Amused in spite of herself, Eleanor leaned back against the altar, regarding the other woman challengingly. “What is there to discuss? I will be joining Harry at Rouen for his Christmas Court and you were summoned to Winchester so I could bid you farewell ere I left England.”
Maud was quiet for a moment, knowing that she’d be entering a verbal quagmire, one rife with pitfalls. In their world, a husband’s adultery was something to be endured or ignored. Even queens had to play by those rules. If only she could be sure that Eleanor understood that.
“How are you going to handle it, Eleanor? Do you intend to give Harry an ultimatum about the Clifford wench?”
“Of course.” Eleanor’s eyes glinted. “What would you have me do, compete with that insipid, ordinary child for Harry’s favor?”
“No . . . but have you thought about his likely response? Even if he is already tiring of the girl, he might balk at being given a command. Men tend to get their backs up as often as their cocks. What will you do if Harry refuses?”
There was a prolonged silence. Eleanor’s lashes swept down to veil her eyes, but the flickering candlelight revealed the stubborn downturn of her mouth. “I will make sure,” she said, “that he greatly regrets it.”
This was what Maud had feared. “I do not doubt that. I just want to be certain that none of the regrets are yours. I understand your desire to punish Harry for his betrayal, but that is such a dangerous road to start down. However justified your grievances, you cannot ever forget that a woman’s power is a derivative commodity, borrowed at best—”
“Forget?” Eleanor spat. “You truly think I could forget that? After Antioch?”
As familiar as Maud was with Eleanor’s combustible temper, she had never seen it take fire so fast. “Antioch?” she echoed, momentarily perplexed.
“Yes, Antioch,” Eleanor shot back, and in her mouth the name of that elegant crusader kingdom became a harsh obscenity. “Do not pretend you do not know what happened in Antioch, Maud. Even holy hermits under a vow of silence heard of the great scandal caused by the King of France’s wanton, wayward queen. If gossip is to be believed, I was guilty of adultery and incest and single-handedly brought the crusade to ruin.”
“Yes . . . if gossip is to be believed.” The stories that had trickled out of Syria were indeed salacious and shocking. It was said that Eleanor had taken her uncle Raymond, Prince of Antioch, as her lover, declared her intention to annul her marriage and remain in Antioch, and had been compelled by Louis to accompany him on to Jerusalem. Maud had not believed the rumors, though, not once she’d met Eleanor. The young French queen had been willful and reckless, but she’d never been a fool.
“The crusade was botched from the beginning,” Eleanor said, with a bitterness that not even the passage of nearly twenty years had abated. “And then at Antioch, Louis balked at going to the rescue of Edessa, contending he must first carry out his vow to reach Jerusalem. I thought that was madness and so did Raymond, a military blunder that might well lose Antioch, too, to the infidels. When Louis refused to heed us, I warned him that if he did not attack Edessa as agreed upon, I would remain in Antioch and keep my vassals with me. He insisted that I must obey him and he quoted from Scriptures, that wives must submit themselves to their husbands as unto the Lord. It was then that I told him I wanted to end the marriage.”
“And so his advisers convinced him that you were bedding Raymond?” Eleanor nodded tersely. “For a time, they did,” she said dismissively, making it clear that she had no interest in discussing her uncle. “They persuaded Louis that it would look unmanly for him to leave me in Antioch. And so I was awakened in the middle of the night by men sent by my husband, taken by force from my lodgings and out of the city . . . as helpless to resist as any cotter’s wife, for all that I wore a crown.”
“You are right,” Maud conceded. “You need no lessons from me as to how the scales of power are weighted between men and women. It is just that I know you, Eleanor, I know that at heart, you are a rebel and have never been one for doing what is expected of you.”
The corners of Eleanor’s mouth softened, curved upward. “You need not worry, Maud. I will not do anything rash . . . not unless Harry provokes me, of course. And yes, that is a joke.” She did smile, then, although without humor. “Unfortunately, so is his little blonde bauble.”
PATRICK D’EVEREAUX PAUSED before entering the great hall of Argentan’s castle. He moved with the careless confidence of one accustomed to attracting attention, trailing authority and honors and his long-suffering wife like the spume churned up in a ship’s wake. And indeed his entrance did turn heads, for he was not only the Earl of Salisbury and Sheriff of Wiltshire; to those on this side of the Channel, his importance lay in the power he wielded as Henry’s surrogate in Aquitaine.
The hall was very crowded, for attendance at the king’s Christmas court was a matter of prestige as much as pleasure. A baron’s absence might well give rise to rumors that he’d lost royal favor, even encourage his enemies to try to sow seeds of discord with the king. Salisbury’s gaze raked the throng, noting that many of the Poitevin lords were not present even though the queen, their liege lady, was expected to arrive any day now. Their conspicuous absence did not bode well for his tenure in Aquitaine. Seeing that Henry was occupied with the Bishops of Liège and Poitiers, Salisbury decided to approach him later and instead looked about for one who would know if Eleanor’s anticipated appearance was rooted in reality or gossip.
The Earl of Cornwall was the perfect choice, and Salisbury grasped his wife’s elbow, heading in Rainald’s direction. The two men were on friendly terms, and Rainald greeted Patrick and Ela with boisterous, wine-flavored goodwill, kissing her gallantly on the cheek and thumping Salisbury on the back heartily enough to send the earl into a coughing fit. The next few moments were awkward, for courtesy demanded that Salisbury and Ela ask after Rainald’s wife, even though they both knew the frail and unstable Beatrice had not left her Cornwall estates for years. They politely pretended to believe the excuses Rainald made on his wife’s behalf, but then Salisbury remembered he’d not seen Rainald since the death of the empress, and it was necessary to tender their condolences for her loss.
Rainald’s Christmas ebullience was temporarily dampened by these specters of death and derangement conjured up by the Salisburys. Snatching a wine cup from a passing servant, he drank deeply. He soon brightened, declaring that his son had accompanied him to Argentan. Salisbury knew, of course, that Rainald doted upon a natural son, named Henry after the king, but as he followed the other man’s pointing finger toward a youngster in his midteens, he saw that Rainald was speaking of his legitimate heir, the son born to Beatrice.
“The lad over there, standing behind the king . . . ?” Salisbury frowned then, but Ela covered for him smoothly, saying “Nicholas” so naturally that none would notice his lapse of memory. Salisbury took her adroit intercession for granted; that was what a wife was supposed to do, after all. Nicholas was richly dressed, but he lacked Rainald’s vivid coloring and robust stature. The youth standing by Nicholas’s side was far more impressive, tall and well favored, and Salisbury felt a flicker of family pride.
“That is my nephew talking with your Nicholas,” Salisbury said, “my sister’s son, Will Marshal. He was knighted a few months ago and has asked to enter into my service. He’s a likely lad, a good hand with a sword, too.”
Rainald made a sound that passed for polite agreement; his interest in Salisbury’s kin was minimal. But then the name pricked a memory. “One of John Marshal’s get?” When Salisbury nodded, Rainald turned to look at young Marshal with genuine curiosity. He was not surprised that Will needed to make his own way in the world, for John Marshal had a surfeit of sons, six in all between his two marriages, and there would be little provision made for a younger lad. But William Marshal had acquired a certain fame as a small boy, for his father had offered him up as a hostage and then dared King Stephen to hang him, boasting that he ha
d the hammer and anvil with which to forge other sons.
Salisbury knew Rainald was thinking of that same siege of Newbury, for men invariably did upon first meeting Will. But he had no desire to discuss his brother-in-law’s notoriety, Stephen’s unkingly compassion, or his nephew’s narrow escape, and he acted quickly to head off Rainald’s reminiscences. “Is it true that the queen is expected at Argentan?”
“So I’ve been told. She sent the king word that she’d arrived at Rouen and would be joining him for their Christmas court, but I do not know if she’s—” Rainald never finished the sentence. “Now what do you suppose that is all about?”
Straining to see for himself, Salisbury too, was puzzled, by the tableau meeting their eyes. Henry had swung around to face Nicholas and Will, interrupting his conversation with the bishops. Both youths had gone beet-red and even from across the hall, their discomfort was obvious. Rainald and Salisbury exchanged perplexed looks; had Nicholas and Will been foolish enough to offend the king?
Salisbury was inclined to let his nephew flounder to shore on his own, but Rainald’s first impulse was to rush to the rescue, and he was starting forward just as Henry turned away. Their eyes met and Henry murmured something to the bishops, then headed in Rainald’s direction as Ela moved off to greet a friend. Rainald restrained himself until after the exchange of courtesies, but not a moment longer. “What happened? Nicholas looked as if he’d swallowed his tongue!”
“Oh, that . . . your son was sharing some of the gossip being bruited around the court these days. I suppose he thought they were safely out of my hearing, and in truth, I only caught part of the conversation. But I heard enough to justify putting the fear of God into the lad, so I spun around and told them rumor had it that I was going deaf, too.”
Rainald laughed, relieved that Henry seemed to be taking it in such good humor. He could well imagine the sort of rumor a youngster would find most interesting, the more lurid the better. There was a time when he wouldn’t have been able to resist a bawdy joke, but he was developing a modicum of discretion in these, his autumn years, and he decided that his nephew would not appreciate jests about wronged wives, not with Eleanor about to descend upon Argentan like one of the Furies of ancient Greece. The classical allusion was not his own; that was not Rainald’s style. He’d heard it from Arnulf de Lisieux and it had lodged in his memory, for he’d always had a healthy respect for the queen’s temper, convinced that Aquitaine could match Anjou in sheer heat any day of the week.
Henry had already forgotten about Nicholas’s faux pas; he had far weightier matters on his mind than a young cousin’s gaffe. “Actually, I was looking for you,” he confided to Rainald and Salisbury. “A messenger arrived this morn from England, bearing word that Owain Gwynedd has taken Rhuddlan Castle.”
This was a significant loss for the Crown. Owain had been quick to take advantage of Henry’s troubles in Brittany and Poitou, and the siege had been dragging on for more than three months. Henry was tempted to blame the castellan, but he knew the fault was his; he’d delayed too long in putting together a rescue expedition, thinking the castle could hold out safely till the spring. The Welsh prince had become overly bold, would have to be dealt with. But when? He still had to punish the de Lusignans and the rest of Eleanor’s troublesome subjects. What was it his father had ofttimes said about Aquitaine? Ah, yes . . . that the barons of Poitou were as perverse as any in Christendom, likely to double-cross the Devil on a whim and then laugh all the way into Hell. They were a vexing people, his wife’s Poitevins, as impulsive and unpredictable and hotheaded as his uncle Ranulf’s Welshmen.
But tonight, Henry did not want to think about Ranulf or Wales. Exercising a king’s prerogative to commandeer the conversation, he switched the subject from Rhuddlan to Salisbury’s recent pilgrimage to the sacred Spanish shrine of St James of Compostela. But he found it difficult to corral his wayward thoughts. Each time he glanced around the hall, he encountered swiftly averted eyes, poorly concealed curiosity and speculation. Like his young cousin Nicholas, they were all wondering about his coming reunion with Eleanor, avid to know what would happen once they were alone in the royal bedchamber.
Henry would have given a great deal to know that himself. He really wasn’t sure what to expect from Eleanor. Her self-exile in England for the past year was not as easy to read as it first appeared. Did it indicate the gravity of her grievance against him? Or had she deliberately stayed away to give her lacerated pride time to heal?
In the beginning, he’d been relieved by her absence, then bemused, and finally, unsettled. Her infrequent letters told him much about her days, nothing about her heart. He’d been taken aback when she did not return to Normandy after hearing of his mother’s death. He’d gotten a graceful condolence letter that said all the right things, yet seemed oddly impersonal coming from a woman who’d been his wife for fifteen years and borne him eight children. Not even Tilda’s departure had brought Eleanor home; she’d accompanied their daughter across the Channel, saw her off for the imperial court with the German ambassadors, then sailed back to England before Henry had heard of her brief presence on Norman soil.
Feigning interest in Salisbury’s pilgrim stories, Henry acknowledged that the portents were not auspicious. Whenever he sought to convince himself that Eleanor’s actions need not mean she nursed a grudge, an inner voice mocked that he was like an unwary sailor, insisting that a red morning sky did not warn of a coming storm. No, her return was sure to bring squalls and high winds. They were likely to have a God-awful quarrel; he might as well reconcile himself to that. And because she was the one wronged, he’d have to make things right between them.
But what if he could not placate her with an honest apology? What if that was not enough for her? If she demanded that he put Rosamund aside, end their liaison? Logically, that should not present a problem. He had not laid eyes upon the girl in well over a year. He could not even remember the names of his other bedmates in that year. They’d never mattered to him, and Eleanor understood that. So why then was Rosamund different? Why this reluctance to disavow her? As often as he’d been down this road, he never found the answers he sought. In truth, he did not know what he’d do if Eleanor insisted that Rosamund be forsworn. He could only hope that her price for peace would not be so high.
ELEANOR WAS wearing a gown Henry did not remember seeing before, a brocaded silk of deep gold, with a tightly fitted bodice, full, sweeping skirts, and swirling sleeves of emerald green. It reminded him vaguely of the gown she’d worn on their wedding day, stirred up memories he preferred to keep becalmed. Presiding over their evening meal in the great hall, she glittered and sparkled like the rings flashing on her fingers, looking beautiful and elegant and enigmatic. Henry silently applauded her performance; no queen ever born could play that role better than Eleanor. Nor had he expected any less from her. Even if she yearned to cut his throat with his own dagger, no one would ever guess it from her public demeanor. That would be a surprise she’d save for the privacy of their bedchamber.
And so the meal passed in outward harmony, with wine flowing as freely as the polished, courteous conversation. One advantage of having so many children and so many enemies, Henry acknowledged wryly, was that they’d never run out of something to talk about. By the time several elaborate subtleties had been wheeled into the hall, Henry and Eleanor had traded information upon their vast brood, interspersed with the latest gossip coming out of the French court, the Papal See, and Thomas Becket’s self-proclaimed sanctuary at Sens.
The subtlety for the high table was a depiction of the Birth of the Christ Child, acclaimed for its artistry, but not expected to be eaten, and Henry decided he could wait no longer for the second act in this drama. Why not leave their guests to fend for themselves, he suggested, and wasn’t sure whether to be gratified or aggrieved by the nonchalance with which Eleanor accepted his offer.
A NURSERY had been furnished for the three youngest of Henry and Eleanor’s children: six-year-
old Eleanor, two-year-old Joanna, and John, who was just days away from his first birthday. Of the older offspring, Tilda was in Germany, Hal had his own household as befitting the heir to the English throne, and Richard and Geoffrey had not yet arrived at Argentan. As Eleanor and Henry entered the chamber, John’s wet-nurse leaped to her feet as if caught in some dereliction of duty. Joanna’s wet nurse was made of sterner stuff and as she curtsied, she dared to put a finger to her lips, warning the parents not to awaken their daughter, who had finally and blessedly gone to sleep. Eleanor, named after her mother but called Aenor after her maternal grandmother, was permitted a later bedtime and was playing alone in a corner with a felt puppet. She seemed no less startled than the wet-nurses by this sudden intrusion into the nursery, and her greetings were subdued, even shy.
Henry was not surprised by the little girl’s reticence, for she’d been apart from her mother for more than a year, and how could he be other than a stranger? How often did he see any of his children? As always, when confronted with the remote reality of royal parenthood, he felt a genuine regret, a sadness that he had developed with none of his children the sort of easy, affectionate rapport he’d enjoyed with his own father. But he no longer resolved to remedy matters, for by now he knew better. The demands of kingship were invariably going to prevail over the attractions of the nursery. Since he found his children to be more interesting as they matured, he’d assuaged any sense of loss by assuring himself that there would be time enough once they’d left babyhood behind.
Joanna was sleeping soundly, her hair a tangle of bright gold upon the pillow. But as Henry leaned over John’s cradle, the boy opened his eyes. Henry had gotten only a cursory glimpse of his son upon their arrival at Argentan, for John had been asleep, well swaddled in blankets. Their other children had all been fair; John’s dark hair came as a surprise, therefore, to his father. “Our first black sheep,” he said softly. “He looks like you, Eleanor.”