Beloved Enemy (44 page)

“Leave word at the tavern,” she said quickly as she pulled on her chemise.

Henry stormed through the doorway like a whirlwind and strode down the passage, never once looking back. She could hear him jump down the steps whistling a tavern tune. When he left, Bellebelle collapsed on the bed in a flood of tears. Was it really going to happen? Would she truly be free of whoring at last? She had once believed her dream of having a better life would be fulfilled in Gropecuntlane. Matters had not turned out as she expected. But this time—this time it seemed as if the dream were almost within her grasp. She wanted it so badly that she felt her heart would break into tiny splinters if she were denied it now.

On the other hand, how could she bring herself to do anything that might hurt her idol, Eleanor—who had saved her in the Lady Chapel at St. Mary Overie? But Henry does love her, she argued with herself. He doesn’t love me, he just wants me to listen and bed with him sometimes. What she has is much more precious. I’m not taking anything away from her.

Bellebelle suddenly thought of Hawke and caught her breath. How could she persuade him to let her go? Everything seemed against her—Suddenly she saw the pouch with the coins Henry had won.

Bellebelle looked for her cloak before remembering the cake-vendor still had it. She grabbed the pouch from the floor by the bed and dashed down the passage and staircase. Clad only in her chemise, she stepped out into the street. At the far end of Gropecuntlane a group of horsemen were just disappearing around the corner.

Voices raised in song echoed from the tavern. A drunken customer dressed only in shirt and hose lurched through the open door. A sudden gust of wind made her shiver; the tavern sign with its painted blue cock creaked back and forth on leather hinges. Three men darted out of a narrow alley and ran down the street chased by the watch shouting threats. From an upstairs window came the sound of a grunt followed by a squeal.

Bellebelle rubbed a hand over her still-wet eyes and stumbled back into the brothel-house. The entire evening felt so strange. Mayhap she’d only dreamed it. Only in dreams did a Southwark whore ever become mistress of the king of England.

“B
LESS MY SOUL, HE’S
not yet crowned and already Henry of Anjou is causing trouble,” said the archbishop of Canterbury to Thomas Becket after Prime the following morning, as he handed him the gold crosier of his office.

They were in the sacristy and Thomas was helping Theobald remove the gold-embroidered dalmatic, alb, and gem-encrusted miter that he had worn for the liturgical services.

“First he puts everyone’s nose out of joint at the council meeting, then risks his life in a gambling den, finally disappears with an unsavory cake-vendor,” said Roger de Pont l’Évêque, the archbishop’s chief secretary and a man of some consequence in the Primate’s household. “Couldn’t you have stopped him, Bailhache?”

Thomas stiffened but refrained from comment.

“Might as well expect Thomas to grab a wild boar by the tail, Roger. What a merry chase this prince will lead us.” Theobald sniffed. “Typical Norman behavior.” He put on the black monastic robe Roger handed him.

Thomas repressed a smile. Despite the apparent mildness of his manner, Theobald, Norman down to his toenails, exhibited all the flinty stubbornness of his race. Thomas continued to ignore Pont l’Évêque. A scion of an old and honorable Norman family, he wore a perpetual sneer on his face. The two had been rivals for Theobald’s favor since Thomas first came to the archbishop’s household in January of the year 1144.

Theobald left the sacristy, followed by Thomas and Roger, and walked stiffly to his own quarters in the Bishop’s Palace. At the door, he turned to Roger.

“Leave us, my son. I would speak with Thomas alone.”

Pont l’Évêque bowed and shot Thomas a venomous look which Thomas rewarded with an icy smile.

“I’m not easy in my mind about Duke Henry, Thomas, but we’ll get to that in a moment,” said Theobald, seating himself in his cushioned wooden armchair and indicating a stool for Thomas. “First I wish to ask you about the details of your trip to Normandy …” He let his voice trail off into one of his long silences, grown more frequent of late.

Used to Theobald’s habits, Thomas looked enviously around the resplendent chamber with its vaulted ceiling. Elaborate tapestries depicting the Nativity in blue, white, and scarlet wools hung on the walls. Enameled reliquaries, several gold caskets, a large book bound in ivory and metal that Thomas had long coveted, were laid out on polished oak tables. A huge silver crucifix blazing with pearls, rubies, sapphires, and lapis lazuli dominated the chamber from its place of pride on one wall. Two goblets of wine and a silver platter of honey cakes rested on a table in front of them.

Thomas thought of Duke Henry but an image of Roger de Pont l’Évêque’s face imposed itself in his mind and would not budge. Bailhache he had called him; the name still rankled even after ten years.

Thomas saw an image of himself at the age of twenty-four, trying to mask his excitement as he approached the archbishop’s residence at Harrow. He owed this wondrous opportunity to his father, who had been a childhood playmate of Theobald in Rouen. Fresh from the lecture halls of Paris, he was eager to begin his duties in the Primate’s household. It was Epiphany, and Thomas was nearing the manor house in company with a Saxon woodcutter who, visiting in London, had been told to escort the new clerk to Harrow. The woodcutter had complained of a pain in his arm and asked Thomas to hold the new ax he was carrying.

Thus, when Thomas entered Theobald’s residence he had the ax in his hand. A group of clerks loitering in the hall greeted the wood-chopper with familiarity and condescension.

“What have we here? The woodchopper’s son?” A short slender youth of about Thomas’s age, with sandy hair and arrogant blue eyes, had looked him up and down. “Wipe your boots before you take a step further, my good fellow.”

Thomas crimsoned to the roots of his hair as he repressed a surge of anger. “I’m Master Thomas of West Cheap, a lawyer and a clerk, asked by the archbishop to work for him.”

“Cutting wood?”

The other clerks grinned.

“He’s expecting me.”

“Indeed? Well, who would have thought it. West Cheap, you say. Are people actually from such places?” The clerk waited for the laughter of his fellows to subside. “I’m his chief clerk, Master Roger de Pont l’Évêque. I can’t think why you brought the hatchet except to cut firewood. Is that what they’re teaching student lawyers in Paris these days?”

The other clerks snickered.

Thomas handed the ax back to the woodcutter as if it were a live coal, fearful he might slice Pont l’Évêque’s face in two. The bastard had obviously been expecting him and knew perfectly well who he was.

“This way, Bailhache,” said Roger.

Bailhache. The ax-bearer. Thomas had never hated anyone in his life as much as hated this sneering clerk. The name Bailhache had stuck. He and Roger had detested each other ever since.

“What was I saying?” Theobald’s voice recalled him to the present moment.

“You asked about my trip to Normandy.”

“Ah yes. The finer points. Now, I want to discuss—tell me, what is your impression of the duchess Eleanor? I understand she is a great beauty, very well informed, with opinions on everything.”

“She is all of that, Your Grace. In truth, I believe her to be a far more dangerous source of trouble than her headstrong husband—who has impressed me most favorably, by the way. Because she is older, was a queen for so long, and has a free hand in Aquitaine, I think she may exert a great influence on the less experienced duke.”

Theobald held up a triumphant finger. “Just as I suspected. A meddler in the affairs of men. When I remember the trials Abbé Suger and Bernard of Clairvaux—may God give them rest—underwent at her hands.” He crossed himself. “And poor Louis of France was a mere shadow of his former self, a mere shadow, by the time he was persuaded to rid himself of her. Not to mention how that libertine wrecked the holy crusade. She is no friend to Holy Church.”

“That was my impression as well,” said Thomas.

Theobald leaned forward with a discreet cough. “In his innocence, I doubt our duke is even aware of his wife’s sin against nature.”

“Sin against nature?”

“The—the unfortunate business with the uncle in Antioch.” Theobald’s face flushed with distaste. “Rumor, of course. Still, Louis believed it to be true, or so he told the pope, who told Bernard of Clairvaux, who told me. All in the strictest confidence, of course.”

“Of course.” Thomas had already heard the rumor but discounted it. Now he wondered.

“When I think of the Conqueror’s noble wife, Thomas, and Stephen’s saintly queen, my heart is filled with disquiet at the thought of this unprincipled creature wearing the English crown. Even that virago, the Empress Maud, whatever else you may say of her, was a woman of unsullied reputation.”

“The Lady Eleanor is highly valued in her duchy, Your Grace, which is of some advantage to England regardless of the fact she is no friend to Holy Church.”

“We are all aware of the wealth of Aquitaine. But it does not appear to have occurred to anyone that the Lady Eleanor’s marriages—first to France then to England—may have serious, far-reaching consequences. The Normans and the French have always been at each other’s throats.” Theobald sighed and shook his head. “And now …”

“Eleanor’s marriage to Henry of Anjou may sow the seeds of future conflict?”

“Not may but
will,
Thomas. We must ask God, without whose favor our efforts are of no avail, to guide us in this matter so that in time, Louis may come to regard the duke as ally rather than enemy.”

Thomas looked attentively at his master’s grave face while Theobald picked up a goblet of wine then set it down again.

“You know what the duke told me? That the crown was his by heredity right and the last true monarch was his grandfather, the first Henry. He says that because Stephen was never legally king, he will annul all the acts Stephen has passed, regardless of whether they were just or necessary—”

The archbishop paused for breath before again picking up his goblet and sipping ruby-colored wine. “Thus virtually every legal decision of the last eighteen years becomes invalid at a single stroke.”

“But chaos would result. No man could hold a clear title to land.” Thomas was genuinely shocked that Henry, obviously a man of insight and intelligence, did not see the disastrous consequences of such a course.

“Exactly. However, I may have persuaded the young hothead of the dire results of such an action.” He set down the goblet with a firm hand. “The point is that left to his own devices our impulsive Angevin would have followed such a course when he attained the throne. Ergo, he must not be left to his own devices.”

Intrigued, Thomas waited. If he knew his master, and he flattered himself that he knew him very well indeed after ten years in his service, he had already arrived at the solution before presenting the problem.

Theobald rose painfully to his feet and began to hobble back and forth in front of Thomas, his frail hands clasped to his breast.

“The duke has much to recommend him—a fine, educated mind, an ability to lead and inspire, and an instinct, I feel, for true justice. Something this realm needs desperately. He has the makings of a great king, and the necessary support of the baronage, the clergy, and the administrative services. Now, having said that, let me hasten to add that Henry’s judgment is still undeveloped, and he lacks experience. He will need guidance.”

The archbishop paused in front of Thomas. Their eyes met in a long look.

“Not the guidance of an Aquitainian wife,” Thomas said slowly.

“Whose loyalty is to her own duchy first, as she proved again and again with Louis, and who is hostile to the interests of Holy Church.”

And to me personally, Thomas was about to say before thinking better of it. He had not told anyone of the instant enmity that flashed between himself and Henry’s wife.

“Like her whole family before her,” Theobald continued. “Root and branch. She has a spirit rife with rebellion—just like the land she rules. The Aquitainians imbibe heresy and pleasure with their mother’s milk. Under her influence our future king may draw to himself unwise influences who do not serve the interests of the English crown.”

Theobald lowered himself onto his seat. “Precautions must be taken. One of our own must be close to the king to counter this pernicious influence.”

“A spy within the walls is better than an army without?”

“Just so, Thomas, just so.”

Thomas reached for his goblet of wine. “Who do you suggest?”

“When he becomes king, young Henry will need a chancellor. One skilled in administration and loyal to Holy Church. Who better to fulfill this position than yourself?”

Thomas gasped and almost dropped his goblet. “I? Chancellor of England?” He knew he was staring stupidly at the archbishop but could not help himself. “I’m only the son of a poor burgess in Cheapside,” he blurted out. “I hold no land. I’ve only served in your household. I’m not worthy to be chancellor!”

The archbishop gave him a dry look. “Tut, tut, excessive humility ill becomes you, my son. Do you tell me you are not ambitious to better yourself?”

“But—am I qualified for such a post?”

“How many men have been educated at schools in London and Paris? Studied law in Bologna and Auxerre? Tried cases before the Curia? I think we both know the answer to your question.”

Stunned, Thomas could not yet credit the enormity of the good fortune bestowed upon him. He knew himself to be an efficient lawyer with a gift for negotiations, but chancellor of England! An opportunity to work with the young duke with whom he had already formed a bond of friendship! It was beyond anything he had ever dreamed for himself.

“Be discreet in this matter. I have said nothing to the duke as yet, but I feel sure he will be guided by me. It was obvious he took to you right away.” Theobald rose to his feet, signifying the interview was at an end. He accompanied Thomas to the door of his chamber.