The Winter Crown (39 page)

Jeoffrey swallowed again, bowed to her and fetching the board, set it on the bench between them, his movements so commonplace that it was obvious he had done this many times before. He removed the pieces and arranged them with reverent precision. He resembled Henry and had some of his mannerisms, but his movements were less restless and he had an air of reserve that was certainly not his father’s.

She won the game, but had to concentrate, and on a couple of moves he almost caught her out. He had been well taught and had a quick mind, but he was indecisive, and when faced with a choice under pressure, he hesitated and made the wrong one. And then he became cross and frustrated, and that indeed was like Henry.

‘You must trust yourself,’ she said as he returned the pieces to their box. ‘Do not let your opponent see you are ruffled, and take your time. There were moments when you could have pressed your advantage.’

‘Yes, madam.’

She could see that he was irritated, and did not enjoy being criticised, but he was obviously absorbing the lesson too and storing it away for later digestion. ‘You may go,’ she said. ‘The chess pieces and the board are yours. Tomorrow I will have a writ made saying so and you may collect them then and do with them as you choose.’

He thanked her with genuine gratitude and departed to wherever he kept his bed.

Alienor leaned back in her chair to finish her wine. It had been an interesting encounter. The youth had layers she knew she was not yet seeing. She had a desire to understand him, but not to come any closer than that in terms of an emotional bond. She intended to keep a very close eye on him and monitor his progress, because she recognised ambition when she saw it.

Henry breezed into the domestic chamber of the great donjon at Argentan, and then stopped mid-stride and stared at the infant boy who was wobbling across to him on unsteady legs.

‘John?’ He crouched, opening his arms. The child gave him a comical, quizzical look and crowed with delight as he reached him. Henry steadied the infant before he turned his wriggling little body this way and that to examine him from head to toe. ‘Aren’t you the fine little man?’ He ran a stubby forefinger through John’s sandy-blond hair.

Henry’s expression was so full of genuine delight that Alienor almost softened towards him. She had arrived in Argentan with trepidation and a heart heavy with anger and disillusionment. Even setting eyes on Henry was like being punched. She had written to him following his mother’s funeral and had received a curt, formal reply that told her nothing of his mood, save that he had made himself too busy to attend a beginning in the birth of his son and an end at his mother’s requiem.

‘It is a pity you could not have found the time to visit sooner,’ she said. ‘You have missed seeing your last child – or your last legitimate one – as a baby in the cradle.’

John tottered away from his father, making his way determinedly to Alienor. Henry’s face tightened. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’

‘That I almost died bearing him and it took me months to recover. Physicians and midwives tell me that if I quicken again, neither I nor the child will survive. I cry enough. I have done many things for you, Henry, but I will not die for you.’ She caught John and lifted him in her arms, sitting him on her hip in the age-old pose of motherhood.

Henry stood up and planted his hands on his hips. ‘I had expected a warmer greeting to begin a family gathering after so long apart but I see I was being optimistic.’

‘It sets out where we stand,’ she replied. ‘Your mother, God rest her soul, produced three sons and no more. I have given you six, four of whom still live, and three daughters. It is beyond me to bear you more.’

She saw anger flicker in his eyes and she did not care. He turned away from her and went to stand in the embrasure, facing the narrow window that looked out on the grey waters of the River Orne. ‘So be it,’ he said. ‘You know why I could not come to England. You know why I could not attend our daughter’s leave-taking and my mother’s funeral.’

‘Yes, I know,’ she said wearily.
Because you are indifferent to your wife and because you are too damaged to face parting from your daughter and your mother. And besides, we are only women.

‘Duty and the business of state always come first, as my mother was well aware, God rest her soul.’

‘I realise it more than you will ever know,’ Alienor said with quiet scorn. ‘I have spent the last fourteen years either with child or recovering from bearing one. You have often said that women’s minds turn to fleece when they are breeding, but since that will no longer be the case, it is time I took an active part in other arenas.’

‘Such as?’

‘Aquitaine,’ she said. ‘I was the Duchess of Aquitaine before I was the Queen of England. I should return before people forget who I am. Richard is no longer a small child and he must be introduced as my heir. I have been in exile for too long.’

He turned to look at her. ‘In exile?’

‘Sometimes that is how I feel,’ she said. ‘I need to reconnect with my heartland.’

A look both calculating and pleased crossed his face. ‘For once, my love, we are in agreement,’ he said. ‘I was going to suggest that you go to Poitiers in the spring and take Richard and the others with you. It is indeed time that people saw their lady again.’ He stroked his close-cropped beard. ‘Since your barons are so volatile, you will need protection and a man of experience to help govern that element with a sword if necessary. I have Patrick, Earl of Salisbury, in mind for the task.’

Alienor eyed him with shrewd awareness. Patrick of Salisbury was an experienced soldier and courtier. She had had dealings with him when she had visited Salisbury and Winchester. He was pleasant company, but he was Henry’s man to the core and would always do his bidding. It would be like having a guard dog set over her to ensure she behaved herself. She had no doubt he would report her every move to Henry. Perhaps fortuitously, his wife, Ela, was Isabel’s mother, which might play to her advantage. ‘I shall do my best to work with him,’ she said.

‘Well then, all to the good.’ Henry’s expression was both relieved and wary, as if he could not believe she was yielding so easily. He crossed the chamber and chucked two-year-old Joanna under the chin. She eyed him solemnly and clung to her nurse’s skirts, plainly unsure as to the identity of this strange man who had invaded the domestic chamber. Henry moved on to Alie, who, at six, had more awareness and swept him a proper curtsey, calling him ‘my lord father’, which amused him greatly.

‘What a fine and gracious lady you are going to grow up to be,’ he said. ‘Just like your mother.’ He shot Alienor a sardonic look.

‘Pray God she marries a husband worthy of her love and respect,’ Alienor replied, meeting his gaze steadily. ‘Richard and Geoffrey are busy with their riding master. Your other son is with them.’

‘Yes, I saw them as I rode in.’

‘What will you do with him?’

Henry wrapped his hands around his belt. ‘He may serve in my household as a squire while I take his measure.’

Alienor nodded and did not push him. If she suggested the Church, Henry would only argue in the opposite direction, and she had learned since the early days. Jeoffrey’s half-brothers had accepted him with an air of cheerful superiority, and he had fitted himself into the mould of subordinate, although she suspected deep undercurrents were at work beneath the smiling exterior. After all, he was Henry’s son and his mother had been a concubine. And that brought her to another point she needed to raise with Henry.

‘Just after I was churched, Isabel and I rode over to Woodstock,’ she said.

That elicited a brow raised in mild curiosity. ‘What of it?’

‘I saw the work being undertaken at Everswell – a “Sicilian garden” is it called?’ She curled her lip. ‘And I met your concubine on the road – the “fair Rosamund”, so sweet that if you cut her she would bleed honey.’

He said nothing, but his expression turned to granite.

‘I know you take women to slake your lust and that you have had particular favourites in the past. I have borne with it because whatever the Church says, men are the ones more susceptible to weaknesses of the flesh. Women have far more reason to abstain. But when you flaunt her before the court, when you behave like a besotted fool and build her a fine house and gardens, when you pluck her from a convent … then it becomes a scandal. It weakens you, and it shows a lack of respect to me and your heirs. If you must have your whores, do not make yourself a laughing stock. Did you think I would not hear about it, or did you just not care because you consider me of no consequence?’

His complexion had been darkening steadily but she had no fear. The time for diplomacy was past and she was riding the crest of her anger and hurt.

‘You ride roughshod over others, Henry, but do you ever turn and look over your shoulder to see all your bleeding victims rising behind you with revenge in their hearts?’

His voice congested with rage. ‘By Christ, madam, you go too far! Do not threaten me.’

‘I merely hold up a mirror and tell you to look in it and see yourself. You are the one who has gone too far, but who will hold a king to account? Who has the right to tell him no? An archbishop?’

John squealed, clamouring to be put down again, and staggered to his father. ‘Papa,’ he said, pulling himself up on Henry’s legs. Henry ignored him, his eyes boring into Alienor. ‘Certainly not you,’ he said with a curl of his lip.

‘Indeed, I thought not.’ She nodded at a notion confirmed. ‘Your son is indeed clever to have learned that word
in absentia
, although I am not sure he knows what it means. Perhaps none of your children do.’

From being livid with fury, Henry’s complexion was now bone-white. ‘I am warning you, madam, do not bait me,’ he said. ‘I have the power to crush you, as I would crush a wasp. It might sting me as it dies, but it will still be dead.’ He stepped over John and stormed from the room.

Alienor sat down on the bench and clutched her stomach, her emotion so strong it was painful. She had wounded him, but in doing so had caused more damage to herself. She hated him, but she hated him because she still cared. She needed to find a state of blessed indifference, and perhaps that would happen once she was back in Poitiers, once she was home.

Alienor closed her eyes in bliss and absorbed the warm benediction of the sun on her face as she rode. Another month and that sun at midday would be as hot as pepper, but just now it was perfect. A warm breeze ruffled the trees, shaking loose the last late petals of cherry blossom and softly bumping the green nodules growing on trees that had set their fruit earlier in the season. The sky was the wonderful shade of blue she remembered from her childhood, and the scents of greenery and spring made her feel youthful and alive for the first time in many years.

Alienor and Henry had travelled to Poitiers shortly after Christmas. Henry had spent time putting down rebellious vassals in the north of the region and then returned to Brittany to deal with yet more upheaval. Their parting had been formal and gracious; their manner to each other tepid as they exchanged the kiss of peace. Sixteen years ago, straight from their marriage bed, he had left her in Poitiers and ridden off to deal with pressing issues elsewhere. Back then she had felt hollow and bereft at his leaving, so consumed by love and lust for the red-haired energetic youth that all she had wanted to do was bury her face in the shirt he had discarded at the bedside and dream of him. Now, she had barely been able to contain her relief at his going.

Opening her eyes, she glanced at the strong young hearth knight keeping pace beside her on the sun-drenched path, one hand on the reins, the other resting on his thigh. She had first encountered Patrick of Salisbury’s nephew William when Thomas Becket had been preparing his menagerie for France, and a smiling, playful boy had given Harry a ride on one of the big bay wagon horses. Now she was coming to know William the man as a knight in the Earl of Salisbury’s entourage and to appreciate his talents. He was courtly without being obsequious, intelligent, reliable and astute. They shared a sense of humour. She loved his rich singing voice and that he appreciated music and song as much as she did. Beyond the skills of the court, he had already gained battle experience in skirmishes with the French in Normandy and had taken part in several tourneys where he was making a name for himself.

Although William’s posture was relaxed, he was vigilant too, constantly looking round. There might be a truce after several uprisings of Alienor’s unruly vassals, but the dust was still settling.

‘Do you always wear your hauberk on everyday journeys?’ Alienor asked. ‘Surely you must be stewing in all that mail?’

He turned in the saddle to study the members of her entourage, strung up on the path behind. A few of the serjeants wore padded tunics, but the knights’ equipment was mostly borne on sumpter horses, with the destriers on leading reins. ‘I had some new links put in my hauberk yesterday, madam, and this seemed a good opportunity to test the fit and see if more adjustment was needed.’ He flexed his right arm.

She studied him with a sharper eye, noting a section on his shoulder where links of a different colour had been patched in, but were certainly not new. When she asked him about it, he made a face. ‘It happened soon after I was knighted, at the fight to hold Drincourt against the French. Some Flemish mercenaries cornered me and put the hook of a thatch pole through my hauberk to try and drag me off my horse. I managed to fight them off, but they tore open thirteen links from my hauberk and gashed my shoulder.’

‘You were fortunate to win free.’

‘Indeed, madam, although I did not think I was fortunate at the time,’ he said with a rueful shrug, ‘and I still have a scar.’

Alienor marked that his battle experience was of close-up hard fighting, not just as part of a mob. Perhaps it might be worth stealing him from Patrick and giving him a place in her household. ‘What do you think of Aquitaine now you have been here a few months?’ she asked. ‘How does it compare with England?’