The Winter Crown (36 page)

She felt his withdrawal and could almost see him rolling his eyes because he thought he was being lectured. ‘Of course I will, Mama. I know what his temper is like. And he always has to be right, even when he is wrong.’

Her lips twitched. ‘Just so, my son,’ she said. ‘You must learn how to deal with that and how to arrange your own rule. Your father plans to have you anointed his heir and there is more to kingship than wearing a crown. You will have to take on the responsibilities and duties, and become a man.’

Harry’s eyes brightened. ‘Papa has the gold ready for my crown. He showed it to me two years ago.’ A petulant look entered his expression. ‘I would have been crowned then, if not for Thomas Becket.’

‘That is true, but at least by the time you are anointed, you will be older and more able to perform your duties.’ That was another bone of contention between Henry and Becket. It was traditional for the Archbishop of Canterbury to crown the King of England, but Becket was refusing to do so. Henry had a dispensation from the Pope, obtained five years ago, granting him permission to have his son crowned by any bishop he chose, but Becket had persuaded the current Pope to declare that no bishop was to obey the dictate. Alienor suspected Henry would still find a way round it, and there was enough rivalry and aggravation among the bishops where Becket was concerned that some would ignore papal wrath and do the deed anyway. But for now the sacred gold remained in its coffer.

On the following day, Harry continued his journey, heading for Southampton to take ship across the Narrow Sea. Richard was simmering with anger.

‘Why is he going to Poitiers and not us?’ he demanded. ‘I am the heir to Poitou, not him. Papa should have sent for me.’

‘I cannot travel that far with your new brother or sister in my womb,’ Alienor said with thin patience. ‘Your father is standing surety for me, and Harry is his heir and future head of the family. You are not yet nine years old.’

‘I hope he’s seasick,’ Richard muttered.

‘He is your brother and you will hope no such thing. You will go to Poitiers soon enough, I will make sure of it.’ She touched his hair, glinting like fine wire of blended copper and gold. ‘Curb yourself, my young lion. Your time will come.’

Alienor studied the silver cups presented for her approval. Most were intended for her eldest daughter as bridal goods to take with her to Germany, but she had ordered one especially as a gift for Isabel’s new baby, a little boy, born a month ago and christened William. The cup sparkled in the sparse winter light from the high windows. Alienor was also sending a carved ivory rattle, and for Isabel a gold net and silk veil to dress her hair.

‘This is beautiful workmanship,’ she said. ‘I am well pleased. See that the silversmith is paid promptly for his effort.’

‘Madam.’

Alienor grimaced at a deep twinge from her lower spine. Her advanced state of pregnancy made walking difficult; whatever posture she adopted, she could not be comfortable. Throughout the Christmas celebration she had been exhausted and nauseous. There seemed to be no room within her save for this mass of baby and its constant activity that deprived her of sleep.

The weather was cold and sharp and the days so short that the candles remained constantly lit. What light there was filtered through the high windows, bleak and pale. Alienor could not remember when last she had been warm; perhaps it was a matter of the soul too. She wanted to be in Poitiers and the longing was almost pain. It did not help her situation that only four miles away, Henry’s child-mistress was keeping Christmas as a lay visitor at the nunnery at Godstow. She had sent spies to find out what they could about the girl, her whereabouts and more of her circumstances. From all reports, the girl was lovely, sweet-natured, educated, intelligent – and she and Henry were besotted by each other. She was his love, and that made Alienor feel colder still. It was long since she had felt like that about anyone, and never about Henry, even when they had shared the passion and the glory. It had been like a fire made of dry tinder and parchment, swift to blaze up but with no red core to sustain the heart.

The presence of the young woman at Godstow gnawed at Alienor like toothache. She wanted to be rid of it, but it would not go away while the tooth remained. And while she kept this bleak winter feast in exile and waited to bear the child conceived on the eve of Christ’s rising, Henry was in Poitiers, sitting in her hall, drinking the rich wine of her duchy and listening to the music of the south with their eldest son at his side.

The twinge came again, stronger this time. She glanced towards the sound of her daughter’s voice. Matilda was reading aloud in German to Geoffrey and Alie. She stumbled over many of the words, but she had been practising hard and had improved immeasurably in only a month. By the time she went to her marriage, she would be proficient enough to hold a simple conversation. Geoffrey, with his way with words, would probably be proficient in German by then too! Matilda’s future husband had written to her saying how pleased he was that she was going to be his bride, and exhorting her to work at her lessons, so that they would be able to talk as man and wife. He had sent her a Christmas gift of a silk bag containing ivory playing pieces, wonderfully carved with all different animals, and an inlaid draughts board, which Matilda loved. He had also sent her a belt of pearls and gold wire, which she wasn’t allowed to wear because it was to be added to her trousseau, but she kept opening the enamelled box to admire it.

The pain came again, a regular pinching squeeze, and her belly tightened, harder this time, taut as a new drum. She called to Marchisa, and bade her send for the midwives.

Sitting on the birthing stool, her hair hanging down in loose straggles of gold and grey, her shift bunched beneath her breasts, Alienor did not know how many hours she had been in labour. The pains were excruciating and she felt as if she was being torn apart by the infant within her struggling to escape. She feared for her life; the shadows of winter dusk were gathering and still the baby had not come. She was bilious and tired, on the edge of exhaustion, and the midwives were exchanging glances with each other. A part of her wanted to give up; to close her eyes and let everything end here. The call was insistent, but more insistent still was her sense of duty to her other children. They still needed her guidance and protection. They still needed her to fight for them. If she died now, then Henry would have triumphed, and, by planting this seed inside her, he would be responsible for her death. Perhaps that was what he was hoping: that she would die in travail. And then he could marry an adoring, compliant wife. Perhaps the little nun at Godstow.

Another contraction surged through her. ‘Push, madam, you must push!’ The senior midwife gripped her hands.

Alienor squeezed her eyes tightly shut and bore down. ‘I will not … let him be the death of … me! He shall … not win!’ The last of her strength brought the baby’s head to crown between her thighs, and she slumped, panting.

‘Once more,’ encouraged the midwife, ‘once more and carefully, madam, lest you tear. Call upon the blessed Saint Margaret for help and she will assuredly aid you. The babe’s head was in the wrong position, but it has moved now. Come, only a little more effort.’

Alienor had been calling on the blessed Saint Margaret all day with little result. She was done with saints. ‘Damn you, Henry,’ she gasped as the head was born and then the rest. ‘Damn you forever.’

‘A boy,’ said the midwife as she caught the baby in a warm towel and an infant’s thready wail filled the room. ‘A fine boy. Madam, you have another son.’

Alienor was past caring beyond the fact that the child was out of her body. She closed her eyes and gripped the sides of the stool, enduring. The afterbirth followed swiftly and then, just as she thought it was done, she began to haemorrhage, a red stream of blood spattering the straw beneath the birthing stool.

‘Blessed Saint Margaret!’ The midwife thrust the baby into the hands of one of the other women and grabbed Alienor, issuing urgent commands to her senior assistant.

Alienor went away to another place while they desperately tried to stem the flow from her womb. Perhaps Henry was going to win after all. She imagined him in Poitiers with Harry, receiving the news that she had died in childbirth. Would he grieve even in the smallest part? And if he did, who would know, because he always hid his grief from the world?

‘Madam, drink this.’ The midwife raised Alienor’s head and urged her to swallow a bitter-tasting tisane. She drank and choked, then drank again. The world returned for a moment, swamping her in raw pain.

The woman stood back, one hand bloody to halfway up her wrist where it had been inside Alienor, compressing her womb. ‘Praise God and Saint Margaret, the bleeding has eased.’ Her voice shook. ‘But we must watch you lest it begin again. It is always a danger when a woman has borne many children.’

‘Too many,’ Alienor croaked. The shadows had deepened and although the maids had kindled the lamps and built up the fire, the room was heavy with darkness.

The youngest midwife brought her the baby, damp from his first bath and yet to be swaddled. He was small like Alie had been, and wiry too. His natal hair was dark with none of the coppery glint that she had seen straightaway in Richard, but his wail was strong and querulous and his grasp on life surer than her own. Conceived at Easter at the rising of Christ; born in his nativity season. Surely this was a blessed child. But she could raise neither joy nor enthusiasm.

‘I am pleased with him,’ she said for form’s sake. He waved his little fists and legs with the rapid movements she had sensed in her womb, but now he had the space to flex his limbs.

‘How is he to be named, madam?’

She could not think. Her mind was filled with fleece. They would need to know for his baptism but it was almost too much effort. One more duty to perform. ‘John,’ she said. ‘Name him for the saint on whose day he will be baptised.’ Speaking the words exhausted her. Her eyelids seemed to have weights on them.

The women would not let her sleep for longer than an hour at a time. The midwife checked and changed the cloth between her thighs and made her drink more of the bitter tisane. The baby continued to wail and fuss. The wet nurse arrived, a buxom young woman called Agatha with a snub nose, thick flaxen braids and milk-heavy breasts. She put the baby to suckle and he latched on with a will.

‘Knows what he likes,’ Alienor heard one of the younger midwives giggle. ‘He’ll be one for the ladies!’

The other women shushed her with glances at Alienor. She pretended she had not heard and gazed towards the closed shutters, which were painted with dancers in a garden and a musician playing a citole. She drifted off to sleep and dreamed that she was with them in that garden. She could smell the roses and the sweet tarry scent of warm pine needles. There was a building like a cloister with arches open to the air. She was holding a pair of ripe cherries on slender green stalks and she tasted intense sweetness as she bit down and pierced the glossy black skin. A warm breeze fluttered the sleeves of her green silk gown.

Her sister Petronella darted out from behind a cloister column and, with a joyful cry, ran to embrace her. She was young and carefree, her brown eyes sparkling and her hair flying loose. Then Alienor saw their father strolling towards her, his expression smiling and relaxed, and at his side a dark-haired small boy wearing a red tunic. Her brother Aigret. She became aware of other people in the garden, all turning to welcome her. A man with dark hair and hazel eyes, a baby in his arms, a man she had last seen on his deathbed when she had still been wed to Louis. She dropped her gaze at a tug on her gown, and met the blue eyes of another little boy with a mop of red-gold curls and a toy sword in his hand. ‘Mama,’ he said. Her knees weakened and joy poured through her like exquisite lightning as everything turned to white radiance.

Her next awareness was of voices talking over her in swift urgency. Calling her name, shaking her and exhorting her to wake up. She didn’t want to. She wanted to go back to the garden, but it wasn’t there. It was a vision glimpsed in a flash of light, and now there was only the grainy night-time darkness of the birthing chamber, and the cramping pains from her abused, exhausted body.

‘Let me be,’ she said in a rusty voice. ‘Let me return to the garden.’ Her throat was dry and they raised her to make her drink more of the tisane.

‘There is no garden, madam,’ the midwife said gently as she lifted the covers to check that Alienor had not begun to bleed again. ‘You are here in your chamber at Beaumont Palace, safe and warm. The garden is all asleep under deep snow.’

‘There is a garden,’ Alienor insisted. Beyond the bitterness of the tisane, she could still taste the residual sweetness of cherries on her tongue. ‘I saw it.’

‘You were dreaming, madam.’

Alienor turned her head away and closed her eyes, but the vision refused to come again and she felt bereft.

She heard the women talking quietly among themselves, but not quietly enough. ‘This must be her last one,’ said the senior midwife. ‘She cannot sustain another child; it would kill her for certain, poor lady – if this one does not.’

Alienor’s eyelids tensed. Is that what it had come to – ‘poor lady’? Then indeed she might as well die. She found the strength to raise her voice. ‘Do not pity me. I will not have it.’ The women immediately fell silent and the atmosphere strained with tension.

‘I am sorry, madam,’ said the midwife. ‘I should not have spoken thus in your hearing.’

‘Nor out of it. I am the Queen, remember that, and I am the Duchess of Aquitaine and Normandy, and Countess of Anjou.’

‘Yes, madam.’

For whatever that was worth. Alienor closed her eyes as her son began to wail.

Alienor was churched on the feast of Candlemas in early February, a few days short of the forty-day recovery period. The day celebrated the churching of the Virgin Mary, and was auspicious. Alienor had not yet recovered from her ordeal; she was still bleeding, albeit scantily, and she tired very quickly. She had to pace herself as if she were an old woman, and coddle what energy she did possess.