The Lion Rampant, page 20
The King whooped with laughter. ‘The Eagle’s best English property! I burned his Normandy château for stealing my horses. I love Thomas for clipping Aigle’s wings, Gilbert. I know Bec’s a scoundrel. But he’s my scoundrel. Kings need such men to do dirty jobs in order to keep their own hands clean.’
The Bishop snapped, ‘Nephew, I warn you, his ambition is so frenzied he regards himself as last in the race if there’s just one man ahead of him. And there is one. It’s you.’
As soon as he’d spoken Gilbert realised he’d made a faux pas. ‘I meant, I implore you …’
The King’s voice was sarcastic. ‘Uncle, you see me overthrown by a …’ for a moment he needed to search for an appropriate description of his Chancellor. ‘A villein I plucked from the gutter and raised up because of his outstanding talent? You seriously imagine that?’
He stood, the Bishop scrambling to his feet beside him. The hundred guests leapt up. Henry raised his arm in a military salute and Church and Crown progressed side by side past the rows of trestle tables. On the way out Henry stopped to rest his palm on Clifford’s shoulder.
Afterwards Foliot spent time in prayer, asking the Lord how to overcome his too frank speech to the monarch. No answer came. When he judged Henry’s temper would have cooled he went to the royal apartment. Two knights and Richard were standing outside. He asked, ‘Is the Chancellor with His Highness?’
‘The King summoned him immediately after the banquet and …’ Richard gave a swift pale glance to the knights. He and Foliot walked ten paces from the door. ‘… and upbraided him for not bringing his favourite milking maid.’
‘And the Chancellor’s response?’
‘Your Grace, he ordered me to find a woman. I fetched a dairymaid. I said, “Would you like to exchange a cow for a king?” His Highness looked the girl up and down. She trembled with fright. Then he lowered his head and bellowed Mooo! and she began to laugh. He tickled her until she was helpless with laughter. Our King is very clever with women, Your Grace.’
‘Your opinions about our monarch offend me.’
Richard mumbled an apology, adding in northern Gaelic, ‘Stinking old shit.’
‘What did you just call me?’ the Bishop demanded.
‘Your Grace, sir. I said “Your Grace”. Perhaps accidentally I spoke another tongue.’
‘Yes, there are many tongues in that clever head of yours.’ The Chancellor does not know the danger you are to him. Momentarily he felt a pang of guilt, for a curious thought had come into his mind. Richard may murder the Toad. If that were to occur I would bear some responsibility as it was I who set him on Becket. My motives were pure; I wished to protect the King and the Church. But … the Bishop decided he needed the guidance of prayer once more.
While waiting for the dairymaid to arrive Henry read in the famous library of England’s most erudite prelate. Over decades Foliot had acquired rare manuscripts, some of them saved from the destruction of the great library of Alexandria. He employed a man who travelled Lombardy and even Outremer searching out ancient texts in Latin, Greek and Hebrew. He had arranged them according to their languages. Henry went to the Latin section where he came across a speech by a Roman with whose name he was unfamiliar, Marcus Tullius Cicero. He was instantly smitten. When he laid the scroll aside to reflect on the ancient’s analysis of the majesty of law, his eye chanced upon another, some poetry. The author was a certain Catullus. Henry began laughing to himself as he read. ‘My uncle is a man of broad tastes,’ he remarked to the knight who waited on him. But before he could settle to the enjoyment of elegiac couplets about ‘Lesbia’ a post-rider arrived with letters from his justiciars. They reported the Chancellor made no differentiation between what belonged to the realm and what belonged to him. The treasury was bulging, but at political cost to the Crown, for many barons considered his taxes onerous and, to the outrage of the clergy, he had begun taxing some parts of Mother Church. In his own hand Henry wrote to de Beaumont and de Lucy, ‘He’s helping us restore the concessions, gifts, liberties and customs of my grandfather. With his aid we’re turning a broken country into a prosperous one. Of course he’s ruthless and greedy. He learned it not in my court, but in Canterbury.’
That evening Thomas, in the hearing of the royal knights, said, ‘Henry, I beg you, take me tomorrow on the boar hunt.’
‘Out of the question.’
‘I’m expert with hawking.’
‘There’s no comparison between casting a falcon at a duck and hunting boar. Men need the courage that’s developed only in military training …’ He observed with exasperation that the Chancellor was wounded. ‘God’s feet! I don’t question your courage, Tom. But you’ve never experienced …’
‘Henry! I keep lions!’
‘In cages. They were born and reared in cages. And if you approach them you do so with a flaming torch. But wild boar, Tom …’
The Chancellor bowed. ‘I’ll see you at supper, Sire.’ He stalked away.
Staring at his receding form Henry thought, Tom lacks virility. He’s old enough to be my father, but there’s something infantile about him. He’s not childish because he’s a sodomite. King William Rufus was anything but a child. He was a virile man, who preferred men. But Tom … These thoughts dampened his mood.
As the sun descended towards the mountains of Wales it set the River Wye ablaze. The royal party of twenty knights, plus a few others who had ridden over from the east, the Chancellor among them, gathered for supper overlooking the sinuous waterway that at this point marked the boundary between England and Wales. Trees along its banks were in the warmth of autumn colour, as was the forest behind the palace. Henry had forgotten his huff with Foliot. Quietly they had agreed not to mention the bull-killing boar, for the hunt was to be a festive occasion, a tournament of courage and skill for the monarch and his knights.
‘I suspect it’s a rogue,’ the Bishop confided. ‘The sows could have banded together and cast him out of the sounder for eating their young. Whatever the case, he’s exceptionally aggressive.’
Boars, being crepuscular beasts, required the hunters to rise before dawn. Not all the company were willing to hunt them, especially in unfamiliar terrain. A half dozen elected to chase deer instead. As the excitement and nervousness of the boar hunters increased, they began drinking heavily. Henry took only one cup of cider.
‘How many animals in the sounder?’ men asked.
Foliot said there could be thirty or more dwelling in a forest to the northeast. They would gather at dawn at the river to drink before disappearing for the daylight hours into their hiding places. Most were sows, with a dominant male and a half dozen younger males.
‘Sows, if they’d farrowed, are dangerous, too,’ Henry added.
A blather of boar stories followed – one man had seen a pack of wolves in Germany bring down a huge boar by ripping out its perineum. ‘Blood spurted like a fountain.’ Others nodded. ‘Can’t take a boar from the front,’ they agreed. ‘Must be from the flank or the hinder parts.’ ‘Tusked heads, bone too thick to smash, curved teeth sharp as swords …’
Sobriety crept over them. They asked for cups of apple juice.
‘How many limers can you give us?’ Henry said. As a bishop, Foliot was forbidden to hunt and as a Reform man he considered the chase demeaning of human dignity. He kept a pack of bloodhounds as a courtesy for guests.
‘Twenty-five. Will you take the mastiffs? Those animals could bring down any boar.’
‘Unfortunately, Gilbert dear, my mastiffs are more valuable than your limers. They’ll stay kennelled.’
That evening, before the sky turned from red to grey, a dozen men nominated to pursue the boars, including a young knight recently married, his wife already with child. He confessed to the company it would be his first experience of hunting boar.
‘Bravo!’ men shouted. ‘Your lady will be hot when she welcomes you home.’
I’m obliged to let Tom prove his virility, Henry thought. Suddenly he announced, ‘Our Chancellor also wishes to ride with us to show his courage.’
Thomas gasped. ‘Lord King, I-I-I have no w-w-weapon …’
‘You have me!’ Henry bellowed. The huntsmen clapped and laughed, banging their drinking cups on the table.
At compline Foliot prayed, ‘Lord, may our monarch return in safety from the hunt. And guide me in preventing the worst of the crimes that Toad will put into his mind.’
No answer came. He went to sleep soon afterwards, as did the rest of the company, with the exception of the Chancellor and Richard.
‘Darling boy, I’m sure your father hunted boar. What am I to do? My honour will be besmirched if I plead a sick stomach – although I will have a sick stomach.’
‘Sir, it’s simple. I’ll ride at the rear of the party where I won’t be seen. Hang back a little when they set off in pursuit. When all are out of sight, I’ll lame your horse and gallop away. You can dismount and lead it home. Once you’re clear of the trees it’s less than half a mile to walk.’
‘Thank you, thank you, sweet child.’ Becket gave Richard a peremptory kiss and fell asleep.
At two o’clock next morning the boar hunters stacked their weapons outside the chapel door with bangs and clangs. All had long swords; some had spears, others had bows and arrows. They stepped into the fragrant, sacred space for matins where the Bishop prayed for them. Sleepy monks chanted a Psalm of David that begged the Almighty’s protection from dangerous foes. Outside in the courtyard the mastiffs howled. An hour earlier the bloodhounds, leashed, had left for the river. They would flush the boars and run them until the huntsmen caught up and went in for the kill.
The men mounted by torchlight and followed the King through misty morning air.
A slight drizzle of cold rain fell on their faces. All wore fur riding cloaks. To celebrate his first hunt with the monarch as a member of his familiares, the Chancellor had chosen his finest riding garment, a scarlet samite cloak lined with brown badger fur. ‘You stay beside me and do exactly what I tell you,’ Henry told him. His own cloak was tan leather outside, ram’s fleece within. He had chosen a horse for Thomas that was half-brother to the destrier he rode, but of calmer temperament. A boar could panic a horse and make it bolt. He handed Thomas his own spear, a heavy oak shaft with a long iron blade at one end. A crossbar curved to fit against a shoulder was at the other.
Shabby, Thomas thought.
‘With that spear my father killed a boar, alone and on foot, to win the hand of my mother.’
The Chancellor’s disappointment with the undecorated weapon turned on its head. For a moment he wondered if he should change the arrangement he had with Richard, and actually join the hunt.
The King ordered, ‘Once we’ve left the park, nobody is to speak unless in danger. Boars are unpredictable.’ He could feel Becket’s nervousness rising. ‘Tom, you’ll remember this day for the rest of your life. No man forgets his first boar hunt.’ He patted Becket’s cheek with a gloved hand.
Not only the men, but the horses were on edge. Henry could sense them communicating in their own language. The animals were well protected with iron-spiked canvas around their bellies. Some hunters had donned a hauberk beneath their outer clothes. Henry had chosen to ride light and advised Becket not to worry that he had no hauberk. ‘It’s more important to be agile. A hauberk is an encumbrance.’
Their ears caught the first eerie baying of bloodhounds as it rolled through the morning mist. Henry’s horse was a fiery young chestnut, always keen for a fight. It skipped from a trot to a light canter following the direction of the ghostly calls. In minutes they were among the autumn trees. ‘Stay close!’ Henry ordered the Chancellor a second time. Suddenly he crouched along his horse’s neck as it broke into a gallop. He weaved and ducked to avoid low branches. The bloodhounds, unleashed, had rushed along a track beside the riverbank. For a moment Henry glimpsed a huge humped back in front of the pack. Then it vanished. The piteous scream of a hound followed a moment later. Then a second death howl. ‘Two already! God’s Teeth!’ he muttered. The pack had stopped running and was a swirling fury of snarling, baying and teeth. The boar had manoeuvred himself behind a fallen tree where only one hound at a time could attack him. ‘It can’t be taken from that spot,’ Henry shouted. He thought Thomas was behind him, but when he looked round, the Chancellor was nowhere to be seen. He put his horn to his lips and blew the five notes that signalled ‘Retreat’.
The hounds came loping back to the huntsmen, now gathered around the King. ‘Where’s the Chancellor?’ he demanded.
‘Sire, I heard him shout his horse was lame.’
Henry cursed with exasperation. The knight who reported Thomas’s lame horse was the young father-to-be on his first boar hunt. The King said, ‘Ride back and help him climb a tree and retrieve the spear I loaned him. I need it. Now we’ve got the hounds off the boar, he’ll emerge. He wants to get back to the sounder and his only path is through these trees.’ He was thinking, If Tom’s on foot a boar, even in flight, may charge him.
Dawn had broken and birds of all sorts welcomed the new day with song. The drizzle stopped and it became light enough to see the blood spattered on some of the hounds.
‘How many has he killed?’ Henry asked.
‘Three, Sire.’
Henry knew what he wanted to do to take down the boar, but also knew the knights would shout objections that it was too dangerous, that he must consider the safety of the Realm. He sat fuming with frustration, walking his horse in a slow circle. Suddenly the chestnut flashed an image into his mind. The picture was so unexpected he closed his eyes, and tried to flash it back. The young destrier repeated its message. On top of a boulder a huge black boar watched the huntsmen and the hounds. That’s what the horses were telling each other, Henry thought.
‘What to do? What to do?’ he asked himself. He nudged his mount. It jerked its head irritably, then pulled to the left. He loosened the reins and tossed the horn to the knight closest to him. ‘Just going to investigate something,’ he said. He motioned the men to stay back. They looked at each other, grumbling. Suddenly the boar from the riverbank broke cover and came hurtling towards them. The group barely had time to grab their weapons and go after him when a second boar came rushing through the trees. They were remarkably nimble. Mounted men were at a disadvantage, needing to manoeuvre their horses around trunks and duck low branches. They and the pack of hounds split into two groups, one after each boar. In the boiling excitement of the chase nobody noticed the King was missing.
Henry’s chestnut continued at a leisurely trot, unguided by him. A few minutes later he discovered the catastrophe. His young knight lay dead, eviscerated from his crotch to his throat. The giant boar, its snout low, hooked its tusks into the man’s lips, flung its head backwards and tore off the man’s face up to the eyebrows. It flicked its tail as if with glee, grunting as it ate the knight.
Henry drew his sword and spurred the chestnut to charge. The boar was so concentrated on its feast they took it by surprise. For a moment Henry felt he could read its mind: Attack? Retreat? it seemed to ask itself. It gave the answer in a fraction of a second: Retreat. Its lair was ten yards behind it, three boulders leaning against each other. It bolted towards them and vanished.
Now it had seen the enemy up close, the chestnut lost courage. It jerked to a halt and would make only tiny, diffident steps – one step, stop, another step. Stop. ‘C’mon,’ Henry urged. He sheathed his sword. He had his bow in one hand and an arrow ready to shoot. But the horse was increasingly skittish, already flipping its ears back and forth. He stroked its neck to calm it. It was a heartbeat away from bolting.
Henry dropped the reins and flashed an image of himself dismounting. The horse relaxed enough for him to jump to the ground with his bow held firm in one hand. He moved behind the horse to fit an arrow. Suddenly the horse shuddered and began walking backwards. The boar had stepped out, but now onto the top of the rocks, looking down on them. Its tiny eyes were pits of ferocity. Henry loosed his shot with enough power to bring down a stag. The boar jolted, but nothing more. He shot a second arrow. A third. A fourth. A fifth. He had no more arrows and the monster was unharmed. Its dense fur, its thick hide and inches of summer fat meant the arrows had not penetrated to its muscle. I must have the spear! he thought.
He snatched a look at the dead knight in case the young man had retrieved his weapon from the Chancellor. There was no sign of it on the ground beside him. He dared not kneel to turn the corpse over to look. The boar was pawing at the rock. Henry’s horse reared. Standing on hind legs, it suddenly screamed. Perhaps the boar had never heard the scream of a fighting stallion. The beast stopped pawing. In the silence there came another sound, the dry creaking of a tree branch breaking, then a human voice yelling. The boar’s attention swung immediately to the new distraction. Henry dared not take his eye off it. ‘Help me, Henry! Help!’ Thomas wailed. Henry did not look back at him. With one hand he drew his sword again. With the other, he unfastened the clasp of his riding cloak. The boar’s gaze, weakening as the light of day bloomed, was now focused on the bright red thing lying on the ground. It vanished inside the boulders once more. Henry took a quick glance behind to locate his Chancellor and turned back to watch the point from which the boar should emerge. Maybe it has two exits. He moved a yard to his right. His horse began backing away from the rocks. Henry made a wild guess at what the boar’s trajectory towards Thomas would be. He flung his cloak in a sail above him. The heavy wool and leather landed on the beast’s head. It stumbled and fell forward to its front knees, its hindquarters raised, hind legs kicking furiously as it tried to free itself. Henry rammed his sword through its perineum. With a kick, the boar keeled to its side and lay still. Henry shook his head to clear gore and muck from his eyes.
