Captive Queen

and that sitting in the saddle would soon be beyond him if those damned fool physicians didn’t do something to remedy it quickly.

Hard on the heels of this came another missive from Marshal. The King had been forced to retreat to Chinon to rest, and had gone alone, with only his bastard Geoffrey for company; traveling by back roads to evade the enemy forces. “He can neither walk nor stand or sit without intense discomfort,” William wrote. “We are all worried about John, who has disappeared. It is feared that he may have been taken for a hostage by Duke Richard or King Philip. If so, Heaven help the King.” Reading this, Eleanor redoubled her prayers, beseeching God and His Mother to hear her. Let there be peace, was her earnest cry.

She was listless, not knowing how to fill the hours of waiting for the next letter or report. It took a fast courier up to five days to cover the distance from Chinon, depending on the Channel winds, so anything could have happened. Amaria tried to entice her to games of chess or thinking up riddles; she went to market and bought embroidery silks in the brightest hues, hoping to inspire Eleanor to make new cushions or an altar frontal; she had Henry Berneval send for minstrels, to while away the evenings, and she spent hours herself in the kitchens baking exquisite little cakes to tempt her mistress. But none of these pleasant distractions could alleviate the Queen’s fears or anxieties.

Having little appetite, Eleanor lost weight. She looked drawn and her skin took on an ethereal quality. She was sixty-seven, but she knew without vanity, when she peered in her mirror, that she appeared and felt younger; her graying hair was hidden beneath her headdress and veil, her fine-boned face was only delicately etched with lines, and she had the energy of a woman half her age. That restless energy was pent-up now, surging within her breast; she was desperate to be at the center of affairs, not cut off from them here at Winchester. If she had her way, she would be riding into battle with the rest of them, like the Amazon that she had once pretended to be, long ago, on that distant plain of Vezelay, when they had preached the fatal crusade that ended in disaster for both the Christian hordes and her marriage to Louis. She had been young and reckless then, and afire to show off her crusading zeal in the most attention-seeking way possible; and she would unhesitatingly take the field again, for real this time, if given the slightest chance. But, of course, it could not be: she was a woman, and a prisoner, and all she could do was wait here for news. Wait, wait, wait! They could carve those words on her tomb: She waited.

There had been another summit meeting between the chief combatants. Eleanor had the news from both William Marshal and Ranulf Glanville. The King, she learned, had dragged himself from his sickbed toward Colombieres, near Tours. On the way, complaining that his whole body felt as if it were on fire, he had been forced to rest at a preceptory of the Knights Templar, and sent his knights ahead to tell Richard and Philip that he was detained on account of his illness. But Richard had not believed it. His father was feigning, he insisted; he was up to no good, plotting some new villainy; they should not trust his word.

When news of this was carried back to the King, ill as he was, he had had his men prop him up on his horse, then rode in agony through a thunderstorm to the place where his enemies waited. King Philip had actually blanched at the sight of him, and, moved by pity, offered his own cloak for him to sit on. But Henry refused it; he had come not to sit, he declared, but to pay any price they named for making peace. And so he remained on his horse, his knights holding him upright. He had looked ghastly.

Philip’s compassion had ended there. He laid down the harshest terms. Henry must pay homage to him for all his lands. He must leave his domains—even England, which Philip had no right to dispose of—to Richard. He was to pardon all those who had fought for Richard. He was to give Alys up to Philip at once, and agree to Richard marrying her immediately after the planned crusade. And, as further tokens of his good faith, he was to pay a crippling indemnity and surrender three of his chief castles to Philip.

Henry agreed. He gave in without any argument, and wheeled his horse around preparatory to riding away. But Philip stopped him and demanded that he give Richard the kiss of peace. Henry had done so, his manner frosty, his eyes as cold as steel, and when the distasteful deed was accomplished, and Richard had the grace to look suitably chastened, Henry said to him: “God grant that I may not die until I have had a fitting revenge on you.” By then blood was seeping out of his breeches and down his horse’s rump, and he had to be lifted from his horse and carried back in a litter to Chinon.

Eleanor laid the letters on the table. Her thoughts were in turmoil. The peace she had prayed for, and the securing of Richard’s inheritance, had been agreed upon, but at what cost? The utter subjection and humiliation of a sick king who was too ill to fight back. Would to God it had been done in any other way! She would even have preferred Henry and Richard to have met in battle and have the differences between them resolved in a fair fight, whatever the dangers, rather than this. To know that Henry, whose empire stretched from Scotland to Spain, had been brought so low, with his pride cast in the dust, was unbearable. He had been a strong king, a respected king, even a great king—and now he was a defeated king. And he was laid low with this pitiful complaint, poor wretch. How her heart ached for him.

But there had been that threat he had uttered. He would have his revenge on Richard for this, never doubt it. Almost she was glad that he was confined to his sickbed. How could there ever be real peace between her husband and her son after this? And yet … Her thoughts winged back to the aftermath of that earlier rebellion that she herself had helped foment. He had forgiven his sons then, after all their treachery. Hugh of Avalon, that wise, saintly man, had said that those whom Henry had loved he rarely came to hate. It was no less than the truth! She must hold on to that, she told herself, as she waited—waited again—in suspense to see what would happen next.

For a week or so there was no news. Of course, she knew she should not expect any yet. Henry was resting up at Chinon, waiting for that abscess to heal. Ranulf Glanville, having some business in England, came to see her, but he could tell her nothing that she did not know, as he had left Anjou some time before.

The weather turned, and became unseasonably changeable. Hailstones were clattering against the castle walls on the day Henry Berneval knocked at the Queen’s door and found her measuring lengths of linen with her maid. Eleanor looked up. Something in the custodian’s face checked her smiling greeting. It seemed ominous that he had brought Ranulf Glanville with him, and Ranulf’s mournful expression gave her further cause for alarm.

Berneval bowed low, lower than she had ever seen him bow.

“My lady, I bring grave tidings,” he told her in a choked voice. Eleanor rose and stood before him, quiet and dignified, bracing herself to hear the worst. But what could the worst be? Did it concern Henry, or Richard—or one of her other children?

“My lady, I grieve to tell you that the Lord King has departed this life,” Berneval said quietly. “He died at Chinon four days ago. My lady, I am so very sorry to have to give you this news.”

She supposed she had half expected it. Henry had been ill and not getting better. But that he was dead, that vital autocrat who had bestrode half of Christendom, her husband these thirty-seven years, God help them both, seemed inconceivable … But as she stood there, trying to understand and accept her loss, the great bell of the cathedral started tolling in the distance, and other churches nearby in turn picked up the dread message, signaling to all England that its king was no more. Fifty-six chimes in all, one for every year of the King’s life … That ominous sound would be heard across the length and breadth of the land, as word spread of Henry’s passing.

“Do you know what happened?” Eleanor asked.

“No, my lady. We had the news from the carter who came up from Southampton. All he knew was that the King had died at Chinon. No doubt messengers will come soon with further tidings.”

Eleanor said nothing, but stared unseeing through the window, dry-eyed, her mind conjuring up the image of a magnificent young man with a straight, noble profile and unruly red curls, who had swept her off her feet, bedded and wedded her, to the scandal of all Europe. Henry had been so vigorous, so lusty! It was impossible to comprehend that all that vitality was now dust, that the virile hero who had shared with her such passion and, later, such blistering discord, was gone from her forever.

Occasionally, during these sixteen difficult years of her confinement, and even before that, when their marriage was crumbling and seemingly beyond redemption, there had been times when she sensed they might put all the pain and betrayal behind them and salvage some spark of their former ardor, some semblance of the close affinity they once shared; but the moment had never been right: always, some fresh trouble intervened. And yet, when she had taken what was to be her last farewell of Henry—a year ago, now—and they readily extended their forgiveness to each other, and were kind together for once, she had truly believed that some real chance of a reconciliation lay in the future. And now it was not to be. The realization should have broken her, but she only felt numb.