“Is that a fault?” Henry had asked. “He has great talent and boundless energy, which he is willing to expend in my service.”

“He is vain and ambitious,” Eleanor persisted. “The good Archbishop looks to him as a champion of the Church, but he is far too worldly in my opinion.”

“I want him to champion me,” Henry had said defiantly.

Since then, that was exactly what Becket had done, serving his new master in every way he could, and making himself indispensable. And Henry had quickly grown to love him, this man who was fifteen years his senior; indeed, he had become increasingly in thrall to him, treating him as a brother and an equal—and, Eleanor wondered, perhaps finding in him a substitute for the father he had loved and lost.

“If you ask me,” Henry’s real brother, the obnoxious Geoffrey, had said, scowling, “there’s more than is seemly in this friendship.”

They had been seated late at the dinner board at Bermondsey, watching Henry and Becket chatting animatedly with a group of young barons. The King’s love for his new friend was evident in his open countenance, his warm regard, and his bodily demeanor. Eleanor, who did not shock easily, rounded furiously on Geoffrey.

“That is preposterous,” she hissed. “The King is a paragon of manhood in every respect—and I should know!”

Yet alone in her chamber that night—for Henry was still carousing with Becket and their cronies—Geoffrey’s words had played on her mind, despite her ready dismissal of them. Could the virile young man who had bedded her passionately no less than three times the previous evening, and on countless occasions before—and who had boasted of his previous affairs with women—have suddenly become unnaturally attracted to a man? To this pernicious Becket? It was inconceivable.

Inconceivable or not, she’d lain there torturing herself. She’d heard of men who were so lusty, and so lacking in morals, that they would fuck anything that moved, women, men, children, even animals. She could not believe that Henry, lecherous as he was, was so mired in filth that he could stoop so low. But if one listened to the teachings of the sterner clerics, men who indulged in this kind of fornication were irrevocably damned for all eternity, condemned both in Heaven and on Earth. People were not as tolerant these days as they once had been, and she’d even heard of some poor wretches who had committed such grievous sins being burned at the stake for heresy. She could not imagine her husband being one of their kind, or doing anything to merit such punishment.

But the doubt would not be stilled. When Henry finally lurched into bed, drunk and smelling of wine, she’d turned to him in what had become desperation.

“Henry, have you been staying up late with Becket again?”Her voice sounded shrill, shrewish.

“What if I have?” he muttered, slurring his words slightly. “Thomas is my friend. He is witty c-company. We have some good times together.”

“You spend too much time with him,” she accused him. “People are beginning to talk.”

“They’re just envious,” Henry grunted.

“No, it’s not that,” she said slowly.

“Then what?” His jaw jutted forward.

“They are saying that it is not seemly, this friendship.”

“What?” Henry roared. “Who is saying this? Who has such an evil mind? I’ll have him strung up, I’ll—”

“It’s Geoffrey,” Eleanor told him.

“By the eyes of God, what gets into that Devil’s spawn?” Henry spat, still outraged. “How dare he say such things, and to you, my wife? He will pay for it, by God, he will pay for it.”

“Oh, leave him be,” Eleanor said, relief flooding through her, for Henry’s reaction had convinced her that her irrational fears were groundless. “He is just jealous. Perhaps he thinks heshould be your chancellor.”

“Heaven forbid,” fumed Henry. “That’s it. I’m packing him off to Normandy tomorrow. Our revered Lady Mother can keep an eye on him. And for now, Eleanor, I intend to prove to you just how wrong that whoreson Geoffrey was!”

“You are too good to me, sire,” Becket protested, looking up from the document he had just read.

“Think nothing of it,” Henry said. “Those revenues will help you to live in the style to which my chancellor should be accustomed.”

“I am not worthy,” his friend declared. “I have not merited such largesse from you.”

“Nonsense!” Henry snorted, getting up to pour himself more wine. They were in his solar and had just finished going through the day’s business. It was after the final account parchments had been rolled away that Henry had presented Becket with his gift. It was a grant of several manors with a good yield in rent—and it was not the first such grant that Becket had received.

“You know your courtiers grow envious of me,” the chancellor said slowly, relaxing his lean frame in his chair. “I’ve heard them complaining that there is none my equal save the King alone.”

“Bah!” Henry scoffed. “None of them have half your talent, or your energy. Do you want some of this?” He came over and handed his friend a jeweled goblet.

“I see you are using my gift,” Becket said.

“Splendid, aren’t they,” Henry observed, holding up his own goblet to the light.

“I had them sent especially from Spain,” Becket told him. “It was the least I could do, given how generous you have been to me.” He was regarding the younger man with obvious affection.

“Thomas, you have earned it a thousandfold!” Henry retorted. “I want no false modesty.”

Becket smiled, absently fingering the sumptuous silk of his tunic. “I cannot tell you how much I value your friendship, my prince.”

“That makes two of us.” Henry’s voice was gruff. Truth to tell, he could not have said, even to himself, what it was about Becket that drew him, and he often asked himself how, in such a short time, he had come to love this man. He could explain it only by telling himself they were kindred spirits, that they shared the same interests, and that Thomas’s company was enormously stimulating.

“We must plan another feast,” he said, as an idea was born. “We’ll have it at your house and invite my jealous courtiers. Let them see me giving you all the honor and favor that you merit.”

“Would that be wise?” Becket wondered. “It might be a better idea to hold the feast here, in the palace, since your barons are always grumbling that there is little enough pomp and ceremony at court, and it would look as if you were doing them an honor too.”

“I’m bored by pomp and ceremony,” Henry retorted. “Still, you have a point. And there won’t be much pomp and ceremony when the nobility of England are in their cups!” He chuckled at the thought. “Do you remember them last time, sprawling in the rushes and groping the wenches?”

The chuckle became a belly laugh, and Becket smiled too.

“You plan it, Thomas,” Henry said. “You’re good at these things.”

“What of the ladies? Shall I invite the Queen?” Becket asked.

Henry grinned at him.

“Better not! We’d have to be on our best behavior, and she’ll only complain when we all get drunk.”

“When youget drunk, my prince,” Becket corrected.

“I’ll make a man of you yet, my friend!” Henry jested.

——

Eleanor no longer worried that there might be anything more than friendship on Henry’s part for Becket, but she knew that they were unusually—and disturbingly—close. This was not the kind of comradeship that flourished between fighting men thrown together on military campaigns, but a sort of thralldom, in which Henry hung upon Becket’s every word and preferred his advice to everyone else’s. She had gradually become painfully aware that she was being supplanted, that her husband no longer sought her counsel first, and that he was spending more time with Becket than he did with her. He came to her bed frequently enough, though, and paid her every courtesy out of it, and on the surface all was well between them, but she sensed, more strongly than ever now, that in every other way that counted, Becket was her rival.