“That is what I want you to find out. Becket claims that he is too ill to attend today’s session. Find Leicester and ride to the priory, see if he is truly ailing or if this is just a ruse.”
Rainald looked wistfully at his breakfast, but knew better than to argue. Out in the castle bailey, he ran into Ranulf and coaxed him into accompanying them. As they rode through the town’s stirring streets, they speculated amongst themselves whether Becket was feigning sickness. Rainald thought it highly likely, and the Earl of Leicester was somewhat dubious, although he did concede that he could hardly blame Becket if it were so, saying that a hunted fox would always go to earth if it could. Ranulf alone felt that Becket’s purported illness was genuine, and was still submitting to his brother’s good-natured raillery as they reached the priory of St Andrew.
All of their doubts were dispelled, though, with their first glimpse of Thomas Becket. He was paler than new snow, bathed in sweat, and clearly in considerable discomfort. Propped up in bed by pillows, he regarded them with dull, hollowed eyes, too preoccupied with his body’s pain to worry about the king’s enmity. Rainald and Leicester exchanged a martyred look of resignation, and then began their interrogation of the stricken archbishop on behalf of the king, constrained all the while to use the hushed, somber tones considered proper for the sickroom.
Ignoring the glares of the archbishop’s clerks and the hostility of Master William, his physician, they extracted from Becket the information they sought: that his malady was a colic, one he’d suffered from in the past. The faint stench of vomit and Becket’s occasional involuntary gasps bolstered his credibility even more than his faltering words. Rainald and Leicester were both uncomfortable in their role as inquisitors to an obviously ailing man, but Rainald knew what his nephew the king would most want to know, and girded himself to ask it.
“Think you that you’ll be well enough to attend the court session on the morrow?”
There were outraged murmurs from the clerks. But the last words were to be Becket’s. “I will be there,” he said hoarsely, “if I have to be carried in on a litter.”
The following morning, Ranulf was standing in the bailey of Northampton Castle when the Bishop-elect of Worcester rode in. Roger handed the reins to a groom, gestured for his clerks to go on into the hall, and then headed toward Ranulf.
“How is Thomas?” Ranulf asked quietly. “Is he well enough to attend today’s session?”
Roger nodded, but there was something in his face that Ranulf caught, a fleeting emotion of surprising intensity in his usually composed nephew. “What is it?” he asked. “What you tell me will go no further, Roger, if that is your concern.”
“It is not that, for the king will hear soon enough.” Roger’s voice was low, his dark eyes troubled. “Uncle Ranulf, I fear this will end very badly. Never have I seen Harry so… so unreasonable. If we are to avoid utter calamity, the lord archbishop must be the one to compromise… and he has begun listening again to those who are urging defiance. He seems to have taken his sudden illness as… as a sign. When we called upon him this morning, he forbade us to take part in a judgment against him and ordered us to excommunicate any man who dared to lay hands upon him. Gilbert Foliot angrily objected, pointing out that the bishops would then be in violation of their own oaths to obey the Constitutions of Clarendon, oaths they’d given only at Thomas’s command. When Gilbert threatened to appeal to the Holy Father, Thomas said he had that right, but the command still stood. He then went to say Mass… and he chose the Mass of the martyr St Stephen, with the Introit, ‘Princes also did sit and speak against me.’ He was even going to come to the castle in his Mass vestments, barefoot, carrying his cross-”
Ranulf’s eyes widened. “Oh, no!”
“Fortunately he was dissuaded from that. I could not counsel him to resign, Ranulf, as some of the other bishops have done. Yet I do not want to see him openly defy the king…”
Neither did Ranulf. Both Henry and Becket were already teetering on the brink of an abyss; a single misstep could be disastrous. He’d come to Northampton haunted by his fear of a war with Wales, but it was becoming obvious that this feud between king and archbishop was equally dangerous. This was a storm that had been long hovering on the horizon. Yet now that it had blown up into such a threatening squall, most seemed taken by surprise, even Becket.
Other bishops had begun to arrive, and Roger and Ranulf hastened over to greet Gilbert Foliot. Still visibly angry, he made an effort to respond with courtesy, but abandoned the attempt after Thomas Becket rode into the bailey. It occurred to Ranulf that by now his nephew would have been told of Becket’s defiant choice of the St Stephen’s Mass; there was never a shortage of men eager to curry favor by carrying tales to a king. He decided to see if he could ease Henry’s wrath before the court session began and was starting toward the great hall when a sudden outcry stopped him in his tracks.
After dismounting, Becket had taken his heavy oaken cross from his cross-bearer, Alexander Llewelyn-to the dismay of the spectators. Several of the bishops hurried over, seeking to talk the archbishop out of such a provocative act, but Becket brushed them aside. As Ranulf turned to see, so, too, did Gilbert Foliot. Ranulf was close enough to hear the bishop brand Becket as an utter fool. Striding forward, Foliot joined the others remonstrating with Becket. Alarmed, Ranulf followed.
The Bishop of Hereford had gone so far as to grasp the cross, pleading with Becket to reconsider. When Becket clung to the cross, Foliot grabbed hold of it, too, and tried to wrest it away by force, this time calling Becket a fool to his face. At that, Roger intervened upon Becket’s behalf, only to be sharply rebuked by Foliot. Both Hereford and Foliot were still tugging at the cross, but Becket was younger and he prevailed. Pulling free, he recovered his balance and started toward the hall.
Hereford fell back, but Foliot hastened to keep pace. “If the king now draws his sword, you’ll make a fine pair!”
“I carry the cross to protect myself and the English Church,” Becket retorted, then disappeared into the hall as a new disruption broke out in the bailey. The Archbishop of York had just arrived, and he’d brought his own cross-bearer, in violation of the Pope’s ban against displaying his cross outside of his own province. If Becket’s dramatic gesture was throwing down the gauntlet to Henry, York’s was meant to upstage Becket; the two men had a rivalry that went all the way back to their youthful days in the service of Archbishop Theobald. Gilbert Foliot looked incredulously at his posturing colleague, then threw up his hands in disgust.
“What next?” he snapped. “A bearbaiting?”
Ranulf understood exactly how he felt. This council at Northampton was rapidly spiraling out of control. And they hadn’t even gotten around to discussing war with Wales yet.
Henry had been persuaded to withdraw to the upper chamber, much to Ranulf’s relief. He wondered if his nephew did not trust himself to control his temper in a face-to-face confrontation now that it was clear Becket had chosen defiance over submission. The Earl of Leicester had pulled Henry aside and was quietly urging him to show forbearance. Ranulf didn’t expect Henry to listen, but it was reassuring that there were a few voices of reason still to be found. Too many of the men advising the king and archbishop were arguing against compromise. Ranulf had tried again to convince his nephew to settle for the victory he’d already won-the contempt of court charge-but that was not what Henry wanted to hear. He had come to Northampton determined to force Becket’s resignation and was not willing to settle for anything less. Ranulf realized he could only watch as events played themselves out. He had to keep trying, though. If he’d come upon a burning house, he’d have felt compelled to fight the flames.