summoned hastily, to whom he made fervent confession of all his sins.”
Eleanor sent up a silent prayer of thanks.
“His case being hopeless, he asked that his father the King be summoned. But as the King told me himself, he suspected a trap, so he sent the Young King a message expressing the hope that when he had recovered, they would be reconciled. And with it he sent, as token of his forgiveness, a sapphire ring.”
Agnell’s eyes met Eleanor’s. A sapphire ring!
“I never knew Henry to wear such a ring,” she said, marveling, “yet I saw it in my dream, as clearly as I can see you now.”
“He had taken it from his treasure; it belonged to the first King Henry.”
“Truly, I am astonished,” she told her visitor. “If I had thought before that my dream was sent by God, then I am utterly convinced of it now, for how could I have known about that ring?”
“The ways of God are indeed mysterious and wonderful,” Agnell declared.
“I feel a little better now,” Eleanor said, her voice gaining strength. “I think I can bear to hear the rest.”
“There is not much more to tell, my lady. At the end, the Young King was so overcome with remorse for his sins that he asked to be clothed in a hair shirt and a crusader’s cloak, and laid on a bed of ashes on the floor, with a noose around his neck and bare stones at his feet, as became a penitent. As he lay there, his father’s ring was brought to him, and he begged that the King would show mercy to you, his mother, whom he had held so long in captivity, and he asked all his companions to plead with your lord to set you at liberty.”
His last thoughts had been for her, his mother. With his dying breath he had asked for her to be freed. Eleanor’s heart was full. She could not speak.
“He gave up his spirit later that evening,” the archdeacon concluded. “The end was very peaceful.”
“He was only twenty-eight,” Eleanor murmured, choked.
“Young in years, but full of time when measured by the experiences of his life,” Agnell observed. They were silent for a few minutes.
“Henry must bitterly regret not going to him when he lay dying,” Eleanor said at length. “Tell me, how did he take the news of his death?”
“He was inconsolable, my lady. He threw himself on the ground and pitifully bewailed the loss of his son. He was so distraught that his secretary, in some alarm, was moved to reprove him for his excess of grief.”
Eleanor found herself inexplicably wanting, needing, to comfort Henry. This was our son, flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone, she thought desperately; we conceived him in love and joy, and we should mourn him in love and compassion. We should be sharing our grief together. Alas, it was clearly not to be. If Henry had wanted to heal the breach in the hour of their terrible sorrow, he would have come here. There was no point in torturing herself.
“Good Father, where has my son been laid to rest?” she inquired.
“His body has been interred by the high altar in the cathedral at Rouen, clothed in his coronation robes. His entrails lie, at the King’s request, at the monastery of Grandmont, which, regrettably, the Young King had recently sacked. I am happy to say that the brethren received them in the spirit of forgiveness.”
Eleanor knew Grandmont well. It was one of Henry’s favorite monastic foundations. He had spoken of being buried there himself one day.
There was no doubting, she told herself later, as she knelt in prayer, forcing herself to face the facts, that the Young King’s death would leave Henry more secure, and Richard the undisputed ruler of Aquitaine and, now, of course, heir to England. Agnell had told her that on hearing of the tragedy at Martel, the rebels immediately disbanded and fled. So Richard, her Richard, would have all except Brittany when Henry died. Maybe, in the end, the eagle
She prayed for her daughter-in-law, the widowed Marguerite, now bereft and childless. No doubt Henry would want to keep his hands on the Vexin, her dowry, although Eleanor doubted that King Philip would be happy about that. At least Marguerite was young and likely to marry again; her life lay mostly ahead of her. Unlike me, poor prisoner, Eleanor thought mournfully. I am sixty-one, and my autumn is upon me. What is there left to me?
A letter came for her from a grief-stricken Bertran de Born; renowned troubadour that he was, for all his treacherous soul, he had couched it in picturesque and evocative language that moved Eleanor deeply, for it evoked the spirit of her native land and sang to her grief. “Youth stands sorrowful,” he wrote. “No man rejoices in these bitter days. Death, that mortal warrior, has harshly taken from us the best of knights.”
The parchment fell to the floor. Eleanor could read no further.
57
Sarum and Normandy, 1183
The first inkling Eleanor got that things were going to be different from now on was when the royal messenger was ushered into her presence. Normally, Ranulf Glanville or Ralph FitzStephen would convey whatever instructions they had received or news the King wanted her to hear. But now she was suddenly being accorded all the respect due to a queen.
Her head spinning with speculation, she sat in her high-backed chair as the man, his clothes dusty from what had evidently been a long ride, knelt before her.
“My lady,” he said, “I am commanded by the Lord King to request your presence in Normandy. He asks that you make ready with all possible haste, as we are to leave for Rouen without delay.”
Henry was requesting? Asking? For the past ten years he’d just sent his commands to her custodians, and she was taken here and there without any deference to her own wishes.
Could it be that grief over their mutual loss had brought him to his senses? Had he realized, as she had, that they were the ones best placed to help each other through their mourning for the life they had created together? Was his need for comfort as urgent as hers?
“I will be ready within the hour,” she told the messenger, then effortlessly slipped back into her regal role and sent him off to the kitchens to find food and drink, as if she had never been prevented from extending such courtesies and the past decade had never been.
Ranulf came to her as she and a beaming Amaria—who was much gratified to see that Henry had come to his senses at last—were hastily gathering their possessions.
“Am I to travel under guard?” Eleanor asked him warily.
“No, madame, with just the normal escort. I have come to tell you that you are no longer a prisoner.”
So, at last, she was free. Free! It was what she had been praying for all through these long, weary years of her incarceration. She could not quite take it in, nor begin to conceive what it would mean to her. Had it happened at any time prior to that terrible day in June, she would have been shouting exultantly for joy, but now it was a bittersweet triumph. For it had taken the death of their son to bring Henry to this decision, and she would have traded her freedom for the Young King’s life any day, yea, even though she remained shut up here until the hour of her death.
It was good, nevertheless, to be in the saddle again, clopping along the sun-dappled lanes of England, reveling in the soft late-summer breeze and the azure-blue sky. It was exhilarating to be on a ship once more, gliding in stately fashion across the smooth waters of the Channel, and then—joy of joys—to sight the coast of Normandy. From there it was only a few days’ ride to Aquitaine … and Richard!
Ranulf Glanville watched Eleanor as she stood high on the forecastle, her cloak billowing out behind her, her profile straining toward the continent where lay her own lands, far to the south—and where the King her husband awaited her. Ranulf knew that Eleanor would find him sadly changed.
He was going to miss her. He had become pleasantly accustomed to her charming company at dinner, to their long and lively conversations, the quicksilver agility of her mind and the ready mother wit of her tongue. He would miss those flashing eyes that invited conversation, and the grace and unconscious allure that even encroaching age could not dim. Imprisonment had not defeated Eleanor: she had emerged from it as vital and energetic as ever, and the weight she’d lost in recent weeks left her looking much younger, with her fine features as elegantly chiseled as if a master mason crafted them.
