Their thanks offered, and feeling the better for it, they emerged into the sunlight and began the long descent to the valley below, where their horses waited. Then Henry rode with Eleanor north through Aquitaine, and at Poitiers he helped her catch up on the business left in abeyance during her absence. It was then that he told her he had broken their daughter Eleanor’s betrothal to the son of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.
“The Emperor is no longer my friend,” he explained. “It will be far more profitable to me to extend my influence south of the Pyrenees by marrying Young Eleanor to King Alfonso of Castile. She shall have Gascony as her dowry. Yes, I know, Gascony is yours,” he added hastily, seeing his wife’s face. “She shall have it only on your death.”
“Very well,” Eleanor agreed. “It will be a good match for her.”
It was soon time for Henry to depart for Normandy.
“I will be arranging a safe-conduct for Becket to return to England,” he said. “I will let Young Henry know that his reinstatement as Archbishop has my full approval. Then I shall meet again with Becket before he departs—and try to avoid mentioning the Constitutions of Clarendon!”
“May God be with you, my lord,” Eleanor said formally. In truth, she was sad to see him go.
“And with you, my lady,” Henry answered, his eyes searching hers, and meeting only an unfathomable stare.
Chaumont-sur-Loire, 1170
When the Archbishop entered the great hall of the castle of Chaumont, shivering in the dank chill of a November afternoon, the King rose to his feet, walked forward, and warmly embraced him. The two men gazed upon each other for a space.
“Welcome, my friend,” said Henry.
Thomas looked perturbed. “My lord,” he confessed, “I am afraid.”
“There is no need,” Henry reassured him. “All is ready for your return.”
“It is not that,” Becket said quietly. “My mind tells me that I will never see you again in this life.”
Henry stiffened. What was the man saying? His anger rose like bile.
“I told you, Thomas, I have smoothed the way for you. What do you take me for? A traitor to my word? Do you think I have plotted to have you done away with, and am sending you to your doom?”
“God forbid, my lord!” Becket cried. “Nothing was further from my mind. It was but a premonition of some evil.”
But Henry was barely mollified. “Then give it no credence!” he snapped. “I shall see you in England, make no doubt of it.”
“I hope so, my lord,” Becket said. “Farewell.” Henry just glared at him and watched him leave, a monk bearing his crozier in tow.
Bures, 1170
Henry had summoned Eleanor to keep Christmas with him at his hunting lodge at Bures in Normandy, and there she was, on Christmas Day itself, seated beside him at the high table, resplendent in her green fur-trimmed bliautand her great mantle of crimson damask. Most of their children were present also, seated farther along the board, above the salt, as was fitting. Richard was beside his mother, next to Geoffrey and Constance; decorous Joanna and even John, now a tousle-haired, unruly four-year-old, had been brought from Fontevrault for the occasion; Young Eleanor, sadly, had to be left in the care of the nuns, for she was suffering from a winter ague and was deemed unfit to travel. The Young King was, of course, not here: he was in England, holding his first Christmas court at Winchester.
It was late, and, seeing the King and his lords becoming rather the worse for wear after a surfeit of rich food and wine, the Queen signaled to the nurse to take the younger children to bed. “You go too, Constance,” she said. The pert girl made a face but dared not disobey. After she was gone, Richard and Geoffrey fell happily to squabbling over a game of dice, and Eleanor tried to join in the increasingly incoherent conversation at the table.
She was just thinking of retiring for the night when the steward entered the hall and announced the arrival of the Archbishop of York and the Bishops of London and Salisbury. “They crave an audience, sire. They have come all the way from England,” he said.
“In this foul weather?” Eleanor was immediately concerned to know what their arrival portended. Surely the bishops would not have attempted to cross the turbulent Channel unless they had urgent news to impart.
Henry had suddenly sobered up.
“Show them in,” he ordered, then, belching, rose to receive them.
The formalities briefly disposed of, the tall and cultivated Archbishop Roger spoke gravely for all three, with the whole court hanging on every word.
“Lord King, we come to make complaint of the high-handed conduct of His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury.”
Henry groaned. “What has he done now?” he hissed.
“He has excommunicated the three of us, this very morning, from his pulpit at Canterbury, for our part in the coronation,” the Archbishop announced. As the barons erupted in shouts of fury, Henry stared at him in shock.
“But that was all resolved,” he said.
“This is outrageous,” Eleanor murmured, appalled at Becket’s duplicity. “It is not the way to make amends!”
“Apparently it was not resolved,” Bishop Foliot of London growled. “It seems he has been cherishing his anger against those who defied him. I never had much opinion of him, as you know, and it seems I was right to doubt him. Sire, the Pope should be told of his disobedience.”
“By the eyes of God, Becket shall suffer for this!” Henry shouted, his voice vibrating with ire and indignation. “Is this how he repays my offer of friendship?”
“My lord,” said the Earl of Leicester, sitting nearby, “enough is enough. While Thomas lives, you will not have peace or quiet, or see good days.”
“By God, you speak truth!” Henry cried, furious and indignant. “Becket has gone too far this time. He is doing this only to spite me, and yet he brazenly claims to be defending the honor of God.”
“It is his own honor he holds so dear,” Eleanor said, keeping her tone even, for she realized that Henry was getting perilously close to a full-scale display of the famously ungovernable Plantagenet temper. “He is puffed up with the sin of pride. My lord, you must appeal to the Pope.”
“I will have him defrocked!” Henry spluttered, banging his fist on the table so hard that several goblets were overturned. “And then, when his office can no longer protect him, I will proceed against him as a traitor!”
“Get His Holiness on your side first,” Eleanor urged, but Henry wasn’t listening; he was so distracted with anger that he was beside himself, spewing a fiery stream of wild threats, to the point where his outraged courtiers ceased their indignant chatter and watched him in amazement. Presently, seeing he was the object of their incredulous stares, he ceased his tirade and stood there shaking in a menacing, deadly silence, raking the room with narrowed, bloodshot eyes. Eleanor shivered. She had never seen him so consumed with hatred. She ventured to lay a calming hand on his arm, but he angrily shook her off and directed his terrifying gaze at his nervous court.
“What cowards you all are!” he hissed. “I curse you all! Yes, a curse, a curse, on all the false varlets and traitors whom I have nursed and promoted in my household, who allow their lord and king to be mocked with such shameful contempt by a lowborn priest!”