The Winter Crown (14 page)

Henry’s brothers Hamelin and William were already there, evaluating the beasts with John FitzGilbert, one of Henry’s marshals. FitzGilbert was an experienced horse master whom Becket had delegated to help collect animals of the colour and quality required. Two of FitzGilbert’s sons had accompanied their father. The oldest was an adolescent – a handsome, grey-eyed lad of serious mien. The other, a couple of years younger, sat confidently astride a glossy bay palfrey while Hamelin peered in the horse’s mouth, assessing its age.

‘A fine animal,’ Alienor said, joining the gathering. The men made their obeisances and the brown-haired boy in the saddle bowed deeply from the waist.

‘It’s to pull the wagons,’ Hamelin told her. ‘The Chancellor needs five sets of two, all matching, and all of high breeding.’

‘He doesn’t ask the impossible, just miracles,’ John FitzGilbert remarked sardonically.

‘You know the traders to contact and the places to seek, my lord marshal,’ Henry said. ‘I have faith in you. You kept my mother in fine horseflesh when she was fighting her cause here, and in more difficult circumstances.’

FitzGilbert bowed. ‘I still have my uses, sire,’ he said with a mordant smile.

Alienor was only a little acquainted with John FitzGilbert. In former days, it had been one of his duties to provide horses for battle campaigns, but now his work was fiscal and mainly at the Westminster Exchequer. He was sometimes present at court, but part of the background rather than a prominent player. The left side of his face bore thickened burn scars and a ruined eye socket from a terrible time during the war for the crown between Empress Matilda and King Stephen when he had been trapped inside a burning abbey. The right side revealed that before his injury he had been a handsome man, his features strong and clear-cut. He was in late middle age now, his fair hair silvered with grey, but he was still tall and straight with an air about him that commanded respect, and caused women to study him with interest despite his scars. Henry thought him an old warhorse who needed to be kept on a tight rein, but he esteemed him nevertheless.

Harry pointed at the big bay. ‘I want to ride!’

‘Hup!’ said the boy on the horse and, leaning down, held out his hand. ‘You can sit with me, sire.’

Hamelin lifted Harry, and FitzGilbert’s son grasped him with cheerful confidence and tucked him securely in front of him on the saddle.

‘William has two younger brothers at home,’ the Marshal said, looking amused and a little exasperated.

The Marshal’s son took Harry for a ride round the yard at a steady walk, while the adults talked, then returned him, handing him down to his nurse before leaping lithely from the bay’s back. He fed the horse a crust of dry bread on the palm of his hand and patted its neck. Alienor decided that she approved of the lad; he was mischievous and lively, but he did not overstep the bounds.

In a sudden flurry, the monkey that Harry had been holding earlier swarmed up William’s body, snatched a second crust out of his hand and made to abscond with its prize; however, the boy was faster and seized its chain, apprehending the thief even as it crammed the bread into its mouth.

‘No,’ his father said, emphatically shaking his head. ‘Before you ask, we are not having one of those at home. God knows, you and your siblings are bad enough. Your mother would take it to her heart and there would never be peace in my chamber again.’

Looking a little crestfallen, William handed the monkey to one of the Chancellor’s attendants.

Alienor and her women gathered the children together and returned to the bower, leaving the men to their business. Becket’s circus, she thought scornfully. She gazed at Harry skipping along at her side. It was too hard to imagine him being betrothed when he was still so small and his bride barely out of the cradle. There was many a slip between now and adulthood, but she would still have to come to terms with the notion of a French daughter-in-law, the seed of her former husband and half-sister to the daughters she had borne to Louis, and time was not going to render that notion any more palatable to her.

On the appointed day, Thomas Becket set out from the Tower of London with his flamboyant entourage, bound for Southampton harbour and the sixty-six ships waiting to transport it across the Narrow Sea.

The parade was twice the size of the one at Alienor and Henry’s coronation. The latter had taken place in midwinter. This was late spring dressed in new green, a warm breeze lightly swirling cloaks and wimples. The carts rumbled and clattered along the thoroughfare, pulled by their matching bay horses and laden with all the largesse of the Angevin empire.

Alienor watched the cavalcade pass before her and her mind strained at the seams, unable to absorb all this visual brilliance. There were hordes of attendants clad in rich fabrics and furs usually reserved for the nobility. Everywhere the twinkle of precious metals, jewels and silks. Somehow Becket had trained the monkeys to sit on the backs of the packhorses like small jockeys at Smithfield horse fair.

‘Dear God, he is emptying England,’ Alienor said to Henry. ‘We shall be wrung dry of every drop of colour in the kingdom when he has gone.’

Henry chuckled. ‘But it will be worth it,’ he said. ‘And really, you wouldn’t want to keep half those things.’

Alienor pursed her lips. She would certainly have liked some of the fabrics, and the jewellery, not to mention a couple of the high-stepping palfreys.

‘It proves my sincerity to Louis. I would not go to this trouble unless I was serious about the proposed match. Once Thomas has made his impression, I shall follow in due course.’

‘You can hardly hope to match him,’ Alienor said tartly.

‘I don’t intend to … it is like eating a peacock at a feast. First you display all the brightly coloured feathers to catch everyone’s attention and admiration, but then you discard them and come to the meat of the matter. Both Thomas and I are consummate players.’

Yes, you are
, Alienor thought.
And perhaps too clever for your own good and everyone else’s.

Several weeks later Alienor sat sewing in her chamber. Her pregnancy had advanced a stage and it was difficult to find a comfortable position in which to sit; she had already adjusted the cushion at her back half a dozen times.

The news coming out of France was a triumph for Henry. Becket had been received with huge acclaim. The roadside had been lined with people exclaiming at the spectacle and shouting the praises of the King of England as gifts of money and food showered upon them with profligate largesse.

‘Apparently King Louis’s brother was very taken with his namesake,’ Henry told her with a grin. He was playing with Harry who clung like a limpet to his legs while Henry made a game of trying to shake him off without using his hands. His heir was maintaining a fierce grip.

Despite herself, Alienor laughed as she imagined Robert, Count of Dreux, with a monkey on his shoulder. ‘I expect he will find ways to train it to his advantage.’

‘Thomas says he overheard one courtier remark how great the King of England must be if he sends his chancellor in such magnificence.’

‘If only they could see you now,’ she said with a raised eyebrow.

Henry chuckled. ‘Hah, being ridden by my own son! I yield, you win!’ Grasping Harry’s hands, he rode the boy on his leg for a moment, making him squeal, and then perched him on his shoulders. ‘The victor!’ he shouted, and trotted him across the chamber floor. ‘Thomas says Louis is keen for the match and the way is clear for full negotiation. Now we have to hammer out the entitlements, and for me that means the territories of the Vexin must be handed over as the bride’s marriage portion when the wedding takes place.’ He somersaulted Harry down his body to the ground. Richard escaped his nurse and crawled to his father, determined to have his share of the attention. Henry scooped him up and Richard seized on the cross and chain around his neck, attracted by the bright gold and gemstones. Henry prised him off. ‘I love this one dearly,’ he said, ‘but I will love him better when he’s older.’ Taking further stock of his offspring, he studied two-year-old Matilda who was playing quietly and seriously with a straw doll.

‘I hope that look means you are not thinking of betrothing our daughter just yet,’ Alienor said archly.

‘Not unless the right offer comes along,’ Henry replied with an irrepressible gleam. ‘I…’ He turned as Alienor’s chaplain entered the room, followed by another cleric, mud-spattered from hard travel and hollow-eyed with exhaustion. With a jolt of anxiety, Alienor recognised her brother-in-law’s chaplain, Robert.

‘Sire, there is grave news from Brittany.’ Robert knelt at Henry’s feet. ‘It grieves me to tell you that the Count of Nantes has passed away while suffering a quartan fever.’ He held out a sealed letter. ‘There was nothing we could do; I was at his bedside when his soul left this world. I extend my deepest sorrow and condolence.’

Alienor summoned the nursemaids to remove the children. She was shocked by the news, but not grief-stricken. She had always avoided Geoffrey if she could; indeed, she had been relieved when he had left court to become Count of Nantes, but she had never expected this; his health had always been robust. ‘I am so sorry,’ she said.

Henry’s mouth twisted. ‘I should have expected no less of him. I put him in a position useful to all where he will benefit our family and he has to go and die. He caused me trouble to the end, God give respite to his soul.’ He gestured the kneeling chaplain to his feet. ‘You came straight to me?’

‘Yes, sire.’ The man’s expression revealed bewilderment and shock at Henry’s brusque response. He heaved himself upright, stiff-kneed and wincing.

‘What is happening in Nantes now?’

‘Sire, I do not know; I left immediately to come to you.’

‘You may go.’ Henry waved his hand, ‘but stay close lest I need to ask more of you later.’

As the two chaplains departed, Henry began pacing like a caged lion. ‘You know what will happen,’ he said. ‘Duke Conan will take this opportunity to seize Nantes and I cannot let that happen. I’ll discuss the situation when I visit Louis and see what can be done.’ He made an impatient sound. ‘Why in God’s name did the idiot have to drop dead when all was going so well? I could almost think he has done it to spite me.’

Alienor looked at him. The loudness of his protest was a shield, hard, shiny, and dense like a scar. ‘I suspect he would rather have lived,’ she said. ‘You are angry because he is not there to push against and the landscape has changed.’

He gave her an irritated look that warned her she was treading dangerous ground. ‘I need more information. The danger of what will happen in the space left by his death is what concerns me. Grieving will not bring him back.’

‘No, but it might help you to go forward.’

‘You prate women’s nonsense,’ he snapped. ‘My grief is that he no longer holds the reins in Brittany. Let us hope that messengers with more than condolence are on their way.’

Alienor quashed her irritation and tried again. ‘Your mother will have to be told.’

Henry braced his shoulders as if settling a burden. ‘I’ll visit her on my way to France.’

‘It is hard for a mother to lose a child whatever their age, and even without the years of contact,’ Alienor said softly. ‘They have still been flesh of your flesh and you have carried them within your body for nine months.’ She paused to balance herself as she thought of Will, such a short time in the world. Henry would not countenance a mention of that particular loss. She came and put her hand on his arm. ‘Even if this is no great grief to you, I am sorry all the same.’

He said nothing, but after a moment looked down at her hand and covered it with his own. And then he cleared his throat and withdrew, muttering that he had matters to attend to in the wake of the news.

Alienor called for her scribe, let out a deep sigh, and began to compose a letter of condolence to her mother-in-law.

Heavy rain over the past two days had made thick sludge of the roads. Although the weather was not cold enough to turn the rain to snow, the air was bitter and even wrapped in her fur-lined cloak Alienor was chilled to the bone. She and her entourage were slogging their way through the mud towards the royal palace at Sarum on its lofty hill overlooking the windswept Wiltshire Downs. The vista was grey and forbidding with needles of rain stabbing into their faces, forcing them to squint at the rutted path through half-closed eyes.

Alienor’s most recent offspring, two-month-old Geoffrey, travelled in a packhorse pannier that was cosily stuffed with blankets and fleeces. Cheeks as rosy as apples, he gazed round with interest, his little face sheltered by an overhanging section of waxed canvas. This third son to secure the succession was named for his paternal grandfather, Geoffrey le Bel, Count of Anjou. He was a quiet baby and although he had only been in the world since September, Alienor had already decided he was going to be a watchful child, a thinker and considerer.

Messengers had reached her from Normandy with news that Henry’s business in France was proving satisfactory. He and Louis had agreed a formal betrothal between Harry and the infant Princess Marguerite. Louis would yield the territory of the Vexin together with three strategic fortresses on the day that the young couple married, and in the meantime those castles were to be held in trust by the Templars.

Thinking on the matter as she rode, Alienor screwed up her face against more than just the rain. Louis had insisted as part of the terms that she was not to have any part in Marguerite’s upbringing, and had stipulated the child must be raised elsewhere. Alienor wondered what pernicious influence Louis believed she was going to exert on the girl should she be left in her hands. Teach her that men were perfidious liars who would betray you at the drop of a wimple pin? Henry had agreed to the terms without protest, but Alienor was not surprised. No matter. She had Harry, Richard, and now Geoffrey to raise, and for the moment they were hers to influence. If she did her job well, then the ties would remain strong. When Harry and Marguerite did marry, Louis would be unable to keep her from the girl, and she could exert her influence as a mother-in-law.