The Winter Crown (18 page)

‘The better for seeing all my family gathered,’ he said with a fixed smile.

Alienor raised one eyebrow. In that case he could have felt better much sooner than now. ‘Will you come and refresh yourself, sire? Your chamber is ready.’

She saw his eyes flicker, and she wondered if he would try to extricate himself. But he stood tall and set his shoulders. ‘That would be most welcome,’ he replied, proving that he could play the diplomatic game too.

She led him up the stairs to the chamber she had prepared. His squires were still bringing in his baggage, but the room was warm and the bed freshly made. Scented water stood ready in a bowl and Alienor removed Henry’s boots and attended to the customary ritual of foot-washing. Little Matilda fetched a pair of warmed woollen socks and soft shoes, and knelt to help her.

‘You are training her well,’ Henry said.

‘Indeed,’ Alienor replied. ‘She can also count to one hundred on a chequer board, and recite her prayers in Latin, although she doesn’t fully understand yet what they mean, but that will come in less time than you think.’

Henry gave her an evaluating look, but said nothing. He played with his offspring for a while, and, having satisfied himself as to their wellbeing, dismissed them to their nurses. Casting his glance over Alienor’s ladies, he paused at Isabel de Warenne. ‘I am sorry for your sad loss, madam,’ he said. ‘Your husband was a fine man who always gave of his best.’

‘Thank you, sire; he was indeed,’ Isabel replied, her eyes downcast and her hands clasped as if in prayer. ‘I miss him every day.’ Her eyes filled. ‘I never realised when I bid him farewell that it would be forever in this life.’

‘Isabel, don’t upset yourself.’ Alienor beckoned, and Emma came forward, folded Isabel in her arms and led her away, murmuring softly.

‘Good God!’ Henry exclaimed, gazing after them. ‘The woman’s become a bag of bones!’

‘She mourns for her husband,’ Alienor said curtly. ‘I do not know if you understand that, but somewhere in your soul, I hope so.’

‘Of course I do, but it is unseemly and foolish to grieve like that. Better to build your banks steep than allow them to flood.’

In part Alienor agreed with him because she knew what such grief was like and she had built her own defences high over the years. But if you raised them too much, they became a prison and in the end you drowned with no one to hear you scream. ‘She felt guilty that she could not protect him.’

Henry snorted. ‘How could she protect him on campaign? What a foolish notion.’

‘Mayhap it is, but I feel guilty every day that I could do nothing to save our son. Perhaps I did not pray hard enough. Perhaps the fault was mine.’

Henry compressed his lips, resisting any mention of their dead child. ‘She must abandon her moping and remarry,’ he said. ‘She is a young woman of wealth and standing, and there is no shortage of suitors. Keep her close because competition will be keen and I want to control the choice of her next husband.’

‘She needs more time.’ Alienor kept her tone level. ‘She is not ready yet.’

‘It will be when I say.’

She sat back and looked up at him. ‘Have you really grown so hard and lacking in compassion? She is in no fit state to be of use to any man as a wife and helpmate. Whoever you chose, you would be doing them both a disservice. Let her heal awhile; if not from your own sense of what is fitting, then as a favour to me – and after Toulouse you owe me a favour.’

He returned her stare, his jaw thrust out in pugilistic fashion, but eventually he waved his hand. ‘Very well, let it lie for now and we’ll reconsider in the spring.’ He spread his hands along the back of the bench and crossed his legs. ‘There was nothing I could do about Toulouse, not with Louis behind the walls.’

‘I know you could not, and Louis knew it too – which was why he did it.’

‘He would not rise to the bait when I tried to draw him out. He just sat there and mocked me, while his brother ravaged Normandy. I had no choice but to abandon the siege.’

She rose to her feet and sent Matilda away with her nurse. ‘Then it seems that you were outmanoeuvred.’

Henry’s anger flashed. ‘It is but a single move in a game of chess. Yes, he outflanked me, but that does not mean I have been defeated.’

‘Then what does it mean?’ she demanded. ‘Toulouse remains untaken and there will not be another campaign for a while, will there, because all the money and impetus is gone.’

‘I thought you more sensible than to sulk and vilify me for it. Was I wrong?’

Alienor wanted to rage at him. She felt let down and betrayed, but ranting would only further his claim that she was a woman in the grip of hysteria. ‘What would be the point?’ she said wearily. ‘Louis tried to take Toulouse and failed when I was wed to him. Now he defends it and denies us both. I am not content, but I must accept it.’ She gave him a challenging stare. ‘When we married, we both took a gamble. I want to think that it was a winning throw of the dice. Don’t let me be wrong, Henry…’

He uncrossed his legs, rose and came to take her in his arms. ‘Ah, Alienor,’ he said. ‘It is seldom I throw the dice and do not win. I will never let you be wrong.’

There was something disturbingly ambiguous about the statement but he covered her mouth in a searing kiss and ran his hand down her body with purposeful intent and she set her misgiving aside to ponder a different time. Lust warmed her veins and she still desired him, and in bed, they were equals.

Henry sat in his chamber before the fire, drinking wine with his brothers and his chancellor. Everyone else had retired to bed except the watchmen and the servants on duty, but Henry enjoyed keeping late hours. His mind was at its most lucid then; there was more space for his thoughts to expand and develop.

Hamelin, legs stretched towards the fire, was idly scratching the ears of a silver-grey gazehound, his other hand cradling his cup. Becket was preening, showing off his magnificent new cloak lined with Russian squirrel fur in shades of blue and cream. His own drink was boiled barley water sweetened with honey; he was suffering from an upset stomach to which he was intermittently prone.

Henry’s youngest brother William was flushed with wine. His sandy hair stood on end where he had been rumpling it. ‘It is a great pity about the death of the Count of Boulogne,’ he said. ‘What now becomes of his widow?’

Henry gave him an amused look. ‘Why, do you have a fancy to her? Shall I give her to you?’

‘You could do much worse. All that land and influence of kin, and still young enough to bear half a dozen children.’

‘I take it you haven’t seen the lady since our return?’

William shook his head. ‘Not yet, why?’

Henry grimaced. ‘She’s in deep mourning and as bony as a starved cow. You’d have no joy or heirs out of her at the moment.’

‘But do I have permission to court her after she has finished mourning?’ William pressed. ‘Starved cow or not, I’d still like to milk her lands.’

Henry raised his brows. ‘You are eager, aren’t you, lad? How much wine have you had?’

‘I’m not drunk,’ William said, ‘and I’m not a lad.’

Thomas Becket had been listening in silence, but now he cleared his throat. ‘The match would be consanguineous. The lady is related within the proscribed degree.’

‘What of it?’ Henry waved an impatient hand. ‘So is my wife, but that didn’t prevent the Church from joining us in wedlock. If necessary I can obtain a dispensation.’ He shot Becket an irritated look. ‘You are seeing trouble where there is none.’

‘I was merely making you aware, sire.’

‘I do not need reminding of bloodlines. Do you think I do not have the necessary information in my head?’ He tapped his skull. ‘You don’t legislate for everything, Thomas, even if you think you do.’

Becket compressed his lips.

Henry turned back to his brother. ‘You have my full permission to court the Countess de Warenne and take her to wife, but leave it until her mourning period is over, otherwise I will never hear the last of it from the Queen, and she is already in a pet over the marriage between Harry and the French girl. Women cannot separate their hearts from their heads.’

‘I shall be the soul of discretion.’ William pressed his palm to his heart and flourished a bow. ‘Not a word until the time is right. With me she will discover what it is to have a real man in her bed.’

‘Then make sure you are one,’ Henry said with irritated amusement.

William reddened at Henry’s put-down, but then shrugged it off and called for more wine. Becket excused himself to see to matters of the Chancellery before retiring to bed.

When he had gone, the tension that had crept into the atmosphere eased and mellowed, not least because Henry ceased to bristle. ‘God knows I love Thomas,’ he said, ‘but I love him even better when he’s not being a self-righteous prig.’ He refreshed his own wine. ‘Don’t worry about the dispensation, Will, you’ll have it.’

‘Thank you.’ The young man lurched at Henry to embrace him. The latter stood up and adroitly avoided him.

‘Sit down before you fall down,’ he said with indulgent scorn, and as his brother plonked down on the bench, making it shudder, Henry began to pace. ‘As well as leaving a widow, our cousin also left a grieving sister.’

William blinked owlishly. ‘But she’s a nun – Abbess of Romsey.’

‘For ten years, yes.’ Henry rubbed a forefinger gently back and forth across his beard. ‘But I am thinking perhaps she might like a change now that she has inherited her brother’s estate.’

‘Jesu God, Henry, you can’t mean to take her out of the nunnery!’ Hamelin was shocked out of his usual courtier’s insouciance. ‘That makes consanguinity pale to nothing by comparison!’

Henry shrugged. ‘It is not unknown, and the Pope will look the other way because he needs my support. I was thinking of our cousin Matthew, Aunt Sybilla’s son.’

Hamelin almost choked. ‘But to take her out of a convent when she’s been there for the last ten years … Dear God, she’s the Abbess!’

‘She’ll thank me for it,’ Henry said. ‘As the last of her line, she has a duty to produce heirs.’

It seemed a specious argument to Hamelin. And yet Henry was his brother and he owed him loyalty and allegiance. ‘What will you tell Alienor?’

‘Nothing,’ Henry said. ‘She will find out soon enough.’ He gave a wry grimace. ‘No point in kicking over an ants’ nest until you must.’

‘How could you!’ Alienor was so incensed with Henry that she was shaking. ‘You worthless snake! Of all the women in Christendom you could have married to Matthew of Alsace, you have to drag a bride of Christ out of a convent to satisfy your power-grubbing schemes? Your own kin too!’

He stood tall and puffed out his chest in that way of his she hated. It was as if he was forming himself into such a posture that her words would bounce off him without impact, and his expression said that her opinion on the matter was irrelevant. ‘It is to secure our lands and the lands of our heirs,’ he retorted. ‘I would not do this unless it was necessary.’

She was disgusted. ‘And that mends everything and makes it right?’

He lifted and dropped his shoulders. ‘Rail as you will, madam, it makes no difference to my decision. Count yourself fortunate I am not insisting the Countess de Warenne remarry immediately; I have heeded your plea on that, but I can easily change my mind.’ He walked out, leaving her to fume.

It was always the same, she thought. When she confronted him, he either shrugged and walked away, or intimidated her with threats, the only opinion he listened to his own. There was indeed nothing she could do about Mary de Boulogne, but at least for the moment Isabel was safe.

Alienor considered the embroidery she had brought with her from England. She had not yet begun stitching, but the design of a hunting scene was drawn on the linen ready for that moment.

For the last three days she had been visiting Henry’s mother at the abbey of Bec. Henry was due to arrive; she had not seen him since the Christmas feast at Falaise, nor had she particularly missed him and suspected that the feeling was mutual.

Alienor had not brought their two youngest children to Rouen. Richard at three was constantly into everything and there was never a moment’s peace even when Hodierna had charge of him. Combined with two-year-old Geoffrey’s tantrums, the resulting mayhem would have been too annoying for the ageing Empress, who preferred children to be seen and not heard. Harry at five and a half and four-year-old Matilda had reached an age when they were more civilised.

Harry was outside having a riding lesson with his bastard half-brother. Alienor was accepting of Jeoffrey because she had to be, but it still caused her anxiety. Each time she saw him he had grown taller, stronger and more vital. Although he was ostensibly being prepared for a life in the Church, there was nothing monkish about him. Here was no studious little boy with downcast eyes, rather instead a vibrant and vivid little warrior. The Empress was strict with him, but at the same time watched him with fond eyes. She was having him trained in military and riding skills, and Alienor was beginning to wonder if she had made a mistake in sending him to be raised at her court. The Empress had seen little of Henry’s childhood because of her struggle to gain England’s crown. Perhaps she was substituting Jeoffrey for the child Henry, and treating him as a prince, not a bastard side-shoot.

Little Matilda was busy sorting through a basket filled with hanks of embroidery wool. She selected a green one with a needle stuck through it. ‘Is this the one you want, Mama?’ Her hair shone in the firelight, thick dark gold like Alienor’s but shot with subtle glints of copper.

‘Yes, my love, the green will go very well.’ Encouraged, Matilda rummaged again and held up a pink one. ‘And this one?’

‘Yes, that one too.’

Matilda gave it to her and delved again, this time for blue.

‘I think we have enough for now.’ Laughing, Alienor lifted Matilda on to her lap. Then nothing would suffice but her daughter had to sew on the blank canvas. Alienor indulged her, letting her take a threaded needle and put a few laborious stitches into an area that did not call for detailed work. Eventually Matilda grew bored as Alienor had known she would, and went off to play with her doll.