The Blood of the Fifth Knight Page 2

  Henry went to raise it to his lips with an unsteady hand. ‘By Lucifer’s balls.’ He stopped dead and let out a gasp, afraid to make any more movement. ‘I cannot.’

  Meadfeld’s brows drew together in concern. ‘If you will permit me, your Grace.’ He laid one of his soft hands on Henry’s right arm and gently removed the cup into his own grasp with the other. Then he brought the cup to Henry’s lips.

  The King looked at his physician. ‘I am the same as a helpless babe or an aged man with lost wits.’

  ‘You are neither, your Grace. The world saw your courage, but also your humility, at Canterbury.’

  ‘I am glad no one sees me now.’ Henry nodded and drank deep of the bitter liquid. Exhausted from the previous night with no sleep, near delirious with pain, the heavily herbed wine surged round his system.

  Meadfeld replaced the cup on the table next to the abandoned almanac. Then slowly, carefully, he lifted Henry’s arm until it rested on the small side table next to his seat. Next, the physician took a wide band of strong silk and knotted it around Henry’s upper arm.

  A line of small, ornate glass cups waited: three in total.

  ‘You have the correct number?’ Henry watched as his vein bulged to a livid violet against his white inner arm, the outer flesh a hot, deep scarlet from the sun’s eye. The medicinal wine dulled the blades of agony carving at his back, made him lightheaded.

  ‘Indeed, your Grace. I had to make sure my calculations were correct. That was the reason for my unacceptable delay.’ Meadfeld picked up his short-bladed surgeon’s knife.

  ‘Then no more delay.’ No longer battling against pain, Henry’s heart calmed in his chest.

  ‘Yes, your Grace.’ Meadfeld brought the tip of the blade to Henry’s vein.

  The physician’s slice into it nipped in a sharp pinch, but no more.

  Then the royal blood began to flow, drop by oozing drop into the first glass. A further twist from Meadfeld brought it in a steady, slow flow. In the candlelit room, the liquid had the hue of rubies: precious, priceless.

  Meadfeld gave a satisfied nod as he straightened up.

  ‘It didn’t have that appearance yesterday.’ Henry’s own voice came slow as his blood from his veins.

  ‘What do you mean, your Grace?’ The physician wiped the blade of his knife and replaced it in his set of surgeon’s tools.

  ‘My blood. Canterbury. It was bright red, like the wall of a slaughterhouse.’

  ‘Your penance mortified your flesh almost to the bone in places, your Grace.’

  ‘You are such a diplomat, Meadfeld. Your King says he is a brother to a stuck pig at slaughter, yet you sidestep my words lest you offend me by agreeing.’

  ‘Your Grace.’

  The first bowl filled. Henry’s head lightened further.

  A knock came at the door. ‘Come in,’ said Meadfeld.

  A manservant came in, bearing a pail of steaming water and sheets of clean linen.

  ‘Why am I being interrupted?’ Henry asked. ‘I had ordered privacy, solitude.’ Ordered them because he feared humiliating collapse. Defeat. ‘Let me be. And Meadfeld: give me more of that wine.’

  Meadfeld refilled the goblet. ‘Your feet need attention also, your Grace.’

  Henry drank again from the offered cup. ‘And again.’ He swallowed another mouthful.

  Of course. His feet. The scrape of the cobbles on his soft toes. Sharper stones that punctured the soles in a sudden, vicious stab, a torment to be pushed in further, deeper with each step he took. Steps that weakened to a shuffle, his toes banging against higher stones, until his two big toenails broke from their beds, making his agonised gait that of a staggering dunderpate.

  ‘My feet are restored, thanks to your ministrations. The pain has faded to that of wearing tight boots.’

  ‘Then this is a good time for them to be treated, your Grace,’ said Meadfeld.

  Henry drew breath to try to argue, but his numbed body defeated him. ‘Very well.’

  At a nod from Meadfeld, the servant knelt before Henry, not daring to meet his eye as he fumbled a pair of iron tweezers from his pouch.

  The man set to work, soaking the wounded royal flesh, picking bits of stone from open wounds with a sure touch that caused Henry no added pain.

  Meadfeld returned his attention to Henry’s vein.

  The second bowl started to fill. Henry’s head lightened still further. The pain in his shoulders remained with him, but as if at a distance. ‘Bright red. Same as that boy’s hair.’

  ‘Which boy, your Grace?’ Meadfeld had a careful, alert mien. ‘Your servant has black hair.’

  Henry closed his eyes for a moment. He hadn’t intended his words to come out aloud. He’d had them in his head. He’d been thinking of the boy who sat on Palmer’s shoulders. But as weariness washed over him like a rapid incoming tide, the words broke free.

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’ He opened his eyes again as Meadfeld filled the second cup as steadily as the first. Now only one remained empty.

  Henry remembered what he had in his possession. ‘When this one is full, then no more.’

  The servant glanced up.

  ‘Not you, man,’ said Henry. ‘You’re restoring my feet to be part of me.’

  The servant ducked his head once more.

  Henry continued. ‘Stop at two, Meadfeld.’

  The physician took a breath.

  ‘I command you.’

  ‘As your Grace wishes.’

  Second cup full, Meadfeld removed the tourniquet and swiftly applied a clean bandage.

  Henry searched delicately in the purse beneath his tunic, wary of any movement. His numbed fingers closed around the object he sought. He lifted it out and held it up for Meadfeld.

  ‘You see this?’ asked Henry. The seal of Canterbury secured the tightly corked vial. He tipped it back and forth.

  Meadfeld stared at it, transfixed. ‘Is that—?’

  Henry nodded. ‘The blood of Saint Thomas Becket himself. The blood of a martyr. I was presented with it as I did penance in Canterbury Cathedral last night. Now take it. Take it, and pour some into that third cup.’

  Meadfeld took it from Henry.

  The King noted how Meadfeld’s steady hand suddenly trembled, how his breathing grew rapid.

  Meadfeld unsealed the vial with a couple of hard twists and removed the cork. Then, with hands that still shook, he poured it into the carved glass vessel.

  Saint Thomas Becket’s blood spread into its new home. Bright red where it lay as a thin film against the glass, the fluid deepened in colour down the cup until it became almost black.

  The servant’s hands slowed on Henry’s feet. Meadfeld could not take his eyes from the newly filled cup.

  ‘You may make the sign of the cross,’ said Henry.

  His companions did so.

  ‘Now leave me, Meadfeld. You, man—you can stay.’

  His physician bowed, looking troubled. ‘I should remain with you, your Grace.’

  ‘Sleep nearby. The servant can summon you if anything is amiss.’

  ‘Then I wish you the best of ease, your Grace.’ Meadfeld left with his usual quiet step.

  Henry let his weight sag against the back of his chair. His shoulders still grieved him, but his bone-tiredness bothered him more. He could no longer support his weight. It felt as if the end was coming very near. On the tortured ride back to London, he’d thought about making for the White Tower, his palace that soared the highest of all in the sprawling city. Built of stout stone, each block was held together with mortar that was said to be mixed with the blood of beasts. Eleanor’s forces would have a battle on their hands if they were to have to pry him from there. But such actions were the actions of a coward, a weakling. Thomas Becket had not fled. He had stood and faced his enemies. Henry knew he had to do
the same. So Westminster it was, the seat of the rightful ruler.

  The servant continued his ministrations on Henry’s feet.

  Soothed further by the man’s touch, Henry knew sleep beckoned. Throughout the previous night, he had stayed awake in Canterbury Cathedral, praying for his dead friend. Becket’s shrine on the altar, where Henry had prostrated himself in prayer, stood on the exact spot where the murdering knights had cut Becket down. The blood that now sat in carved glass had been splashed across the altar, sprayed from the Archbishop’s smashed skull.

  Exhausted tears collected in Henry’s eyes, and he let them flow down his cheeks. Quiet. Warm. Warm as blood. He touched the glasses, one by one. His own still had heat but was cooling fast. The glass containing Becket’s felt cold and as lifeless as the cathedral’s stone floor.

  Oh, Thomas, my friend: I am so sorry. So very, very sorry. We fought over power, you and I. You lie dead because of me. My power means nothing now. My Queen is about to take it from me. Then as sure as darkness follows the day, she will take my life too. Pray for me, Saint Thomas Becket. Pray for me. And I beg you, intercede for me in a place by your side in Paradise. I am so sorry.

  The wound on Henry’s dressed arm oozed its last drops onto the linen bandage as if it wept too.

  He crooked his elbow and laid his cheek there. So sorry.

  Then Henry, King of England, his body tortured, his heart broken, his kingdom on the precipice, closed his eyes and let the relief of oblivion consume him.

  Eleanor stood in the crowd on the streets of Canterbury, watching him, the King. His wife, his Queen. His four sons stepped up to her side. Henry turned his face this way and then that. But wherever he turned, he saw them. Their faces multiplied until the whole multitude became his family, his own flesh and blood. They called for his head with gaping, cavernous mouths, roared for it, stamped their feet on the cobbles so hard that the ground shook beneath him. The walls of the towering cathedral trembled; then stones fell, crashing to the ground as they released savage, winged beasts from within. The creatures swooped down on him as Canterbury echoed with his enemies’ victorious strikes.

  The pounding at the door woke Henry to a room still illuminated by candlelight.

  ‘Pray, silence, silence.’ The servant at his feet rose and hurried to the door, voice low. ‘His Grace is sleeping. His wounds are many and deep. Come back in the morning.’

  More pounding. ‘Open the door! I have to see the King! The most urgent news!’

  The servant glanced over at Henry and bowed almost double when he saw his ruler was awake. ‘Your Grace?’

  Henry collected his thoughts, addled from such a short, troubled sleep. ‘Find out what the man wants.’ His voice came weak, defeated, as if he knew what awaited him.

  The servant fumbled at the lock and pulled the door open a crack, but it was forced wide.

  A messenger entered, still bearing the thick dirt of his journey and pursued by Meadfeld.

  ‘You must leave his Grace be,’ said the physician. ‘He is not well enough to be disturbed.’

  Henry clutched the carved arms of his chair. Sudden terror robbed him of what little strength he had left. The messenger was the young Hugo Stanton. One he trusted not only with his life but with the lives of those he held most dear. Something terrible had happened. ‘Allow him to speak, Meadfeld.’

  Stanton hastened across the room and fell to his knees before Henry, breathing hard from his haste. ‘Your Grace. I have the most urgent message.’

  Henry kept his composure, though he feared his heart would burst from his chest. ‘Rise, Stanton. Give me your message.’ He tensed, waiting for the blow to fall.

  Stanton stood before him. His blue eyes lit in a face darkened by the sun. ‘It’s victory, your Grace!’

  ‘Victory.’ The last word Henry expected to hear. Did the wine, the bleeding, make him still dream? ‘Victory?’

  ‘Yes, your Grace! Your only faithful son, Geoffrey, with the sheriff of Yorkshire at his side, has won at Alnwick. The King of Scots is being held at Richmond Castle. The rebels are on the run!’

  Meadfeld’s mouth dropped open. ‘God be praised.’

  Henry shot to his feet as his gaping servant gasped and crossed himself. ‘Saint Thomas the Martyr has performed his greatest miracle!’ The bite of his wounds had teeth no longer. ‘I am forgiven! God has granted me forgiveness!’

  Stanton nodded his head eagerly. ‘He has, your Grace.’

  Henry grabbed him by the shoulders and kissed him hard on both dust-caked cheeks. ‘I know you will be fatigued from the road. But make all haste. Go spread the word to my barons, the bishop. Summon them to my hall. And give my order that all the bells in London should be rung. In victory!’ He shook Stanton with delighted vigour, then released him.

  ‘They will, your Grace.’ With a swift bow, Stanton made for the door as Henry ordered.

  ‘My cloak,’ said Henry to the servant. ‘I need to go to receive my nobles.’

  The servant too complied.

  ‘And Stanton,’ he continued.

  The messenger paused at the door. ‘Your Grace?’

  ‘There is another to which you have to bring these glorious tidings,’ said Henry.

  ‘Palmer and his wife?’ asked Stanton.

  Henry nodded. ‘And take all the usual precautions, you hear me? We cannot let joy make us careless.’

  ‘On my life, your Grace. Your messages are safe with me.’ With another bow, Stanton was gone.

  ‘Go and wake the household,’ said Henry to the servant. ‘Tell them the barons and the bishops will need sustenance.’ The servant bowed and scurried from the room.

  Then the first bells rang out: the deep echo of the King’s own abbey. Not with the urgent clamour of invasion, but with the fast peals of celebration, of victory. Another joined them, smaller, higher. Then another.

  Henry met Meadfeld’s delighted gaze, then looked to the window where the early light had begun to show.

  The sound echoed, spread across the city’s jammed roofs and spires, the bells’ peals replacing the birds’ chorus at the opening of the day.

  ‘The bells’ joyous call will have done your servant’s work,’ said Meadfeld. ‘People will already be celebrating your glorious victory, praising your devout penance for Saint Thomas Becket.’ His physician came to Henry’s side and bowed deeply in reverence. ‘They will be in wonder too. Such a clear signal of divine forgiveness so soon. A miracle, one might call it.’

  ‘As would I.’ Henry turned to the table that held the cups of blood. He had intended that the fluids be mixed together, that the joining of his with that of a saint would help him on his journey to Paradise. But Saint Thomas Becket had given a different answer: Henry would continue in his rightful place as King. It was not yet his time to join his friend in heaven. ‘A great miracle from the blood of the Martyr.’

  Meadfeld fell to his knees in quiet, earnest prayer.

  Henry picked up the empty vial and carefully poured the saint’s blood back in. He would keep it as a blessing and a protection in a place of holiness. With such a guardian in the heavens, his enemies would never have a chance to hurt him again. He would be safe from every harm, as would all those whom he loved.

  Resealing it tightly, he raised the vial high in both hands. ‘God and the blessed Martyr be praised.’

  Imprisonment was not death.

  That, and only that, was the last shred of hope left to Raoul de Faye, Seneschal of Poitou, as he stood by the tall windows of his upper-floor solar at Faye-le-Vineuse. The dying light of the early autumn evening still allowed him to see the letter delivered by messenger earlier in the day. A letter that evidenced the end of his plans, his dream. His dream in which Henry lay defeated by the rebellion he had helped to foment. In which he, Raoul de Faye, uncle to Eleanor, could lay the kingdom at the feet of his
niece, his love. She would see him for the heroic warrior he was, and his fifty-eight years on God’s earth would not matter to her. She would want him to rule by her side, would offer her bed and her body to him.

  De Faye read the fateful words again: ‘For her part in the rebellion against Henry, the King has ordered that Queen Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, be imprisoned for the rest of her natural days. His Grace will never forgive, pardon or free her. She will use her time on this earth to contemplate her sin against his Grace, and duly repent for it and ask for God’s forgiveness.’

  De Faye wiped the sweat of outrage from his neatly trimmed beard and inhaled deeply through his nostrils, the better to quell his fury at this mockery of a document. The bland phrases could be describing an event of minor importance: the appointment of a new abbot, perhaps. The revenues raised from a far-flung estate. Not an utter tragedy: a disaster, a catastrophe that had overwhelmed them in three short months. It spoke of a calm king, measuring out balanced justice.

  The reality of the judgment would not have been so, not with Henry. De Faye could picture the man’s bloodshot eyes, his face flushing in one of his childish, frequent, towering rages as he bellowed vengeance at the Queen.

  The Queen. My Queen. My love.

  A band of anguished longing tightened around de Faye’s heart. The court over which he and Eleanor were to rule would have been magnificent. Troubadours would have assembled to delight her in the melodic poems she loved and cultivated so much. They were to have celebrated de Faye in song for his victory, praising him as the courtly knight who had done this for his passion, his worship for his lady. His name would have echoed down the ages, just as it had for Arthur, for Lancelot. For Yvain.

  De Faye turned from the window, and his chest complained anew. He had readied his chamber for her so thoroughly.

  The high stone walls that met in an arched ceiling had been dark and damp. Now they gleamed with fresh plaster and whitewash, with the appearance of large stone blocks picked out in red. Within each block, a painted flower in the brightest of yellow: the fleur-de-lis, his Eleanor’s bloom. In the same yellow on the red window shutters and doors, the symbol de Faye had chosen for himself: the likeness of a ferocious lion.