“Will you not look at him?” Petronilla asked, her heart-shaped face bleary with wine, yet full of concern.
Eleanor made herself look. The infant, wiped and swathed in a soft fleece, had been laid on the bed next to her. She contemplated its crumpled, angry little face and watched dispassionately as it broke into mewling cries of outrage at being cast adrift into the wicked world. She wanted to feel something for it, the sad little mite; after all, it was not this babe’s fault that she herself was in such misery. Yet it seemed she had nothing left to give, no spark of loving kindness or maternal feeling. She felt dead inside. Nevertheless, this was her child, she reminded herself sternly. She must do something for it. Hesitantly, she touched the tiny, downy cheek and gave her son her blessing.
“What is he to be called?” Petronilla asked.
“What day is it?” Eleanor asked wanly.
“Christmas Eve. Even now they are bringing in the Yule log.”
“St. Stephen’s Day is two days hence,” the Queen said wearily, “but I can hardly call him after the martyr, for the English do not hold King Stephen in much repute. I mind me that the Feast of St. John the Apostle and St. John the Evangelist is in three days’ time. I shall call him John.”
Petronilla gazed down at her new nephew.
“I pray God send you a long and happy life, my Lord John,” she said, aware that what should have been a happy occasion was, for some reason beyond her comprehension, a very sad one.
35
Argentan, Normandy, 1167
“Welcome, my lady,” Henry said formally, bending over his queen’s hand. Their eyes met coldly as she rose from her curtsey. He had put on weight in the fourteen months since she’d seen him, Eleanor thought, and his curly red hair was silvered with gray; that came as a shock, and an unwelcome reminder that they were neither of them getting any younger. Henry looked ragged at the edges, as indeed he was, for he was worn down by the cares of state, his interminable quarrel with Becket—and the recent death of his mother.
Indomitable to the end, the Empress had breathed her last in September, at Rouen, after a short illness. Eleanor could not mourn her deeply, but she knew that Henry must be missing her sorely. Matilda had ruled Normandy for him for years, and given him the benefit of her wise counsel in many matters. Now she was gone, and there would be a void in his world. Even so, Eleanor could not bring herself to feel much grief for him: he had wounded her too deeply.
They avoided looking at each other as Henry escorted her into the castle of Argentan, her hand resting lightly on his. Courtiers were packed against the walls to watch them pass, their King and Queen, come together after so long to hold their Christmas court. There had been much speculation as to the true state of affairs between them, and whispered gossip about a fair maiden shut up in a tower somewhere in England, but the long separation could equally be accounted for by the demands of policy. Eleanor had been in England, preparing for her daughter Matilda’s wedding to the Duke of Saxony; and Henry had been in Aquitaine, suppressing yet another revolt, and then in the Vexin, negotiating an uneasy truce with Louis.
“I have missed my children,” he muttered as they proceeded into the hall, now hand in hand. “I trust they are in health, and that our Matilda went cheerfully to greet her bridegroom.”
“She did,” Eleanor replied tersely, remembering the busy weeks of choosing a trousseau and packing it into twenty chests, and Matilda clinging to her, weeping, at Dover, begging her mother at least to cross the sea with her and delay the inevitable, awful moment of parting. She remembered too calling upon all her inner reserves of strength so she could stay calm and positive, and let herself allow this beloved child to go alone to her destiny. Oh, how she missed her, the sensible, gentle girl. It had been like having a limb severed. But Henry would not be interested in any of that, she thought sourly. To him, his children were pawns to be pushed around on a chessboard whenever it suited him.
“How is Young Henry?” she inquired, her voice like ice. She had neither forgotten nor forgiven Henry’s presentation of the boy as her heir to her subjects at Poitiers the previous Christmas. She still thought it outrageous, and the matter of Richard’s inheritance remained unresolved.
“You will see a change in him,” Henry said gruffly. “He is twelve now, and already he seems to be verging on manhood. He will make a great king when the time comes.” As would Richard—the thought came unbidden to Eleanor, who said nothing. She was mentally upbraiding herself for her resentful feelings toward Young Henry, because it wasn’t his fault that his father had overlooked Richard in advancing him; it was just that … well, she knew in her bones, with all a mother’s instinct, that Henry was not cut out to be Duke of Aquitaine. He lacked the soul of a troubadour, unlike Richard, who was already as accomplished at composing elegant lays as he was in the martial arts. Her people would understand that—look how they had loved her grandfather!—but try explaining it to Henry, she thought grimly.
“Aquitaine is the reason I have summoned you here,” Henry said, handing her courteously to her seat at the high table. It was as if he had followed her train of thought. Instantly, she was alert and on the defensive, prepared to defer for a time the matter of Rosamund de Clifford, which she had firmly resolved to broach with Henry. All the way here, sailing to Normandy in the foremost of a flotilla of seven ships, all laden with her movable goods and personal effects, she had argued with herself—agonized, rather—over whether to confront him with what she knew. Do it, and the thing would lie like a sword between them, severing the present from the past. Say nothing, and the pretense that all was well could be maintained, and a sort of peace achieved. A sort of peace? How could that ever be, when she knew the truth and was bursting to challenge her husband? And so she had turned it round and round again in her mind, torturing herself, not knowing what best to do. Really, she wanted to scream and rage, to rake her claws down Henry’s face and devise some apt revenge on that little bitch. But in the end she decided that she must confront her husband with what she knew, and see what his reaction would be. Yet now, with Henry’s abrupt mention of Aquitaine—she had guessed he would not have summoned her for her own sake—she was ready to set aside the matter of Rosamund.
When the company was seated and the first course had been served—a barely palatable dish of chunks of rabbit marooned in greasy gravy—Henry turned to her, his expression unreadable.
“As you know,” he said, “I’ve spent the autumn riding around Aquitaine quelling rebellion. Your vassals are worse than most, and they hate me.”
“You have given them little reason to love you,” Eleanor could not resist retorting.
“It’s not even worth the effort. In fact, I have also given up trying to make them obey me. You’ve always wanted power in the duchy, haven’t you, Eleanor? Well, it’s your turn now.” There was a hint of dark humor in Henry’s face.
“My turn?” she repeated, unable to still the excited racing of her heart.
“Yes, yours,” Henry told her, with the hint of a smile. He was enjoying disarming her. “Your presence in Aquitaine, and the reassertion of your authority as its duchess, might make all the difference. Your rebellious subjects love you, and if they see me devolving my power on you, they might yet cease constantly opposing me.”
Eleanor could not speak. He was asking her to go back to Aquitaine as its sovereign duchess. This was what she had longed for all through the fifteen years of her marriage—no, in fact it had been her dream ever since she was borne off to Paris, a bride of fifteen, by Louis. Aquitaine was her home, the place she wanted most of all to be, that enchanted land of the South, the land of mighty rivers, wooded valleys, wine and song. She wanted to fall to her knees and praise God for this sought-after blessing. She even felt some gratitude toward her faithless lord, although that was mixed with resentment, because he had been ignoring her urgent advice on courting her vassals for years, and had only belatedly come to this eminently sensible decision.
“Now you see why I asked you to bring all your belongings,” Henry said.
“I thought you were planning to set up home with me again,” she told him with an acerbic smile. He had the grace to look uncomfortable.
“Eleanor, circumstances have kept us apart,” he said. And Rosamund de Clifford, she thought bitterly. “Will you do it?” he went on. “Will you go back to Aquitaine as its ruler?”
“Did you have to ask?” she replied.
