Into the Dim (Into the Dim, #1)(51)
The priest spoke from a low bow. “My apologies, Your Grace. I was with His Grace, the king.”
“Naturally.” Eleanor sounded amused, though I thought I could hear strain beneath the courtly manners. “You’ve kept my Henry much occupied since our arrival. I do believe the two of you have become thick as thieves.”
The priest started to murmur a reply, but Eleanor stood, interrupting him. “Of course, before we came to England, I was His Grace’s closest companion.”
Standing, Eleanor of Aquitaine was taller than most of the women. She was still swathed in a swirl of gossamer nightclothes, though it was nearly noon. Auburn waves frizzed down her back in the humid air, defying the rule that a married woman must cover her hair. White skin smoothed across sharp cheekbones and high, arched brows.
“Since His Grace the archbishop introduced you two,” Eleanor went on, “I’ve barely seen Henry. Do you not find that odd, Thomas? A queen who must make an appointment to see her own husband?”
I sucked in a breath. I knew the priest now.
“No way,” I whispered incredulously, forgetting my medieval speech for a moment. “That’s Thomas à Becket.”
Rachel looked at me sidelong from beneath her dark lashes, hesitating only an instant before her eyes flicked back toward the priest. Her delicate nostrils flared. A look of loathing passed over her usually placid features as she stared at the man who was murmuring smooth apologies to his queen. “Yes,” she said. “That is he, indeed.” She bit off the name. “Becket.”
I could only stare at the infamous priest. Thomas à Becket. Soon to be Henry’s chancellor, then archbishop of Canterbury. The person who inserted himself between Henry and Eleanor, causing a rift that widened through time until it ended in a devastating war between Henry and his sons. In less than ten years, Henry and Thomas would turn on each other too. A battle of church against state would begin, ending only when Henry inadvertently caused Thomas’s murder inside Canterbury Cathedral. A deed still spoken of a thousand years later as one of the most notorious crimes in history.
Thomas à Becket. One of the most powerful men in England. Or at least he soon would be.
“He despises my people, you know,” Rachel confessed under her breath, barely contained fury in her voice. “Becket had my cousin arrested a few weeks ago on a false charge.” Her arms contracted around her slim body. “Horse theft, they claimed. His wife, Anna, was in childbirth, and he was trying to get home to her when his own mount went lame. The Christian family who loaned him their horse wished to testify on his behalf, but Becket threatened them somehow.” Her voice lowered to a hiss. “Abram died in prison two weeks later. Head injury. They claim it an accident, but we all know the truth.”
I glanced back at the clergyman’s aesthetic features. Nothing I’d ever read about Becket implied that kind of cruelty. Just went to show you how wrong the history books could be.
I touched her arm in sympathy. “Rachel, I’m so sor—”
“Shhh.” Rachel began fumbling in the basket hanging from her arm as a wimpled servant appeared before us, carrying a steaming silver goblet.
Removing a twist of burlap from the smallest satchel at her belt, Rachel untied the piece of twine and—with practiced movements—tapped in a few grains of reddish powder. She took the cup from the servant and swirled the contents. When my new friend went to pass the goblet back, the sour older woman hesitated, as if she didn’t want to touch anything Rachel had handled. Sneering, she reluctantly reached out.
But as she did, the queen called, “No, Wilifred, let the girl approach and bring it to me herself. Her friend as well.”
Rachel hurried forward. I shuffled after her. Our skirts displaced layers of fresh rushes that covered the flagstone floor. Rose petals and twigs of lavender and rosemary, interspersed within the straw, sent up the smell of summer as we crushed them beneath our boots.
Women in colorful court finery made a pathway for us. I searched every face as we went, but my mother had not miraculously appeared.
A few feet from the cluttered desk, Rachel dropped into a low curtsy. I followed, though my legs shook so they could barely hold me. We stayed there, heads bowed, for a long moment, until a pair of gold and jewel-encrusted slippers appeared in my field of view. Peacocks and golden lions.
“You may rise.”
Rachel rose. Swallowing hard, so did I.
My breath left me in a silent whoosh. The statuesque woman before me wasn’t beautiful. Her nose was too long, her mouth too narrow, and a deep cleft split her square chin. But the strong bones of her face would never age, and as I squirmed, her pine-forest eyes studied me. In that moment I understood why people still worshiped this queen, even a thousand years after her death. There was strength and a fierce intelligence glowing behind those wide-set eyes.
“Good morrow, Rachel,” the queen said. She took the cup and propped herself against the front of the desk. Back arched, the bulge of her pregnancy pushed out toward us, flagrant and round as a basketball against the draping, periwinkle robes. “I thank you for bringing my tisane. This prince is strong. He kicks as though he were already riding into battle, without regard to his mother’s digestion. But that is men for you, no?”
A titter from the crowd as Rachel mumbled a reply.
Eleanor shot the liquid back in two long draughts. “Ahh, no one makes a medicament like the Jews. Do you not agree, Thomas?” Eleanor smoothed a hand over her belly as if to say, You can’t do this for your king, can you?