The Winter Crown (61 page)

‘That is a matter for her husband,’ Maudit said.

‘I will accompany you,’ Isabel said swiftly. ‘The Earl is busy elsewhere and it will be simpler and safer to stay with you than to go to lodgings.’

‘As you wish, madam.’ Maudit summoned armed attendants to escort the women to a chamber on an upper floor of the keep. Entering the room, Alienor found it already occupied by Marguerite, her sister Alais, Humbert of Maurienne’s little girl Adeliza, Constance, heiress of Brittany, and Emma, Henry’s sister. A full complement of royal hostages.

‘Dear Holy Mary,’ Alienor said, thinking they were like a flock of hens, cooped up and waiting to be necked.

Emma rushed to her and hugged her tightly. ‘Thank God. We did not know what had happened to you! I thought I would never see you again!’

Alienor returned Emma’s fierce embrace and laughed through threatening tears. She would not cry, because if she did, she would never stop. ‘I’m alive for now; that is all that can be said.’

‘I am to be wed…’

‘Yes, I know, my love, I know.’

Emma straightened and put on a brave face. ‘I never thought to be, nor to a Welshman, but I have no choice, and there must be worse fates in the world.’

‘Yes,’ Alienor said bleakly, ‘there must.’

‘Harry and Richard will come for us,’ Marguerite said stoutly as she too came to curtsey, and then to kiss Alienor. ‘My father will put a stop to this.’

‘He has not done so yet,’ Alienor said. ‘England is a fortress moated by sea. Who will be interested in women of France, or Brittany, or Aquitaine?’ Her political mind was stirring and stretching. ‘What I want to know is why all those mercenaries are being amassed to go with us.’

‘The Scots are threatening Carlisle and Alnwick,’ Emma said. ‘And Nottingham is in the hands of the rebels. Philip of Flanders has promised to send aid and has already embarked mercenaries of his own.’

‘Why do we have to go?’ Marguerite asked with a small flounce. ‘He took us from Fontevraud almost by force as it is.’

‘Because he dare not leave any of us in Normandy lest an attempt be made to rescue us in his absence,’ Alienor replied. ‘We are hostages and he is keeping us confined and close. He won’t leave us one side of the Narrow Sea and himself the other, especially when he is threatened.’

Overnight the weather changed. Clouds rolled in, first white, but churning to dirty grey, and the hostage party left their lodging for a sea of surging green waves, white-veined and crested with spray. The crossing was going to be brisk and possibly stormy. Both John and Joanna were wide-eyed and tense; they had been infants last time they had made this journey, too young to be daunted. Alienor eyed the sea with misgiving. She did not want to set foot on the galley because it was another step away from herself.

She looked at Isabel, who had joined her as the crew secured the gangplank. ‘Twenty years ago I sailed from here with Henry to be crowned Queen of England,’ she said, and stared out to sea, feeling a tug in her heart like the surge of the waves. ‘Harry was curled in my womb and Will’s hand was clasped in mine. Now, my womb has ceased to quicken, my best years are past and I return as a prisoner and hostage. Harry is squandering himself in rebellion against a father who refuses to validate him with any kind of power and my firstborn son is naught but bones and dust in a tomb.’ She turned to look at Isabel. ‘That is what it comes down to – bones and dust. Is what lies between worth it?’

‘It is what you make of it,’ Isabel replied staunchly, and touched her arm. ‘It is for God to judge, not us. All we can do is our best; let others choose as they may.’

‘I am not sure this is my best,’ Alienor said, swallowing. ‘Or if it is, then it is a poor effort, is it not?’

‘You do yourself a disservice.’

Alienor grimaced. ‘Indeed, and that disservice happened long ago when I wrote a letter of proposal to Henry FitzEmpress and agreed that he should become my husband.’

The wind strengthened as they boarded the ship and by the time the gangplank was pulled in, the crests on the incoming tide tossed like the manes of wild horses. At least with the children on board with her, as well as Hamelin and Isabel, Alienor knew Henry would not try to stage an accidental drowning on the crossing, although the wild weather might accomplish that anyway. She watched the golden lions rippling on the red silk banner at the prow of his galley further along the moorings, and the swirl of his cloak as he prowled the deck. He had neither been to see her nor so much as looked at her since that stare across the courtyard, and she was both relieved and wary. She noticed the figure of a woman on board with him – blue cloak, white wimple – and felt weary indifference.

As the tide turned, the English fleet weighed anchor and cast off from their moorings. The ships cleared the harbour and entered the open sea where the swells grew bigger and stronger, heaving against the side of the ship, exploding spray over the top strake. The saturated crew toiled to adjust halyards and stays, while the steersman fought to hold her steady and keep her course true. Squalls whipped across the surface of the sea like running wolves, savaging the fleet and moving on. Lightning veined the charcoal-coloured sky with dazzling striations that left an imprint on the eyelids. The sea threshed beneath the ships, driving them forward at a hard pace, straining the sail and the passengers huddled miserably in the deck shelter. Little Adeliza of Maurienne had never been on a ship before, and between bouts of retching, she whimpered and shivered. Isabel tucked a blanket around her and held her tightly, rocking and soothing her. John, who was enjoying the drama, gave his future bride a disgusted look.

Feeling as if she were about to be suffocated, Alienor left the shelter and stood on deck, breathing deep gulps of the salty air and letting the wind batter against her.

Robert Maudit, who was also on deck, shouting to the steersman, saw her and, holding on to the halyards, made his way in her direction, his face taut with anxiety and anger. Before he could reach her, however, Hamelin too emerged from the deck shelter and waved him away.

‘Madam, it is not safe out on deck,’ he shouted. ‘You could be washed overboard. You must go back inside!’

‘Would it be any worse than my fate when I reach England?’ She faced Hamelin. ‘Let me have this moment. I have always thought your nature less cruel than your brother’s.’

A powerful wave crashed against the ship and she was flung into him and deluged in a shower of icy spray. He gripped her hard and she felt his solid, muscular body and strong arms, and it was strange because it was so much like being held by Henry, but very different too.

The ship steadied and Alienor pushed away from him to stand on her own.

‘Now will you go inside the deck shelter?’ he asked.

‘In a moment,’ she said and took his hand. ‘Promise me you will be good to Isabel, and do your best for John and Joanna.’

He raised his brows. ‘Those are already given. You do not have to bind me with oaths.’

‘Yes I do.’ She gave him a long, measuring look. ‘It is all I have within my power to do. And I will say this too. For all your loyalty to Henry, Hamelin, beware. Do not let him destroy you. Henry is a storm few survive.’

‘I am adept at weathering him by now,’ Hamelin replied evenly. ‘The main difficulty is negotiating all the treacherous rocks offshore.’

‘Promise me.’

‘I do so swear,’ he said and removed his hand from hers, ‘but not for your sake.’

‘I would not ask that, I know where your loyalties lie, my lord.’

Alienor returned to the deck shelter. Hamelin was conservative, but always scrupulously fair to his own way of thinking. She supposed it was a small mercy.

Isabel’s chaplain was leading prayers and the atmosphere had become less fraught. People were still retching, but their bellies were empty. Alienor knelt, closed her eyes and bowed her head to murmur words over the string of prayer beads clasped in her hand.

Shortly after noon, the wind veered and lessened in intensity, and the fleet was able to race for the English shore like galloping horses controlled on a tight rein. Sails were tattered rags, the crews were exhausted, and the passengers buffeted and draggled, but they were alive. An hour before sunset the clouds broke up and evening light burnished the sea, illuminating the port of Southampton in hues of gold and bronze as the storm-battered fleet limped into harbour. Amid the cheers and embraces of her fellow passengers, Alienor viewed their landfall with resignation. She had seen Henry’s flagship ahead on their steerboard side; it had been too much to hope that her prayers had been answered and that it had foundered in the storm.

Following the previous day’s wildness, the sea had calmed to a benign humour and licked the bruised and weed-strung shoreline almost tenderly under a sky of broken cloud.

At Southampton’s timber keep, there was no respite beyond a single night for the storm-tossed English court as Henry prepared with his usual demonic energy to move inland. Even before dawn, the cargo from the ships was being unloaded on to the carts and sumpter horses procured in the town.

Alienor, draggled and still in the same salt-stained garments from the crossing, was escorted under guard to Henry’s chamber. The room was bare save for a bench before the hearth, everything else having been loaded into the baggage wagons. He stood before the empty fireplace, tapping his fingers against his belt, his expression impatient and his mouth a hard, thin line. How had she ever derived pleasure from his kiss?

‘So,’ she said, holding herself tall and straight despite the state of her garments. ‘Have you brought me here so you can claim the marriage debt again?’

He shot her an irritated look. ‘In truth I do not want to see you at all, but I am conscious of my duty, even if you are not conscious of yours.’

Alienor raised her eyebrows and said nothing.

‘I am sending you to Sarum, and there you will remain in Robert Maudit’s custody for as long as I deem necessary. You are to have no contact with our sons and daughters except by my express permission.’

‘How you must fear me,’ she said with a mocking smile, although inside she was devastated. ‘You have done everything to take my power from me; you cannot live with it, can you? You fear your sons too, and rightly so.’

He shot her a glance in which there was hatred. ‘You turned them against me with your conniving, but they will come back to the fold in the end. They cannot stand against me.’

The same old arguments and the same old blame and delusions. ‘The fold? They are not sheep. They are lions, and they are younger than you. Cage them as you will, their time will come.’

‘Yours is over, madam, I am certain of that.’

‘And you always deal in certainties, Henry. You are so certain that everyone will betray you that you have made it a self-fulfilling prophecy. Send me to rot then, but I promise I will haunt you all of your days. Banish me from sight, but I shall remain a thorn inside you.’

‘Your threats are as empty and as powerless as you are,’ he retorted. ‘Whatever happens, it will be of my design, not yours. Yes, you will trouble me, but no more than a louse bite does, and I hold you between my fingernails. Think on that. I could crack you at any time. And do not think your sons will side with you. They are becoming men, as you are always telling me, and once I have resolved our differences, they will cleave to me because I hold the power, not you.’ He showed her his clenched fist to emphasise his point. ‘Yes, even your beloved Richard. I shall send him into Poitiers and let him rule with me overseeing from afar – unlike you perching on his shoulder. Your time is finished, madam. Whatever you threaten is no more than the hissing of a cat.’

He adjusted his cloak. ‘You will retire to Sarum to rest and confer with God. Those who enquire after you shall be told that you are unwell, that you need a long rest and solitude. Those who remember your sister will know what I mean.’ His gaze lit upon the pearl ring she was wearing, given to her by the Empress not long after Harry’s birth. ‘I will take this for safekeeping,’ he said. ‘I doubt my mother would want you to have it now, and as far as I am concerned, you have lost the right to wear it.’ Grabbing her hand, he worked the ring from her finger, and when Alienor struggled and tried to pull back, he gripped the harder until she let out an involuntary sob. Panting, eyes bright with triumph, he cupped the jewel in his fist and left the chamber. Alienor squeezed her eyes tightly shut, a terrible sense of desolation and despair sweeping through her. But still she did not weep.

Two of Henry’s hearth knights entered the room to escort her down to the courtyard, and she went with them, feeling numb. Three baggage trains awaited, one Henry’s, the others prepared for the women, although Henry himself intended riding ahead and his white palfrey stood saddled and ready. Without looking at her, Henry set his foot in the stirrup, swung astride and heeled the horse to a canter. A host of knights and serjeants followed him, including Hamelin, although Isabel remained behind with the other women and the children.

Alienor was bundled into a travelling wain separate from the others and Isabel turned to Robert Maudit with narrowed eyes. ‘I shall travel with the Queen,’ she said. ‘And so will the lady Joanna and the lord John.’

‘The King…’

‘…is my brother-by-marriage and has other business on his mind. I shall speak to him as soon as I may, but in the meantime, I leave it to your compassion and good judgement, my lord.’

Maudit frowned, but after a moment acceded to Isabel’s wishes. She ushered the children into the wain and then clambered in herself and settled next to Alienor amid the cushions. ‘It is not seemly,’ she said, smoothing her gown. ‘How dare they do this?’

Alienor shook her head. ‘Henry can do anything he chooses, and always to suit himself,’ she said. She looked at the paler band of skin on her finger where the Empress’s ring had left its mark and memory.

The cart trundled away from Southampton, leaving the sea behind, and they entered open countryside fragrant with all the rain-released scents of summer, and sunlight sparkling in the puddles. A fine day to be out riding with the hawks. Not one to be travelling into confinement under heavy guard.