Time and Chance

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

July 1168

Poitiers, Poitou

The sun was scorching, the air so still and sweltering that Eleanor felt as if she were suffocating. The sky was blanched whiter than bone, bereft of clouds and birds. People were gesturing, mouths ajar, their words thudding after her like poorly aimed stones. But the only sound she could hear was the wild hammering of her own heart, the pulsing of fear. Ahead was a clot of men, clustered in a noisy, shifting circle. Picking up her skirts, Eleanor began to run.

The crowd broke apart as she reached them, scattering like leaves before the wind. Dropping to her knees beside her son, Eleanor eased his head onto her lap. Blood matted the brightness of his hair, freckles glowing like fever spots against the ashen pallor of his skin, and a reddish bubble of saliva dribbled from the corner of his mouth. For a heartbeat of horror, she thought he was dead and her faith turned to ashes. But then she saw the reassuring rise and fall of his chest and her fingers found a pulse in his throat.

“Richard,” she said, throwing out his name as a lifeline. “Richard, open your eyes.”

His lashes quivered, then soared upward, giving her a glimpse of blessed blue-grey. “Am I hurt?” he asked plaintively and she choked back a sound that was neither laugh nor sob, but akin to both.

“Not as much as you will be.” An empty threat and they both knew it. When had she ever punished him for showing too much spirit, too little caution? He was struggling to sit up and she hastily bade him to lie still, wiping away some of his blood with a hanging silken sleeve.

Richard grimaced and then spat into the dust. “I bit my tongue.”

“Better a bitten tongue than a broken neck,” Eleanor said unsympathetically. By now her physician had arrived, flushed and panting, vastly relieved to see his royal patient was conscious and complaining. Her uncle, Raoul de Faye, had gotten there, too, and she let him assist her to her feet, her eyes narrowing as she looked over at the men who’d failed to keep her son safe.

“Whose horse was he riding?”

The question was posed in level, measured tones, but it sent a ripple of unease up numerous spines. William Marshal stepped forward, shoulders squaring as if bracing for a blow. “It was mine, Madame.”

Eleanor could not hide her surprise. “You, Will? You were the one who let a ten-year-old boy ride a battle destrier?”

Will was almost as pale as his young charge. “It was my stallion,” he said hoarsely, “and my fault.”

“It was not!” This indignant protest came from Richard. Ignoring the doctor’s futile attempts to restrain him, the youngster lurched unsteadily to his feet. “Will forbade me to ride Whirlwind! And… and I am nigh on eleven, Mama!”

Eleanor glanced from one to the other, seeing the truth writ plain upon their faces. “It is commendable that you do not want blame to be placed unfairly, Richard. But you need not sound so proud of your disobedience. A borrowed horse is a stolen horse if taken without consent.”

“Even if taken by the heir to Aquitaine?” Richard asked, with such overdone innocence that Eleanor had to smother a smile. As young as he was, her son knew full well that many of their society’s strictures would never apply to him. She was also amused-and pleased-that he’d cast his identity in terms of Aquitaine, not England. But he needed to learn a lesson and she set about teaching him one now by going unerringly for the vulnerable spot in his armor.

“Putting your own neck at risk is foolish but forgivable, Richard. After all,” she said dryly, “your father and I are fortunate enough to have sons to spare. A pity Will does not have stallions to spare. If you’d crippled or lamed his destrier by your recklessness, what was he supposed to do? Walk into battle? Mayhap ride pillion behind another knight?”

Her sarcasm stung. For the first time, Richard looked genuinely contrite. Turning toward Will, he mumbled an apology that was awkward, unwilling, and heartfelt, and when Eleanor instructed him to accompany the doctor back into the castle, he did not object.

“I will be there straightaway,” Eleanor assured the doctor. “Keep him in bed even if you have to bind him hand and foot.” She drew Will aside, then, for a brief colloquy, praising his honor while reminding him that any guardian of Richard’s needed eyes in the back of his head and a strong sense of impending disaster.

Raoul had lingered and fell in step beside her as she moved away from Will. “That was a most impressive maternal lecture,” he said admiringly. “No one listening to it would ever guess that you’d committed the very same sin when you were… twelve, thirteen?”

Eleanor gave him a speculative, sidelong glance and then an unrepentant smile. “Twelve,” she admitted. “I’d just as soon you forbore to mention that to Richard, though, Uncle. He needs inducements to mischief like a dog needs fleas.”

“I am a safe repository for all of your guilty secrets,” Raoul proclaimed, with mock gravity. “Even the one I stumbled onto by mere chance this past week.”

“And what secret would that be?”

“That you have a spy at the French court.”

“Do I, indeed?”

Raoul nodded, watching her with a complacent smile. “You are asking yourself how I could know that. The answer is very simple. Spying is a demanding profession and the price of failure can be high, indeed. So the few who excel at their craft are much in demand. Your man is one of the best. I ought to know, for I have made use of his services myself from time to time.”

Eleanor shrugged, untroubled by Raoul’s discovery. She had a far more extensive surveillance system than Raoul-or even Henry-realized, and her French spy was only one of many irons in the fire. “You are right,” she said, “about his abilities. His last visit to the French court was particularly productive. It seems that the Countess of Boulogne is playing the spy, too, these days. She recently warned Louis that Harry met with envoys of the Holy Roman Emperor.”

Raoul’s dark eyes gleamed, for he liked nothing better than being privy to secrets. “And of course poor Louis panicked, sure that meant Harry is hip-deep in conspiracy with Frederick, making ready to recognize the emperor’s puppet Pope.” He paused deliberately. “So.. is he?”

Eleanor’s smile was cynical. “Harry likes to keep his foes off balance. I rather doubt that he is seriously entertaining the idea of accepting Frederick’s lackey as Christ’s Vicar, but he finds that a useful weapon to wield in his infernal feuding with the Church’s newest saint.”

Raoul correctly interpreted that as a sardonic reference to Thomas Becket. “That raises an intriguing question,” he observed. “Is the Countess of Boulogne playing the role of a double spy here, passing on information that Harry wants the French court-and the papacy-to have?”

“That thought sounds devious enough to have been Harry’s. But if so, the countess is Harry’s pawn, not his accomplice. She loathes him, you see.”

“Why?” Almost at once, though, a memory stirred, allowing Raoul to answer his own question. “Of course… she is the usurper king’s daughter!”

“I suspect she has a fresher grievance than Stephen and Maude’s squabble over the English crown. Or have you forgotten that Harry plucked her out of a nunnery to wed a husband he’d handpicked for her?”

As little as Raoul liked to defend Henry Fitz Empress, he could not find fault with that particular maneuver. “Well, he could hardly stand by whilst Boulogne fell into unfriendly hands, could he? Great heiresses ought not to take the veil, for it is a waste of valuable resources.”

“Like having a prize broodmare and refusing to breed her?”

Raoul laughed loudly. “I see marriage has not dulled your claws any!”

“Nor my wits, Uncle.”

As much as Raoul enjoyed bantering with Eleanor, he had a compelling question to put to her. “I heard a rather remarkable rumor in Paris-that your husband has a grand scheme afoot to partition his domains amongst his sons and get Louis to make a formal recognition of their rights.”

“Is that so surprising?” she parried. “You know Harry has long wanted to have Hal crowned in his lifetime and doubtless would have done so years ago if not for his quarrel with Becket.”

“Yes, I know about that. I know, too, that it was a highly controversial proposal, one that sent many of his most trusted advisers into a panic, for there is no precedent in English history for crowning a king’s son whilst the king still lives.”

Eleanor shrugged. “Harry has always seen himself as Angevin, not English, and such coronations are known in his continental domains.”

“But why make provisions for the younger sons during his lifetime? Did you happen to plant that particular seed, Eleanor?”

“No… I merely did what I could to nurture it once it had taken root.”

Raoul gazed at her in perplexity. “I understand why you would want to see Richard recognized as the heir to Aquitaine. But why would Harry want to see such a division of his empire?”

“Harry is a practical man. He knows full well how difficult it would be for Hal to control dominions that stretch from the Scots border to the Mediterranean Sea. If Richard inherits Aquitaine and Geoffrey takes Brittany, that still leaves Hal with England, Anjou, and Normandy. Moreover, he naturally wants to provide for all his sons; what father would not?”

“Why do it now, though? Does he not realize the dangers inherent in such a plan? What is to keep his enemies from playing his sons off against one another-or even against him?”

“You sound as if you assume there will be an actual transfer of power, Uncle. Knowing Harry as you do, how can you be so naive? Harry could learn to fly easier than he could learn to delegate authority. He’ll be seeking to run his sons’ lives and kingdoms until he draws his last breath. And if there is a way for him to rule from the grave, you may be sure he’ll try to find it.”

Raoul did not enjoy being called naive; to a lord of Aquitaine, that was the ultimate insult. Scowling at his niece, he said, “Of course I know Harry intends to keep the lads on a tight rein. I am not a fool, Eleanor. And neither is your high-handed husband. Surely it must have occurred to him that his sons will not be satisfied for long with merely the trappings of power? At fourteen, Hal might be content as a puppet king, but will he at twenty? I can only assume that Harry has some guileful stratagem in mind. What is it, though?”

“If you figure it out, be sure to let me know,” Eleanor said, blandly and mendaciously. It was simple, really, so simple that others overlooked it in their haste to ascribe complicated, calculating motives to an undeniably complex man. A man who’d been scarred by his prolonged and bitter struggle for the English crown. A man who loved his sons. A man who’d move Heaven and earth, if need be, to make sure they were not denied their rightful inheritance. Stephen was sixteen years dead, but not forgotten by Henry, never by Henry.

Eleanor could see the weaknesses inherent in Henry’s planning, for it was predicated upon the premise that he could control his destiny and that of those he loved, that he could mold and shape sons and wife to his will as if they were malleable clay, not flesh and blood and bone, with needs and hungers of their own. She had encouraged him in these protective, paternal instincts, knowing that she was no longer acting in his best interests. But she was not about to betray him to Raoul, to reveal that his “grand scheme” was motivated in great measure by a father’s fears.

They were nearing the great hall and she quickened her step, saying, “I hope Richard has not already bolted for freedom. He could have a broken leg and we’d still need to post a guard at his door to keep him bedridden. In that, he is his father’s son, for certes.”

Raoul hesitated only briefly and then said boldly, “But in all the ways that truly count, he is yours, Eleanor.”

She did not answer, but neither did she rebuke him, and that in itself was telling. He’d suspected for some time that she was now steering her own course, that the hand on Aquitaine’s helm was no longer Henry’s. She had stopped and was regarding him with a faint, feline hint of a smile, her eyes reflecting nothing but sunlight and sky, and he looked in vain for traces of his sister, a soft-spoken, gentle soul who’d lived quietly and died young, so very long ago.

Henry awoke suddenly, torn from a troubled dream of bloodshed and betrayal. So jarring was his return to reality that for a moment, he could not remember where he was. It was only when he saw the slender female form beside him in bed that he recognized his surroundings. This was Falaise, the house he’d leased for Rosamund, a private refuge from the brutal border wars he’d been fighting for much of the year.

Sitting up, he cocked his head, listening to the dreary sound of sleet drumming upon the roof, pelting against the shutters. The hearth had burned out and the chamber was filling with frigid air; by morning, ice would be glazing the water in the washing lavers. After a lifetime of indifference to weather woes, he was startled to find himself minding this winter’s misery so much. November was always a wretched month. It was a waste of breath to curse the cold or damn the wind. But still he shivered under coverlets of fox fur and at last rolled over, seeking Rosamund’s warmth.

She was drowsily accommodating, stifling a yawn and entwining her arms around his neck. She was not surprised that he was awake again. For all the gold in his coffers and the lands under his rule, sleep was the one luxury that often eluded him. She sometimes tried to visualize the workings of his brain, imagining his thoughts galloping like the fleetest greyhounds through the mazes of his mind, going too fast for respite. Even during his pursuits of pleasure-his hunting, their lovemaking-he never let the man control the king. His hunger was for empires, his dreams of dynasties. He had too much, she feared, for any mortal man to govern. A surfeit of ambitions, enemies, dominions, even sons.

She’d been quieter than usual that evening. Henry was not accustomed to giving much thought to the moods of others; that was one of the many perquisites of kingship. But Rosamund was like a wildflower on a well-traveled path, too easily trodden underfoot. For her, Henry was learning to be circumspect.

He hoped she was not still fretting over that gossip about him and Eudo de Porhoet’s daughter. The Breton rebel was claiming that he’d seduced the girl during her stint as his hostage and somehow Rosamund had heard of it. When she’d gathered up the courage to ask, he’d denied it with convincing sincerity. Eleanor would have known how little that meant. He could always lie with conviction, and saw his flexibility with the truth as a venal sin, too minor to matter. Of course Eleanor would not have asked the question in the first place. She’d have understood that such slander was merely another weapon, a convenient way for the Bretons to stir up hostility against their Angevin overlord. And she’d have understood, too, that even if it were true, it meant nothing to their marriage.

Henry sighed softly, regretting that Rosamund was still such an innocent. After a moment, the humor of it struck him-that he was wishing his mistress was as worldly as his wife-and he smiled to himself in the dark. He’d lied to Rosamund before and doubtless would do so again if need be, but this time he had indeed spoken true. He’d not so much as touched the hand of de Porhoet’s precious daughter. Hellfire, when would he have found the time? For the past two years, he’d all but lived in the saddle, putting down one rebellion after another, only to have his foes rise up again like that blasted serpent in Greek myth, the nine-headed Hydra.

“What are you thinking of, my love?” she asked shyly. Her skin was soft and warm, her long, loose hair flowing like a silvery stream over them both, tickling his chest. This was a favorite query of hers, and although he considered it a girlish whim, he was usually willing to indulge her. Now he pondered briefly before coming up with a suitable answer, one that was a half-truth, for his upcoming meeting with the French king was never far from his thoughts.

“I was thinking about the Epiphany council. It has taken almost a year to get this far; I’d hate to have it all fall apart at the eleventh hour.”

Rosamund snuggled still closer, offering her body heat as freely as she did her heart. He’d sent for her in the spring, soon after the de Lusignans had ambushed his queen. She’d seen him seldom in these past six months, though, for he’d spent the summer in Brittany and much of the autumn warring along the Marches of Normandy. During his brief visits, he’d talked of his intent to make peace with Louis, and she knew how much it meant to him, for without the cooperation and goodwill of the French king, he could not advance his plans for his sons.

Rosamund turned her head into the crook of his shoulder. She did not fully understand why he wanted to divide his empire amongst his sons, but she took comfort in the knowledge that Eleanor backed him in this; from all she’d heard, the queen was as shrewd as any man when it came to statecraft. She cared only for his peace of mind and she’d already begun praying daily for the success of his endeavor, entreating the Almighty to look with favor upon His son, Henry Fitz Empress.

Henry was engaging in a doomsday exercise, trying to envision all that might possibly go wrong during the council. He was by nature an optimist, always expecting to win whenever he took the field. But too much was at stake for overconfidence. He wanted to be prepared for any eventuality, any ambush. God knew, he had enemies enough at the French court, pouring poison into Louis’s ear every chance they got.

“If Louis wants proof of my good faith,” he said caustically, “he need look no further than my agreeing to meet with that traitor, Becket.”

Rosamund propped herself up on her elbow and stopped him from speaking with a lingering kiss, for she’d learned early on that talking about Thomas Becket only served to kindle his wrath and often brought on one of his infrequent, intense headaches. Henry was willing to be distracted and for a time, Becket and the French king were forgotten. Afterward, he felt a throb of tenderness toward the woman lying in his arms, wanting to give her some of the comfort she gave to him.

“Did I tell you I’ll be keeping my Christmas court at Argentan this year?”

Rosamund was already dreading the coming of Christmas. Never did she feel so alone, so aware of her precarious position as his concubine as she did during days of holy celebration. “I suppose your queen will be there, too,” she murmured, striving to sound casual and failing miserably.

“No… Eleanor plans to hold court at Poitiers. I had too much still to do in Normandy to venture down into Poitou.”

Later she would wonder why the queen had not joined him, then, at Argentan. Now she felt only a surging joy. “So you’ll be able to find time for me?” she asked, too delighted for coyness or coquetry.

Henry laughed. “As much time as you want,” he promised, tightening his arm around her shoulders. Outside, sleet and rain continued to fall, the wind wailing through the deserted streets of Falaise. But the storm’s din no longer disturbed Henry and soon after, he slept.