“That sounds like Davydd.” Ranulf shook his head in disgust. “Make him pay dear for his peace, Harry.”
“I did,” Henry assured him. “He must truly be hungry for Maelgwn’s lands, as he agreed to all my terms without argument. I think you’ll be particularly interested in one of his concessions, Uncle. You are welcome to reside again in his domains, welcome to return to your manor at…Trefriw, was it?”
“Truly?” Ranulf stared at Henry incredulously. “He agreed to this?”
Rhiannon’s French was quite serviceable by now, for she’d been wed to Ranulf for more than twenty years. But she was suddenly unsure of her mastery of his language, afraid to believe what she thought she’d heard. “We can go home?” she asked doubtfully, and when Henry confirmed it, she buried her face in Ranulf’s shoulder and wept for joy. Ranulf was blinking back tears himself, holding her in an embrace that was oddly private in such a public setting; for that moment they were oblivious to the crowded hall, the curious stares, even their wide-eyed young son.
Watching with a smile, Henry brushed aside their euphoric expressions of gratitude, joking that he feared they’d misunderstood him. It was Wales they’d be going back to, not Eden. Eleanor, who was fond of both Ranulf and Rhiannon, leaned over and murmured an approving “Well done.” But then she said, “Harry,” in a very different tone.
Glancing toward her, he saw that she was looking across the hall at a new arrival, a tall figure still clad in traveling clothes, a mud-splattered hooded mantle. Even at a distance, Henry recognized him at once—William Marshal, his son Hal’s sworn man—and fear caught at his heart. His injured ankle forgotten, he was on his feet by the time William Marshal reached the dais. He knelt, saying “My liege, my lady” in a low voice.
“My son…” Henry swallowed, for his mouth was suddenly dry. “What have you come to tell us, Will?”
The younger man’s head came up sharply. “Ah, no, my liege! Your son is well, I swear it!”
Relief rendered Henry speechless for a moment. “What did you expect me to think?” he said angrily, for anger was an emotion he could acknowledge. “You arrive in our midst like the Grim Reaper’s henchman, looking as if you bear the weight of the world on your shoulders. Christ Jesus, Will, I’ve seen happier men about to be hanged!”
“I am indeed sorry, my lord king, to have alarmed you for naught.” Although Henry gestured impatiently for him to rise, Will stayed on his knees. “If I seem troubled, it is because I am loath to deliver this message. Your son…he bade me inform you that he will not be attending your Christmas Court at Chinon. He is holding his own court at Bonneville.”
“
I
FEAR,” HENRY SAID,
“that I could not get out of this bed if the castle caught fire. Jesu, woman, are you seeking to kill me? My very bones feel like melted wax.”
Eleanor cocked a skeptical brow. “If lust could kill, Harry, you’d have been dead years ago.”
“I never claimed to be a monk, love. That was your first husband, as I recall.”
Amused in spite of herself, she hid her smile in the crook of his arm. “Mock him if you will, but poor Louis has you beaten in one race at least—his sprint toward sainthood.”
“I grant you that,” he conceded. “But unlike Louis, I never wanted a halo, only a crown.” Propping himself up on an elbow, he entwined his fingers in the dark river of her hair. He loved it flowing loose like this, his mind still filled with erotic images from their lovemaking: her long tresses tickling his chest, a silken rope looped around his throat, whipping wildly about her face when she tossed her head from side to side. “You realize,” he said, “that we’ve likely scandalized the court, disappearing in the middle of the afternoon for a daylight tryst.”
“What truly scandalized the court is that you were off bedding your wife and not your concubine. What sort of example is that to set for your barons?”
Henry was instantly alert, not sure if she was being sarcastic or playful or finally throwing down the gauntlet about Rosamund. He felt a prickle of resentment, for it was very unsporting to ambush a man in the aftermath of sex. “What concubine?” he asked warily, trying not to sound defensive.
“‘What concubine?’” she echoed mockingly. “Come now, Harry, you do not expect me to believe that you’ve been sleeping alone these two years past. I think it is safe to assume that you found a bedmate or two or three in the course of your travels.”
His first reaction was relief that this was not about Rosamund, after all. She was gazing up at him serenely, with just the suggestion of a smile. But those greenish-gold eyes had never looked more catlike, utterly inscrutable, and he found himself thinking of the way cats played with their prey before moving in for the kill. “I plead guilty,” he said. “I did occasionally take a woman to warm my bed. But surely you would not fault me for that, Eleanor? You might as well blame a man for eating when he’s hungry.”
“I could not agree more. You need not fret, Harry. I know full well what matters and what does not.” It was interesting to see that she could so easily make him squirm over his little trifle, but she had no intention of pursuing it further. That ship had sailed.
Henry chose to take her words at face value, for that allowed him to preserve their marital peace without paying too high a price for it. “I do not say it as often as I ought, but you hold my heart,” he said and then grinned. “And any other body parts you care to claim…as long as you give me a chance to get my strength back first.”
“A most tempting offer, my lord husband, but one best deferred till tonight.” Sitting up, she shook her hair back, and then, because she’d always faced her fears head-on, she added, with studied nonchalance, “In truth, Harry, you’ve worn me out. I am not as young as I once was, after all.”
Henry yawned, his gaze lazily tracking the curves of her body, so familiar and still so pleasing to the eye. “Surely you know, love, that fruit is sweeter once it has ripened,” he said, thinking that the female body must surely be one of God’s greatest works, a treasure trove that never lost its allure, no matter how often he explored its riches.
Eleanor studied his face. It was true he could play fast and loose with the truth when it served his purposes, but he’d never been gallant, never been one for courtship compliments. He’d once admitted that he could see no reason for lavish flattery, for if a woman was beautiful, she already knew it, and if she were not, she’d know he lied. So when he said he still found her desirable, she did not doubt him. Of course he had no notion of the effort it took to keep the years at bay, or that she’d come to see time as the enemy.
Yawning again, Henry swung his legs over the side of the bed. His mellow mood notwithstanding, Eleanor had not expected him to remain abed with her, not with so many daylight hours remaining; to keep him idle, he’d need to be shackled to the bedpost. Not bothering to summon a servant, he’d begun to collect the clothing they’d discarded in such haste. Wrapping her arms around her knees, she remembered how much she’d liked to watch him naked, for unlike her first husband, he’d always been quite comfortable in his own skin. She still enjoyed the sight of his nudity, for his constant activity had kept him fit. Deep chested, with well-muscled arms and the bowed legs of one who’d spent much of his life on horseback, he was, she thought, a fine figure of a man. She’d missed having him in her bed.
Of the secrets she kept from him, none of them involved their lovemaking. She’d never had to feign pleasure with him. If her satisfaction was bittersweet, it was because she’d felt the need to compete with his little sugar-sop, to prove she knew his body and his wants far better than Rosamund Clifford ever could. It shamed her that she could not dismiss the Clifford chit as easily as she had the other sluts he’d bedded. But as well as she lied to others, she could not lie to herself, and she’d become acutely aware of their age difference. In the beginning, it had not troubled her at all that she was nine years older. That was no longer true, not since he’d taken up with a girl young enough to be her daughter. Watching as he shrugged into his shirt and pulled his braies up over his hips, she was angry with herself for her lack of pride and angry with him for his lack of loyalty. She could forgive his physical infidelity. His emotional infidelity, she could not.
Gathering up her gown, chemise, and silken hose, he deposited them within reach, at the foot of the bed. “Shall I call for one of your ladies, love?”
She’d need help taming her tousled, tangled hair, but she was not ready to rejoin the world waiting beyond that bedchamber door; there were matters still to discuss, matters more important than desires of the flesh. “What mean you to do about Hal’s latest defiance?”
Henry was pulling his tunic over his head and his voice was muffled in its folds. Once he was free, he said ruefully, “I was hoping you’d have some suggestions, Eleanor. What ails the boy? He is a king, for the love of Christ! Why is that not enough for him?”
“He wants more than privileges and prestige, Harry. He wants to exercise power. Can you truly blame him? At his age, you’d have demanded no less.”
“At his age, I’d been fighting for two years to claim the crown stolen from my mother. He keeps throwing that at me—the fact that I was younger than he is now when I took command of Normandy. But we both know that is a false comparison. For all the love I bear him, Hal is not ready to rule on his own. When left to his own devices, he passes his time playing those damnable tourney games, carousing with dubious companions, and spending money like a drunken sailor. If one of those coxcombs who cluster around him like bees to honey expresses admiration for his new mantle, like as not, he’ll strip it off and hand it over. Whilst he was in England, the Exchequer could not keep track of all the bills submitted by merchants for his rash expenditures. Look at that foolishness at Bonneville last month. He threw a feast restricted to knights named William, for the love of God! They came out in droves, too, more than a hundred of them eager to wallow at the trough, eating and drinking enough to feed an entire town for a week.”
Eleanor could not keep from smiling. “And you see no humor at all in that?”
“No, I do not,” he insisted, but the corner of his mouth was twitching, and after a moment, he conceded, “Well, some…but I’d find it much more amusing if I were not paying the bills!” He was scanning the floor rushes for his leather belt and dagger sheath. “After Christmas, I go to Auvergne to meet with the Count of Maurienne.”
“I know,” she responded, irked by his sudden change of subject. She was familiar with his newest scheme—to secure a future for their youngest nestling by marriage to the count’s daughter and heiress. The arrangements had been made months ago. He would journey to Auvergne, meet the count while mediating a dispute between the King of Aragon and her personal bête noire, Count Raimon of Toulouse, and then he’d escort the count and his young daughter to Limoges where the marriage contract would be sealed. But it was Hal she wanted to discuss, not John, and she was about to steer the conversation back to their eldest son when Henry’s next words showed his mention of Auvergne was not a digression, after all.
“We’d agreed that you’d continue on to Limoges with our sons and await my arrival. But there has been a change of plans. Hal comes with me to Auvergne, like it or not. I sent word to him this morn, a command, not an invitation. I mean to keep him on a short leash until he proves he can be trusted off-lead.”
Eleanor exhaled a soft breath, almost a sigh. He still did not understand what a sharp sword he’d given his enemies by crowning Hal. He’d claimed he was merely following the custom of his continental domains, and it was indeed traditionally done in France; she did not doubt Louis would crown his son Philippe in due time. But she knew that there was more to Henry’s controversial decision to crown Hal, never before done by an English king. He’d seen his mother cheated of her queenship by her cousin Stephen, had seen the suffering that resulted from Stephen’s usurpation and the resulting horrors of civil war, a time so wretched that the people had whispered that Christ and his saints must surely be asleep. He’d had to fight fiercely for his own inheritance, both in Normandy and England, and such a turbulent childhood had left scars. He was bound and determined to spare his sons what he’d endured, and that was his true reason for insisting upon crowning Hal in his own lifetime—to make sure that there’d be no doubts about the legitimacy of his heir’s claim to the English crown.
But in acting to protect Hal, he’d made himself dangerously vulnerable. The future would always exert a more potent pull than the past, and Hal now represented the glowing promise of tomorrow, while Henry was reduced in the eyes of many to the status of a caretaker king. The risk he’d taken would not have been so great had he not such a multitude of enemies, men eager to use the weapon he’d unknowingly given them. As she watched him moving about their bedchamber, Eleanor felt an unwanted surge of sadness at the terrible irony of it all. Before she could think better of it, she resolved to make one final attempt to reach him, to make him understand that if he did not learn the art of compromise and conciliation, he was courting his own ruin.
“Hal is not entirely in the wrong, you know,” she said quietly. “You do not give him sufficient income to maintain a royal household, which makes it inevitable that he should go so deeply into debt. And there is something to be said, too, for his other grievances.”
He turned toward her, his surprise evident upon his face. “And what would that be, pray tell?”
She ignored his sarcasm, choosing her words with care. “You keep saying Hal is too young, too callow to rule in his own right. I do not deny that he may well make mistakes. But how else will he learn, Harry?”
“Do not make it sound as if I am fretting over the usual mishaps of youth—tavern brawls, getting a village girl with child, playing the fool with his friends. The stakes are far higher for Hal, and you well know it.”