by the local villagers.”
Eleanor knew he was probably right. Any peasant spotting a belled hawk with leather jesses would know at once that it was a lord’s bird and worth a goodly reward. But she could not shake off her chagrin, for she never willingly relinquished something that was hers.
With an effort, she brought her attention back to the conversation. Viscount Aimar was telling them what he’d just learned from King Sancho: that the Saracens were as avid hunters as Christians, and even though they were infidels, they’d come up with a most intriguing means of controlling their hawks-by covering their heads with leather hoods until they were ready to be set upon their prey. Eleanor was no less interested in this new method than Aimar, and made a mental note to mention it to Henry, whose passion for hawking bordered on obsession. Aimar’s servants had begun to unload the wagons, setting up trestle tables and unpacking stools so the hunting party could take refreshments in comfort, and Eleanor did her best to dismiss her wayward falcon, holding out her hand so the viscount could help her dismount.
Rainald assisted his daughter from her mare, and then hastened over to do the same for his niece, wanting to know if Maud would be journeying with him, Ranulf, and Rhiannon when they returned to England. To his surprise, she refused, and with his usual tactlessness, he blurted out, “Why? You’ve been here for months. Are you not ready to go home yet?”
“The queen has kindly extended an invitation to remain at her court, Uncle, and I was glad to accept. Why not? I am a widow with grown children, and Bertrada is old enough now to act as Hugh’s lady, does not need a mother-in-law to dog her steps. Besides,” Maud added, with a grin that belied her years and any claims to matronly dignity, “what fool would prefer Chester to Poitiers?”
Rainald still looked baffled, but Maud and Eleanor traded smiles, both well content with the role that the Countess of Chester had chosen to play: a surrogate sister for the queen who still grieved for her blood sister. Viscount Aimar was hovering close by, waiting to escort her to the table, and Eleanor was turning toward him when her uncle stepped between them, murmuring a deferential “A moment, if I may, my lady.”
Eleanor allowed Raoul to draw her aside, and as soon as they were out of the viscount’s hearing, he said, “Harry and Hal are likely to be arriving any day now, and we may not have many opportunities for private conversation. Do you think this time together has served to mend the rift between them?”
“No, I do not.”
“A pity,” Raoul said, because convention seemed to demand it; a father’s estrangement from his son would be considered tragic by most people. For him, it would be a blessing, a God-given chance that might never come again. His loathing for his niece’s Angevin husband was not personal. He’d not liked her French husband either. He wanted Aquitaine to be ruled by their own, wanted no more foreigners over them.
Eleanor was regarding him with a sardonic half smile. “You really ought to get Harry to teach you how to mask your thoughts, Uncle. If you were any more eager to see the breach widen between them, you’d be panting like yonder greyhounds.”
He shrugged. “I’ve never lied to you, lass. You know what I want and why I want it.”
She was the first to look away. “I just wish,” she said, so softly he barely heard her, “that you were not quite so happy watching the death throes of my marriage.”
It was then that the bearers shouted and a grey heron broke cover near the river, powerful wings taking it up into the sky over their heads. Most of the hunting party had already relinquished their falcons and were moving toward the tables. But Richard’s bird of prey still perched upon his leather glove. His reaction was instantaneous and his gyrfalcon exploded into the air with breathtaking speed. Like the peregrine, it rose rapidly, and then it was plunging earthward, its sleek white body blurring into a streak of light as it caught up with its quarry. They collided in midair and then plummeted to the ground, out of sight in the marsh grass.
“Release the dogs!” Richard yelled, but the greyhounds were already in motion, racing to subdue the heron before it could escape from the much smaller gyrfalcon. Richard had slid from his saddle and was running toward the death-struggle. When he and the bearers finally emerged from the reeds, he had the bloody heart of the heron in one hand and his beautiful, lethal hawk in the other. Eleanor had never seen him so excited, and she felt a surge of fierce pride as he headed straight for her, eager to share his triumph.
“Did you see her stoop, Maman? That was so fine a kill, well-nigh perfect!”
“Indeed it was, dearest,” she agreed, her own disappointment dispelled by Richard’s jubilation. Others were gathering around them, and Richard basked in the attention, feeding the heart to the gyrfalcon as he accepted their plaudits, whistling for the greyhounds so they could get their well-earned praise, too. Only Geoffrey stood apart, watching with an expression surprisingly jaundiced for a youngster of fourteen.
The men were as willing as Eleanor to prolong the moment, remembering the pride of their first kills. It was only with the arrival of a messenger for the Viscount of Limoges that they began to disperse, turning toward the tables now laid out with wine and food. Eleanor stayed where she was, though, flanked by her uncle and her son, for the expression on Aimar’s face was not that of a man who’d just received welcome news. After conferring briefly with the messenger, he moved hastily in her direction.
“Madame, I’ve just gotten word that King Henry has ridden into Limoges.”
That was no surprise, for Henry had sent word that he would reach Aimar’s city within a day or two of the start of Lent and this was Shrove Tuesday. Eleanor inclined her head, waiting for him to reveal what had disquieted him about her husband’s arrival.
“Your son the young king is with him, of course, as are the King of Aragon, the Count of Maurienne, and his daughter.” Aimar paused, obviously unhappy with what he would say next. “He is accompanied, as well, by the Count of Toulouse.”
No one spoke. Eleanor could see her suspicions mirrored on the faces of Richard and Raoul. She would sooner have broken bread with Lucifer than with Raimon St Gilles, and her husband well knew it. So why had he brought the count to Limoges?
Henry, Count Raimon, and the young King of Aragon had been ushered to the castle chambers set aside for them and were washing away the grime of the road. But Hal had remained in the great hall. His hair was tousled, there was a smear of dirt on his cheek, and his clothes and boots were mud-splattered, yet he still looked like one of the heroes in a troubadour’s song or geste, the handsome, dashing young knight who was without peer and existed only in a storyteller’s imagination. He was surrounded by those guests who’d not gone hawking, commanding their attention so completely that few at first noticed the hunting party had returned.
Following in Eleanor’s footsteps, Marguerite forgot etiquette and brushed past the queen in her haste to welcome her husband. At the sound of her voice, Hal sprang to his feet and swept her into a close embrace, a display of public affection that would have been considered unseemly in others but earned Hal indulgent smiles from even the most judgmental.
Hal showed more decorum in greeting his mother, his host, and their companions, but wasted no time in drawing Eleanor aside for a more private conversation. “I had an inspired idea,” he confided, “but I will need your help to bring it about, Maman. How often do so many of high birth gather together like this? We have no less than four kings, two queens, and a multitude of counts, earls, barons, and their ladies. What better setting could we have for a knighting ceremony? And what better time? We could do it next Wednesday…my eighteenth birthday,” he explained, as if Eleanor had been elsewhere on that auspicious occasion and needed reminding. “Will you talk to him, Maman? Will you make him see how perfect it would be to do it here, to do it now?”
As usual, Hal’s enthusiasm was contagious, and Eleanor found herself agreeing even though she did not think Henry would heed her. She knew she should remind Hal of his father’s stubborn insistence upon having him knighted by the French king, but she hadn’t the heart to interject reality into his dream. It was her son’s strength and his weakness that he could not conceive of defeat.
Having gotten what he wanted-his mother’s backing in this coming clash of wills with his father-Hal announced that he was greatly in need of a bath, and he and Marguerite exited the hall with an eagerness rarely shown for bathing. Eleanor turned to find her constable, Saldebreuil de Sanzay, at her side.
“You ought to have heard the lad, Madame,” he said, with the fond familiarity of one who’d known Hal all his life. “He was telling us some highly entertaining, if rather improbable, tales about past hunts. He claimed that one time he’d set a young gyrfalcon upon a crane, but the bird had a large fish in its beak and dropped it as the gyrfalcon began its stoop. His hawk shot right by the crane and went after the fish!”
The constable laughed so heartily that he began to wheeze, and Eleanor felt a pang, for this man had been
