The Autumn Throne (58 page)

After the midwives had cleared away the blood-saturated
towels and linens, Alienor fetched a small ivory pot from a trestle, and taking Joanna’s hand started rubbing the rose water unguent it contained into her flaccid palm and fingers. As she worked, she sang to her softly. A mother song, a reassurance song, one she had learned from her own mother, and she wondered who would be there to hold her hand and sing for her when she died. She had borne ten living children and eight of them had predeceased her.

Richenza joined her, lightly folding her arms around Alienor’s shoulders for a moment of shared sorrow and comfort before sitting down across from her. Taking Joanna’s other hand and a dab of unguent, she began to work the same as Alienor, and she too sang for Joanna. Beyond her pain, in a corner so small it almost didn’t exist, Alienor acknowledged a tiny spark of comfort.

Standing in the middle of the fine great hall at Poitiers, Alienor gazed around the completed building, begun three decades ago when Henry was alive and John just two years old. Now the arcaded walls were hung with rich embroideries and furnished with luxury. Great candelabra spiked with beeswax candles gave light and cast shadow across carved chests and benches covered with embroidered cushions. Her great chair dominated the dais at the end, a length of red and blue tapis rising up the steps to meet the two great bronze leopards perched in regal disdain either side. The beasts had once been Henry’s but Richard had taken them for himself – and now they were hers.

Swathes of cloth powdered with gold stars canopied the dais seating and servants were busy draping the dining trestles
with white cloths, and arranging silver gilt boats on them containing eating knives and spoons.

Alienor turned to John who had entered the hall and was looking around as he stripped off his gauntlets.

‘Most of the cups and plates went to Germany to pay Richard’s ransom,’ she said. ‘But I am slowly replacing them.’ Her lip curled. ‘Much good they did Heinrich.’ He had died of malaria in Messina three years after Richard’s release, and all his ambitions were dust in his grave. It all came down to dust in the end.

‘Indeed, Mama.’ A pained expression crossed John’s face; he disliked being reminded of that time. ‘It is a majestic space, even now I am grown.’ He tucked the gauntlets in his belt. ‘I thought it might look smaller.’

‘I was ambitious in those days,’ she said with a deprecatory smile. ‘I had such great plans. I wanted to show your father that Aquitaine was great in its own right, and so was its Duchess. It will be here long after I am gone and the sound of my footsteps across the floor are lost in time.’

John gave her a sidelong look. ‘Do not grow maudlin on me, mother.’

‘I would never do that – there would be no point. But I have my regrets and disappointments, as do we all.’ She faced him. ‘I hear you have negotiated a truce with Philippe.’

He brushed at a speck on his cloak. ‘Yes. He has acknowledged my rights and withdrawn.’

‘But you have to pay him a fine? Twenty thousand silver marks is a great deal of money.’

Irritation flashed in his eyes. ‘You have busy spies, Mama.’

‘Merely a matter of government. My informants are no busier than yours.’

John turned from her and wandered around the hall, looking at this and that, fingering the wall hangings, touching a statue of St Peter that stood in a niche. When he returned to her he chose not to comment on the twenty thousand marks, but she had known he would not.

‘I
rode past Fontevraud on my way and paid my respects to the dear departed. It’s becoming quite a mausoleum, isn’t it?’

Alienor bridled at his flippant tone, but bit her tongue on the comment that his respects had rarely been paid in life. He was exactly like his father in that detail. ‘When I return from Poitiers I shall have the tomb effigies carved. I have had a mason recommended – from Chartres – who will do them justice.’ It hurt her to think on the subject of the burials at Fontevraud and yet they were constantly in her mind. She had borne Joanna’s body to the abbey on her way south and with a numb heart had seen her interred at Henry’s feet. It still seemed impossible to her that they were all dead and that she lived still.

John pinched his chin between forefinger and thumb. ‘I wanted to ask you about that.’

‘About the tombs?’ She looked at him in wary surprise.

‘No, about returning to Fontevraud. I have a favour to ask of you before you go.’

‘What sort of favour?’ Now she really was wary.

John took two paces away from her and swung round. ‘The truce I have agreed with Philippe and the settling of matters between us involves more than just a payment of silver. We have agreed a marriage alliance to seal the matter, as you must know, between Philippe’s son and my niece Urraca.’

‘Yes, I was aware.’ Indeed Alienor had known the gist for longer than he had. ‘What is your favour?’

John drew a pattern with his toe on the flagstones. ‘I thought you could go to Castile and bring the girl to her marriage.’

‘You wish me to go to Castile?’

He nodded. ‘We are in Poitiers and it is not that much further, Mama. I thought you would like to see Alie and your grandchildren before you return to Fontevraud. The opportunity will not come again.’

All that was true, but Alienor was still slightly dismayed. ‘But now, in winter? I do not know if I have the strength.’

‘It
has to be now. My truce with Philippe allows five months for the wedding to take place. You can spend a few weeks in Castile and come to know the girl. Take a full escort with you and take Richenza to meet her aunt and cousins.’

Alienor felt a faint stirring of excitement, countered by weariness. She was so tired.

John folded his hands around his belt and said impatiently, ‘You went over the Alps in the middle of winter to bring Berenguela to my brother, and then all the way to Messina after that. You went to Germany to bring Richard’s ransom. Am I less to you? Will you not do this for me? For the future of the dynasty? Your granddaughter will be Queen of France.’

‘I was a few years younger then,’ she said. And less worn down by the world – and she would have sold her soul for Richard. But she did not say that to John.

‘But you are still strong, Mama, and in good health.’

‘Am I?’ She gave a snort of bleak amusement. ‘I am glad you believe so.’

She sighed deeply. He was indeed her last remaining son, and if it would bring peace and calm troubled waters then she could not refuse. Besides, he was right. It was her final opportunity to see her daughter.

‘Very well, I shall go. What does it matter if I spend the last of my life’s flame doing this for you? You would see how much I have already done for your sake if you were to count up the times instead of thinking you had been stinted. You need not have brought Richard into the matter. You too are my flesh and blood; my son.’

Although her eyes were clouding, she could see the strands of silver in his beard. Her lastborn child was almost thirty-three years old. Her life had moved too swiftly, like a single year of seasons, and now it was late autumn moving into winter and the last goblet of wine had been poured from the flagon.

‘I must leave you to your own devices for a while.’ She patted his cheek. ‘I am flattered that you think me indefatigable, but I need a few moments before dinner to rest. After
that you can regale me with all your news.’ She was amused to see alarm flicker in his eyes. ‘I know full well you will filter the information and I will only hear what you wish to tell me, but since I know this already, I shall not be disappointed.’

‘You know full well I did not want Joanna to become a nun.’ Raymond of Toulouse glared at the will Alienor had just given to him. He struck the parchment with the back of his hand. ‘You went against my specific wishes that she should not take the veil.’ His dark brown eyes were bloodshot and a little wild.

Alienor was visiting her widowed son-in-law in Gascony on her way to Castile, and had brought him Joanna’s will and her effects. ‘It was what she wanted, and I was disposed to help her attain her dying wish for her soul’s comfort.’

‘Hah, and her headstrong ways led her to lose her life,’ Raymond snapped.

‘She did not plant the child in her womb by herself,’ Alienor pointed out with icy restraint. ‘There is nothing anyone could have done; it was in God’s hands.’

‘But it might have had a different outcome if she had stayed here in Toulouse instead of fleeing to her brother who was already dead. What prompted her to such folly? This is judgement on her.’

‘The child was lying sideways in her womb; there was no hope when he settled that way.’

‘If she had stayed here it might never have happened,’ he repeated obstinately.

‘She had no choice; her safety with you was compromised and she was trying to help you both by seeking aid from Richard. She wasn’t to know he was dead.’ Alienor gave him a hard look. ‘You are being unfair.’

Raymond’s jaw worked and tears shone in his eyes. ‘She should have come back to me. And now she has paid the price – and so have I, and our son, because now he will grow up motherless. Do you know how bitter I feel that the nuns have her when I do not? Do you know what that does to me?’ He
struck his chest. ‘I feel betrayed and deserted that she turned her back on me. Can you comprehend that?’

‘Your feelings have nothing to do with the truth. She neither betrayed nor deserted you. She loved you and she wanted to survive, even though it was not to be. Her thoughts were all of you and your living son in her last days, and they were more kindly than you have shown to her.’

He turned away from Alienor and knuckled his eyes, his shoulders shaking.

Alienor drew a deep breath. ‘I will not quarrel with you and it is not what she wanted. Too many harsh words have already been spoken, and I am too heartsick with grief to be burdened with more. She was my daughter and your wife. Let us at least pray together and part in understanding.’

After a moment Raymond turned round, and nodded wordlessly, too choked to speak. She could see he was far from forgiving, but he was a man of sharp tempers that were swift to blow over, and he would come to terms with his anger and grief. He would see it better as he gained perspective and distance and would come to understand in time, she hoped.

On a fine, blue-skied morning in late February, Alienor sat winding silk thread onto a bobbin in her daughter’s chamber in the palace at Burgos in Castile. She had been there for ten days now and was enjoying her stay. The spring was more advanced here, and the weather was being kind to her old bones.

Her daughter, christened Alienor and called Alie as a child, had taken the name Leonora when she married young Alfonso of Castile twenty years ago, and now inhabited that identity. She was a woman of Castile and spoke the language fluently; indeed, it was her French that bore a foreign inflection. She had Henry’s wide cheekbones and grey eyes, but otherwise she resembled Alienor, being tall and graceful with a fine long nose and firm jaw. She reminded Alienor greatly of herself as a young woman in her ways and mannerisms and being
with her was a healing experience, for Leonora was fulfilled. She was strong and healthy and had a close bond with her husband, Alfonso. They were the same age and had matured together. Alfonso clearly honoured his wife and heeded her opinions, although he was still his own man and expected high standards of their offspring.

The Castilian court was formal and proper but at the same time had a fluid quality like clear water, and much of it was Leonora’s doing. She had a particular skill for managing situations without being harsh or dominant. A light touch here, a word there, a gesture and a smile, and all was woven to her design. Seeing her about her work, Alienor was admiring and immensely proud. Indeed she had started to wonder if her blessings might be in her daughters and their progeny rather than in her sons. There was greatness in the female side of her line, and if she could nurture it and enhance its lustre, then she would.

Currently she was considering her two granddaughters, Urraca and Blanca, who were sewing at her side. Everyone knew why she was here in Castile, and she was expected to make an announcement soon about Urraca being chosen as the future bride of the heir to France. However, Alienor was in no immediate hurry. Since both girls were of marriageable age she would make her selection based on the one with the most suitable qualities and take her time to observe their personalities and characteristics before she decided.

Urraca was the oldest at fourteen, a little taller than her sister and physically more developed. Her rich brown hair was braided and pinned neatly under a virgin’s embroidered cap. She had clear hazel-gold eyes and full pink lips that formed a natural pout whatever her mood. Although still a child in many ways, she was swiftly becoming a woman and was very aware of court life and how to play it. Alienor was slightly reminded of her niece Belle, and although it was no more than a distant echo, it made her wary.

Urraca’s sister Blanca had lighter hair, ranging in hue from
honey-brown to deep gold depending on the light, and her eyes were sea-blue like Alienor’s. She was long-limbed and graceful in her movements. Blanca took time to consider before answering questions so her responses came more slowly but were less by rote than Urraca’s. It was clear, though, that both daughters had been well brought up and Alienor had nothing but praise for Leonora and Alfonso.