Captive Queen

47 Rouen, 1173

It was growing dark as they approached the late Empress’s palace outside the walls of Rouen. Eleanor had spent much of the journey imagining how Henry would receive her. Would it be in private, to spare her humiliation—and his? Or would he go so far as to parade her, his captive, before the whole court? She would not put it past him. Then again, Henry might not receive her at all. He might have her shut up in a dungeon, and not again see the light of day until she was brought to her judgment.

Her heart was racing as they approached the palace and the drawbridge was lowered. She was aware that she must look a sorry sight, travel-stained and no doubt haggard with apprehension, and that her gown stank with the sweat engendered by fear. Dear God, she prayed, give me the courage to face with dignity what may lie ahead!

Word of their coming had preceded them, and in the courtyard, one of the King’s captains, with four men-at-arms at his heels, came forward to relieve the sergeant and his men of their illustrious charge. When Eleanor dismounted, the captain bowed stiffly.

“My lady, you must come with me,” he said, and led her, his men following close behind, to the door to one of the towers in which guests were usually accommodated. Momentarily, she was thrown by this, but after they climbed the narrow spiral staircase to the topmost floor, she could see that the door to the single chamber had been fitted with a new lock. This, then, was to be her prison.

The captain opened the door and indicated that she should enter. She went warily, half expecting that Henry would be waiting inside for her. But there was only a woman standing there in the candlelight, a stocky, hatchet-faced body of indeterminate age, wearing a gray wool gown, a snowy wimple, and a hostile expression. Was this to be her gaoler? Her heart sank. Almost, she would have preferred to see Henry in a rage.

“Amaria is to be your personal servant, my lady,” the captain told her, his face impassive, his eyes fixed at a point beyond her shoulder.

“My guardian, you mean!” Eleanor retorted, finding her voice. She sensed the woman bristling.

“No,” he told her. “The King has appointed this woman to see to your needs. For your security, guards will immediately be posted outside this door, and at the outer door below. Amaria may come and go as she needs, to fetch necessaries, but I would advise you, my lady, not to be so foolish as to attempt to escape. It will go harder for you if you do.”

“I could not imagine that things could ever be any harder for me than they are now,” Eleanor retorted. “Tell me, do you know if I am to see the King, my lord?”

“I cannot say,” the captain replied.

“Is he here? I was told I was being brought here to see him.”

“I am not privy to the King’s plans, my lady,” the soldier said. “My orders are to keep you safely under lock and key.” So saying, he produced the key from a chain at his belt, shut the door behind him, and locked it.

Eleanor sighed in despair, then looked about her. The woman Amaria was watching her furtively with unfriendly eyes. No doubt she has been told I am some kind of monster, Eleanor thought.

The room was circular. A single tapestry, so dull with age that it could have come from the Conqueror’s old fortress in the city, graced one wall; she could not make out what it was supposed to depict, but there was a female figure at its center. Some wicked woman of legend, no doubt, she supposed. Henry might have chosen it himself, thinking it apt. There was a polished wooden chair, a stool, a table, a small chest carved with chevrons, an empty brazier, a pole on the wall for hanging clothing, and just the one wide tester bed, hung with heavy curtains of Lincoln green and made up with a comfortable enough bolster and striped cushions, clean bleached linen sheets, and a thick green wool counterpane lined with what looked like sable. But there was no sign of any pallet bed beneath it for Amaria, just two chamber pots where such a bed would normally be stored.

She turned to the woman. If their confinement here together in such close proximity was to be in any way bearable, then she had best get off on the right foot—but there was the problem of the bed to be addressed.

“Good evening, Amaria,” she began. “I suppose you are no happier to be here than I am, but for certes we must make the best of it. Tell me, what are the sleeping arrangements?”

The woman regarded her coldly, but replied civilly enough. “Lady, my orders are that I have to share the bed with you.”

Are they afraid I might seduce the guards while she’s asleep? Eleanor thought angrily. It was a petty humiliation, and one that offended her innate fastidiousness. What if the woman, whose accent betrayed her rustic origins, smelled unsavory or snored? Country people were used to whole families tucked up together in one bed, but Eleanor liked to choose her bedfellows, and, when alone, she liked to fantasize, and more … There would be no opportunity for that with Amaria in the bed.

But what could not be avoided must be endured. She supposed she had forfeited her rights to privacy and freedom of choice … or freedom of any kind, she thought sadly.

“Are you hungry, lady?” Amaria asked.

“No,” said Eleanor, “but a little wine would be welcome.”

Amaria rapped on the door, and when it opened, two gleaming spears could be seen across the doorway. That gave Eleanor a jolt, bringing home to her, more than anything else, the fact that she was a prisoner. She watched, dismayed, as the guards lifted the spears to let the serving woman through, then slammed and locked the door behind her. So this was how it was going to be from now on. She felt the walls closing in, stifling her …

But she must be strong, if she was to survive this—and practical. Grateful to be left to herself for a few precious moments, she quickly used the chamberpot, undressed down to her chemise—she must ask for more body linen, as a matter of urgency—then climbed into bed.

When Amaria returned with the wine, Eleanor downed it quickly, seeking oblivion, but it had no effect. She tried to sleep, yet sleep eluded her. She was tormented by thoughts of her sons in peril and what the morrow might bring. When Amaria climbed heavily into bed beside her, she shuddered with distaste, moved as far to the edge of the mattress as possible, and lay there weeping silently, her heart burdened with dread and sorrow.

The morning dawned bleakly, on all counts. Eleanor awoke to see a troubled gray sky through the window slit and, with a plummeting feeling in her breast, realized where she was. Beside her, Amaria still slept, her mouth slackly open, her breath fetid. Eleanor slid carefully out of bed and relieved herself as quietly as she could. It was going to be a problem, attending to the calls of nature and keeping her dignity as queen in the face of the serving woman’s unwelcome scrutiny. She could see herself enduring agonies of discomfort as she waited for Amaria to disappear on some necessary errand.

Some water and holland cloths had been left on the table. She washed herself as best she could and donned the black gown and veil. No other clothes had been provided. She must demand some, along with the body linen, as a matter of urgency.

Amaria woke up and rubbed her eyes as a church clock struck seven.

“Good morning,” Eleanor said, trying to be civil. Surely the woman must see that they each had to make an effort to make this bearable.

“Good morning,” Amaria said guardedly, getting up and pulling on her gray gown over her shift, with no thought for washing herself. Peasant! Eleanor thought. She watched the woman clear the table and empty the washing water out of the window into the courtyard below. “Gardez l’eau!” she cried.

“I will fetch something to break our fast,” she said then, and rapped on the door. Once she was gone, Eleanor fell to her knees and tried to pray; she had always heard mass before breakfast, but no provision appeared to have been made for her spiritual needs. That was something else she would have to ask for.

Prayer was difficult. The prospect of her imminent confrontation with Henry kept intruding, as did the memory of him threatening to kill her. When would he come, or summon her? Was he even here in Rouen?

She tried to focus her thoughts on Christ’s sufferings. It had been easy to commune with her Redeemer in the richly furnished royal chapels or in the peace of Fontevrault and other great abbeys; but here, in this cheerless room, in the hour of her greatest need, He seemed to be elusive.

She made herself dwell on the five points of prayer. Give thanks—but for what? The ways of God were indeed inscrutable. What could be His purpose in inflicting this misfortune and suffering on her? To say she was sorry? But to whom? To Henry, the husband whom she was bound to love and owed all wifely duty—who was also the man who had betrayed her again and again, and fatally failed to do the right thing by their sons? No, rather should she say sorry to Young Henry, to Richard, and to Geoffrey for failing them. Pray for others—God knew, when it came to her sons, and her other children, she did nothing but pray for them. And she prayed for her land of Aquitaine and its people, and for all Christ’s poor, and for those who needed succor in this miserable world.

Pray for oneself. Her heart swelled with need. Help me, help me! she could only plead, for she could not focus her thoughts sufficiently to enumerate her troubles. God knew them, though. She trusted that He would be merciful.

Listen to God, to what He is saying. She tried—how she tried!—to still her teeming thoughts in order to clear her mind and let Him in. But she could not do it, and so, if there had been a still, small voice attempting to speak to her, she did not hear it.

What she did hear was Amaria returning with a tray of bread, small cuts of meat, and ale. Eleanor was not hungry but forced herself to eat a little, as Amaria took the stool opposite and began stuffing the food unceremoniously into her mouth. Eleanor recoiled. Had the woman never been taught that mealtimes were not just occasions for satisfying the needs of the body, but for good manners, courtesy, conversation …

She tried. “Do you live near here?” she began.

Amaria stared at her coldly, chomping noisily on her bread.

“No, lady,” she said.

Eleanor tried again. “Do you have family nearby?”

“No.”

“Then where are you from?”

“Norfolk.”

“So what are you doing in Normandy?” Eleanor’s natural inquisitiveness was beginning to assert itself.

“My husband were one of the Lord King’s captains, and went with him everywhere. I missed my man, so I got a post as a laundress in the King’s household, so as I could travel with him.”

“Is he here with you, your husband?”

“He be dead,” came the flat reply.

“I am sorry to hear that,” Eleanor said kindly. “Have you been a widow long?”

“Three months. Anyway, what’s this to you, lady?”

“I just thought that if we are to bear each other company all the time, we might try to get along in a friendly manner, so that it will be more pleasant for us both.”

“For you, you mean.” There was contempt in the rustic voice.

“Of course. But you would benefit too.”

There was a pause as Amaria thought about this. “I’m not supposed to talk much to you, lady,” she said, “just to see to your needs.”

“I will not ask you to talk about why I am here,” Eleanor promised. “Just about yourself and matters of general interest. I am interested to know how you came to be in attendance on me.”

“When the Lady Alice de Porhoët was here as hostage, my husband had charge of her, and I helped look after her. That were some years back, but since then I’ve acted as waiting woman to other visiting ladies, on occasion.”

“Were some of them hostages, like the Lady Alice?”

“I don’t know. All I were told was that I had given satisfaction and that the Lord King were pleased with me. I reckoned that were why I were sent for the other day and told as I was to have charge of you, lady.”

“Did they tell you why I am here?” Eleanor asked.

“No, just that you were the King’s prisoner.”

“But you have heard rumors, yes?”

The surly look was back, the woman’s lips pursed. “I can’t talk about that.”

“Fair enough,” Eleanor said evenly, anxious not to kill off this fragile rapport before it had gone beyond the budding stage. “Tell me, do you have children?”

“I have the one boy, Mark, who’s twelve. He be in the cathedral school at Canterbury. He’s a clever boy. Going into the Church.” Amaria’s eyes suddenly softened with pride and she looked quite different. Eleanor could even see that she might have been pretty once.

“You must be so proud of him,” she said. “I am a mother too, so I understand how you must feel. Our children are the most important thing in the world, aren’t they?” She wondered if Amaria was astute enough to get the message she was trying to put across, if the woman realized that she was trying to tell her that whatever she had done, it had been for her sons.

Amaria was regarding her with a puzzled but concerned frown, but quickly looked away when Eleanor smiled hopefully at her. “I must clear these things,” she said, and began piling up the breakfast clutter.

“I need some necessaries,” Eleanor said.

“In the chest,” Amaria said. Eleanor knelt, lifted the lid, and found a pile of clean clouts for the monthly courses that, in her, had long since ceased, fresh chemises, headrails, and hose, all strewn with fresh herbs, and two gowns, one of Lincoln green, the other of dark blue woolen cloth, both plain and serviceable. Nothing regal or grand here—being stripped of the trappings of her rank was clearly all part of her punishment. She wondered, with sinking fear, which gown she would wear to her execution.

“I can see that you had a hand in preparing these,” she said appreciatively to Amaria. “Thank you.” The woman looked nonplussed; plainly, she did not know what to make of her queen. Maybe she had been expecting a monster, Eleanor thought, and has been surprised to find that I am a creature of flesh and blood much as she is—and that I love my sons as much as she clearly loves hers. That, at least, was something upon which she could build.

“There is one other thing,” she said, getting to her feet. “I should be grateful to have the consolation of faith in this my ordeal. Might it be possible for a priest to be sent to me?”

“I will ask, lady,” Amaria said, and rapped again on the door.

She was back within a quarter of an hour. “Father Hugh will come tomorrow morning to hear your confession and say mass,” she told Eleanor. Already her manner was warmer.

As Amaria busied herself with making the bed, Eleanor sat down in the single chair and wondered what on earth she was going to do during the long hours that stretched ahead. She desperately needed something to occupy her, to keep her mind from wandering down fearful paths. But there were none of the things with which she was used to passing the time: no books, no musical instruments, no embroidery, no ladies to challenge with games of chess or riddles—and, of course, no possibility of riding out for the hunt, or even walking in the gardens. Her imprisonment, although it was not as bad as she had anticipated, felt suffocating; she could not bear it a moment longer.

But she must. She must do something.

“Tell me, Amaria, how do you like to pass the time?”

“I sew,” the woman said. “And I used to like tending my little garden, but the cottage is gone now. No need for me to keep it on.”

“Do you think I could help with some sewing?” Eleanor asked. “I have nothing to do.”

“There’s a pile of sheets need turning,” Amaria said.

“Then let’s set to,” Eleanor said gratefully.

“I’ll fetch them.” The woman’s face creased into what could have passed for a smile. “Strikes me I never thought I’d see the day when I’d be sitting mending sheets with the Queen of England!”

It was the afternoon of the second day, and the pile of sheets seemed only a fraction lower than on the previous morning. Eleanor was sitting there wishing that she had something more mentally stimulating to take her mind off her predicament, but was thankful that at least Amaria had grown, if not exactly friendly, then more amiable. They had managed to keep a steady conversation going, touching on food, childbirth, travel, and a host of other mundane things. Eleanor was desperate to confide in the woman, but dared not risk compromising the delicate accord between them. But she needed to unburden her fears to someone. The priest had been no good; he was an old man, doddery and deaf, and heard her whispered confession with sage weariness, then mumbled some undemanding penance. She had performed it immediately, reciting her Hail Marys as she bent to her needle. It was a tough challenge, she realized, sitting here sewing with nothing else to distract her fevered mind, and thinking she might go mad.

Yet she was not to fret in idleness for long. Suddenly, the door opened and the captain of the guard entered.

“Make ready, lady, the King comes this way,” he announced, then backed out of the door. “You, woman, follow me,” he said to Amaria, and then Eleanor found herself alone, facing her destiny. Dread filled her soul as she heard Henry’s spurs clinking at a brisk rate up the stairs, then the spears parted once more and he burst into the room, a portly figure in his customary plain hunting gear, his bull head thrust forward, his red curls and beard threaded with iron gray, his eyes icy with fury and hatred. Eleanor took one look at him and knew this was not going to be easy. Had she ever hoped it would be?

She curtsied and bent her head, observing the proper courtesies. Of course, it might have been more politic to kneel, or prostrate herself, as a supplicant, but she was not the one at fault here, she reminded herself. Not that maintaining that position would help her, she knew, but she could not accept that she was in the wrong.

“There are no words to describe what I think of you,” Henry growled without preamble. She looked up, but he would not meet her steady, hostile gaze. “This is the bitterest betrayal of my whole life,” he declared, his face puce with anger and distress.

“There was no reasoning with you,” Eleanor said evenly. “You could have seen it coming. God knows, I tried to warn you what might happen if you persisted in your unjust treatment of our sons. Did you really expect me, as their mother, to stand by and let you do it?”

“Do you know what you have done?” Henry snarled. “Half of Europe is up in arms against me, and that includes your whoreson vassals of Aquitaine! They make this quarrel their excuse to rise in protest at what they like to call my oppressive rule.”

“Look to yourself, Henry!” Eleanor flung back. “Look who is really to blame.”

“Don’t try to excuse your conduct,” he spat. “You have offended grievously, and you are trying to shift the blame on others. Thanks to you and your sons, my kingdom is under threat; why, I could even lose my crown! Is that the act of a dutiful and loyal wife? It is outrageous, beyond belief! I tell you, Eleanor, you could look at all the old chronicles and find numerous examples of sons rising up against their father, but none of a queen rebelling against her husband. You will make me the pity and laughingstock of Christendom. They are even saying that this is God’s punishment on me for entering into an incestuous marriage. Incestuous? Diabolic, more like!”

He was beside himself; there could be no reasoning with him, so it was not even worth trying.

“What are you going to do?” she challenged, trying to keep her voice steady. “Are you going to put me on trial, to be judged by your twelve good men and true?”

He glared at her. “By rights, I should have you hanged as the traitor you are. But count yourself extremely fortunate that I have no wish to parade my shame—or yours—in public. I have made no announcement of your arrest, nor do I intend to proclaim your disaffection. I want no more scandal, as you have caused scandal and damage enough. The whole of Europe will no doubt be whispering of it by now—I hope you realize that. God, Eleanor, did you really want to hurt me so much?”

“Hurt you?” she echoed. She was safe, she was safe—and could therefore speak out. “I think the boot was rather on the other foot. What of all your women over the years, all the times you betrayed me? What of your foolish thralldom to Becket, on whom your love was wasted, and for whose counsel you forsook mine? What of the way you rode roughshod over my advice on how to rule my domains, with consequences you now have to deal with? And, worst of all, what of the injustice you have shown our sons?”

“I never realized you hated me so much,” Henry said, his face working in rage and self-pity. “By the eyes of God, I have been nourishing a viper in my bosom!”

“I loved you!” Eleanor cried. “But you destroyed that love, and I had to watch you do it. I can never tell you how deeply you have injured me. All these years …”

She buried her face in her hands and began to sob, all the pent-up tension and fear of the last days finding its release in a flood of tears. “Alas, it is too late for us!” she wailed.

“None of my so-called betrayals justifies your treachery,” Henry said brutally.

“So punish me!” she screamed, wanting there to be an end to this horrible wrangling between them, wanting to hurt him where he would feel the most pain. “Do your worst. Ask yourself how deep my betrayal went! Put me to death, and then spend the rest of your life wondering.”

Henry thrust his face into hers. “What do you mean by that?” he demanded, his tone menacing.

“Ah, so you do care!” Eleanor pounced. Henry gripped her arms.

“Tell me!” he barked. “Have you been playing the whore, Eleanor?”

“No more than Fair Rosamund has, or the Lady of Akeny, or Rohese de Clare, or any of the legions of other sluts you have bedded, Henry!”

“You will tell me!” he roared.

“And have you make war on a great lord?” She was enjoying having her revenge, in a bitter sort of way; as if it was her last chance to do so, as if it no longer mattered what she said or did.

“Who was he?” Henry was beside himself. “Tell me!”

“Ah! You’ll just have to keep guessing—and wondering if I found him a better man than you!”

The taunt went home. Henry was almost foaming at the mouth. In a moment he would be thrashing on the floor, chewing the rushes.

“Oh, but he was a well-endowed stallion!” she baited him.

“You’ve done it for yourself now,” he seethed, baring his teeth.

“So what will you do to me? Hang me now?”

“No. That would be too easy for you.” His breath was coming in short pants. He was almost out of control. “You must hate being shut up here. It’s true, isn’t it? I can see from your face. Well, my faithless lady, I’m going to leave you locked up to think on your sins while I deal with the god-awful mess you have caused. And, Eleanor,” Henry added, his bloodshot eyes narrowing, “I hope you rot here.”

His pronouncement almost winded her; all sense of triumph fleeing. He had the power, she did not. It was as simple as that. She was to be confined here, in this miserable room, for God knew how long. The prospect was grim, ghastly … She could not breathe, she was stifling. Shut up, imprisoned, never to walk in God’s fresh air, never to smell the scent of growing flowers, never to hunt, to feel the wind in her hair, the thrill of the chase. Cut off from her children; exiled from her beloved Aquitaine. It was too cruel a punishment. It would kill her. Already the world was dimming …

As Eleanor collapsed to the floor in a faint, Henry looked down pitilessly on her and barked for her servant.

“Lay her on the bed,” he commanded Amaria as he flung himself out of the room, desperate to be gone. “She’ll come round soon. Or she’s faking it, which wouldn’t surprise me.”

But Eleanor wasn’t faking it. For a few blissful moments she was dead to the world, unaware of the darkness and oblivion closing around her.

48 Barfleur, the English Channel, and Southampton, 1174

The Queen had been suffering her terrible imprisonment for more than a year when the summons came for her to be conducted to the King at Barfleur on the Norman coast.

“The King has summoned me?” Eleanor repeated incredulously, when the captain of the guard informed her of his instructions.

“Make ready,” he told Amaria, ignoring the Queen’s question.

She could not believe it. The dragging months of her confinement had been the worst time of her life; she had thought they would never end, that Henry meant to keep her immured here forever. She had not seen him since that catastrophic day when he condemned her to be shut up here, nor had there been any message from him. It had been as if she were dead and buried—as well she might be, she had thought bitterly. It had changed her, this year of extreme trial; it made her feel as if she had suddenly become anonymous, as if the living, breathing entity that was Queen Eleanor had ceased to exist and that in her place there was only a barely existing shell of the woman she had once been. She felt demoralized and isolated, starved of lively conversation and of all the things that had made life pleasant and joyful.

For a long time she had burned with resentment at the injustice of her punishment, and with hatred for Henry, fanning the flames with thoughts of vengeance, and what if … Yet after a while she discovered that it was best not to nurture her grievances, unless she wanted them to destroy her. That was when she had learned a kind of acceptance, was able to adapt to her circumstances and take pleasure in small, everyday things, and to shut her mind to thoughts of what could or should have been. The worst of it had been not knowing when—or if—she would ever be free.

But now, at long last, Henry had sent for her. Did this mean that he had made peace with his sons, and that they had insisted on her liberation? God, let it be so! she prayed.

Two of the most awful aspects of her captivity had been not receiving any news of or communications from her children, and being cut off from the rest of humanity. She missed her sons dreadfully, more than she could ever have expected; she could not bear even to think of her beloved Richard. It was torture to her, not knowing if he was safe or well. Would Henry even inform her if he had died? She could not quite bring herself to believe that he would not, but the Henry who had shut her up here was a vengeful man; he was no longer the idealistic prince she had married, but a king who cared nothing for the sensibilities and opinions of others. So she agonized over her sons, fearing that their father might have turned them against her, or that they were wounded, even dead in the fighting, and no one had told her. But surely if that had been the case, she would have known it in her bones, or at least picked up some hint of it from Amaria.

She knew virtually nothing of what had been going on in the world beyond her window, just the odd bit of information that she had been able to glean or extract from the waiting woman. Against all her expectations, Amaria and she had become almost friends during the months of living in close proximity to each other; it could not have been otherwise, or they would both have been at each other’s throats. Yet there remained some unbridgeable distance between them, for it soon became clear that Amaria was an uneducated woman of few words and fewer ideas. It was also plain that, however much Amaria might privately sympathize with her mistress, she was in fear of her superiors and the King, and therefore determined to obey her orders to the letter, refusing to discuss with Eleanor anything beyond domestic and mundane subjects. And Eleanor was, of course, the Queen, a fact of which Amaria was still slightly in awe.

Amaria’s initial hostility had quickly evaporated, Eleanor was quick to realize, yet to begin with, she had embarked on her task with the feudal peasant’s resentment toward those of higher rank, and the woman’s inverted snobbery had made her suspicious from the first, especially after she heard gossip about what the Queen was supposed to have done. But Eleanor had subtly won her around, not by overtly protesting her innocence, as many prisoners in her situation might have, but by letting slip the odd, telling remark, or occasionally betraying the depths of her anguish for her sons; and by and by Amaria had come to realize that the situation was far more complex than she had at first surmised.

And Amaria, to her astonishment, soon found herself liking the Queen, very much indeed. So now she was pleased for Eleanor that the King had summoned her, although she felt a touch anxious that her services would no longer be required once the Queen was set free. She had served her mistress well, and with as much kindness as she dared—there were now four books, a chess set, a lyre, and three more dresses in the overflowing chest—but my lady might not wish in the future to be reminded of this dark period in her life, or of the servant who had shared it with her.

“Do not look so worried, Amaria,” Eleanor said, catching her mood. “When I am restored to court, I promise you I will make you one of my waiting women. I shall always be grateful for your kindly treatment of me in this my prison.”

Dared she let her heart sing at the prospect of freedom? She kept looking at the slit of blue sky, thinking that she would soon be out in the world again and able to enjoy the rest of the summer. But what did Henry really intend? After all that had passed between them, he surely could not want her to live with him again as his wife. If he meant to continue as before, with her ruling Aquitaine and him the rest of his empire, then he would not be summoning her to Barfleur. Barfleur was one of the ports from which they had often taken ship for England. It was years since Eleanor had seen England. For her, England was now and forever associated with that terrible visit to Woodstock and the miserable birth of John that followed it.

But if Henry wanted a reconciliation of sorts, and for her to accompany him to England as his queen, then so be it. She would go, and meekly do as she was bid—and make the best of it, avoiding all occasion for conflict. Anything would be preferable to this. Her heart leaped at the possibility that she might see her sons again soon.

Watching the Queen standing at the window, deep in thought, Amaria reflected sadly that these months of confinement had aged her. Eleanor was fifty-two, and looked it. The red in her graying hair had faded to the color of straw and gone thin on the skull; her eyes and the corners of her mouth were circled by fine lines; her skin had paled through lack of exposure to sunlight. Yet she retained—and always would—that exquisite bone structure that lent her her peculiar beauty. The King would find his wife changed, but still, despite everything, attractive.

Eleanor’s spirits sank rapidly when she saw that she was to be accompanied by a heavily armed escort. There could be no doubt that Henry meant for her to travel as a prisoner, under guard. Unless he was bent on making some dramatic gesture such as liberating her before the eyes of their sons, she had to face the fact that her future still looked bleak. She toyed feverishly with the idea of making a dramatic personal appeal to Henry, of debasing herself before him and promising anything—anything—to regain her freedom.

It felt strange to be on horseback again; she was stiff and out of condition, she realized. But expert rider that she had been all her life, she soon became acclimatized to being back in the saddle. Yet her pleasure in once more feeling the heat of the sun and the soft breath of the July breeze was subsumed by her inner dread and bleak disappointment. She could take no pleasure in the flowers that bedecked the hedgerows, the green fields peopled by villeins stripped to the waist and singing as they toiled on their strips, the sparkling rivers and streams, or the rich, golden countryside in all its summer beauty. It was as if her life was being held in suspension until her fate had been revealed to her.

As they rode into Barfleur, Eleanor could see a great fleet of at least forty ships waiting in the harbor. So they were bound for England, as she had anticipated. But why so many ships? Then she saw a great company of soldiers waiting to board some of the vessels anchored at the farther end of the quay. So Henry was taking an army with him. Surely he could not still be at war? She began to feel distinctly uneasy.

Her escort led her past the squat fortified church tower where she had once waited with Henry for a tempest to cease, so that he could cross to England and claim his kingdom. That had been all of twenty years ago. Where had the time gone? And look where it had brought them! But there was no leisure to reflect, as the captain was leading them toward the quayside, where she could see a large gathering of people, many of them well-dressed women, waiting while their baggage was stowed on board the flagship. As she drew nearer, she recognized many familiar faces.

There was Henry, his face weather-beaten and tanned, standing with his hand on the shoulder of a stocky boy with dark, copper-gold curls. It was John, grown up fast, she realized with a jolt, looking around anxiously for his older brothers. But there was no sign of them. In fact, it looked as if Henry had rounded up all the females in his family. She caught her breath as she espied her daughter Joanna, pretty as a partridge, looking apprehensively in her mother’s direction; it was such a joy to see Joanna again; she hoped that her daughter did not think ill of her, that Henry had not poisoned her young mind with calumnies.

There was Queen Marguerite, sixteen now, and the living image of Louis; Alys, her younger sister, Richard’s betrothed, a willowy brunette who must now be about fourteen, and surely ripe for marriage. The insufferable Constance was staring at her with undisguised contempt; already, even at twelve years old, she was posing provocatively, her clinging white bliaut accentuating every detail of her wide, curvaceous hips and small breasts; unlike most girls, she kept her hair cropped short, which gave her an elfin appearance, but did not, in Eleanor’s opinion, look attractive or suit her. But Constance always was one to be different and draw attention to herself. Gentle Alice of Maurienne stood with her, casting wistful glances at the oblivious John, her betrothed, and watching over them all was the King’s bastard sister, Emma of Anjou, a capable matron in widow’s garb who looked the image of her father, Count Geoffrey. Eleanor supposed that she had been summoned by her brother to take the place of the mother who had been shut up in prison. A little way off a cluster of noble girls and ladies chattered excitedly; no doubt they had been summoned to attend on all the King’s womenfolk.

As the Queen’s escort dismounted, the captain held Eleanor’s bridle as she climbed off her horse. The King broke away from his party and walked slowly toward them, his face impassive. Eleanor curtsied formally, then rose in trepidation to face him. He looked at her blankly, with no trace of emotion.

“I will not say you are welcome, Eleanor,” he began, his voice husky. “You’d know I didn’t mean it. But I trust you had a good journey.”

“Why have you summoned me, my lord?” she asked. There was no point in continuing with the pleasantries, even though everyone was watching them with avid interest.

“I am taking you—and these young ladies—to England. Thanks to your efforts, we are still at war.” He glared at her. “Even the Scots are joining the fray now, as if Louis and our beloved sons are not making enough mischief. They are all threatening England with invasion, and my justiciar there is bombarding me with appeals for help. No doubt it pleases you to hear that, madame.”

Eleanor could not ignore the barb. “I am very sorry for your trouble,” she said, “but you only brought it upon yourself.”

“So you had nothing to do with it?” he sneered, his manner icy.

“I never incited anyone to invade England. And I don’t see how my presence there will help your cause.”

Henry grinned at her nastily. “Did you think I would leave you in Rouen, with war breaking out on all fronts, and Paris not that far off? One of our sons—nay, Louis himself, possibly—might take it into his head to free you and exploit once more your treacherous heart. I’m not a fool, Eleanor. You are going to a more secure prison in England, where you can stay out of trouble.”

It was as if a dead weight were pressing on her chest. She feared she might faint again, as she had when he last told her what her fate was to be. To have her hopes of freedom suddenly raised and then as speedily dashed was devastating. But she managed to maintain her composure.

“Where are you sending me?”

“I am thinking about it. Where would you least like to go?”

She almost said Woodstock, and stopped herself in time. Any prison, however grim and gloomy, would be preferable.

“While my sons are in peril, I care not where I go,” she answered. “But what of these young girls, their wives?”

“They will be well looked after. I am sending Marguerite, Constance, and Alys to Marlborough Castle, as hostages for the good behavior of their lords and King Louis. My sister will have the care of them.”

“And Joanna and John?”

“Joanna goes with them. John stays with me from now on. Of all my sons, he is the only true one.” Henry’s face had softened at the mention of the youngest of his brood.

“Might I be permitted to embrace my children?” she ventured.

“You weren’t worried about embracing them when you packed them off to Fontevrault,” Henry retorted.

“You packed them off there,” she threw back.

“Be honest, Eleanor: you couldn’t wait to see the back of John, baby that he was.”

She was taken aback. “It is another thing for which I have you to blame,” she accused him.

“Me? What have I got to do with it?”

“It’s a long story, and you would never understand it,” Eleanor said wearily.

Henry shook his head in exasperation. “Eleanor, I don’t have time for this. We must board our ship soon, to catch the tide. Tell your woman to bring your gear.”

It was 1154 all over again, except that one would not have expected the voyage to be so rough in July. As soon as they put to sea, the waves swelled, heaving so violently that the ship was pitched and tossed to within a timber’s breadth of breaking up.

The women, Eleanor included, were all confined to a cabin in the forecastle; some were seasick, most were very frightened. Nine-year-old Joanna crept warily to her mother’s side and clung to her.

“There, there, sweeting,” Eleanor murmured, glad beyond measure to be able to embrace her child, and grateful for this small blessing amid all the fear and misery. But when she tried to comfort the wailing Constance, the girl shook her off rudely. Eleanor recoiled; she would do no more for Constance, she vowed.

Outside, they could hear the sailors shouting warnings. The rain came, pattering furiously against the wooden walls and roof. The terrible motion of the waves was relentless. Eleanor tried to pray but could not focus her mind. Did she really want God to spare her? Would it not be best for everyone, herself included, if she drowned and sank to the bottom of the sea?

Then they could hear the King’s voice, roaring above the storm, addressing the ship’s company: “If the Lord in His mercy has ordained that peace will be restored when I arrive in England, then may He grant me a safe landing. But if He has decided to visit my kingdom with a rod, may it never be my fortune to reach the shores of my country!”

God was merciful. Soon afterward, the sea calmed and they sighted Southampton by nightfall. But Henry had less mercy than his Maker. As soon as they disembarked, and the royal party had been given bread and fresh water for their saddlebags to stay them on the journey, he turned to Eleanor, whom he had contrived until now to ignore, and bade her walk a little way off with him.

“I am for Canterbury, to do my penance at last at the tomb of the holy blissful martyr, as they now call my late lamented Thomas,” he told her. “You did know that he had been made a saint?”

She did. She experienced a wicked pleasure at the thought of the monks of Canterbury lashing Henry’s back; God knew, he deserved it, and not just for his unwitting part in Becket’s murder!

“Yes,” she replied. “That was before you locked me up.”

He let that pass, his mind racing ahead. “I have decided to send you under guard to Sarum Castle, where you will remain during my pleasure. Be clear, Eleanor, that this is your punishment for jeopardizing my crown—and for willfully destroying our marriage.”

“For that, you have only yourself to blame!” she cried, stung to anger.

“All the world condemns you as a traitor to your lord and king, Eleanor. You should hear what they say about you! Do you think that, after what you did, I could ever trust you again?”

“Trust is a mutual thing,” she said bitterly. “You broke mine years before. Your contribution to our marriage was one long betrayal! You were destroying it long before I came out in support of our sons.”

He shrugged. “Men sow their wild oats. What makes you think that you were so special among wives that you should expect fidelity? You had my love, God knows—and you killed it.”

“Ah, but that was after Rosamund had stolen that love. You didn’t love me anymore; you loved her—you told me so yourself. It was quite affecting!” She spoke the words with scorn, but deep inside the wounds were yet tender: she could still feel the pain. And the prospect of her continuing imprisonment was terrible to her. “Henry, how long do you mean to keep me shut up?”

He had been about to make some tart response to her remark about Rosamund but her sudden changing of the subject put that out of his mind. He wanted to hurt her, wanted to pay her back for the long and bitter year of struggle, strife, and hard fighting for which she, in part, was responsible.

“For as long as you live!” he said venomously.

49 Sarum, Wiltshire, 1175

The forbidding stone keep of Sarum sat solid and foursquare in a windswept position on a grassy mound atop a hill. The hill was in fact an Iron-Age fort, but no one knew much about “the old ones” who had built and occupied it. There were vague rumors that those humps on the top of various hills in the vicinity were their burial mounds, but no one wanted to go near them for fear of the evil shades that might be lurking there, protecting the dead. Later, the site had been colonized by the Romans; bits of masonry and pottery surfaced in the soil from time to time, and once, a fragment of a mosaic pavement, which had the town dwellers shaking their heads and murmuring about heathen spirits. Sarum—or Salisberie, as some now liked to call it—was the source of many legends, and the latest ones were already in the course of being embroidered from the gossip about the Queen of England, who was shut up in the castle.

Nobody had seen her, although she had been there for many moons. She had arrived in secret, at dead of night, and—rumor had it—was kept locked in a secret chamber high in the gloomy keep. Why she was there, no one knew for sure, so discreetly had the business been handled, but the word in the taverns was that she had somehow been responsible for the terrible wars that had raged in England and over the sea for the past year and more. A ferocious conflict it had been, between the King and his sons, who had throughout been abetted by the King of France—and God knew, the French were never to be trusted. It had been an unnatural war, with son against father, husband against wife—if rumor spoke truth. But what could you expect, when the King and all who were of his blood were descended from the Devil?

It was over now, the war, and the quarrel. That was all thanks to St. Thomas the Martyr! No sooner had King Henry done penance at Canterbury for his part in the saint’s wicked murder, than—God be praised—the holy, blissful Becket had won for him a victory against the Scots. The Scottish King, William the Lyon, had been taken prisoner, even as King Henry lay smarting from his stripes, a sure sign of Heaven’s forgiveness and approval. With God and St. Thomas as his allies, Henry FitzEmpress had been seen to be invincible; and King Louis had taken fright and made the Young King and his brothers call off their invasion—the news had been all over the marketplace, brought by carriers in their carts and a man with a dancing bear, lately come from London.

Next the townsfolk heard King Henry had returned to Normandy in triumph, the craven French King had sued for peace, and the English princes had made their submission, on their knees, to their father, who had given them the kiss of peace. A treaty had been signed, and they promised never again to rise against him. My, there had been such a ringing of bells throughout the land in celebration as never before!

Eleanor had heard the bells, clanging deafeningly from the tower of the half-built cathedral that stood, dark and squat like a crouching beast, on the hill beneath the castle mound. She knew those bells must betoken something momentous, some great victory—but whose? Had Henry triumphed over their sons at last? Or had he been defeated, and—joy of joys—would her sons soon come to free her?

Her heart ached for freedom. This was a bleak, inhospitable place—and a dirty one, for water was scarce. Isolated on its hill, and surrounded by strong walls and a deep, wooded ditch, Sarum was cut off from most civilized amenities. And the wind! It roared. Amaria had told her that in the cathedral a clerk could not even hear the man next to him singing. Even in summer the blasts whipped and whistled around the castle and its battlements, rattling doors and shutters; in winter the wind came in gales, lashing the walls and howling mercilessly through the window slits, repeatedly extinguishing the fires they tried to keep blazing in the inadequate braziers. Eleanor’s first winter here had been a martyrdom. She had been so cold, colder than ever before in her life. She had suffered miseries with chilblains, and could only thank God that she had not yet fallen victim to the rheumatism that was chronic in this benighted place.

Otherwise she had to admit that she had little cause to complain. Far from being immured in a dank prison, as the townsfolk imagined, she was housed and served as befit a queen. The chambers assigned to her were no worse than those in her palaces, and equipped with luxuries such as the cushions and rich hangings to which she was accustomed. That had been a welcome surprise until she realized that it betokened the permanence of her confinement. All the same, it was good to enjoy once more the privileges of her rank, even if she was deprived of her freedom. She was served reasonable fare, on silver plates, and the good wines of Bordeaux in jeweled goblets. She had even been provided with illuminated books from the treasury at Winchester, an ivory chess set, and the finest silks for her embroidery. For all this, though, the allowance allocated by the King for her household was small, and did not allow for the employment of more than the one maid.

She was grateful that Amaria had been allowed to accompany her to Sarum, yet exasperated that they were still required to share the same bed. At least she had tactfully succeeded in educating Amaria in the necessity of daily washing herself and changing her body linen, but all the same, they faced an uphill struggle to maintain hygiene in the face of the meager supply of water, and the sometimes brackish mess that passed for it in their washing bowl. She never ceased complaining that they were forced to go about smelling of damp weeds.

Her custodians were men of standing, much trusted by the King: the lawyer and diplomat, Ranulf Glanville, was the very man who had captured the Scottish King the previous year. He told her so himself: it was one of the few items of news she had been permitted to receive. Glanville was an energetic, versatile man, wise and well spoken. He had assisted Henry in his legal reforms, and even written a treatise on the laws and customs of England. Eleanor liked him, for all she suspected that his fidelity to the King precluded him from entirely approving of her, and she had early on taken the initiative in inviting him to dine with her. To her surprise, Glanville readily accepted, and his presence at her table was now a regular arrangement. Their lively and witty conversation, which never, by unspoken mutual consent, strayed to contentious matters, helped considerably to enliven the dreary monotony of her days.

Her other custodian—she was impressed to find that Henry had deemed two necessary to keep her under lock and key—was one of the royal chamberlains, Ralph FitzStephen. He was more taciturn than Glanville, yet although he never scanted his respect toward her, she knew he was wary of her, and she could not warm to him. She knew instinctively that if she wanted any favors, it was Glanville whom she should approach. And indeed, he did his best for her. He allowed her to take the air on the battlements, when the wind permitted; otherwise, it was dangerous to go up there, and she—and the guards who had to accompany her—would run a very real risk of being swept over the parapet if they defied the elements.

When the weather was clement, she would climb to her high eyrie and gaze out across the mighty ramparts and the teeming, overpopulated town they protected to the vast sweep of the Avon Valley beyond, with its gentle hills that led to the eastern edge of the New Forest, invisible in the far distance. Then she would turn and look wistfully southward, where—hundreds of miles distant—lay Aquitaine. It pained her to think of the land of her birth, which she feared she might well never see again, yet her heart was drawn toward it inexorably. In her mind, she often traveled the hidden, lushly wooded valleys, the sundrenched hilltops and narrow gorges, and feasted her eyes once more on the mighty castles on their craggy heights, the mellow stone churches and pretty villages, the ranks of vines, and the glittering rivers. Aquitaine was a constant ache in her heart.

Did her people feel grief and anger at the cruel way in which their duchess had been treated? Her imprisonment must have had an unwelcome and brutal impact on their lives, for Henry, in the wake of the war that—she guessed—had almost succeeded in toppling him from his throne, would not scruple to lay his heavy hand of authority on his domains. (No one had thought fit to tell her that Richard now sat in her place in Poitiers, accepted by her subjects and acclaimed as the doughty warrior he had proved himself to be. Richard, who was there at Henry’s command, and subject to his vigilance … )

Perched in her lofty refuge, her useless veil in her hand, ignoring the wind whipping the tendrils that had escaped from her plaits, and with her face pressed forlornly against the rough stone of the crenellations as she stared fixedly into the distance, Eleanor had often reflected that the prophecies had been misleading. The “King of the North Wind”—that was Henry—still wielded his scepter over Aquitaine, but the “Eagle of the Broken Covenant”—that had to be herself; she was beginning to understand its meaning now—had yet to discover why she should especially rejoice in her third nesting. The cubs had awakened, roared loud, as Merlin long ago predicted; but the only person who remained loaded with chains, as the seer had described, was their mother.

Her inner torment was ceaseless. Her harp was turned to mourning, she told herself, reverting in her distress to the language of the troubadours, on which she had been reared. “My flute sounds the note of affliction; my songs are turned to lamentations,” she grieved.

There was only Amaria to whom she could unburden herself, although Amaria was still scared of her superiors, and usually just sat and listened, clucking sympathetically here and there.

“I had a royal liberty!” Eleanor told her, over and over again; she was remorseless with herself. “I lived richly, I took pleasure in the company of my women and delighted in my music. I was a queen with two crowns! I had everything. But now I am consumed with sorrows—my heart is ravaged with tears. I cry out unanswered!”

Then she would grow defiant, her old spirit burgeoning. “Never fear, I will not cease to cry!” she assured Amaria. “I will not weary; I will raise my voice like a trumpet, so that it may reach the ears of my sons. They will deliver me!”

Hearing the bells, her breast was filled with hope surging anew, and she was in a ferment, desperate to know what they betokened. She could not sit, but got up and paced about, up and down, up and down the chamber, hugging herself tightly, as Amaria watched her, dismay all over her face. She had been in the cathedral this morning; she had gone, as she often did, to be shriven, not liking that snooty chaplain charged with the cure of the Queen’s soul. And she had heard of the King’s victory. But, as usual, she forbore to say anything of what she heard beyond these walls.

Eleanor was well on the way to convincing herself that Richard and the Young King—and perhaps even Geoffrey—were coming to free her. “The day of my deliverance is here, I know it!” she breathed. “And then I shall come again to dwell in my native land. Please, O God, let it be so!” Amaria looked away, unable to bear much more of this.

The door to the chamber opened. Ranulf Glanville stood there, his attractively craggy, clever face wearing a look of jubilation. For one blissful moment Eleanor thought he was going to tell her that she was free. She even got as far as thinking that she would be bountiful toward him when she was restored to power, for he had been a considerate gaoler … But with his first words her hopes were savagely dashed.

“My lady, I am commanded by the King to inform you that your sons have submitted to his authority, and that King Louis has conceded defeat. The bells you can hear are being rung in celebration of the peace that has been agreed. They are being sounded everywhere, for the whole of England rejoices!”

Eleanor sank down into a chair, feeling as if she had been winded. She could not speak, so great was her disappointment.

Glanville was looking at her, not unsympathetically. No fool, he would have guessed that she might misunderstand the reason for the rejoicings.

“Are you able to give me news of my sons?” she managed to ask.

“I am at liberty to say that the breach between them and the King has been healed; he has excused their treason on account of their youth. In the circumstances, the King has been very generous, although I am not allowed to discuss the terms of the peace settlement with you, my lady. What I can say is that, out of affection and love for the princes, he has proclaimed a general amnesty.”

Eleanor rose to her feet, hope springing again.

“So I am to be freed after all?” she asked eagerly.

“No, my lady, I am afraid not.” Glanville’s face was pained.

Eleanor almost reeled at his words, as did Amaria, who burst into noisy tears. This was altogether too much to bear.

“Then how can it be a general amnesty, if I am excluded?” Eleanor shrilled.

Glanville looked uncomfortable. Clearly, he was debating with himself how much he dared say to her. “I am probably exceeding my orders,” he said, “but the King made known his belief that his sons had been led astray by troublemakers. He named the King of France … and yourself.”

Of course. Someone had to take the blame and be punished. Henry needed his sons: they were his heirs, although she suspected that he had conceded them even less than before as the price of making peace. It was politic, indeed necessary, to restore good relations with them as soon as possible. But for that to happen, there had to be a scapegoat, someone at whom people could point a finger and think: she was the evil genius behind their rebellion. They were not to blame.

She could never, in her worst nightmares, have envisaged that Henry could be so vengeful.

——

The King had triumphed, and for a time the talk in the marketplace and inns of Sarum was all of that. Good King Henry, the people called him, forgetting their horror at the murder of Becket and how they had vilified him then. All that mattered to them now was that he had been victorious against his enemies, as kings should be. Some could remember the trials of the weak Stephen’s reign, and knew how to appreciate a strong ruler like this one. For weeks the taverns resonated with the sound of ballads bawled tunelessly in honor of the King’s real—and imagined—exploits.

Clearly, Queen Eleanor, the one who was shut up in the castle and had not been freed—heads nodded significantly over that—was much to blame. She had caused the war, beyond any doubt, and that devil, Louis of France. She was an unnatural woman, betraying her lord like that. But no one was really surprised. There had been other rumors over the years, scandalous ones at that, and probably all true, given what they knew now. The people fell to whispering …

Yet as time passed, in its normal seasonal cycle for the good folk of Sarum, but dismally slowly for Eleanor, incarcerated in her tower, the mood of the people changed. By varied and circuitous routes, other rumors had reached them, rumors that offended their peasant sensibilities and their ingrained sense of right and wrong.

“The King is living openly with his leman!”

“He flaunts his paramour for all to see!”

“They call her the Rose of the World. My eye! Rose of Unchastity would be a better way of putting it!”

Henry was again the object of rank disapproval and derision, and the women were even more censorious than the men. “Since the world copies a bad king, he sets a bad example,” they complained. “Why, our husbands might think to follow it!” And tongues clucked in outrage.

Eleanor did not hear any of this, although Amaria could have told her a thing or two. She refrained, of course, not because she had been specifically instructed to keep quiet about such matters, but because she felt sorry for her mistress, whose emotions were very fragile where the King was concerned. The poor lady had troubles enough, and Amaria was not about to add to them.

But Eleanor was not to be kept in ignorance for long. Unexpectedly, she had a visitor, the ascetic Hugh of Avalon, Henry’s good friend and mentor. Eleanor had always liked and respected Hugh, that saintly man, that good and fearless man, who never shrank from speaking his mind, and whose unbounded charity was famous. Of a noble Burgundian family, and a monk of the Grande Chartreuse, Mother House of the austere Carthusian Order, he had just arrived in England at the King’s urgent request to head Henry’s new monastic foundation at Witham in Somerset.

Kneeling to receive Prior Hugh’s blessing, Eleanor wondered what had brought him here. She did not think it was merely to offer her some spiritual consolation, although she would be glad of that for, try as she might, she could not warm to the chaplain whom Henry had appointed. She feared, though, that Hugh of Avalon might be the bringer of bad tidings—another blow from Henry—and she was right.

“My daughter,” the prior said, in his deep, commanding voice, “I have come on a somewhat delicate but necessary mission.”

Oh no, Eleanor thought, but she observed the courtesies and invited her visitor to sit down.

“This is very sad and regrettable, this estrangement between you and the King, my lady,” Hugh began, regarding her with great warmth and humanity.

“It is no mere estrangement. I am his prisoner. He cannot forgive me for taking my sons’ part against him.”

“Of that, in charity, I will forbear to speak,” Hugh told her, seeing her distress, and knowing that anything he could say would only add to it. “But I must open my mind to you plainly, and tell you that I have always held the union between you and King Henry to be adulterous and invalid.”

“Adulterous?” echoed Eleanor, her mind rejecting the wider implications of what he was saying, and thrusting to one side the memory of Geoffrey in her bed, and the secret, shameful barrier to her marriage with Henry that her trysts with his father had created. What would the holy prior say if he knew about that? But she could never speak of it, and Henry knew it. Nor, she realized, could he, because he had married her knowing of the impediment. To admit that would be to declare their children bastards.

She had feared for a moment that Hugh of Avalon had somehow found out about her affair with Geoffrey. But he could not have, she told herself. Even Henry would not be so rash or vicious as to endanger his sons’ rights. But it had been a nasty moment, and she waited in trepidation to hear what the prior had to say.

“The annulment of your first marriage was, in my opinion, on questionable grounds,” Hugh told her. “You had married King Louis in good faith. A dispensation could without difficulty have been procured, and penances undergone for the lack of it. Yet you chose to leave your husband and take another, to whom you were even more closely related in blood. Because of that, no good could have come from that second union—which time, indeed, has proved. And therefore, the King wishes to end it by entering a plea of consanguinity.”

Eleanor listened to all this in shock. End their marriage? But of course, it was the logical thing to do, the coup de grâce, for it was finished already, all but dead from several mortal blows, a mere memory from the past. Yet she had never anticipated that Henry would actually try to divorce her. And why now? The time to have done it would have been when he learned of her fateful disobedience.

She shook her head disbelievingly. “And where do I stand in this?”

The prior took her hand and held it as he did his best to make the unpalatable palatable. “The King will claim that both of you entered into the union in ignorance of any impediments; that being so, your children will continue to be regarded as legitimate, and the succession will not be endangered.”

Eleanor was doing some quick thinking. If Henry was arguing that theirs was no marriage, then he had no claim to her lands—or on her person! Freedom was beckoning …

“If I was never married to the King, then I am not his subject, and cannot be accused of committing treason against him,” she said. “If I give my consent to this divorce, then he will have no grounds for keeping me here, and must free me. Wait, good prior! Let me speak.” She held up her hand to still his objection. “I am sovereign Duchess of Aquitaine. Once I agree to this, my domains must be restored to me, and I must be freed to go back and rule them as an independent prince; and on my death, they will pass to my sons. It will mean the empire being broken up now, but in time all our domains will be reunited.”

“Ah,” enunciated the prior, and in that one syllable managed to make it very plain that things would not be as simple as that. “The King also wishes to object that you have committed adultery, by your own admission.”

“If I am not his wife, how can I have committed adultery?” Eleanor was quick to object.

“It is a technicality, my lady. At the time you rebelled against the King and committed adultery, you believed you were his wife. Anyone who deliberately takes an action that threatens the King’s safety and the weal of his realm is either his enemy or commits treason. By your adultery, you could have impugned the succession.”

“At my age?” she cried.

“Well, maybe not,” Prior Hugh conceded with a faint smile. He did not relish this unpleasant mission. “But the Pope will take a dim view of your conduct, of that there can be no doubt. He may be of the opinion that the King is right to keep you as his prisoner.”

Eleanor was furious. “Henry wants it both ways! He doesn’t want me as a wife anymore, but he’s prepared to play any trick to keep my lands, to which, when our marriage is ended, he can have no lawful claim.”

“He proposes that Duke Richard can continue to rule Aquitaine in your stead, as your heir, as he is doing now. I believe that was what you wanted anyway.”

Richard! Eleanor was overjoyed to hear any news of him, let alone such good news, but the injustice of Henry’s purpose rankled bitterly.

“Richard was to share power with me; that was what was agreed, not that he should rule alone. He is but seventeen.”

“Old enough to have reached man’s estate,” Prior Hugh observed. “He has gained renown as a great warrior, but one could wish that he had learned more wisdom. Alas, I fear he has brought nothing but strife to that untamed land of yours. I should not be telling you this, but the people erupted in anger when they learned that you were not coming back, and Richard has been exacting a terrible vengeance to bring them to heel and establish his rule.”

This was not what she had expected to hear. Richard had been brought up to have all the knightly virtues: to strive to be valorous, to protect the poor, the weak, and the innocent; he was a well-educated young man, a troubadour reared and nurtured as a true son of the South; and she had done her very best to instill in him a great love of his heritage.

“What has he done?” she asked tremulously, forgetting for a moment the proposed divorce and her grievances against Henry.

Prior Hugh looked pained. “You could not say he has been inefficient, for Aquitaine is quiet now, and in subjection to him. Yet it is small wonder, as he has been ravaging the land with great savagery, reducing castle after castle, and sparing not man, woman, or child. The details of the atrocities committed by his men do not bear repetition.”

“Tell me!” Eleanor urged, unable to believe what she was hearing. Richard was her son—she could not credit that he had done these things. Surely he had done them at the command of his father—he could not, of himself, have inflicted these wrongs on the domains he had claimed to love, or on its people. They were her people. She wanted to weep for them, and for the land of her birth; they had, after all, been fighting for the return of their duchess, and protesting at the imposition of an overlord who had no right to usurp her place entirely. If they had borne these cruelties, then she could bear the telling of them.

Hugh’s fine-boned face betrayed great emotion as he spoke. “Those who opposed the duke were mutilated: some had their eyes gouged out, others had their hands cut off. It is said that their women were raped—forgive me, my lady—by Richard and his soldiers. By all reports, he was merciless. Aquitaine has been ruthlesly quelled, and now lies under his iron gauntlet.”

And this was my own son, my beloved, Eleanor thought, unable to speak. “May God forgive him—and comfort the afflicted,” she murmured at length, deeply moved. She could not come to terms with the idea of her Richard as tyrant, torturer, rapist … This could only be Henry’s doing. She had to believe that.

“You realize, Father Prior, this makes me even more determined to fight for my rights,” she declared. “Aquitaine needs me, and I should be there.”

“You must do as your conscience dictates, my lady,” Hugh replied gravely. “I have conveyed the King’s wishes to you, as I was bound to do, and told you my opinion. I might add that you will have a battle on your hands, for he is determined to keep you here. The last thing he wants is for you to return to Aquitaine. He says he cannot have you free to plot more mischief against him with your sons and your vassals. He fears that you might remarry—and to a lord hostile to him.”

“So he seeks a way to set me aside without any loss to himself,” Eleanor fumed. “But if it will prove so difficult to divorce me, why is he doing it?”

“I do not like to tell you this, but he wishes to remarry,” Hugh of Avalon said gently, although his words came like a slap in the face. It was too much to take in; it had all been too much to take in, after months of quiet, uninterrupted monotony.

“Who?” she asked, thinking of Rosamund. Was Henry really going to marry his mistress, the daughter of a mere knight? He must have lost his wits completely!

“The Princess Alys of France,” the prior said, his mouth turned down in disapproval.

“But she is Richard’s betrothed!”

“Aye, but betrothals can be broken as well as marriages,” Hugh reminded her. “Already, the King has sent to Pope Alexander, asking him to dispatch a legate to England to hear his case against you. The matter is being kept secret, of course, and the King insists specially on your discretion, since annulling your union is a serious step and may have far-reaching consequences.”

“And I suppose that if I try to proclaim my objections to the world, although there’s little chance of my being heard, then he will withdraw my privileges!” Eleanor said scornfully.

“He has not said so, and I should hope that he would never go so far,” Hugh replied as he got up and made to leave.

“Father Prior,” Eleanor said quickly, “you are a wise man, known for your integrity. What would you counsel me to do? If I agree to this divorce, might things go better for me?”

“My lady, I would advise you to pray for guidance, and to await the Pope’s pronouncement. He will deal with you fairly, you may be sure. He is not the kind of man to be bought by kings.”

——

When Hugh had gone, she did as she’d been bidden, sinking to her knees, praying for herself and Henry, praying for Richard, whose immortal soul was surely in peril, and seeking a way forward in her present dilemma. She had long accepted that her marriage had ended, and could understand the necessity for Henry to remarry, but she was surprised to find herself near to weakening tears at the realization that he wanted to set her aside for this young girl of—what was it?—thirteen! Dear God, she thought, could You not at least have spared me this?

She knew that Henry’s love for her was long dead. He hated her: he had proved it again and again. Why, then, did she sometimes, in the dark wastes of the night find herself still wanting him, still nourishing the smallest of hopes—against all reason, and in spite of all he had done to her—that they might be reconciled in the future? Why?

The answer was not far to seek. Because no man had ever stirred her as Henry had, or inspired such violent emotions in her. No man could touch him. There would always be something between them, some vestige of the great passion they had once shared. And, even in the face of all that had happened, she still wanted him in her bed. That was almost the worst of it; in fact, it had been one of the worst things about her imprisonment, being shut away from the company of men—and of one man in particular. Even now she would find herself aching for his touch, for the feel of him inside her, for the joy he had brought her …

She was growing older: the years were passing relentlessly. Soon, her juices would run thin and she would be an old woman, and her powers of seduction, of pleasuring a man and receiving pleasure herself, would diminish. Isolated here, she was aware that for her time was running out, but there was no means of fulfilling that surging need in her. She had thought that, deprived of any stimulus, it would lessen, and she would learn to focus more on things of the spirit, as she had not done in her reckless youth and turbulent married life; that she would discover the inner peace that enables one to open the mind and heart to the love of God—but she had been wrong, so wrong. It had gotten to the point where she even toyed with the idea of trying to seduce the handsome Ranulf Glanville, who was such a congenial supper companion, and who might not be impervious to the suggestion that he stay a little later … But it was not Glanville she wanted.

It was Henry. But Henry wanted to divorce her. And if he had his way, she would never bed a man again. And now her tears did flow at that dreadful prospect.

Four months she waited for further news. Four long, unending, miserable months, during which she wore herself out speculating what the Pope might say or do. Then, at last, Prior Hugh returned. She forced herself to be calm when she received him, and resolved to deal with whatever news he brought with calm reason and as much wisdom as she could muster.

It was November, and cold; the wind was howling across the plateau that was Sarum, and whistling through the window slit, and it was impossible to keep the brazier alight for long. So Eleanor sat shivering, swathed in her furs, and Prior Hugh gathered his inadequate woolen cloak about his habit as they talked.

“His Holiness sent a legate, the Cardinal of Sant’ Angelo,” he told her. “He came on the pretext of resolving a dispute between the sees of Canterbury and York. He met with the King at Winchester, and your husband raised the matter of the annulment. Regrettably, he also tried to bribe the cardinal with a large sum in silver coin, but the cardinal would not take it. Nor would he even listen to the King’s pleas. He merely warned him that divorcing you would involve great risks, and refused to discuss the subject further. He left for Italy soon afterward.”

Eleanor let out a long sigh of relief, but her gratification in the legate’s rejection of Henry’s plea was tempered by the awareness that even though she remained entrenched as his lawful wife, Henry did not want her, and would almost certainly feel even more resentment toward her now, regardless of the fact that she had not actually opposed him—although that was not to say that she would not have done so had she been pushed to it.

“I am content, of course, but I suppose the King is angry,” she said.

The prior gave her another of his sweet smiles. “Need you ask? He does not like to be thwarted.”

“He will not give up,” she observed lightly. “He will find another way to be rid of me.”

“He may appeal to the Pope, but I fear it will be a waste of time.”

“You do not approve of the Pope’s decision, do you, Father Prior?” she challenged.

“Our Lord speaks through His Holiness. Who am I to question that?”

“It’s not easy for you, is it, acting as mediator between Henry and me?” Eleanor smiled at the prior.

“I do not look for ease in worldly affairs,” he told her. “I hope I have dealt with you fairly and with humanity.”

“I wish the King my lord had been as considerate,” Eleanor told him as he rose to take his leave. “No doubt we shall meet again.”

“I would it could be in happier circumstances,” he told her kindly.

50 Sarum, 1175–1176

It was a terrible winter. The crops had failed and famine bestrode the land, resulting in a dearth of good food even on Eleanor’s table, for everyone in the castle was on short rations. The cost of a bushel of wheat had gone through the roof, and bread, that staple of the diets of rich and poor, was scarce. The destitute had been reduced to eating roots, nuts, grasses, and even bark stripped from the trees. There was meat, for most farm animals had been slaughtered and their carcasses salted for winter fare, but the hungry folk in humble cottages saw little of that. People were dying of starvation in the streets, or of plague. It was only the onset of bitterly cold weather that lessened the pestilence.

Eleanor sent what food she could spare from her table to succor the needy.

“I am no longer able to dispense charity as a queen should,” she told Ranulf Glanville, “but this little I can do for them.” And went hungry herself. It was freezing in her chamber, and she and Amaria spent their days huddled in furs, their gloved hands icy at the fingertips, their noses pink with cold. Christmas was a dismal affair, with no festive fare or revelry, and Eleanor spent much of it confined to bed with a cold.

She was surprised, therefore, early in the new year, to hear Glanville announce the arrival of Hugh of Avalon. She guessed, with a sinking feeling, that if the prior had braved the snow and ice to see her, he must bring news of some import, and wondered wearily what it might be. Something to do with the divorce, she wagered to herself.

He greeted her with his gentle smile, giving her his blessing as she went on her knees before him, then came straight to the point.

“My lady, the King has sent me to ask if you would consider retiring from the world and taking the veil at Fontevrault, a house for which he knows you have much love.”

Retire from the world? When her heart cried out for freedom and she was bursting with life, body, and soul?

“He has offered to appoint you Abbess of Fontevrault, which, as you are aware, is a most prestigious and respected office.”

“And what does he ask in return?” Eleanor replied, knowing that this was just another clever ploy on Henry’s part to get rid of her—and retain her lands.

“Nothing, my lady. If you expressed the desire to take the veil, the Pope would assuredly annul your marriage. He would see it as a happy solution.”

She walked to the window and stared out unseeing at the narrow, limited view of snow-covered hills. What prestige was there in being an abbess when one had been a queen? And there was another thing …

“I have no vocation,” she said.

“I had not imagined that you had,” Prior Hugh told her, with wry humor. “In my experience, large numbers of those who enter religion have no vocation. They are dedicated to God by their families. In time, they learn acceptance in the cloister. Some make a great success of their lives and become shining examples of the monastic rule.”

“Can you see me as a shining example of the rule?” Eleanor asked.

The prior had to smile. “No, my lady. But an abbess’s role is not merely spiritual. She is a governor, a leader, an administrator, with her opinion sought by great men. In charge of such a house as Fontevrault, you would have status, autonomy, and the opportunity to use your considerable talents and your experience of statecraft. Think on it. Fontevrault is a peaceful place, a powerful house of prayer, and your family has enjoyed a long association with it.”

Eleanor was silent as she thought. Maybe Hugh was right. It was better to enjoy a degree of power and independence than none at all, certainly. And as Abbess of Fontevrault, she would enjoy many freedoms. She knew she could make a success of it. But there was the longer-term future to consider. Not only were the stakes higher, but she wanted more, far more, than Fontevrault could offer her.

“Do not think I am not tempted,” she told him. “Believe me, I would do much to get out of this prison. But I am certain that I still have much to do in the world. I have no intention of retiring from it, or giving up my crown—or my inheritance. Because, Father Prior, that is what this is all about. It’s the only way Henry can divorce me and retain possession of my lands.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like time to think more on this?” Hugh asked.

“No. Please tell the King my lord that I have no vocation for the religious life.”

“Very well, my lady,” the prior said, and made to depart, but Eleanor persuaded him to stay for dinner and overnight before he embarked on his long, cold, and difficult journey.

It was something he said over the rather spartan meal that gave her cause for alarm.

“Henry cannot force me to become a nun?” she had asked.

“I should like to be able to say no, but there have been cases of husbands immuring unwanted wives in convents, and intimidating the communities into keeping them confined. Knowing him, I do not think the King would go as far, but there is much at stake in this case.”

“And just one aging, obstinate woman standing in the way,” she added.

She fretted, she worried. At length, she thought of approaching the Archbishop of Rouen, Rotrou, who, on the brink of the fatal rebellion, had exhorted her to return to Henry. Unlike Hugh of Avalon, he believed that her marriage was valid. A plea to him might help. So she wrote, appealing to him against being forced to enter the cloister against her will, and gave the unsealed parchment to Ranulf Glanville for inspection. He looked a little troubled at its contents, but agreed to dispatch it. She wondered if he would really do so.

But Glanville was as good as his word, and presently, a reply came from the Archbishop assuring her that he would refuse to consent to her becoming a nun at Fontevrault against her wishes. Rotrou added that he had made his position known to the King, and warned her that Henry had said he would appeal again to the Pope to have their marriage dissolved. Ah, she thought, but that way, he won’t get my lands! She might, she dared to think, have her freedom yet.

51 Winchester, 1176

“Make ready, my lady,” beamed Glanville, entering Eleanor’s chamber one blazing August morning. “You are summoned to Winchester.” It was clear that he was pleased to have some good tidings to impart at last.

Eleanor looked at him blankly. She could not take this in. Had Henry at last relented and granted her her liberty?

Glanville seemed to have read her thoughts. “The Lord King has betrothed your daughter, the Lady Joanna, to the King of Sicily. She is staying in Winchester, where preparations are being made for her departure from this realm, and the King has given leave for you to visit her there and make your farewells. You will, of course, travel under guard.”

This unexpected kindness on Henry’s part nearly took Eleanor’s breath away. Was he finally thawing toward her? Was this the first step toward a reconciliation? For three years now she had been cruelly cut off from her children, deprived of the pleasure of watching them grow to maturity and playing her proper maternal role in their lives. Heaven only knew what effect this deprivation could have had on the younger ones, those poor, innocent victims; Henry hadn’t thought of that, had he, in his need to exact vengeance on her? Yet in the wake of this one kind gesture from him, she was willing to put all that behind her. In the joyful anticipation of seeing Joanna, she was prepared to meet him more than halfway on anything.

The royal apartments in Winchester Castle were abuzz with activity, with damsels scurrying about with armfuls of rich garments and chests full of jewels, merchants displaying their luxurious fabrics, and seamstresses stitching away furiously at the eleven-year-old bride’s trousseau. In the midst of it all sat Joanna, a slightly less brilliant mirror image of the young Eleanor, her fresh young face rosy with excitement. At the sight of her mother appearing in the doorway, she rose and swept a deep curtsey, her pearl brocade skirts fanning over the floor.

“My dear child!” Eleanor cried, unable to contain her emotion, and suddenly mother and daughter were in each other’s arms, formality and the intervening years forgotten as they embraced each other with tears and laughter.

“So you are going to be married,” Eleanor said when she had managed to compose herself. It did not do for this girl to be burdened with the undamming of the floodgates of her own sorrows.

“I am to take ship for Palermo and marry King William, my lady. My lord my father says he is a great prince, and that Sicily is a fair land.”

Eleanor’s heart almost bled for her daughter’s innocent hopes. She prayed fervently that this marriage would turn out to be far happier than her own had been. Then she noticed Joanna looking at her blue bliaut. It was fine but old; all her gowns were old, for Henry had not thought fit to replace them, and the hem of this one was looking frayed. She could tell what Joanna was thinking, that it was unseemly for a queen to be clothed so meanly. But her daughter was prattling on happily about the wondrous wedding robes that Henry had provided for her, at enormous cost to himself. Clearly it mattered to him that his daughter impressed the world.

“I will ask him if he will purchase some fine robes for you too, my lady,” the girl said touchingly.

“No matter,” Eleanor said. “He has been kind enough in allowing me to visit you here.”

“Oh, but I shall!” cried Joanna, her eyes shining. “And I will make him let you come and visit me in Sicily. Have you ever been there, Mother?”

Eleanor’s heart sank. Had Henry not seen fit to instruct anyone to break it to this poor child that her parting from her parents might be final? Joanna was going a long way off, to a distant kingdom, and there was no guarantee that they might ever meet again. Such was the fate of princesses who were married off to foreign princes. Look at Matilda, in far-off Germany; Eleanor had no idea when, or if, she might see her eldest daughter again; she missed her still, and always would—it was a sadness that would never leave her. It was always easier for the one going away, for they were embarking on their life’s adventure; it was those left behind who felt the loss most keenly.

“I went to Sicily when I was Queen of France,” she said lightly. “It is a beautiful country, with wondrous scenery and many ancient ruins, and Palermo is a fair town. King William is Norman by descent, as you are. But, daughter, do not look to have me visit you there. As you know, your father is displeased with me. It is a miracle that he has let me come here. I should not like you to look for my coming in Palermo and then be disappointed. But we can write to each other,” she added quickly, seeing the sweet face about to crumple. “Now, are you going to show me your wedding gown?”

The days spent with Joanna were precious, golden days that passed all too soon. The imminent parting lent them piquancy and brilliance. It was tragic to be restored to her daughter’s company just when she might be separated from that daughter forever, but Eleanor did her best to keep happy and cheerful. Why waste this gift of time with lamentations? Joanna should take with her a joyful image of her mother, one she could cherish and hold in her heart.

“Will Father send you back to Sarum?” the child asked one day, as they took the air in the castle garden, two guards hovering discreetly in the background, as they always did. Eleanor had long since learned to get used to that, but she sensed that Joanna found it disconcerting.

“Yes, I’m sure he will,” she said lightly.

“Why did he lock you up?” The naive question gave her a jolt.

“We had a difference of opinion as to the amount of power that the King should allow your brothers,” she answered carefully. “Unfortunately, it led to war, and although I never intended that, your father holds me partly to blame.”

“I heard him say he can never love or trust you again,” Joanna said innocently, her little voice mournful.

Eleanor was shocked. No child should ever have to listen to one parent saying such things of the other!

“Were you to blame, Mother?” Joanna’s look was searching.

Eleanor sighed. “I did not think so at the time. I thought I was right. But now I’m no longer sure. I just want the wounds to be healed.”

“I want that too,” the child declared, “but I don’t think my brother the Young King does.”

“Oh?” This was news indeed. She thought Henry and their sons had reconciled, and imagined the boys living in subjection to their father’s heavy hand.

“The King my father kept his Easter court here. My brothers came too, but they were arguing all the time. Young Henry was angry about being kept idle in England, while Richard and Geoffrey were allowed to rule Aquitaine and Brittany. He accused the King of trying to oust him from the succession, but Father wouldn’t listen, so he asked leave to go to Spain, to visit the shrine of St. James at Compostela, although I think he just wanted to go and meet his friends and cause trouble, or so Father said. He wouldn’t let him go. Since then he has let Young Henry go to Aquitaine, but I think he has been stirring up the people there against Richard. Oh, and I heard he was taking part in a lot of tournaments.”

So, Eleanor realized, all was clearly not well between Henry and his heir. If anything, and Joanna had it right, matters were worse now than before the rebellion. Of course, Henry would find it impossible to trust his sons after what had happened.

“What of Richard?” She asked. “Do you know anything of him?”

“No. He went back to Aquitaine. The people there hate him. Geoffrey seems to be all right in Brittany, apart from having to live with Constance!” Mother and daughter exchanged knowing smiles, although Eleanor was disturbed to hear that her subjects hated Richard.

“And Eleanor? And John?” she inquired.

“Eleanor is still at Fontevrault, Mother. She is going to marry the Infante of Castile, but I don’t know when.” Another daughter lost, Eleanor thought sadly. “And John is betrothed again, to Hawise of Gloucester.”

“But he was betrothed to Alice of Maurienne!”

“She died of a fever,” Joanna told her. “He says this new marriage will make him even richer.” Another heiress, Eleanor thought, with a doleful pang for that sweet child Alice, dead before she had a chance to taste life’s joys. This new marriage seemed a godsend, a sensible solution to the problem of John’s lack of an inheritance.

“My father keeps John with him,” Joanna was saying. “He calls him his favorite son. But actually, he likes Geoffrey best.”

Geoffrey? Surely not! Then Eleanor realized that Joanna was talking about Henry’s bastard son. He had ever favored the boy, she thought sourly.

“Geoffrey fought for him in the war,” Joanna was saying. “He was very brave. My father said …” Her voice trailed off and she flushed a deep pink.

“Yes? What did he say?” Eleanor prompted.

“He said that Geoffrey alone had proved his true son, and that his other sons were really the bastards.”

“I see,” said the Queen. She saw all too clearly.

It was gratifying to have the freedom of the castle, even if there were guards posted at every door. One day, wandering through the deserted state apartments, Eleanor stepped into the famous Painted Chamber, so-called because of the wondrous murals that Henry had commissioned for its walls, and found herself gaping in surprise. For where there had been a panel left blank, there was now a new and disturbing picture of an eagle, freshly painted, and on its outstretched wings and back were three eaglets, with a fourth, the smallest, sitting on its neck, looking for all the world as if it might at any moment peck out its parent’s eyes.

As Eleanor stared, she heard a footfall behind her. It was Ranulf Glanville.

“Pardon me, my lady, but dinner is about to be served. Oh, I see you have noticed the painting.”

“The King commissioned it?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“The eagle is himself, I gather, but what does it all mean?”

The custodian spoke evenly, not relishing what he had to say. “When some of us asked the King the meaning of the picture, he said that the eaglets were his four sons, who ceased not to persecute him even unto death.”

“But John is just a child! How can he include him in this?” The rest she could understand, but at this crass folly, she was aghast.

“That is what some of the King’s courtiers said, my lady. But he answered that he fears his youngest, whom he now embraces with such affection, will someday afflict him more grievously and perilously than all the others.”

“That is nonsense,” Eleanor snapped.

“I think one has to understand the King’s frame of mind when he said it, my lady. He observed that a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.”

And the women, she thought, remembering her own part in her sons’ revolt. But John! John would never betray the father who spoiled him so and lavished so much love on him.

Joanna had gone, off in her gay cavalcade to Southampton where her ship was waiting to take her across the seas. Saying farewell and standing there at the castle doors, watching her go, had been hard, but Eleanor had fought to maintain her composure. She had long grown used to dealing with sorrow, had coped with far worse ordeals than this, and kept her resolve to say good-bye to her daughter with a smile on her face.

She had expected to be taken back to Sarum immediately, but Ranulf Glanville was temporarily absent on the King’s business, and no one mentioned her leaving. So she stayed on at Winchester, rattling around the luxurious royal chambers with just Amaria for company and her two sentinels on the outer doors. Henry, she reasoned, must be preoccupied with other, more pressing matters. For her part, she could only thank God for this welcome respite from the tedium and discomforts of Sarum.

Michaelmas; and she was still at Winchester. Through her windows, she could hear music and dancing and the cathedral bells ringing to celebrate the bringing in of the harvest. September drew mildly to a close. The weather turned colder with the coming of October, and still there was no summons back to Sarum. Then, one morning, the steward arrived with a leather traveling chest.

“My lady, this has come from the Lord King. It is for the use of you and your serving woman.”

Eleanor, who had assumed that the arrival of the chest betokened that she was to pack and depart, gaped at him—and the iron-bound case—in astonishment. Could this really be a gift from Henry? Was it another peace offering? Had God at last turned his heart?

When the steward was gone and there was only Amaria to see, she lifted the lid in a fever of speculation, and drew from the chest, in some amazement, two scarlet cloaks, two capes of the same color, two gray furs, and an embroidered coverlet. Amaria let out a sigh of wonder.

“I think I know whence these proceeded,” Eleanor said, her heart full. “I think I have my daughter Joanna to thank for them.” Of course. Dear Joanna, who had seen her poverty, must have appealed to Henry. That in no way diminished his gesture, she told herself, for he could have ignored the appeal. Instead, he had sent these fine clothes, and had remembered Amaria too. It rankled a tiny bit that he had not thought to distinguish in status between his queen and her servant, for whom he had supplied identical garments, but he was a man who liked to dress plainly himself and cared little for the trappings of estate, so maybe it would not have occurred to him that she should have clothing of greater richness than her maid. At least he had sent it. That was something indeed, and they would now have good warm robes for the winter.

52 Godstow Abbey, 1176

The abbey was nestled on an island between streams gushing from the River Thames. It stood solid and gray amid green fields, in which the good sisters could be seen toiling diligently. The work of the hands, Henry reflected, was almost as important to the Benedictine Rule as prayer, the work of God.

He had ridden over from Woodstock on this special pilgrimage. Going to Woodstock had been a torment: he’d barely been able to bring himself to climb the stairs to the dusty, deserted tower rooms, or walk past the overgrown labyrinth with its sinister tangles of briars. He’d realized almost at once that he should never have come, that being in the place that had housed his love would conjure up memories too painful to confront.

So he’d come instead to Godstow, to seek peace in the abbey where his love had sought refuge. Well he recalled that awful day, two years before, when Rosamund had come to him, anxiety written clear on her sweet face, her cherry lips trembling …

She had found a lump in her breast, she said, and was scared because her granddame had died of a canker in that very part of her body.

Henry thought that she was making much out of nothing. He felt the lump, declared it nothing but a spot, then, as lust asserted itself at the soft swell of his beloved’s exposed bosom, he’d taken her without further ado, and stilled her fears—or so he had believed.

But the lump had not gone away. Over the months, it had grown, and the place became sore and nasty, and increasingly painful. Rosamund became tearful and at times hysterical, declaring that this was a punishment for the great sin she had committed in loving him. They must no longer bed together, she cried. Thoroughly alarmed by that, and by the state of the lump, Henry summoned his doctors, who had clucked on about an imbalance of the humors, and bled his dear love, applying leeches; but none of it did any good. Rosamund had steadily lost weight and grown frail. In the end there was nothing more the physicians could try.

“This is a judgment on me,” Rosamund had said again. “I have sinned grievously, not only against God but against Queen Eleanor. What we have done is wrong.”

“You can cease worrying about the Queen,” Henry told her roughly. “I would have married you, had it not been for her obstinacy.”

“No, Henry,” she answered sadly. “That would not have been right. The Pope knew it, which is why he would not annul your marriage. Queen Eleanor is your wife, and the mother of your children, whatever she has done. And in committing adultery with you, I have wronged her deeply—and I am being punished for it.”

“This is a vain fancy!” he had stormed, but there was no moving Rosamund. No longer was she the laughing girl he had loved, but a sick woman consumed with remorse.

“I wish I could make amends,” she wept. “I cannot go to my rest with this great wrong on my conscience.”

“Just confess it and have done!” Henry growled, his voice gruff with emotion.

“Let me send a letter to her, please. Just to explain my folly and say I am sorry for it.”

He turned on her, shocked. “No. I absolutely forbid it. She does not deserve your guilt or your apologies. When I think of what she has done to me—”

“Please, Henry!”

“I said no.” And he had got up and left her.

After that, Rosamund’s condition deteriorated rapidly. His heart breaking, Henry agreed that she should go to Godstow, the nunnery in which she had been raised, where the sisters could care for her; it would be convenient for Woodstock, whence he could visit her. He insisted on escorting her as she was carried to the abbey by litter; their progress had of necessity been slow, since she had become so weak by then. Once she was tucked up in her narrow bed in the infirmary, the infirmaress let him see her briefly. He found he could hardly bear to look upon Rosamund’s wan, wasted face as she lay on the coarse pillow, her fair tresses curling across it.

He had blundered back to court, for there could be no shirking the manifold duties of a king. Ever a plain, practical man, he faced the fact that his beloved was dying, and that he might never see her again, would certainly nevermore lie with her. His nights were a martyrdom, and in the end he could bear it no more and took to his bed a serving wench, a nameless, forgettable hussy who lay there mute with awe as he slaked his need and his desperation on her body. After that, true to form, he had repeatedly fallen prey to his lusts. His most notable conquest was Ida de Toesny, an aristocratic girl of good family, who was already growing heavy with his child.

It had not been that long since his wife—he could not bring himself to say her name—had betrayed him. What she had done near cost him his crown, and a lot else besides. Well, she was paying for that, and she would pay more dearly yet, he thought in his grief and bitterness. Although he’d banned her from receiving any news, he hoped mercilessly that someone had told her how, after her incarceration, he had lived openly with Rosamund, blatantly flaunting her as his mistress for all to see. As for Rosamund begging to make amends to Eleanor—well, the poor lady was not in her right mind with this terrible illness. The guilt should all be his wife’s. As for Rosamund writing to her … The very idea!

Once Rosamund was gone from his daily life, and likely to die very soon, Henry found himself wanting to cry out his agony to the world. He needed desperately to be comforted. The pain he suffered was unbearable, exacerbated by the eternal gnawing craving to be revenged on Eleanor. It was then that the desire to take another wife flared again in him. To be honest, it had occurred to him not long after he had looked anew at Alys of France, Richard’s betrothed, and realized that she was growing into a graceful beauty, with high breasts and voluptuously rounded hips and thighs. It now seemed to Henry that Alys would make the most suitable wife, with her royal blood and a figure fit for breeding. She could never replace Rosamund, of course, but marrying her might help ease the pain of his loss. And it would be a magnificent way of getting back at his faithless queen!

But Alys was a princess, the child of King Louis, who was now supposed to be his ally, and—to make matters infinitely more complicated—she was affianced to his own son. Despite the outward appearance of peace and amity that he had worked hard to establish, Henry was still sufficiently resentful toward Richard to take some pleasure in depriving him of his bride. By God, he was so disappointed in all his elder sons that he had even considered naming John the heir to all his domains!

Now that he had decided he wanted Alys, he knew he must act soon, before Louis started making noises about the much discussed marriage ceremony taking place.

There was just one obstacle: he had a wife already, of course. But both Eleanor and the Pope had proved obdurate, to his chagrin. Neither bribes nor veiled threats could move His Holiness, and that bitch at Sarum was determined to hold onto her lands, come what may. Small good they would do her, shut up as she was, he thought vindictively.

He went to see Rosamund, although it caused him infinite pain to do so; he visited as often as he could get away, and each time he found her in worse condition. He realized she was gone from him forever, the woman he had loved, and in her place was a wraith whose mind was focused on repentance and the hope of Heaven to come. That much, and no more, had the nuns done for her.

Each time he left her, he was in a ferment of grief and longing for what could no more be. Back at court, seated restlessly at his place at the high table, or departing for the hunt, he would catch sight of Alys, alluring and sinuous in her clinging silk bliauts, and feel the old familiar excitement burgeoning. After a time, he became aware that she was watching him too, with her catlike eyes, and posing provocatively to catch his attention. Richard, he knew, had little time for her; Richard was too preoccupied with fighting and whoring, and Alys meant little to him, beyond the fact that she was a great prize in the royal marriage market.

The Pope had not spoken in his favor; Eleanor had refused to go into a nunnery. He was as far from remarrying as he was from growing wings and taking flight, but he wanted Alys in his bed, and no longer cared whether she was there legally or sinfully. And neither, it seemed, did she.

He had stolen to her chamber one night after she spent the evening sending him significant glances across the teeming, noisy dining hall. He found her waiting for him in the firelight, clad only in a chemise so fine in texture that it was diaphanous. He took one look and was damned.

Barely had he caught his breath, it seemed, than Alys too was pregnant. Of course, he had to send her away, to a convent in the wilds of Norfolk, while warding off eager inquiries from Louis as to wedding plans. It was at that point that the news he most dreaded to hear came from Godstow. Rosamund was dead.

So here he was, approaching the church door in trepidation, come to mourn his love in private. The abbess had been waiting to greet him at the gatehouse, and given him permission to enter the enclosure, marveling at how the King had aged since he had first come there with his lady love. He was now a broken man of forty-three, grizzled of hair and portly of body, his ravaged face grooved with the lines of care and sorrow. Whatever the right and wrong of it, he had truly loved his mistress—no one could doubt that.

Henry found himself alone in the church. A single lamp burned in the chancel, signifying that God was here in His house. The King bowed his head in respect, then paced slowly toward the altar and the freshly laid tombstone before it. She was there, beneath the chancel pavement, his Rosamund, no longer fair but food for worms. The thought broke him. He sank to his knees before the grave, weeping uncontrollably, vowing that he would build a fine stone sepulchre to the memory of his beloved, and have it adorned with silken palls and lit by candles. It should be lovingly tended by the nuns; he would pay them handsomely, he swore, and grant many favors to the abbey.

So lost in anguish was he that he did not see the sad-faced, cobweb-fine gray shadow glide slowly up behind him with its filmy arms outstretched, and hover there for a long, wistful moment before vanishing into the gloom of the vaulted chapel—but he felt even more bereft.

53 Winchester, 1180

Eleanor was fifty-eight, and she had been a prisoner for seven long and difficult years. Yet nowadays her prison was a gilded cage appropriate to her rank, for after her visit to Winchester, the security that surrounded her had been relaxed by degrees. The monotonous tedium of Sarum was gradually ameliorated, as the King had been increasingly pleased to permit her to lodge at different places—in Northamptonshire, in Berkshire, and at the royal castle at Ludgershall in Wiltshire. Always, she was in the custody of the charming Ranulf Glanville or the taciturn Ralph FitzStephen, and attended by the faithful Amaria. Henry had never allowed her any additional personal servants.

Now she was comfortably installed at Winchester again, in greater state than hitherto, occupying well-appointed chambers, with the choicest food on her table and a newly appointed chamberlain to order her small household.

By and by, the rules had been relaxed, and she was permitted to write the occasional letter—although not to her sons; Henry still did not trust her enough for that—and to receive news of the outside world. Ranulf Glanville, whom she now accounted a dear friend, often imparted snippets of information at the dinner table. Amaria, in her forays to the market and through seemingly idle chatter with the castle servants, picked up a lot more, which, these days she was less reluctant to repeat to her mistress. Thus it was that Eleanor learned of Rosamund’s death, although not of the strange rumors that had begun to circulate about it, or of the great scandal of the King living openly with their son Richard’s betrothed; both Glanville and Amaria were anxious to protect the Queen from anything that might cause her pain and distress. Yet the gossip on both counts was rife throughout the kingdom and beyond.

Eleanor indeed wondered why Richard’s marriage to Alys had not yet taken place. Both were of age, and ripe for bedding—and Aquitaine needed an heir. The Young King had sired a son on Queen Marguerite three years ago, although sadly his little William died soon after birth. Eleanor felt deeply grieved that she had never seen any of her grandchildren; it was a continuing sorrow to be cut off from her flesh and blood.

Had Louis been pressing for Alys’s marriage? He had good reason to chafe at the delay, but she suspected that Henry had some devious reason of his own for putting it off. And Richard seemed to be in no hurry. She heard that he was still much occupied with enforcing his authority in Aquitaine—and shuddered to think what that might mean.

By all reports, Matilda was contentedly producing baby after baby in Germany, and Joanna seemed to have settled down happily in Sicily, although something Ranulf let slip had disturbed Eleanor.

“They say that King William has adopted many of the customs of his Moorish subjects,” he told her, “and that Queen Joanna lives entirely in seclusion.”

“Don’t tell me he has a harem!” Eleanor had interjected sharply. She’d seen harems in Constantinople and the lands of the Turks during the long-ago crusade, and knew what ills they concealed.

Ranulf looked ill at ease. “I did hear something of the sort,” he disclosed, “but the Queen his wife has her own apartments.”

So poor Joanna was having to deal with her lord’s infidelity right from the first, Eleanor thought, dismayed. If she had been given her head, she would have hastened across the seas and snatched her daughter back, but there was no hope of that. She must endure the knowledge of Joanna’s situation, just as Joanna herself was having to learn to bear it. But how uncivilized of King William to expect his wife to tolerate a harem in the palace! Eleanor was fuming inside.

It was Ranulf Glanville who informed Eleanor when John was made nominal King of Ireland, and when her daughter Eleanor was sent to Castile to marry King Alfonso. It was hard to believe that little Eleanor, with her heart-shaped face, was nineteen and a bride. How the years had flown—and so many of them, latterly, wasted. She felt weary with the futility of it all.

“The Lord Geoffrey has been knighted by the King,” her custodian told her one rainy July evening.

“I rejoice that my lord now enjoys good relations with our sons,” Eleanor replied, remembering that Henry and his three eldest had kept such a magnificent court together last Christmas at Angers that it was still spoken of with wonder.

“God be thanked, they are at peace at last.” Ranulf’s sentiments were genuine. “I hear that the Young King has been rushing around all over France fighting in tournaments and carrying off the prizes. His fame is sung everywhere.”

“Henry will like that,” Eleanor observed.

“Indeed he does. In fact, the King has been so delighted by the Young King’s many triumphs that he has restored to him in full all the lands and possessions he had taken away.” It did Eleanor’s heart good to hear that, but—as always—there was, underlying her pleasure, a nagging sadness and resentment that she herself was never embraced by Henry’s evident desire to set things right.

Richard, she later heard, had achieved great victories in Aquitaine.

“He is now acknowledged one of the great generals of our age,” Ranulf told her proudly.

Yes, she thought, but at what cost? What violence and bloodshed has he committed, at Henry’s behest, to earn that reputation? Her heart bled for Aquitaine, and she could take little joy in Richard’s fame, although she was gratified to hear that he, like the Young King before him, had been received with honor by his father. Please God, matters were now mended between them.

“My lady, the King of France is dead,” announced Amaria, coming into the royal lodgings with a basket of autumn herbs for the simples she liked to make, swearing by her own remedies for aching joints and blistered heels.

A great wave of sadness engulfed Eleanor. Whatever his failings, Louis had once, many years in the past, been her husband. She had done him many wrongs, and there had been some bitterness between them, but he’d been a good and devout man who stood by her and her sons in their hour of need, and done many good deeds in his days—and now he was no more.

She went to her chapel and sank to her knees to pray for Louis; he had been a saintly man, and surely his soul was even now on its winged flight to Heaven. She had known he was ill. The year before, he came to England on a pilgrimage to St. Thomas’s shrine at Canterbury, in company with the thousands who now flocked to keep vigil at Becket’s tomb, hoping for one of the miracles that the saintly Archbishop was widely reputed to work. Louis had needed such a miracle. He was in poor health and not really fit enough to make the journey. But Henry afforded him a splendid reception, and they went together in procession to the cathedral, where Louis made offerings of a great ruby ring and other precious gifts.

Then he had hastened back to France to prepare for the crowning of his heir, Philip Augustus, now grown almost to manhood. Louis had not been there to see it. A massive apoplexy suddenly struck him down and effectively ended his reign. He had lingered for more than a year, as his crafty and ambitious son seized the reins of government—and now, poor shadow of his former self, he had gone to his much-deserved rest. His former wife paid him the compliment of her tears as she looked back on his virtues and tried to forget that he had once been a timorous young man who drove her to distraction because he was better suited to the cloister than to wielding a scepter and doing his duty by her in bed.

“It’s odd that all that talk of divorce suddenly died down,” Eleanor reflected as she and Amaria sat at their embroidery in a window embrasure, enjoying an unseasonably warm breeze. Over the years, she had painstakingly taught her maid the art of plying her needle to decorative effect, and Amaria proved a willing pupil. They were now working on an altar frontal for the chapel.

Amaria remained silent, but that was nothing unusual. She had the peasant’s way of few words.

“The last I heard, Henry had appealed to the Pope, but that was years ago,” Eleanor went on. “He must have thought better of it. Nevertheless, being thwarted by His Holiness should not stop him from marrying Richard to Alys. They should have been wed long since.” She rethreaded some red silk through her needle, then looked up. To her consternation, she saw that Amaria’s eyes were filled with tears.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Nothing,” muttered the woman.

“No one weeps for nothing,” Eleanor said. “Have you had bad news?”

Amaria shook her head. “Really, my lady, ’tis nothing.”

“Now you have me worried!” her mistress declared. “Tell me what troubles you. I command it!”

“You won’t like it,” Amaria said in a low voice.

“Tell me!” ordered Eleanor, really worried now. “Has someone died?” Her heart was instantly pounding. If it was one of her children, she did not think she could bear it.

Amaria braced herself. “There be rumors that the King has got the Princess Alys with child.” She omitted to mention that these rumors had been fueling the public imagination for years now, and that they alleged far more than she’d revealed.

Eleanor caught her breath. So … Everything suddenly became clear. She instinctively knew that rumor spoke truth—or something like it. How could Henry have stooped so low? To compromise the honor of a princess of France was bad enough, but when that princess was his son’s betrothed—that was another matter entirely! Disgust consumed her.

When she regained her composure, another thought struck home. How long had this been going on? Was it the reason why she had heard no more of a divorce? And had she been the only person left in ignorance of what was going on? If Amaria had heard these rumors, then it was a certainty that most of England had too.

She wondered if Louis had known, if he had spoken out. But surely not. He would hardly have gone to Becket’s shrine with Henry in the circumstances. And Richard—where did he stand in all this? She was outraged on Richard’s behalf, and incensed against Henry.

She turned to Amaria, who was concentrating furiously on her sewing.

“What more do you know of this matter?” she probed.

“Only what that rumor said, lady,” Amaria lied. She was not about to repeat the gossip that accused Alys of having borne the King at least three children that died, or the shocked expletives of people scandalized to hear of Henry’s vile behavior. Nor would she say anything of those other rumors … Had it been the King who had put them about, perhaps seeking yet another pretext to put Eleanor away—this time for good?

But Eleanor was ahead of her. “Talking of rumors,” she said, resolutely moving on from the horrible gossip about Henry, “I overheard Fulcold”—the chamberlain—“talking with Master FitzStephen the other day. They were in the outer chamber, but the door had been left open. I could not catch everything they said, but I am sure that I heard Fulcold say, ‘All the world knows that Queen Eleanor murdered Rosamund.’ And Master FitzStephen, dour old fellow that he is, actually laughed, so I supposed the remark to have been made in jest. But what an odd thing to say. How could I murder Rosamund, shut up as I have been these seven years?”

Amaria mentally girded her loins; Eleanor could almost see her doing it.

“There have been tales to that effect,” she said at length.

“What tales? How could there be?” She could not credit it. Why should people always believe ill of her, especially when there was not the slightest justification for it? This really was too much!

“Aye, there be all kinds of silly stories. I took little notice of them, they was so far-fetched, and as I knew them to be false—and I said so often, mark ye, my lady! But folks likes to believe such things.”

Eleanor knew that. They livened up the daily round of ordinary people’s lives, provided the excitement that was lacking elsewhere. But she hated the idea of herself being the focus of such stupid and unjust calumnies.

“Tell me what they say of me!” she demanded, her anger rising.

“They say the King kept the Lady Rosamund—the Fair Rosamund, they call her—”

“Putrid by now, I should think!” Eleanor interrupted.

“They say you hated her, my lady, and that the King kept her shut up in a tower at Woodstock, for fear you would discover her, and had a maze put around the tower, so that you could never find the way in.”

“There was a maze, but it was built for her pleasure,” Eleanor said. “This is just nonsense.”

“Aye, it is nonsense, I know. Then you are supposed to have found a clue of thread or silk from the lady’s sewing basket, and followed it through the maze until you discovered her in her tower.”

“And then I supposedly murdered her!” Eleanor sniffed furiously. “I should like to know how!”

“Saving your pardon, but there are lots of gruesome stories,” Amaria admitted. “Some say you stripped her naked and roasted her between two fires, with venomous toads on her breasts; some say you let her bleed to death in a hot bath, some that you poisoned her, and others that you stabbed her with a dagger after putting out her eyes. I say some people have a vivid imagination.”

Eleanor had been listening to all this in mounting horror. “How could people think these things of me?” she cried. “It is all lies, vile lies. Yet they believe it, against all logic. I dare say some think this supposed murder is the cause for which I am still shut up.”

“A few do,” Amaria confirmed. “Although I have heard other people scoff at the rumors. Not everyone believes them, mark me.”

“But some do, and that is what offends me!” Eleanor cried. “How am I to defend myself against such slanders? I am powerless. Surely people realize that I could not possibly have had anything to do with Rosamund’s death.”

As the words were spoken, a salutary inner voice reminded her that she had once taken pleasure in imagining herself doing vengeful violence on Rosamund’s body—and that she had rejoiced in the most un-Christian manner on hearing news of her rival’s death. But I would never actually have done her harm, she told herself; God knows, I shrink from bloodshed. And when I was told of her sufferings before she died, I realized that what is written in Scripture is true: Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord: I will repay. And then I felt remorse for my unseemly joy in her death, and a belated pity for her.

“I will write to the King,” she vowed. “I will acquaint him of these terrible calumnies and demand that he publicly refute them. He must know that, even had I had the opportunity, I do not have it in me to do such a thing.”

Ralph FitzStephen looked dubious when the Queen asked for writing materials so she could send a letter to the King. She had never ventured to write to Henry before, and he wasn’t sure if it was permitted or not; but, in the absence of specific instructions, he grudgingly gave his consent.

Eleanor’s message was to the point:

“Eleanor, by the grace of God, Queen of England, to her Lord Henry, King of England, greetings,” she began. Then she simply said it had come to her notice that rumor unjustly accused her of murdering Rosamund de Clifford, and asked him to issue a public proclamation declaring her innocence. Left like that, it looked a bit abrupt, so she added two short sentences: “I trust you are in health. The Lord have you in His keeping.” Then she signed her name, showed it to a suspicious FitzStephen, and sealed it.

There was no response.

54 Winchester, 1181

Geoffrey and Constance were married—it had been a summer wedding—and Henry had gone straight back to England afterward and made his bastard son, the other Geoffrey, Lord Chancellor of England. Eleanor shook her head in dismay at both pieces of news. Devious her Geoffrey might be, but Constance was worse, and was probably running rings around him. As for the bastard, the King was heaping far too many rewards on him: he was Archdeacon of Rouen, treasurer of York Minster, and the proud owner of two castles in Anjou. She could foresee jealousy poisoning his relations with his legitimate siblings, and of course there was no telling where the young man’s ambition might lead him. Henry, she feared, was making a rod for his own back.

Recent news from over the sea was not good. Joanna had borne, with great difficulty, a son who died at birth. And Matilda was in exile with her husband, who had quarreled with the Emperor and fled from Germany; the word was that the couple might seek refuge in England. Eleanor wept for her daughters, and prayed for Matilda to come home, that she might comfort her. It had been thirteen years since she had set eyes on her, and she hungered to see her. She longed to see all her children. Her heart quailed at the thought of another lonely, unhappy Christmas.

She would have thought that eight years of imprisonment had taught her patience and resignation, but it had not. She’d relived the events leading up to her sons’ rebellion a thousand times and still felt, deep within her, that she had been right to support them. She knew that if she had her chance again, she would make the same choice, because it had been the only, the right, choice. A mother’s instinct was to defend her children. Yet what a terrible price she had paid for it. Never hearing from them, by Henry’s express order, she wondered if they still cherished the same affection for her—or if she was now but a distant memory in their young minds.

Thank God her spirit was still strong, unquenched by adversity, even if her body was aging. She had lost weight, and her mirror reflected a haunted face with the skin stretched lightly over the bones beneath; it was too pale from her long confinement, even if she was allowed to take the air in the garden these days. And there was always a yearning look in her eyes.

Of Henry, she rarely thought these days, unless it was with sadness or in passing. There was no room left in her for bitterness. She had prayed often for the grace to forgive, and with the long passage of time, found that such grace had been accorded her.

Occasionally, at night, when she lay awake with Amaria snoring peacefully beside her—she’d gotten used to that, but God knew it had taken all her patience—she would imagine that it was her husband who lay there in the darkness, and would remember his hand reaching across to claim her, and the weight of his body as he mounted hers. Those were the worst moments, for even now she could feel the surge of desire, almost to the point where she feared she might go mad if she could not assuage it. Henry had been such an exceptional lover that she could never forget the joy and sense of liberation that she’d experienced in his arms. But then she would find herself back on the old treadmill, remembering that he had never been faithful to her, and that all the love they shared had not counted for much in the long run. Her memories were forever tainted; it was best not to think of the past, but to dwell on the mundane round of her daily life and the things of the spirit. But oh, how she yearned for a man to warm her bed in the darkest reaches of the night!

55 Caen, 1182

Henry’s eyes swept over the packed hall of the Norman Exchequer in the castle of Caen with satisfaction. They had come in response to his summons. His sons were here, and together, in this fine new building, they would preside over a glittering Yuletide court that had been deliberately arranged to rival any that ambitious puppy, Philip of France, might hold in Paris.

The festivities were in full swing, the hall smoky from the fire that blazed merrily in the central hearth, and lit by a giant circular iron candelabra, suspended from the roof between the high arched windows. It was the early hours of Christmas morning, and the court, having attended Midnight Mass, was in high spirits, tucking into the traditional feast known in the duchy as Le Réveillon.

Henry was keeping a wary eye on his sons, who were ranged on either side of him at the high table. It was not going to be a happy gathering. The Young King had arrived in the company of Bertran de Born, whom Henry did not like or trust, and was in a foul mood; the King watched him sitting there sulking and pointedly ignoring his wife, whose homely face bore a strained, troubled expression. Henry thought it odd that for once his eldest son had not brought William Marshal with him; the two were normally inseparable, and the King approved of William’s influence on his hothead of an heir.

For Young Henry had not only upset Queen Marguerite, but had fallen out spectacularly with Richard, who was glowering heatedly at him down the table—their father had to ensure that they were seated as far apart as possible. The quarrel had erupted back in spring, in Aquitaine, where the young Duke Richard’s harsh rule finally provoked his volatile vassals to open rebellion. The evil genius behind this was the malicious adventurer Bertran de Born, who saw Richard’s oppression as the rape of his land, and had incited the Young King to join the rebels. Resentful of his brother having more power than himself, that rash young man had been easy to persuade. Not to be left out, Geoffrey, greedily anticipating the spoils of fighting, hastened to join him. Aquitaine had been abruptly plunged into war, with one brother against the other two.

For some months, Henry had no choice but to let them get on with it, having his hands full in Normandy, but as soon as the campaigning season came to an end in the autumn, and he summoned the Young King north, meaning to divert him from the bloodbath in the South, the arrogant young fool loudly demanded that he cede to him Normandy and Anjou. When Henry angrily refused, the Young King stormed off in a temper to Paris, where that puppy Philip—who would soon need to be firmly muzzled—had welcomed him with sympathetic arms and fallen to plotting with him.

Young Henry had stormed back to Rouen, demanding to be given the power that should be his. He would take the Cross and go on crusade, he threatened, if the King refused his reasonable demand. Indeed, he would prefer banishment to being treated like a subordinate. He was a king, was he not? Or had he imagined those coronations at Westminster and Winchester?

Henry had ignored the sarcasm. He had also ignored his heir’s demands, which left the young fool threatening suicide. In the end, worn down by the pressure, the King bought his son off with a generous allowance and sent him to live with his sister Matilda at Argentan Castle, where Henry had offered her and her husband and children refuge during their exile. Having given his oath not to make further demands, the Young King, with Queen Marguerite in tow, went off to join her household. Henry hoped that Matilda might talk some sense into him; she had a lot of her wise grandmother and namesake in her. But it seemed that his hopes had been in vain.

Henry had insisted, in the interests of restoring peace, that all his sons attend the Christmas court. Matilda was present too; she had grown into a handsome matron of twenty-four, and was now the mother of a large brood, of whom Henry was inordinately proud.

Dark-haired Geoffrey was exerting his usual charm, his ready flow of words smoother than oil, but Henry knew him to be slippery, grasping, and dangerous. He had few scruples—there had been disturbing reports of him plundering abbeys and churches at will—and although he was of tireless endeavor, he was a hypocrite in nearly everything that mattered, and certainly not to be trusted.

Where did we go wrong with our children? Henry wondered, sighing to himself, as his gaze lighted on each of his three elder sons in turn. Of course, Eleanor was much to blame, for seducing them into believing they could seize their father’s domains, and then encouraging them in their treasonable rebellion—but Henry believed that the rot had set in well before then. We both spoiled them, he reflected. I was as much to blame as Eleanor in that respect. And now we reap what we have sown.

Richard, seated to his father’s right, was reining in the famous Angevin temper, which he had inherited from his father, and taking pains to avoid his brothers. Only fifteen-year-old John sat stolidly enjoying the rich food and imbibing too much wine, while basking smugly in his father’s love and approval. It was good to be the favorite, adored son! But the atmosphere was tense, and it became tenser still when William Marshal arrived on the Feast of St. Stephen and, ignoring the venomous glares of Young Henry and the embarrassed fluster of Queen Marguerite, presented himself immediately before the King, his fine face flushed with indignation.

“Sire,” he cried, so that all the courtiers could hear, “certain persons are spreading calumnies about me, which touch my honor and that of this blameless lady here!” He bowed to the blushing Young Queen. “These foul lies accuse me of having cast amorous looks on her. In your presence, I challenge all those who have spread these falsehoods to let me prove my innocence and hers by ordeal of combat! If I win, I ask no reward but the vindication of my honor and hers. If I lose, then I will be hanged for my crime.” So saying, he drew off his heavy gauntlet and threw it on the floor before the King’s high seat.

No one spoke. Marshal was staring hard at Young Henry, as if daring him to respond. At length, the younger man had the grace to look away. Beside him, Marguerite was weeping silently.

“Will no one take up this noble knight’s challenge?” Henry asked.

No one did.

“And you, my daughter, what have you to say to these calumnies?” Henry demanded, fixing a stern eye on Marguerite.

“Marshal spoke truth, my lord. They are malicious lies,” she insisted, casting a sideways glance at Bertran de Born. Henry nodded, satisfied, then turned back to Marshal.

“It seems that those who have slandered you are craven, and afraid to defend themselves,” he observed.

Marshal knelt before the King, his face a mirror of distress. “I had hoped that God would make my innocence manifest,” he declared. “Forgive me, sire, but I cannot remain in a place where my enemies hide their faces. I beg leave to depart. I am bound on pilgrimage to the shrine of the Magi at Cologne.”

“In truth, I am sorry to see you depart, old friend,” Henry said, glaring at his eldest son and the smirking Bertran, who had clearly seen off the rival who would have counseled prudence rather than pursue some hot-headed scheme.

But Bertran had not finished stirring up trouble. He played on the Young King’s insecurities and grievances.

“There goes the Prince of Cravens,” he sneered when Richard was within earshot. “Did you know he has built a castle on your land?”

Richard threw him a menacing look, but, respecting the season, walked on without comment. But he was obviously seething inside and determined to settle the score as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

“If Geoffrey had been made Count of Anjou in your place, he would have known how to enforce his rights!” Bertran whispered, his words dripping like poison into Young Henry’s ear until, in the end, he could bear it no more, and seeking out his father in private, exploded in a furious outburst, much to the secret amusement of Richard and Geoffrey, who were looking on.

“Father, I swear I will renounce my titles and take the Cross if you refuse to allow me more power!” he shouted.

“When you have learned discretion and wisdom, I might consider doing that,” Henry said calmly, leaning back in his chair.

For answer, the Young King burst into hot, angry tears. “At least make Richard dismantle the castle he has built on my land!” he cried.

Henry’s brow creased in a frown. He was aware that Philip of France was waiting for an opportunity to make trouble between the Angevin princes, and he feared that a disaffected Young King might seek Philip’s support, much as he had sought King Louis’s eight years ago. And look where that had led! Good statesman that Henry was, he saw the necessity of appeasing his son and warding off the threat.

“Henry, you are my heir,” he said in a steady, placatory tone. “Your brothers come after you in the succession, and therefore they shall do homage to you as their overlord. Will that content you?”

“Yes, Father,” the Young King sniffed.

“Richard, Geoffrey, will you now render homage to your brother?” the King demanded.

“Yes,” muttered Geoffrey.

“No, by our Lady, I will not!” Richard snarled. “It might have escaped your notice, Father, that I hold Aquitaine of the King of France, and to him only do I owe homage. And,” he went on, as Henry opened his mouth to protest, “might I remind you that I had my domains as a gift from my Lady Mother, whom you have unjustly held prisoner these many years!” The venom in his voice was frightening. “If my brother the Young King wants land, let him go and fight for it, as I have had to do!” With that, he picked up his lyre and slammed out of the room, uttering threats and defiance, and leaving Henry looking at his remaining sons in perplexity. One glance at the Young King’s face told him that all his efforts to reconcile his feuding brood had been for nothing. Young Henry’s blood was up; war was in his heart.

As for Eleanor, despite what Richard had said, Henry had no intention of freeing her. The thought of what havoc she might wreak in this present conflict and chaos was enough to deter him from even considering it. In fact, her presence in Winchester, the ancient capital of England, was now a matter of concern to him. Security must be tightened … That meddling woman must go back to Sarum!

56 Sarum, 1183

Eleanor was awakened by the dream and sat bolt upright in the bed in alarm, disturbing Amaria.

“What is it, my lady?” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes.

“Nothing. Go back to sleep,” Eleanor whispered, breathing deeply to still her thudding heart. She needed privacy and quiet to work out what the dream might mean. For in it she had seen, as in a vision, her son, the Young King, lying recumbent on a couch, his hands pressed together as if in prayer. It struck her, with a chill, that he had looked not unlike an effigy on a tomb. But what puzzled her were two things: one was the ring, a great sapphire, that twinkled and flashed on his finger. It was a ring she had never seen before. The sapphire, of course, symbolized the sky, God’s Heaven and His protection; in the East, she had heard, people believed it warded off the evil eye. Was there some portentous meaning to be divined from this?

The other thing that troubled her beyond measure was the remembrance of two crowns hovering in the air above her son’s white face. One she recognized as the crown Henry ordered for his son’s coronation; the second was no earthly crown, but a circle of pure dazzling light that shone with the incomparable brilliance of the Holy Grail itself.

She knew in her heart what the dream must mean, yet her reason and her terrified soul rejected it. She rose from the bed and fell on her knees before the window, gazing up at the narrow view it afforded her of the starry summer sky, and prayed as she had rarely prayed before that this dream was but a warning of what might pass if this bitter war between her sons did not cease, rather than a preparation for news she must shortly have to hear.

The morning brought with it a strange calm, as if she were cradled in a cocoon of peace and security from which she would emerge strengthened and ready to take on lions or wolves. The dream now seemed a distant, unreal memory, born of the fears that come by night. In the dark, everything seems more frightening, she told herself, and by and by the memory faded, until her fear had dissipated. In its place she was left with the uplifting feeling that even if her dream foreshadowed the worst, death was merely the gateway to unimaginable bliss and joy, and should be a matter for rejoicing, not sorrow.

Her calm mood persisted, even when Ranulf Glanville, his face gray, announced the arrival of Thomas Agnell, Archdeacon of Wells.

“The King has sent him to you, my lady,” he told her, his voice unusually tender.

Even before Agnell entered, she knew the tidings he had come to break to her. The dream had foretold this; that, and the fact that Henry himself had sent this man to her.

The archdeacon came in unwillingly. He was a devout and compassionate man, and his placid face was lined with distress. He bowed low, not just out of respect to one who was Queen, but with deference to one who was about to have cause to grieve. Eleanor stood to receive him, marveling that she should feel so serene. God, she believed, was succoring her, holding her in His loving hands. The thought, and the vivid memory of the dream and its promise, sustained her.

“My lady,” Agnell said quietly, “I am asked by the Lord King to inform you that your dearest son, the Young King, has departed to God.”

She had known it.

“I was prepared,” she said simply. “I had a dream.” She told him about it.

“What other meaning than eternal bliss can be ascribed to that brilliant second crown, that perfect circlet with no beginning and no end?” she asked. “What can such pure and resplendent brightness signify, if not the wonder of everlasting joy? That crown was more beautiful than anything that can manifest itself to our senses here on Earth.”

The archdeacon marveled. This was not the wicked queen to whom rumor attributed all manner of scandalous deeds, but a brave and venerable lady honed by adversity, strong in her faith. He looked on her in admiration.

“God in His goodness has vouchsafed you the tiniest glimpse of what Heaven must be,” he told her. “He was surely offering you divine comfort against your sad loss.”

Eleanor could not even think of what that loss would mean for her. The time for that, and for grieving, would come later. But she was fortified by her belief that her son was in a better place and that there was no real need to mourn him, only to await the time when she could be reunited with him in Paradise.

“I have had my epiphany,” she told Agnell. “As the Gospel says, ‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of Man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.’”

“My lady, I can but praise your courage in meeting this great sorrow with such staunch faith,” he replied. “I am humbled by the way you have fathomed the mystery of the dream, and by the discernment and strength with which you are bearing your son’s death. May God comfort and console you.”

“Thank you,” Eleanor said simply, suddenly feeling grief welling like an unquenchable tide within her. “I would be alone now, by your leave. Come back later. I will be ready to hear what happened to my son.”

After he was gone, the tears came flooding. Young Henry might be in Heaven, and exulting in its eternal glories, yet he was gone from her on this Earth, and never more would she see his handsome face, or hold him in her arms. Her calm had deserted her. She cursed Henry for keeping her from her son for ten wasted years. She had never seen him grown to full manhood, and now never would. And Henry had treated him so unjustly, promising him power, yet always keeping it tantalizingly out of reach. If the Young King had turned out feckless, quarrelsome, and ruthless, Henry had made him so. She could not but remember that dear little boy with the angelic golden curls, playing with his wooden horses and his toy dagger. What hopes she’d had for him! And now they were all come to dust, as was he.

Her grief went very deep. Always, she knew, she would be tortured by the memory of this beloved son.

“He had fought his father and brothers,” Agnell began. “He even shot twice at the King when the royal troops were drawn up before Limoges. He sent a messenger to apologize and explain that it had been an accident, but it was widely bruited about that he secretly lusted for his father’s death.”

Where did we fail, as parents, that our son should be driven to that? Eleanor asked herself in remorse. She closed her eyes in misery.

“The King stopped his allowance,” the archdeacon went on, “and of course the Young King ran out of money. He and Duke Geoffrey began sacking and looting monasteries and shrines, and holding villages to ransom. He became a leader of outlaws and excommunicates. I hesitate to tell you this, but only last month he and his men desecrated the holy shrine at Rocamadour and stole the altar treasure and the famous sword of Roland, as the horrified pilgrims looked on.”

She could not bear to think that her son had been such a monster. Yet if he had been past all redemption, why had God vouchsafed her that dream? Was it to show that His forgiveness was boundless? Had Young Henry truly repented at the last?

“Then the Young King’s life was suddenly cut short,” Agnell recounted. “He fell violently ill with dysentery and a fever. They carried him to a house in the town of Martel, and, he being in extremis, the Bishop of Agen was summoned hastily, to whom he made fervent confession of all his sins.”

Eleanor sent up a silent prayer of thanks.

“His case being hopeless, he asked that his father the King be summoned. But as the King told me himself, he suspected a trap, so he sent the Young King a message expressing the hope that when he had recovered, they would be reconciled. And with it he sent, as token of his forgiveness, a sapphire ring.”

Agnell’s eyes met Eleanor’s. A sapphire ring!

“I never knew Henry to wear such a ring,” she said, marveling, “yet I saw it in my dream, as clearly as I can see you now.”

“He had taken it from his treasure; it belonged to the first King Henry.”

“Truly, I am astonished,” she told her visitor. “If I had thought before that my dream was sent by God, then I am utterly convinced of it now, for how could I have known about that ring?”

“The ways of God are indeed mysterious and wonderful,” Agnell declared.

“I feel a little better now,” Eleanor said, her voice gaining strength. “I think I can bear to hear the rest.”

“There is not much more to tell, my lady. At the end, the Young King was so overcome with remorse for his sins that he asked to be clothed in a hair shirt and a crusader’s cloak, and laid on a bed of ashes on the floor, with a noose around his neck and bare stones at his feet, as became a penitent. As he lay there, his father’s ring was brought to him, and he begged that the King would show mercy to you, his mother, whom he had held so long in captivity, and he asked all his companions to plead with your lord to set you at liberty.”

His last thoughts had been for her, his mother. With his dying breath he had asked for her to be freed. Eleanor’s heart was full. She could not speak.

“He gave up his spirit later that evening,” the archdeacon concluded. “The end was very peaceful.”

“He was only twenty-eight,” Eleanor murmured, choked.

“Young in years, but full of time when measured by the experiences of his life,” Agnell observed. They were silent for a few minutes.

“Henry must bitterly regret not going to him when he lay dying,” Eleanor said at length. “Tell me, how did he take the news of his death?”

“He was inconsolable, my lady. He threw himself on the ground and pitifully bewailed the loss of his son. He was so distraught that his secretary, in some alarm, was moved to reprove him for his excess of grief.”

Eleanor found herself inexplicably wanting, needing, to comfort Henry. This was our son, flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone, she thought desperately; we conceived him in love and joy, and we should mourn him in love and compassion. We should be sharing our grief together. Alas, it was clearly not to be. If Henry had wanted to heal the breach in the hour of their terrible sorrow, he would have come here. There was no point in torturing herself.

“Good Father, where has my son been laid to rest?” she inquired.

“His body has been interred by the high altar in the cathedral at Rouen, clothed in his coronation robes. His entrails lie, at the King’s request, at the monastery of Grandmont, which, regrettably, the Young King had recently sacked. I am happy to say that the brethren received them in the spirit of forgiveness.”

Eleanor knew Grandmont well. It was one of Henry’s favorite monastic foundations. He had spoken of being buried there himself one day.

There was no doubting, she told herself later, as she knelt in prayer, forcing herself to face the facts, that the Young King’s death would leave Henry more secure, and Richard the undisputed ruler of Aquitaine and, now, of course, heir to England. Agnell had told her that on hearing of the tragedy at Martel, the rebels immediately disbanded and fled. So Richard, her Richard, would have all except Brittany when Henry died. Maybe, in the end, the eagle would rejoice in her third nesting.

She prayed for her daughter-in-law, the widowed Marguerite, now bereft and childless. No doubt Henry would want to keep his hands on the Vexin, her dowry, although Eleanor doubted that King Philip would be happy about that. At least Marguerite was young and likely to marry again; her life lay mostly ahead of her. Unlike me, poor prisoner, Eleanor thought mournfully. I am sixty-one, and my autumn is upon me. What is there left to me?

A letter came for her from a grief-stricken Bertran de Born; renowned troubadour that he was, for all his treacherous soul, he had couched it in picturesque and evocative language that moved Eleanor deeply, for it evoked the spirit of her native land and sang to her grief. “Youth stands sorrowful,” he wrote. “No man rejoices in these bitter days. Death, that mortal warrior, has harshly taken from us the best of knights.”

The parchment fell to the floor. Eleanor could read no further.

57 Sarum and Normandy, 1183

The first inkling Eleanor got that things were going to be different from now on was when the royal messenger was ushered into her presence. Normally, Ranulf Glanville or Ralph FitzStephen would convey whatever instructions they had received or news the King wanted her to hear. But now she was suddenly being accorded all the respect due to a queen.

Her head spinning with speculation, she sat in her high-backed chair as the man, his clothes dusty from what had evidently been a long ride, knelt before her.

“My lady,” he said, “I am commanded by the Lord King to request your presence in Normandy. He asks that you make ready with all possible haste, as we are to leave for Rouen without delay.”

Henry was requesting? Asking? For the past ten years he’d just sent his commands to her custodians, and she was taken here and there without any deference to her own wishes.

Could it be that grief over their mutual loss had brought him to his senses? Had he realized, as she had, that they were the ones best placed to help each other through their mourning for the life they had created together? Was his need for comfort as urgent as hers?

“I will be ready within the hour,” she told the messenger, then effortlessly slipped back into her regal role and sent him off to the kitchens to find food and drink, as if she had never been prevented from extending such courtesies and the past decade had never been.

Ranulf came to her as she and a beaming Amaria—who was much gratified to see that Henry had come to his senses at last—were hastily gathering their possessions.

“Am I to travel under guard?” Eleanor asked him warily.

“No, madame, with just the normal escort. I have come to tell you that you are no longer a prisoner.”

So, at last, she was free. Free! It was what she had been praying for all through these long, weary years of her incarceration. She could not quite take it in, nor begin to conceive what it would mean to her. Had it happened at any time prior to that terrible day in June, she would have been shouting exultantly for joy, but now it was a bittersweet triumph. For it had taken the death of their son to bring Henry to this decision, and she would have traded her freedom for the Young King’s life any day, yea, even though she remained shut up here until the hour of her death.

It was good, nevertheless, to be in the saddle again, clopping along the sun-dappled lanes of England, reveling in the soft late-summer breeze and the azure-blue sky. It was exhilarating to be on a ship once more, gliding in stately fashion across the smooth waters of the Channel, and then—joy of joys—to sight the coast of Normandy. From there it was only a few days’ ride to Aquitaine … and Richard!

Ranulf Glanville watched Eleanor as she stood high on the forecastle, her cloak billowing out behind her, her profile straining toward the continent where lay her own lands, far to the south—and where the King her husband awaited her. Ranulf knew that Eleanor would find him sadly changed.

He was going to miss her. He had become pleasantly accustomed to her charming company at dinner, to their long and lively conversations, the quicksilver agility of her mind and the ready mother wit of her tongue. He would miss those flashing eyes that invited conversation, and the grace and unconscious allure that even encroaching age could not dim. Imprisonment had not defeated Eleanor: she had emerged from it as vital and energetic as ever, and the weight she’d lost in recent weeks left her looking much younger, with her fine features as elegantly chiseled as if a master mason crafted them.

Ranulf was aware—had been for a long time—that he’d come dangerously close to falling in love with his prisoner; that his infatuation had increased to the point where he’d been in peril of losing the objectivity that all conscientious gaolers need to maintain. Privately, he thought his king a fool. Eleanor was an intelligent woman, amenable to reason; a year in prison would have been enough to curb her rebellious spirit. And the situation had been far more complex than Henry would seem to have believed—anyone could see that.

He pulled himself up, reminded himself that this woman had betrayed her lord and king, and that society justly condemned her for it. He reminded himself, as he had countless times, how he would feel if his faithful Bertha had done such a thing—but of course it would never enter her head, for she was as docile and biddable as a cow. And Eleanor was not Bertha—More’s the pity, said the treacherous little devil in his soul. But after the expiation of sins there must come forgiveness. It was sad that it had taken the Young King’s death to bring Henry to that point, but fitting that he should take his wife back unto himself. All the same, Ranulf knew he was going to miss her …

Amaria was reveling in her mistress’s newfound liberty, but as they journeyed the roads of Normandy, passing apple orchards and lush swaths of fertile farmland, with here and there a stern castle, a bustling town, a soaring abbey or sleepy hamlet, her excitement was increasingly tempered by a festering anxiety. When the Queen was restored to her proper place, would she still want a peasant for a serving woman, when she could have the greatest ladies in the land to attend upon her?

For the truth was, Amaria had grown to love Queen Eleanor. What began in disapproval and suspicion ended in deep affection and loyalty, for never once had Eleanor done anything to confirm Amaria’s earlier opinion of her. And she had suffered so much … and all for love of her children—that much was abundantly clear. Amaria knew what it was to love a child, and she knew too that if her Mark had ever been treated unjustly by his late lamented father, she would have sprung like a lioness to his defense.

She had asked herself again and again if she dared question Eleanor about what was to become of her now, but the truth was, she feared to hear the answer. The Queen had made her a promise, but what if she now wished to forget the woman who had shared her long imprisonment? That would be wholly understandable, of course, but did loyalty and friendship count for nothing? And there had been friendship between mistress and maid—she had not imagined it; every day she had marveled that she, a humble miller’s daughter, should be the friend of the King’s own consort, the woman who, by rights, should be queening it over half of Christendom!

Not long now to Rouen. She would be glad of a soft bed, after hours of jolting in an unfamiliar saddle—and she no horsewoman, by anybody’s reckoning! But what would happen when they got to Rouen? Amaria dreaded to think of that.

Eleanor, riding beside her, turned and smiled.

“Is it not wonderful to be away from that dreary castle!” she cried. “Cheer up, Amaria—we are free! There is no need to look so dismal. I promise you, when we get to Rouen, I will order us both some fine bliauts. I expect mine will have rotted away by now.” Most of her wardrobe had been left in Poitiers.

“My lady, what use would I have for fine bliauts?” Amaria asked, but her heart was welling with excitement, for already she knew the answer.

“For wearing at court, of course!” the Queen replied. “I cannot have my ladies attending me in plain woolen gowns and wimples. I had three chief damsels—Torqueri, Florine, and Mamille—and now I will have four, including you. I only hope that the others can come back to me—I know you will like them!”

Amaria’s cup ran over.

It was dark by the time they approached Rouen and clattered into the courtyard of the ducal palace beyond the city walls, and torches lit Eleanor’s way as she was escorted up the spiral stairs to the royal lodgings in the great tower. The King had dined alone, she was told, and would receive her in private. Her spirits lifted in relief. She had been dreading this moment more than she would even admit to herself, and was supremely thankful, much as she had been ten years earlier, that her reunion with Henry was not to take place in public with the whole court looking on.

Through a window slit on the stairwell she briefly glimpsed the tower where she had first been held. If I had known then what lay ahead, I might have tried to kill myself in despair, she thought. Thank God we are not vouchsafed the knowledge of what is in store for us. She wondered, with hope and dread in her soul, what lay ahead now.

The door opened into a barrel-vaulted chamber lit with candle sconces and hung with tapestries in vivid hues; above them she glimpsed painted friezes with scarlet and gold roundels, and at one end of the room there hung a majestic canopy embroidered with the lions of Anjou and Poitou. Beneath it stood a golden throne with its carved arms and back painted bright indigo. Evidently Henry lived in greater state these days than he used to. All this Eleanor took in with one glance before her eyes met those of the man who had risen from the long table in the center and come limping toward her.

She was shocked to her core. This was not the Henry she remembered so vividly, but an old man. In the brief glimpse she had of him before she sank in a deep and graceful curtsey to the floor, she took in the iron-gray hair, the stocky, corpulent body, the bowed legs, no doubt made so by years of hard riding around his vast empire, and that painful limp. His face was lined and drawn with care and grief, his gray eyes wary and bloodshot—he did not look a well man. And he must be, what, fifty? He looked far older. She was astonished to find herself feeling pain—and another, deeper emotion—at the sight of him, which was incredible, indeed after all that he had done to her. All that we have done to each other, the voice of her conscience corrected her.

Henry stepped forward, stretched out his hands—his familiar, callused hands, much rougher now than in former days—and raised Eleanor by the elbows. Then he let his hands fall and they stood there appraising each other, neither of them knowing quite what to say. What does one say to the wife one has kept a prisoner for so long? each was thinking.

Henry had rehearsed this scene over and over again in his mind. He had resolved to be businesslike and tell Eleanor that her presence in Normandy was needed in order to counteract King Philip’s demands for the return of lands she had assigned for her lifetime to the Young King, but that Philip was now insisting belonged to Queen Marguerite in right of her late husband. But seeing his queen now, standing there before him, he could not say it. Those demands had been a pretext: he had known that all along, if he were honest with himself. The truth was that since the terrible news had come from Martel, he had felt differently about Eleanor. Instead of the archtraitress who had betrayed her lord and king, and who must be kept under lock and key for everyone’s safety, he could conjure up only images of her as a young mother, swinging Young Henry up in the air, happily arranging a birthday celebration for him, kissing his hurts better, Eleanor pleading with him, as the boy grew older, to give him what she’d called his rightful dues. Had she been so wrong to support her son? Had her shattering betrayal been motivated by nothing worse than motherly love?

Yet she had hurt him, her husband, irrevocably, rocked his throne more dangerously even than had the murder of Thomas, and seemed to do it purposefully to bring him to ruin. But now all he could see was the woman who had borne him the child they had lost, the only one who really knew what he was suffering. And when he saw her, in the flesh, standing before him at last, after a decade of absence, there stirred in him, along with pity and the need for comfort, some vestiges of the feelings that he had long told himself were dead and buried—killed off brutally by her faithlessness.

For still she was beautiful. He did a quick reckoning. Sixty-one? Impossible. But yes, she was eleven years older than he. Tall and dignified in her elegant mourning robes, with her gossamer-thin black veil falling from a black coif, her heart-shaped face was framed in the most flattering manner by the matching barbette that creased in linen folds under her chin. Her eyes were clear, if questioning, her skin smooth and pale as marble, her mouth bow-shaped yet. But it was the expression on her face that struck him most: there was a new serenity about her, the promise of hard-learned wisdom in those eyes, and an indefinable aura of spiritual peace. It occurred to him suddenly that this woman might no longer be a threat to him.

“My lady,” he said at length. “Welcome. I trust you had a good journey.”

“Wonderful,” she answered. “I cannot tell you how good it felt to be out in the world, enjoying God’s good fresh air again.”

Was she baiting him already? He looked at her sharply, yet could detect no malice in her, and could only deduce that she had but spoken from the heart—as well she might, he conceded.

“Pray sit down,” Henry invited, pulling out the nearer of the two carved chairs that stood at each end of the table. Bread, fish, and fowl had been laid out, along with a fruit tart and the good sweet wine of Anjou, but it looked as if Henry had barely touched the food.

“Are you hungry? Have you eaten?” he asked.

“Some wine would be welcome,” Eleanor said. She could not face food. All she could think of was that she was here, with Henry, her lord, after so long, and that his presence still had the power to move her, as it always had.

Henry poured the wine, moved his chair next to hers and sat down. “I don’t want to shout down the table,” he jested, breaking the tension a little. “Now, I expect you are wondering why I asked you here.”

“I was a little surprised to receive the invitation,” Eleanor returned. “Henry, please—I have to ask, before we go any further. They told me I was no longer a prisoner. Does that mean that I am forgiven?”

He stared at her, nonplussed, then swallowed. “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “Yes, provided you behave yourself in the future.”

“Oh, you can count on that,” she assured him, her tone light. “I am not likely to risk your walling me up for another decade. I am coming to the end of my natural span, and the years I have left are precious to me.”

“I am relieved to have your assurance,” Henry declared, with the hint of a wry smile.

Was that it? she asked herself. The subject, her long years of imprisonment, the breakdown of their marriage, disposed of in a few words? Am I forgiven? Yes, as long as you don’t do it again. No, I won’t. And yet, what else was there to say? Was she to dwell, in accusatory detail, on the miseries she had suffered? Henry must have some idea what he had put her through. Should they disinter and pore over the horrible conflict between them that should long since have been laid to rest? What was the point? What mattered was the present, and the future. They must move forward. If they dwelt too long and hard on how calamitously they had made mistakes and broken faith in the past, they would surely destroy each other.

“You were going to tell me why you sent for me,” she said resolutely, reaching for her goblet.

“Ah,” Henry responded, clearly relieved to be back on safer ground. “It concerns certain lands in Normandy that this young fox Philip is claiming were given to his sister Marguerite. He wants to lay his grubby hands on them, of course, but I reminded him that in fact they belonged to you, and that you had assigned them to Young Henry only for his lifetime, after which they were to revert to you.” At the mention of his dead son, his face tautened. For a heartbeat the mask slipped and it became clear that Henry was suffering greatly—just as she was. But she was not feeling quite ready to confront their common grief just yet. She had had too much to deal with already this day.

“Yes, I suppose those domains will have reverted to me,” she said. “I fear I am long out of touch with my landed and financial interests.”

“That’s neither here nor there,” Henry interrupted impatiently. “What matters is that I retain control of those properties that are rightfully mine, as your lord. Young Philip is dangerous; he has grandiose ideas about expanding the might of France. He has his eye on my empire. Were he to gain possession of these lands, we’d have French troops infiltrating Normandy and … well, you can imagine the rest. I have my hands full as it is, trying to keep my domains under control.”

“I see your point,” Eleanor conceded. “It would indeed be foolhardy to give Philip what he wants. So what can I do for you?”

Henry looked at her with admiration. She was actually willing and ready to cooperate with him, after long years of being bitterly at odds, fighting, quarreling, and worse. And Eleanor marveled that they were sitting here discussing politics much as they had in the old days—the early days. This was surely one of the best aspects of her new freedom, this being restored to the center of affairs.

“I want you to visit those domains, each in turn,” Henry said. “I want it to appear that you are reasserting your rights to them. Show yourself friendly to the local lords, grant charters and privileges, endow churches, found markets—you know the kind of thing that wins hearts.”

“You want me to do all this?” she asked in wonderment. “I, who was so lately your prisoner? You trust me to do it?”

“There is no one else who can,” Henry said, and grinned, and in that moment his guard fell. The grin faded and in its place there appeared on his care-worn features a look of such anguish that it nearly broke Eleanor to see it.

He reached out his hand to her, the movement jerky and tentative. His face was a grimace of agony.

“Help me, Eleanor!” he muttered, his voice strangled. She rose without hesitation and grasped that outstretched hand, pressing it to her lips, her ready tears salting it, her own need for consolation welling urgently. “I did not ask you here just to discuss Normandy,” Henry gasped. “I asked you because there is no one else I can turn to, no one else who loved him as I do.” And with that, he clasped his arms about her waist, buried his head in her belly, and howled like a baby.

When the storm of weeping had passed, and Eleanor felt she had no more tears left in her, they were gentle with each other, sitting quietly in the candlelight, sipping the restorative wine and talking without rancor of the events that had led them both to this place.

“Henry, I long to see our other children,” Eleanor said suddenly.

He turned his ravaged face to hers and took her hand. “I knew you would want to,” he told her. “They are here. I summoned them for the purpose. Come, you will be reunited with them now.”

As he led her downstairs to the lower chambers, Eleanor feared that she could not cope with so much grief and joy in such a short span of time. She was to see her children, at last, after so long! They were here—and Henry had bidden them come specially to see her. She felt a little light-headed with emotion and anticipation. Would they have changed? How would they react to seeing her? And—most crucial of all—did they still love her? She was in anguish to know.

When she entered the princes’ lodgings hand in hand with Henry, three young men and a young woman rose at once and bowed low. For a confused moment Eleanor hardly recognized any of them, and then she knew them all for her own—much older, of course, and grown to adulthood, but still her children, those she had left to her, and still inestimably loved.

In an instant they were embracing and kissing her, overjoyed to be reunited with their mother, and there were, inevitably, more tears, but happy ones this time. How, she thought, could she ever have doubted their love for her?

“Let me look at you all!” Eleanor cried in delight, as Henry watched them, a wry smile on his face. With the conversation flowing excitedly, she could not take her eyes off Richard, now a magnificent golden giant of almost twenty-six who towered above everyone else. “My great one!” she breathed, all his cruelties and depredations forgotten; she had long since convinced herself that reports of them had been greatly exaggerated, and that it was his father who had really been to blame. She was thrilled to find that in manhood, Richard had such natural authority and presence, and seeing him so powerfully built and charismatic, she did not doubt that his reputation as a warrior equal to Mars was well deserved. He was a born leader, who clearly had the ability to prove himself superior to all others.

Geoffrey, a year older, had not fulfilled his earlier promise of maturing into a handsome man. The only dark-haired one of her sons, he was short of stature and blunt of feature, and his bearing lacked a certain princely grace. But his fair words to his mother belied his appearance; she had always known that this son was blessed with acute intelligence and mental agility, and yet … and yet, she also had a stronger impression than ever that there was a darker Geoffrey, a devilish Geoffrey that lurked only a little way beneath the clever and urbane front that he presented to the world.

She could not believe that John, the youngest of her children, was the young man who had now grown as tall as his brothers, who seemed still to treat him as a child to be humored, while Henry behaved toward John with affectionate indulgence. Indeed, the light seemed to shine from his eyes whenever he looked on the youth, an obvious irritation to Richard and Geoffrey. Eleanor could detect a certain jealousy … It was evident that despite their outward bonhomie, these three sons of hers would always be rivals.

John was courteous to her, yet held himself more aloof than the rest. She could not blame him for that. She suspected that he resented her for having effectively abandoned him at Fontevrault in his infancy; she perceived in his conversation—the diffident conversation of a young man who thinks he knows everything—a certain antipathy toward the Church, which she guessed might have had its roots in his early experiences. Yet she knew that she could never explain to John why she had left him in the care of the nuns. Such things were better put firmly behind them all and consigned to the past. If we allow the past to blight our lives, we will never make a success of this reunion, she told herself again. At least she could look on John, with his dark red curls and his strongly built body, which so favored his father’s, with warmth now, and actually care about what happened to him, as became a natural mother. That was a significant blessing.

She rejoiced to see Matilda; it was a special delight to be reunited with this daughter she had thought never to set eyes on again, although nothing—nothing—could equal the joy she felt at seeing Richard after all the hard, cruel years of separation; and her cup was full when Matilda summoned a nurse, who escorted into the room a procession of seven little Saxon children to greet their grandmother—the first of her grandchildren that Eleanor had ever seen. One of the girls, she was touched to hear, had been named in her honor. She bent and hugged the sturdy little boys, Otto and Henry, lifted the baby Lothar into her arms, and made much of the pretty daughters, especially Richenza—who told an amused Eleanor that she would really rather be called Matilda while she was in England—then there was Gertrude, Ingibiorg, and tiny Nell, her namesake.

She looked on Matilda’s brood with pride, while reflecting that it was sad that none of her other children had been similarly fruitful. The Young King’s son had died, as had Joanna’s and Eleanor’s firstborn. So far there was no whisper that Geoffrey’s Constance, who had now joined the gathering and was fawning possessively over her husband, might be enceinte, and Richard and John were as yet unmarried. Both were betrothed, of course, but, John being only sixteen, it was Richard’s situation that perturbed the Queen more than anything. So far she had encountered neither sight nor sound of the Princess Alys. Was it true that Henry had at one time meant to marry her himself? If so, he had abandoned the idea years since, for she had never heard any more of it. When the opportunity arose, she promised herself, she would tactfully raise the matter of Richard’s marriage with Henry. It must take place soon.

But for now that could wait. There were more pleasant matters at hand, and so much news to catch up on. It was enough that, tonight, she was feasting her eyes at long last on her children, with Henry at her side. Lord Jesus, she prayed, let all our strife and troubles be firmly behind us. And with a radiant smile that captured all the love and hope in her heart, she raised her goblet in yet another toast to this wonderful reunion.

58 Normandy and Angers, 1183

Once more Eleanor assumed her rightful place as Queen. When Henry led her out before the court the following evening, and they took their seats at the high table for a celebratory feast, there were cheers and applause as the company rose to its feet. It was all quite overwhelming. She had not imagined that her husband’s courtiers would have thought so kindly of her.

She was pleased to find Hugh of Avalon seated at her right hand. Although she knew he did not approve of her marriage, she liked and respected him as a man of integrity and holiness, and she could sense that he was happy to see her here.

“I am more than glad to see good relations restored between you and the King, my lady,” he told her warmly.

“God has answered my prayers,” she said fervently, and then, with a touch of mischief, added, “I am to be on my best behavior now, if I am not to incur Henry’s hatred once more.”

Hugh gave her a long look. “I think you have both learned wisdom, which means that something good has come out of this whole sorry business. And this reunion does not really surprise me. Those whom the King once loved, he rarely comes to hate. And he needs you, my lady, more than he realizes. God works in ways that are incomprehensible to us, but He has brought you together, and taught you both to forgive. Would that it could have been in happier circumstances. This has been a sad time for you both. I am deeply sorry for your loss.”

Eleanor inclined her head, not wanting to go there. “What I want to achieve is a good working partnership with my lord the King.”

“I believe he desires that too,” the prior told her. “He no longer wishes to give his sons cause to criticize him for treating you harshly.”

“And did they so criticize him?”

“Oh, indeed—constantly!” Hugh smiled. “Your children are very loyal to you. It is a happy day for them, to have their parents reconciled.”

“Indeed it is,” said the Queen, her heart full. But we are not fully reconciled, she thought. She should not have expected it, of course, yet she had wondered, briefly, last night, if Henry, having poured his heart out to her earlier, would come to her bed and cement their reunion with his poor, aging body, in which she suspected the old Adam doubtless still lurked. Despite everything, she would very much have liked him to, for she desperately needed the comfort of that unique close union with another human being—and to prove to herself that she could still experience sexual pleasure, which would have enabled her briefly to distance herself from her grief. But he had not come, and she had lain there—blissfully alone for the first night in years—thinking how foolish she had been even to imagine it.

Overjoyed to be at liberty and free to ride where she would at will, Eleanor set off on her travels to the disputed fiefs. She was received everywhere with honor and acclaim, and found herself slipping back effortlessly into the queenly role that had once been a way of life for her. It was very gratifying, and moving, and she was proud to find that she had not lost her common touch, and that the efforts she was making on Henry’s behalf were going a long way toward restoring her own popularity.

Then came the summons to Angers, preceded by rumors that trouble had broken out yet again between the King and his sons. Immediately she hastened south, determined to do all in her power to put things right; but almost as soon as she had dismounted in the castle bailey, Richard was there at her elbow, his handsome face dark with anger.

“Father is out hunting. I need to speak with you urgently,” he muttered.

“At least let me get my breath back,” she chided, then beckoned him to follow her to her lodgings. As Amaria—an Amaria whose bulky figure was now encased in a stylish green bliaut—bustled about in the inner chamber unpacking her gear, a job she had to do by herself, as Henry had demurred about recalling Eleanor’s other ladies (no doubt they were tainted with suspicion too, and he thought they incited me to rebellion, she told herself), she poured some wine and bade Richard sit down with her in the solar.

“Now, tell me what is going on,” she ordered.

Richard eased his long body onto a settle and looked at his mother, frowning, as if weighing up how much to reveal to her. “It’s about Alys, my betrothed,” he said at last. “Father is keeping her under guard at Winchester. I have asked time and again for him to let us be married, but he will not. Now Philip is insisting that Father honor the betrothal treaty and arrange the wedding without further delay, but still he stalls.”

The door opened and Henry walked in. “Plotting rebellion again?” he asked his son nastily.

“That’s unfair, my lord!” Eleanor protested. “I know nothing of what has been going on. Richard was acquainting me with the facts.”

“You mean, he’s been telling you his one-sided view of affairs,” Henry growled, sitting down heavily and rubbing his lame leg, which Eleanor now knew was the casualty of a well-aimed kick from a horse. “Richard, would you leave us, please.” Richard glared at his father mutinously, but bit back the protest and stalked out, slamming the door. Henry’s eyes narrowed but he said nothing.

“Philip wants to divide my empire and weaken it,” he told Eleanor. “To that end, he seeks to drive a wedge between me and my sons. If I marry Richard to Alys, Philip will almost certainly use that alliance to bind Richard closer to him and turn him against me.”

“That’s a fair argument,” Eleanor observed. “By all accounts, Philip is a slippery character, not like his father at all.”

“He’s crafty and greedy, and suspicious too—they say he sees an assassin hiding behind every tree. But never underestimate him: he’s as shrewd and calculating as they come. Dangerous too. An enemy to reckon with, and believe me, I’ve seen off a few in my time.”

“Can you not break the betrothal?”

“And lose the county of Berry, Alys’s dowry?”

Eleanor remembered Henry’s glee at having secured that rich prize, all those years ago. But what of Alys herself? she wondered. Is it because he still lusts after marrying her himself and cannot bear to send her back to Paris?

“No,” Henry was saying, “I have enough to deal with just now with Richard and John quarreling, and I don’t want Philip exploiting it.”

This was news to their mother. “Richard and John?” Was there no end to this family strife?

“Yes,” Henry sighed. “Richard is now my heir.” They were both silent for a moment, remembering why. “And yet,” he continued, with an effort, “it seems unfair that he should get England, Normandy, Anjou, and Aquitaine, while John has only a few scattered estates and Ireland. The Irish don’t like the idea, but it might be helpful to have a royal presence in Dublin and the Pale surrounding it to keep their native kings in order. What I was saying was that John will inherit very little, and I want to redress that, if people are not to call him ‘John Lackland’.” He laughed grimly at his own joke, then got up and began pacing restlessly around the room. Eleanor could sense his discomfort, and that what he was about to say might not be what she would want to hear.

Henry turned to face her. “I have called both Richard and John to make peace between them, and a settlement that is fairer to John—and I’ve brought you in because I want your approval.” It concerns Aquitaine, she thought, in alarm.

“I want Richard to cede Aquitaine to John, and have John swear fealty to him as his overlord,” Henry said.

“No!” Eleanor said unhesitatingly.

“Be reasonable,” Henry wheedled. “What does it matter if Richard or John has Aquitaine?”

“It matters to me!” she retorted, rising to face him. “I nurtured Richard as my heir. The South is in his blood. John neither knows nor cares about Aquitaine.”

“He would quickly learn to, if he were its duke. Eleanor, you’re not very good at concealing the fact that Richard is your favorite and that you have very little love for John. That blinds you to all other considerations.” Henry’s gaze was challenging.

“Ask Richard what he thinks of this plan, then!” she flared. “You know you will dispose of Aquitaine regardless of what I think—but he is the one most nearly concerned. And, I warn you, Henry: alienate him over this—and you will drive him into the arms of Philip!”

“Very well, we will have him here!” Henry said, and shouted down the stairwell for someone to go and fetch the Duke of Aquitaine.

Richard could not speak, he was so enraged. A look of thunder clouded his chiseled features.

“Well?” Henry prompted.

“Are you going to ride roughshod over us both?” Eleanor asked him.

“Richard?” his father barked. “My son, you must see that this is an altogether fairer disposition of my domains.”

Richard thrust his furious face into the King’s. “I am a southerner. My Lady Mother raised me from my infancy to be her heir. I love that land of Aquitaine. I have spent years fighting to hold and keep it, and you ask me to relinquish it to John? To that light-minded, lazy, greedy wastrel who has barely set foot in Aquitaine, let alone learned how to govern it? Pshaw! The place will be a bloodbath within a week without a firm hand in control of it!”

“I will give you Alys—now,” Henry said, as if he were dangling a carrot before a donkey. Richard threw him a strange look that Eleanor could not quite interpret.

“Leave her out of it for now!” he snapped. “Tell me, Father—do you mean to make John your heir? Will it be Aquitaine now, and Normandy next, and then Anjou, Maine, and England—the whole bloody empire for the son you love best?” Eleanor caught her breath—that had not occurred to her.

Henry’s face darkened. “No,” he spat. “How could you think that? Has Philip been whispering treason in your ear?”

“He has good cause, with my marriage being continually postponed!” Richard was beside himself with rage. “He thinks you delay the wedding because you mean to marry Alys yourself, so that she can bear you sons and dispossess us.”

Eleanor’s hand flew to her mouth. “Is this true, Henry?” she cried, appalled at the terrible prospect opened up by her son’s harsh words.

“Of course not,” Henry answered, a shade too quickly. “It’s some nonsense that Philip has fed him. Besides, have I not just said he can marry Alys now?”

“He has said that several times and retracted it,” Richard said, his tone bitter. “I wish I could believe him this time.”

“You can have Alys if you surrender Aquitaine to John,” Henry offered brightly.

“No!” said Eleanor.

“I should have her anyway!” Richard roared. “We’ve been betrothed since we were children.”

“Go away and think it over,” Henry told him.

“I’ll go to Hell first!” his son riposted. “And I’ll appeal to the Church to support me, see if I don’t!”

“If you won’t marry her, I’ll give Alys to John,” Henry threatened.

“You are plotting my ruin!” Richard yelled, and stormed to the door. “I knew it. Well, you won’t have to endure the sight of me any longer. I am off for Poitiers. Don’t think to see me back!”

Eleanor looked coldly upon Henry. “And you think I caused the divisions in this family?” she asked scathingly. “You say you want peace between your sons, but it’s always only on your own terms. Do you want them to resent you? Do you want the years of your age to be overshadowed by endless discord and strife, so that you can find no abiding happiness or enjoy any peace and security?”

“Peace, woman,” Henry growled. “Had you supported me, this would not have happened.”

“Oh, I think Richard spoke for himself—he does not need his mother’s approval!” she retorted.

59 Berkhamstead, Woodstock, and Winchester, 1184

Henry sent her back to England in the custody of Ralph FitzStephen. She knew he feared she might stir up more trouble in Richard’s defense, and smarted with the unfairness of it all. Although she had been promised her freedom, she was effectively a prisoner once more, presumed guilty until time should prove her innocent. The cage would be gilded, but it was a cage no less.

She was forced to brave the turbulent January seas, then a hard ride to Berkhamstead Castle, Becket’s former luxurious residence, which was looking a little worn and frayed after years of neglect. Here, in company with the ghosts and remembrances of the past, she kept Easter with her daughter Matilda, who was pregnant yet again. Afterward, Matilda returned to the lodgings that had been assigned her in Winchester Castle, and Eleanor was removed to Woodstock.

She did not want to go there, to that place with its painful, unhallowed memories, but had little choice in the matter. The King had sent orders, and that was that. She wondered if he had done it to spite her. At least she was not required to sleep in Rosamund’s tower—that was now locked up and deserted—but in the Queen’s chambers in the hunting lodge itself. Her high window looked out upon the labyrinth—now an overgrown wilderness abandoned to Dame Nature.

She would have liked to ignore it, but it drew her, remorselessly, almost supernaturally, and one early June evening, bored by the tedium of her dreary leisure hours, she felt an urgent need to take the air, and found her steps tracing the bracken-strewn paving stones that led to the entrance of the maze. She had to untangle some branches to get in, and tore her veil on a briar, but soon she was through, and able to make her way along the weed-infested paths. Fortunately, whoever designed the labyrinth had laid them out broadly, so the encroaching foliage did not impede her progress too much. Soon, by keeping her wits about her, she found the wide arbor at the core—which was actually, although she did not realize it, to one side—and sank down thankfully on a lichen-covered stone bench.

So this was where the gossip had her hunting out her rival, following the thread of silk to the forbidden door. The things people were prepared to believe! If only they knew … Yes, she had been deeply hurt to hear Henry say he loved Rosamund; yes, she had rejoiced, God forgive her, to learn of the young woman’s early death. But that she would have stooped to violence to rid herself of her—Heaven forbid! Rosamund had been beneath her notice: a queen had her dignity to preserve, and she’d fought many battles with herself to do just that.

She wondered if Rosamund, that pretty, arrogant little whore, had taken much pleasure in her labyrinth; if she walked here often. It had been the most touching gift from a besotted king, so surely she cherished it?

The sun was setting in a golden glow behind the black silhouette of the castle walls, leaving the skies a brilliant clear pink-tinged azure in the dying rays of the light. The shadows were lengthening. As the glow dimmed, the labyrinth began to seem a different, darker place. Eleanor shivered, aware of old, primeval forces at work. Here, Dame Nature was alive and hard at work, having reclaimed her kingdom; the soft rustlings and crackles from the stirring bracken made it easy to believe in all those ancient tales of the Green Man, which the English loved to tell. He was one of the “old ones” they spoke of, and he went by many names—Robin Goodfellow and Jack i’ the Wood were two that she had heard from Amaria. He was a fertility god or a monster, whichever story one believed, and his power had never been bridled by Church or state. In the twilight, it was easy to imagine his cunning face peering out eerily from the foliage.

As the Queen sat there, feeling increasingly uncomfortable in the gathering gloom, and bracing herself to retrace her steps—she thought she knew which way to go—she heard what sounded like a soft footfall. Crunch. There it went again, to her left; someone stepping on bracken! It might be a squirrel or a fox, she told herself sternly, but nevertheless, she stood up and hastened along the path back to civilization, negotiating her way between the high hedges.

Crunch. It was behind her now. Crunch. Again! Someone was in the labyrinth, someone who was approaching by stealth and had not thought fit to announce their presence by calling out to her. She was almost running now, scared to look behind her, her spine tingling with fear, expecting at any moment to feel a hand clamp itself on her shoulder or—horror of horrors—a stab of pain as a dagger pierced her back. If Henry really did mean to marry Alys, her removal would be all too convenient. Yet she could not, even in extremis, imagine Henry being the kind of man who would send an assassin to kill her. Yet Henry, she knew, was prone to saying violent things in his ungovernable rages, things he did not mean—look what happened with Becket! Supposing he had said something similar of her: “Who will rid me of this turbulent queen?”

She was lost and desperate to get out but had to pause for breath or she would collapse. She came to a halt at a corner, her chest heaving, and looked both ways. Nothing stirred. There was only the sibilant rustling of leaves and the occasional twitter of a tiny bird. Then she heard it again. Crunch, this time followed by a faint cry that could almost have been a sob. Ahead of her. There was no rhyme or reason to it. Did the person stalking her know where they were going?

She would not run this time. She would tread silently, and keep her wits about her. She crept furtively along the paths, steeling herself to take her time and breathing shallowly. Then, turning another corner, she glimpsed, ahead of her, the trail of a gray gown disappearing into the briars. And that cry again, faint but distinct, and definitely a sob. A woman, then! But what woman? Her fear abated a little. She was equal to besting a woman! It was the brute strength of a man she had feared.

Eleanor followed carefully, keeping her distance, noticing that she was very near to the edge of the maze, for beyond stood the high wall of the hunting lodge. Crunch. It was behind her again, on the path she had just walked—but how could that be? She would have had to pass whoever it was, surely?

She was becoming a little weary of this game of cat and mouse, and increasingly chilled in body and soul. The light was fading fast, the moon rising, and all she wanted was to get back to her bower and the down-to-earth common sense of Amaria, so it was with enormous relief that she suddenly espied the entrance to the maze ahead of her. Yet, once through it, she did not immediately hurry back to the hunting lodge. She could see the two guards who always trailed her standing at attention by the garden door, so, taking courage from their presence, she concealed herself behind a straggling mulberry tree to watch for her pursuer emerging from the labyrinth—for without doubt they must soon do so. There was no other way out, and they could not remain there all night.

She waited, in increasing puzzlement, for nigh on half an hour, but no one appeared. Nor did she hear any more footfalls or other noises that might betray the presence of someone in the maze. The night was quiet, its peace unbroken. Then, just as she was deciding to go indoors, her attention was captured by the dim but unmistakable flicker of a candle in the upper room of Rosamund’s tower. She caught her breath. Someone was indeed playing games with her! Were they deliberately trying to frighten her? Tomorrow, she vowed, she would get to the bottom of this, and that person would be made to account for their purpose in disturbing the Queen!

Once back in the safety of her bower, she told a surprised Amaria and a skeptical Ralph FitzStephen of her experiences. FitzStephen had the maze searched, and the tower unlocked and inspected, but found nothing to account for what Eleanor had heard and seen. It was not until two mornings later that she was given a less than satisfactory explanation for what had happened, when Amaria brought the local laundry woman to see her. They had fallen to chatting on the banks of the River Glyne, as the woman washed sheets, and Amaria told her of the Queen’s fright in the labyrinth.

The laundress was nervous of speaking to so great a lady, but determined to tell Eleanor what she knew.

“That baint no ‘uman soul in that there maze,” she declared. “She walks. Some has heard her, heard her footsteps. They be all around, no rhyme or reason to them.”

“Who walks?” Eleanor asked gently. The laundress’s words had chilled her.

“Why, the Fair Rosamund, o’ course, lady, her as people say was murd—” She stopped in mid-flight, remembering to whom she spoke. “Begging your pardon, lady, it’s only what fools say. But she walks, no doubt about it. And she’ve been seen up in that tower. She weeps for her sins! And another thing, young Matt, the miller’s boy, he’s seen her, in the maze! Well, not her, so to speak of—but he caught a glimpse of her gown; it were gray!”

Eleanor froze. She had not mentioned that detail.

She still did not quite know if she believed what the laundress had said when permission arrived for her to remove to Winchester so she could be present at Matilda’s confinement. If the tale was true, then why should Rosamund appear to her rival, Eleanor, the woman she had wronged in life?

“Stop thinking about it,” Amaria counseled in her blunt way. “It’s just gossip.”

“I’m not so sure,” Eleanor said thoughtfully. “It was a nightmarish experience, but I did not dream it. Can malice survive the grave? I can hardly believe Rosamund was trying to seek my forgiveness—it was an odd way to go about it, scaring me half to death like that.”

“It’s all nonsense!” Amaria snorted.

“I know what I heard, and saw,” Eleanor insisted. “You were not there. But we will say no more of it.”

“Mayhap, my lady,” interrupted FitzStephen, staggering into the bower with a pile of cloth-wrapped bundles in his arms, “there is no reasoning behind the appearances of spirits, and it means nothing at all—or you were mistaken in what you heard and saw; it could have been a shadow, or some small creatures of the night. Now, here are some parcels for you from the Lord King.”

Eleanor temporarily forgot her puzzlement as she unwrapped the gifts and exclaimed delightedly over the bold scarlet bliaut lined with gray miniver that she found in the first, the saddle worked with gold and trimmed with fur in the second, and the embroidered cushions in the third. Nor had Henry omitted to send gifts to Amaria, of whom he soundly approved: for her, there were fine linen headrails and an amethyst brooch.

Peace offerings, Eleanor told herself. He won’t admit that he has again treated me—and our sons—unjustly, so he sends presents instead. Her spirits lifted and she had to smile. It was so typical of Henry—and it augured well for a happy resolution to all the quarreling.

As for that strange Rosamund business, she knew she would never convince herself entirely that it had not been a supernatural experience. And the appalling thought occurred to her that Rosamund had not yet found the eternal peace that is every Christian soul’s hope and desire, and that her shade was condemned to a relentless earthly purgatory in expiation of her sins. The notion chilled her immeasurably, for she herself was no longer young, and Divine Judgment could not be far off! Might she too be condemned to walk this Earth for eternity, at Poitiers, the place where she had plotted her husband’s betrayal—or, worse still, in the grim keep of Sarum? Heaven forbid! She had best start ensuring that she lived wisely and virtuously from now on. That would make a change, she thought, with the hint of a darkly humorous smile playing on her lips.

Matilda, with the minimum of fuss, had a healthy little boy, to Eleanor’s joy, and called him William in honor of the Conqueror and the Queen’s father. Eleanor had arrived at Winchester just in time to greet her new grandchild as he emerged from his mother’s womb, and she was thrilled to be able to spend the following weeks in her daughter’s company, taking pleasure in the infant’s progress.

This happy interlude was marred by the arrival one morning of two more packages, both of identical size.

“For the Queen!” announced the steward, placing them on the chest. “A gift from the Lord King.”

Henry was trying to make amends! Eleanor smiled and unwrapped the first package. It contained more rich items of clothing: a lightweight summer cloak and hood of the deepest blue samite, and a good few yards of colorfully embroidered trimming for edging garments. Suitable peace offerings! It was gratifying to know that Henry was thinking of her and that her good opinion counted for something with him; and, of course, such gifts might well signal that she was soon to be set at liberty again.

She opened the second bundle to find, to her astonishment, that it contained exactly the same items. Why would Henry send two of everything, and in separate packages? Then her eye was drawn to a tiny scroll of parchment that lay on the floor; it must have fallen out of one of the bundles. She picked it up and saw that it was a receipt of sorts, written by some clerk who had obviously intended to file it away in the royal accounts but mistakenly wrapped it with the gifts. He would be looking for it, no doubt. But what was it that he had scribed? “£55.17s. for the clothes of the Queen and of Bellebelle, for the King’s use.”

Who was Bellebelle, and why had she been provided with exactly the same gifts of clothing as herself? Looking at the final phrase, her heart sinking, Eleanor suddenly knew the answer. The garments could not be for the King’s use, of course—but the mysterious Bellebelle obviously was.

Her mind disquieted, she made it her business, while at Winchester, to seek out Alys, Richard’s betrothed, telling herself firmly that any plan of Henry’s to divorce her and take Alys as his wife in her place could not have been Alys’s fault. But when she saw Alys, now a beautiful, buxom young woman in her early twenties, she was not so sure.

Alys’s welcome was muted; Eleanor supposed that she was permitted few visitors, since Henry was still keeping her under guard, no doubt fearing that Richard might descend on the castle and spirit her off to the altar, thereby depriving his father of a valuable bargaining tool in his tortuous power games with Philip. And of course the poor girl had suffered so many turns of fortune that she’d probably given up all hope of ever getting married. No doubt she anticipated that the Queen had come with news of yet another unwelcome development, or simply to gloat at her luckless rival; hence her understandable wariness.

She found Alys hard work. All her questions met with monosyllabic replies, and in the end Eleanor almost gave up. Clearly, Alys bore a deep resentment toward her, and small wonder, she thought grimly: but for herself, Alys would have been Queen of England these nine years. Instead, she was shut away here, wasting her youth to no purpose.

Had Alys actually loved Henry? Did she love him still? Eleanor had to know. She needed to reassure herself that this had not been the kind of grand passion that Henry shared with the ill-fated Rosamund, that Alys was no real threat to her.

“Your life cannot have been easy, child,” she ventured. “You should have been married to Richard years ago, and become the mother of a fine brood by now.”

Alys flinched. Her recoil was unmistakable.

“I should have been married years ago,” she said pointedly.

“You can forget about that,” Eleanor retorted. “My marriage is valid. The Pope would not countenance its annulment.”

“You could have retired gracefully to Fontevrault!” It was an accusation.

“For which I have no vocation,” Eleanor replied calmly, although her ire was rising like bile in her throat. “It was all a ruse by Henry to gain possession of my domains.”

“It was far more than that!” Alys countered, her eyes flashing fire. They were green, like a cat’s, and full of venom. “You just didn’t want to lose your husband to another woman—a younger woman. You couldn’t accept that it was me he wanted for a wife, not you.”

“Next you’ll be telling me that he loved you!” Eleanor said scornfully. “Well, let me assure you I have heard it all before, with Rosamund.”

“He did love me—he loves me still!” Alys cried.

“How sweet!” Eleanor sneered, resolutely ignoring the flicker of fear that the girl’s words had ignited in her. “My, you are an innocent! Love indeed! What does that have to do with royal marriages made for profit and politics? Do you think, you foolish child, that love ever dictated Henry’s policy? I thought you would have more sense.”

Alys jumped to her feet, and as she did so, the folds of her bliaut rippled over her figure. She was, quite obviously, pregnant. Eleanor stared at her in horror.

“Is this not the fruit of love?” the princess cried triumphantly, smoothing her hands over her swollen belly.

“Any trollop can get a man to bed her,” Eleanor observed tartly, but her voice came out hoarsely through dry lips. “Love rarely comes into it. I suppose you are going to tell me that that is the King’s.”

“It is!” Alys insisted.

“Tell me, how could you so dishonor Richard, the man to whom you are betrothed?” Eleanor cried, rising, scandalized beyond measure. That Henry had not scrupled to take his son’s betrothed! She could hardly believe it, even of him, with his voracious appetites. “Shame on you for a harlot!”

Alys was weeping now. “He loves me! You will not stand aside and let us marry. It’s your fault!”

Eleanor ignored that. The desire to wound her rival was strong in her, and she could not resist it. “Did you know he has another mistress?” she taunted.

The barb went home. Alys gaped at her. “You’re lying—to spite me. I will not believe it.”

“Nor did I until yesterday afternoon,” Eleanor said, “and if it wasn’t for some clerk’s silly mistake, I would be in happy ignorance now. But how I found out is neither here nor there. Her name is Bellebelle. She sounds like a harlot. But you would know, of course. And you would know too that Henry is incapable of staying faithful.”

As Alys collapsed in tears, Eleanor looked down on her with distaste. “What matters most in all this is that my son, your betrothed, is spared any hurt,” she hissed. “If he knew of your shame, he would surely kill you—and his father too, and the world would applaud him for it.”

“He does know,” sobbed Alys, a note of defiance creeping back into her voice. “He does not care. He wishes only to wed me to spite his father and deprive him of the person he loves most. And he means, through me, to ally himself with my brother.”

Her words took Eleanor’s breath away. Richard knew. Of course he did. She remembered that strange look he had given Henry.

She left the girl weeping and stumbled blindly back to her apartments, her thoughts in turmoil. What have we come to, as a family, that Henry and Richard should effectively collude in such vile, underhand dealings? she asked herself. Was there no honor left in the world? And what of the silly, deluded girl—a princess of France, no less—who had been the unwilling pawn in it all? Philip would declare war if he heard of it!

But maybe, just maybe, he did know. He was capable of dissembling with the best of them, and maybe he was playing them at their own game, meaning to have the last laugh.

She began to make excuses, not for Henry—he was past redemption where women were concerned, in thrall to that unruly and mischievous member between his legs that seemed to have an independent life of its own, in defiance of all sense or morality! But Richard … Richard, she told herself, was merely being pragmatic—and chivalrous too, yes, in standing by his compromised betrothed. It took a very special man to do that. Most would have abandoned Alys, or demanded satisfaction from her seducer. But Richard was not most men: he was a lion among mortals.

Having consoled herself with such reasoning, Eleanor decided that she would say nothing of this to anyone. If that meant she was colluding too, then so be it. She could find it in herself to feel pity for Alys, unpleasant chit though she was, and as for Henry—well, what should she feel but disgust, that old, familiar revulsion at his concupiscence, but far more strongly this time, because he was injuring not only herself, and Alys, but—far more importantly—her adored Richard? Yet even that she would conceal, for Richard’s sake.

Had she really wanted Henry in her bed again? She must have been mad! Something had died in her this day, and she feared it might never be revived.

60 Westminster, 1184

It was on St. Andrew’s Day that Eleanor arrived at Westminster to be reunited with her husband and sons. Her presence, and theirs, had been required by Henry in the wake of the war that broke out in Poitou that autumn between Geoffrey and John on one side—Geoffrey being ever ready to assist in the stirring up of trouble—and Richard, valiantly defending his lands, on the other. It was only after a stern command from their father that the brothers had lain down their arms and come north to England. They were already uneasily installed in the Palace of Westminster when Henry came to greet Eleanor at the river stairs.

“Greetings!” he called chirpily as she stepped out of the boat. He took her hand and pressed it to his lips. “My lady, welcome. I have long looked for your coming.”

Instantly, she was wary. He wanted something from her. Aquitaine for John, no doubt! To what else could she attribute these fair words and cozening smiles?

“Greetings, my lord,” she murmured, thinking of Alys and the unknown Bellebelle, and disengaging her hand from Henry’s. She could not bear him to touch her at this moment. “So our boys have been fighting again. Do you really think they will make peace when you keep inciting them to war?”

“I incite them?” Henry threw her a sideways glance. She was going to be difficult. “They must learn to obey me.”

“They are grown men now, and have their own sense of what is right and just,” Eleanor told him. “Might cannot always triumph over right, Henry.”

“Why do you always like to make out that I’m in the wrong?” he asked aggrievedly, his good mood rapidly dissipating.

“If the cap fits …” She smiled.

“You and I need to have a little talk,” Henry told her brusquely. “I have summoned you to help me bring about a concord between our princes, not to join in the quarreling. I have summoned the Great Council as well, as we also have to confirm the election of the new Archbishop of Canterbury. Baldwin’s the man. A saintly soul he is too, a gloomy bag of nerves, in fact, and I’ve no doubt he’d prefer to remain a monk, but he’ll be useful to me.”

“You mean he won’t defy you as Becket did,” Eleanor murmured.

“Hardly!” Henry grinned. “Not with all his wavering and lack of guile. Just the right man for the job! There’ll be no obstinacy from this one.”

When Eleanor had refreshed herself and rested after her journey, a page came to summon her to the council chamber. There, she found the King and her sons waiting for her, with the new Archbishop, who quavered a greeting, and the barons of England, resplendent in their fine tunics and heavy furred mantles of scarlet, blue, vermilion, or tawny.

Henry handed her to the seat of honor next to his—he does want something, badly, she thought—and then, the company being also seated, called upon their three sons to come forward and publicly make their peace before her. They stood forward, Richard’s and Geoffrey’s faces set, John’s triumphant—and stiffly gave one another the kiss of peace. Then they stood facing their parents, waiting to see what would happen next.

Henry turned to Eleanor. He’d given her no formal warning of what he was about to say—but she had guessed! “My lady,” he said in ringing tones, “I now ask you to approve the assignment of Aquitaine to the Lord John.”

Eleanor stared at him, fury mounting within her breast. How dare he! How dare he do this to Richard, to her, publicly, in the face of his entire council! She could see the flush of anger on Richard’s handsome face, hear his sharp, indrawn breath, sense Geoffrey’s secret enjoyment of this human drama being enacted before him—and catch John’s complacent, gloating smirk.

“My lord, we should discuss this privately,” she murmured, her profile rigid. She could not look at Henry.

“There is no need for discussion, my lady,” he countered. “I only wish to make a fairer distribution of my empire. Surely you can understand that?”

“All I understand is that you are depriving your rightful heir of his lawful inheritance in favor of your favorite son, who has yet to prove himself,” she said.

“Richard, always Richard!” Henry muttered, fuming. Then, in a louder voice, he reiterated his demand for Eleanor to approve the transfer of Aquitaine to John.

“No, my lord, I will not approve it,” Eleanor stated firmly.

The barons leaned forward, to a man. This was going to be interesting!

“I call upon you all, my lords of England,” the Queen went on, “to tell my lord the King if this is indeed a fair division of his domains.”

“I say it is not!” thundered Richard, who had been itching to speak.

“And I!” echoed Geoffrey. John glowered at him.

“Shut up,” Henry said brutally, his face puce with rage. Eleanor would pay for her defiance! By the eyes of God, she would pay! “Well, my lords?” His jutting jaw brooked no opposition.

The lords, who had been conferring perplexedly among themselves, looked at their sovereign warily. None of them wanted to see that spoiled brat John in control of Aquitaine, and none of them wanted to offend the man who might well be their future king, for Richard’s reputation was fearsome indeed; yet they were all afraid of Henry’s notorious temper.

The quavering voice of the new Archbishop broke the silence, to everyone’s astonishment. “Lord King, I say this cannot be a fair division,” the saintly Baldwin opined, and if an angel from Heaven had come down and voiced his view, Henry could not have been more shocked.

“And you thought he’d be useful to you!” Eleanor mocked quietly under her breath.

Some of the barons took courage from the brave old man’s stand and added their voices to his. Much gratified, Eleanor turned to Henry. “You must know, my lord,” she warned him, “that I can appeal this matter to King Philip, of whom I hold Aquitaine. And if I do, you know as well as I that he will support me, if only to discountenance you and drive a wedge between you and your sons.”

Henry threw her a murderous look. “I see I am defied on all sides. Very well. My Lord Archbishop, a word in private, if you please!” With that, he rose and stalked out of the council chamber in high dudgeon, with the faltering prelate scuttling in his wake. Poor old man, Eleanor thought, having to face the King’s wrath, and so soon after his election.

But she had won, she reminded herself exultantly, as she went to embrace her two eldest sons, John having flounced off in a sulk. It was some small, sweet revenge for Alys and Bellebelle!

61 Windsor, 1184–1185

When Eleanor arrived at Windsor Castle for the Christmas court, wondering why Henry had bothered inviting her after their spectacular falling out at Westminster, after which he sent her summarily back to Winchester with not a word of farewell, the first person who came to greet her was Constance, now grown tall and proud, bearing a tiny infant in her arms. Yet her face bore no trace of the serenity and joy of young motherhood; instead, the winged brows were creased in a petulant frown, the wide, bee-stung lips pouting in a disagreeable grimace. Barely had the Duchess of Brittany risen from her curtsey than she was complaining.

“Madame the Queen, I beg of you, go to the King for me. He will not permit me to join Geoffrey in Normandy for Christmas. It’s so unfair!”

“Daughter,” Eleanor enjoined, a touch sharply, “will you not allow me a moment to get my breath after braving these treacherous roads?” She sank thankfully into a cushioned chair. “And first things first! May I not greet my new grandchild?” She held out her arms. Plainly irritated by this distraction, Constance placed the baby in them, then opened her mouth to have her say …

“Oh, you are gorgeous!” Eleanor cooed to the tiny pink and white face blinking up from the swaddled bundle. “Is it a boy?”

“No,” Constance said flatly, smarting with disappointment, for she had been convinced she was carrying an heir to Brittany—and perhaps to more than that, if her own and Geoffrey’s ambitions were fulfilled; she was convinced that her instincts would prove correct in regard to that.

“A little girl! How delightful!” Eleanor baited her, tracing the soft cheek with her finger. “And what is she called?”

“She is named after you, my lady,” Constance said grudgingly, recalling how Geoffrey had insisted, despite her protests.

“I am most touched. How kind!” Eleanor smiled sweetly, and handed the baby back. Immediately, Constance called for the nurse to take her, at which Eleanor deliberately prolonged matters by calling for wine and comfits.

“Now,” she said comfortably, when they were brought, “what’s all this about Geoffrey and Normandy?”

“The King sent him to take charge of Normandy while he himself was in England,” Constance told her, with the air of one throwing down the gauntlet.

Eleanor was surprised. “Indeed,” she managed. Was this some new ploy of Henry’s to discountenance her and Richard? Could it—surely not!—even mean that the King was now grooming Geoffrey to succeed to his empire? One look at Constance’s smug face was enough to tell her that it could—or at least that Constance herself was interpreting it that way, and therefore probably other people as well.

She mastered herself. “And you want to join him there?” she inquired, neatly deflecting the subject in favor of something far less contentious.

“Yes, my lady, that’s why you must go to the King for me!” Constance insisted.

“Must?” Eleanor lifted her eyebrows. “I should have thought that with you so lately delivered and barely up on your feet, braving the conditions out there would be foolhardy. The King has made a very sensible, and considerate, decision in keeping you here. You must rest, child, and then you can join your lord when the weather is improved.”

“But, madame!” Constance protested. Eleanor cut her short.

“That’s enough!” the Queen reproved, raising a hand in warning. Constance scowled at her and subsided.

Henry was remote but polite, Richard studiedly courteous to his father and overly attentive to his mother, John mutinous and foul-tempered. The court held its celebrations in an atmosphere as hostile as it was tense, making a mockery of the holy season of Christ’s birth. Not all the lavish outlay of fine wines, meats, spices, choice fare, and gifts could compensate for the rifts that had opened up within the royal family, and as soon as Twelfth Night had come and gone, Richard hared off south to Poitiers. A day later, with a perfunctory kiss on her hand and a lowering look of dislike, Henry dispatched Eleanor back to Winchester.

62 Normandy, 1185

Eleanor was glad to leave England. After that mighty earthquake, which had been heard and felt throughout the whole realm and brought the mighty cathedral at Lincoln crashing to the ground in a storm of dust and masonry, she had not felt safe there. Cracks had even appeared in the walls of Winchester Castle. She had lain there at night tormented by fears that the building would collapse over her, crushing her as she slept.

But now she was bound for Normandy, on Henry’s orders, with Matilda and her husband for company. Could it be that the King too was concerned for her safety? She would have liked to think so, but she suspected it was something other than that. And, as so often before, her intuition was right.

No sooner had Henry received her, as coldly as he’d left her all those months before, than he raised the matter of Aquitaine. They were alone in his solar this time; he was not about to risk any more public outbursts of disobedience.

“I have decided that Richard must surrender the duchy to you, Eleanor, and that you will rule it once more,” he said, his tone brooking no defiance.

She sank down wearily into her chair, bone-tired after the long ride, and momentarily defeated. Oh, but he was clever! To offer her the one thing that meant so much to her, the chance to return to her beloved lands after so many long years of exile, and the liberty to rule them as sovereign duchess—but only in return for the dispossession of the person she loved best in the whole world, her lionhearted Richard. It was an exquisitely cruel choice. How her husband must hate her! Yet did she have a choice? One look at Henry’s face gave her the answer to that.

“And if I refuse?” she challenged.

“Then you go back to Sarum,” he replied brutally. It was like a blow.

“I suppose you will dispossess Richard anyway, whether or not I agree?” she said. At least let Henry bear the guilt for injuring his son, rather than herself.

“No, you will do it,” the King said. He was being deliberately vengeful.

“Ah, but I will not,” she declared, her old spirit flaring. “You are only doing this to show Richard who is master. How low of you!”

“I think you will agree, Eleanor. You have no choice. You are my wife, and have vowed obedience to me. I could make a public example of you. Already your faithlessness is notorious. You had your way at Christmas, and made me look a fool. You will not defy me again. Now, say you agree to demand Aquitaine back from Richard, or you go straight back to Sarum, and I warn you, you will not be so comfortably accommodated!”

It was at times like these that Eleanor found it hard to reconcile the nasty, brutish Henry of recent years, the Henry who was descended from the Devil, with the Henry who had desired her, who had bedded joyfully with her, bred children on her, and cried out his grief to her, the one person who could console him. It was as if he possessed two souls in his one body, and the one she was dealing with now was certainly not the one to whom she had once jubilantly given her heart and her body. Because her insubordination had rankled so deeply and publicly humiliated him, this ferocious Henry was taking his revenge—she could see it, very clearly. It was his pride, his stubborn pride, that drove him—and his usual talent for walking roughshod over people’s sensibilities. How tragic, though, that they should have come to this—and how tragic that he should no longer have the power to break her heart with his cruelty, and that all that was left of her for him to arouse was her anger and contempt!

She had no choice—she saw that too, and prayed that Richard would understand her predicament.

“Very well, as you insist so persuasively,” she said dryly.

“Good! I’m glad you’ve seen sense at last.” There was a hint of relief in Henry’s steely eyes. He called immediately for his clerk to bring parchment and writing materials, and then began dictating a letter to Richard. She listened in mounting consternation as he instructed his son to surrender without delay the whole duchy of Aquitaine to his mother, Queen Eleanor. The only reason he gave for this was that it was her heritage—as if that would satisfy Richard as an excuse for robbing him of the inheritance he had fought bloodily to secure. But there was worse to come. If the Lord Richard in any way delayed to fulfill his father’s command, the King went on, he was to know for certain that his mother the Queen would make it her business to ravage the land with a great host. Eleanor gasped aloud at that.

“As if I would set myself up in armed opposition to my own son!” she cried.

“You did not scruple to set yourself up in armed opposition to your King and husband!” Henry reminded her. There was, of course, no answer to that.

She spent the next weeks agonizing over what Richard might think of her when he received Henry’s orders, and grieving for him, knowing that they would come as the heaviest of blows. Secretly, she smuggled out a letter explaining how his father had suborned her and advising him to surrender with all meekness, laying aside his weapons. She never knew whether he received it, but was utterly relieved to learn, in due course, that Richard had wisely ceded Aquitaine into her hands and was on his way north to Normandy. Later still, she stood looking on as Henry received him with open arms, and saw incredulously that—for the moment at least—the lion had been tamed.

Toward herself, Richard betrayed no shred of animosity or resentment. She was a woman, subject to her lord’s will, and the King’s prisoner. She’d had no choice—that much was clear to him.

Soon, though, it became perfectly clear that Henry meant to rule Aquitaine himself.

63 Bordeaux, 1186

Things had not turned out as badly as she’d feared, Eleanor reflected as she stood on the ramparts of the Crossbowman, the tall keep of the Ombrière Palace, looking down with pride on the beautiful courtyards with their tiled fountains playing in the sunshine and the gardens with their exotic plants and flowers, spread out before her like a carpet of jewels in myriad colors. It was heaven to be back in Bordeaux, her southern capital, to feel once again the summer’s heat warming her aging bones, and the soft breeze from the ocean breathing new life into her, making her feel young again, and deliciously aware that the familiar air once more held a promise of something wonderful and precious.

Thus she had felt long ago, a young girl standing on these very battlements, imbibing the heady scent of the sea and the flowers, and sensing in the gentle winds that teased her hair and her skirts some joyful anticipation of the life she had yet before her, and the love that she was sure would be hers one day.

She frowned. She was sixty-four now, and rather old to be dreaming wistfully about love. That was all behind her now. Yet some trace of yearning remained for Henry as he had once been, young and magnificent in all the vigor of his early manhood, before time and strife had soured and changed him. She did not want the man he had become, but she would always mourn the loss of the man he had once been.

To be fair, despite his thuggish means of wresting Aquitaine from Richard, Henry had since treated both Richard and herself with consideration, seeking their counsel on various matters concerning the duchy, and even allowing them each a share in its government. He had also granted them the right to issue charters. It had been Eleanor’s particular pleasure to bestow gifts and concessions on the abbey of Fontevrault, where she had stayed on her way south, exulting in its long-missed spiritual peace and tranquillity, which was such a balm to her troubled soul. One day, she had resolved, she would be laid to rest here. She could not think of a better sepulchre.

Yes, it had felt good to come home, after twelve years of exile—so good that, even now, months later she could not stop thanking God for it. Every place she visited was utterly dear to her, every old acquaintance inestimably precious. The realization that her people remembered her with affection and love had been sheer joy; and in this expansive and thankful mood, she had continued to help rule them with increasing wisdom and kindness.

Then there had come the never-to-be-forgotten day when Henry, impressed by the way she’d used the power he had given her, relented, granting her humble request and allowing her to cede all her rights in the duchy once more to Richard, leaving their son effectively ruler of Aquitaine once more. Henry’s reasoning was often fathomless, but on this occasion Eleanor suspected that his iron determination to keep Aquitaine had gradually been softened and tempered by Richard’s prolonged display of filial devotion and her own conformity to his will. Besides, it had become abundantly clear that Richard could rule the duchy better than anyone—and that it was in everyone’s interests for him to continue to do so. At Philip’s insistence, Henry had even agreed that Alys could be married to Richard as soon as the wedding could be arranged, although there was no sign of him hurrying to give orders for that. He was too busy calculating how to keep Alys for himself, or as a useful bargaining tool, Eleanor thought dourly.

Nevertheless, she reflected, looking down and smiling as she espied her damsels playing hide-and-seek amid the trees, things had improved greatly. Yet, although relations between them and their sons were far more cordial these days, she still did not trust Henry. The matter of the disposition of his empire was still unresolved, and she suspected he had plans that he was keeping to himself, which no amount of oblique probing could prompt him to disclose. She feared that the future would see a resurgence of the rivalry that had blighted their house, but knew herself powerless to forestall it.

John, clearly, was not going to live up to Henry’s high expectations. The petted favorite had been dispatched to Ireland with plain instructions to establish good relations with the Norman barons who had fought to colonize the English Pale around Dublin, and with the Irish kings who still reigned supreme in the wild and beautiful lands beyond that. But Henry made the fatal mistake of allowing John to be accompanied by his giggling young cronies, and when the native kings had come with gifts, to pay homage to their new overlord, John and his silly friends outraged their sensibilities by pulling on their long beards and making fun of their strange attire and time-honored rituals that seemed outlandish to the newcomers. To compound these insults, John had enraged the Norman barons by seizing their hard-won territories and bestowing them on his worthless intimates. Even now, John was on his way back to England in disgrace. Henry had endured enough of his crassness and appointed a viceroy to go and sort out the mess his son had created.

John was impossible. Henry had spoiled and indulged him, and they were all now suffering the consequences. In contrast, Eleanor had few worries about her daughters. Matilda and her family had at last found it safe to return to Germany, where a new Emperor ruled, one amenable to making peace with the exiles. Eleanor and Joanna were, it seemed, reasonably happily settled in their distant kingdoms. Only John and Geoffrey were giving Eleanor real cause for concern.

Geoffrey had gone to Paris, where he was even now fraternizing mysteriously with that menace Philip, and no doubt plotting some fresh mischief. You never knew with Geoffrey. Reports had it that he was as close as a blood brother to the French king. Eleanor had sometime since picked up on the fact that he was dissatisfied with being merely Duke of Brittany and wanted more. Not so long ago he thought he had Normandy within his grasp. Now he was making noises about Anjou. It was all a great annoyance to the King, and doubtless Philip was relishing abetting Geoffrey in his ambitions. Anything to discountenance Henry!

The Queen sighed. Soon, to her great sadness, she would have to leave this beloved city and travel north, for Henry was bound for England and wanted her to accompany him. They were to lodge for a time at Winchester. She did not want to go. How could she forsake the golden lands of the sunny South to waste the coming summer in a castle that would be forever associated in her mind with her long captivity?

But of course she had, as usual, no choice in the matter.

64 Winchester, 1186

Eleanor could have cried over the unjustness of it all! The situation with Geoffrey and Philip having become increasingly a matter for concern, she had thought to write to her son, urging him to come to England, where she hoped to talk some sense into him. But Henry intercepted the letter—she had not realized that her correspondence was still subject to the scrutiny of his officers—and his suspicious mind interpreted it as evidence that she was involved in a plot against him. After all, had she not schemed with King Louis, on that earlier, fateful occasion when her sons sought refuge and support in Paris?

Nothing she said could fully deflect Henry’s mistrust. He muttered that he accepted her explanation, but his eyes told a different story. And now she had a new custodian to replace Ralph FitzStephen, whose services had been dispensed with sometime before. She would have liked Ranulf Glanville, but he had been deployed to more pressing duties of state. At least Henry Berneval was an upright, amiable man of little charm or imagination, and he treated her with great deference and kindness; but he was her gaoler, nonetheless, and tailed her, two guards at his heels, wherever she went, even with the King in residence, which he was all that summer.

Eleanor was still smarting from the unfairness of it all when the messenger from France arrived at Winchester and she received a summons to the King’s lodgings. There, she was confronted by an ashen-faced Henry, slumped in his chair, a wine goblet lying in a pool of liquid on the rush matting, where he had evidently dropped it.

Shutting the door on Henry Berneval and his guards, so she could be alone with her husband, she knelt down before him in alarm.

“Henry! What has happened? Is it war? Has Geoffrey allied with Philip against you?”

The King looked at her dully. His eyes were bloodshot; he had been drinking a lot lately. He was quite drunk now, she realized.

“Worse. I know not how to tell you,” he mumbled, slurring his words. “Geoffrey is dead, killed in a tournament in Paris.”

“Oh God!” Eleanor cried. “No!”

A tear slid down Henry’s weathered cheek. He leaned forward and placed one tentative hand on her shoulder in a gesture intended to comfort. She barely noticed it in her distress.

“What happened? Tell me—I must know!” she wept, unable to believe that God had been so cruel as to take yet another of her children to Himself. And Geoffrey, like the Young King, had been but twenty-eight years old. Yet, unlike what happened with the Young King three years earlier, there had been no warning to prepare her, no vision vouchsafed of the bliss that lay ahead for the precious departed. This, in contrast, was a brutal shock.

“He had a fever,” Henry related, his words coming slowly and unevenly, for he too was dazed from the blow, and somewhat befuddled by alcohol. “Even so, he insisted on taking part in that damned tournament, but he was unsaddled in the mêlée and …” He could not go on.

Eleanor could imagine the scene in its full horror: the merciless sun beating down on the jousting ground, the stands packed with baying spectators, the deadly clash of swords, the ferocious, heaving fray of fighting men engaged in frenzied combat, the screams of horses, the cries of the wounded … and her son, her Geoffrey, lying there in the bloodied dust, his body broken and trampled …

It tore her apart, and she moaned in her misery, rocking back and forth on her haunches. Weeping freely, Henry drew her to him, and in that awkward embrace, and the violent tempest of their grief, they drew some small comfort from each other.

When he at last disengaged himself from Eleanor, Henry seemed embarrassed; it was as if he had somehow compromised himself by exposing his raw emotions, or betraying any need for her; as if the fragile truce between them was in danger of being subverted by the acknowledgment of a bond that had long ago been thought severed. But Eleanor did not care. She was too immersed in her sorrow to give much thought to Henry. He had comforted her when she was in desperation: she would read into his kindness nothing more than that. He need not worry.

They sat in the quiet intimacy born of years of marriage as he told her haltingly of Geoffrey’s burial in the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.

“Philip has sent to offer his condolences and to tell me that he is building him a fine tomb in the choir. The messenger said that Philip was so mad with grief that he had to be forcibly restrained from throwing himself onto the coffin in the open tomb.” He stopped, choked.

“If I had been there, I would have done the same!” Eleanor cried passionately. “Henry, we should have been there.”

“It was too late,” he replied heavily. “The hot weather …” His voice trailed off. “At least God has spared us two sons.” His voice was bitter. “And Constance is pregnant again. There may yet be an heir to Brittany.”

“She must be taking this hard,” Eleanor said, without much conviction.

“I dare say.” Henry’s ravaged face bore a sardonic expression. He knew, as well as she, that Constance would not grieve overly for Geoffrey.

“What will you do?” she ventured to ask. “Will Richard still be your heir?”

“As long as he is faithful to me,” he replied. “I have sent for John to join me. I leave for Guildford tomorrow.”

Henry had sent for his favorite son for comfort. He was abandoning her to her grief. Eleanor could not believe that he could be so selfish and callous. “Let me send for Richard,” she urged. If he could have his favorite, then she had need of hers.

Henry looked at her as if she had lost her wits. “Richard is needed in Aquitaine,” he said dismissively.

65 Sarum, 1188

Henry had done it at last, the thing he’d always threatened: he sent her back to Sarum, and now he was coming, presumably, to gloat on her predicament.

She supposed she could not blame him. Richard’s long-festering resentment toward his father finally drove him into the open arms of Philip, and the result had been a bloody war, with Henry on one side, backed by John and the bastard Geoffrey the Chancellor, and Richard and Philip on the other.

“Philip wants a foothold in Brittany,” Henry had said, quivering with anger and the need for action. “He dares to claim young Arthur as his ward. It wouldn’t surprise me if Constance had something to do with that. Ever since the brat was born, she’s not stopped making mischief.”

That was true. It had all begun with the naming of the baby. Henry wanted Geoffrey’s heir to be called after himself, but Constance and her Breton counselors insisted on baptizing him Arthur, in honor of the legendary hero-king who once ruled Brittany—and as a gesture to demonstrate that duchy’s desire to be free of Angevin rule. Henry had been hurt—and angered.

“I have never liked or trusted Constance,” Eleanor had warned, and he roundly agreed.

“I shall find her a new husband,” he’d declared, “one who will keep her in check.” And he had done just that: the Earl of Chester was one of his most loyal vassals, and Constance, her protests ignored, was speedily pushed into his open arms.

Then there had been the contentious matter of Alys. Again and again Philip had tried to force Henry’s hand and have her wed to Richard. When Henry had stalled, Philip had threatened to take back the Vexin and Berry and break the betrothal, demanding that Alys be returned to Paris. Then Henry had cheerily suggested that Alys be married to John instead—and at that point Philip saw red. Indeed, that proved the final straw and provoked him into raising an army and marching into Berry with the intention of seizing it—which was when Richard had deserted his father and gone over to the enemy.

Reports of what happened next had troubled Eleanor deeply, and her concerns still bedeviled her, even now in the dark reaches of the hours before dawn. Duke Richard had ridden to Paris, and there he had been so honored by Philip that they ate at the same table and shared the same dishes every day; and at night, the bed did not separate them. Those were the very words the King’s spy had written. The bed did not separate them.

Eleanor had never until now doubted her son’s sexual inclinations. Those terrible revelations of savagery and rapine in Aquitaine were enough to confirm that Richard had inherited the lust of his race. She knew that there had been women in his life, for he had acknowledged two bastard sons; her unknown grandchildren were called Philip and Fulk, Fulk being one of the favored names of the old Counts of Anjou. She grimly guessed whom Philip was named for. Of course, she would not have expected Richard to confide details of his amours to his mother, but now she realized that she had never heard any of his mistresses mentioned by name, which she had always taken to mean that they were casual encounters of the kind in which his father indulged. She realized too that Richard had never shown the slightest affection for Alys, or any inclination to wed her—but there was nothing odd about that: many men were reluctant to marry the brides chosen for them. It was what Alys represented that mattered to Richard. That was completely understandable.

But then Henry had shown her the confidential report revealing that Richard was sharing a bed with Philip. He himself had not commented; she alone had been a little disturbed by it. But what nonsense! she told herself; Richard and Philip were like brothers, by all accounts, and many brothers shared the same bed. Yet that wording was disturbing, almost as if some sinister meaning had been intended. Her imagination began to run amok. She could not bear to think of Richard preferring the love of his own sex, enduring a barren life, being cast out from and despised by the normal run of men, and risking the scandalized censure of the Church, or even charges of heresy for having offended against the natural order of God’s creation. She would not be able to bear it. He was her favorite son, her cherished one, and she wanted to see him happily settled in marriage with a brood of thriving children at his knee.

By day, she could dismiss her fears; by night, they came to torment her. She told herself she was being silly, irrational, and womanish. But the anxiety would not leave her. She dared not confide her concerns to Henry; she remembered how he had reacted to the implied suggestion that he and Becket had been lovers, all those years ago, and could imagine him exploding with wrath, and either venting that wrath on Richard or herself, or bringing the whole matter out into the open and making things infinitely worse. So she kept quiet, nursing her worries and letting them fester. Soon she was alert for any snippet of gossip that would confirm or demolish her fears. It was exhausting, wearing herself into the ground like this.

“I’m worried about what’s going on between Richard and Philip,” Henry abruptly said one day, seeming to confirm Eleanor’s worst terrors. She drew in her breath sharply, then waited in agony to see what he would say.

“I’m alarmed at what they might be plotting,” he went on, to her massive relief. “These reports of this great friendship between them concern me greatly. I want to know what lies behind it.”

So do I, she thought desperately. So do I!

“Philip thinks to sow discord between me and my sons, and thus weaken my power.”

Is that all you think it is? Eleanor wanted to ask. But Henry’s thoughts were elsewhere.

“An uprising in Aquitaine might be what is needed to divert Richard—and perhaps one in Toulouse. What say you, Eleanor? I believe I might orchestrate these risings to drag Richard away from Philip.”

“Yes!” she said, a shade too enthusiastically. “Yes, indeed!”

Henry had not noticed her vehemence. He was far too preoccupied with plotting strategies. “Then, with Richard out of the way, I’ll meet with Philip and agree to a truce. The Pope is urging a new crusade, so I’ve the perfect pretext. We can’t have the rulers of Christendom squabbling among themselves while the Turks are occupying Jerusalem.” Eleanor winced, wishing he would not be so flippant when the Holy Places were under threat; she, like most people, had been horrified to hear news of the fall of the Holy City, and applauded the Pope’s initiative. It made the quarrels among Henry, Richard, and Philip seem so petty. She had been thrilled to hear that Richard had taken the Cross, and prayed that it would divert him from plotting hostilities against his father.

But despite the truce and the plans for a crusade, the war dragged spitefully on, and Henry had again grown fearful that Richard would attempt to enlist his mother to his cause. Thus it was that Eleanor found herself commanded back to Sarum, to live once more in miserable captivity. The only difference was that she was now assigned a more spacious suite of chambers on a lower floor, which were not so open to the violent assaults of the ever-blowing winds; and she was served in more suitable state, although her damsels had been dismissed and she was once again attended only by Amaria—faithful Amaria, now grown stiff in her joints and exceedingly stout, but as plain-spoken and commonsensical as ever.

Eleanor’s heart was heavy, therefore, and her mood resentful when Henry arrived, limping pronouncedly, on a wet July day. But she was shocked out of her ill will by the change in him, a change that a mere year and a half had wrought. He had aged dreadfully and become grossly corpulent, and he seemed to be in some pain and physical distress, which was evident from the taut unease with which he carried himself.

“I came to bid you farewell, my lady,” he told her, after kissing her hand briefly on greeting. “I am bound for France, to make an attack on the French and trounce that cub Philip once and for all.”

Fear gripped her. “But what of Richard? You will not take up arms against him too?” she cried. “That would be terrible.”

Henry’s eyes narrowed. “Once, you did not think so,” he reminded her. He could never forget her treachery. “Yet calm yourself. Richard and Philip have quarreled.”

Thank God, she thought. That was one less thing to worry about.

“Richard has risen against him and driven the French out of Berry,” Henry was saying.

“Then, if Richard is for you, why are you keeping me here?” she blurted.

“I do not trust Richard,” Henry stated, “and, forgive me, Eleanor, but I do not trust you either. When this thing is settled to my satisfaction, I will set you at liberty. Until then you stay here. I have given orders that you are to be afforded every comfort.”

“I wish, for once and forever, that you could put the past behind us!” she burst out. Henry regarded her warily.

“If I cannot, you have only yourself to blame,” he said heavily.

“Henry, it’s been fifteen years, and in all that time, I have done nothing to your detriment or my dishonor! Doesn’t that prove to you that you need no longer fear me?”

“I can’t help it,” he told her. “I dare not trust anyone now. I am suspicious of my own shadow. You, and our sons, I hold responsible for that. I was betrayed by those whom I trusted most. I cannot forget it.”

“Then there is no help for us,” Eleanor said sadly, rising and walking over to the window, standing with her back to him so he would not see how deeply his words had affected her. “At least say you have forgiven me, even if you cannot forget.” So saying, she turned around and slowly stretched out a tentative hand to him. Henry stood there for a moment, hesitating, then he too reached out, and clasped it in his familiar callused grip.

“I do forgive you, Eleanor,” he said simply. “Forgive me if I cannot forget. I thought I would never be able to forgive even, but I find myself growing old and not in the best of health, and I cannot risk going to my judgment without granting you the absolution that Our Lord enjoins in regard to those who have wronged us.” His grasp on her hand tightened. “I want you to say you forgive me too. I have not been the best of husbands.”

Eleanor was filled with a sudden sense of foreboding, as if this might be her last chance to make things right with Henry—or as right as they could ever be now. “I forgive you, truly I do,” she said, meaning it wholeheartedly.

“My lady,” he answered in a choked voice, and, bowing his head, raised her hand to his lips and kissed it again. The thought came unbidden to her that here they were, two people who had once worshipped each other passionately with their bodies, now reduced to the chaste contact of hands and lips. It was an unbearably poignant moment. What was it about this man, she asked herself, that tied her to him against all reason, when he had done so much to destroy the love she had cherished for him, and she had tried again and again to liberate herself from her thralldom?

Henry recovered himself first, raising sick gray eyes to her. “I will free you as soon as I can,” he said gruffly. “All that remains now is for me to resolve my differences with Philip, by force, if necessary,” he said, swallowing.

Eleanor looked at him fearfully. Having established this new, forgiving rapport with him, with the dawning hope of perhaps a happier reconciliation to come, she could not bear the thought of anything evil befalling him. “You are in no fit state to go to war!” she told him. “Have you looked at yourself in a mirror recently? Henry, what exactly is wrong with you? I know you are not well. Tell me!”

“It’s nothing. A trifle.” He shrugged.

“I’m not blind,” she persisted. “You are in pain.”

Henry sighed. “I have a tear in my back passage,” he admitted. “It bleeds all the time, and festers, as I cannot keep it clean.”

“Then you should not be riding a horse, still less going on long marches,” Eleanor reproved. “Can the doctors do nothing for you?”

“No, they’re useless,” he said, frowning. “I’m sorry, Eleanor, but I have to settle matters with Philip. Then I can rest and give myself time to get better. Don’t look at me like that! I’ll be all right!”

“Then may I at least give you one piece of advice, Henry?” she asked gently. “If you would keep Richard on your side, let him marry Alys without any further delays.”

Henry frowned. “I cannot,” he said at length.

“Why?” she persisted. “Is it because she is your leman?”

He looked like a trapped animal, furtive and wanting to bolt. “You know?” he asked incredulously.

“I have known for some time. Alys told me. I noticed that she was pregnant.” Eleanor paused.

“You knew, and you never said anything?”

“What was there to say, beyond warning you of your great folly and the magnitude of your sin, but I doubt you would have heeded me, of all people.” Her eyes, clear with sincerity, met his. “Henry, we were finished. The days when I lay with you wondering if another woman had enjoyed your body were long gone. I was shocked, yes, but mainly for Richard’s sake—and that silly girl’s. Alys did not come between us.”

“Richard knows,” Henry said.

“The whole world will have to know, if he marries her,” Eleanor warned. “Their union will be incestuous without a dispensation.”

“As ours was,” Henry reminded her. “You had known my father. I often ask myself if we were cursed as a result. What else could explain all the evils that have befallen us and our issue?”

“The fact that you are descended from the Devil might have something to do with it!” Eleanor smiled. “But Henry, not everything has been touched with evil. Look at the great empire that our marriage created!”

“That too, Eleanor,” Henry said, shaking his head. “It’s been well nigh impossible holding it together; I have worn myself out trying to do so. It has caused nothing but strife and jealousies, and it will go on doing so, mark my words, maybe for hundreds of years even. Any fool should have seen that trying to unite such large domains would bring unique problems of its own, even without a cat like Philip waiting to pounce.”

He looked at the hourglass. “I must go, if I’m to get to Southampton by nightfall.”

“God go with you then, my lord,” Eleanor prayed, knowing that further protests about his health would fall on deaf ears.

“And with you, my lady,” Henry said briskly, and, planting a brief kiss on her lips this time, was gone.

66 Winchester, 1188–1189

At first the reports that filtered through to England were encouraging. The King was winning—a great victory over the French was almost a certainty! And hot on the heels of that news came Henry’s order for Eleanor to move to the greater comfort of Winchester; yet no sooner had she gratefully settled into her lodgings there, with Henry Berneval fussing about to make sure she had everything she needed, as the King had commanded him, there came the news she had dreaded to hear. Richard had succumbed to Philip’s blandishments and deserted his father.

She wept, she raged at her son’s perfidy. But then she learned of the peace conference at Bonmoulins, where Richard, backed by the French king, had demanded that Henry name him as his heir, give him Anjou and Maine now, and let him marry Alys forthwith, without further prevarication. All reasonable requests, of course, and naturally it made sense for Richard to shoulder the burden of governing some of Henry’s domains, given the King’s state of health. But the stumbling block was, and always would be, Alys.

When Henry had refused, Richard defiantly knelt before Philip and did homage to him for Anjou and Maine; and the French, incensed at the old King’s obstinacy, attacked him and his men and drove them away from the negotiations, against all the laws of chivalry and diplomacy.

Eleanor wept again, this time for Henry’s shame and ignominy, picturing him being forced to take refuge in some crumbling, godforsaken castle, which was what appeared to have happened. Fortunately, the winter rains had set in, drawing the campaigning season to a close, and a truce had been agreed upon until Easter. Henry wrote to say that he was at Le Mans and in good health, but Ranulf Glanville, who was with him, wrote Eleanor privately to warn her that his master was ill and in low spirits.

Concerned, she wrote to Henry, pleading to be allowed to join him for Christmas, but he refused, saying that he was not planning any great festival. That was unusual in itself, for Henry had always observed the major feasts of the Church with all due ceremony and revelry, and she perceived by his answer that he was indeed unwell. She considered going to him unbidden, but that would mean evading the vigilance of the conscientious Henry Berneval and finding sufficient money and means for her journey in the depths of winter, which might prove a virtual impossibility. No, all she could do was pray for Henry’s recovery. So she spent hours on her knees before the statue of the Virgin in the castle chapel, almost bullying the Holy Mother into interceding for the King; and, for a few quiet weeks, it seemed that her prayers had been heeded.

Easter came, and with it news of another peace conference. Clearly the princes did not want all-out war if they could help it. Eleanor was on her knees again, praying for a peaceful settlement, when another letter from Ranulf Glanville was brought to her, in which she read, to her dismay, that the conference had to be postponed because the King was too ill to attend. After that, it was back to hectoring the Virgin Mary, often with tears and bribes of masses and manifold good deeds.

June, and the King was better. Eleanor’s heart rejoiced when she heard that he had met with Philip and Richard, but it plummeted again when she was told that Henry had persisted in his determination to marry Alys to John, and that Richard, maintaining that this was the first step in a sinister plot to disinherit him, threw in his lot with Philip and declared war on his father.

War. A dreadful thing in any circumstances, but when son was fighting against father, it was especially terrible. Eleanor lived her days in horrible suspense, for there could be no praying that one side would win, because there could be no winners in this conflict. It was either her husband or her son. Once, she had made that choice. She would not do so again. She gave up going to the chapel, could not constrain herself to pray. God, the protector of the just, would surely show the way to a peaceable solution. She could not believe that He had abandoned the House of Anjou entirely.

But God, it seemed, had His attention elsewhere. Philip and Richard had advanced inexorably into Angevin territory, taking castle after castle; so fearful was their might that Henry’s vassals, long alienated by his oppressive rule, had deserted him one by one. The King, meanwhile, withdrew again to the city of Le Mans, his birthplace, and when the French army appeared before its walls, gave orders that a suburb be torched to create a diversion and give him the chance to attack when the enemy’s attention was elsewhere; but he had not reckoned with the wind, which fanned the flames until much of his favored city was ablaze and Philip was able to breach its defenses. Once again Henry and his knights were forced ignominiously to flee. In yet another letter, Ranulf Glanville disclosed to Eleanor how Henry had railed bitterly against the God who abandoned him: “He warned that he would pay Him back as best he could, and that he would rob Him of the thing that He loved best in him—his immortal soul. He said a lot more besides, which I refrain from repeating.”

Eleanor could imagine it all, could see Henry seated painfully on his horse, silhouetted against the burning city, crying out his impotent anger to an unheeding deity. Her soul bled for his—and yet she could do nothing to ease his sufferings of mind or body. How could it be worth praying, she wondered, when God had turned His face from the King? Was it worth appealing to Richard? But that could—and probably would—be misconstrued. She shuddered to think what might happen if Henry found out. It might be better to get back on her knees and constrain herself to prayer.

Waiting for news was agonizing. She would wonder, a hundred times a day, if Henry and Richard might even now be confronting each other in battle. A letter from William Marshal, whom she had always accounted her champion, brought her a little relief. The King had gone north to Normandy, he informed her, and had deputed him to take a force and guard his back. Not far behind had come marching Richard at the head of a French army, and he, Marshal, had leveled his lance in readiness for battle. “The duke cried out to me not to kill him, for he wore no hauberk. I answered that I would leave the killing of him to the Devil, and had the pleasure of unseating him instead. That gave me the chance to ride away and warn the King of his approach, and thus I enabled him to avoid a direct clash of arms with the duke his son.”

Maybe it could be avoided for good if only each side would give a little, Eleanor thought as the horrendous waiting went relentlessly on, and June dragged itself into July.

It was unbearably hot. Within the sun-baked walls of Winchester Castle, Eleanor and Amaria wore their lightest silk bliauts and avoided walking in the gardens until the heat of the day had subsided. In the lands of France, it was reported, the armies on both sides were suffering miseries from sunburn, fatigue, or dysentery. Henry wrote privately to Eleanor, complaining that he was enduring torture from an abscess, and that sitting in the saddle would soon be beyond him if those damned fool physicians didn’t do something to remedy it quickly.

Hard on the heels of this came another missive from Marshal. The King had been forced to retreat to Chinon to rest, and had gone alone, with only his bastard Geoffrey for company; traveling by back roads to evade the enemy forces. “He can neither walk nor stand or sit without intense discomfort,” William wrote. “We are all worried about John, who has disappeared. It is feared that he may have been taken for a hostage by Duke Richard or King Philip. If so, Heaven help the King.” Reading this, Eleanor redoubled her prayers, beseeching God and His Mother to hear her. Let there be peace, was her earnest cry.

She was listless, not knowing how to fill the hours of waiting for the next letter or report. It took a fast courier up to five days to cover the distance from Chinon, depending on the Channel winds, so anything could have happened. Amaria tried to entice her to games of chess or thinking up riddles; she went to market and bought embroidery silks in the brightest hues, hoping to inspire Eleanor to make new cushions or an altar frontal; she had Henry Berneval send for minstrels, to while away the evenings, and she spent hours herself in the kitchens baking exquisite little cakes to tempt her mistress. But none of these pleasant distractions could alleviate the Queen’s fears or anxieties.

Having little appetite, Eleanor lost weight. She looked drawn and her skin took on an ethereal quality. She was sixty-seven, but she knew without vanity, when she peered in her mirror, that she appeared and felt younger; her graying hair was hidden beneath her headdress and veil, her fine-boned face was only delicately etched with lines, and she had the energy of a woman half her age. That restless energy was pent-up now, surging within her breast; she was desperate to be at the center of affairs, not cut off from them here at Winchester. If she had her way, she would be riding into battle with the rest of them, like the Amazon that she had once pretended to be, long ago, on that distant plain of Vézelay, when they had preached the fatal crusade that ended in disaster for both the Christian hordes and her marriage to Louis. She had been young and reckless then, and afire to show off her crusading zeal in the most attention-seeking way possible; and she would unhesitatingly take the field again, for real this time, if given the slightest chance. But, of course, it could not be: she was a woman, and a prisoner, and all she could do was wait here for news. Wait, wait, wait! They could carve those words on her tomb: She waited.

There had been another summit meeting between the chief combatants. Eleanor had the news from both William Marshal and Ranulf Glanville. The King, she learned, had dragged himself from his sickbed toward Colombières, near Tours. On the way, complaining that his whole body felt as if it were on fire, he had been forced to rest at a preceptory of the Knights Templar, and sent his knights ahead to tell Richard and Philip that he was detained on account of his illness. But Richard had not believed it. His father was feigning, he insisted; he was up to no good, plotting some new villainy; they should not trust his word.

When news of this was carried back to the King, ill as he was, he had had his men prop him up on his horse, then rode in agony through a thunderstorm to the place where his enemies waited. King Philip had actually blanched at the sight of him, and, moved by pity, offered his own cloak for him to sit on. But Henry refused it; he had come not to sit, he declared, but to pay any price they named for making peace. And so he remained on his horse, his knights holding him upright. He had looked ghastly.

Philip’s compassion had ended there. He laid down the harshest terms. Henry must pay homage to him for all his lands. He must leave his domains—even England, which Philip had no right to dispose of—to Richard. He was to pardon all those who had fought for Richard. He was to give Alys up to Philip at once, and agree to Richard marrying her immediately after the planned crusade. And, as further tokens of his good faith, he was to pay a crippling indemnity and surrender three of his chief castles to Philip.

Henry agreed. He gave in without any argument, and wheeled his horse around preparatory to riding away. But Philip stopped him and demanded that he give Richard the kiss of peace. Henry had done so, his manner frosty, his eyes as cold as steel, and when the distasteful deed was accomplished, and Richard had the grace to look suitably chastened, Henry said to him: “God grant that I may not die until I have had a fitting revenge on you.” By then blood was seeping out of his breeches and down his horse’s rump, and he had to be lifted from his horse and carried back in a litter to Chinon.

Eleanor laid the letters on the table. Her thoughts were in turmoil. The peace she had prayed for, and the securing of Richard’s inheritance, had been agreed upon, but at what cost? The utter subjection and humiliation of a sick king who was too ill to fight back. Would to God it had been done in any other way! She would even have preferred Henry and Richard to have met in battle and have the differences between them resolved in a fair fight, whatever the dangers, rather than this. To know that Henry, whose empire stretched from Scotland to Spain, had been brought so low, with his pride cast in the dust, was unbearable. He had been a strong king, a respected king, even a great king—and now he was a defeated king. And he was laid low with this pitiful complaint, poor wretch. How her heart ached for him.

But there had been that threat he had uttered. He would have his revenge on Richard for this, never doubt it. Almost she was glad that he was confined to his sickbed. How could there ever be real peace between her husband and her son after this? And yet … Her thoughts winged back to the aftermath of that earlier rebellion that she herself had helped foment. He had forgiven his sons then, after all their treachery. Hugh of Avalon, that wise, saintly man, had said that those whom Henry had loved he rarely came to hate. It was no less than the truth! She must hold on to that, she told herself, as she waited—waited again—in suspense to see what would happen next.

For a week or so there was no news. Of course, she knew she should not expect any yet. Henry was resting up at Chinon, waiting for that abscess to heal. Ranulf Glanville, having some business in England, came to see her, but he could tell her nothing that she did not know, as he had left Anjou some time before.

The weather turned, and became unseasonably changeable. Hailstones were clattering against the castle walls on the day Henry Berneval knocked at the Queen’s door and found her measuring lengths of linen with her maid. Eleanor looked up. Something in the custodian’s face checked her smiling greeting. It seemed ominous that he had brought Ranulf Glanville with him, and Ranulf’s mournful expression gave her further cause for alarm.

Berneval bowed low, lower than she had ever seen him bow.

“My lady, I bring grave tidings,” he told her in a choked voice. Eleanor rose and stood before him, quiet and dignified, bracing herself to hear the worst. But what could the worst be? Did it concern Henry, or Richard—or one of her other children?

“My lady, I grieve to tell you that the Lord King has departed this life,” Berneval said quietly. “He died at Chinon four days ago. My lady, I am so very sorry to have to give you this news.”

She supposed she had half expected it. Henry had been ill and not getting better. But that he was dead, that vital autocrat who had bestrode half of Christendom, her husband these thirty-seven years, God help them both, seemed inconceivable … But as she stood there, trying to understand and accept her loss, the great bell of the cathedral started tolling in the distance, and other churches nearby in turn picked up the dread message, signaling to all England that its king was no more. Fifty-six chimes in all, one for every year of the King’s life … That ominous sound would be heard across the length and breadth of the land, as word spread of Henry’s passing.

“Do you know what happened?” Eleanor asked.

“No, my lady. We had the news from the carter who came up from Southampton. All he knew was that the King had died at Chinon. No doubt messengers will come soon with further tidings.”

Eleanor said nothing, but stared unseeing through the window, dry-eyed, her mind conjuring up the image of a magnificent young man with a straight, noble profile and unruly red curls, who had swept her off her feet, bedded and wedded her, to the scandal of all Europe. Henry had been so vigorous, so lusty! It was impossible to comprehend that all that vitality was now dust, that the virile hero who had shared with her such passion and, later, such blistering discord, was gone from her forever.

Occasionally, during these sixteen difficult years of her confinement, and even before that, when their marriage was crumbling and seemingly beyond redemption, there had been times when she sensed they might put all the pain and betrayal behind them and salvage some spark of their former ardor, some semblance of the close affinity they once shared; but the moment had never been right: always, some fresh trouble intervened. And yet, when she had taken what was to be her last farewell of Henry—a year ago, now—and they readily extended their forgiveness to each other, and were kind together for once, she had truly believed that some real chance of a reconciliation lay in the future. And now it was not to be. The realization should have broken her, but she only felt numb.

Amaria’s face was set in stone; the two custodians still stood before their queen, respectfully unwilling to intrude on her silence. Beyond the windows, the bells clanged mournfully. Soon they would ring out in rejoicing for a new ruler and life would move on, consigning Henry FitzEmpress to history. It was then that Eleanor realized that Richard was now King of England and undisputed ruler of the mighty Angevin empire. The realization brought a mixture of triumph and pain. If only her beloved son’s rightful inheritance had come to him in any other circumstances than these, with his father dying while they were so bitterly at odds.

She had been plunged suddenly into mourning, but even so, she knew she had more than one cause to rejoice, and she looked every inch the Queen as, her voice steady, she addressed her gaoler. “Master Berneval, I command you, in the name of King Richard, to set me at liberty at once.”

Berneval had been wondering if he dared free her without a mandate. The late King had commanded him to keep her secure until he received further orders, and he’d carried out those instructions faithfully. He was unsure now how to respond, and looked helplessly at Glanville for guidance.

The latter did not hesitate. “It is well known that King Richard has much love for his mother, and, bearing in mind his fearsome reputation, it might be as well to obey the Queen’s just command,” he declared. At that, Henry Berneval fell to his knees, detached the keys from the ring at his belt, and laid them in Eleanor’s outstretched hands. She bestowed a warm look of gratitude on Ranulf.

She was free, yet her freedom was an empty thing in such circumstances, and she had no desire to go anywhere. Again, she must wait on developments.

“I pray you will attend me until the King comes,” she said to both men. “And now, I desire only to go to the chapel and pray for the soul of the King my late lord.”

Later that day, William Marshal arrived, soaked to the skin after his breakneck ride to bring the news of King Henry’s death to the Queen, along with King Richard’s orders for her release. He was astonished, therefore, to find her already at liberty and waiting to receive him at the castle doorway, with a nervous Henry Berneval and a respectful Ranulf Glanville at her side.

Eleanor, garbed in her black widow’s weeds and a wimple crowned with a simple golden circlet, greeted Marshal with a smile, putting on a courageous mien and extending her hand to be kissed.

“Madame, I am overjoyed to see you free,” he told her, thinking she looked more the great lady than ever. “King Richard was most anxious that you should not be held captive any longer than necessary. He has much need of you at this time.”

Henry Berneval relaxed. He was not going to be censured for disobeying his instructions. That terrifying man who was now his king would be grateful to him for anticipating his orders. He was indebted to Ranulf Glanville for his wise counsel.

“We are just about to eat, William,” Eleanor told Marshal, having reverted effortlessly into her former accustomed role as royal châtelaine. “There is time for you to change and refresh yourself, and then I should be grateful if you would join me and give me all your news.”

Marshal was gratified to see that many lords and ladies had hurried to join the Queen’s hastily assembled court, but relieved to learn that he would be her guest at a private supper that night, for what he had to tell her was best recounted away from the public gaze. When it came to it, only the maid was present, the one who had attended Eleanor throughout her long captivity; also wearing mourning, she moved discreetly around the solar, serving food, topping up the wine and removing dishes, then making herself scarce.

William could not have guessed, from her calm manner, that Amaria was beside herself with exultation that her mistress had been freed from her captivity, and from her long purgatory of a marriage. As far as Amaria was concerned, the Queen was better off without that bastard to whom she had been chained in wedlock—“chained” being an apt word—and she was glad that the good Lord had called King Henry to his reward. She knew what she would have liked to reward him with! Yes, she was wearing black, but only out of deference to custom. As soon as King Richard came, she was buying herself a fine scarlet gown!

“Tell me what happened,” Eleanor said, when she and William Marshal were alone.

He had been dreading this moment. Yet she must be told.

“The King was in a terrible state when we got him back to Chinon. He felt his humiliation deeply, and kept cursing his sons and himself, rueing the day that ever he was born. He uttered dreadful blasphemies. He asked why he should worship Christ when He allowed him to be ignominiously confounded by a mere boy. He meant Richard, of course.”

“I cannot bear to think of his state of mind,” Eleanor said, deeply moved. “He surely could not have meant those blasphemies. He was ever one to say all kinds of rash things when his temper was aroused, and then regret them afterward. What happened to Becket was a prime example. Henry suffered agonies of remorse over that.”

“He repented of these utterances too,” Marshal told her. “Archbishop Baldwin was waiting for him at Chinon, and when he heard what the King was saying, he braved his anger and made Henry go to the chapel and make his peace with God. And he did, for all that he was near fainting with pain; and so he confessed his sins and was shriven. Then he took to his bed.”

“Could not the doctors do anything to help him?” Eleanor was shaking her head. Her meat lay congealing in its gravy on her plate, forgotten.

“I doubt they could have done very much,” Marshal said, then took a deep breath. “Besides, he lost the will to live.”

“He must have been sorely grieved at Richard’s hostility, although really, he had only himself to blame for it,” Eleanor said sadly.

Marshal swallowed. “Richard had wounded him deeply. His pride was in the dust. But that was not what finished him. His vassals, vile traitors, had deserted him in droves and gone over to Richard’s side, and toward the end, they brought him a list of those traitors, so that he might know who was to be spared punishment under the terms of the peace treaty, and whom he could not trust in the future. The first name on the list was that of the Lord John.” Marshal was near to tears.

“John!” Eleanor exclaimed. “John betrayed his father? But John was his favorite, the one he loved above all his other children. Why would John have abandoned him?”

“I imagine that Richard and Philip offered sufficient inducements,” Marshal said heavily.

“Thirty pieces of silver, no doubt!” Eleanor cried. “That John, for whose gain Henry broke with Richard, should have forsaken him—I cannot credit it.”

“That was more or less what the King said. And it was at that moment that he lost the will to live. He turned his face to the wall and dismissed us, saying he cared no more for himself or aught for this world. Then he fell into delirium, moaning with grief and pain. His bastard Geoffrey kept watch over him, cradling his head and soothing him. At the last, Henry cried, ‘Shame, shame on a conquered king!’ and fell unconscious. He died the next day without having woken again.”

It had been two days now, and Eleanor had not yet wept for her loss. The numb feeling had persisted, yet she had been conscious of a great tide of emotion waiting to engulf her. Now it broke forth, and she bent her head in her hands and sobbed piteously while Amaria hastened to hold her tightly, and Marshal, unmanned by this display of grief to the point of weeping himself, placed a tentative hand on her heaving shoulders.

He would not tell her the worst of it, he decided. She had enough to bear without that. Of course, she would find it out eventually, but by then she would hopefully be stronger.

He himself had stayed at Chinon only to hear mass and make an offering for his late master’s soul; he knew he had to make all speed to convey to King Richard the news of his father’s death. But after a hurried dinner, when he went to bid a final farewell to his old master before taking the road north, Marshal had been shocked by what he found, for King Henry lay there naked, with even his privities left uncovered, and the room was bare of all his effects. It would have been his servants, he deduced afterward, discovering that they had fled. They must have invaded the death chamber the moment Geoffrey left it, and, like scavengers, stripped the body and stolen all the dead man’s personal belongings, even his trappings of kingship.

In a fever to be on his way, Marshal had enlisted the help of a young knight, William de Trihan, and together they made the body decent and laid it out for burial. They had shifted as best they could in the circumstances. A laundress found them a filet of gold embroidery to serve in place of a crown, and they managed to find a ring, a scepter, and a sword, and some fittingly splendid garments, including fine gloves and gold shoes. Marshal shuddered at the memory, for the body was not a pretty sight, and this last duty had been a great trial for both himself and de Trihan. It was high summer, and hot, and the King had been suffering from a noisome complaint …

No, he would not tell Eleanor any of this. She was still crying, her head against Amaria’s ample bosom, but the storm of her weeping had subsided now, and she was recovering herself, taking deep, gasping breaths. It was a relief to know that she could weep, he thought. It was a significant step on the hard road to coming to terms with her loss and the tragedies that had surrounded it. No doubt she would weep again, many times. But she would heal, for she was strong. She had weathered many tempests in her time, and this latest one would not crush her.

“Forgive me,” Eleanor said, sniffing. “I am forgetting myself.”

“Not at all, my lady,” he assured her.

“If anyone’s entitled to do that, it’s you!” Amaria said tartly, but with affection. William Marshal noted, and approved, of the familiarity. It was good to know that the Queen had someone like this sensible, homely woman to help her through this difficult time.

Eleanor reached for her goblet and took a gulp of the sweet vintage it held.

“That’s better,” she said, essaying a weak smile. “You have seen the King?”

For an awful moment, Marshal thought she was referring to Henry, but then realized she meant Richard.

“Yes, my lady. I brought him the news of King Henry’s passing.”

“And how did he take it?”

“He hastened to Chinon and bade me ride with him there. When he looked down on the late King’s body, his face was unreadable. I could not tell if he felt sorrow or grief …”

“Or even joy or triumph!” Eleanor put in. “I know my son, as I know myself. I am sure he would have experienced very mixed feelings.”

“I am sure of that too,” Marshal agreed. “He did pray awhile before the bier.” He omitted to add that no sooner had Richard gotten to his knees than he was up again, much to the disapproval of many who saw it. And there was no way that he would tell Eleanor that, as the new King rose to his feet, black blood began to flow from the nostrils of the corpse. Or that there were gasps and cries of horror from the observers, who later voiced the firm opinion that Henry’s spirit was angered by his son’s approach and hurried prayers. It had been a ghastly thing to witness, and Marshal still shuddered at the memory of it.

Still, he could tell Eleanor how Richard, no doubt belatedly racked by guilt, had been weeping and lamenting as he followed the body to Fontevrault, which the new King deemed a more fitting resting place for his father than Grandmont, where Henry had long ago expressed a wish to be buried.

“Is that where he lies?” Eleanor asked.

“Yes, my lady. They laid him to rest in the nuns’ choir.”

“It is more fitting than that austere abbey at Grandmont,” she observed. “Richard could not have chosen a better sepulchre, for Henry loved Fontevrault. That is where I myself mean to be buried when my time comes. Has Richard said anything about raising a tomb to his memory?”

“Yes, my lady. Already, he has sent for masons and commissioned an effigy to lie upon it.”

“It seems strange,” she brooded, “that a man to whom many realms were subject should be brought, in the end, to lay in a few feet of earth. Yet it is our mortal lot, and it does us good for God to remind us of the narrowness of death. Yet a tomb, even a fine one, hardly seems to suffice for a man like Henry—for whom the world was not enough.”

She smiled at him, all trace of her tears gone. “Forgive me, old friend. I am pondering aloud.”

“Your pondering was very profound,” he told her, returning the smile. “You are a great philosopher, my lady.”

“Ah, but I never benefit from my own wisdom, William!” She sipped the wine again and reflected. “There was much I did not like in Henry. He could be oppressive and unjust, and his morals were appalling. I hope he repented at the last. I should hate to think of him suffering the torments of Hell for his sins.”

“He did repent,” Marshal assured her.

“I thank God for that,” Eleanor went on. “I am sure that many will remember Henry as a wicked man, but he was never that simple. I loved him with a passion—and came to hate him as fervently, and in our later years I hardly recognized the young man I had so joyfully married. But I could never forget what had been between us, and just occasionally I was afforded a rare glimpse of the old Henry, the one I had loved—and that is why I say to you that he was not truly a wicked man. And when all is said and done, he was, in many respects, an excellent and beneficial ruler.”

“He was a great king, and I will miss him,” Marshal said simply.

“And I too, immeasurably,” said Eleanor. “For all the unkindness between us, and our terrible betrayals of each other, I think I still loved him to the last. I can’t explain why, and God knows I had little reason to love him. But there was something about him, something about us, that kept me in thralldom, even when I wanted to free myself. It’s very complicated, and I couldn’t expect anyone to understand it.”

Clearing the buffet cupboard behind her, Amaria made a face.

William Marshal, flouting protocol, laid his hand on Eleanor’s. His kind eyes were warm. “I know what you mean,” he said. “I loved him too. I would have died for him.”