Alison Weir - Captive Queen

“Lord King, we come to make complaint of the high-handed conduct of His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

Henry groaned. “What has he done now?” he hissed.

“He has excommunicated the three of us, this very morning, from his pulpit at Canterbury, for our part in the coronation,” the Archbishop announced. As the barons erupted in shouts of fury, Henry stared at him in shock.

“But that was all resolved,” he said.

“This is outrageous,” Eleanor murmured, appalled at Becket’s duplicity. “It is not the way to make amends!”

“Apparently it was not resolved,” Bishop Foliot of London growled. “It seems he has been cherishing his anger against those who defied him. I never had much opinion of him, as you know, and it seems I was right to doubt him. Sire, the Pope should be told of his disobedience.”

“By the eyes of God, Becket shall suffer for this!” Henry shouted, his voice vibrating with ire and indignation. “Is this how he repays my offer of friendship?”

“My lord,” said the Earl of Leicester, sitting nearby, “enough is enough. While Thomas lives, you will not have peace or quiet, or see good days.”

“By God, you speak truth!” Henry cried, furious and indignant. “Becket has gone too far this time. He is doing this only to spite me, and yet he brazenly claims to be defending the honor of God.”

“It is his own honor he holds so dear,” Eleanor said, keeping her tone even, for she realized that Henry was getting perilously close to a full-scale display of the famously ungovernable Plantagenet temper. “He is puffed up with the sin of pride. My lord, you must appeal to the Pope.”

“I will have him defrocked!” Henry spluttered, banging his fist on the table so hard that several goblets were overturned. “And then, when his office can no longer protect him, I will proceed against him as a traitor!”

“Get His Holiness on your side first,” Eleanor urged, but Henry wasn’t listening; he was so distracted with anger that he was beside himself, spewing a fiery stream of wild threats, to the point where his outraged courtiers ceased their indignant chatter and watched him in amazement. Presently, seeing he was the object of their incredulous stares, he ceased his tirade and stood there shaking in a menacing, deadly silence, raking the room with narrowed, bloodshot eyes. Eleanor shivered. She had never seen him so consumed with hatred. She ventured to lay a calming hand on his arm, but he angrily shook her off and directed his terrifying gaze at his nervous court.

“What cowards you all are!” he hissed. “I curse you all! Yes, a curse, a curse, on all the false varlets and traitors whom I have nursed and promoted in my household, who allow their lord and king to be mocked with such shameful contempt by a lowborn priest!”

There was a stunned hush. No one dared speak. Clearly, no one knew how to respond.

“Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” Henry shouted, then sat down heavily and slumped with his head in his hands, his shoulders heaving as, all around him, people looked at one another helplessly.

Eleanor was up on her feet in an instant, folding her arms around Henry, all other considerations set aside in her desire to alleviate his pain. So engrossed was she in her efforts to console him that, like many others present at that fateful feast, she did not espy four stalwart knights slipping away from the hall, their faces alight with purpose, their hands grasping their sword hilts.

Henry came to her bed that night, for the first time in almost five years. He came for comfort, rather than for sex, although he would have died before admitting it. And she, knowing his need, welcomed him back, and they were gentle with each other, embracing tightly, not having to say anything. It felt strange—and unexpectedly delightful—to have Henry in her arms again. For this feeling she was ready to forgive him anything. She was deeply moved that at this moment of crisis he had turned to her before all others. And so, when the need for comfort translated itself into the need for something deeper, and he moved toward her in the old familiar way, and entered her, she felt only joy, and a beautiful inner peace that made her want to weep.

Their lovemaking was not the explosion of lust and fire it had once been—that was long ago, and they were both, quite obviously, older now—but it was gloriously satisfying, and her climax, when it eventually came—for she was quite out of practice, she thought ruefully—was shattering. It was as if all the pent-up desire of the barren, loveless years had been released in one go.

When the waves of pleasure had ebbed away, Eleanor lay quiet with Henry’s arm about her, thinking that the long separation had allowed time for her wounds to heal and for many matters to be put in perspective. The old saw about absence making the heart grow fonder was very apposite, she realized. And the sensual meeting of two skins between the sheets was sweetly conducive to full reconciliation. Rosamund or no Rosamund, if Henry wanted her, she was ready to go back to him.

But when at length Henry spoke to her, it was not about any future they might have together. “Eleanor, something is troubling me. Just before I left the hall, the steward told me that four of my knights had left the castle not long before. He thought it strange that they should go abroad so late on Christmas night.”

“Do you know who they were?” Eleanor asked.

“Yes. William de Tracy, who was once Becket’s chancellor; Reginald FitzUrse, Richard de Brito, and Hugh de Morville. Hugh’s done good work as my justice in the north of England. From what I could make out, they left just after …” Henry’s voice tailed off. He could not find words to describe his fit of rage.

Eleanor was suddenly suffused with alarm. She sat up abruptly.

“Oh, no! I hope to God they have not taken you literally at your word!”

“At my word?” Henry raised himself on an elbow.

“You do not remember? You asked for someone to rid you of Becket! You called him a turbulent priest.”

Henry leaped out of bed and reached for his robe. “I must summon the knights back!” he cried, and was out of the door before he had barely covered his modesty, shouting to his guards. But it was too late. The four knights were long gone.

Eleanor spent the next two days with dread in her heart. Henry was convinced that his unthinking outburst was going to have disastrous consequences, and privately she shared his foreboding. But her words were all of reassurance.

“My lord, you have sent men after them, so rest easy. And surely no man would even contemplate committing violence on the Archbishop of Canterbury?”

Henry turned frightened eyes to her. “They heard me denigrate his office. They might well be convinced that his removal would put an end to this interminable quarrel, and actually serve the Church’s interests.”

“I hardly think they will go that far,” Eleanor reasoned, with more confidence than she felt. “Mayhap they have gone to tell Becket a few home truths and frighten him into submission. After all, the Pope must support you; Becket cannot win. He is done for, this time.”

“Done for indeed, I fear,” Henry muttered. His face was shadowed with foreboding.

Unable to bear the tension, the King abandoned the Yuletide festivities, dismissed his guests, and left with the Queen for Argentan. It was there that Brother Peter, a young monk from England, mud-spattered and exhausted from a hard ride, found him, just as he and Eleanor were entertaining Bishop Arnulf of Lisieux to supper in their private solar.

“Lord King,” the monk gasped, falling to his knees for sheer weariness. “I bring terrible news.”