Beloved Enemy (71 page)

“Very well. Bring him to me.”

Henry left the chamber. While she waited for him to return, her thoughts churned like a bubbling cauldron. What must Bellebelle be like to have held Henry’s interest all this time? By his own admission, most of the women he bedded, even those who bore his bastards, were short-lived encounters that meant nothing to him. What, then, was so different about this one?

She distractedly picked up the silver goblet then set it down again without drinking. An open psalter combined with a Book of Hours lying on the oak table caught her eye. It showed the Last Judgment and the Fall. Eleanor noted the furrowed brows and fierce expressions on the green-shaded faces, a perfect mirror for the emotions roiling inside her.

Henry opened the door of the chamber. He led by the hand a small boy and was followed by a servant. So great was her shock that Eleanor staggered back against the table, nearly knocking over the pitcher of wine. Facing her was an almost exact replica of the young Henry she had first seen in Bordeaux. This misbegotten child more closely resembled Henry than any of his legitimate sons. The whore would not have had to convince anybody; the evidence was there for all to see. Eleanor could barely hold back the tears that sprang to her eyes.

Henry prodded his son. “Here is the queen of England, Geoffrey.”

“
Deus vobiscum,
Madam,” said the boy, obviously fearful but determined to put a good face on it.

Eleanor was speechless. She could tell from the ease of his delivery that this bastard was fairly fluent in Latin. Young Henry, heir to the throne, was hopeless at his lessons. Had Henry told the boy what to say? What point was he trying to make? That this whore’s brat was superior to hers? She hardened her heart.

“Thank you—” She could not bring herself to say Geoffrey.

“When Geoffrey is a little older, I’ll offer him as an oblate to the monks of St. Paul.”

“An excellent opportunity,” Eleanor said in an icy voice. “Every father should have a son in the Church—to pray for his sins. I’m sure he will make an excellent priest.”

Geoffrey looked from her to Henry and back again. “I don’t want—” He grew pale, swallowed and bowed his head.

With sudden insight Eleanor realized that the boy did not want a career in the Church but was incapable of telling this to his father. She had a moment’s identification with his plight. He was as much a victim of Henry’s subtle tyranny as she.

Henry nodded to the servant, who took the boy by the hand and led him out.

“
Pax vobiscum,
Geoffrey,” she said impulsively.

She was rewarded by a tremulous smile as he blinked back tears. The sight moved her more than all of Henry’s words.

“I didn’t think the Church was of a mind to accept bastards these days,” Eleanor said as the door closed.

“A king’s bastard is not the same, is he? He won’t be with us long, Nell.”

Henry walked over to her, put an arm around her shoulders, and pulled her to him. She knew he was trying to make amends, but she could not respond.

“You offer the boy as an oblate. And the mother? To whom will you offer her?” Eleanor shrugged off his arm and walked to one of the braziers, turning her back on him.

There was a moment’s pause. “That arch tone is unworthy of you, Nell.”

“Please forgive me. What tone would suit you better? Do you think you can wipe your boots on my heart and expect me to turn the other cheek?”

“It is only your pride I’ve wounded.” Henry let his breath out in a long sigh. “I intend to see Bellebelle is provided for, naturally. She can keep the house in the village near Bermondsey—”

Eleanor turned swiftly. Only her pride wounded! Was the man blind? “You gave her a house near Bermondsey, where
my
manor is located? You didn’t tell me that.”

“You didn’t ask.” Henry jammed his thumbs into his belt and began to rock back and forth on his heels. “Where did you think she lived?” he suddenly shouted, his face growing red. “In some gutter or rat hole? In the name of God, Nell, be reasonable. It’s over and done with. Finished.”

“Is it?” After a pause, Eleanor, her body shivering with cold, turned back to the brazier. “But the boy will be here, a living reminder of—of—”

“Don’t say something you’ll later regret. I’ve asked you not to blame the boy. Blame the mother, if you must blame someone.”

She swung around and confronted him with an icy look. “I know who to blame. How like you to lay the guilt at her door. Is that why you’ve punished her?”

“I, punish her?” Henry looked bewildered.

“Do you really believe a house will compensate for the loss of her son? A son you took without warning? Cruel and heartless punishment I call it!”

Now Henry looked shamefaced, like a small boy. It was one of his most endearing looks, she thought coldly. “Well! I was angry at her deception. Very angry indeed. I admit it was—as you say—cruel and heartless. Yet what’s done is done. I cannot turn back the hourglass.”

Eleanor was not surprised at this facile admission of wrongdoing. Henry was equally endearing when he confessed his sins—after the fact.

“You will still see the whore from time to time, when she comes to visit her son. Won’t that stir up—”

Henry shook his head and spread out his hands in a gesture of finality. “She won’t be coming here. Ever. I don’t intend that she see Geoffrey.”

“You cannot mean—”

“I can and do mean that the more distance between Geoffrey and his unsavory background the better. I intend the boy to go far.”

Under ordinary circumstances, Eleanor knew she would have protested this harsh judgment. These were not ordinary circumstances. At the moment, she had not an ounce of pity to spare. Eleanor stretched out long, slender fingers sparkling with jeweled rings toward the burning coals. She had always thought her fingers were particularly graceful. For the first time she noticed the prominence of pale blue veins on the backs of her hands. How ugly they suddenly looked. And old. Quickly, she withdrew them, hiding her hands behind her back.

“Geoffrey, obviously not satisfied with Bellebelle’s explanation, asked me why the Fleming had tried to hurt his mother,” Henry continued. “What could I say? That she had been a whore? This would only open the door to even more questions. Does he really need to know that his mother was raised in a Southwark brothel among the dregs of humanity? That
her
mother had also been a whore, and God only knows who Bellebelle’s father might be—a man of noble blood, she was told. The truth will never be known.” Henry shook his head. “Let the boy be spared all that. A clean break is best. He’ll thank me for it later.”

Did he expect
her
to act as the boy’s mother? Eleanor wanted to ask. “What will happen to the Fleming?” she asked instead.

“He has been tried and found guilty of willful murder a sennight ago.” Henry began to pace the chamber again.

“Will you hang him?” A rushed trial, with a foregone verdict. Not that the Fleming didn’t richly deserve his fate.

“In England, it is not the usual custom to hang men of noble blood.”

So he would be beheaded. Perhaps already had been. Eleanor, watching Henry stride back and forth like a caged lion, a ferocious expression on his face, retreated from pursuing the matter further.

“The children must have thought it peculiar when you appeared with a complete stranger this morning. What will you tell them?” she asked. “What will you tell others?”

“The truth, what else? Young Henry, Matilda, and Richard are old enough to understand. I have other bastards—”

“None who live with us, whose mothers are whores.”

“You make too much of nothing. My grandfather had a slew of his bastards, including my uncle Robert, brought up at his court. My father had several. So did yours. Time and again you’ve told me how fond you are of your misbegotten half-brothers.”

“This is different,” Eleanor said, although she knew it wasn’t. “Does it not matter to you that I, your queen, will be the butt of sneers, crude jests, and snickers behind my back?”

“Who would dare?” Henry walked over to her, grabbed her arms and pulled her resisting body close to him. “On the contrary, people will praise your generous spirit.” She pushed him away. “Be reasonable. Take the boy in. Do this for me willingly, Nell, and I’ll never forget it.”

Bitterness rose, clogging her throat. “Henry, there won’t be any more—surprises of this nature, will there? I swear by the Virgin I will not—could not—tolerate this a second time. I do not mean some casual encounter when you are on campaign but—”

“I know what you mean.” He reached out for her again but Eleanor evaded his grasp. “Never. Never. Never. I vow and swear. Can we leave it now, Nell?”

“There is one thing I would know. What—what was there about this creature that kept you enthralled for so long?”

Henry threw up his hands then savagely jammed his thumbs into his belt again and kicked at the dried rushes. “God’s eyes, why can’t you just let it be? She took nothing away from you, Nell, I swear it. Nothing.”

“Do you answer the question.”

“I don’t know—” He shrugged helplessly. “Let me see—for one thing she was a good friend, I had always thought. Loyal. Trustworthy. Ha! Easy to talk to.” He glanced at her pointedly. “
Her
tongue never wagged overmuch.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I never felt on guard, or concerned that a careless word might be remembered or repeated in the wrong quarter or used against me.” He paused.

“Well, go on. There must be more.”

Henry ran impatient fingers through his hair. “She was—ah—attentive to my needs and asked so little in return—”

“Carnal needs, you mean?” Not really wanting to know but compelled, despite her pride, to ask. “A practiced whore, with a barrel full of tricks at her disposal must have made good sport.”

Henry thrust out a pugnacious jaw. “Don’t put words in my mouth! No, not carnal—I bedded her out of habit more than desire, I swear it. There is no woman in the world I desire more than you—or who satisfies more completely.”

Eleanor scrutinized him closely. Could she believe him? He met her gaze without flinching but was he lying? Trying to avoid hurting her any more than he already had? It was impossible to tell.

“It probably comes down to this close-knit bond between myself and Bellebelle,” he said slowly, “forged when we met as children. Who can explain the inexplicable?”

Eleanor did not trust herself to speak. She been a fool to ask. “All right, I understand.”

But having started, Henry could not now be stopped. “The other thing—I know this will be hard for a woman of strength and independent spirit like yourself, a queen and duchess, born to power and affluence, to fully comprehend—but Bellebelle was so utterly helpless. So dependent. She needed me, you see. Bound to a hopeless life of filth and poverty. A pathetic victim of unbelievable wretchedness. You and I cannot imagine what such a life would be like.” He crossed himself, obviously much moved. “Without me, she had—has—virtually nothing. Nothing at all.”

He looked at her and sighed. “Now, are you satisfied?”

Far from satisfied, Eleanor was heartsick. Suborned by the force of his will; desperately loving him, desperately afraid of losing his love, was she not equally dependent upon him? Were her needs no less important? Perhaps Henry thought she had none.

It was on the tip of her tongue to reveal what lay in the depths of her heart but if she so exposed herself, would she not be totally at his mercy? Like the whore was now. She shrank from the possibility.

Henry seemed quite oblivious to the fact that there was another side to this pathetic victim, Bellebelle: she had been quite capable of attacking a knight to protect someone she loved. This wretched, dependent creature, a felon any way you chose to look at it, had somehow had the wit and resourcefulness to evade capture by her enemies, survive the rigors of a London brothel, convincingly deceive Henry about her past, manage to get him to provide handsomely for her and her son, and, moreover, keep him ensnared for eight years!

Utterly helpless? Holy Mary Virgin!

Henry threw her a cautious glance. “You will take the boy in and treat him as one of your own?”

Eleanor looked at him for a long moment. The battle was far from over, but she would not win by directly engaging Henry in the lists, so to speak. She must appear to accept defeat gracefully, and play a waiting game. An image of the boy hiding his tears came and went. Yes. The child she could force herself to accommodate. It was the threat of the mother that still terrified her.

“When have I ever refused you anything you wanted?” She gave him her most artful smile to conceal the rage she must now suppress.

“Nell—I will never forget this.” Henry strode toward her with outstretched arms, his face slack with relief.

“Don’t touch me. I’ll do as you ask. That must suffice. Do you expect me to love you for it as well?”

Leaving him with a glum mouth and empty arms, Eleanor stalked out of the chamber. Despite his reassurances, could she trust Henry not to see the whore again? That might be
his
intention—but would the temptress who had beguiled Henry for so many years let him go so easily?

Eleanor closed the chamber door behind her and walked slowly down the passage. If this sordid
affaire du coeur
—or whatever it was—was to end,
she
would have to end it. Once and for all. Somehow, somewhere, the means would present itself.

B
ELLEBELLE WATCHED THE FISH
rise to the surface of the water then slowly sink. She drew back from the rail. When she looked again the fish had disappeared. But she
had
seen it. In the very nick of time—just at the moment when all seemed lost and life of no account.

There was no easing of despair; her sense of desolation was every bit as agonizing as it had been moments ago. But throwing herself off the bridge no longer seemed an answer. Bellebelle took a hesitant step in the direction of the Strand, then stopped and looked over her shoulder at Southwark. Which way should she go?

Bellebelle felt just like a wolf-bitch Old Ivo had trapped in the forest behind her cottage, unable to move in any direction. She could not go on as before; Henry had seen to that. Ahead lay a black void, a life filled with loneliness; no one to care for, no one to accept the love she needed to give as much as she needed to breathe.