The Winter Crown (37 page)

Isabel had come to attend her churching, her child having been born in late November. Having made a full and swift recovery from her own travail, she was journeying from Lewes to Castle Acre and had taken a long detour to visit Alienor.

‘I worry for you, for your health,’ Isabel said as they sat together after the obligatory banquet. Alienor was lying on her bed, her feet propped on an embroidered cushion.

Isabel’s baby son slept in his crib and she was gently jogging John in her arms. He was a fussy baby, but for Isabel he was being as good as gold.

‘I am better than I was,’ Alienor said, ‘but I have been so slow to recover. The midwives say I should not bear any more children – that I will die if I do.’

Isabel made a soft sound of concern.

Alienor gave her a tired smile. ‘Oh, I shall take their advice. We have four living sons and three daughters: let that be enough. I swore when I was in travail that I would not let my husband kill me this way or any other.’ She gave a cynical lift of her brow as she saw Isabel’s shock. ‘Bearing a child is every bit as much a battlefield as the ones by which men set so much store – so is marriage.’

Isabel stroked John’s cheek with her forefinger. ‘But it is glorious too,’ she said softly. ‘And sometimes there are miracles.’

Alienor suppressed the urge to call her a fool. Whether deluded or not, Isabel was plainly happy with her lot and besotted by her children and that husband of hers. She had wished the best for them and they had the best. If her own situation was a cup of poison, then she should drink from it herself and not expect Isabel to sip. ‘Yes,’ she said to humour Isabel. ‘Indeed, sometimes there are.’

A week later, the weather turned mild with pale blue skies and weak sunshine, harbingers of spring. Strong enough at last to sit a horse, Alienor decided to ride the four miles to Woodstock with Isabel and the three older children, leaving the others with their nurses. Richard was eager to be out in the fresh air, galloping his pony, waving his toy lance around, riding with the knights of Alienor’s escort as if he were one of them.

Alienor watched him with amused pride. She could clearly see the warrior knight in him, and the imperious future Count of Poitou and Duke of Aquitaine. These were currently dominated by the eager, spontaneous child, but time would change that. Geoffrey rode after him, trying to keep up, but each time he came anywhere near Richard, his brother struck out at him and pulled away.

‘It is a good thing they will all have their different spheres of influence,’ she said wryly to Isabel. ‘They are like young eaglets, all wanting to dominate the nest. Geoffrey will have Brittany, Richard Aquitaine, and Harry England and Normandy. And I know they will all look at what the other has got and feel resentful.’

‘What of John?’ Isabel asked. ‘What will there be for him?’

Alienor waved her hand. ‘The Church perhaps, or Ireland, or an heiress with lands and influence. For the moment it does not matter, save that he is another son to make the inheritance secure. That is how Henry will view him.’ Their last child. As everyone said, she could not sustain another pregnancy, nor did she desire to endure that ordeal ever again. A part of her was raw because it meant bidding farewell to an element of her femininity and her power to be the vessel that gave birth to the heirs. No mistress, no matter how exalted, could do that. She was losing precedence and prestige. That which had set her apart was now diminished.

‘What did Hamelin say when you bore a son?’ she asked Isabel.

Isabel laughed and turned pink. ‘The moment he heard, he ran into my confinement chamber and wanted to hold him! The midwives were horrified!’

Alienor was astonished. ‘I would never have thought that of him from the way he behaves at court!’

Isabel’s blush deepened, making her radiant. ‘There are courtier’s robes and there are the robes for every day,’ she said. ‘And then there are the moments without robes at all.’ She paused to guide her horse around a deep rut in the road. ‘He is a true and honest man, and I love him dearly.’

‘As he clearly loves you.’

‘I think so.’

‘I am glad for you,’ Alienor said. ‘Truly I am.’

Approaching Woodstock, they crossed the path of another party riding out in the fresh February air. Curly-coated retrieving dogs and narrow-flanked gazehounds loped beside the horses and a brace of hare hung from one huntsman’s saddle. A young woman rode in the middle of the party. Her head was covered by a wimple, but long braids of soft golden brown showed beneath its edge. Her cloak was of costly, blue wool and small silver bells tinkled in the braids on her horse’s mane.

‘Make your obeisance to Queen Alienor!’ shouted Saldebreuil de Sanzay and brandished his mace of office.

The hunting party pulled off the road, dismounted and bent the knee, although it took a moment to control the milling hounds. Alienor drew rein instead of riding on past. She knew most of the minor nobility in the area. They had come to pay their respects at her court at Christmas and then again at her churching. This young woman, barely out of girlhood, had not been present; yet she must dwell locally.

‘Tell me your name, child,’ she said.

‘Rosamund de Clifford, madam, daughter of Sir Walter de Clifford,’ the girl replied, a red flush burning her brow and cheeks.

Alienor stared, bitterness welling up inside her. So this was what Henry wanted? She did not blame him, but taking it and setting it on high like a cherished precious jewel was a different matter. ‘And where are you going, Rosamund de Clifford, daughter of Sir Walter?’ she asked. ‘And where have you been?’

The girl’s gaze was wary, a touch resentful. ‘I have come from the abbey at Godstow and I am returning there, madam,’ she said. ‘I … we…’ She gathered herself. ‘I rode out to enjoy the sunshine, and exercise the dogs.’

Alienor raised her brows. ‘Godstow,’ she said. ‘I take it by the state of your garb and present company you are not a nun or a novice.’

‘No, madam, I have a corrody there and so does my mother.’ The girl had weathered the initial shock and spoke in a steady, quiet voice.

Doubtless paid for by Henry. ‘Then you had better return there,’ Alienor said, ‘and fall on your knees and ask God’s forgiveness, for you are sore in need of it.’ She shook the reins and rode on, her posture upright, and did not look back.

Isabel joined her. ‘Dear God, Alienor…’

Alienor’s heart was taut with pain. ‘You told me she was young, but I had not realised. Small wonder there is gossip at court.’ She wanted to call the girl a slut and a whore, but she was nothing like the regular court prostitutes, and that made her dangerous. This was no practised concubine; this was a gently bred girl, fresh and sweet. Someone Henry could dominate and who would not argue with him. Bile rose in her throat and she struggled not to retch.

‘I am sorry; I do not know what to say,’ Isabel said, her expression filled with sympathy and disgust.

‘What is there to say?’ Alienor continued to stare straight ahead. ‘Henry has always liked younger women. They are easier to control and he can dictate the terms. When he married me, he hated that I was more astute than he was – that I knew more of the world and had a greater experience of life. He could put it to one side when we were both younger, but it is different now. I should not be surprised.’

‘What will you do?’

Alienor set her jaw. ‘Nothing. It is beneath my dignity as a queen to pay heed. I refuse to be undermined by this little girl just because she can lead my foolish husband by his ever-rampant member.’ She looked at the children, but they were all riding along without concern, so at least the scandal had not reached their ears yet; however, many of her entourage looked uncomfortable. In the adult world it was already common knowledge. She would armour herself in untouchable poise and self-possession. The more Henry lost his dignity, the more she would clothe herself in hers until nothing could touch her.

Alienor frowned as she pondered the direction from which Rosamund had come; there was only Woodstock nearby. She considered turning back, but something urged her on; she would know the worst.

At Woodstock’s gates, the porter told her that the hunting party had passed that way but not stopped or entered.

Alienor frowned. ‘Do you know where they were going?’

The kneeling porter stared at the ground as if he thought the mud was fascinating. ‘No, madam.’

Isabel said, ‘Hamelin told me Henry was building a house and garden beyond the palace – to make use of the water courses.’

Alienor compressed her lips. She urged her palfrey through the gates into the Woodstock complex, but rather than riding to the palace gleaming through the trees, she took the path into the park, bidding all but Isabel wait behind. When Richard protested she ordered him with brusque irritation to stay with his attendants and ignored his scowl. She had no time for male fits of pique.

The path wove through the woods, the horses squelching in patches of pliable mud and disintegrated leaf mulch. As yet no buds showed on bush or branch and the tree bark was still winter black. The trail was lightly churned up; horses had been through here, but the tracks and the droppings were several days old, which told Alienor that today’s group must have taken the long way round the perimeter of the complex.

They came to a wicker fence and a gate tied with a thin piece of rope. Isabel leaned down from her mount and unfastened the latter, giving access to an area of cleared woodland and signs of building activity, abandoned over winter but left ready for spring. Foundations for a hall were clearly marked out, and the felled area revealed just how ambitious the project was. Here were clear tracks and fresh dung, showing that horses had been here today, even if not at Woodstock.

Alienor gazed round with a set jaw. It was a muddy, bleak building site now, but in a couple of years it would be beautiful, a finely wrought setting for a favourite gem. ‘Bastard,’ she said, feeling contempt, hurt and bitter anger as she imagined Henry riding up through the trees from Woodstock to indulge in cosy liaisons with his mistress.

Isabel reached for her hand and squeezed it.

Alienor shook herself. ‘Well, now I know,’ she said. ‘I have seen all that I need. Come.’ She turned her palfrey and rode away from the place without looking round, but her awareness of its presence travelled back with her as a dark burden.

On their return to Beaumont Palace, she ordered every candle to be lit and she called for joyous music, for light-heartedness and dancing. She donned a gown of April-green silk trimmed with gold and she dressed her hair with a net of gems. Her smile was brilliant. She was witty, vivacious and scintillating. She danced, and flirted, and lit the room beyond the light of all the blazing candles, putting on a façade for others, and herself, until that façade became the reality.

Isabel watched with compassionate anxiety that she dared not show as Alienor burned herself out. When at last she stumbled in the middle of a dance, Isabel caught her and summoned her ladies. Together, the women helped Alienor to her chamber, undressed her and put her to bed. Marchisa brought her a tisane, and Isabel sat with Alienor, combing out her hair and gently rebraiding it to make it comfortable for sleep.

Alienor roused herself to drink the tisane, but only a flicker of vitality remained after the energy expended. ‘I had to do it,’ she said, her voice as thin as mist. ‘To remind myself of who I was, and who I am … whatever happens.’

‘Indeed, but you did not need to do it all at once.’ Isabel stroked her hair. ‘You are not yet fully recovered from childbirth; you must ration your strength.’

Alienor gave her a shadowed smile. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but tonight I had to know I was still alive.’

‘Even if you kill yourself in the act?’

‘There are worse ways to die, but do not worry. I survived bearing John, and I shall not give up now. My children need me, Aquitaine needs me, and most of all I shall not give Henry the satisfaction.’ Her lids drooped and the tisane cup trembled in her hand. Isabel took it from her and set it on the coffer. She removed her own gown and headdress and, clad in her shift, climbed into bed with Alienor and took her in her arms.

Alienor clung to her, rigors shaking her body but there were no tears. Isabel shushed and soothed her, and eventually Alienor slept, and it was Isabel who silently wept for her friend.

On a perfect September morning, the deep woad-blue of the sky was reflected in a sea bumped and hollowed by a gentle swell. Occasional clouds, fluffy as clean white fleece, were herded across the sky at the pace of peacefully grazing sheep by a westerly breeze.

A beautiful day; a farewell day. In the harbour beyond the castle walls, a small fleet of ships rocked at their moorings while the crew and labourers finished stowing the chests, barrels and sacks that eleven-year-old Matilda was taking to her new life in Germany as the betrothed and eventual wife of Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony.

For more than two years Alienor had known this day was coming, but having the time to prepare made no difference when it came to the parting. She was clenched inside, holding everything in. She did not know how she was going to bear this moment; she could not imagine her life without Matilda by her side. Her daughter was a companion and a helpmate, someone to talk to and share her days. Someone who understood. To lose all that was like having the umbilical cord severed all over again.

Henry had made no effort to see his daughter before their parting, although he had written a letter bidding her be a good and dutiful wife and obey her tutors. She was to remember she was the daughter of a king and uphold that truth in all she said and did. He was proud of her and he would pray for her wellbeing daily. He had sent her a casket of jewels for her personal use. Alienor could not fault him for the gift; yet she doubted he had chosen them himself, and she could not let go of her bitterness and disillusionment towards him. Whatever Henry did now would be like scratches on once clear glass.

Matilda had been chucking her baby brother John under his chin and kissing him farewell in his nurse’s arms, but at Alienor’s summons, she joined her, and they walked down to the ships with Geoffrey and Richard, Alie and little Joanna. They all boarded the galley on which Matilda was to sail. Richard immediately set off exploring the vessel, tugging the halyards, running his fingers along the wash strake, ducking inside the canvas deck shelter to inspect it. The strengthening breeze carried a fishy tang of sea and shoreline. Gulls wheeled and screamed above their heads, and the vessels rocked on the rising tide.