The Autumn Throne (4 page)

‘Concerning the eagle,’ Constance’s light voice continued, ‘it is known that when the eagle is old, it becomes young again in a strange manner. When its eyes are darkened and its wings are heavy with age, it seeks out a fountain, crystal and pure, where the water bubbles up and shines in the clear sunlight. Above this fountain it rises high up into the air, and fixes its eyes upon the light of the sun and gazes upon it until the heat thereof sets on fire its eyes and wings. Then it descends into
the fountain where the water is clearest and brightest, and plunges and bathes three times, until it is fresh and renewed and healed of its old age.’

Alienor’s eyes stung with tears. If only it were as simple as that.

The reading was rudely interrupted by Henry who swept into the chamber from his morning hunt, all fiery with the energy of the chase. Mud stained his boots; there was a tear in his cloak and twigs in his hat. Alienor could smell his sweat. There was no sign of their sons, and Henry was minus attendants. Her heart started to pound. So now they came to it, the moment of barter.

He tossed his hat and cloak to a duty squire, dismissing the youth at the same time, and approached the embrasure. ‘Leave, all of you,’ he commanded with a brusque wave of his hand. ‘I wish to speak with the Queen in private.’

‘I want to stay.’ Pouting, Joanna leaned against Alienor.

‘Want all you wish, but do as I say,’ Henry said shortly. ‘This conversation is not for you.’

‘Come, Joanna,’ Isabel cajoled, ‘I need to sort through my jewel casket and you and Belle can help me.’

Joanna gave her father a swift look that was almost a glare but, unable to resist the lure of her aunt’s jewels, flounced him a curtsey and departed with Isabel.

Henry hissed through his teeth. ‘Daughters,’ he muttered as he sat in the place Isabel had vacated.

Alienor picked up her sewing. ‘It is to be expected. She is reaching an age when she understands a great deal.’

‘She is also reaching an age when she needs to behave with dignity and decorum,’ he said irritably, ‘and to obey her father.’ He pinched a strand of gold embroidery thread between forefinger and thumb and examined it in the light from the window. ‘Envoys are on their way from Sicily to finalise a marriage proposal on behalf of King William, and I am of a mind to accept if the terms are advantageous.’

Alienor made a couple of intricate stitches. An alliance with
Sicily had been mooted several years ago, and put to one side, but not as a rejection. Another daughter given to far-flung lands, probably never to be seen again. And yet in its climate and culture, Sicily was not unlike Aquitaine, and might suit Joanna well. William of Sicily was perhaps ten years older than their daughter – an age gap that could be either a short step or a gulf. ‘Does Joanna know?’

‘No, but I will tell her soon. If the negotiations are straightforward, she will leave before autumn.’

Alienor looked down at her work. Hating to ask, but swallowing her pride, she said, ‘Will you let me stay and spend some time with her?’

‘I might see my way to it.’ He heaved an exaggerated sigh. ‘I have always done what is necessary for the unity of our realms. My sons understand that now, and I hope your time to reflect has brought you to a better sense of reason. How are we meant to inspire kingship and loyalty if people do not see us as united?’

My sons
, she noted, not
our sons
. ‘I have had little else to do but ponder the matter,’ she said, and turned the fabric to look at the back of her stitches. ‘Since you have slackened my chain and brought me to Winchester, you clearly have something in mind. Harry said you wanted to make peace?’

He wound the glittering filament of thread round his forefinger. ‘Do you remember when we visited Fontevraud together?’

An interesting gambit. ‘That was a long time ago.’

He gave a twisted smile. ‘Yes, in the good years.’

Her mind filled with an image of strolling with Henry through dew-damp grass, hand in hand, the abbey’s walls pearled in early morning mist, a nurse following with their firstborn carried high in her arms. A future of endless opportunity stretched before them and her heart had brimmed with certainty and exultation. But Will had been tomb-dust for more than twenty years, and the memory was but a swift sun-flash on perilous water. She had visited Fontevraud many times since, but never with Henry. ‘What of it?’

‘You
have always found balm for your soul there. I do not believe you have the same connection with Sarum?’

Alienor stopped sewing and gave him a narrow look. ‘Your point being?’

He rose and went to the window. The movement released the acrid smell of the hunt from his body and garments. ‘The abbey at Amesbury is to come under the rule of Fontevraud and will require an abbess. It would be a worthy project for you without stigma. You would be honoured.’

Abbess!
So that was his plan. Pack her off to a nunnery and expect her to spend her time in prayer and charitable works and perhaps a little socialising sufficient unto the dignity and standing of a noble lady of the Church. A small and pretty death – and presumably a hard and cold one at Sarum if she resisted.

‘I would not put pressure on you once you were there,’ he said smoothly. ‘You could do as you pleased – go out riding, entertain visitors of rank and be an asset to our dynasty, not a liability.’

Alienor eyed the back of his head. His hair was thinning and the once ruddy gold was the hue of dusty sand. ‘I think I would prefer to spend time in Poitiers,’ she said in a conversational tone. ‘In another two months the cherries will be ripening and early summer is always beautiful there. That would truly be balm to my soul.’

He turned round. ‘That would not be appropriate. After what has happened, you can never return there.’ His stare was as hard as the stone against which he had been leaning. ‘I have been talking to various Churchmen and they tell me it can be arranged that we are no longer married.’

Alienor was neither shocked nor surprised, for she had been down this dusty path before. ‘You are speaking of an annulment?’

He shrugged. ‘Of that kind, yes.’

‘Let us be clear and not mince words. You do mean an annulment. What else of “that kind” is there?’

He looked down at the twist of gold thread between his fingers. ‘Yes, if you will have it baldly stated. An annulment.’

‘You
wish to make me nothing.’ Her voice was low-pitched with angry contempt. ‘You wish for me to just disappear, to not exist.’ A sensation filled her stomach like heavy stones dropping, one on top of the other. She would not let him do this to her. ‘I ask myself what benefit there is to you from such an offer?’

He shrugged. ‘I do not see why you should object. It means we can go our own ways and cease this acrimony.’

If there was acrimony it was because he had belittled her at every turn and was still doing so. Hiving her off to a convent and denying her the right to visit her own duchy. Perhaps he was looking to take another wife – a threat she could not ignore because if a new queen bore him children, her own offspring might be endangered. She would stand in front of a sword to protect them.

Alienor set her sewing to one side and rose to face him. ‘I have no intention of seeing our marriage annulled, not for what you offer in exchange. The prospect of a fairer prison will not sway my intent.’

‘You will find you have little choice, madam. I can obtain documentation to prove our marriage was consanguineous and unlawful from the start.’

She gave a contemptuous laugh. ‘I am sure there are many reasons for us not to be married, Henry, but they were all overcome and dealt with when we were first wed. Whatever evidence you provide, I can show equal that will give yours the lie. I may not have armies at my disposal, but that matters not in this arena. After what happened to Thomas Becket, there are many in Rome who will be delighted to uphold my case. Moreover, you have to keep me alive, because after Becket, it would be too easy for men to believe you capable of murdering your queen as well as your archbishop.’

Henry flushed scarlet, the broken veins a purple script across his cheeks. He raised his fist. ‘By God, madam, you go too far!’

‘Then strike me,’ she challenged with a proud toss of her head. ‘Send me back to Sarum and then explain why to “your” sons and see just how they answer you.’

They
stood within the embrasure, heaving for breath, glaring hatred at each other.

‘By God, you shall give me what I want,’ he snarled.

‘I care not what you do,’ Alienor retorted with bravado. ‘You have already brought me low; whatever you do, makes no difference.’

‘Oh, but it does. Think on it well, madam. I will ask you again before this Easter gathering is over, and by then I expect you to have come to your senses. You know the outcome if you do not.’ He shouldered her out of the way, making her stagger, and stormed from the room.

Alienor’s knees gave way. She fumbled behind her until she felt the cushion on the window seat, and sank down, trembling. Dear Christ; he wanted an annulment so he could shove her into a convent and forget her. She had very few weapons to hand, but refusal was one of them and she would fight him all the way.

Isabel tip-toed into the chamber and approached Alienor where she sat in numb silence. On seeing her condition, she waved the other women away and brought her a cup of wine herself.

‘He wants an annulment,’ Alienor said stiffly. ‘He wants me to go to Amesbury and take the veil.’

Isabel gasped. ‘Oh my dear!’

‘He wants to make a nun of me and take away Aquitaine.’ She trembled with her hatred and revulsion of him. ‘He says it will be honourable; he says I will have peace and freedom from strife, but people say that about death, do they not?’ She looked at the wine, its surface shimmering in her unsteady hand. ‘One day I may embrace the cloister, but not yet. My child-bearing years are behind me, but I shall not be treated like a used-up old nag put out to grass for her last days.’ She shot Isabel a fierce look. ‘I will never consent, never!’

Isabel sat down beside her, and after a moment said hesitantly, ‘I know it must be difficult to consider, but is it not
better than returning to Sarum or being kept under lock and key at Winchester?’

Alienor tightened her lips and looked away towards the light from the window. The strand of gold thread Henry had been winding around his finger sparkled on the floor. ‘No,’ she said, ‘it is not.’

‘But you will have the company of other gentlewomen, and books to read and all manner of matters to keep you occupied.’ Isabel touched Alienor’s knee, her tone coaxing and sympathetic. ‘You will have fresh air and daily comforts, and you will be honoured. When you think about it, is it really so bad what he is asking?’

Isabel’s determination to see the good in every situation even if it meant taking the path of least resistance had always exasperated Alienor and now, because of what had just happened, it spilled over into fury. ‘You do not understand, you never do!’ she lashed out. ‘I am a queen and this thing he asks of me is not my role. It sweeps me out of his way like dust.’

Isabel made a gesture of appeasement. ‘I did not mean to offend you; I mean it for the best.’

‘The best? Hah! He would make me nothing and you condone it because you refuse to see the world as it is.’

‘Alienor—’

‘Oh go away,’ she spat. ‘I do not need your kind of advice.’

Isabel bit her lip. ‘I want to help you, that is all.’

‘You cannot help me,’ Alienor snapped with miserable anger. ‘I mean it, leave me; I do not want you here.’

Isabel rose to her feet, her chin dimpling. ‘As you wish, madam.’ She formally curtsied and fled the room.

Alienor closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands. She almost called Isabel back, but pride and anger fettered her to her seat.

No one approached her, for who would risk the lioness’s den? She was alone. After a while she lowered her hands to her lap and raised her chin, her expression taut and regal. In
a strange way she felt expanded and filled with purpose. She would deal with whatever came her way on her own. She was a queen, and by the very nature of the role she was set apart from other women, even those she thought to call friend. This incident with Isabel had proved to her yet again that the only person she could rely on was herself.

Hamelin de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, was relaxing before the fire enjoying the ministrations of his three daughters. They fussed around him, voices bright as songbirds as they combed his hair and bathed his sore feet. He had been on them all day, attending to the demands of his energetic royal half-brother, and this respite was a blessed relief.

He thought with complacence how fortunate he was in his family. His son was a clever lad with a quick mind and robust strength that boded well for the future of the earldom, while his daughters enriched his life with a warm glow of family and fulfilment. One day they would marry, and their husbands would be fortune-favoured to receive such wonderful wives – and would know it from him constantly. But not yet; he and Isabel could take pleasure in the girls for a little longer. Belle, although beginning the journey into womanhood, was not yet twelve, Adela was seven and Matilda five. Unlike Henry’s daughters, there was no rush to tie them into grand dynastic unions.