“Far be it from me to be a naysayer,” she said, “but if a brilliant battle commander like Richard cannot end their rebellions, how do you expect John to do so? You do not think he is rather young to be tossed into the lion’s den?”
“He’ll be seventeen in December,” he parried, “and I was ruling Normandy at that age. I understand that he’ll make mistakes, that he’ll need more experienced guidance, and I am willing to step in when needed.”
Yes, she thought grimly, I daresay you are. You’d turn John into a puppet prince, as you could not do with Richard. “I do have one concern,” she said. “What happens after Richard abdicates in John’s favor? What are you prepared to do for him, Harry? For the past eight years, he has governed Aquitaine. If you take that away, what do you give him in return? He’s not one to amuse himself on the tournament circuit like Hal. I would suggest that you turn Normandy or Anjou over to him. That would enable you to make use of his abilities and give him the purpose that he needs, for he’ll never be one to embrace an idle life of pleasure-no more than you would.”
“You make a valid point, Eleanor. I will give it some careful thought, for certes.”
I am sure you will, she jeered silently, knowing he’d never give up Normandy or Anjou to Richard. He could no more relinquish any of his power than he could fly. No, if he had his way, he’d keep Richard dancing attendance at his court, with no revenues or authority of his own. But this time you will not win, Harry. I will not let you unman Richard as you did Hal.
Richard departed the next day, ostensibly to consult with his barons. In the week that followed, Eleanor spent as much time as possible with Tilda and her grandchildren, for she did not know how Henry would react to their son’s defiance. While Richard was beyond his reprisal, she was not, and he might well send her back to England straightaway. She also sought out Geoffrey and John, determined to make the most of her relative freedom, but did her best to avoid her husband whenever possible, for the tentative rapprochement they’d reached in the past few years had gone up in smoke in the solar of Rouen’s ducal castle.
Amaria led a serving maid up the stairwell to the queen’s chamber. As she opened the door, she smiled at the sight before her. Eleanor and Tilda were playing a game of dice with John and Tilda’s young son Heinrich. They welcomed her boisterously when they saw that the serving maid carried a platter of cheese wafers and cups of cider. As Amaria passed them around, Heinrich boasted that “Uncle Johnny” had taught them a game called hazard.
“Hazard?” Amaria pretended to be shocked, to Heinrich’s delight. “But that is a game played in taverns and alehouses!”
“I know,” the boy grinned, “and we’ve been winning!”
“Indeed they have,” Eleanor agreed, with mock severity, pointing toward a pile of coins in the center of the table. “If I had a suspicious mind, I might wonder if some sleight of hand could be involved.”
Heinrich laughed and John smiled. “I seem to be on a winning streak these days,” he said cheerfully. “Are the Dukes of Aquitaine always lucky, my lady mother?”
Eleanor felt a pang of resentful regret that her husband had entangled John in his scheme. Her youngest was still very much a stranger to her; after these few days in his company, she could say only that he was clever and guarded and had inherited his share of the family’s sardonic humor. But she did know he’d been bedazzled by the prospect of gaining Aquitaine and he was in for a great disappointment.
They played another game of hazard, and John and Heinrich won again. They were still whooping and slapping hands when the door slammed open with enough force to startle them all. Henry came to an abrupt halt, for he’d been expecting to find Eleanor alone. Tilda and Heinrich welcomed him happily, but John flushed and jumped to his feet as if he’d been caught in a misdeed. Eleanor returned his gaze calmly and her sangfroid confirmed Henry’s suspicions.
After greeting them with strained affability, he explained that “I am sorry to interrupt your game, but I need to speak privately now with your mother and grandmother.” Eleanor made a playful grimace at “Grandmother,” to Heinrich’s amusement, and her nonchalance added more fuel to the flames of Henry’s rage. So she saw this as a joke, did she?
Heinrich was reluctant to end their fun, but Tilda had picked up on the tension in the chamber and she ushered her son out, with a troubled backward glance at her parents. John was already gone; he’d faded away as inconspicuously as that woodland fox. Amaria hesitated, not departing until Eleanor gave her a smile and a nod.
Eleanor helped herself, then, to more cider. “I take it you’ve heard from Richard?”
“Yes, I heard. He sent word that he will never relinquish Aquitaine, not as long as he draws breath. But you already knew that, did you not?”
“Of course.”
“I should have known this was your doing!”
“And how did I manage that? I am sure your spies told you that I was not alone with Richard from the time you sprang your ‘surprise’ until his departure the next morning. Did we communicate in code by thumping on the walls of our chambers? Smuggled secret messages to each other? Mayhap used Heinrich as our go-between?”
He was disconcerted by her defiance; it had been years since her claws had flashed like that. “If you did not plan this with Richard, how did you know he’d refuse?”
“How could you not know? By the Rood, Harry, how can you be so blind about your own sons?”
“I told you my reasons for wanting this. You seemed to think they made sense last week!”
“Yes, they made perfect political sense. But Richard’s love for Aquitaine is not political. It is visceral, in his blood and his bones. You might as well ask him to tear out his heart and give it over to you!”
“That is arrant nonsense! He’d still be liege lord of Aquitaine, would be losing nothing and gaining much. God’s Bones, woman, you are the blind one! Can you honestly say that you are pleased with his rule of the duchy? That you do not think he has antagonized his barons needlessly and spread the seeds of rebellion with his own hand?”
“I do not deny that he has made mistakes. But he is the Duke of Aquitaine, not an errant child. You cannot step in and slap his hand when you think he has blundered. For God’s sake, Harry, let him go! Your love for our sons is strangling them. Why can you not see that?”
“Why can you not see that I have to act for the good of our empire? I cannot just stand aside whilst our sons put my life’s work at risk. Aquitaine would be a constant thorn in Richard’s side, and turning it over to Johnny would benefit them both. A duchy is a small price to pay for a kingdom, and it troubles me greatly that Richard seems unable to understand that. If his judgment is so faulty-”
“Oh, enough!” Eleanor was on her feet, glaring at him across the table as if it were a battlefield. “You are such a hypocrite!”
His eyes darkened to a storm-sea grey. “And how is that?” he asked, his voice dangerously soft.
“You refuse to understand why Richard is unwilling to give up Aquitaine, but you are no less unwilling to surrender control of Normandy or Anjou. If you’d turned either one over to Hal, he’d never have rebelled. But you could not do that, could you?”
“Because I could not trust him to govern himself, much less a duchy!”
“I see. So you have it in mind to rule from the grave? Please, enlighten me-how exactly do you plan to do that?”
But Henry had heard nothing after her gibe about Hal. “So what are you saying?” he demanded hotly. “Are you blaming me for Hal’s death? You think I drove him to rebellion?”
She heard the anguish underlying his rage, and her own fury ebbed away, leaving her sickened and shaken by the wreckage they’d made of their marriage and their world. “No,” she said wearily, “of course I do not blame you for Hal’s death, Harry. I did my part, too, as did Geoffrey and Richard and Hal himself. Hal most of all, for he was a man grown, a man who made his own choices and, to his credit, recognized that at the end…”
Henry’s throat had constricted, for thoughts of Hal’s last hours were still more than he could bear. “He died alone,” he said huskily, “and it need not have been like that…”
“He was not alone, Harry. Will Marshal and his friends were with him-”
“But I was not!” He swung away, keeping his back to her as he fought to regain control of his emotions. “Hal wrote me a letter on his deathbed,” he said, after a heavy silence. “Would you like to read it?”
Eleanor blinked in surprise. “Yes, I would, very much.”
