The Autumn Throne (54 page)

‘Richard?’ She took his hand and its heat almost scalded her. Against her fingers she felt the rapid beat of his blood, hotter than the sun. ‘Richard my heart, I am here, I have come. All is going to be well now, I promise you.’

He groaned again. The physician covered the wound with honey-soaked bandages. Another attendant was rubbing Richard’s feet and legs with an astringent herbal unguent. Slowly, Richard’s eyes returned to focus as though from a great distance, and he looked at Alienor with a semblance of recognition. His lips moved, but she could not tell what he said, although she thought it might have been ‘Mama’.

‘Yes, I am here,’ she soothed, stroking his hand. ‘I have come, and all is well.’

He
gave the faintest nod, and she felt a tremor run through his fingers and into hers.

‘Rally for me, Richard,’ she whispered, trying to force her own living will into him and give him the vitality to fight. ‘I know you can do it. Do it for yourself, do it for your heirs – for my heirs unborn of your seed.’

Another infinitesimal acknowledgement and a faint squeeze of her fingers.

If she looked at the area of the wound she knew it was hopeless, so instead she gazed on the unharmed side of his body and willed all of him to be wholesome and firm. She projected to everyone within the tent that this was what was going to happen and locked her gaze on his, trying to hold him in the world and turn the tide.

For a while she thought she was succeeding, but he was beyond the point of return and the grace that had bound him in the moment was not enough. By slow but inexorable degrees he slipped away from her. His gaze disconnected and his eyes rolled back in his head again. His breathing began to slow and stutter, the rise and fall of his chest growing more erratic.

Her own breathing constricted. ‘Give him a drink,’ she said. ‘In God’s name give him a drink.’ She snatched a goblet out of someone’s hands and held it to his lips, but the liquid spilled from his mouth and slid across his cheek like watery blood. Murmuring prayers, his chaplain pressed a cross into his other hand and folded it upon his breast.

Numb with disbelief, Alienor watched as her beloved child died before her eyes. As the breath flowed out of Richard, so the belief flowed from Alienor, and as his breathing faltered she felt as if she too were falling into death, open-mouthed and bewildered.

A final breath shuddered out of him and he was still. The physician placed a mirror against Richard’s lips, before shaking his head. Alienor ignored him and everyone around her. Still she held Richard’s hand, and looked into his face. And then the reality hit her.

‘No!’
she wailed aloud and put her head down on her son’s silent chest. ‘No, no, no!’

Luke of Turpenay gently touched her shoulders. ‘Come away, madam,’ he said gently. ‘He is with God now.’

‘No!’ She raised her head, tears streaming down her face. ‘I cannot! He needs to stay here with me!’

The Abbot persisted. ‘Madam, there are things that must be done for the King. I pray you, come away. Let the priests and physicians care for him now, and you shall return when they are done. Indeed, let someone care for you.’

She heard his words as though from a great distance and wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. ‘He can’t be dead. How do I believe something like this?’ She rose unsteadily to her feet. Assisted by two of Richard’s knights, she left the tent, but as she entered the open air and the public arena, long training made her stand erect and regal even though she had received a mortal blow. All was blackness, pouring down and engulfing her. Her light had gone from the world. Everything she owned, every hope for the future she had ever harboured.

The baggage had arrived and her tent had been raised. Richenza was waiting for her but Alienor held out her hands to fend her off. ‘Do not speak,’ she said. ‘I have no words for this. Is my bed prepared?’

‘Yes, Grandmère.’ Richenza was pale but resolute.

‘I want to lie down, and I don’t want to be disturbed by anyone.’

‘At least let me unbind your hair and take your gown. You will rest more easily that way.’

Alienor surrendered to her granddaughter’s capable ministrations and was grateful for her pragmatic obedience. She could not have borne sympathy or tears. How well she now understood how people could turn to the wall and die of grief, but that indulgence could not be hers because Richard’s death had immediately increased her burdens and responsibilities.

She was facing a world without Richard and the only way to cope was to be numb. Three days ago she had been content
at Fontevraud, playing jewel games with Richenza. Why had she not felt the crossbow bolt at the moment when it struck him? Why had she not known?

Once Richenza had helped her to undress, Alienor lay down on her camp bed, crossed her hands over her breast like an effigy and closed her eyes.
Oh my God, oh my love. Oh my child, my child.

Richenza sat by her grandmother and prayed, tears rolling down her face. She could not believe her uncle Richard was dead because he had always been larger than life. How terrible it was for Alienor – far beyond grief. How did you come back from something like that? How would she feel if she were to lose her Thomas? The thought brought her grief so close to the surface that she choked.

Fearing that her sobs would disturb Alienor, she left the tent to compose herself. A chill evening breeze tugged at her skirts and made her shiver. Glancing across to Richard’s tent she saw that the crowds from earlier had departed, but several people remained inside. An orange glow of candle and torchlight shone through the open flaps. Priests including Luke of Turpenay stood within, praying and chanting, and the air was misty with incense. Other men were gathered around a raised trestle, busy at some task. Lifting something that dripped; putting it in a box.

The man who had placed the object in the box now moved away from the trestle and stepped outside the tent and she saw that it was Richard’s mercenary captain Mercadier. He stooped and swilled his bloody hands thoroughly in a bucket of water, and as he stood up, Richenza saw the dark blood-stains on his tunic too. Their eyes met across the torchlit space as Mercadier dried his hands on a rag tied to the tent rope.

‘My lady, this is no place for you,’ he said.

Richenza turned on her heel and fled back inside the women’s tent where she sat down on her stool, trembling and nauseous. She did not want to think about what she had just seen, but knew it was taking place. That dripping thing she
had seen in Mercadier’s hand was Richard’s heart. They were dismembering the King’s body with their knives, unmaking the shell in one last service. His entrails were to remain here in the Limousin, his heart was to go to Rouen Cathedral to join his older brother, and his body was to rest at Fontevraud with his father.

Teeth chattering despite the warm spring evening, Richenza got into bed with Alienor and put her arm protectively across her grandmother. Alienor did not move.

In the morning, prayers were said over Richard’s body as he was carefully placed on a bier in a cart lined with cloaks and covered with a silk cloth provided by Mercadier. He had been dressed in robes of scarlet and ermine. His hair had been washed and combed and restored to gleaming red-gold waves, and a jewelled crown had been set upon his head. His hands, adorned with rings, were folded in an attitude of prayer over his breast and all signs of violence to the body were concealed under the folds of his gold-pinned cloak. His entrails had been buried in a short ceremony at the church in Chalus and his embalmed heart, sealed in a lead casket, rested above his sword on the bier.

While the men made ready, Alienor walked about the camp checking all was in order. With Richard gone, she had to take on her son’s role as well as her own and exert her authority. She had already ordered Mercadier to serve her as he had served Richard – at least until matters were more settled.

‘As you wish, madam,’ he had replied, his eyes dark-shadowed because like Alienor he was in hell. Indeed, there were hollow eyes throughout the camp. The walking dead bearing the dead to burial.

When the moment came to set out on the hundred-mile return to Fontevraud, Mercadier brought her horse forward, but Alienor refused to mount. ‘I shall walk,’ she said. ‘Even if my feet crack and bleed, I shall walk every step of that road.’

The mercenary
gave her a long look, but whereas others would have tried to dissuade her, he merely nodded and gestured someone to take the palfrey away.

Alienor went to the side of the cart and there removed her headdress and unpinned her hair, letting it fall around her face and stream down her back in dishevelled white strands. Gripping the curved metal bar on the side of the cart where cauldrons and sundry items were usually hooked, she gave the order for the procession to begin.

Richenza joined her, declining to ride her own mount in support of her grandmother. She too removed her wimple, but left her hair in its plaits.

It had been a dry April and the ground was decent underfoot, although the road was at times lumpy and potholed. Alienor barely noticed, except when the pace changed or the cart jolted, and then she was concerned for Richard, that it shouldn’t disturb or undignify his kingly slumber. For herself it mattered nothing and she walked for mile after mile. One foot in front of the other, gripping the handle of the cart, hearing the creak of the wheels, the clink of the harness and snort of the horse between the shafts. The birds were singing, the sky was as blue as the Virgin’s cloak, and the leaves unfurling on the trees were a tender spring green. And in all this beauty and life, her son was dead.

She stumbled on a stone and fell to her knees. Richenza hurried to help her up, and Alienor pushed her away.

‘Grandmère, you should rest.’

Alienor shook her head stubbornly. ‘No, I will walk every step of the way.’

Richenza handed her a leather wine bottle. ‘At least take a drink.’

Alienor did so and the liquid burned down her gullet and made her cough. It was hard to swallow knowing that her son would never drink a cup of wine again.

Fortified, she stumbled on for another two miles, but finally her legs gave way and she slumped on the ground at the
side of the cart, head hanging, lacking even the strength to weep.

Mercadier picked her up with the tenderness of a rough shepherd for a foundling lamb. ‘In Jesu’s name, madam, your son would not want you to do this.’ His voice was gritty with emotion. ‘Your son would have you ride.’

‘No,’ she whispered.

Mercadier frowned in thought and then bore her to the horse drawing Richard’s bier and lifted her across its back. ‘So,’ he said, and with a brusque nod returned to his palfrey.

They set out again. Alienor clung to the sun-warmed leather, feeling the rocking motion of the sturdy horse beneath her and the quiver of the cart behind.

Folk who stood aside to watch them pass witnessed a cavalcade of mourners, men wearing full armour, banners lowered, and the ends trailing the dust. On a cart, draped in rich textiles, a waxen-faced king lay clothed in splendour. Astride the horse drawing his bier hunched an old woman, a hag almost, her wild white hair screening her face. Some of the knights in the party cast silver coins into the throng and the cry went up: ‘Make way for the King! Make way for the King!’

Kneeling at prayer by her open window, Alienor felt the warmth of the spring sun on her body, and was indifferent to it. It was a beautiful day with pale showers of blossom petals drifting across the gardens, and the green scent of growing things in the air – and she did not care.

Three days ago she had buried Richard in royal pomp and splendour and now his body lay in a lead coffin, closed off
from the light, and she was existing in a numb void because it was the only way she could survive.

Richenza had stayed to give her comfort and company, as had Luke of Turpenay, for which she was grateful. Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln, had been a stalwart. Arriving at Fontevraud she had found him waiting for her, for he had heard the news of Richard’s death and had been close enough to divert to the abbey, where he had helped to officiate at the funeral.

She had sent out letters every day, urging her vassals to stay staunch and swear their allegiance to John. She had worked until she was comatose with exhaustion because it was the only way she could survive, and the moment she woke she immediately immersed herself in toil again.

She prayed constantly because prayer was the closest connection she had to Richard now. Kneeling beside his tomb, she exhorted God to bless his soul and keep it safe in His hands.

She was praying now in her chamber, repeating the words over and over, making of them a comfort mechanism and rocking herself forward and back to the rhythm of her own beating heart. It took her a while to become aware of a gentle but persistent touch on her arm.

‘Grandmère, are you all right?’

Glancing up, a little dazed, she strove to focus. ‘Yes,’ she said wearily, ‘what is it?’ She expected it was about food. Richenza kept trying to push sustenance on her, even though she had no desire for any of it.