The Lion Rampant Page 2

  ‘Henry’s aware that grandchildren frequently resemble their grandparents. I’ll convince him the baby is his, my servants will confirm it.’ She laughed, intoxicated with the joy that follows birth. ‘William, William,’ she crooned. ‘We’ll call you William after my father and grandfather. Grandfather was the greatest troubadour in Aquitaine. He was a warrior, too.’ She sighed, her expression changed again and she looked up at Erasmus. ‘Of course, Henry has one son already, out of his concubine. My mother-in-law is urging him to have the Church declare the child legitimate.’ She watched the Master to see if he grasped the implication of her last remark.

  He had not. He was gazing at the baby. I gave her a son. I, child of a goatherd. ‘Let me save him!’ he blurted. ‘You keep him with you today, but send for me urgently this afternoon. I’ll have time to find a wet nurse. I’ll take him …’

  An angry flush darkened her cheeks. Suddenly he understood her reference to the concubine’s bastard – the Duke could choose to make his older, illegitimate son his heir and Eleanor’s status could drop again to the low water-mark it had reached when the King of France divorced her and courtiers called her ‘scandalous harlot’, ‘southern adultress’.

  A knock on the door disturbed them. Breakfast had arrived. ‘Will you join me for breakfast, Erasmus? Orianne, fetch the Master a table and more curds and poached berries. Would you like eggs? I need extra venison.’

  He could feel his heart pound so hard it seemed audible. For a second time that hot morning tears glazed his eyes. That the woman he worshipped was so cunning and so stupid at the same time drove him almost mad. Perhaps not stupid but reckless, wilful – the wildness of her class, the arrogance of wealth and great beauty, her conviction that she could do as she pleased, without consequences. Her father had raised her as if she were a son. She was to rule the turbulent barons of Aquitaine and Poitou. Instead, she became ruler of the King of France, of half its clergy and, finally, the Pope. She’d badgered and intrigued to make a condition of divorce that Louis return her dowry in its entirety. She let him keep their daughters, but insisted the Church declare they were legitimate, although the marriage was not. Erasmus wanted to shake her. He wanted to shout, ‘I don’t care what your husband does to me; he may cut out my eyes and my tongue, he may have me drawn and quartered, but let me save our boy! He can become a scholar. He can travel the world.’

  Sun slanted through the windows. The palace in Poitiers had proper window openings that, at night, were closed with wooden shutters. It was not a fortress, like her husband’s palace in Rouen. The Master’s body sweated from lack of sleep, anxiety, frustration and heat. Even the Duchess perspired a little. Her maid patted a puff of swan’s down on her mistress’s forehead, nose and chin before kneeling at the bedside to kiss a hand languidly dropped for her lips.

  ‘If there’s anything else, my Lady?’

  ‘You’ve been awake all night with me. Go and sleep, Golden Buttercup. I’ll rest as soon as I’ve finished breakfast. The Master will stay a week longer to make sure the baby is feeding well. Then we’ll give William to a wet nurse.’ She looked down, her face glowing with such beauty Erasmus wanted to rush to the bedside and like the maid, kiss her hand. To smother her in caresses, as he had, night after night, right up until a few days ago. ‘And fetch the priest,’ she added. ‘I want William baptised immediately. We’ll do it again in the cathedral when his father returns from the war.’

  After Orianne left, Erasmus said, ‘I beg you, let me take the child tonight.’

  Eleanor shook her head. ‘Henry never met my papa. The servants will swear William is his living image.’ Suddenly she giggled. ‘When Louis hears I have a son from Henry he’ll die of shame. He’ll scourge himself. He’ll fast and spend all night on his knees in prayer. The Paris court will roil in its viper pit. There’ll be no stomach among them for another war against Henry.’ She smiled up at Erasmus. ‘The prince who wins in the bedroom wins on the battlefield.’ As an afterthought she said, ‘If I can have one son, I can have more. With me as his wife, Henry can raise the House of Plantagenet above the House of Capet.’

  Erasmus blinked. ‘So the Angel brought you not only a son but revenge on France’s courtiers for the insults you suffered. You’ve given power to the arm of your husband, Duchess, so he may aspire to become the greatest king in Europe?’

  ‘At last, dear Master, I’ve taught you something. You begin to comprehend politics.’ Her eyes gleamed with naughtiness. She looked a child – a beautiful, rebellious young girl.

  He walked to the bed and without being invited, sat and stared into her face. His demeanour was no longer that of an undervalued lover. He spoke as a professor upbraiding a lazy-minded student. ‘Has it slipped your memory, Eleanor, that your brother-in-law, Guillaume Plantagenet, saw with his own eyes the intimacy of our relationship?’

  ‘How dare you try to lecture me.’ She turned to stare out a window.

  ‘Have you also forgotten that the one person your husband trusts – you told me this yourself – is this same half-brother, Guillaume? That he and Henry share all secrets?’

  Her head swung round and she glared at him. Unconsciously she pulled the baby closer to her body. At length she replied, ‘The most important thing for a man who will be a king is an heir. An angel performed a sacred ritual to give my husband an heir. It put Henry inside your body, so the baby could be conceived.’

  He was dumbstruck. When he recovered, he whispered, ‘So it was really your husband whom you plundered for seed? It was not my cock you squeezed inside yourself until I could hold back no longer? It was not for the sublime sensation of my pumping into you that you screamed and bit my mouth and wept with joy? I wasn’t even there. You rode the Duke of Normandy!’

  Her expression was mischievous. ‘How intelligent you’ve become, Erasmus, since attending my court in Poitiers.’

  ‘Your husband – I’ve met him, remember? – is also highly intelligent and of logical mind, Duchess. In a year or so he’ll look at this boy and he’ll ask Guillaume, “Brother, could it be possible …?”’

  Eleanor gave a pant of irritation. ‘You’ve made your point, Master. I don’t accept it.’

  ‘Well then, I’ll leave.’ He stood, gave a slight nod of farewell and turned towards the door.

  ‘You’re to stay until William’s ready for the wet nurse.’

  He stopped, a crooked smile on his lips. ‘You’ve forgotten something else, Eleanor. I’m not your vassal. You do as you please. And so shall I.’ He closed the bedchamber door. May my horse stumble. May I break my neck and die this very morning.

  A priest accompanied by a novice was already panting up the stairs.

  Eleanor recalled all these events in moments, watching through a narrow window as guards escorted the salt-bleared fishermen to the villeins’ door. She turned to her toddler. ‘Chou-chou,’ she said. ‘Mama will soon be a queen. And you’ll no longer be Count of Poitou. You’ll be an English prince. One day, God willing, you’ll be King!’

  CHAPTER TWO

  Across the Channel, north of the luminous white cliffs that on moonlit nights warned sailors of the island’s south-eastern shore, a mourning bell tolled monotonously as if the town of Faversham itself moaned, ‘Dead. Dead. Dead.’

  Citizens wore dark clothing, shops were closed, wooden shutters barred the autumnal sunlight. Outside the Abbey, black horses fretted against their trappings while they waited to draw the wagons of nobles and princes of the Church. Inside the house of God, bishops performed the ritual obsequies for King Stephen of England. They laid him to rest beside his wife and Crown Prince. Twenty years earlier this man had usurped a rich and prosperous realm. He was leaving it an impoverished shambles. Those who shed tears beside his sarcophagus did so mostly from self-pity; they had backed the wrong side in the civil war that followed the usurpation and now their fate – their castles, lands and honours – lay in the hands of Stephen’s conquerer, Henry, Duke of Normandy. The Crown Prince, Eustace,
had died suddenly. The King had another son, William de Warrenne, but through force majeur and political cunning the Duke had manipulated Stephen to adopt him as heir to the throne.

  Two grim-faced men in black, one taller, the other slightly older, but dressed with even greater opulence, walked side by side from the Abbey church. As they reached a covered wagon emblazoned with a double-headed eagle, a youth ran from the crowd to open the door for them. He wore the dull grey gown of a scribe but his face was of such beauty both men halted to survey him before they stepped into their richly upholstered vehicle. The older man, aged just under forty, tossed him a coin.

  ‘Who was that?’ the younger man asked.

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘But you’ll find out for me?’

  His companion, Baron Richer de l’Aigle, raised an eyebrow. ‘Dear boy, if it’s in my power I’ll send him to you wrapped in samite.’ Their relationship was in a friendly phase.

  The October day was already growing cool. When the men were seated they tucked rugs of pine martin fur around their laps. In deep voices they intoned, ‘The King is Dead!’ Their mimicry was of the Bishop of Winchester, Henry Blois, brother of the monarch and second richest man in England. Throughout the rites in Faversham, Winchester was notably lacrimal. ‘The King is dead! And so is my influence!’ the two moaned in unison. The older man slammed the carriage shutters down and they doubled over with hilarity.

  ‘Your reading of St Paul’s epistle was a masterstroke of dramatic art and fluid rhetoric. You didn’t stutter once. You were the cynosure of the congregation. How did you keep a straight face, Tom?’

  ‘Years of self-discipline. At Canterbury one learns a few tricks.’

  ‘Such horrifying restraint calls for a drink.’ Richer reached for a basket stowed on the opposite bench. Inside were potted meat, a cheese, fine bread, ripe grapes, honey cakes, apple juice and two small casks of wine. ‘This one is local.’

  ‘But the other is from Aquitaine? I’d like that.’ The young man inhaled. ‘Good nose. Bright colour. Tannin a little … too robust?’

  ‘Your appreciation of southern wine is fitting, my dear, given the creature we’ll soon be calling Queen. Have you met her?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I hear she has prejudices against men like us.’

  His younger companion, Thomas, Archdeacon of Canterbury Cathedral, rested lustrous dark eyes on his friend. People sometimes gasped when he looked at their faces, as if an icon had turned its gaze on them. He was no ordinary man. But what was extraordinary about him was hard to determine. His stately demeanour? His lavish and original dress? His charm? His quick wit? His ability to become the centre of attention in any gathering? These all contributed, but they were outer symbols of something else, something that remained hidden. ‘He’s fascinating,’ people said, unsure of what they meant.

  ‘Riche, have you ever met a female immune to flattery?’

  ‘Famous beauties are. Our new Queen, they say, has skin as white as pearl, ruby lips and cheeks, eyes lovely as violets. And her robes are of an originality that causes marvel. She’ll have heard every lie men can invent when speaking to women.’

  ‘I’ll applaud her skill at chess. Or with a horse. Or the prettiness of her pet dog.’

  ‘I believe she prefers cats.’ The Baron repeated in a voice of doom, ‘The King is dead! Deaaaad!’

  They laughed like schoolboys as they clinked cups of wine.

  ‘I hear our monarch-to-be is equally gorgeous. When he enters a hall it’s a flash of lightning. Everything around him is cast into shadow – although personally I don’t fancy red hair.’

  ‘Nor I. It was as bright as a carrot when he was a child. It’s the colour of buffed copper now. He’s military in bearing – broad chest, strong arms. Affable, witty, often unkempt in his dress. Low-hipped.’

  ‘I like low hips,’ Richer murmured.

  ‘But restless,’ his friend continued. ‘He never stops pacing about. You’d think he felt himself caged.’

  ‘He has his grandfather’s rage, they say.’

  ‘It runs in Viking blood. Had I not met him when he was nine years old—’

  ‘Nine years old? You began courting him then?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Thomas stared at his long fingers folded beneath the ruff of iridescent cock-tail feathers that decorated the sleeves of his robe. The same shimmering black-green plumage warmed his neck.

  The Baron frowned. Years earlier Richer’s features had adapted to his name, Eagle. His prominent nose curved, his reddish-brown eyes were bright with rapaciousness and his mouth turned down at the corners as if a deep-seated cynicism possessed him. Tom’s hiding something. Aloud he said, ‘After two decades of anarchy do you imagine our new King, whose favour you have not been seeking since he was a child, will be able to right our capsized ship of state? He’s only twenty-one and lacks the training in kingcraft that a prince learns at his father’s knee.’

  ‘Since the day he was born his mother, the Empress, has trained him to rule.’

  ‘That gorgon! I know you and the Archbishop supported her claim to the throne. However, the mention of Empress Matilda makes me need another drink. You, Tom?’

  Thomas made a moue. ‘Only to warm my stomach.’

  ‘Your famous cold stomach. I forget you suffer it because you always appear so glowing.’ Richer’s eye fixed on his companion as he grasped the Archdeacon’s knee. ‘Stop teasing me, bad boy! What’s your secret? What plum appointment in the new court have you wrangled for yourself?’ He loosened his hand to drift it up the Archdeacon’s thigh. ‘You can trust Richer,’ he murmured.

  My heart still lurches, Thomas thought. In the sublime days of youth those words had opened the door to a world of careless rapture, all sumptuous, all glinting with silver and gold. The grandeur of Richer’s houses, his myriad servants, his stables of gallant horses, the mews for hunting birds, the packs of hounds, the peacocks loitering on garden paths. I returned from that first visit to my parents’ house in Cheapside feeling like a prisoner freed into the sweet air of day. I saw my destiny. I wouldn’t grow up a nobody, I’d be grand. Like Richer. Better still, even grander!

  ‘I’m recommended as Chancellor.’

  The Eagle flung his head back and laughed.

  Becket’s voice rose with indignation. ‘You consider me inappropriate?’

  ‘You are thin-skinned today, my darling. Inappropriate? You’ll be brilliant!’ You believe your dead mother will forgive you at last? Richer thought. Aloud he added, ‘The most ambitious man in England, Chancellor to the most ambitious prince in Europe! My mind turns in giddy circles. The idea came from?’

  ‘Our Archbishop Theobald. The tension between Church and Crown has barely been worse than under Stephen’s reign. Churches and abbeys looted for treasure. The Archbishop gaoled like a criminal. The rift needs healing. I’ll be Chancellor and Archdeacon.’

  ‘My dear Thomas didn’t put that into the mighty Theobald’s head by any chance?’

  ‘I did not!’

  ‘So Tom will pour the oil of atonement on the troubled waters that surge between Church and Crown. And rip more taxes from my class than any man alive. You brilliant creature! Let me kiss you.’

  The Baron grabbed the Archdeacon’s jaw to draw their lips together. ‘I’ll never forget the moment I first saw you,’ he murmured. ‘God! Your eyes. You were a flower …’

  They released each other’s mouths.

  ‘And you were a bee,’ Thomas whispered.

  The kiss brought those days alive again.

  Richer sighed. ‘What joy it was to teach you. How to mix in exalted company. How to ride. How to dress. How to hunt. How to mend the wing of an injured falcon. How to charm men of power. I turned you from a Londoner without rank into a youth of confident social deportment.’ I can do well out of you as Chancellor. ‘But to return to our sheep,’ he said, ‘or should I say, our ram? I hear our King-to-be is as a ram in springtime when it com
es to the ladies. You’ve twirled our Archbishop around your finger, Tom. But our new King Henry? You’ve been planning this a whole year or more. Ever since Prince Eustace died and Stephen agreed to adopt Henry as his son and heir to the throne. You were at the Archbishop’s side when he negotiated the peace treaty. You would have drawn attention to yourself back then. You manipulate the second most powerful man in England. How do you propose to manipulate our King?’

  The Archdeacon shifted, as if his seat were uncomfortable. Despite its padding, travelling by wagon was, in many ways, less comfortable than riding a horse if the weather were fine, but it was the only way two men could be certain of a meal in private. ‘You’re full of questions today, Riche.’

  ‘Tom, you’re almost the same age as his late father, who doted on him. Do you see yourself playing the adoring papa? You could easily do so. You’re adorable, yourself.’

  His companion’s dark eyes crinkled at their edges. ‘To some, to some.’

  ‘To all who admire elegance, charm and wit. In Normandy, Anjou and Maine, father and son went whoring together. It was said there wasn’t a countess in their territories who resisted the charm of the Dukes, pere et fils.’ The Baron cocked an eyebrow.

  ‘I’d be ill.’ Thomas turned pale.

  I’ve never seen you so uncertain of yourself, the Baron thought. Thomas had once admitted to Richer: ‘It’s my perpetual self-doubt, my morbid obsession; am I lovable?’

  ‘I think, at first, with such a dominating prince I must be …’ the Archdeacon hesitated. The word and the memories behind it rose with a bitterness that momentarily choked him. ‘Submissive.’

  Richer gave a bark of laughter. ‘You! Submissive?’

  ‘You have no idea what it is to be born without rank, to know oneself to be disposable, to realise that unless one is constantly the cynosure, one can be tossed away. A nothing.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Your talents, Tom. Consider your talents.’