The Autumn Throne (11 page)

She made her way across the compound towards the boundary of the main gate now enclosed in its high curtain wall and discovered that the gates themselves were open and riders were milling in the courtyard and dismounting in clouds of vapour. A baggage cart rumbled into view drawn by two sturdy bay cobs. The contents of the cart were concealed under a tied-down canvas, and two lads who had been riding on the end hopped off to see to the horses.

Amid the masculine voices of the visitors, she recognised a boy’s lighter tone, and her heart gave a tender lurch. She saw a handsome young man wearing a crimson cloak, his arm thrown across the shoulder of a boy in blue. Geoffrey and John. On seeing her, they quickened their pace and then together knelt in greeting.

‘My lady mother,’ Geoffrey said. At twenty years old, his voice had the full ring of manhood. John murmured the same and gave her an inscrutable glance.

Alienor bade them rise and embraced them joyfully. ‘What a welcome surprise!’ She bit her tongue before she said she had almost given up hope of seeing anyone this season. ‘I am ill prepared for visitors, but you shall have the best of what I can provide.’

‘We have brought you gifts.’ Geoffrey indicated the laden baggage cart. ‘There are fur covers, and wine, and pheasants and venison.’

‘Papa allowed us to,’ John qualified. ‘He said if it would
make Geoffrey hold his peace for a minute he would let us ride over to Sarum.’

Geoffrey reddened. ‘All I said was that it was not far to Sarum and I should visit Mama since I had not long returned from across the Narrow Sea.’

John cast a malicious look at his older brother. ‘You also said it would be a charitable thing to do.’

Geoffrey cuffed John across the top of the head. ‘What else would I have said to our father? You know how he is. You chose to come too – to make trouble I am beginning to think, or perhaps as Papa’s spy.’

John looked wounded and straightened his hair. ‘I can’t help it if he likes me better than he does you.’

‘I hope you are not going to spend your time with me in argument and sniping at each other,’ Alienor reprimanded with dismay.

‘No, Mama, I apologise.’ John gave her a look from his repertoire, wide-eyed and angelic.

Despite herself, Alienor was amused at his incorrigibility. ‘However you managed to visit, I am touched. Come within, warm yourselves, and tell me your news.’

The food Geoffrey had brought from Winchester included such delicacies as spiced wine, smoked eel, pheasant, and her favourite chestnuts which they roasted on a pan over the hearth fire.

For entertainment Geoffrey had brought his own small troupe of minstrels, a jester with a monkey, and two acrobats he had picked up in Southampton. At first Alienor found it difficult to laugh. As before, it was like returning to life from a living tomb, but gradually the colours seeped back into her awareness and words started to have meaning.

John had just celebrated his twelfth year day and she had nothing to mark the occasion for him beyond prayers. Henry had given him a fine hunting knife in a decorated sheath, which John had been showing off and waving around throughout the meal. Henry had also presented him with a
black palfrey with red leather harness and a gilt-edged saddle cloth. She learned that John was to enter the household of Master Ranulf de Glanville the justiciar to further his education and was being groomed for Irish kingship. Much of his conversation was punctuated by ‘my father says’ and Alienor could clearly see Henry’s influence at work. He was a miniature version of her husband. His attitude towards her had changed; more wary now, more judgemental. Still, the fact that he had chosen to visit told her that there was still a bond there of sorts.

Her relationship with Geoffrey was less complicated. His mind was deep and he only let her see the surface, but what he did show her was pleasant and sincere. He was genuinely regretful at the estrangement between his parents, and shocked at how she was living.

‘You should have better than this, I told my father as much.’

‘And his reply?’

‘He said he would talk to you at Winchester at Easter and in the meantime he agreed to send you furs and bolts of cloth for robes and more lamp oil.’

All concessions that did not cost him the earth but were sops to keep Geoffrey from complaining too much. So she would be summoned to Winchester for Easter. She did not want her heart to leap but it did.

‘Harry will be here at Easter too,’ Geoffrey said. ‘He has promised to come – before the jousting season starts in earnest.’

Alienor bit her lip. Harry was squandering his life by sporting at tourneys but she did not blame him. What else was he to do when his father refused to give him land and responsibility? Richard and Geoffrey both had more than he did although they were younger – and John would too if he became King of Ireland.

‘I tourneyed with Harry for a while last summer and found it instructive,’ Geoffrey said with a glow in his eyes. ‘You have to have your wits about you; it’s a brutal sport, but I know why men are drawn to it. There’s glory in the surge through your
body as you level your lance, spur your horse and feel the power.’

Alienor’s stomach lurched. ‘It is dangerous too.’

Geoffrey rubbed his soft new beard. ‘Yes,’ he conceded, ‘and that is part of the attraction. But it is not as dangerous as war and there is a structure to it that fills the days with routine as well as excitement.’

A fairground of fighting then, she thought with a shiver of dislike for her son’s enthusiasm. Young men parading from place to place in a dazzling summer cavalcade of bell-sewn harness, banners and armour. Jongleurs, troubadours, dancers, swordsmiths, thieves. Bright triumphs like flocks of small finches, sometimes overshadowed by the crow wings of death.

‘William Marshal is truly a master of the art.’ Geoffrey was warming to his theme. ‘I have never seen anyone wield a lance or control a horse as he does. If my brother wins all the prizes this year, it will be because of the work the Marshal has put in with his knights in the fallow season. Some say the Marshal is too eager for his own advantage, but they are envious, because of the way he sweeps all before him.’

Geoffrey’s words were certainly instructive, but did nothing for Alienor’s peace of mind. ‘As long as he remembers his duty to protect your brother,’ she said tautly.

Geoffrey looked thoughtful. ‘He does it better than some of them in Harry’s entourage, but there is no mistaking that the Marshal is the real champion and Harry his pupil – I am not sure Harry appreciates that.’

‘Didn’t your father say anything about you going off to join Harry at the tourneys?’

Geoffrey looked amused as he replenished his cup. ‘It was Papa’s suggestion after I was knighted at Woodstock. He told me to go and enjoy the sport for a while. Of course he wanted me to report on what Harry was doing – I am not a fool, I knew what he was up to.’

‘He
did not think you would turn and conspire against him between you?’

Geoffrey gave a short laugh. ‘With what, Mama? He knows that for now he has us leashed. Besides, it is no bad thing to let other princes see what handsome, accomplished sons the King of England has bred. King Louis’ heir is afraid of horses. He’s a weakling when it comes to sword play and his faults are very obvious when measured against our brood. Papa likes to rub it in.’

Alienor experienced a glow of pride tempered by trepidation. ‘He should be careful; Louis is not to be trifled with. You may think you can run rings around him, but he knows how to bide his time and he will raise his son the same.’

Geoffrey eyed her curiously. ‘I always thought your opinion of Louis was that of a milksop monk.’

She shook her head. ‘He was never a milksop. And I have known several monks who are less than saintly.’ She reached to her wine and, keeping her voice casually neutral, asked, ‘What of Richard? Is he to join us at Easter too?’

‘I suppose it depends on whether he can spare the time from his campaigns in Poitou,’ Geoffrey answered, shrugging. ‘There is still widespread rebellion and I doubt he thinks spending Easter in the bosom of his family is the best use of his time. But he will need to make a report to Papa and ask him for more funds.’

And then Henry would parade her as a hostage and a warning to his sons to be obedient to his will.

She touched Geoffrey’s wrist. ‘And what of you, my son?’

He gave her a twisted smile. ‘I am the quiet one, Geoffrey the thinker. I don’t have Harry’s charm or claims to inheritance, and I am not a fire-eater and heir to Aquitaine like Richard, but fortunately I have an inheritance, courtesy of my future wife.’ He reached to his cup and contemplated his wine. ‘For now let us say I am content to bide my time.’

John remained silent and toyed with his new dagger.

Walking
in the garden at Winchester, Alienor was enjoying the green flourishes of spring. Violets and celandine carpeted the beds and daisies spotted the lush turf. The sky was a clear pale blue decorated with rabbit-scut fluffs of cloud. Harry walked at her side, hands clasped behind his back and his head inclined towards hers. As always he wore a smile, but beneath that polished surface Alienor could sense his grief and turbulence.

‘I understand your pain.’ She touched his arm. ‘I wrote to you, but I do not know if you received my letter.’

He drew a deep breath. ‘I do not know either, Mama. In truth I remember little about that time. He was in the world barely a moment. I saw him, my own flesh and blood, lying in the cradle, and then he was gone – his life snuffed out as easily as extinguishing a candle.’

Alienor tightened her grip in compassion.

‘Perhaps God has decreed I should have everything and nothing,’ he said bitterly.

‘That is not true, never think that! There will be other children.’

‘So everyone tells me,’ he said. The dazzling smile was back on his face – the glittering façade. ‘Have you heard how well I am doing in the tourneys? Geoffrey must have told you.’

‘Yes, he did, but sons risking themselves in tourneys is not something a mother desires to hear about, even while she is proud of their skill.’

‘They are good for making alliances and friendships, and for recruiting likely men. They are fine places to display prowess and generosity.’

‘So
I hear.’ She gave him a censorious look. ‘I understand from others that no sooner does your father fill your purse than it is empty again – almost as if you are challenging him to an eating contest except with money.’

His expression grew petulant. ‘Richard practises war in Poitou and you do not complain. He is always running out of money too and coming to Papa with his hand out. Do you approve of that? I am making my way by politics and diplomacy in a different way, that is all.’

‘I have a mother’s natural fear for her offspring,’ she soothed him. ‘I worry for both of you. I wish it was different.’

‘What else am I supposed to do when I have nothing to govern?’ he demanded. ‘My father uses me as a diplomat at the tourneys and at the French court. I am his representative in areas where he cannot make that kind of show – the sort he used to depend on Thomas Becket to provide until Becket abandoned him for God and then chose martyrdom. If I go to aid Richard, then it is Richard who commands the troops, not me. When I am at my father-in-law’s court I hear their whispers – that I have neither power nor influence beyond the smile on my face and my father’s money in my purse. They bow to me and then they smirk behind their hands. Nothing has changed, Mama, nothing, except for the worse.’ Tears filled his eyes. ‘Now they say I cannot even beget a living son.’

Alienor winced, feeling sympathy for his pain, but she was also exasperated. ‘You should not listen to the back biting and gossip of courtiers. I can do nothing about your situation. Once I tried and I paid with my liberty. If you have smiles and money to your account, then I have nothing. Like me you must bide your time, but mind how you spend it.’

His expression soured. ‘I have been hearing that ever since my coronation and that was nine years ago.’

A headache began to throb at Alienor’s temples. ‘I have no remedy, Harry,’ she said wearily. ‘I wish I did.’

Rounding a corner they came to an arbour. In the summer roses and honeysuckle would trellis around the seat but at the
moment the lats were bare. Two young women decorated it now, surrounded by a gathering of eager young courtiers. There was a lot of giggling and laughter but it ceased abruptly as Harry and Alienor arrived, and everyone hurried to bow and curtsey.

Alienor flicked her gaze over the group. Alais was there, Richard’s betrothed. The continued delay of the marriage was a source of deep friction between England and France. The girl was sixteen, slim and fair like her father with grey eyes and thin, fine features. She reminded Alienor of a mouse. The other young woman was petite and vibrant, with a cherub mouth, dimpled cheeks, and large brown eyes. After a single startled glance at Alienor, she dropped her gaze and stared at the ground. Standing beside her was Roger Bigod, heir to the earldom of Norfolk, but currently denied that position because his father had sided with Harry’s thwarted rebellion six years ago. He too looked discomfited, as if caught with his hand in the honey jar.