The Lion Rampant, page 10
‘His pay as Archdeacon is a hundred pounds a year. From the crown, about seventy-five. I suppose we can guess how he affords such an excellent mount,’ she remarked to Robert de Beaumont, Earl of Leicester, who, like his co-justiciar, Richard de Lucy, held to the tradition that God Himself conferred kingship, and that Henry was sacred. He was content to leave the hunt to younger, wilder men while he ambled beside the Queen. She, too, was sacred; God’s vessel for future kings.
‘What is the jest in monasteries, Highness?’ They laughed together. Everyone knew the monks’ joke: ‘Is it possible for an Archdeacon to be saved?’
‘Despite his background, Henry says he’s already doing excellent work with England’s finances, Robert …’ Eleanor used his Christian name. He was permitted to use hers because already Henry had raised him and de Lucy to the familiares, that small circle of men of rank who lived within the magic of royal favour. They could sit while he stood. Nobody except the Queen and his blood family had such liberty. Both men had worked for King Stephen. On that account a less intelligent monarch may have refused to appoint them. Henry recognised their calibre. In private the justiciars called him by his Christian name and he sought their advice daily. If he objected to it, they could argue with him without incurring his wrath. Part of their job was also to use servants to spread rumours for the King. The Christmas Court, when so many nobles were gathered in one spot, was an ideal opportunity. The baronage was aghast on hearing whispers that Henry’s coronation charter of peace, justice and prosperity for the realm could mean new fines and taxes.
‘You worry unnecessarily,’ Gilbert Foliot assured his colleagues. ‘My kinsman seeks harmony and balance. His territories across the Channel are so vast and troublesome he needs England to become a calm, flowing river.’
As Epiphany drew ever near, Eleanor said, ‘I’ve not seen Douglas among the men of Scotland. Is he ill? Did the King of Scots not bring him to our celebrations?’
‘The stupid brat dismissed him as commander of the Highland regiment. Said he was too old to fight.’
Henry pointed to a far corner of the hall, where the poor were seated. Guillaume, just back from his duties at Winchester, was strolling towards a man whose head was invisible beneath a rust-coloured cowl. He sat alone, eating roast pork with his fingers. Luxuriant black curls fell over the ermine collar of Guillaume’s robe as he hunkered down beside the vagrant. The giant gave a shout that made those nearby jump in fright. The two stood to embrace. Commoners watched open-mouthed when the King’s brother kissed a villein. ‘Hooray!’ they shouted. ‘Hooray!’ They held up their hands to Guillaume, who drifted his fingers across theirs as he strolled back to his place near the King. At the long banqueting table magnates elbowed each other. ‘Didn’t I say they’re cunning? Singing in taverns. His brother kissing scum from the streets.’ Those applauding were churls from their own households.
Eleanor turned to glare at the twelve-year-old King of Scotland, seated to Henry’s right. ‘We’ll invite Douglas to live with us,’ she said.
For the first time since the night of their coronation her husband gazed at her with glistening eyes. ‘You have real kindness in you, Eleanor,’ he said. ‘I’ve given orders down to every sheriff, bailiff and reeve that if ever he’s in need the Crown will support him.’
‘You’ve had audience with him?’
‘Not yet.’
Fear punched her. ‘I feel you lie to me, husband.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Why should I lie to you, wife? Do you lie to me?’ He turned away. You’ve put a cuckoo in our nest. But still I love you. I’m ashamed of my weakness.
That evening Eleanor tried to corner her brother-in-law. But Guillaume was a will o’ the wisp. Each time she sent a messenger to him there was an excuse – he had to inspect the armoury, a ship had sunk near Southampton and he was overseeing the wreck and its repair. Orianne brought her news that he sang to a Welsh princess at night while the princess plucked a harp.
‘And what does my husband do? At night?’ Eleanor asked.
‘Highness, he spends the dark hours in games with other men. They have sword fights and shoot arrows at trees. It’s very exciting. One man holds a flaming torch and the others must try to hit it. It’s more difficult to judge distance in the black of night, they say. The mastiffs are vigilant during the sword fights between His Highness and the vassals. Each man is ordered to present his weapon for the dogs’ inspection before fighting the King.’
Darkness fell while Eleanor questioned her maid, who lead her to a spot in the palace from which she could watch the archery competition. Henry took the first shot, hitting the torch with such power he knocked it from its stand. He retired to a knot of magnates, already twanging bowstrings and running their forefingers across arrowheads. Satisfied, the Queen returned to her apartment to spend an hour in play with Prince William before she slept.
Meanwhile, in the park below none of the company noticed the mastiffs pad off through the dark, following the Baron of Pontefract. He had strolled away to relieve himself against a tree. The baron had been an avid supporter of King Stephen and Prince Eustace, but had done homage to Henry several days earlier, saying, ‘I hope you can forget my past mistakes, Lord King.’ The group shooting at the flames yelled with such excitement they heard nothing. The mastiffs returned to their station beside Henry. One bunted him in the leg, invisible but for flashes of torchlight striking its eyes. Henry flinched as his hand touched the thing that hung from its jaws.
He gave a loud yawn. ‘My friends, I sleep early tonight,’ he said. ‘But you, please, continue your sport. Tomorrow I’ll outshoot the winner among you.’ In the dark none noticed he carried something. He summoned de Lucy and de Beaumont to his private chamber to show them what the mastiffs had done. Inside Pontefract’s gauntlet was a secret pocket containing a stiletto. The dogs barked at it as Henry held its handle.
‘That means it’s poisoned,’ de Beaumont said. He slipped on a glove and took it gingerly from the King.
‘Speed is of the essence,’ de Lucy urged. An order was sent.
‘I want the Chancellor here too,’ Henry said. ‘He must begin to understand that a royal court is not all feasts and hunting parties and pretty clothes.’
The four knights who had accompanied the baron were arrested in their sleeping quarters. All were in their early twenties and fit. Guards marched them into the King’s chamber, standing aside to allow Becket to enter before them. He swept forward then stopped abruptly as he caught the tension in the chamber.
When the knights saw laid out on a table the gauntlet, the dead hand inside it and the assassin’s knife, they confessed their lord had told them to prepare horses to depart that night. Henry paced back and forth. He was acutely alert but he wore an expression that said he was deaf to the interrogation of the knights.
‘Who were his accomplices?’ de Lucy demanded. He was well trained in law, his mind both fast and orderly.
‘None that we know of, sir. Our lord acted alone.’
‘Perhaps,’ de Beaumont muttered. The Earl was older than de Lucy. He was calm, highly educated, perhaps not so quick-witted, but a man of experience and courage. ‘You were aware that your lord planned regicide?’
‘We suspected it,’ one muttered.
Thomas’s face turned white. He had imagined a King’s court would have its dramas – such as Winchester’s illegal flight – but for the rest he pictured banquets and laughter, counts and countesses gorgeously attired, beautiful youths, ambassadors expressing gracious compliments, courtiers hurrying back and forth with messages and bribes. He looked from the knights to the justiciars and back to the King. He was flattered to have been summoned. ‘Why am I here, Sire? he whispered to Henry.
The King murmured. ‘Tom, I want you to see with your own eyes that we dice with life and death in a royal court. Either my authority is established or I’m a dead man.’ Aloud he asked in Latin, ‘What’s the traditional punishment in England for assisting attempted regicide?’
Robert de Beaumont answered in English so the knights would understand. ‘Regicide is a crime more heinous than treason. Therefore, Sire, the punishment is being hanged, drawn, quartered and burned.’
‘And before that, eyes out, hands off,’de Lucy added.
All glared at the knights, now fallen to their knees. Already they felt the horror of their intestines being dragged from a slash across their bellies. They would be blind, but alive. They imagined the four horses that would wrench each arm and leg from their eviscerated bellies. Perhaps they would still be conscious and hear the crowd laughing. They wept.
Henry took one man roughly by the shoulder. ‘Stand up!’ he ordered. ‘And the rest of you swine.’ He filled his lungs. ‘Lift your eyes, cowards!’ They were unable to look higher than his chin. ‘A man of honour kills his enemy face to face. Your liege asked my forgiveness and I gave it. He swore homage to me, but he planned to take me down in the dark with a knife through my back. Troth-breaking cur!’
One knight pissed himself. Another lost control of his bowels.
Henry ignored their terror. ‘Do you aspire to be men of honour?’
‘Yes, Sire,’ they whispered.
The stench made the Chancellor momentarily nauseous, but he was giddy with an excitement that quelled his stomach.
‘With all my soul,’ one man said. The others nodded. ‘With all our souls we want to be men of honour.’
‘And esteemed in your eyes, Lord King,’ the fourth blurted.
Henry began pacing again.
Before he had summoned Becket he’d decided what he would do with these men, but wanted to drive a wedge of fear into them that would last to the day they died. ‘Your liege’s property is forfeit to the Crown and his family is to be turned out into the snow forthwith. Arrange that, Richard.’ He paused, sighed, his shoulders slumped. For a moment he held a thumb and forefinger over his eyes, blinking. Then he looked up. ‘This is the season of peace and goodwill, when love is born anew in human hearts. Therefore, I pronounce my royal amercement on you. You’re to spend six months in Christ Church, Canterbury, where you’ll live as monks. The Archdeacon will conduct you there. After that, you’ll be in my service.’
They snatched at Henry’s hand, kissing it, crying aloud for The Saviour’s blessings on him.
Henry beckoned the Chancellor aside. ‘This is lonely business, Bec,’ he muttered. ‘I was born and bred for rulership yet its duties are burdensome at times.’ The betrayal, the sobbing men, the stench, the drama he had enacted, had left him drained. Tears stood in his eyes.
Becket grasped Henry’s hand and pressed it against his cheek. He confided in me! He showed me his heart.
The King pulled away and cuffed him across the ear. ‘Piss off with these swine,’ he growled. ‘They’re to travel in irons.’
Becket rubbed his reddened ear, a secret smile inside his chest. He strode to the knights to bark, ‘You, scum, follow me!’
When all had left Henry knocked softly on the door of Eleanor’s chamber. Orianne opened it, blinking. ‘She sleeps, Sire.’
‘Leave her be,’ he whispered. He’d wanted to hold her in his arms and tell her what had happened. He wanted her reassurance on his handling of the crisis. He wanted her to say once more that he was born knowing how to be a king. He wanted her to tell him he was, already, a wilier monarch than Louis, who by now had been a king for seventeen years. He wanted to feel her small hands stroke his forehead and reach down to his crotch. We’re partners in a great enterprise, you and I, but …
He refused to think about the wall between them. ‘You were born for power and greatness, Henry,’ his mother had said. ‘You weren’t born for carefree gaiety, like your dear, departed father.’ Before the Christmas Court began Douglas had confirmed what Henry knew already through intuition and about which he could do nothing. Yet.
He returned to his own quarters where a house churl asked, ‘Shall I bring Your Grace a milker?’
‘Fetch that girl from last night, the one with dark eyes.’
When she arrived and began work with a strong, soft mouth he stroked her uncovered hair.
At dawn servants discovered a corpse beneath an oak tree. Its face and throat were missing, as well as one hand, but a crest embroidered on a sleeve identified Baron Pontefract. Robert de Beaumont and de Lucy instructed pages to whisper the story of the attempt on Henry’s life.
The dinner feast that day, the last of the Christmas Court, was an uproar. ‘I always suspected him!’ men lied to each other. They glanced around to check the whereabouts of the mastiffs. ‘His knights are already executed, thrown into a lime pit,’ others confided. Henry’s cheerful, amiable demeanour and Eleanor’s cool charm terrified them. Behind her regal smile she thought, barbarians. The King waved to friends, his left forefinger blazing with a ruby that yesterday had adorned the hand of Pontefract.
As the Queen prepared for bed that evening the sound of a swish made her and Orianne turn quickly towards the door. A folded parchment slid into the chamber.
‘Quickly!’ Eleanor said.
Orianne ran to the door and opened it. The guards who had conducted them upstairs and should have been stationed outside were not there. Nobody guarded the Queen’s apartment. Orianne dashed down the corridor, but on this floor of the palace the only other apartment was the King’s. His guards, four of them, were in position.
‘Did you see someone just now?’
They looked one to another and shrugged. ‘All quiet.’
‘Where are Her Highness’s guards?’
‘Dunno. They all left a few minutes ago, called away by someone. It wasn’t long after Her Highness entered.’
‘By whom were they called away?’
‘Don’t question us, girl. We don’t answer to you. Return to your Lady.’
When Orianne returned she found Eleanor face down on the bed, the parchment note clutched in her hand.
CHAPTER SEVEN
While the Christmas Court was in full swing the two justiciars, Earl Robert de Beaumont and Richard de Lucy, spent hours each morning with the King discussing how to implement his coronation charter. Their discussions continued into the following week. The treasury was almost empty and the country bristled with iron.
‘I must seize their weapons,’ Henry said. ‘I’ve expelled the mercenaries. But somehow I must reduce the number of men bearing arms. Without a war to fight, men will turn to tourneying and ruining the countryside. Or to armed robbery. We must channel them into productive endeavour.’
The justiciars hesitated and de Beaumont finally said, ‘Shall we ask the Chancellor to join us?’ Both advisers looked uncomfortable. Henry’s Chancellor was a servant and had no rank but he did have a genius for money making.
Becket arrived with head held high. He had already deducted what the King would want of him and, anticipating the request, had consulted with Bishop Nigel of Ely, the Treasurer.
Henry decided to address him with more respect than was his due. ‘Chancellor, you did an excellent job escorting those traitors to Canterbury. We now have a challenge we hope may benefit from your financial acumen and experience. Monks of the Cistercian order, for example, work hard; they plough wasteland, make it fertile, grow and reap crops, raise animals. The excess of their labour is sold at market to the gain of their monasteries. My problem is this. Our monks, called knights, do nothing but lie about, play dice and get drunk. Their lieges are required to upkeep them, to have them on hand for the use of the Crown. Now this crown …’ he touched his bare head, ‘wants to reduce the expectation of war among his subjects. I want fewer shields and swords in England. Magnates boast plaintively of how many knights they keep. But no man is willing to reduce himself in honour. So, Chancellor, how do I turn a lay-bout into something worth money?’
Becket nodded solemnly. His lifelong stammer, well controlled when at Canterbury, returned in the presence of the power of the monarch and his justiciars. ‘I-I-I’m grateful to have this opportunity, Sire. I’ve been working on ways to claw back some of the gold and silver owed to the Crown. A-a-as we know, the board of the exchequer last met at Michaelmas, before your coronation, and won’t gather again until E-E-Easter. The situation of the realm is too precarious for us to wait so long.’ Stephen had allowed revenues to be forgotten. Barons of the exchequer did not bother to turn up for the bi-annual meetings, sheriffs pocketed the King’s silver and gold.
Becket unfurled a parchment. County by county he had calculated the number of knights and how many days annually they were required to be at the service of the Crown.
Henry and the justiciars ran their eyes down the columns of figures. ‘Twenty thousand!’ Henry said.
‘Sire, th-th-there’s more.’
He had a second scroll. ‘I’ve multiplied the number of men by the number of days. The total comes to …’
The three men stared at his final figure, then at Becket. Henry began pacing back and forth. For a strongly built man he was light on his feet, his footsteps audible only from the swishing of rushes on the floor. That’s how quietly I now walk, the Chancellor congratulated himself. He paces like a lion on muffled pads. I glide silently.
‘I’ve got it!’ Henry suddenly announced. ‘We assign a notional value to each knight. The Crown will require the liege to pay a tax – a small tax – in lieu of supporting the knight. That will force the lazybones to earn his bread or risk my justice if he takes to robbery. So the realm has more hands to enrich it and the Crown gets a tax. Every penny of which you will place in my treasury, will you not, dear Chancellor?’
‘Of course, H-H-Highness.’
‘But not yet,’ Henry said. ‘This tax we keep secret for a time.’
They all nodded.
‘What about weapons?’ de Lucy asked.
‘To be surrendered to the royal armoury. In time of trouble the armoury will dispense them. But again we proceed cautiously. Meanwhile, Bec, you’ve excelled. You’re now to place a finer grid across the realm. There are thousands of specifics that may relieve my many expenses.’
‘What is the jest in monasteries, Highness?’ They laughed together. Everyone knew the monks’ joke: ‘Is it possible for an Archdeacon to be saved?’
‘Despite his background, Henry says he’s already doing excellent work with England’s finances, Robert …’ Eleanor used his Christian name. He was permitted to use hers because already Henry had raised him and de Lucy to the familiares, that small circle of men of rank who lived within the magic of royal favour. They could sit while he stood. Nobody except the Queen and his blood family had such liberty. Both men had worked for King Stephen. On that account a less intelligent monarch may have refused to appoint them. Henry recognised their calibre. In private the justiciars called him by his Christian name and he sought their advice daily. If he objected to it, they could argue with him without incurring his wrath. Part of their job was also to use servants to spread rumours for the King. The Christmas Court, when so many nobles were gathered in one spot, was an ideal opportunity. The baronage was aghast on hearing whispers that Henry’s coronation charter of peace, justice and prosperity for the realm could mean new fines and taxes.
‘You worry unnecessarily,’ Gilbert Foliot assured his colleagues. ‘My kinsman seeks harmony and balance. His territories across the Channel are so vast and troublesome he needs England to become a calm, flowing river.’
As Epiphany drew ever near, Eleanor said, ‘I’ve not seen Douglas among the men of Scotland. Is he ill? Did the King of Scots not bring him to our celebrations?’
‘The stupid brat dismissed him as commander of the Highland regiment. Said he was too old to fight.’
Henry pointed to a far corner of the hall, where the poor were seated. Guillaume, just back from his duties at Winchester, was strolling towards a man whose head was invisible beneath a rust-coloured cowl. He sat alone, eating roast pork with his fingers. Luxuriant black curls fell over the ermine collar of Guillaume’s robe as he hunkered down beside the vagrant. The giant gave a shout that made those nearby jump in fright. The two stood to embrace. Commoners watched open-mouthed when the King’s brother kissed a villein. ‘Hooray!’ they shouted. ‘Hooray!’ They held up their hands to Guillaume, who drifted his fingers across theirs as he strolled back to his place near the King. At the long banqueting table magnates elbowed each other. ‘Didn’t I say they’re cunning? Singing in taverns. His brother kissing scum from the streets.’ Those applauding were churls from their own households.
Eleanor turned to glare at the twelve-year-old King of Scotland, seated to Henry’s right. ‘We’ll invite Douglas to live with us,’ she said.
For the first time since the night of their coronation her husband gazed at her with glistening eyes. ‘You have real kindness in you, Eleanor,’ he said. ‘I’ve given orders down to every sheriff, bailiff and reeve that if ever he’s in need the Crown will support him.’
‘You’ve had audience with him?’
‘Not yet.’
Fear punched her. ‘I feel you lie to me, husband.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Why should I lie to you, wife? Do you lie to me?’ He turned away. You’ve put a cuckoo in our nest. But still I love you. I’m ashamed of my weakness.
That evening Eleanor tried to corner her brother-in-law. But Guillaume was a will o’ the wisp. Each time she sent a messenger to him there was an excuse – he had to inspect the armoury, a ship had sunk near Southampton and he was overseeing the wreck and its repair. Orianne brought her news that he sang to a Welsh princess at night while the princess plucked a harp.
‘And what does my husband do? At night?’ Eleanor asked.
‘Highness, he spends the dark hours in games with other men. They have sword fights and shoot arrows at trees. It’s very exciting. One man holds a flaming torch and the others must try to hit it. It’s more difficult to judge distance in the black of night, they say. The mastiffs are vigilant during the sword fights between His Highness and the vassals. Each man is ordered to present his weapon for the dogs’ inspection before fighting the King.’
Darkness fell while Eleanor questioned her maid, who lead her to a spot in the palace from which she could watch the archery competition. Henry took the first shot, hitting the torch with such power he knocked it from its stand. He retired to a knot of magnates, already twanging bowstrings and running their forefingers across arrowheads. Satisfied, the Queen returned to her apartment to spend an hour in play with Prince William before she slept.
Meanwhile, in the park below none of the company noticed the mastiffs pad off through the dark, following the Baron of Pontefract. He had strolled away to relieve himself against a tree. The baron had been an avid supporter of King Stephen and Prince Eustace, but had done homage to Henry several days earlier, saying, ‘I hope you can forget my past mistakes, Lord King.’ The group shooting at the flames yelled with such excitement they heard nothing. The mastiffs returned to their station beside Henry. One bunted him in the leg, invisible but for flashes of torchlight striking its eyes. Henry flinched as his hand touched the thing that hung from its jaws.
He gave a loud yawn. ‘My friends, I sleep early tonight,’ he said. ‘But you, please, continue your sport. Tomorrow I’ll outshoot the winner among you.’ In the dark none noticed he carried something. He summoned de Lucy and de Beaumont to his private chamber to show them what the mastiffs had done. Inside Pontefract’s gauntlet was a secret pocket containing a stiletto. The dogs barked at it as Henry held its handle.
‘That means it’s poisoned,’ de Beaumont said. He slipped on a glove and took it gingerly from the King.
‘Speed is of the essence,’ de Lucy urged. An order was sent.
‘I want the Chancellor here too,’ Henry said. ‘He must begin to understand that a royal court is not all feasts and hunting parties and pretty clothes.’
The four knights who had accompanied the baron were arrested in their sleeping quarters. All were in their early twenties and fit. Guards marched them into the King’s chamber, standing aside to allow Becket to enter before them. He swept forward then stopped abruptly as he caught the tension in the chamber.
When the knights saw laid out on a table the gauntlet, the dead hand inside it and the assassin’s knife, they confessed their lord had told them to prepare horses to depart that night. Henry paced back and forth. He was acutely alert but he wore an expression that said he was deaf to the interrogation of the knights.
‘Who were his accomplices?’ de Lucy demanded. He was well trained in law, his mind both fast and orderly.
‘None that we know of, sir. Our lord acted alone.’
‘Perhaps,’ de Beaumont muttered. The Earl was older than de Lucy. He was calm, highly educated, perhaps not so quick-witted, but a man of experience and courage. ‘You were aware that your lord planned regicide?’
‘We suspected it,’ one muttered.
Thomas’s face turned white. He had imagined a King’s court would have its dramas – such as Winchester’s illegal flight – but for the rest he pictured banquets and laughter, counts and countesses gorgeously attired, beautiful youths, ambassadors expressing gracious compliments, courtiers hurrying back and forth with messages and bribes. He looked from the knights to the justiciars and back to the King. He was flattered to have been summoned. ‘Why am I here, Sire? he whispered to Henry.
The King murmured. ‘Tom, I want you to see with your own eyes that we dice with life and death in a royal court. Either my authority is established or I’m a dead man.’ Aloud he asked in Latin, ‘What’s the traditional punishment in England for assisting attempted regicide?’
Robert de Beaumont answered in English so the knights would understand. ‘Regicide is a crime more heinous than treason. Therefore, Sire, the punishment is being hanged, drawn, quartered and burned.’
‘And before that, eyes out, hands off,’de Lucy added.
All glared at the knights, now fallen to their knees. Already they felt the horror of their intestines being dragged from a slash across their bellies. They would be blind, but alive. They imagined the four horses that would wrench each arm and leg from their eviscerated bellies. Perhaps they would still be conscious and hear the crowd laughing. They wept.
Henry took one man roughly by the shoulder. ‘Stand up!’ he ordered. ‘And the rest of you swine.’ He filled his lungs. ‘Lift your eyes, cowards!’ They were unable to look higher than his chin. ‘A man of honour kills his enemy face to face. Your liege asked my forgiveness and I gave it. He swore homage to me, but he planned to take me down in the dark with a knife through my back. Troth-breaking cur!’
One knight pissed himself. Another lost control of his bowels.
Henry ignored their terror. ‘Do you aspire to be men of honour?’
‘Yes, Sire,’ they whispered.
The stench made the Chancellor momentarily nauseous, but he was giddy with an excitement that quelled his stomach.
‘With all my soul,’ one man said. The others nodded. ‘With all our souls we want to be men of honour.’
‘And esteemed in your eyes, Lord King,’ the fourth blurted.
Henry began pacing again.
Before he had summoned Becket he’d decided what he would do with these men, but wanted to drive a wedge of fear into them that would last to the day they died. ‘Your liege’s property is forfeit to the Crown and his family is to be turned out into the snow forthwith. Arrange that, Richard.’ He paused, sighed, his shoulders slumped. For a moment he held a thumb and forefinger over his eyes, blinking. Then he looked up. ‘This is the season of peace and goodwill, when love is born anew in human hearts. Therefore, I pronounce my royal amercement on you. You’re to spend six months in Christ Church, Canterbury, where you’ll live as monks. The Archdeacon will conduct you there. After that, you’ll be in my service.’
They snatched at Henry’s hand, kissing it, crying aloud for The Saviour’s blessings on him.
Henry beckoned the Chancellor aside. ‘This is lonely business, Bec,’ he muttered. ‘I was born and bred for rulership yet its duties are burdensome at times.’ The betrayal, the sobbing men, the stench, the drama he had enacted, had left him drained. Tears stood in his eyes.
Becket grasped Henry’s hand and pressed it against his cheek. He confided in me! He showed me his heart.
The King pulled away and cuffed him across the ear. ‘Piss off with these swine,’ he growled. ‘They’re to travel in irons.’
Becket rubbed his reddened ear, a secret smile inside his chest. He strode to the knights to bark, ‘You, scum, follow me!’
When all had left Henry knocked softly on the door of Eleanor’s chamber. Orianne opened it, blinking. ‘She sleeps, Sire.’
‘Leave her be,’ he whispered. He’d wanted to hold her in his arms and tell her what had happened. He wanted her reassurance on his handling of the crisis. He wanted her to say once more that he was born knowing how to be a king. He wanted her to tell him he was, already, a wilier monarch than Louis, who by now had been a king for seventeen years. He wanted to feel her small hands stroke his forehead and reach down to his crotch. We’re partners in a great enterprise, you and I, but …
He refused to think about the wall between them. ‘You were born for power and greatness, Henry,’ his mother had said. ‘You weren’t born for carefree gaiety, like your dear, departed father.’ Before the Christmas Court began Douglas had confirmed what Henry knew already through intuition and about which he could do nothing. Yet.
He returned to his own quarters where a house churl asked, ‘Shall I bring Your Grace a milker?’
‘Fetch that girl from last night, the one with dark eyes.’
When she arrived and began work with a strong, soft mouth he stroked her uncovered hair.
At dawn servants discovered a corpse beneath an oak tree. Its face and throat were missing, as well as one hand, but a crest embroidered on a sleeve identified Baron Pontefract. Robert de Beaumont and de Lucy instructed pages to whisper the story of the attempt on Henry’s life.
The dinner feast that day, the last of the Christmas Court, was an uproar. ‘I always suspected him!’ men lied to each other. They glanced around to check the whereabouts of the mastiffs. ‘His knights are already executed, thrown into a lime pit,’ others confided. Henry’s cheerful, amiable demeanour and Eleanor’s cool charm terrified them. Behind her regal smile she thought, barbarians. The King waved to friends, his left forefinger blazing with a ruby that yesterday had adorned the hand of Pontefract.
As the Queen prepared for bed that evening the sound of a swish made her and Orianne turn quickly towards the door. A folded parchment slid into the chamber.
‘Quickly!’ Eleanor said.
Orianne ran to the door and opened it. The guards who had conducted them upstairs and should have been stationed outside were not there. Nobody guarded the Queen’s apartment. Orianne dashed down the corridor, but on this floor of the palace the only other apartment was the King’s. His guards, four of them, were in position.
‘Did you see someone just now?’
They looked one to another and shrugged. ‘All quiet.’
‘Where are Her Highness’s guards?’
‘Dunno. They all left a few minutes ago, called away by someone. It wasn’t long after Her Highness entered.’
‘By whom were they called away?’
‘Don’t question us, girl. We don’t answer to you. Return to your Lady.’
When Orianne returned she found Eleanor face down on the bed, the parchment note clutched in her hand.
CHAPTER SEVEN
While the Christmas Court was in full swing the two justiciars, Earl Robert de Beaumont and Richard de Lucy, spent hours each morning with the King discussing how to implement his coronation charter. Their discussions continued into the following week. The treasury was almost empty and the country bristled with iron.
‘I must seize their weapons,’ Henry said. ‘I’ve expelled the mercenaries. But somehow I must reduce the number of men bearing arms. Without a war to fight, men will turn to tourneying and ruining the countryside. Or to armed robbery. We must channel them into productive endeavour.’
The justiciars hesitated and de Beaumont finally said, ‘Shall we ask the Chancellor to join us?’ Both advisers looked uncomfortable. Henry’s Chancellor was a servant and had no rank but he did have a genius for money making.
Becket arrived with head held high. He had already deducted what the King would want of him and, anticipating the request, had consulted with Bishop Nigel of Ely, the Treasurer.
Henry decided to address him with more respect than was his due. ‘Chancellor, you did an excellent job escorting those traitors to Canterbury. We now have a challenge we hope may benefit from your financial acumen and experience. Monks of the Cistercian order, for example, work hard; they plough wasteland, make it fertile, grow and reap crops, raise animals. The excess of their labour is sold at market to the gain of their monasteries. My problem is this. Our monks, called knights, do nothing but lie about, play dice and get drunk. Their lieges are required to upkeep them, to have them on hand for the use of the Crown. Now this crown …’ he touched his bare head, ‘wants to reduce the expectation of war among his subjects. I want fewer shields and swords in England. Magnates boast plaintively of how many knights they keep. But no man is willing to reduce himself in honour. So, Chancellor, how do I turn a lay-bout into something worth money?’
Becket nodded solemnly. His lifelong stammer, well controlled when at Canterbury, returned in the presence of the power of the monarch and his justiciars. ‘I-I-I’m grateful to have this opportunity, Sire. I’ve been working on ways to claw back some of the gold and silver owed to the Crown. A-a-as we know, the board of the exchequer last met at Michaelmas, before your coronation, and won’t gather again until E-E-Easter. The situation of the realm is too precarious for us to wait so long.’ Stephen had allowed revenues to be forgotten. Barons of the exchequer did not bother to turn up for the bi-annual meetings, sheriffs pocketed the King’s silver and gold.
Becket unfurled a parchment. County by county he had calculated the number of knights and how many days annually they were required to be at the service of the Crown.
Henry and the justiciars ran their eyes down the columns of figures. ‘Twenty thousand!’ Henry said.
‘Sire, th-th-there’s more.’
He had a second scroll. ‘I’ve multiplied the number of men by the number of days. The total comes to …’
The three men stared at his final figure, then at Becket. Henry began pacing back and forth. For a strongly built man he was light on his feet, his footsteps audible only from the swishing of rushes on the floor. That’s how quietly I now walk, the Chancellor congratulated himself. He paces like a lion on muffled pads. I glide silently.
‘I’ve got it!’ Henry suddenly announced. ‘We assign a notional value to each knight. The Crown will require the liege to pay a tax – a small tax – in lieu of supporting the knight. That will force the lazybones to earn his bread or risk my justice if he takes to robbery. So the realm has more hands to enrich it and the Crown gets a tax. Every penny of which you will place in my treasury, will you not, dear Chancellor?’
‘Of course, H-H-Highness.’
‘But not yet,’ Henry said. ‘This tax we keep secret for a time.’
They all nodded.
‘What about weapons?’ de Lucy asked.
‘To be surrendered to the royal armoury. In time of trouble the armoury will dispense them. But again we proceed cautiously. Meanwhile, Bec, you’ve excelled. You’re now to place a finer grid across the realm. There are thousands of specifics that may relieve my many expenses.’
