‘Perhaps you would like to play Henry,’ he said.
‘Does he often beat you?’ She glanced at the young man as he left the dancing at his father’s beckon.
‘Let us say we are evenly matched.’
‘Then I would expect the same outcome.’
Geoffrey looked amused. ‘Sometimes things are not as you expect,’ he replied and vacated his chair so that Henry could take his place. Then he limped off to speak with a French baron who held lands on the Angevin border.
Alienor appraised with fresh eyes the young man who took his father’s place at the other side of the chequered squares. What would it be like to be the wife of this supposedly accomplished young man, who had been such a model of modest propriety thus far? She was only nine years older than him, which might either be a gulf or no distance at all. In terms of experience, however, he could not begin to compete. He was a blank page; a very young man whom she might be able to manipulate into whatever she wanted him to be. She needed to know more about him first before she even began to consider such an enormous leap.
His eyes were bright and intelligent, and he already knew how to guard his thoughts. His lips were tender with youth, but set in a straight line, and his jaw was determined. How would it be to lie with him in the marriage bed? To perhaps bear red-haired grey-eyed sons and daughters? To have Geoffrey of Anjou for a father-in-law? That notion almost made her recoil. To wear a northern crown should his ambition and luck bring him to England’s throne? She knew little of that country; it had always lain in the periphery of her vision, misty, green and cold. If she felt far from home in Paris, England was a step further still.
With an open hand and a sunny smile Henry gestured her to begin. ‘Please, madam,’ he said. ‘It is your turn to make the first move.’
‘Well,’ said Geoffrey when he and Henry retired to their chamber for the night, ‘that was not so difficult, was it?’
Henry shook his head and gave his father a rueful smile. He had been steeled to encounter a used-up woman going past her prime, but the reality was one still young and beautiful with poise and charisma, who would make a fitting consort for any sovereign. He was used to women with strong personalities, his own mother being one such, but while his mother was abrasive in her opinions and like harsh steel, Alienor was liquid gold. She still wasn’t the innocent young virgin with whom he would have been most comfortable, but it was no disaster. ‘She is very beautiful,’ he admitted. They had reached a stalemate in their game of chess. He had told himself he could have won but had held back in order to be diplomatic, but at the back of his mind he had the worrying suspicion that she had been doing likewise.
‘Louis is a fool to release her and let Aquitaine go, but that is his concern to deal with, not ours,’ Geoffrey said. ‘The Duchess is the kind of woman to make up her own mind and do as she chooses. We do not have to work at pleasing a labyrinth of advisers and I doubt she will take anyone here into her confidence.’
‘So our success stands or falls on her decision?’
‘Precisely,’ Geoffrey said. ‘You did well today. I think you have made a good impression on her but without putting yourself so far forward as to seem brazen, and without calling yourself to the attention of Louis and his courtiers. I am confident that no one has any idea of the plans afoot. All they can talk about is me bringing Giraud de Berlai here in fetters.’
Henry went to the window and looked out. ‘She will consent,’ he said softly, more to himself than his father, and his mind was on the great wealth of Aquitaine, and what lay open to him as its consort duke. In the space of a few hours he had gone from a state of reluctance to being very keen indeed.
Geoffrey poured wine into the rock-crystal goblets and brought one to the embrasure. ‘To success,’ he said.
Henry took the cup and toasted his father in return. ‘To dynasty,’ he replied.
Alienor sat in bed, her knees raised under the coverlet to form a lectern on which she had placed the sealed letter that had arrived from Poitiers as dusk fell. She wound a twist of her loose hair around her index finger. For all her reputation as a temptress, the only man who had ever seen her hair unbound in the bedchamber was Louis. Contemplating the strand between her fingers she imagined the young Angevin’s stare should she choose to accept his offer and give him a husband’s privilege. It was an interesting proposal and one that had merit, but she needed to think the matter through carefully, because it was her choice this time even if that choice was constrained by who and what she was.
Letting the twist of hair spring free, she smoothed the letter on her upraised knees and bit her lip. Her heart’s desire and her longing lay at Taillebourg with the man who had dictated this letter, but political necessity and the welfare of Aquitaine made their bond untenable. As a girl of thirteen she had believed anything was possible, but time had wrought wisdom and tempered rashness. Her father and his advisers had been right. If she had married Geoffrey, Aquitaine would have tumbled into chaos as factions fought each other for the right to rule.
In the Holy Land she had dreamed of annulling her marriage to Louis and doing as she pleased, but even that had been no more than a fevered dream. Whatever she had with Geoffrey would always have to be kept secret and circumspect. It was her sacred duty to protect Aquitaine and increase its lustre. Whether marrying Henry, Duke of Normandy, would help her achieve her goal was another matter. The chess game had told her nothing about him save that he was fiercely intelligent and keen to please her without being obsequious. In some ways he reminded her of the squires she had raised to good service in her household. If she could raise him to good service too, then all might be well.
She heaved a pensive sigh and broke the seal on Geoffrey’s letter. The glow from the oil lamp shone on the ink, but the muted light made the words hazy. Ostensibly it was a report of the current situation in Aquitaine. Louis’s French castellans were preparing to leave the fortresses they had occupied and the country was being made ready for the final accounting before the annulment. However, the letter was coded too, and as always there was a private note written in the lines, with the relevant letters made that little bit larger or smaller. Geoffrey wrote that he longed for her return. He had been unwell with a malaise he had picked up in the Holy Land, but he was recovering and the sight of her would be enough to restore him to health.
‘God keep you, my love,’ she whispered and kissed her fingers to the parchment before she put it away in her coffer. ‘We shall be together soon.’
The early September sun beat a hard yellow light on the cavalcade of the Count of Anjou and the recently confirmed young Duke of Normandy. The road was dusty under the bleached sky and the horses plodded with lowered heads, sweat darkening their hides. Banners hung limp on their staves without a breath of breeze to stir the silks. The knights rode without armour, having consigned their hauberks and thick padded tunics to the panniers of the pack beasts. Broad-brimmed straw hats emerged from the packs instead and men wiped their faces and the backs of their necks with cloths moistened from their water containers.
Being red-haired and fair-skinned, Henry was suffering, albeit stoically. The sojourn in Paris had been highly satisfactory. In exchange for a strip of land and a few moments of obeisance, Louis of France had officially recognised him as Duke of Normandy. He and his father had their truce, which meant he could continue his plans to invade England, and even if he had to make a marriage with the Duchess of Aquitaine, at least she was beddable and would bring him great wealth and prestige. He could still have his mistresses on the side if he chose. When he thought of the lands that might be his, all strung like jewels on a necklace, it made him smile.
Last night they had stayed at Le Mans; tonight they would sleep at Le Lude, and then ride on to Angers to confer with their barons and household.
‘Christ, it’s too hot,’ his father said. ‘I feel as if my bones are burning inside my skin.’
Henry glanced at him. They had been riding in silence for a while, each given to his own thoughts. His father’s face was flushed and his eyes very bright. ‘There’s a good bathing spot about a mile further on,’ he suggested. ‘We could stop to eat and cool off.’
Geoffrey nodded. ‘I am not hungry,’ he said, ‘but a moment out of the saddle would be welcome.’
Henry was ravenous. Even the oppressive heat had not stifled his appetite and the thought of bread and cheese had been at the back of his mind for the past several miles.
They arrived at a sandy bank where the river pooled in blue-green shallows and there was some willowy shade to set out a simple picnic. Henry stripped to his braies and ran across the warm grit into the water with a joyful shout. His face and hands were tanned red-brown from a summer spent on campaign outdoors, but the rest of him was milk-white in contrast. The water was deliciously cool once he was thigh deep, and he threw himself backwards to float, arms and legs outspread. His father joined him, also stripped to his linens, but when Henry wanted to horse-play and dunk him, Geoffrey fought him off and snarled that he wished to cool off and to be left in peace.
Shrugging, Henry did as asked and went to drown Hamelin instead.
Geoffrey eventually emerged from the river with chattering teeth, and refused the food his squire presented to him in a folded napkin. ‘Good God,’ he said. ‘Why would I want to eat any of that? It smells as if you’ve been storing it down your braies.’
Someone made a quip about a big sausage, which caused a belly laugh, but Geoffrey did not join in. Instead he went to hunch in a blanket by himself, a cup of wine in his hand, from which he barely drank.
‘What is wrong with him?’ Hamelin asked.
Henry shook his head. ‘Too much sun probably. His foot has been troubling him these last few days and you know how he sulks when he is in pain. Let him be and he will be all right by and by.’
Refreshed and rested, the troop dressed and moved on. Geoffrey struggled to mount his horse and he was still shivering. A short while later, he drew rein to vomit over the side of his saddle.
‘Sire?’ Disconcerted, Henry drew rein. His father’s face was still flushed and his eyes were as opaque as scratched blue stones.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ his father snapped. ‘It is nothing. Press on, or we’ll not reach Le Lude before nightfall.’
Henry exchanged glances with Hamelin, but said nothing other than to order the cavalcade to pick up the pace.
They reached Le Lude upon the hour of sunset, the sky the colour of a bruised rose in the west. The soldiers opened the gates to admit them and they trotted into the courtyard. Geoffrey sat on his stallion for a moment, gathering himself. He had been sick twice more on their journey and his whole body was shaking. When he eventually moved to dismount, his knees buckled, and only the grip of Henry and Hamelin, who had been standing close by, saved him from falling. Feeling the fire in his father’s flesh, Henry knew a terrible sense of foreboding.
Over the next three days, Geoffrey’s condition deteriorated. His lungs became congested and a violent red rash flushed his body: mute evidence that he had picked up the
rougeole
contagion while in Paris. The physician shook his head and the chaplain took the Count of Anjou’s confession. Unable to believe this was happening, Henry paced the sickroom like a caged lion. His father had been a constant in his life, always there, always a support even when Henry no longer needed a prop to lean on. They had often irritated each other and there was the constant friction of masculine rivalry, but nevertheless their bond was strong and affectionate. Father to son, son to father, and man to man. Henry wanted to be independent of his sire, but he did not want to let him go.
‘You will wear a hole in the floor,’ Geoffrey said, his voice weak and querulous with irritation. He was propped up in the bed, supported by numerous bolsters and pillows. The fever had lessened over the last couple of hours, but his breathing was laboured and his extremities were blue.
Henry came to the bedside and took his father’s hand. ‘There is nothing else I can do,’ he replied.
‘Hah, you never could sit still,’ Geoffrey said. ‘That is a lesson you could learn from Hamelin.’ He nodded at his bastard son, who sat on a chair by the hearth in the bedchamber, his head bent over his clasped hands, his despair almost palpable.
‘I can be still when I am dead.’
Geoffrey gave a snort of bleak amusement. ‘You are a great comfort to me.’
‘You would not want me to be still.’
‘Sometimes it would be an advantage. Sit. I want to talk to you while I still have breath and reason.’
Reluctantly, Henry took his place at the bedside. It was his duty to keep vigil, but all he wanted to do was saddle his horse and ride like the wind to outstrip death.
Geoffrey summoned his reserves and spoke with sucking pauses for breath. ‘You are my heir. Anjou will be yours as well as Normandy.’
Henry flushed. So much for his younger brother’s constant demands that Anjou should be his. He was glad his father saw eye to eye with him on that score. ‘I will govern and exalt them well,’ he said.
‘See that you do. Do not let me down in this.’ Geoffrey was silent for a time, and closed his eyes while he mustered the energy to speak again. ‘But your brothers must have something. I leave William’s gift to your discretion, but I want you to give Geoffrey his due.’
Henry stiffened. That was not so good. The only due that Geoffrey deserved was a kick in the braies. ‘His due, sire?’
‘He is to have the castles of Chinon, Loudun and Mirebeau. These are the traditional heritage of a younger son.’
Henry tightened his lips. He had no intention of letting his younger brother have control of those castles. They were too strategic and important. He knew full well that the upstart desired all of Anjou. He would not be content with such an inheritance, and would only use it to foment rebellion.