Engelram de Bohun stepped forward to add his voice to the fracas. As the Bishop of Salisbury’s uncle, he felt that he had more right than most to vent his spleen against his nephew’s enemy. Like the others, he made a point of calling the archbishop “Becket,” spitting it out as if it were a curse. Eleanor understood why quite well. It went beyond denying him his rank as a prince of the Church. By making use of the surname Becket himself shunned, his foes were emphasizing the archbishop’s greatest vulnerability: his shame at being the son of a mere merchant.
As a descendant of Charlemagne, the proud daughter of a prideful and ancient House, Eleanor agreed, of course, that bloodlines were of profound significance. But she found herself feeling a growing sense of exasperation with all concerned. She had learned through painful lessons that words must be weighed with care and that actions had consequences. Looking back upon the rash, headstrong girl she’d once been, she winced at the naivete and foolhardiness of that younger, indiscreet self. How was it that Harry and Becket had learned nothing from their own mistakes?
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 Evreux 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, Renee 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!”