Beloved Enemy (37 page)

“My mother once got the better of my father in falconry,” Henry told her one afternoon as they rode, falcons on wrists, to hunt crane. “It was only days after they had met, an isolated incident, but he never forgot it. Years later he would bring it up.”

“It’s only a sport. Why did it matter to him?” Eleanor was surprised, and grateful that she had never known this aspect of Geoffrey le Bel.

“Oh, I can readily understand why. In the hunt, in battle or political affairs, even with women—” he slid his eyes toward her—“a man plays to win. Always.”

“So do women. But some things are more important than others, surely? It sounds as if your mother was more than a match for Geoffrey.”

“In truth, my mother could best my father in most things.” A brief frown creased his brow. “For instance, she was a much better chess player. He always resented it and she learned to let him win.”

Eleanor pulled her horse to an abrupt stop. “Let him—Would you expect me to do the same?”

“I? But the issue would never arise with us, my dearest Nell,” Henry said with an innocent smile. “There is nothing you can do that I cannot do better.”

“Oh, such arrogance! Such outrageous male vanity!” Henry looked at her face then quickly spurred his horse forward; she rode furiously after him.

Henry’s indefatigable energy was a constant source of amazement to her. He rose before Prime every day no matter how hard or long he had made love the previous night. Always restless, he rarely sat except on horseback, and only briefly at meals, where he ate and drank sparingly, never noticing what food was set before him. Eleanor, blissfully happy, sometimes wondered if Henry was as happy as she was.

“Can you tell how much I love you?” she asked him one night when they had just finished making love.

She lay on her back with his head between her breasts.

“Of course,” he murmured in a drowsy voice.

“And you? Do you feel the same?”

“About what?”

She pulled at his hair. “You know perfectly well: loving me.”

Henry rolled away from her with a sigh. “Why is it necessary to discuss these things?”

He always shied away from any talk of his feelings.

Certainly Henry behaved like a man in love—in bed at any rate. Yet sometimes she felt compelled to hear him say so.

“It isn’t. Not if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“Well, it does.” He propped himself up on one arm and regarded her thoughtfully in the flickering light of a single candle. “Why do women always want to hear about how much you love them? Don’t I show you how I feel?”

“Often you do. What other women do you refer to?”

Henry looked exasperated. “God’s eyes, I was referring to women in general! Do I ask you about the men you might have known?”

“There’s only Louis—to speak of.”

“That’s not what I’ve heard, but I don’t plague you with questions, do I?”

Eleanor turned her head away. She had not told Henry about Raymond, nor did she intend to, and since their first meeting in Paris he had never again asked her about Geoffrey. Thank the Holy Mother there was no revelation she need fear where the count of Anjou was concerned.

“I should hope you don’t listen to scurrilous gossip put about by my enemies.”

“Of course not,” Henry said in a testy voice. “On the other hand you seem rather experienced for a woman who has known only an inept semi-monk. One might wonder why.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that the less said about our past conquests, the better.”

Eleanor was ashamed of the fact that she felt jealous of every female Henry had ever known intimately. Including his mother who, up until now, had been the only important woman in his life. Or so she surmised.

“My father once told me that he would prefer never having to see a woman out of bed,” Henry said, glowering at her. “I, on the other hand, enjoy women for their company and conversation, even their advice. But perhaps he had a point! In fact there is only one way I know to silence you.”

He rolled toward her and began to kiss her with warm hard lips that sent ripples of desire throughout her body. The ardor of her response always excited him the more. The nipples of her breasts, always prominent, became even more so when Henry teased them with his thumb and forefinger, or took them into his mouth. She had been embarrassed to express her pleasure aloud until she realized how much he liked this.

When Henry slid his hand between her parted legs, Eleanor felt her entire body tremble. His touch was so exquisite that her body twisted and turned in ecstatic rhythm with the pulse of his fingers. After a few moments, Henry entered her deeply, moving very slowly, stopping, moving again, teasing, tantalizing, all the while kissing her open mouth. She was lost in a churning sea under a blazing canopy of stars. With each thrust and roll she sailed up the wave then down into the trough, up and down until she could bear it no longer. The waves pitched her impossibly high, the stars fell, and she screamed aloud, drowning in bliss.

One of the most astounding things about Henry was that he took such an intense satisfaction in creating these powerful effects upon her. Sometimes she wondered if this did not mean more to him than his own pleasure.

Their idyll was abruptly terminated by a letter from Henry’s mother in Rouen. Eleanor had found an old shield of her grandfather’s painted with the likeness of Dangereuse and was in the midst of showing it to Henry.

“My grandfather claimed—so the tale goes—that he wanted his beloved mistress over him in battle as he was over her in bed—”

A dust-covered messenger raced into the hall and handed Henry the missive. “From Normandy, my lord. Most urgent.”

The Empress Maud wrote that the strategic castle of Wallingford was under siege, and his supporters in England urged the duke to invade at once without delay. Two hours after receiving the message, Henry was packed, his horse saddled.

“Must you go?” she asked, knowing the answer. He had already put off the invasion once in order to come to Poitou and marry her.

“Achieving my life’s goal is at hand—surely you can understand the need for me to leave.” The lover was gone, replaced by the hard-headed man of affairs.

“Understand and share it. Still, I will miss you.”

“And I you.” They were standing in the courtyard. “When next we meet I may be king-elect of England. That thought should console you in my absence. Now, if Louis should attack, there are sufficient forces in Aquitaine to hold him at bay. I’ll need all the men I can muster to guard Normandy and Anjou and invade England as well. If I require more men and ships, you will send them?”

“Of course,” she replied.

The realization that, in England, he would be going into battle terrified her. She could not bear the thought of losing him but knew better than to mention it. Henry would not take kindly to a fearful, whining woman. For an instant she clung to his solid frame, sensing his impatience to be gone.

A moment later he had disentangled himself from her embrace, mounted his horse and, followed by his few attendants, galloped out of the courtyard. He did not look back. Her eyes brimming with unshed tears, Eleanor wondered if he had already forgotten her.

E
NGLAND! AT LONG LAST!

Beside himself with excitement, Henry jumped from the wildly rocking ship and splashed through the icy green water until he reached the shore. Even though his legs were numb with cold it was all he could do not to rush headlong down the beach, shouting aloud for sheer joy.

“What day is this?” he called to one of his knights.

“The sixth morning in January, my lord.”

A day to remember. He could almost visualize what the future chroniclers would say: On this sixth day of January, in the year of Our Lord, 1153, did Henry, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, count of Anjou and Maine, land upon England’s shores at Wareham to deliver the realm from the usurper, King Stephen.

A chill wind lashed about Henry’s ears as he stood on the empty beach watching his forces disembark. All thirty-six ships carrying one-hundred-forty knights and three-thousand foot soldiers had safely survived a stormy Channel crossing. Hugging his body to keep warm, Henry stomped up and down on the hard sand. Not nearly enough men, his mother had warned him, but with a sure instinct he had known he would be able to pick up the rest in England. He had been unwilling to leave before ensuring Normandy and Anjou were sufficiently manned, as he suspected that in his absence Louis might attempt another foray on Normandy, despite the failure of his initial attack a few months ago.

Upon Henry’s return to Rouen from Poitiers, Louis had ordered him to appear before the royal court to answer for his conduct in marrying Eleanor without permission of his overlord. Henry had sent spies into Paris who returned with the news that Louis was incensed at what he considered his vassal’s betrayal. Henry decided to ignore the summons. When he failed to appear, Louis and his army had crossed the borders into Normandy. Prominent among Louis’s confederates were Henry’s own brother, Geoffrey, jealous of Henry’s increasing rise to power, and his old enemy, Prince Eustace of England.

“By joining Louis, Geoffrey obviously hopes to defeat me and keep Anjou for himself,” Henry had told his mother.

He smiled grimly when he remembered how he had trounced Louis’s forces with such vehemence that the French monarch had retreated hastily back into France. Eustace had been recalled to England. His mother, as formidable in her wrath as an entire army, had dealt with his brother so soundly that Geoffrey had gone to ground in one of his castles and caused no further difficulty. For the moment all lay quiet in Normandy.

Henry did not expect trouble in Aquitaine, but if trouble appeared he trusted Eleanor, already pregnant with their first child, to deal with it. At his request she had left Poitou in the hands of her uncle Ralph, a competent seneschal, and traveled to Anjou, so that their first son would be born in Le Mans, his own birthplace. At the same time—as Henry could no longer trust his brother—she would act as a replacement for himself in Angers, yet still be close enough to Poitiers so that she would be aware of any difficulties in her own duchy.

Whenever he thought of Eleanor a wave of heat flooded his body, warming him despite the freezing weather. Unaccountably, no matter the time or place, his heart would swell, his loins stir, and, much to his amazement, he often found himself talking to her in his head. With the exception of his mother and the nameless wenches he had bedded, Henry had had little to do with women. At times, what he felt for Nell—he could not bring himself to use the word love—was so intense that his need to resist this feeling was almost as overpowering.

Initially Henry had been dazzled by the sparkle and wit of Eleanor’s personality, impressed by her wealth, intoxicated by her beauty, suborned by her overwhelming sensuality, and stimulated by her intelligence and worldly knowledge. He had been in such a fever to possess her that he could hardly contain himself.

Henry could not put his finger on the exact moment when he had become hopelessly bound by her spell. All that he knew was that when he left Poitou he had begun to care so deeply it disturbed him. There was something—not shameful exactly, but unmanly—in caring so strongly about a woman, almost as if his very survival were being threatened. For the first time he understood the story of Samson and Delilah in Holy Writ. As a result he had resolved never to let her or anyone else know the depth of his need. Resolutely, he now thrust all thoughts of Eleanor from his mind.

Against the driving wind he could hear his men call out to one another as they waded through the surf to the damp sand. Undaunted by the weather, Henry looked with possessive pride at the rolling green sea as it crashed onto the shore, the gray skies heavy with impending rain, the struggles of his men to secure the tossing ships. What did the elements matter? Wind and rain were merely another challenge to be met and conquered. He was riding the crest of the wave now; nothing and no one could stand against him.

Soon, soon this would be his beach, his sky, his water, his land. Even the freezing salt air was like a benediction upon his upturned face.

The men began to lead the great destriers ashore, then the baggage. When men, gear, and horses were all unloaded, Henry turned toward the town of Wareham. As they pushed against the howling wind, one of his advance guard, a knight he had sent on ahead to explore the territory, met him before they entered Wareham.

“All is quiet, my lord,” the knight reported. “There is a chapel over there.” He pointed toward a spire just visible through the swirling mist. “The folk inside are celebrating the Feast of the Epiphany at mass.”

“An auspicious day! Let us join them,” Henry said, striding toward the spire. “We’ve made a safe crossing and have much to be thankful for.”

Inside the chapel he had just knelt and signed himself when he heard the voice of the priest reciting from scripture:

“Behold the Lord, the ruler, is come and the kingdom is in his hand.” Henry’s men stirred and looked wonderingly at him. His heart leapt in triumph. There was no doubt in his mind that the priest’s words referred to his landing in England. Surely this was a symbolic sign from heaven that God smiled upon his endeavors.

Six months later, Henry, reining in his horse on top of a hill, was less sure. Like Job, the Almighty appeared to be testing him.

He had decided upon a strategy of gradual approach to attack the beleaguered Wallingford, which lay deep within royal territory. It had been his intention to draw off the besiegers by attacking other castles, forcing King Stephen to withdraw his troops to aid them. A few months at the most, he had reasoned, then he would relieve his supporters and fight the decisive battle with the king.

Now it was July and the outcome still undetermined. Removing his helmet, Henry slitted his eyes against the shroud of mist obscuring his view. Where in God’s name—yes, there it was. A dark mass looming up like a giant’s fist out of the winding sheet of dense fog. Wallingford. Where his enemy King Stephen waited. The veil of swirling gray suddenly lifted to admit a pale morning sun. Below, Henry could now see the gorge of the Thames River. Above it hung the huge fortress, three bastions on its north side and two on the south. On the western flank the main entrance was approached by a drawbridge while beneath the tower a heavy iron portcullis defended the gateway. Although the last time he had been here was as a young lad, the castle was exactly as he remembered.