, they appeared to be well acquainted with him. Such careless cruelty would have been easier to tolerate from strangers. Coming from Ranulf’s friends, it kindled a spark of rare rage. Turning toward the sound of their voices, she said, “I am blind, not deaf.”
There was a sudden silence, and then a mumbled apology. The voices were receding, taking advantage of her disability to escape unscathed. The unfairness of that was more than Rhiannon could accept and she stubbornly sought to hinder their retreat. “Do I know you? Have we met?”
Her challenge went unanswered. She bit her lip, conceding defeat, when another voice alerted her that there was a new player in this unpleasant game. “If you have not met them, Rhiannon, count your blessings.”
Those stinging words were accompanied by a whiff of exotic perfume and a soft breath on Rhiannon’s cheek. The whispered name was needlessly offered, for she’d recognized the voice at once. But the Countess of Chester was always conscientious about identifying herself, unable to believe that other senses could be as reliable as sight.
Maud gave her no chance to reply. “Rhiannon, as much as it grieves me to admit this, these ill-mannered dolts are kin: my brother Will and his harpy of a wife, Hawise.”
There was an outraged sputter from Hawise, and Gloucester said sharply, “This was an unfortunate misunderstanding, Maud. Your meddling will only make it worse.”
“Spare me your righteous indignation, Will. I overheard enough to judge your rudeness for myself!”
“For God’s Sake, lower your voice!” Gloucester sounded alarmed, for Maud was capable of making an enormously embarrassing scene and well he knew it.
In this concern, he had an unlikely ally in Rhiannon, for her anger was cooling as fast as it had flared now that she knew the identity of her defamers. Family faults were better discussed in private, and she said hastily, “Let it lie, Maud. It does not matter.”
“What does not matter?” This was a new voice, low pitched and sultry, infused with the unique confidence that high birth and beauty confer, and Rhiannon quickly dropped a curtsy to the English queen. Eleanor’s perfume was more subtle and elusive than Maud’s. Breathing it in as Eleanor kissed her cheek in a kinswoman’s greeting, Rhiannon was momentarily transported to a far-off garden where mysterious, elegant flowers bloomed by midnight.
The others had the advantage of Rhiannon, though, for they could see the expression on Eleanor’s face. As those greenish-gold eyes appraised the Earl of Gloucester and his wife, they thought not of summer gardens, but of cats on the scent of prey.
“You are very pale of a sudden, Hawise. Mayhap you have not fully recovered from your ordeal.” Eleanor gently squeezed Rhiannon’s arm. “Did you hear about the woeful mishap that befell my husband’s cousin and his wife, Rhiannon? They and their son were abducted from the bedchamber of their own castle at Cardiff, dragged off as spoils of war in a daring Welsh raid. Poor Will had to pay a huge ransom for his release, did you not, Will?”
“Yes,” Gloucester muttered, acutely aware of the audience that Eleanor was attracting.