Lady of the English (61 page)

She looked down at his gift, and then up into his eyes. “You have enriched me beyond all material wealth. I will love you all the days of my life also.”

They stood together, their hands still linked and their bodies lightly touching. He remembered the time he had first knelt to her at court when she came to marry Henry: a slim, lithe girl, her eyes filled with fear and touching bravery. He had been a couple of years older than her, but still very much a junior member of the court. That first sight of her had struck a pang in his heart because he thought her perfection. So modest and gentle, but with an underlying strength and refined poise. To have her as his wife and give him children of her womb had been living a dream, and now he was waking up and it was bitter. This was the last time, the last touch. When he returned to Arundel, and sat by the fireside, he would be alone. He had sat thus on many occasions, but this time it would mean 485

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something different and he would have to deal with it well, for the sake of the future, and the six beautiful children Adeliza had borne to him of her grace.

In the final moment, Adeliza continued to hold his hand, even though she knew she had to let him go and release them both. In some ways it would be easier to be apart from him, because his need for her to get better on top of her illness had been so hard to bear. At Afflighem she could have peace and tranquillity. She was going to miss him desperately. His admiration for her and his need had always been balm for her soul.

Making a supreme effort, she disengaged and turned to the waiting children. They were lined up with their nurses, descending in height from oldest to youngest. Wilkin, so much like his father, tall and strong for his age with a mass of brown curls and golden-hazel eyes. Adelis, save for her fair hair was like Will too, robust and strong, and she was glad to see that trait in her eldest daughter, for it would stand her in good stead. Godfrey and Reiner, fair and slender, like her brother and father, and the youngest children, still folded in their infant pudginess. They would not remember her except through the stories of others.

She fixed them all with a long look as if she could burn them into her mind’s eye and make them as indelible in her sight as they were in her heart. She had given each child something to remember her by. There were books for the oldest boys and rings to be set by until when they were men; rings that one day they might pass on to their wives or daughters if God was merciful. Her jewelled belts had gone to her daughters. She had given Adelis the gown in which she had married Will, and waiting for Agatha was a magnificent court dress crusted with pearls and rock crystals.

“Be good for your father,” she said as she kissed each child in turn. Little Henry was held in his nurse’s arms because 486

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Adeliza did not have the strength to hold him herself. Agatha reached up a chubby hand to grasp Adeliza’s hand. “Mama,”

she said. “Mama.”

Adeliza closed her eyes. “Bless you,” she whispered. “Bless you all the days of your life.” She stooped to kiss Agatha’s small fingers, curled them over the love, and turned away.

Agatha began to wail, as if knowing instinctively that her mother was not coming back, and the sound shredded Adeliza’s heart. Will went to the nurse and took Agatha in his own arms.

“Hush,” he said, his voice breaking, “Hush. I am still here, little one; I always will be.”

Adeliza’s core was so tight and painful with grief that she could barely walk. Matilda had been standing well apart, waiting while Adeliza made her farewells, but now she came forward and took her arm, assisting her up the wide gangplank and on to the ship.

“Come,” said Matilda when Adeliza’s knees almost buckled.

“We are almost there. Do not fail now.”

Adeliza braced herself and made a final effort. Strong hands reached down to help her aboard the galley and assist her to an oar bench where she could still see the jetty. The last of the servants and attendants boarded and the crew slid in the gangplank and cast off the mooring ropes, severing the ship from the land.

Adeliza gazed at Will, still holding Agatha in his arms and with the rest of the children clustered around him. The boys were all waving vigorously and shouting. Adelis clutched Will’s other hand, and waved, looking solemn.

“It feels like betrayal,” Adeliza whispered, yet knew it could be no other way. With a great effort, she rose from the bench and held herself erect as the wind hurled into the sail and an open area of milky green water surged between jetty and ship.

“Ah Jesu!” she gasped.

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“Courage!” Matilda was immediately at her side, holding her up, shaking her slightly. “Do not let their last view be of you collapsed and weeping. You were my father’s queen and you are still your husband’s. Do not fail him. Never forget that there is still a crown on your head, do you hear me? Never!”

The words were like a slap and Adeliza drew on the last of her reserves, straightened up, and stood tall. She raised her hand in farewell and, for a fleeting moment, she felt the weight and radiance of a diadem on her brow and knew that it was no earthly crown. She wondered if they could see it on the shore and thought that they could, for Adelis pointed urgently towards her and looked up at Will, tugging his sleeve, and saying something in an animated voice.

Adeliza remained standing until they were out of sight, and then the last of her strength drained out of her, and she slumped to the deck. Her attendants hastened to take her inside the shelter, where Matilda dismissed them, saying she would tend Adeliza herself. She bathed her face with rose water, chafed her hands, then covered her up with warm furs, and thought about what they had both achieved and what they had lost in the journey from young womanhood to these middle years of supposed wisdom.

“Did I succeed?” Adeliza asked softly without opening her eyes.

“Indeed you did,” Matilda said, swallowing.

Adeliza said nothing more, but tears trickled from her eye corners and seeped into the pillow.

The wind freshened as the galley made its way down the channel and out to sea. Matilda quietly left Adeliza’s side and went to take a long look at the receding shoreline. She knew she was never going to return. England was her son’s kingdom to fight for now. She had done what she could. She had made many mistakes, but she had always been battering at 488

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a closed door. The times she had won through were when it had accidentally been left open. Her feeling of frustration and helplessness receded and turned to relief as the land became the horizon and then slipped from view. Gone. Her eyes grew dry with staring and began to sting. Abruptly she turned back to the deck shelter and Adeliza.

ttt

The warm wind whipped the daisy-starred grasses against the hem of Brian’s dark Benedictine habit as he took the path from the chapel of Saint Adrian to the shores of the loch on the western side of the island. It was nesting season and the comical Lundy birds with their brightly striped beaks and ungainly short-winged flight were returning from the sea to make their burrows, lay their eggs, and raise their young. They made good eating, but Brian was not out to trap them today, and besides, that was Brother Anselm’s task.

Soon, following the birds, the pilgrims would come from far and wide to worship at the chapel, give alms, and store up advantage in heaven, and the monks would tend to them between their prayers and devotions, providing food, water, and sleeping space. Some pilgrims, like himself, would come to bathe in the loch, believing it had healing properties.

Arriving at the shores of the loch, Brian shed his robe and alb, removed his shoes, and, shivering in the cool early May air, waded into the icy water. The shock of the cold was like a knife and seized his breath, but it was exhilarating too. He ducked his head and sluiced himself again and again until he grew accustomed to the cold. Then, neck-deep, he stood to pray.

Since arriving on the island, two months ago, the terrible dreams had diminished. He only woke in a cold sweat one night in four, and no longer felt the necessity of wearing the hair shirt under his robe. His daily immersion in the pure, icy waters of the loch had cured the abrasions and sores caused by 489

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the shirt, and it felt good to be cleansed. Each day when he bathed was an affirmation of his new life and a step away from the old, like a repeated baptism. At midsummer, he would take holy vows and shed Brian FitzCount, lord of Wallingford, as if casting away a threadbare cloak.

Eventually he left the water and dried himself vigorously on the rough towel he had brought with him, and then put on his clothes. As he tied his belt, he glimpsed the ink stains mapped in brown ink on forefinger and thumb. Even the water in the loch could not erase those. A faint smile curved his lips and then was gone. When he had finished his daily tasks and prayers, he would write her a letter, and he would not burn it…and when that was done, he would be completely free.

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Fifty-six

Le Petit-Quevilly, Rouen, Autumn 1148

T he leaves had begun to turn with the shortening of the year, casting the world in shades of tawny, amber, and soft pale gold. The air was still, the sky a hard, clear blue, and residual summer warmth still clothed the sun. In Rouen, at the ducal retreat at Quevilly, Matilda had been sitting in conference with her husband and her eldest son, and now their business was almost finished.

Geoffrey rose from the table and stretched his limbs to ease the kinks. He had matured in the years of her absence from a young Adonis to a golden man in his prime. Soon he was returning to Anjou to deal with rebellious vassals while Henry stayed in Normandy to prepare for his return to England with men and supplies to continue the fight for his crown. Matilda was to act both as a regent for Normandy and as an administrative and diplomatic bridge for all their lands. She would rule and advise from Rouen, and continue to cultivate the Church and bring it as much as possible under their influence.

Geoffrey gestured round the room. “So you intend to settle here,” he said to her.

She returned his look with an arched brow. “I certainly do not intend returning to Anjou.”

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He gave a wry smile. “Good, because I have no intention of asking you to do so. I meant here at Quevilly; you know I did.”

“Is the answer not obvious?”

He shook his head, still smiling. “When you went to England, I missed you badly. I am no longer ashamed to confess it. No one else would stand up to me as you did. No other woman would fight me into bed and give as good as she received.” His eyes gleamed at the memory. “Not once did I best you, even when I thought I had. I can look back on that time without anger now. What matters is the future.”

She was a little thrown by his admission because she had been expecting him to make a barbed comment, when instead he had given her a kind of compliment, while being pragmatic about where they stood now. He needed the gravitas of their marriage to bolster his standing in the world and her confidence rose as she realised she was more vital to him than he was to her.

“I will see you generously provided for,” Geoffrey said.

“You need but ask.”

“Would that you had said such things in years gone by,” she said tartly.

He lifted her hand and kissed her wedding ring and then mouth in a hard salute that left their lips dry but tingling. “You do not disappoint me even now,” he said with a smile. “Always the sting and never the sweetness.” He left the room and she watched him go, and felt a brief pang of regret, but it did not last beyond his fading footfalls.

Henry had lingered to talk to a couple of household knights while she and Geoffrey had been speaking and she called to him. He left his companions, came over to her, and bowed in filial respect. “Mama,” he said.

She could see he was eager to be off and about his preparations for England; that he was champing to seize the rest of his life. “Henry,” she said, and her voice filled with affection and 492

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pride. “I bless you because you are my child, and I bless you because you have the impetuousness of your youth—as I once did—but you must temper it with strength and industry. There can be no more escapades like your last one in England. Your father will say the same thing.”

He looked up and gave her a hard smile. “There won’t be.” Today, his eyes were his grandsire’s diamond grey, full of knowing and virile manhood. The downy facial hair of eigh-teen months ago was now a fine, ruddy beard.

“You must set your stamp on the land like a royal seal. Men will look for justice and strong leadership and you have to give them that if you want them to follow you. Stephen has provided them with neither and you must prove that you can.

It is not enough to say these things. You must do them.”

“I know, Mama,” he said with a glimmer of irritation.

“I am not just lecturing you like a scolding tutor,” she said brusquely. “I know you have greatness within you and the potential to succeed.” She gave him a long look. “Come, there is something I want you to have.”

She led him to her chamber and took him to an iron-bound chest at the foot of her bed. Having unlocked it with a key hanging from her girdle, she lifted out an object wrapped and protected by a fringed stole of fabric woven with thread of gold.

Henry’s breathing quickened as Matilda slowly unwound the cloth to reveal the great crown she had brought from Germany.

“This was worn by a reigning emperor,” she said, “and it passes to another of the same name and future greatness. It is yours now, and you shall wear it to your coronation when you become England’s king.”