clashes of will. “I am sorry, Papa,” he said, as contritely as he could. “I ought not to have doubted you. It will not happen again.”
“Hal, words are cheap and easily offered. Actions are what count. And when I told you tonight that you’d do homage after all, I saw the expression on your face. You liked it not. Whatever I do, it seems to displease you. If I do not demand homage, you see that as some sort of devious scheme. If I do, your royal dignity is affronted. God’s Bones, lad, what do you want from me?”
Hal looked at him unhappily. “I guess I…I want your respect.”
“Respect cannot be demanded or given, Hal. It must be earned. There are wounds still to be healed. But this I can assure you, that I love you as my life. Surely you believe that?”
“Yes…I do. And I love you, too,” Hal added quickly, even though there were times when he was no longer sure that was true.
“Then why…why in Christ’s Name are we always at odds like this? Why can you not come to me when you have a grievance instead of letting it fester? Why do you pay more heed to that fool on the French throne than your own father?”
“Louis listened to me, said what I needed to hear. I ought not to have had such faith in his good will. I know that now; things were never the same after that shameful trick he pulled at Verneuil. But…” Hal hesitated, pinioning his lower lip with even, white teeth. “How honest can I be, Papa?”
“Speak your mind,” Henry said. “I’ll not get angry.”
Hal smiled faintly. “Can I have that in writing?” He rose suddenly, went to the table to pour another cup of wine, and finished half of it before he could nerve himself to take his father at his word. “I said I love you, Papa. But…but I am not sure I can trust you.”
Henry drew a sharp breath. This from the stripling who’d played him for such a fool at Chinon! That betrayal lay between them like an imperfectly healed scar, for they’d never discussed it, prevented first by circumstances and then by caution. But he’d promised to hold his temper and so he said only, “Why not?”
“Because…because I know the king will always prevail over the man, over the father.”
Henry started to speak, stopped himself. “That may be true,” he said at last. “But all that I am doing, I do for you, Hal! I want only to secure for you a peaceful and prosperous kingdom. Nothing matters more to me than that. Why must we be at cross-purposes about this? Our interests are one and the same. Why can you not see that?”
Hal had never been one for the unexpressed thought, rarely curbed a jest in the interest of prudence or even good manners. He almost made a dark joke now about the flaw in his father’s grand scheme-that the only way two kings could contentedly share power was if one of them was dead. But he sensed that Henry would find no humor in the gibe, for there was too much truth in it for comfort. He studied Henry’s face intently, wondering how honest he could be. Dare he confess his resentment that his father meant to bestow his English castles upon that unwanted afterthought, Johnny? When there were sons to spare in most great families, one would be destined for the Church. Why would Papa not pack the little tadpole off to a monastery? Or if he was bound and determined to reward the boy beyond his station in life, let him look to Richard’s lands or Geoffrey’s.
All of this remained unsaid, though, for he was not a fool, knew better than to trust his father’s assurance that there’d be no anger, no recriminations. If he dared to defy Papa’s will, he’d be tossing a torch into a hayrick. It had always been so. Nothing had changed.
“In the future,” he promised, “I will come to you first with my grievances,” and the evening ended upon a note that satisfied neither father nor son.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
November 1175
Sarum, England
That year was not a good one for England. The weather was severe, and there were outbreaks of plague and famine in the outlying areas. The summer was hot and dry, withering crops in the field, and autumn was cold and rain-sodden. November had been a month of gale-force winds and black ice, and winter was promising to be particularly harsh on the exposed marshlands of Salisbury Plain.
Eleanor was curled up on the settle with a book and a blanket. She was not reading, though, her thoughts wandering far from the page open on her lap. Edith, her maid, was sitting by the hearth as she mended one of Eleanor’s gowns, humming a cheerful little song as she stitched. Cleo, her cat, was stalking prey in the floor rushes; Eleanor preferred not to know what was being hunted. The rain had ceased earlier in the day, but the wind still sought entry at the shuttered windows, rattling the latches and testing the hinges. Although it was not yet midday, the chamber held enough shadows for night, poorly lit by an oil lamp and several tallow candles that sputtered and filled the air with smoke and the pungent odor of burning fat. Eleanor had never used any candles but the expensive ones made of beeswax, and she wrinkled her nose at the smell, wondering how the queen’s allowance of a penny a day for lamp oil was being spent now.
The cat froze in the rushes, ears flattening, and then darted under the bed. Eleanor had learned to take her cues from the little creature, and listened for the sound of footsteps approaching her door. There was soon a discreet knock, and she said, “Enter,” grimly amused by the charade they enacted every day. Her door was no longer locked as at Falaise, but it was mockery to pretend she still retained the right to refuse admittance to her chamber. It was too early for dinner, and she closed her book, hoping it would not be that tiresome Father Ivo, the castle chaplain. She’d have been more amenable to his attempts to save her soul if he’d been a better source for news, but either he knew nothing of the world beyond his chapel or he was that rarity, a man of God who truly knew how to practice the cardinal virtue of prudence. At least when Bishop Jocelin had finally gotten around to paying a call, he’d spiced up his sermon with a dose of gossip.
“Madame.” An elderly servant poked his head into the room. “You have a visitor,” he announced lugubriously; Eleanor was convinced that if he ever smiled, his face would crack. But when he stepped aside to admit her guest, she jumped to her feet so swiftly that the book fell, forgotten, to the floor.
“Rhiannon! Is it truly you?” In two quick steps, she was at the Welshwoman’s side, taking her arm to guide her into the room. “There is a coffer just to your right, but the settle is straight ahead.” Once they were safely seated, she leaned back to marvel at this unexpected appearance of Ranulf’s wife. “You are my first visitor who has not taken holy vows,” she said, and laughed. “How did you gain entry? Ah, of course, Ranulf. They’d not gainsay the king’s uncle.”
Rhiannon started to remove her mantle, then changed her mind when she realized how chilly it was in the chamber. “No, Ranulf did not accompany me. It was actually Emma who got me permission to see you.” And she launched into a surprisingly accurate impression of Emma at her most imperious. “‘I am the sister of the king, consort of the Prince of Gwynedd. How dare you question my authority?’ In no time at all, they were wilting before her like flowers in the noonday sun.”
Eleanor was thoroughly confused by now. “Emma? Harry’s sister? What in the world-”
“You do not know?” Rhiannon exclaimed, as always turning her head unerringly toward the sound of Eleanor’s voice. “But how could you? The king married Emma off to Prince Davydd last year. Ranulf and I are attending the king’s Christmas Court at Windsor, and when she learned of our plan, Emma asked to accompany us. It is a bit awkward, what with her husband and mine loathing each other! But we could hardly refuse her, for she is Ranulf’s niece, after all. And it turned out to be bread cast upon the waters, for when we reached Clarendon and I found out it was only four miles from Sarum, she was willing to come with me after Ranulf…”
She let the words trail off, but Eleanor had no trouble finishing the sentence for her. “After Ranulf refused,” she said, and smiled to show it did not matter before remembering that smiles were wasted upon Rhiannon. “That was kind of Emma, for I am delighted to see you. But…but why are you this far south? If Harry is holding his Christmas Court at Windsor, why are you so deep in Wiltshire?”
Rhiannon did not answer right away, alerting Eleanor that the answer would not be welcome. “The king is at Winchester now,” she said. “We will be catching up with him there, and then going on together to Windsor.”
Eleanor fell silent. Sarum was only about twenty-five miles from Winchester. Bishop Jocelin had told her that Hal had returned with Henry to England, so this was the closest she’d been to one of her sons in more than two
