“I believe that to be true,” the Queen said. “I know him well, and I was there. I heard him say those words. They were spoken in the heat of the moment. Devious and quarrelsome he may be, a tyrant and murderer never.”
“You speak truth,” he replied. “The hard part will be convincing the rest of the world of it. But the King your lord has willingly agreed to submit, through me, to the judgment of the Church, and, showing great humility, he has promised to undertake whatever penance she should decide upon.”
“What more can he do?” Eleanor asked despairingly.
“What of the murderers, those satellites of Satan? Is there any news?”
“They have disappeared, by all reports, although I have ordered the King’s officers in England to make a thorough search.”
“They are dead men already, or as good as,” the Archbishop commented acidly. “The Pope will certainly excommunicate them.”
“I pray he will not excommunicate my lord the King also,” Eleanor said.
“I hope not. The King has decided to send envoys to His Holiness, who will protest that he had never desired the sainted Becket’s death.”
“Alas, I fear that His Holiness will heed the general opinion, which is much to the contrary,” Eleanor worried. Waiting for the Pope to speak would be like having the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.
Underlying her fear was anger. Henry was a great king; he did not deserve such calumny. Even in death, Becket was hounding him.
Eventually, Henry emerged from his long seclusion, thinner and aged by several years. He had recovered his composure, though, and was ready to take up the burdens and cares of government, but was still weighed down by remorse. Grief and guilt were eating at him, and made him short-tempered and difficult to live with.
Eleanor might have been a distant stranger. Henry had rejected all her offers of comfort in the time of his direst need, and he had nothing to give her now, nor did he appear to want even her companionship. He had withdrawn into himself, his emotions drained. With her fledgling hopes of a permanent reconciliation dashed, she felt that she had little to offer him, and that it might be better for both of them if she were to return to Aquitaine, at least for a short time. Maybe her absence would work its magic, as before. She was not surprised when Henry agreed to her going without protest.
“You are needed there,” was all he said.
As soon as the weather improved, and the roads were passable, she made her farewells, told Henry that he could be assured of her prayers, for the Pope had not yet spoken, and reluctantly rode south.
Limoges, 1172
Eleanor thought it was a great pity that Henry was not here to see Richard invested as Duke of Aquitaine. The sight of his fine, strapping son in his silk tunic and gold coronet, enthroned in the Abbey of St. Martial, would surely have gladdened his sad heart. It was a shame to be here alone, enjoying this triumph all by herself, watching the abbot place the ring of the martyred St. Valérie, the patron saint of Limoges, on the boy’s finger, and then hearing him proclaimed Duke, as he was presented to the cheering people of Limoges. And thank God they werecheering, she thought; it was as if they were aware that this ceremony, which she herself had devised, was a means of making a final reparation to them for tearing down their walls all those years before.
They had been in agreement, Henry and Eleanor, that Richard, now fourteen, was old enough to exercise power in Aquitaine as its ruler, although she herself, as sovereign duchess, would remain at hand to advise and assist him; they would govern her domains in association with each other—just as they had recently laid the foundation stone together for a new abbey dedicated to St. Augustine.
Richard was now taller than his father and showing signs of becoming a graceful, muscular man, with his long limbs and commanding appearance. In features, he resembled Eleanor, although he got his piercing gray eyes from Henry.
“The Young King is a shield, but Richard is a hammer,” Raoul de Faye perspicaciously declared as they walked in the cloisters taking the late evening air after the feasting had ended. “He will succeed at whatever enterprise he attempts.”
“He is single-minded enough to do so.” Eleanor smiled, knowing that once her son’s mind was made up, he was immovable—just like Henry. “Of all my sons, he is the one destined for greatness.”
“I am impressed to see how he reposes all his trust in you,” Raoul said. “Already, he strives in all things to bring glory to your name.”
“I am much blessed in Richard’s devotion,” she replied proudly. “He is inexpressibly dear to me. I am so sorry that Henry could not be here to witness this day, but he is busy in Normandy. At least he has made his peace with the Pope.” It had taken an oath, sworn by Henry in Avranches Cathedral, that he had neither wished for nor ordered the killing of Becket, but had unwittingly and in anger uttered words that prompted in the four knights the desire to avenge him.
Eleanor could only imagine what it had cost Henry to make this public confession, humiliating in the extreme for a proud man such as he. Maybe being formally absolved of the murder by the Archbishop of Rouen had helped to alleviate his guilt and remorse, but it came at a price. She had winced when they told her how the King, wearing only a hair shirt, submitted to the shame of a public flogging by monks, in the presence of the Young King and the papal legate. It was not the most edifying example for a father to present to his son, still less for a king to show his subjects—and yet she knew it had been a necessary gesture. She still shuddered to think how painful a penance this must have been for Henry, in every way, and could have wept for the bloody lacerations inflicted by the whips and the hair shirt, and for the deeper wounds to her husband’s soul.
Yet still, it seemed, God, the Church, and the ghost of Becket were not satisfied, for the King had also vowed to undergo a similar public penance in England at some future date; in the meantime, he was to make reparation to the See of Canterbury and to those who had suffered as a result of supporting Becket. He was also to found three new religious houses, and—most galling of all, Eleanor knew—revoke the most contentious articles of his cherished Constitutions of Clarendon.
Of all this, she said nothing to Raoul, who knew it already. She was still incensed on Henry’s behalf that Becket, in death, had won the moral victory, when Henry had had right on his side—she was convinced of this—all along. Unwilling to pursue this line of thought any further, for she had gone over it relentlessly in her mind, seething with indignation, and knew there was nothing to do but accept what had happened, she changed the subject.
“My lord has new plans for our youngest son, John,” she said. “He is not after all to be dedicated to the Church, which, I might say, is something of a relief.” She smiled faintly as she called to mind the unruly, lively five-year-old, whom all Abbess Audeburge’s strictures had failed to tame. John, she had realized on her all-too-rare, conscience-appeasing visits to Fontevrault, was meant for the world, not for the spiritual life. “Instead, he is to be married to the daughter of Count Humbert of Maurienne. As the count has no son to succeed him, John will inherit his lands, and that will be of some advantage to Henry, because whoever rules Maurienne controls the Alpine passes between Italy and Germany.”