wandering through the deserted state apartments, Eleanor stepped into the famous Painted Chamber, so-called because of the wondrous murals that Henry had commissioned for its walls, and found herself gaping in surprise. For where there had been a panel left blank, there was now a new and disturbing picture of an eagle, freshly painted, and on its outstretched wings and back were three eaglets, with a fourth, the smallest, sitting on its neck, looking for all the world as if it might at any moment peck out its parent’s eyes.
As Eleanor stared, she heard a footfall behind her. It was Ranulf Glanville.
“Pardon me, my lady, but dinner is about to be served. Oh, I see you have noticed the painting.”
“The King commissioned it?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“The eagle is himself, I gather, but what does it all mean?”
The custodian spoke evenly, not relishing what he had to say. “When some of us asked the King the meaning of the picture, he said that the eaglets were his four sons, who ceased not to persecute him even unto death.”
“But John is just a child! How can he include him in this?” The rest she could understand, but at this crass folly, she was aghast.
“That is what some of the King’s courtiers said, my lady. But he answered that he fears his youngest, whom he now embraces with such affection, will someday afflict him more grievously and perilously than all the others.”
“That is nonsense,” Eleanor snapped.
“I think one has to understand the King’s frame of mind when he said it, my lady. He observed that a man’s enemies are the men of his own house.”
And the women, she thought, remembering her own part in her sons’ revolt. But John! John would never betray the father who spoiled him so and lavished so much love on him.
Joanna had gone, off in her gay cavalcade to Southampton where her ship was waiting to take her across the seas. Saying farewell and standing there at the castle doors, watching her go, had been hard, but Eleanor had fought to maintain her composure. She had long grown used to dealing with sorrow, had coped with far worse ordeals than this, and kept her resolve to say good-bye to her daughter with a smile on her face.
She had expected to be taken back to Sarum immediately, but Ranulf Glanville was temporarily absent on the King’s business, and no one mentioned her leaving. So she stayed on at Winchester, rattling around the luxurious royal chambers with just Amaria for company and her two sentinels on the outer doors. Henry, she reasoned, must be preoccupied with other, more pressing matters. For her part, she could only thank God for this welcome respite from the tedium and discomforts of Sarum.
Michaelmas; and she was still at Winchester. Through her windows, she could hear music and dancing and the cathedral bells ringing to celebrate the bringing in of the harvest. September drew mildly to a close. The weather turned colder with the coming of October, and still there was no summons back to Sarum. Then, one morning, the steward arrived with a leather traveling chest.
“My lady, this has come from the Lord King. It is for the use of you and your serving woman.”
Eleanor, who had assumed that the arrival of the chest betokened that she was to pack and depart, gaped at him—and the iron-bound case—in astonishment. Could this really be a gift from Henry? Was it another peace offering? Had God at last turned his heart?
When the steward was gone and there was only Amaria to see, she lifted the lid in a fever of speculation, and drew from the chest, in some amazement, two scarlet cloaks, two capes of the same color, two gray furs, and an embroidered coverlet. Amaria let out a sigh of wonder.
“I think I know whence these proceeded,” Eleanor said, her heart full. “I think I have my daughter Joanna to thank for them.” Of course. Dear Joanna, who had seen her poverty, must have appealed to Henry. That in no way diminished his gesture, she told herself, for he could have ignored the appeal. Instead, he had sent these fine clothes, and had remembered Amaria too. It rankled a tiny bit that he had not thought to distinguish in status between his queen and her servant, for whom he had supplied identical garments, but he was a man who liked to dress plainly himself and cared little for the trappings of estate, so maybe it would not have occurred to him that she should have clothing of greater richness than her maid. At least he had sent it. That was something indeed, and they would now have good warm robes for the winter.
52
Godstow Abbey, 1176
The abbey was nestled on an island between streams gushing from the River Thames. It stood solid and gray amid green fields, in which the good sisters could be seen toiling diligently. The work of the hands, Henry reflected, was almost as important to the Benedictine Rule as prayer, the work of God.
He had ridden over from Woodstock on this special pilgrimage. Going to Woodstock had been a torment: he’d barely been able to bring himself to climb the stairs to the dusty, deserted tower rooms, or walk past the overgrown labyrinth with its sinister tangles of briars. He’d realized almost at once that he should never have come, that being in the place that had housed his love would conjure up memories too painful to confront.
So he’d come instead to Godstow, to seek peace in the abbey where his love had sought refuge. Well he recalled that awful day, two years before, when Rosamund had come to him, anxiety written clear on her sweet face, her cherry lips trembling …
She had found a lump in her breast, she said, and was scared because her granddame had died of a canker in that very part of her body.
Henry thought that she was making much out of nothing. He felt the lump, declared it nothing but a spot, then, as lust asserted itself at the soft swell of his beloved’s exposed bosom, he’d taken her without further ado, and stilled her fears—or so he had believed.
But the lump had not gone away. Over the months, it had grown, and the place became sore and nasty, and increasingly painful. Rosamund became tearful and at times hysterical, declaring that this was a punishment for the great sin she had committed in loving him. They must no longer bed together, she cried. Thoroughly alarmed by that, and by the state of the lump, Henry summoned his doctors, who had clucked on about an imbalance of the humors, and bled his dear love, applying leeches; but none of it did any good. Rosamund had steadily lost weight and grown frail. In the end there was nothing more the physicians could try.
“This is a judgment on me,” Rosamund had said again. “I have sinned grievously, not only against God but against Queen Eleanor. What we have done is wrong.”
“You can cease worrying about the Queen,” Henry told her roughly. “I would have married you, had it not been for her obstinacy.”
“No, Henry,” she answered sadly. “That would not have been right. The Pope knew it, which is why he would not annul your marriage. Queen Eleanor is your wife, and the mother of your children, whatever she has done. And in committing adultery with you, I have wronged her deeply—and I am being punished for it.”
“This is a vain fancy!” he had stormed, but there was no moving Rosamund. No longer was she the laughing girl he had loved, but a sick woman consumed with remorse.
“I wish I could make amends,” she wept. “I cannot go to my rest with this great wrong on my conscience.”
“Just confess it and have done!” Henry growled, his voice gruff with emotion.
“Let me send a letter to her, please. Just to explain my folly and say I am sorry for it.”
He turned on her, shocked. “No. I absolutely forbid it. She does not deserve your guilt or your apologies. When I think of what she has done to me—”
“I said no.” And he had got up and left her.
After that, Rosamund’s condition deteriorated rapidly. His heart breaking, Henry agreed that she should go to Godstow, the nunnery in which she had been raised, where the sisters could care for her; it would be convenient for Woodstock, whence he could visit her. He insisted on escorting her as she was carried to the abbey by litter; their progress had of necessity been slow, since she had become so weak by then. Once she was tucked up in her narrow bed in the infirmary, the infirmaress let him see her briefly. He found he could hardly bear to look upon
