The Winter Crown (27 page)

‘No, Papa. He only said he was sorry he was not going to be tutoring me any more and hoped I would return to him later when matters had been resolved.’

‘Well, that’s just another of his vain hopes.’

Harry went to greet his other siblings. Matilda gave him a huge hug which he reciprocated being very fond of his closest sister. Five-year-old Geoffrey, who had been playing a game with a ball and scoop, wanted to show him how good he had become at landing the ball in the socket. So then Harry had to have a go, adding small flourishes such as catching it under his raised thigh and while twirling round, his movements swift and dextrous. Richard said nothing; with Harry back in the family, no matter for how short a time, his own ranking immediately diminished. He watched, his arms folded scornfully, until Harry came over and gave him a friendly punch. It turned into a scuffle, and Henry bellowed at them to go and take their brawl into the garden.

‘Brats,’ he muttered under his breath.

‘They take after you, my lord,’ Alienor said sweetly.

Henry grunted. ‘Mayhap, but they need direction. Every tree requires pruning, whatever the stock.’

Alienor said nothing. Henry’s direction would turn them into versions of himself, and that was not what she wanted.

‘I have decided to spend Christmas at Berkhamstead,’ he said.

Alienor eyed him in surprise. Becket had been granted the use of Berkhamstead Castle as a concession when he had first been appointed chancellor. He used it often and had refurbished it magnificently for his own comfort.

‘I have revoked Thomas’s privilege to use it,’ Henry said. ‘Why should he have such honour when he defies me and refuses to listen to reason? We shall stay there and make it clear who is master. I want you to gown yourself in full array and we shall hold a great court.’

‘As you wish, my lord.’ Alienor was rather pleased because Berkhamstead had been hers to use as queen, and she had been accepting but not overjoyed when Henry had lent it to Becket. She doubted ploys such as removing Harry from Becket’s household and curtailing the Archbishop’s privileges would bring him to heel though. Henry was only hitting back, not dealing with the problem. She had no obligation to speak out on Becket’s behalf. Even if he had done her a service over Isabel’s marriage, that particular issue had been a matter of mutual interest. She had no desire to become embroiled in Henry’s quarrel with his archbishop, which was of the men’s own making.

‘Your mother sent a letter about William,’ she said, changing the subject. She brought him the parchment she had been reading when he arrived.

Henry gave her a sharp look. ‘What of him?’

‘She says he has no appetite and has lost his interest in hunting. All he wants to do is sit by the fire and curse his bad fortune. He complains of gripes in his stomach, but whatever the physicians do has no effect.’

Henry grunted and read the letter himself. ‘She also says she has written to Becket and cannot understand why he has suddenly become so concerned about a matter of consanguinity.’ He gave her a dark look. ‘If she knew you had meddled, I doubt she would be pleased.’

‘Of course she would not be pleased,’ Alienor answered calmly. ‘You may tell her if you wish, but I do not see what purpose it will serve. Becket could as easily have granted a dispensation as not, as you well know. I will pray that your brother makes a good recovery from whatever is troubling him, and I will pray for your mother’s comfort and succour.’

‘How charitable of you,’ Henry said.

‘No, how dutiful,’ she replied with a sarcastic dip of her head.

Following a lavish, ostentatious Christmas at Berkhamstead, the court moved to the royal palace at Clarendon where magnates, barons and clergy alike were summoned to a great conference to debate the laws of the realm. Once again Henry and his erstwhile chancellor turned archbishop locked horns and grappled over the rights of Church and State, each becoming more entrenched until the talks ground to a halt. Becket had finally agreed to verbally acknowledge the ancient customs of the land, but had refused to put his seal to any document that would bind him deeper than words. Henry had eventually handed him a chirograph detailing the proceedings of the conference and listing the disputed customs. Roger of Pont L’Évêque, Archbishop of York, had a copy too and Henry had retained one for himself. Becket had chosen to see it as a mere written reminder; however, a chirograph, even without a seal, was a legally binding document.

In the sharp winter’s morning, Alienor went for a walk around the palace grounds, accompanied by boisterous children and dogs. Snow had fallen heavily the previous day, but the skies had cleared overnight, and the wind had dropped, leaving a world of biting, crystalline white, shadowed blue in the hollows. The pure air and fluffy humps of snow encouraged high spirits and her companions flurried and bounded through the drifts, yelling and barking until Alienor could barely hear herself speak to her ladies.

Despite the thick snow, various bishops and magnates had begun departing from the failed assembly, Becket included, still muttering that the ancient laws and customs of the realm infringed on the rights of the Church and that Henry had had them rewritten to suit himself.

‘What will happen now, madam?’ asked Isabel as they watched another cavalcade of laden packhorses plod down the snow-rutted track on its way to the road. The men wore the livery of Gilbert Foliot, Bishop of Hereford. The latter rode behind his banner-bearer, corpulent body enveloped in a sable-lined cloak. Bells jingled on the breast-band of his dappled-grey palfrey and his purple saddle cloth was embroidered with silk crosses in gold. Four sleek gazehounds loped alongside the horse, and they too had bells on their collars. Foliot was Becket’s implacable enemy, because he believed Canterbury should have been his. Since Henry had declined to sponsor him to that position, his relationship with the Crown was strained too. An influential and dangerous man.

‘I do not know,’ Alienor said. ‘Henry may think he has got the better of the Archbishop by issuing that chirograph, but it will not be the end of it. I suspect Becket will appeal to the Pope.’

‘But the Pope needs the King’s goodwill and support too.’

‘Indeed,’ she said wryly. ‘They all argue and believe matters would be simple if only the others would see sense.’

Wild yells broke out as Richard and Harry began a fight in earnest, laying into each other with kicks and punches as hard as they could. Alienor sent one of her household knights to pull them off each other. Richard stood panting, blood dripping from a cut lip. Harry writhed on the ground, clutching himself between the legs, and then he rolled over and retched. Geoffrey, observing with bright eyes, rubbed his nose with the back of his hand.

‘What now?’ Alienor demanded with exasperation. ‘You are the sons of a king and have futures as rulers ahead of you. How are you going to govern your lands if you cannot govern yourselves?’

Droplets of blood splashed from Richard’s lip and landed in the snow like scarlet berries. ‘He said I had to kneel to him because I was his vassal, and younger than him, but I will never bend my knee – never!’

‘It is not worth a fight to the death at your age,’ she said wearily, and gestured one of her escort to pick up Harry and set him on his feet. ‘And hopefully by the time it is, you will have resolved your differences before you are both the death of me. Far better to find common enemies than tear each other to pieces.’ She sent Richard off with a squire to have his lip tended, and had one of her knights bear Harry back indoors.

‘I despair sometimes,’ she said to Isabel, her breath puffing out in clouds of vapour. ‘It is good that my sons are competitive and ambitious, but the way they are constantly at each other’s throats is fit to turn all my hair grey.’

‘I don’t fight, Mama,’ Geoffrey piped up.

‘No,’ she agreed wryly, ‘you don’t. But you often say things to start them, so don’t pretend to be innocent with me.’

Geoffrey gave her a look from wide, dark blue eyes, but Alienor was not fooled by his blameless expression. As the youngest of the three boys and only by a year to Richard, he constantly strove to carve out his own niche and undermine the other two.

‘I suppose it is the price of raising eaglets,’ she said to Isabel with a pained smile in which there was still pride. ‘They all want to be king of the birds.’

Henry looked up from the parchment he was reading as he became aware that his five-year-old son was standing before him holding a large book bound in leather with an ornate clasp. It was too big for him and he was struggling to hold it.

Henry set aside his work. ‘Where did you get that, my boy?’ he asked with amusement. With all the difficulties concerning Becket and his perfidious, ridiculous behaviour, Geoffrey’s appearance was a refreshing diversion.

‘It was in Harry’s chamber,’ he said, ‘but he doesn’t want it because he just left it on the window seat and I thought a mouse might make a nest of it like it did of one of Mama’s letters.’

Henry’s lips twitched with malicious amusement. The book must be from Becket’s library and have been among Harry’s baggage when he left that household, because certainly he had not seen it before. It looked like a costly volume too. ‘And what are you going to do with it, my son?’

‘I’m going to read some of it to you, Papa,’ Geoffrey said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

‘Are you indeed?’ Henry lifted Geoffrey on to his lap. ‘Let me see how good you are.’ Henry unfastened the clasp and opened the thick, creamy parchment pages. ‘What does this say here?’ He pointed to a large red letter embellished by the illumination of an eagle flying towards the sun, which was depicted in brilliant gold leaf with rays flashing out.

Geoffrey screwed up his face and very laboriously began to read to his father. ‘“The eagle can look directly into the sun … As a test of the worthiness of its young, the eagle holds them up facing the sun. The birds that cannot stare into the sun and turn their eyes away are cast out of the nest.”’

Henry studied the boy as he struggled doggedly through the text. Geoffrey, in comparison to Harry and Richard, was a quiet child who made little fuss and was often overlooked. He never became embroiled in fights between his brothers, although he was not above setting the two older ones against each other. He was obviously intelligent, to be reading at this kind of level at so young an age. Henry decided that perhaps he ought to pay him more attention.

When he reached the end of the piece about eagles, Henry praised him and gave him the lump of amber in his pouch he had been intending as a gift for his current concubine. ‘Do you think you could look into the sun if I held you up?’ he asked.

Geoffrey pondered. ‘It would make me sneeze,’ he said after a moment, ‘and see spots before my eyes, but it would be better than being thrown from the nest.’ He held the piece of amber to the light.

‘I suppose it would,’ Henry said, grinning at his son’s logic. ‘I will look after the book now. You can come and read it to me again another time.’

‘Yes, Papa.’ Geoffrey started to run off, but then turned round in mid-stride and returned to bow to Henry. ‘Thank you, Papa,’ he said, and then dashed off again.

Chuckling to himself, Henry closed the book and gave it to one of his attendants. He was pleased and proud. Not many children could read so well at that age and of their own accord. He would have to remember to tell Alienor, although, knowing her, she’d make some preposterous claim to have taught him.

‘A proper scholar, sire,’ said his justiciar, Richard de Lucy. ‘Perhaps he will have a great career in the Church?’

‘Hah, I could make him the next Archbishop of Canterbury,’ Henry said with a sour grin. ‘I do not have the Church in mind for him. There are far better uses to which he can be put.’ He glanced across the chamber and saw Hamelin talking to a travel-stained cleric who had just arrived. Henry’s cheerful mood dissipated, his first thought being that Becket had done something else outrageous or against everything he was trying to achieve. Already he had heard from his spies that Thomas had declined to take mass and donned a hair shirt in mortification because he had agreed to the ancient customs against his will. He had appealed to Rome too. If this was more bad news concerned with Becket, Henry did not want to hear it. However, as Hamelin approached with the cleric in tow, Henry realised the man was one of his mother’s chaplains from Bec, and his heart kicked in his chest, because this could only be news of a personal and more difficult sort.

The chaplain knelt at Henry’s feet. ‘Sire, I grieve to tell you that your brother, William FitzEmpress, has died of the wasting sickness in Rouen and been buried in the cathedral, God rest his soul. I have a letter from the Empress.’ He extended a sealed parchment.

Henry’s first emotion was relief that it was not news about his mother, but that was fleeting, and was replaced by a sensation like a lump of ice settling in his stomach. Both his legitimate brothers were gone. His only sibling kin now were Hamelin and Emma, born of his father’s concubine. Was this God’s plan, and if so, what was the point of it all except perhaps to prove God’s omnipotence – that He could take anyone at any time. It made him feel naked and vulnerable … and angry. He could not rely on anyone, God least of all.

‘How is my lady mother?’ He broke the seal and read the contents of the message. The words were formal and reserved and what he expected. His mother would not break her heart in a letter, or in public. She would grieve in private and show a stern, proud face to the world.

‘She mourns deeply, sire, but is taking comfort from the Almighty.’

Who had done the taking in the first place, Henry thought.

The chaplain cleared his throat. ‘People are saying in Normandy that the lord William pined away because he could not have the Countess de Warenne to wife.’

Henry snorted. ‘My brother would not pine away over a woman, or even over losing the lands. Eat himself up with bitterness about it certainly.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Who do you mean by “people”?’

‘His knights,’ the chaplain said. ‘Those who knew him best, especially Robert Brito.’