The Autumn Throne (30 page)

‘No, madam, but the King of France says that if he does not wed the princess Alais, she and her dower must be returned, or there will be war in earnest.’

Henry would never return Alais. Her dowry of strategic lands was too valuable and Henry did not deal well with having terms dictated to him, especially by a younger man. He might agree to finalise the marriage, but Richard would refuse.

‘Madam, you should also know that the King of France has an heir. His queen was delivered of a son baptised Louis, last week.’

She concealed a grimace. So unlike his father who had had to wait more than twenty years for his own son to arrive, Philippe had accomplished the task at the first try, making his position a lot more secure.

That was the end of his news. Alienor thanked and dismissed him, and when he had gone, her shoulders slumped.

‘Grandmère?’ Richenza said softly.

‘Richard is not doing this to be difficult,’ she said. ‘He is doing it because it is what he was born to do. I knew it from the moment I saw him pick up a sword when he was still a very little boy in the nursery.’ She lifted her gaze to her granddaughter. ‘My heart almost bursts from my pride for him, but you will discover when you have sons of your own that from the moment of their birth, fear goes with that pride – and that is what kills, but you must never show it.’

Wide-eyed, Richenza
nodded. Alienor studied her. She was intelligent and swift to learn, but how could she understand without the experience? For the moment it was just words.

The messenger had brought a satchel of letters too, and Alienor had her scribe read them to her. Most concerned routine matters that were insignificant beside Richard’s decision to take the cross, but she became alert when the clerk read out Henry’s order that she send Richenza and Alais across the Narrow Sea to attend the Christmas court at Caen under the escort of the chancellor Ranulf de Glanville. Alienor was to remain in England and keep her own Christmas at Winchester.

Richenza, who had been quietly sewing, looked up, her expression a juxtaposition of anticipation and dismay. ‘Christmas at Caen?’

‘Why so surprised?’ Alienor forced a smile. ‘Your grandsire will be keen to see how you have grown and what you have learned. You are not a fool. I think you know very well why you have been summoned. You are a great marriage prize, and the time has come to display you in your rightful setting.’

Richenza blushed. ‘What if I disappoint him?’

‘You won’t. I shall miss you because you have become dear to me, but you cannot remain my companion for the rest of your days. You have a different life to live.’

‘But I will return to stay with you,’ Richenza said anxiously.

‘Indeed, I shall expect it. We have a little time before you leave. Enough to make some fine gowns to dazzle all your suitors.’

Richenza’s blush deepened.

Alienor clapped her hands and summoned her musicians, determined not to fall into gloom, but instead to celebrate the moment, and she called for the keys to the fabric coffers.

‘Green silk will suit you, and the blue wool with a vair-lined cloak.’

Richenza’s eyes lit up despite her anxiety. She had a passion
for beautiful fabric and fine jewels which Alienor had encouraged because it was part of a noble woman’s duty to dress to fit her status; and indeed to know how to dress. Alienor saw so many women who thought that loading themselves with every gaud they possessed was an aid to enhancing their worth, which it might be, but it did nothing for their presence. She had taught Richenza to be selective in her choices and how to use clothes as an asset – as an act of seduction, as a shield, as an extension of who she was – a projection of her feminine power.

She immersed herself in the task because it was something practical she could accomplish, whereas there was nothing she could do to improve the situation between Richard and Henry.

Dusk had fallen early on this chilly September evening. A rain-spattered wind hammered against the shutters like a fist on a sanctuary door, and Alienor was glad of the fire in her chamber, and the fresh batch of wax candles that had arrived earlier that day. Bored with her current sewing project, finding it difficult to concentrate on the fine stitches in the poor light, she was delighted for the excuse to set her work aside as her chamberlain announced the arrival of William Marshal.

She had not seen William since he had gone to Kendal two years ago, taking his little heiress with him, and although she had thought it a great pity that such talent should go to waste in the sheep-inhabited wilds of the North country, she had resigned herself to the fact she could do nothing about it, and at least he was safe.

When William was ushered into her presence she noted
that he had taken time to change his garments, for they were clean and dry and his hair bore the furrow marks of a comb. A close-cropped dark beard framed his jaw and there were fine smile lines at his eye corners.

He knelt to her and she swiftly raised him to his feet and kissed him. ‘Ah William, it is so good to see you!’

‘And you, madam. I thought I should find you at Winchester, but was told you were here.’

She made a face. ‘I always know when things are not going well for Henry, because unless he needs me to resolve his difficulties, he sends me to Sarum and tells me nothing – although I am still allowed visitors, or you would not be here.’

She gestured him to sit by the fire. A servant arrived with wine and a laden tray of cheese wafers, fresh and hot off the irons.

‘I remember how much you loved these when you were a squire,’ Alienor said, smiling. ‘You could devour an entire platter in the time it took a troubadour to sing three verses.’

‘Nothing has changed there, madam, I assure you.’ At her gesture, he took one in a napkin and began eating with relish.

‘So then,’ she said. ‘Did you marry your little northern heiress?’

He chewed, swallowed, and shook his head. ‘No, madam. She is a sweet girl, and I have kept her safe and seen to her welfare, but I shall not wed her.’

‘I take it that you do not intend to make your life in Kendal?’

William started on his second wafer. ‘Madam, it is a very beautiful country, and it is balm to my spirit. I intend founding a priory on the lands the King has given me at Cartmel, and eventually I shall furnish it with monks from Bradenstoke. My young lord will be forever remembered there and prayers said for his soul.’

‘But while it satisfies you in spirit, it does not satisfy the part of you that desires to be in the world,’ she said astutely. ‘I am pleased that you choose to remember my son in your foundation.’

‘Madam, that
was always my intention.’ He offered her the platter, but she shook her head.

‘So what brings you away from the North?’

He stretched his legs towards the fire. ‘The King has summoned me to join him and the Count of Poitou at Chateauroux. King Philippe has claimed jurisdiction, and there is war.’ He gave her an assessing look. ‘He has offered me Denise de Chateauroux in marriage if I will come to him bringing as many men as I can muster.’

Alienor sat back in her chair. Denise de Chateauroux was a great marriage prize, an heiress of a rank far higher on fortune’s ladder than Heloise of Kendal. Henry had never indicated before that he valued William so highly. To make such an offer, he must be in dire need – or had chosen to change his strategy. ‘And you have accepted?’ She knew little of Denise de Chateauroux personally, but her lands were a vital zone of control and contention straddling French and Angevin interests. It would take a strong man of sound military abilities to hold such a fortress and William was ideally suited.

‘Madam, I am his loyal vassal and I will go to him, but it is not my intention to accept the offer he has made to me.’ He took a third wafer.

‘Why not?’ Alienor was astonished. ‘You are turning down a great prize.’

‘Indeed, madam, but one I will have to fight to obtain, and once I have obtained it, fight again and again in order to keep it. It would be the opposite of the peace I have now – and I would rather have balance in my life.’

Alienor frowned at him. ‘So, what
do
you want, William? If not Heloise of Kendal, if not Denise de Chateauroux?’

The wind howled against the shutters and rattled the catches. She watched his chest expand as he drew a deep breath, and saw the colour flood his face. ‘The heiress of Striguil is in wardship,’ he said. ‘I want Isabelle de Clare.’

‘Ah.’ Alienor gave a knowing nod. ‘And that would be the balance in your life?’

‘More so
than Chateauroux, madam. The de Clare lands are in Normandy, the Welsh borders and Ireland.’

‘Not easy to govern when so spread out, and dangerous in parts.’

‘But not all in one basket either, and more accessible than Chateauroux.’

‘And the lady?’

‘Young and fair.’

Alienor raised her brows. ‘You have met her?’

‘In England as I set out for Jerusalem. It was a passing salute on my way to the coast from my sister’s house. Not that I gained more than a fleeting impression, but were I to have a choice, I would thank God for that one.’

Alienor shook her head. ‘I can do little to help you from where I stand, but should the opportunity arise, I will do what I can to see your wish fulfilled.’

‘Thank you, madam.’

‘Although you should be careful what you wish for,’ she added.

‘Indeed.’ He took another wafer, eating more slowly now. ‘I could easily have lived out my life comfortably in the North, begetting children, tending my estate and doing everything with one hand tied behind my back, but that would be neglecting my duty. God has spared me for more than this, and I say so with as much humility as ambition.’

Moved by his words, Alienor touched his sleeve. ‘I believe that too, William. While I can imagine you growing paunchy and content in some distant small manor away from court, I know you were meant for more. Better the robes of a magnate and the hauberk of a warrior than to grow stale for want of challenges.’

‘That is what I thought too, madam,’ he said.

He rode out in the morning with gifts of food for the journey and a fat pouch of silver to cover some of his expenses. She had given him letters for Henry and for Richard, exhorting
them to keep the peace with each other and not be divided – for what good it would do, but she had tried. There was a letter for Richenza too, who was dwelling at Fontevraud in the secular ladies’ house. Negotiations for her betrothal to Geoffrey, Count of Perche, were continuing and Henry was procrastinating in order to encourage the suitor’s family to offer more advantageous terms.

‘Godspeed you,’ she said. ‘And may God answer your prayers.’

‘And yours, madam.’

‘Amen,’ Alienor said, but while she was optimistic for William, the likelihood of her own being answered seemed as distant as Jerusalem itself.

Alienor spent another winter at Sarum, and once again her world closed in to a few rooms and a courtyard. As the snow fell and the dark days tightened their grip, she felt as if she was dwelling in the grip of oblivion.

Henry had apparently spent his own Christmas in Saumur, and from her scant gleanings she understood that Richard had demanded that his father confirm him as his heir. Henry had refused, saying he would not be pushed into a corner, so Richard had turned to Philippe and done him homage for Normandy instead, and now kept company with him and ignored his sire.

The days lengthened, and the grass began to grow, showing tender green tips through winter’s brown. Not that Alienor was permitted to ride out and enjoy the changing season because Henry had ordered that she be kept closely confined as in the early days of her imprisonment. She deduced that matters were going badly for him, but without access to fuller information she could only speculate. She had learned from gossip that Alais, Richard’s betrothed, had returned to Winchester after spending Christmas in Normandy, and Belbel heard a rumour that during Lent the princess had suffered a particularly severe flux of her womb and had bled so badly that she had had to take to her bed for two weeks. Speculation
was rife. Privately Alienor determined that even if Alais’ bleed was not the result of a miscarriage, she would see hell freeze over before Richard took that particular young woman to wife.

One April morning soon after Easter Day, Alienor paused before the hawk perch in her chamber and stooped to pick up two white tail feathers, furrowing in the breeze from the window. Snowit was moulting and for the moment Alienor was cosseting her more than usual. She tucked the feathers in her wimple band, donned her hawking gauntlet and coaxed the falcon onto her wrist. ‘Soon,’ she said. ‘Soon you will fly high and free, I promise you.’ She could be flown even now, but the falconer preferred to ground his birds during their moult. Alienor was hoping that by the time Snowit was ready to fly in full plumage, Henry would have relented his cruelty and permitted her to ride out again.

She began feeding Snowit morsels of chopped rabbit from a wooden bowl. Despite her lack of exercise, the gyrfalcon was ravenous and gulped them down as Alienor stroked her breast and crooned to her.