Richard looked around to make sure the other customers had gone back to their drinking and gambling. “He wants Maman to agree to an annulment and then retire to Fontevrault Abbey-as its abbess.”
“As bribes go, that is not a bad one,” Geoffrey allowed, and Hal grinned, saying that was his thinking, too.
Richard glared at his brothers. “She does not want to enter a nunnery!”
Hal shrugged. “Is she sure of that? It is a generous offer, would give her far more influence than she is enjoying these days. Maman could make of it what she wanted. We’re not talking about life as a recluse or an anchoress, for pity’s sake. She’d be abbess of Fontevrault, and there are queens who might well envy that.”
“Is your hearing faulty? I said she does not want to do it, Hal!”
Hal returned Richard’s scowl in full measure, and Geoffrey could see another of their squabbles brewing. Before Hal could respond, he said sharply, “Enough!”
They looked at him in surprise, and he glanced over his shoulder to see if they’d attracted attention. “As usual, Hal, you see only what is right in front of your nose. As for you, Richard, even when you’re right, you’re right for all the wrong reasons. Neither one of you has fully considered the consequences of this annulment.”
Temporarily united in their irritation with Geoffrey, they launched a joint attack, Hal insisting that he understood the situation quite well and Richard wanting to know what he meant by the “wrong reasons.”
“Keep your voices down,” Geoffrey warned. “Tell me this. How old is Papa?”
“I do not know,” Richard said snappishly. “Forty-two?”
“No, forty-three,” Hal corrected, remembering Chinon and his father’s March birthday. “What of it?”
“To us, that seems as old as God. But it is not. He could easily wed again and have sons with his new queen. Think about that for a moment.”
Hal was already shaking his head. “He would never disinherit me!”
Richard did not look so sure. “You truly think we could be put at risk, Geoff?”
“I do not know,” Geoffrey admitted. “But I am not willing to take that chance. Are you? Look how he has begun to dote upon Johnny, even giving him the earldom of his uncle Rainald. I am just saying that if he had a few more sons, we could become superfluous. At the very least, it would give him a formidable club to hold over our heads. Now if you both have utter faith in his good will, there is no cause for concern. So…do you?”
Neither Hal nor Richard answered him, but words were not needed. They regarded one another in silence, in a rare moment of mutual understanding and total accord.
Henry glanced toward his scribe. “Are you ready, Simon? Write as follows:
“To William, by the Grace of God, the illustrious King of Sicily, the Duke of Apulia, and the Prince of Capua, Henry, by the same grace, King of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and Count of Anjou, greetings and the enjoyment of health. Inasmuch as we expect that-”
He got no further, for it was then that his sons sought admittance to his bedchamber. Henry immediately gave them permission to enter and dismissed his scribe, telling him they’d resume on the morrow. When they asked if they could speak with him alone, he readily agreed, surprised to see them together, for he was unhappily aware that they rarely sought out one another’s company.
As soon as the other men had exited the chamber, Henry bade his sons help themselves to the flagon of night wine on a side table, saying with a smile, “It is good that you are all here, for I have plans to share with you. Richard, you requested further aid in subduing the Poitevin rebels, and you wanted the same for Brittany, Geoffrey. Your requests are granted. You will be provided with the funds that you need ere you depart Winchester.” His gaze shifted then to his eldest son. “I know you have been restless of late, Hal. I daresay that was behind your sudden desire to go on pilgrimage. So I am sending you back to Poitou with Richard, to assist him in restoring peace in that troublesome land.”
Hal was very pleased, Richard less so, for he’d wanted men and money, not to be saddled with his brother. He joined Hal in expressing his gratitude, though, thinking that Hal would soon lose interest in the drudgery and tedium of a siege and go off in pursuit of pleasure. Hal was reconsidering the timing of their mission, not wanting to jeopardize his new command, and as soon as Henry’s back was turned, he mouthed a message to his brothers that they ought to delay discussing Fontevrault.
Richard and Geoffrey would have none of that, though, neither one trusting Hal to remain resolute if their father’s inducements were sweetened enough. “We have come to talk with you about our mother and your intent to make her abbess of Fontevrault,” Richard said, so abruptly that his brothers both winced. “It is only fair that I tell you at the outset that I am adamantly opposed to this scheme.”
Henry had been about to pour wine. At that, he swung about with a frown. Before he could speak, Geoffrey hastily interceded. “Actually, it is a sound plan, fair to both you and Maman, and if she were willing, I’d gladly support it. Alas, she is not, as you know. And since it concerns her most directly, we have to be guided by her wishes in this.”
Henry studied his younger sons, and then looked toward Hal. “What of you, Hal? Do your brothers speak for you, too?”
Hal bridled. “I can speak for myself. But I happen to agree with them.”
“Do you? Passing strange, for you seemed much more receptive to the idea when we discussed it last night.”
“Yes, that is true. But once I had a chance to think about it, I changed my mind.” Hal smiled snidely. “The way you changed your mind about the forest laws.”
Henry was quiet for so long that his sons began to shift uneasily. “I understand,” he said at last, “and I will give your opinions the consideration they merit.”
Eleanor was holding up a mirror while Amaria brushed her hair. Even in the candlelight, she could see the sprinkling of silver, and she grimaced, remembering how she’d once taken her beauty for granted, not realizing what a potent weapon it had been until it was slipping from her grasp. “Should I bother to hide the grey?” she wondered aloud, and Amaria at once volunteered to go into Winchester to purchase the needed ingredients.
“I cannot count all the sermons I’ve heard priests give over the years,” Amaria said with a grin, “railing at female vanity and the sinful use of dyes and face paints. But women will always do whatever they can to hold the years at bay and to make themselves look attractive to men.”
“Why go to all that trouble, though?” Eleanor mused. “After all, none but you can see the grey. It is not as if my husband is going to be demanding his conjugal rights any time soon, and I cannot say that I have plans to take a lover.”
Amaria chuckled. “Women rarely plan to take a lover. It just happens.”
“Not for queens. The one essential for love affairs is privacy, and royal palaces have even less privacy than nunneries.”
Amaria had heard, of course, of the scandalous stories of the queen’s youth, and would have loved to know the truth of them. She would not have blamed Eleanor for cuckolding the French king, thinking that he deserved horns if any husband did. Outspoken though she might be, she was not foolhardy, and that was not a question she’d have dared to ask. Instead, she decided to broach a subject that had been causing her some unease of mind.
“Madame…you do not think the king would truly force you into taking holy vows, do you?”
“He might if he thought he could get away with it,” Eleanor said, sounding much too nonchalant for Amaria’s liking. “But whatever Harry’s failings, slowness of wit is not amongst them. He knows his grand scheme would work only if I agree to cooperate.” Glancing over her shoulder at Amaria, she smiled coolly. “I am not as quick to gamble as I once was, though, so I told Richard to appeal to the Archbishop of Rouen on my behalf.”
Amaria sighed with relief. “I am so glad to hear that,” she admitted, and then spun around with a gasp as
the door banged open. She backed away hastily as Henry stormed into the chamber. He was in such an obvious rage that her first instinct was to flee, but she was reluctant to leave Eleanor alone with him for that very reason, and so she stealthily retreated into the shadows, trying to make herself as inconspicuous as possible.
She need not have bothered; Henry never even noticed her, so focused was he upon the object of his anger-his infuriating, conniving wife. Setting down the mirror, she regarded him with provocative calm, saying, “Do come in, my lord husband,” as if he were the one in the wrong.
“I thought you’d like to know that your latest scheme was highly successful. Your sons gallantly rode to your rescue tonight, proclaiming themselves your champions. It is a wonder you did not give them tokens of your favor to flaunt, so that all would know they were your knights.”
“However little you like it, Harry, they are my sons. Is it truly so surprising that they are protective of me?”
“What did you tell them precisely? That I was going to load you down with chains and haul you off to a nunnery in the dead of night?”
“As a matter of fact, I did not mention your threat.”
“You expect me to believe that? As if you’d pass up any chance to portray me as the knave and you as the innocent, sacrificial lamb, the damsel in distress!”
“I did not tell them because I did not take your threat seriously. I know how you rave and rant when you lose your temper. I also know that once you cool down, you rarely if ever carry these threats out, so I saw no reason to share them with our sons, not unless you forced me to it. More strife is the last thing our family needs.”
“St Eleanor of Aquitaine,” he mocked, “so wise and forbearing. It is rather difficult, though, to reconcile that angelic image with the woman who urged my sons to rebel against me!”
“That was a mistake.”
He stared at her in disbelief. “A mistake? You destroyed our family and you call it a ‘mistake’?”
“Yes, damn you, a mistake! Are you going to tell me that you’ve never made a mistake, Harry?”
“No,” he growled, “I made a great one on May 18 in God’s Year 1152.” And with that, he turned and stalked out, slamming the door resoundingly behind him.
Amaria leaned weakly against the wall for a moment. To her surprise, the queen did not seem as distraught as she ought to have been after such a blazing row. Deciding, though, that they both needed wine, she went over without being asked and poured two cups.
Bringing one back to Eleanor, she made an attempt to sound blase as she said, “May I ask what happened on May 18 in 1152, my lady?”
“Harry and I were wed in Poitiers.” Eleanor took a swallow of the wine before saying, “Usually he could never remember our anniversary.”
Amaria did not know what to say, so she busied herself hunting in the floor rushes for the brush, which she’d dropped when Henry barged into the chamber. Eleanor drank in silence, seemingly lost in her own thoughts. When their eyes met, though, she smiled, a smile that somehow managed to be wry and rueful and bleak, all at the same time.
“Harry and I have more in common than quick tempers,” she said. “We rarely make mistakes, but when we do, they tend to be spectacular.”
Amaria could not argue with that, not when she considered the consequences of those mistakes. The queen’s rebellion had cost her dearly, might mean imprisonment for the rest of her days. The king’s rash, angry words had resulted in a martyr’s death upon the floor of Canterbury cathedral. She could only hope that the king’s decision to crown his son would not prove to be a mistake of the same magnitude, for all their sakes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
July 1176
Poitiers, Poitou
The Bishop’s clerks smiled at the sight of the two men walking in the gardens, for they were a study in contrasts. John aux Bellesmains,
Bishop of Poitiers, was a tall, willowy, and elegant figure, towering over the diminutive John of Salisbury. Their history went back more than twenty years, begun in those distant days when they and Thomas Becket had been clerks together in the household of Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury. John aux Bellesmains had been elevated to his bishopric at the same time as Thomas, and now John of Salisbury would have his own See, too, having been elected by the chapter of Chartres on July 22. He was on his way to Sens for consecration, but he’d detoured to Poitiers to see his old friend, and on this muggy afternoon in late July, they were making up for lost time, sharing confidences both personal and political as the sun rose higher in the sky and the city sweltered under the summer heat.
Once they’d seated themselves in the shade and accepted wine and fruit from the bishop’s attentive servants, John of Salisbury raised his cup in a mock salute. “To your military exploits, my lord bishop. You are a man of many talents, for certes. You did remember to use a mace, though, and not a sword?”
Salisbury was indulging in some canonical humor, for warlike bishops had been known to carry a mace into battle as a means of avoiding the stricture against priests shedding blood, on the dubious grounds that Scriptures said nothing against battering an enemy’s brains into mush. His companion smiled, somewhat sheepishly, for he’d never expected to garner military acclaim. “Actually,” he said, “all I did was raise the local levy, providing the men for the defense of Poitou when the rebels sought to take advantage of Count Richard’s absence in England. I did not take the field against them, so credit for the victory at Barbezieux must go to Richard’s second-in-command, Theobald Chabot.”
“I know,” Salisbury admitted with a grin. “I could not resist teasing you, old friend. How goes the rebellion? I’d heard that the king sent Richard and his brother Hal back to Poitou with enough gold to hire half the routiers in Hell.”
“Richard has been very successful since his return; he’s clearly inherited his father’s flair for command. After winning a battle near Bouteville, he took the Viscount of Limoges’s castle at Aixe, then the city of Limoges itself. He is currently laying siege to Angouleme, where the Counts of Angouleme and the Viscounts of Ventador, Limoges, and Chabenais have taken shelter. When the castle falls, he’ll have captured all of the main rebels in one fell swoop. Not bad for a lad not yet nineteen.”
Salisbury was not acquainted with Richard. He did know Hal, though, from his days in Becket’s household, and asked now, “And Hal? Surely he deserves some of the praise, too.”
Bishop John smiled thinly. “I’d not suggest that in Richard’s hearing. Hal went off to Paris to visit his father-in-law, did not even make an appearance in Poitou until midsummer. He finally joined Richard in besieging the castle at Chateauneuf-sur-Charente, but once the castle was taken, he lost interest. He’s been holding court here in Poitiers for the past fortnight.”
Salisbury knew his friend well enough to catch the unspoken echoes of disapprobation. Since the bishop would hardly fault Hal for not displaying enough warlike fervor or bloodlust, he assumed there was more involved than Hal’s lack of enthusiasm for siege warfare. “I’ve not seen Hal since last year, when he and the king made a pilgrimage to Canterbury. Thomas was always fond of the lad. It hurt him when Hal refused to see him in those last weeks of his life. What has he been doing in Poitiers to incur your disapproval?”
“What he does best,” Bishop John said dryly, “which is charming every man, woman, and child who happen to cross his path. The Poitevin barons not in actual rebellion have been drawn to Poitiers like dogs to vomit. They have been fawning over Hal as if he were the blessed Archangel Michael, telling him how much they wish he were their liege lord rather than Richard.”
Salisbury’s jaw dropped. “Are you saying Hal is seeking to subvert his brother’s vassals?”
“He’d insist he has no such intention, but he does nothing to discourage such seditious talk. I cannot tell if he truly wants to undermine Richard’s authority in Poitou, or if he merely enjoys hearing his brother belittled. Either way, it does not bode well for the futur
e.”
“No, it does not,” Salisbury agreed, and then sought to lighten the conversation by sharing the latest gossip from England. The Bishop of St David’s had died that past May, and there were rumors that the malcontent Earl of Norfolk had died in the Holy Land, where he’d gone to expiate his many sins. The Almighty truly worked in mysterious ways, he observed, for few men deserved such a sanctified death less than Hugh Bigod, but then he made John laugh by saying cheerfully that at least the miscreant earl’s stay in Purgatory would surely last an aeon or two.
“My lord bishop.” One of John’s servants was coming up the garden walkway. “The queen has just arrived, Your Grace, and asks to see you straightaway.”
“By all means. Have her join us here in the gardens, Milo, and see that refreshments are brought out.” As the man retreated, Bishop John glanced toward Salisbury with a smile. “I wonder if a time will ever come when we hear the words ‘the queen’ and do not think of Eleanor.”
Salisbury knew Eleanor, too, although not as well as Poitiers’s bishop. “Not in our lifetimes,” he predicted, watching with alert interest the young woman just entering the gardens.
Noting that Marguerite’s attendants had lagged behind, the two men exchanged thoughtful looks, for that indicated her visit was not a routine social call. “Madame, this is an unexpected pleasure,” Bishop John said, hastening to meet her. “May I introduce an old friend, John, the Bishop-elect of Chartres.”
Marguerite’s eyes flicked uneasily to Salisbury’s cherubic face, then back to Bishop John. “Your Grace, I have an urgent matter to discuss. May I rely upon your utter discretion, and that of your friend?”
“Of course. Whatever you tell us will be kept as secret as anything we’d hear in the confessional.”
Marguerite let them seat her upon a wooden bench. “Do you know Adam de Churchedune, my husband’s vice-chancellor?”
The bishop nodded. “I believe he was a clerk to the prior of Beverley ere joining the young king’s household. What of him, my lady?”
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