had ever seen. “Come over here, darling,” he said before she could speak. “Sit with us in the window seat.”
Rhiannon had meant merely to make a brief appearance, for courtesy’s sake. But Hywel would not be denied. He and Ranulf ushered her across the hall, as solicitously as if she were a queen, taking her wet mantle and finding cushions for her, offering their own cups of mead. Hywel then called for Ranulf’s uncle to fetch his harp. Beaming with delight, Rhodri did.
The hall quieted as soon as the others realized Hywel was going to perform. But Hywel paid the audience no mind. Drawing a stool up, he began to strum the harp, a haunting, plaintive melody that would linger in the memory long after the music ended. “A love poem for the Lady Rhiannon,” he said softly.
I love a rounded fortress, strongly built;
A lovely girl there will not let me sleep.
A bold, determined man will reach the place.
The wild wave breaks there loudly at its side.
My fair, accomplished lady’s lovely home.
It rises bright and shining from the sea.
And she shines all the year upon the house.
One year in furthest Arfon, under Snowdon!
He wins no mantle who looks not at silk.
I will love no one more than I love her.
If she would grant her favor for my verse,
Then I should be beside her every night.
When the song died away, the hall erupted into applause. But for Hywel and Ranulf, the only reaction that mattered was Rhiannon’s, and she was smiling through tears.
In September, Henry met with the French king at the papal court in exile of Pope Alexander III, who’d been driven out of Rome by the Holy Roman Emperor and forced to take refuge at Montpellier in France. The meeting was civil, but the wounds left by the Toulouse war were slow healing. After that, Henry moved south to the great abbey of Deols, and then joined Eleanor at Chinon Castle.
As soon as Eleanor entered the great hall, she knew something unusual had happened. People were clustered together, voices raised. The first person she recognized was her husband’s half-brother. Hamelin was one of Geoffrey of Anjou’s bastards, acknowledged and well educated by the count until his untimely death, and then taken care of afterward by Henry. Hamelin was now in his early twenties and bore a remarkable resemblance to his other half-brother, Will. He did not have Will’s equable temperament, though, was far more excitable and impulsive. Eleanor liked him, for if he was quick to fire up, he was also quick to forgive, and his joyful zest for life usually made him good company. But at the moment, his cheerful, freckled countenance was clouded, and when Eleanor drew him aside, he could barely contain his indignation.
“What has happened, Hamelin?”
“You see that Augustinian canon over there? He was sent by Thomas Becket to return the king’s great seal!”
Eleanor was taken aback. “Are you saying that Becket has resigned the chancellorship?”
“Yes, my lady, he did. No letter, either, just the great seal. And when the king demanded to know why, his messenger said only that he felt scarcely equal to the cares of one great office, much less two.” Hamelin’s devotion to Henry was absolute, and he shook his head angrily. “Can you believe such ingratitude, Madame?”
“Yes,” Eleanor said tersely. “Where is Harry now?” When Hamelin shrugged and shook his head again, she went swiftly in search of her husband. The hunt proved harder than she’d expected. Kings were rarely able to escape the constant surveillance of the curious, but no one seemed to have seen Henry. It was only by chance that she happened to glance upward, saw him standing alone on the castle battlements.
Gusting winds sent her skirts whipping about her ankles, billowing out her mantle behind her. She stayed close to the parapet wall; although she would never admit it, she had a dislike of heights. The sun was redder than blood, haloed by flaming clouds as it blazed a path toward the distant horizon. Normally such a splendid sunset would have caught Eleanor’s eye, but now she never even noticed. “Harry?”
He half-turned, glancing toward her and then away. The view was breathtaking. Far below, the blue slate roofs and church spires of the town were still visible in the day’s waning light, and the river shone like polished brass as it flowed west to join with the Loire. Eleanor knew, though, that her husband was blind to the valley’s beauty. The hot color had yet to fade from his face, still scorching the skin above his cheekbones, and the hand resting on the merlon wall had clenched into a fist.
“Hamelin told me that Becket has resigned the chancellorship.”
He nodded, almost imperceptibly.
She hesitated, for in his present raw mood, whatever she said was likely to be taken wrong. But when she touched his arm, compelling him to meet her eyes, she saw in his face as much hurt as anger, and she found herself doing something she’d never have envisioned: making excuses for Thomas Becket. “What he said may well be true, Harry. He may feel overwhelmed by the obligations and duties of his office. It must be daunting to know that all are looking to him for spiritual guidance, for he was thrust into this role, not bred for it. If men find it hard at first to move from the plains up into the mountains, mayhap he needs time to adjust to the rarefied air on the heights of Canterbury.”
Henry frowned, but found her words were not so easy to dismiss. “I suppose there could be something in what you say,” he conceded grudgingly. “Thomas has always had to be the best at whatever he does, satisfied by nothing less than perfection. Mayhap he truly does fear that he could not do justice to the chancellorship and the archbishopric, too.”
Sliding his arm around her waist, he drew her in against him, and they watched together as the sun disappeared behind the trees. After some moments of silence, he said, “I still do not understand why Thomas did not tell me what he meant to do.”
And for that question, Eleanor had no convincing answer.
CHAPTER TWELVE
May 1163
Rouen, Normandy
Maude signaled to her servants to bring in the next course. Her cooks had been laboring since dawn, for she wanted this dinner to be an exceptionally fine one. Her guests were deserving of only the best, for they were family: her brother Ranulf, his wife and children, her son Will, and her niece and namesake, Maud, Countess of Chester.
The meal was an obvious success; they were eating the stuffed goose with gusto. Maude had not met Ranulf’s wife before, and had never understood why he’d chosen to wed a woman without sight. She’d occasionally wondered how Rhiannon coped with the challenges of daily living, but if her behavior at the dinner table was any indication, she managed surprisingly well. Of course it helped that it was customary for two guests to share a trencher; Rhiannon’s seat-mate was her husband, and he provided what assistance she needed with inconspicuous adroitness.
Watching as Rhiannon carefully laid a bone on the trencher’s edge, Maude smiled approvingly. Growing to womanhood at the imperial German court, she’d learned to place a high value upon etiquette and decorum, and she decided now that her Welsh sister-in-law’s manners were quite satisfactory. For certes, better than what passed for table manners in England, she thought disdainfully, remembering how often she’d seen bones thrown into the floor rushes, heard soup loudly slurped, seen meat dunked into the common saltcellar, the tablecloth used as a napkin. Maude had risked her life to reign over the English, but she had no love for the people of that island kingdom, and had not set foot on English soil since being forced into Norman exile, not even attending her beloved son’s coronation. She’d mellowed some in her sunset years, but she still had not learned to forgive.
