This Sun of York

by Susan Appleyard

  “My lord of Normandy,” she said warmly.

  He was of an age when his blood quickened at the slightest provocation, and Eleanor’s smile was the cause of some testicular distress. With a flick of a slender wrist, she sent her women skipping away. Not far away. He could hear them giggling, probably watching as he went down on one knee. This was a role he was unaccustomed to, and he wasn’t sure how to begin or how to proceed. After kissing her scented hand – de rigueur he was quite sure – he did what came naturally by plunging right to the heart of the matter.

  “Everywhere I hear talk of divorce. You must tell me if it’s true.”

  Henry knew he lacked the striking good looks of his father, the polished manners and elegant speech of her other admirers. Even his dress sense left something to be desired and his voice, he had been told, sounded like gravel sliding downhill. What men found admirable in him was his energy, his ambition, his confidence, his clear-sighted way of assessing a situation. Women liked his raw sexuality, even the edge of roughness they sensed in him. And although his dealings with women had generally been confined to request, acceptance, a quick thrust and no emotional entanglements, he was quite sure he could persuade this beautiful queen that she could find no better match than himself – once he had brought her to admit that a divorce was pending.

  “If we were able to speak freely of such matters, my lord,” she said reprovingly, “I should feel compelled to point out that having been a queen, to become a duchess would require that I descend a significant degree in dignity.”

  “That is no impediment. I will have England one day. I will be able to offer you a crown and a kingdom vaster by far than Louis’s. England, Normandy, Anjou and Maine, add Aquitaine, and we shall rule an empire. You deserve nothing less and only I can give it to you.”

  “Your mother, whom I honour, has been trying to wrest England from Stephen’s grasp for nigh on two decades without success. When he goes to his Maker, his son will succeed him.”

  “Stephen is a usurper and a poor king,” he said fiercely. “His reign has been a disaster because he is weak and vacillating and his barons flout him. The only thing that kept my mother from the throne was her gender. I have the right gender, and I will be king.”

  This was not just wishful thinking, not just a vigorous hope on Henry’s part, but a certainty. It was an idea that lodged in his mind at quite a young age and, in spite of reverses and losses, it took firm root. Nothing could dislodge it now; nothing could shake it. He knew without a shade of doubt that he was made to fit into this place in history.

  “You are very sure of yourself for one so young,” Eleanor said in the soft, breathy whisper of a lover. Her eyes sparkled even more brightly. Her breath quickened.

  Henry leapt to his feet and sat beside her on the carved stone bench. His eyes, intense as a touch, moved over her luscious curves beneath the clinging silk gown. He was smitten, as much by her voluptuous body and fair face as her wide and sunny acres, her rich towns and markets, her mighty towers and fast-flowing waters. Or… perhaps not quite as much.

  “Stephen is a poor king because he wants people to like him. I do not care if I’m liked, only that I am obeyed. I will do what I must.”

  “I believe you will.”

  “With you by my side, I can achieve anything.”

  Eleanor demurely lowered her eyes. “But we may not speak of such things yet.”

  He jumped angrily to his feet. “Louis is not the man for you!”

  For Louis, he had nothing but contempt, fueled by his being forced to cede the Vexin to a man he knew was his inferior in every way that mattered. Louis was in his prime, in good health and wielding kingly power. He had the most beautiful woman in France, if not the world, by his side and in his bed whenever he wanted her. Yet he had no son to succeed him, and where did he expect to get a son? On his knees, begging God and the Saints to provide one? Meanwhile, his beautiful wife, the mother of his two daughters, was forlorn and neglected.

  What Louis needed, what Louis would be content with, was a bovine-faced drab with empty dugs and plenty of piety and a preference for swiving in the dark – if swive they must – draped in yards of linen from neck to toe. He, Henry, deserved this incomparable woman.

  His lips curved in a suggestive smile. “I intend to have you, and I give you warning, you will not be neglected.”

  “You do have a novel way of wooing, my lord.” They smiled at one another like long time lovers who knew each other’s thoughts without need of words.

  He rose to go. Taking her hand, he bestowed a chaste kiss on it. After taking two steps away, he turned back as if he had just thought of something. “One more thing.” Taking her face between his two calloused hands, he covered her mouth with his own. Eleanor was startled, then overcome. He ravished her mouth. He plundered it with his tongue as if to extort every drop of sweetness it contained.

  “Do you think,” she murmured when he released her, “that I am of such shameless disposition as to be swayed by a kiss?”

  “Can’t hurt,” he said and swaggered away.