‘I always listen to my mother’s advice,’ Henry replied, ‘but that doesn’t mean I take it.’ He was standing before a table and by the light of a freshly lit candle was examining correspondence that had arrived earlier. ‘She often has useful things to contribute, but it is six years since she left England and much has changed. Besides, she has no notion of how to bend. She would rather snap herself in two.’
Alienor put the necklace in her coffer and closed the lid so she did not have to look at it. ‘Yes, I receive that impression.’ She kept her tone neutral. She had great respect for her mother-in-law even while her patience was wearing thin, and she was still cautious about Henry’s reaction to his mother, because she did not know yet how fond or influenced a son he truly was.
‘She has kept the fight alive and her contacts with the Church and the German Empire are invaluable.’ He gave Alienor a penetrating look as if he could read her thoughts. ‘I may be her son, but I am my own man.’
‘That is good to know,’ she said steadily.
Without reply, he picked up the next piece of correspondence, read it, and suddenly he was tense and alert.
‘What is it?’
‘Hah. Your former husband desires a meeting to settle the future so that there may be peace and amity between us.’
Alienor took the letter from him. The language was that of Louis’s scribes, but it was as Henry said. Louis desired to settle the matter of Aquitaine and was willing to relinquish his claim. ‘We have been asking him to do that ever since William was born, and he has always refused,’ she said. ‘Why now?’
‘He says he desires to visit Compostela and worship at the tomb of Saint James and wants a truce so he can do this.’
‘That sounds like Louis,’ Alienor said with a grimace. ‘If he had his way, he would spend his days travelling between shrines playing the pilgrim king. Suger pleaded and pleaded for him to come home from Outremer, but he refused to heed him until forced because he was too busy adding this tomb or that shrine of miracles to his tally.’
Henry shrugged. ‘I am sure he will receive all he deserves from his pious wanderings, and in the meantime his obsession does us no harm and might even be to our advantage.’
Alienor pursed her lips. ‘Perhaps, but we should be cautious. Louis may be superficial, but he is devious.’
‘So am I,’ Henry said with a glint in his eyes.
Taking shelter from the burning August sun under the awning of a painted canvas pavilion, Henry met with Louis at Vernon, midway between Paris and Rouen.
Alienor had been feeling unwell for several days and suspected that once again she was with child. She had told Henry yesterday as they approached their rendezvous. He had been highly delighted and almost smug. Not only was it further proof of his virility, it was also a barb with which to bait his French rival. They had, however, left their infant son in Rouen with his grandmother. It would have been a jibe too far to bring him, and a political meeting was no place for an infant. To make matters less awkward, Alienor was not attending the face-to-face gathering but was remaining close by to ratify documents and put her seal to them.
Among the French courtiers attending the assembly was Louis’s sister Constance, widow of King Stephen’s son Eustace, and she came to visit Alienor while the men conducted their negotiations elsewhere. Now fully grown, she had a strong look of her mother in the line of her jaw and the way she carried herself. She had the same pale hair as Louis, and a thin long nose. She greeted Alienor with cautious civility.
‘I was sorry to hear your mother had died,’ Alienor said. ‘She was a noble and determined lady, may she rest in peace.’
‘I hope I can be a credit to her,’ Constance replied. Her voice was quiet, but it had an underlying steeliness, and that too reminded Alienor of Adelaide.
‘You do her justice.’ Alienor tried to sound sincere.
Constance inclined her head, accepting the compliment. ‘I am soon to be married again,’ she said.
Alienor was immediately alert, knowing that the groom would be significant to French interests. ‘I congratulate you. May I ask to whom?’
Constance gave Alienor a calculating look. ‘To the Count of Toulouse.’
Alienor went very still. So that was why Louis was open to negotiation. He might have relinquished his claim to Aquitaine, but by allying with Toulouse he could pressurise her borders from two directions and retain his influence in the south. He knew full well that Alienor’s goal was to add Toulouse to her territories. In marrying his sister to the Count, he would give his own descendants a presence there, should Constance bear offspring. ‘I wish you well,’ Alienor said, managing to keep her tone neutral. Indeed she meant Constance no harm, because after all she was only a pawn, and Alienor had known enough hardship caused by the will of others in her own life. Nevertheless, she was heartsick.
‘Toulouse belongs to Aquitaine,’ Alienor told Henry when they were alone in their tent. A heavy dusk had bruised the sky with purple and blue. She slapped at a mosquito whining close to her ear. ‘I will not have Louis laying hands on it through his sister.’
‘You cannot stop the match,’ Henry said. ‘I agree it is an irritation, but as a ruler it is his duty to find a way to compensate for the loss of Aquitaine.’
Alienor scowled. It was the truth, but that made it no more palatable.
Henry lay back on their travelling bed and pillowed his hands behind his head. ‘He is doing more on his “pilgrimage” to Compostela than worshipping Saint James and marrying off Constance. He is also planning a marriage with the house of Castile for himself – to the eldest daughter of King Alphonse.’
She stared at him. ‘He told you that?’
‘With a smile on his lips.’ Henry said, making a face but at the same time unperturbed. ‘The bride is thirteen years old. He will be fortunate to get a living child out of her if he takes her now. Whatever happens, we still have time before he has an heir. Even if he does father a living baby, what chance is there of it being a boy?’
‘And Constance?’
Henry shrugged. ‘There is time there too. We could always wed our own dynasty into that one and take Toulouse by marriage alliance in the next generation.’
Alienor wondered if Henry was being flippant. Something must have shown on her face because he added: ‘I am not just planning for tomorrow, but for ten years’ hence and more. I agree we should watch the situation, but what matters is that he has relinquished his claim to Aquitaine. As far as Toulouse is concerned, I will put my mind to a campaign in the near future.’ He gave her a sleepy smile and changed the subject. ‘I told him you were with child again. I have never seen a man try to smile while swallowing vinegar.’ He patted the bed and beckoned to her. ‘Whatever his schemes, we still have every advantage, my love, and he has none.’
‘We must make sure it stays that way,’ she said as she joined him. ‘Louis often suffers ill luck in what happens to him from day to day, but he always survives.’
‘I have his measure,’ Henry said confidently. ‘Have no fear of that. And he does not have mine.’ He unfastened the pendant cross from around his neck and dangled it over her flat belly. Together they watched it swing gently up and down and begin to gather momentum. ‘Another boy,’ he said, and smiled.
On their first night back in Rouen, Henry was quieter than usual and heavy-eyed when they visited his mother at the abbey of Bec to tell her about the meeting at Vernon and give her the news of Alienor’s pregnancy. Alienor was tired herself after their long ride and thought little of it. The Empress more than compensated for the gaps in the conversation by holding forth on everything from the right way to wear an ermine cloak to the usual complaint about how inept Stephen was as a king. She was also complaining that Emperor Heinrich of Germany had asked her to return the relics, jewels and regalia that she had brought home to Normandy from her widowhood.
‘They are mine,’ she said with an angry gleam in her eyes. ‘And they shall pass to my sons.’ She turned to Henry. ‘He even demands the crown you are going to wear at your coronation, but he shall not have it. Not one piece of gold, not a single gem from its setting.’
‘Indeed not,’ Henry said, but without his usual spark of irony or relish. He rose to his feet and stooped to kiss her cheek. ‘Mama, I will speak to you more in the morning.’
She looked surprised, and then concerned. ‘What is wrong?’
‘Nothing, Mama.’ Henry gave a dismissive wave as if brushing aside a fly. ‘I have told you, I am tired, that is all. Even I need to sleep sometimes.’
That brought a severe smile to her lips, but did not banish the anxiety from her eyes. ‘Rest well then,’ she said. ‘And God bless your slumber.’
‘Are you sure you are well?’ Alienor asked him as they arrived at the palace.
‘Of course I am,’ he snapped. ‘God on the Cross, why do women always make so much fuss? I’m tired, that is all, and my mother would try the patience of a saint. Do not you follow her example!’
Alienor raised her chin. ‘If women make a fuss it is because we are the ones who always have to clear up afterwards and deal with the debris, but you have made yourself clear. I shall not ask again.’
They retired to bed, irritated with each other. Henry fell asleep almost immediately, but it was a restless slumber in which he moaned and tossed and turned like a demon.
In the early hours of the morning he woke up complaining of a sore throat, and saying he was frozen, although his skin was as hot as a coal to the touch. The night candle had burned down to the stub and Alienor felt her way into her chemise and stumbled to the door to summon the servants. Behind her she heard the sound of Henry vomiting. ‘The Duke is sick,’ she said. ‘Bring fresh bedclothes and warm water.’
She hastily dressed while servants stripped and replaced the stained bedclothes. Henry huddled before the embers of the hearth, a cloak draped around his shoulders and his body shuddering. Kneeling at his side, Alienor took his hands in hers and felt the scalding beat of his blood against her skin. Even by the shadowy light of candles she could see that his eyes were glazed.
‘Ask me again why women make so much fuss,’ she said.
‘It’s nothing,’ he replied, his voice thick and hoarse. ‘A chill. I will be all right by morning.’
But by morning he was delirious and struggling to breathe. His throat was so swollen and raw that he could barely swallow the potions the physicians gave him. They bled him to cool the excess heat of his blood, but it had no effect.
Alienor sat at the bedside, insisting on bathing his body herself and dribbling honey and water into his open mouth. He was propped up on pillows to help him breathe, but every rise and fall of his chest was an effort. She could see his diaphragm sucking in and out, making hollows under his ribcage that echoed the shape of Christ’s image upon the crucifix hanging on the wall.
The Empress flurried in from Bec soon after dawn. The weather had turned autumnal and she entered the room bearing the smell of rain and woodsmoke on her clothes.
‘Henry?’ She hastened to the bedside and, as she looked at her eldest son, her expression filled with shock. ‘How can this be? How can this have happened?’ She flicked an almost accusatory look at Alienor.
‘He must have picked up some bad air at the French court,’ Alienor said, and then bit her lip. The air of the French court had been very bad for his father too. She was terrified lest he die. There would be more conflict and war, and she and her children would be at its centre. She would be forced to make another marriage or else find herself constantly under siege from ambitious suitors.
‘Not my golden boy,’ Matilda said. ‘Not after all this.’ She gazed around at the servants with sharp eyes, marking who was present and what was being done. ‘He is not going to die.’ She pushed an attendant out of the way, and pressed her hand to Henry’s forehead. He groaned and struck out. ‘Burning up,’ she said. ‘He needs to be purged and his blood cooled.’
‘That has already been done, madam my mother,’ Alienor replied.
‘Then do it again until it works. He must have fresh spring water to drink, and gruel, and make sure it is tasted first by someone else.’ She clucked her tongue as if at the incompetence of everyone else, and Alienor clung to her own civility by the tips of her fingers, because she and Matilda were allies in this, and if they argued, they would weaken each other when they needed to be united.
For the next hour the Empress stamped around the chamber issuing orders, flinging blame about indiscriminately, and behaving like the termagant of her worst reputation. But then she stopped for a moment and passed a trembling hand across her eyes, and Alienor’s angry resentment melted, for underneath all the bluster and rage, she glimpsed and recognised desolate terror.
Alienor and the Empress took turns at Henry’s bedside, wiping down his fevered body, changing his shirts and linens, spooning liquid into his mouth. The fever stripped the flesh from his bones and his body shook as if his pounding heart was going to break out of his body. Chaplains and priests came and went, but always stayed close to hand. Throughout Rouen prayers were said for Normandy’s desperately sick young duke. When the Empress was not at his bedside, she was kneeling before the altar at Bec, entreating God to spare her son’s life. She ruined her knees on the hard stone flags, and neither noticed nor cared.
Alienor sat beside him in vigil as the evening of the third day fell. He still lived, but it was more of a status quo than an improvement. She took his hand, tanned from the summer sun, but paler further up his wrist and covered in faint golden freckles overlaid by a shimmer of fine gilt hair. ‘How will you build your empire and leave your mark lying here like this?’ she asked him. ‘How will you see your sons grow tall and strong? How will you beget daughters if you leave now?’
She could not tell if he heard her, but his chest gave a spasmodic heave. ‘You will be an almost king,’ she said bitterly, ‘and that is worse than none at all. Even Stephen has bettered that … even Louis.’ Her voice shook. After a moment she unclasped her hand from his and went to the coffer at the foot of the bed. She unlocked it and lifted out the purple silk wrapping containing his great-great-grandfather’s sword. Carefully she unrolled the delicate cloth, took the scabbard and unsheathed the blade. The steel had a dull glitter, cold as a winter morning. She brought it to him and put it in his hand, curling his fingers around the silk binding on the hilt. ‘This is yours,’ she said. ‘Take it and use it, for if you do not, then it will rust away in the hands of others less able.’