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The first time Henry takes Thomas to bed, Thomas is the consolation prize for a victory snatched from Henry's grasp. Gwendolen's body is still warm, stashed out of sight somewhere within the confines of his home, and Henry has been denied the satisfaction of knowing he's stolen something Becket cares for - even if that truth goes unspoken, and forever unacknowledged.
So instead he takes Thomas's body, which is not an unexpected outcome. He's already in Thomas's bed, after all; he has made himself at home there, and has taken most other possessions Thomas has accumulated over time. Why not take this last prize, intrinsic to Thomas himself, and thus much harder to acquire? His king strips himself down in Thomas's sheets, tosses his clothing across Thomas's floor, and proceeds to divest Thomas of his clothing in turn, like a man with a strategic objective in mind. Henry has been less focused on razing French cities entirely than he is on wringing a single sound of pleasure out of Thomas.
It's not that Thomas refuses to make that sound, though certainly the flash of irritation in Henry's eyes betrays his thoughts on the matter. It's that he's uncertain whether there's more to gain by allowing there might be pleasure, or by pretending he feels nothing at all.
Thomas has long seen himself as an object against which Henry's whims may crash and break, and into which his king's desires may be absorbed. It's much easier than pretending to have morals of his own. For many years he has ruthlessly quelled any vestige of his youthful fire, so as not to betray a shred of disagreement. Now he doubts he can find those embers again, even to stoke them for the king's amusement. Better to be the canvas for the paint; better to be the pleasant smile holding fast against mercurial rage.
Henry is a generous lover, because he can afford to be. Full of largesse, even when he's clumsy with drink and guilt, burdened with too-fleeting glimmers of conscience. "I didn't mean for that to happen," he mumbles, as he makes quick work of Thomas's tunic, his breeches. "How dare she," he adds, when he has Thomas in hand. He looks into Thomas's eyes, where he does not find, and never will find, absolution. Instead, Thomas summons tenderness, conjured from the depths of his hollow heart.
In bed with his king, no lies are required. They've shared whores before, and young men; their hands have lingered on each other's bare skin. Thomas has always craved power, and been attracted to his conqueror. Why should he not now embrace those two sensations all at once?
"My lord," he murmurs, to watch Henry shudder against him, and the spark of hope in his eyes when he raises them to Thomas's with a question there.
Thomas closes his eyes in response - it might be mistaken for passion, or a prayer; he leaves the interpretation up to his prince - and allows Henry to bear him down, down, into the sheets, through the floor, deep into the earth, past all the ghouls and demons, and into the hell they've made for each other. It's fitting, this unearthly consummation. Since the moment they met, they have always and only worshiped each other, and the trappings of power.
*
The second time Henry takes Thomas to bed, it's the other way 'round, in point of fact. Henry has distracted himself with women, war, the hunt and politics since their first encounter, and Thomas is abjectly bored with it all. And despite all his many available amusements, Henry is restless, because it's been raining for two days, and the castle smells of damp and decay.
"Try to best me," he says, gesturing to a chess set. In moments, Thomas has played out the inevitable end to such an exercise: Henry's ire roused, and Thomas bearing the brunt of it, as always.
"Your skills are far superior to mine, my prince," he says, but lightly; it cannot be a refusal. Only a first step in the game.
"Prove it." Henry sprawls across his chair, inhabiting it like a kingdom entire.
With an exaggerated sigh, Thomas sits down, and devotes himself to winning utterly. Henry expects no less.
They play; they speak of ecclesiastical literature and plainsong; they chatter in Latin and French, and discuss whores and children, in that order of importance. Henry carefully does not touch upon chattel and conquest and pliant captives, even though Thomas has salted that wound and sealed it utterly. Thomas knows he doesn't refrain from speaking of Gwendolen out of deference to Thomas's feelings; rather, it's a weapon he's keeping concealed, to unveil at the appropriate time, if Thomas displeases him sufficiently.
For lack of other distractions, Thomas observes the way the king's eyes narrow when he detects a promising path to follow in Thomas's reasoning, and the way he flicks discarded pieces off the board. It's a familiar motion. Thomas has felt the metaphorical shock of stones beneath his body, tossed aside as the pawn he surely is to Henry. It has happened before, and will happen again.
"Are you even trying, Thomas? I swear you're playing as though you're the most dimwitted of my children, and that is a generous appraisal."
"Perhaps you're right," Thomas answers cheerfully, which only makes Henry kick the board.
"No witty rejoinder? Only this feeble concurrence?"
"Not tonight, sire."
Henry peers at him. "What's got into you, Chancellor? Just yesterday you were ripping into the clergy with a fervor unsurpassed even by me. Today you're as docile as a barn cat."
Thomas moves the jolted chess pieces back into place and ignores the way Henry glowers at the reconstructed game.
"Perhaps it's the lack of wenching," Henry muses, his eyes tracking Thomas's hands as they adjust the board. "There's been a dreadful dearth of it lately. Are you missing the variety of milky thighs and unkempt hair?"
Thomas considers his approach. There's a throb beneath his breastbone, and he's not quite sure of the cause. Surely it can't be Gwendolen. He has set that aside, and refuses to think on it further. It isn't his own desire for distraction; whoring is Henry's province.
Henry's eyes are on him now, the way a wolf's teeth are set near flesh for tearing. Thomas feels very much like he might not mind the bite.
Having decided, Thomas reaches out his hand and distracts his king with an invitation. "Is my lord quite finished extolling the virtues of unwashed maidens?"
"Quite."
They grapple for a time; Henry can't seem to choose between dominance and solicitousness. Thomas cares only that if he is taken, he can still see Henry's eyes. There is much to decipher there.
"Little Saxon," Henry breathes, moving inside him with a modicum of care, and Thomas turns his face away. "Here now, here," but Thomas will not. Because Henry wants it, and because there is so little Thomas has within his power to deny him. It's petty, to be sure, but his pleasure comes more quickly when Henry's fingers tighten on his arms in frustration.
When they are spent, Henry lifts his head and searches Thomas's face. "You're cheating me of what I want, Thomas, but I can't quite work out how."
"All that I have is already yours, my prince." It's gentler than he perhaps intended, no telling why. It's inexplicable, really, the way the pain in his chest has given way to an impermanent flutter of need, which beats and sighs and then fades, as though it was never there at all.
*
The third time Henry takes Thomas to bed, Eleanor pays Thomas a visit the next day.
He supposes that was inevitable, court gossip being what it is. He can't imagine that she much cares whether Henry is fucking him, but of course, there's more to it with her. Eleanor has always been ambivalent about Henry's whoring, but surely it's much harder for her to ignore Beckett's omnipresence in Henry's life.
He perceives in her a sharpness, a coldness, akin to his own, but more refined from many years of honing that particular blade on the bones of dead and dying princes.
"Majesty," he says, bowing low. There's no one with her, no ladies in waiting, no puling brats in her wake.
"Becket." She spits his low-born name, much the same way in which one might kick a dog eating scraps in the street.
"May I offer you some wine?"
"No, thank you." She takes a seat by the fire without waiting to be asked. She looks into the fire, and wastes no time with her opening salvo. "You're nothing but convenience to him. A plaything, to be removed as required when you outlive your usefulness."
"I must ask, madam, to what sort of play do you refer?" When she's flinched, and he's let the blow settle, he adds, "I ask only because as Chancellor, I feel it's my duty to do as the king commands, in all things. All things."
"As if this wasn't your doing!" A cold hiss.
"We all serve at the pleasure of the king, my lady. We are all his possessions, are we not?"
"We most certainly are not."
Of course, she knows that to be untrue - they are all possessed by the king, even (and perhaps most especially) those who are tasked with providing unquestioned loyalty: his sons, and his wife. And Thomas, of course, but what is Thomas to him? Not a brother, certainly. Not a companion, nor a wife. Something in between, less essential but more trusted.
"You have corrupted him," Eleanor informs him. "Kept him from chapel and from prayer. Turned his mind to the pursuit of debauchery."
"I encourage only those natural instincts the king has within him. But of course, this is your method as well, is it not? It is just that I do not nurture the instincts you find most desirable to your own pursuits."
"I'm not captivated by your clever wordplay." Her eyes glitter. "He'll never love you."
Thomas's brow climbs, and he avoids smiling, if only just. What can be said in response to that? Should he point out Henry is no more capable of loving Thomas than Thomas is of loving anything at all? It's a simple fact of personality at work in this madness: Henry hates to lose. The king lives for conquest, but he can't have Thomas's love, and he knows it. He wants Thomas for the same reason he wanted Eleanor: she won't be conquered, or allow him even the smallest victory without some equivalent forfeiture.
Becket cheerfully agrees to anything in service to his prince, but he refuses him love, and so the last barriers can't be breached. It's a perpetual war in which every battle rattles to a draw because the knight has dismounted in the field, concerned only with the flowers which conceal the stench of coming death.
"Perhaps not, madam, but as you speak from a perspective of unique experience in that regard, I won't trouble myself about what that might mean for my prospects."
She is rage incarnate; she continues to speak, searching for cracks in his armor with each blow. With every calculated strike she fails to land, Thomas finds himself growing more fond of Henry. He would have been content to let himself be desired, but now he wants Henry with a warmth that unnerves him.
When she's gone, Thomas makes his way to the King's antechamber, and finds him fussing with scribes and edicts. His eyes light with relief when he sees Thomas. "Come to rescue me at last, Thomas?"
"I'm sincerely sorry for the delay, my lord." Thomas leans one shoulder on the cold stone, and looks at Henry, and wants him. An indulgence for the spirit, perhaps. An acknowledgement of his own power, in the way Henry gestures to the others to leave them.
"It's the middle of the day," Henry points out, the crown seated firmly on his head.
Thomas takes it from him; it winds up on the mantel. Thomas bars the door, and proceeds to steal the king's time, attention, and breath, with Henry's fingers stroking the nape of his neck.
What was Eleanor's is still Eleanor's, until Henry decides she is of no use to him. But Henry is also Thomas's, and there's nothing she can do about that at all. The fire she stirred cools quickly, and when Henry is sated, so is the warmth of Thomas's want.
"To business, then," Henry says, his touch lingering, though Thomas is already pulling away.
*
The fourth time Henry takes Thomas to his bed, it's the eve of his consecration, and Thomas is a sanctified beggar in search of an altar.
He kneels, and takes communion; Henry rocks back on his heels, his hand again on Thomas's head, and there is the blessing Thomas has long enjoyed, and will never sample again.
In the morning, he will wear a second ring, by the grace of God and King Henry, and he will no longer be Thomas, but His Grace, the Archbishop. Two rings, and twice-possessed by his king. He's still unsure if there will be room for God in this arrangement.
"Thomas," Henry whispers, back arched. "If only you loved me."
In that moment, Thomas Becket, prized possession of his king and orphan of God, is privileged to hear his king's prayers at last. They will go unanswered, for Thomas is not an instrument of devotion, nor a conduit, nor a messenger. He cannot bring light into a void.
But he can offer sacrifice, and in so doing, he may also pass judgment, on himself and on his king. It's a small beginning, an entry to the seven sacred duties he must now shoulder, and a sorting out of sentiment.
Honor in his duty, unlike love, may come with time. For Thomas, the first is a matter of principle, but the other is a matter of no consequence.