The Autumn Throne (29 page)

‘The same as Alienor, but you will not see it in him. Tomorrow it will be as though it has not happened because that is how he deals with these matters.’

‘But there is a price to pay.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ Hamelin said bleakly. ‘It leaves its mark on him. He is recalling John to his side; he is not to sail for Ireland now because of the changes.’

Her eyes lit up. ‘That means William will be coming with him?’

‘Yes.’ Their son had been bound for Ireland with John and Hamelin knew the sea crossing had been preying on Isabel’s mind. She found it hard to let Will go, although to her credit she tried to rein herself back. But still, the return of a son into the bosom of his family at a time like this was a powerful thing. As to John himself: time had dulled the edge of Hamelin’s anger, and today’s news had left him philosophical.

‘Come,’ he said to Richard who had cleared every morsel, even to dabbing up the crumbs on his forefinger. ‘I need to sleep; so does your grandmother. It is time you returned to your nurse.’

‘May I come again?’ Richard asked.

Hamelin drew a deep breath, aware of Isabel’s gaze fixed on him in hope. ‘Yes,’ he said to the child. ‘You may visit as often as your grandmother desires. But bid her farewell for now.’

Richard flourished a perfect bow in Isabel’s direction, thanked her for the food, and then turned to Hamelin. Taking his grandfather’s hand, his gravitas was enlivened by a little hop and a skip.

Hamelin restored Richard to the women, admonished them about the open door, and made his way back to his chamber to snatch some sleep before Henry woke and asked for him.

‘Did you mean that about him being permitted to come as often as he wanted?’ Isabel asked as he removed his shoes.

‘I would
not have said so otherwise,’ Hamelin said gruffly. ‘He is a fine little boy, even if I cannot reconcile the circumstances of his birth, and I have been blind of late to other considerations.’

‘And our daughter?’

He frowned and paused, unfastening his belt. ‘Do not push me. I will come to it in my own time.’

‘But if she were to visit on occasion?’ Isabel bit her lip. ‘You need not even be there.’

He hesitated, balanced on a precipice between still being angry and hurt enough to turn Belle away, but on the other hand having the courage to widen the tear in his heart and allow her to step inside it as the child had done. He could never trust as before; that part of him was bled out, but there were other areas that would heal – if he let them. There was a dark satisfaction in choosing to remain wounded; yet he had seen what happened to Henry when he cut himself off from love.

‘Write to her. Tell her she may visit you at Conisbrough or Sandal or Acre, and I will not shun her.’

Isabel made a small sound, and then put one hand over her face. Her shoulders shook and she began to sob.

Hamelin felt a spurt of impatience, but mingled with it was guilty concern. ‘Here now, I have given you what you asked for, no need for tears.’ He put his arm around her and she leaned into him and wept.

Eventually Hamelin took her to the bed and lay down with her, folding himself around her as he had not done for a long time.

At last her crying eased and she lifted her head. ‘It has been inside me for too long and all dammed up,’ she sniffed. ‘I had to let it go.’

He stroked her hair. ‘I know, I know. Hush now, go to sleep. All is well.’

‘Stay with me?’

Hamelin kissed her temple, her damp, salty cheek and lips. ‘I am not going anywhere,’ he said. ‘Sleep.’ He held and
stroked her. Things could never be the same, but to be shown the light in the darkness was a wondrous gift from God and he was determined to follow it and find the path again.

Eyes fixed intently on the piece of chicken Richenza was holding between her finger and thumb, Geoffrey’s chestnut and white spaniel Moysi sat as he had been bade to do and licked his lips in anticipation.

‘Paw,’ commanded Richenza. The dog immediately proffered his foreleg, and whined. ‘Good boy.’ She tossed the meat and with an adept leap he caught it, gulped, and looked for more.

‘You will make him fat,’ Alienor warned, shaking her head but smiling. Richenza and Moysi had become inseparable ever since Alienor had brought him into her household. He went everywhere with the girl. When she rode out he shared her saddle and he slept at the foot of her bed, sprawled on his back in abandon, exposing his furry masculinity to the world.

‘I won’t. I’ll take him for a long walk later I promise.’ Richenza reached for another sliver of chicken.

Alienor looked fondly at her granddaughter who was almost sixteen years old. She was robust and active, with a mane of fox-red ringlets and alluring sea-blue eyes. Her features were even and regular and her smile lit up her entire face. Several nobles were vying for her hand, the forerunner being Geoffrey, heir to Rotrou, Count of Perche, but negotiations were at a delicate stage and might yet come to nothing.

Alienor was about to go and see if her scribe had finished writing out a charter gifting a monastery with several fields
and a mill when a messenger arrived. As usual Moysi rushed to greet him, making himself into a much bigger dog by stretching on his hind legs and taking the opportunity to sniff the man’s satchel in hope. Richenza hastened to pull her pet away by his red leather collar. Thus far his training had not developed further than begging for food.

‘Madam, there is news from Brittany.’ The messenger bent his knee and handed her a letter. ‘The Duchess Constance has been safely delivered of a son.’

Alienor took the letter and looked at the seal, which was Henry’s; the news had come first to him. She opened the parchment and unfolded it, but the writing was too small and she gave it to Richenza to read.

The wording was formal and contained the basic bones of detail. When Geoffrey had died last August, his young wife had been newly with child, and that child now born was a son.

‘He’s been christened Arthur,’ Richenza said, glancing up from the letter.

An emotive name with strong connotations of Breton individuality. A male heir for Brittany also meant another male player in the line of succession. The lawyers would argue whether he should follow Richard or John, but it still put this newborn boy very close to the throne.

Alienor commanded Belbel to bring a flagon of the best Gascon wine. ‘We should toast your new cousin’s birth.’

‘And your new grandchild,’ Richenza said with wary eyes as she tried to gauge Alienor’s response to the news.

‘Yes.’ Alienor’s smile masked her pain. ‘It grieves me deeply that his father is not here to welcome him into the world, but at least a part of him survives. We must give thanks to God, and you can help me choose gifts to send to Constance and the little one.’ She tested his name in her mind again. Arthur. It felt uncomfortable – a challenge, although she understood why the baby had not been called Henry or William or Richard.

*  *  *

Alienor settled
her new gyrfalcon on her wrist. The young bird was still fresh to her training and she danced on Alienor’s glove, bating her wings and crying harshly. Her name was English – Snowit, and her breast feathers did indeed gleam like freshly fallen snow, while her wings were mottled with flint-grey speckles like winter granite, and her eyes were obsidian mirrors.

‘Are you ready?’ she asked Richenza, who was reining her chestnut palfrey around with an accomplished hand.

‘Yes, Grandmère.’ Richenza smiled and patted Moysi, who was perched on her saddle.

They rode out over the Downs with their escort, and Alienor enjoyed the breeze in her face, fresh and invigorating. The September day was fine and crisp and even though the nights were shortening and autumn lay close, the world still clung to the last of summer.

Alienor flung Snowit from her grip and watched her spread her wings and fly low, hugging the contours of the grasses, her flecked mantle a camouflage as she sought the soft grey partridge amid the windswept grasses.

‘Your grandsire’s gyrfalcon once took a crane,’ Alienor told Richenza. ‘They fought in mid-air for all to see and fell to the ground together, and when the riding party came upon them, they discovered that the falcon had killed the crane with her talons, but the crane had stabbed the falcon in her breast with her long beak and both were dead. Everyone marvelled at the sight, but grieved the loss of the falcon.’

Snowit startled a small flock of partridge into flight, chose her prey, and brought the bird down in a clean strike. Alienor’s falconer ran forward to remove the kill that the gyrfalcon was mantling with her spread wings. Tying the dead partridge to his belt, he returned Snowit to Alienor’s glove. She stroked her, crooned her praise and once again launched her aloft.

‘Would you ever pit her against a crane?’ Richenza asked.

‘I would,’ Alienor replied, ‘but not until she has gained experience. She has youth and strength, but judgement and wisdom still await.’

‘Perhaps people
are like that too, Grandmère.’

Alienor chuckled. ‘You may be right, my dear. I have often thought how much more I could have accomplished if I could have had wisdom and judgement at the same time as my youth and beauty.’

‘But you still have your beauty, Grandmère, and you are strong.’

Snowit made another kill, blood spattering her pristine feathers.

‘Beauty of the flesh is fleeting – like springtime it is gone in a season.’

‘But autumn is beautiful too, and winter – the season doesn’t matter,’ Richenza argued, her face rosy and earnest.

‘Ah, you are indeed sage beyond your years.’ Alienor’s smile was wry. ‘I was going to add that indeed I am strong. Adversity has pared me down to the very bones of my soul. Sometimes all I have had is the strength to endure each minute and bide my time. But not today. Today is for replenishment and putting a little flesh on those bones, hmm?’

On their return to Winchester Alienor found a messenger from Richard waiting for her. He was one of Richard’s trusted mercenaries, Amalric de Lavoux, distant kin to Richard’s captain Mercadier. Entering Alienor’s chamber, he dropped to his knees in salutation and bent his head.

‘What news?’ She gestured him to stand up. ‘Tell me.’

He struggled to his feet. He had washed, for his hands were clean and the ends of his hair damp, but he wore an unmistakeable aroma of hot horse. ‘Madam, there is much you need to know.’

Alienor sat down before the hearth. Tired out from the hunt, Moysi flopped across her feet and closed his eyes. ‘I suppose the Count of Poitou is still locking horns with the King.’ She spoke with resignation, because she could do nothing about the state of affairs. She had the freedom to hunt, to entertain guests, to perform charitable and religious work, but
she was excluded from any kind of power in Henry’s political arena.

‘Madam, that is indeed the case, but there is more to the matter.’

She raised her brows. ‘Go on.’

‘The King summoned the Count of Poitou to court but he refused to attend and rode to Chinon and forced the constable to open the treasury. And then he went into Poitou and began fortifying his … your castles.’ The mercenary rubbed his face. ‘But the King sought a reconciliation and they have agreed terms.’ He moved his shoulders as if shifting an uncomfortable weight. ‘Madam, the Count of Poitou has been much concerned over the crisis in Outremer and the plight of Jerusalem.’

‘As have we all.’ News had arrived a month ago of a disastrous battle fought outside Jerusalem. The Christian army had been decimated and Jerusalem’s king, Guy de Lusignan, taken prisoner together with the reliquary banner of the kingdom that contained a sacred piece of the true cross. The catastrophe had sent ripples of shock throughout Europe.

‘Madam, I have to tell you that the Count of Poitou made a vow before the Archbishop of Tours to relieve the plight of Jerusalem and that he will go as soon as he can raise the men and resources to do so.’

Alienor’s heart turned to ice.

‘He is determined on the matter, madam – nothing will dissuade him. He says that if his father the King will not vouchsafe him his inheritance, then what point is there in remaining here?’

She should have known this would happen. What else did she expect of a warrior son who had been pushed to the edge by his accursed father? A son whose gift from God was the art of war. Why else had he been given that talent except to save Christ’s city? She understood him all too well. Henry had been promising to take the cross for years; like all of his promises it was empty, but Richard would do it or die.

‘Madam, you
are unwell?’

She shook her head and held out her hand to keep him back. Picking up her wine she took a few small sips. ‘Shocked, but not surprised. What does the King say?’

‘Very little, madam, but it is plain to all that he does not wish him to go and believes he is doing it to be difficult. The King of France is angry too, for if the Count of Poitou goes to the Holy Land, it will delay his marriage even longer.’

‘I doubt that avoiding espousal was the first notion in Richard’s mind,’ Alienor said grimly.