Amaria’s face was set in stone; the two custodians still stood before their queen, respectfully unwilling to intrude on her silence. Beyond the windows, the bells clanged mournfully. Soon they would ring out in rejoicing for a new ruler and life would move on, consigning Henry FitzEmpress to history. It was then that Eleanor realized that Richard was now King of England and undisputed ruler of the mighty Angevin empire. The realization brought a mixture of triumph and pain. If only her beloved son’s rightful inheritance had come to him in any other circumstances than these, with his father dying while they were so bitterly at odds.
She had been plunged suddenly into mourning, but even so, she knew she had more than one cause to rejoice, and she looked every inch the Queen as, her voice steady, she addressed her gaoler. “Master Berneval, I command you, in the name of King Richard, to set me at liberty at once.”
Berneval had been wondering if he dared free her without a mandate. The late King had commanded him to keep her secure until he received further orders, and he’d carried out those instructions faithfully. He was unsure now how to respond, and looked helplessly at Glanville for guidance.
The latter did not hesitate. “It is well known that King Richard has much love for his mother, and, bearing in mind his fearsome reputation, it might be as well to obey the Queen’s just command,” he declared. At that, Henry Berneval fell to his knees, detached the keys from the ring at his belt, and laid them in Eleanor’s outstretched hands. She bestowed a warm look of gratitude on Ranulf.
She was free, yet her freedom was an empty thing in such circumstances, and she had no desire to go anywhere. Again, she must wait on developments.
“I pray you will attend me until the King comes,” she said to both men. “And now, I desire only to go to the chapel and pray for the soul of the King my late lord.”
Later that day, William Marshal arrived, soaked to the skin after his breakneck ride to bring the news of King Henry’s death to the Queen, along with King Richard’s orders for her release. He was astonished, therefore, to find her already at liberty and waiting to receive him at the castle doorway, with a nervous Henry Berneval and a respectful Ranulf Glanville at her side.
Eleanor, garbed in her black widow’s weeds and a wimple crowned with a simple golden circlet, greeted Marshal with a smile, putting on a courageous mien and extending her hand to be kissed.
“Madame, I am overjoyed to see you free,” he told her, thinking she looked more the great lady than ever. “King Richard was most anxious that you should not be held captive any longer than necessary. He has much need of you at this time.”
Henry Berneval relaxed. He was not going to be censured for disobeying his instructions. That terrifying man who was now his king would be grateful to him for anticipating his orders. He was indebted to Ranulf Glanville for his wise counsel.
“We are just about to eat, William,” Eleanor told Marshal, having reverted effortlessly into her former accustomed role as royal chatelaine. “There is time for you to change and refresh yourself, and then I should be grateful if you would join me and give me all your news.”
Marshal was gratified to see that many lords and ladies had hurried to join the Queen’s hastily assembled court, but relieved to learn that he would be her guest at a private supper that night, for what he had to tell her was best recounted away from the public gaze. When it came to it, only the maid was present, the one who had attended Eleanor throughout her long captivity; also wearing mourning, she moved discreetly around the solar, serving food, topping up the wine and removing dishes, then making herself scarce.
William could not have guessed, from her calm manner, that Amaria was beside herself with exultation that her mistress had been freed from her captivity, and from her long purgatory of a marriage. As far as Amaria was concerned, the Queen was better off without that bastard to whom she had been chained in wedlock—“chained” being an apt word—and she was glad that the good Lord had called King Henry to his reward. She knew what she would have liked to reward him with! Yes, she was wearing black, but only out of deference to custom. As soon as King Richard came, she was buying herself a fine scarlet gown!
“Tell me what happened,” Eleanor said, when she and William Marshal were alone.
He had been dreading this moment. Yet she must be told.
“The King was in a terrible state when we got him back to Chinon. He felt his humiliation deeply, and kept cursing his sons and himself, rueing the day that ever he was born. He uttered dreadful blasphemies. He asked why he should worship Christ when He allowed him to be ignominiously confounded by a mere boy. He meant Richard, of course.”
“I cannot bear to think of his state of mind,” Eleanor said, deeply moved. “He surely could not have meant those blasphemies. He was ever one to say all kinds of rash things when his temper was aroused, and then regret them afterward. What happened to Becket was a prime example. Henry suffered agonies of remorse over that.”
“He repented of these utterances too,” Marshal told her. “Archbishop Baldwin was waiting for him at Chinon, and when he heard what the King was saying, he braved his anger and made Henry go to the chapel and make his peace with God. And he did, for all that he was near fainting with pain; and so he confessed his sins and was shriven. Then he took to his bed.”
“Could not the doctors do anything to help him?” Eleanor was shaking her head. Her meat lay congealing in its gravy on her plate, forgotten.
“I doubt they could have done very much,” Marshal said, then took a deep breath. “Besides, he lost the will to live.”
“He must have been sorely grieved at Richard’s hostility, although really, he had only himself to blame for it,” Eleanor said sadly.
Marshal swallowed. “Richard had wounded him deeply. His pride was in the dust. But that was not what finished him. His vassals, vile traitors, had deserted him in droves and gone over to Richard’s side, and toward the end, they brought him a list of those traitors, so that he might know who was to be spared punishment under the terms of the peace treaty, and whom he could not trust in the future. The first name on the list was that of the Lord John.” Marshal was near to tears.
“John!” Eleanor exclaimed. “John betrayed his father? But John was his favorite, the one he loved above all his other children. Why would John have abandoned him?”
“I imagine that Richard and Philip offered sufficient inducements,” Marshal said heavily.
“Thirty pieces of silver, no doubt!” Eleanor cried. “That John, for whose gain Henry broke with Richard, should have forsaken him—I cannot credit it.”
“That was more or less what the King said. And it was at that moment that he lost the will to live. He turned his face to the wall and dismissed us, saying he cared no more for himself or aught for this world. Then he fell into delirium, moaning with grief and pain. His bastard Geoffrey kept watch over him, cradling his head and soothing him. At the last, Henry cried, ‘Shame, shame on a conquered king!’ and fell unconscious. He died the next day without having woken again.”
It had been two days now, and Eleanor had not yet wept for her loss. The numb feeling had persisted, yet she had been conscious of a great tide of emotion waiting to engulf her. Now it broke forth, and she bent her head in her hands and sobbed piteously while Amaria hastened to hold her tightly, and Marshal, unmanned by this display of grief to the point of weeping himself, placed a tentative hand on her heaving shoulders.
He would not tell her the worst of it, he decided. She had enough to bear without that. Of course, she would find it out eventually, but by then she would hopefully be stronger.
He himself had stayed at Chinon only to hear mass and make an offering for his late master’s soul; he knew he had to make all speed to convey to King Richard the news of his father’s death. But after a hurried dinner, when he went to bid a final farewell to his old master before taking the road north, Marshal had been shocked by what he found, for King Henry lay there naked, with even his privities left uncovered, and the room was bare of all his effects. It would have been his servants, he deduced afterward, discovering that they had fled. They must have invaded the death chamber the moment Geoffrey left it, and, like scavengers, stripped the body and stolen all the dead man’s personal belongings, even his trappings of kingship.
In a fever to be on his way, Marshal had enlisted the help of a young knight, William de Trihan, and together they made the body decent and laid it out for burial. They had shifted as best they could in the circumstances. A laundress found them a filet of gold embroidery to serve in place of a crown, and they managed to find a ring, a scepter, and a sword, and some fittingly splendid garments, including fine gloves and gold shoes. Marshal shuddered at the memory, for the body was not a pretty sight, and this last duty had been a great trial for both
