Others were joining now in the chorus. The young Earl of Leicester admitted that his late father, the justiciar, had been too solicitous of the archbishop, but vowed that he himself would never associate with an enemy of the king. Men dredged up memories of Becket’s past offenses and dwelt upon them at considerable length. Reginald Fitz Jocelin accused the archbishop of every sin but lust, and several even cast doubt upon that exemption. Mention was often made of the archbishop’s “English army.” Arnulf, the Bishop of Lisieux, lamented the archbishop’s obstinate, willful nature, and the Archbishop of Rouen and the Bishop of Évreux expressed anger that the Holy Father had been misled by the archbishop in the matter of the young king’s coronation oath. Geoffrey Ridel and Richard of Ilchester bitterly blamed Becket for their own excommunications. The only men in the hall who did not speak against Becket were the two that he’d silenced by anathema, the Bishops of London and Salisbury.
As his court denounced and damned Becket, Henry paced before the open hearth, his anger rising with every insult, every stride. When was this going to end? Was he never to be free of Becket’s malice? How many times must he play the fool and put his trust in this faithless friend and disloyal subject?
Engelram de Bohun had worked himself up into a frenzy and was bellowing that the only way to deal with a traitor was to find a rope and a gallows. A Breton lord, William Malvoisin, was recounting a rambling story of his return from the Holy Land, saying that in Rome he’d been told of a Pope who’d been slain for his “insufferable insolence.” That brought down the wrath of several bishops upon him. While they castigated Malvoisin, the Archbishop of York drew closer to his king and said softly, as if sorrowing over his message:
“I fear, my lord king, that whilst Becket is alive, you will never have a peaceful kingdom.”
“I know!” Henry snapped. “Christ smite him, I know! No matter what I do, he betrays me at every turn. He owes all to me, but repays me with treachery and deceit.” Stalking so close to the hearth that he kicked one of the fire tongs, sending up a shower of sparks, he glared at the barons and knights milling about the hall. “What miserable drones and traitors I have nourished and promoted in my household, who let their lord be mocked so shamefully by a lowborn clerk!”
ELEANOR WAS already in bed, her long hair braided into a night plait. Her ladies, Renée and Ella, were asleep on pallets piled high with blankets, for there was no fireplace in the bedchamber. When Henry and his squires finally came in, Eleanor was still awake, for she wanted to learn the outcome of his council. He had belatedly retreated from the turmoil in the great hall, gathering the most trusted of his barons and bishops and crowding into a small antechamber where they could determine in privacy how best to deal with the crisis. Once again Eleanor had found herself relegated to the outer perimeters of power, and she did not like it at all.
She lay still, listening as Henry’s squires assisted him in undressing and then bedded down themselves. There was a pale flicker from a solitary candle as the bed hangings were parted and the mattress shifted under Henry’s weight. As soon as he drew the hangings back, they were cocooned in darkness. Eleanor waited for several moments before saying, “Well?”
Henry started and then sank back against the pillow. “Good God, were you trying to make my heart stop beating? I thought you were asleep.”
“What did you decide to do about Becket?”
“I am going to give him an ultimatum. Either he absolves the bishops from their lawless excommunications or he shall be arrested.”
“That is likely to go well.”
“What do you expect me to do, Eleanor? Let him defy me with impunity?”
“Are you actually asking for my opinion, Harry?”
“What ails you, woman? I have troubles enough with that whoreson Becket, need none from you!”
It was a strange sort of quarrel, one conducted in utter darkness and the illusory intimacy of the marriage bed. After an aggrieved silence, Henry said testily, “On the morrow I am sending Richard de Humet to England to let Hal’s advisers know of my will. At the same time, the Earl of Essex and Saer de Quincy are to guard the ports in case Becket seeks to flee to France again.”
“Do you truly think he would?”
He exhaled an exasperated breath. “If I could penetrate the maze of that man’s brain, do you think we’d ever have come to this? I know not what he is likely to do. Nor do I care.”
That was such an obvious untruth that Eleanor chose to let the matter drop. She asked no more questions and their argument waned, a fire damped down but not entirely extinguished. They lay side by side in a suffocating stillness charged with foreboding, and it was nearly dawn before either slept.
THE LAST Tuesday in December, the morrow of Holy Innocents, was chill and grey. The sky was mottled with clouds, and a high wind was tearing the last of the leaves from an aged mulberry tree in the outer courtyard of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s palace. William Fitz Stephen was hurrying along the south range of the cloisters, shivering in the wintry morning air, when he saw a figure slumped upon a bench in one of the carrels. Recognizing the cellarer, he swerved in that direction, for this was not a day to be enjoying the outdoors.
“Richard? Is something wrong?”
The cellarer looked up, his face as ashen as the sky, and Fitz Stephen sat down hastily beside him on the bench. “What has happened?”
“A cousin of mine is wed to a retainer of the Lord of Knaresborough, Hugh de Morville. He sought me out last night in Canterbury to warn me that the archbishop is in grave peril.”
This was even worse than Fitz Stephen had expected. “What did he tell you?”
“Hugh de Morville and three other lords and their knights landed at Winchelsea yesterday and rode straight for Saltwood Castle. They told the de Brocs that they’d come from the king’s Christmas court, that he had sent them to arrest the archbishop. But Martin—my cousin’s husband—said that he’d begun to doubt this was true. He overheard them talking amongst themselves and was no longer sure they were doing the king’s bidding. His misgivings finally became so strong that he slipped away from Saltwood and came to alert me to the danger.”
“You’ve gone to the archbishop with this?”
“Of course I did! He heard me out and seemed to believe me. Yet he has done nothing to protect himself, Master Fitz Stephen, nothing! There is no use in seeking aid from the Sheriff of Kent, for he is an avowed foe of the archbishop and hand in glove with the de Brocs. We could still rally the townspeople, summon the knights who owe fealty to the archbishop, send urgently to the young king’s court. But Lord Thomas will not even bar the gates to the priory!”
FITZ STEPHEN was sitting at a table in the great hall, staring vacantly off into space. It was his inactivity, so unusual in one of the most industrious of the archbishop’s clerks, that attracted the attention of Edward Grim. Although they were only recently acquainted, the two men shared much in common: an excellent education, a reluctance to demonize their foes, spiritual piety entwined with secular ambition, and an abiding faith in the rightness of the archbishop’s cause. There was concern as well as curiosity, therefore, in Grim’s quiet query.
“Will? I do not mean to intrude, but you seem sorely troubled. May I help?”
Fitz Stephen looked up dully, then gestured for Grim to join him. No sooner had the young priest seated himself than the words came pouring out, each one more alarming than the last. By the time he’d finished, Grim was staring at him, aghast.
“You talked to the archbishop about this?”
Fitz Stephen nodded. “So did John of Salisbury and Robert of Merton, his confessor. He heard us out, but paid us no heed. We are not exaggerating his danger, Ned. Either these men are plotting to murder him in the hopes of gaining royal favor or they are acting at the king’s command. Whichever is true, the outcome is likely to be the same, for I do not think Lord Thomas will allow himself to be arrested.”
Neither did Grim; even in his brief stay at Canterbury, he’d observed how mindful Lord Thomas was of his archiepiscopal dignity. “These men you named . . . is much known of them? Are they as ungodly and foul as the de Brocs?”
“If so, we are all doomed. Three of the four are not only known to Lord Thomas, they were his vassals whilst he was chancellor. Hugh de Morville remained for a time in his service after he became archbishop. His family is a respected one; his father was a Constable of Scotland. William de Tracy is well connected, too; his grandfather was a baseborn son of the old king, the first Henry, and he holds the barony of Bradnich. Reginald Fitz Urse’s father was Lord of Bulwick in Northamptonshire and he has lands in Somerset and Montgomery. Lord Thomas was the very one who secured for him his position at court. It defies belief, Ned, that any man of Christian faith could so reward good with evil. The fourth man is younger than the others, one Richard le Bret. I think he once served in the household of the Lord William, the king’s late brother, but I am not altogether certain of that. Richard the cellarer says that his cousin’s husband told him that they had enough men-at-arms with them to require two ships for the Channel crossing.” He paused to swallow, his mouth as parched as his hopes, and then added tonelessly, “And Saltwood Castle is just twelve miles away . . .”
Grim had always prided himself upon his logical thinking. He struggled now to remain calm, to subject this information to a dispassionate analysis. “So they are not lowborn rabble, but men of property, of substance. Are they of sufficient rank, though, to be dispatched to arrest the archbishop?”
Fitz Stephen pondered that for several moments. “I would think not,” he said doubtfully. “King Henry has a fearsome temper, one that has gotten worse over the years. I have witnessed several of these outbursts myself, and to hear him ranting and raving in the throes of a royal rage is to understand why men say the Angevins are of the Devil’s stock. I was told that he threw a truly terrible fit at Chinon four years ago, upon hearing that Lord Thomas had excommunicated his justiciar, Richard de Lucy, as well as Richard of Ilchester and John of Oxford. It may be that his temper caught fire at Bures, too, and these lords took him at his word—”
He broke off in midsentence, half-rising from the bench as John of Salisbury hastened toward them, his expression so stricken that they knew the news he bore was bad.
“They are here,” he panted. “They’ve just ridden into St Augustine’s!”
“The priory?” Grim was dumbfounded. “Why? Surely they could not expect aid from that quarter!”
Fitz Stephen and John looked at him in surprise, then remembered that his appointment to the benefice of Saltwood was a patronage plum and he’d probably spent little time in the parish before being ejected by the de Brocs.
“Lucifer himself could rely upon a welcome at St Augustine’s,” John said caustically. “Their prior, Clarembald, is a disgrace to the clergy and Church. He is a worldly sinner who was rewarded with an abbacy for his service to the king, a man who cares only for his carnal pleasures, feuding with his own monks, and siring so many bastards that he’s known as the stud of St Augustine’s.”
Fitz Stephen was already well acquainted with the scandalous history of Abbot Clarembald. “Let that be, John. Tell us what is happening at the priory. Does Lord Thomas know of this?”
“Yes, he knows.”
“And . . . ?” Fitz Stephen prodded impatiently. “What did he say?”
“I told him that his enemies had arrived at St Augustine’s and were having dinner with Clarembald, and he . . . he said that we should make ready to dine, too.”
AFTER DINING on pheasant, Becket withdrew to his private quarters at the east end of the great hall. Once all of the monks, clerks, knights, and lay members of the household had finished their meal, it was the turn of the kitchen staff and servers to eat. By now word had spread of the arrival of the armed men at St Augustine’s Priory. William Fitz Neal, Becket’s steward, had been considering his precarious position as liegeman to both the archbishop and the king. Leaving his own dinner untouched, he followed Becket to his bedchamber and asked his permission to depart, saying candidly that “You are in such disfavor with the king and all his men that I dare not stay with you any longer, my lord.”
Becket’s clerks bristled, but he accepted the defection with surprising composure, telling his steward, “Of course you have my leave to go, William.” Fitz Neal ignored the accusing looks thrown his way and returned to the hall. It was now almost 4 P.M. and winter’s early twilight was already beginning to chase away the daylight.
While Fitz Neal was planning to abandon the archbishop’s sinking ship, a large contingent of knights and men-at-arms had left St Augustine’s and were entering the city through its Northgate. Leaving their men at a house close by the palace gateway, Hugh de Morville, Reginald Fitz Urse, William de Tracy, and Richard le Bret rode into the palace courtyard. Dismounting by the mulberry tree, they removed their swords and scabbards, then entered the great hall. Declining Fitz Neal’s polite offer of refreshments, they demanded to see the archbishop.
Thomas Becket was sitting upon his bed, conversing with one of the monks. Others of his household were seated or kneeling in the floor rushes. Fitz Neal announced the four knights, who strode into the bedchamber and sat on the floor, too. Fitz Stephen, frozen by the door, almost forgot to breathe. For what seemed forever to him, the archbishop ignored the knights and they said nothing. Finally the impasse was broken by Becket, who acknowledged their presence coolly, only to get a response so terse as to be deliberately discourteous, a growled “God help you” from Fitz Urse. Becket flushed and another silence ensued.