Devil's Brood (5 page)

Hal’s interest was now fully engaged; he loved pageantry and rituals and revelries. His first thought was that they could hold a tournament afterward, but he decided not to share that idea with his father, knowing that Henry disapproved of tourneys as frivolous, wasteful, and a threat to the public order. His next thought was even better: the realisation that his coronation would be the ideal opportunity to achieve a long-delayed desire.

“And I could be knighted, too!”

Henry was already shaking his head. “No, lad, not yet. You know I think Louis ought to be the one to knight you. That would mean a great deal to him and go far toward mending the breach between us.”

“But I do not care who knights me! All that truly matters is that it is done. I am already seventeen; how much longer must I wait?”

“Some events are worth waiting for,” Henry said, giving his son a reassuring pat on the arm. “You are still young for such an accolade. How old were you, Will, when you were knighted?”

Caught off balance, William Marshal stiffened; the last thing he wanted was to be pulled into this ongoing squabble between father and son. “Twenty and one,” he said reluctantly, feeling that he’d somehow let Hal down by speaking the truth.

Hal was not easily discouraged, though. “And how old were you?’ he demanded of Henry, providing the answer himself, a triumphant “Sixteen!”

Not for the first time, Henry wondered how he could have sired such obstinate offspring, for Hal’s brother Richard was even more headstrong and mulish, and thirteen-year-old Geoffrey was already showing signs of the same willfulness. Only little John and his Joanna were biddable and easily pleased. But a man wanted his sons to show pluck and spirit, and so he did not deny Hal outright, promising vaguely to give his request serious consideration.

Hal had heard this before, for they’d been having this same argument since Henry’s return from Ireland last month. He was coming to the conclusion that his father’s promises were counterfeit coin; they looked genuine, but they could not be spent. He was opening his mouth to protest further when Roger intervened.

“Hal,” he said quietly, “I believe that is Marguerite coming out of the hall. You’d best go down and greet her, lad, ere she feels slighted. You know how sensitive lasses can be.”

Hal almost asked Roger how he knew that, what with him becoming a priest at such a young age. But he was angry with his father, not his cousin, and his sense of fairness stifled the gibe. Nor did he want to hurt Marguerite, and he nodded grudgingly. Turning toward the ladder, his gaze came to rest upon the girl below in the bailey and he came to an abrupt halt.

“That cannot be Marguerite!”

At the sound of her name, she glanced upward. Hal had not seen her in more than a year; she’d left England in April of 1171 and had spent most of her time since then at her father’s court. He’d remembered to send her gifts for New Year’s and her saint’s day, but she’d always been on the periphery of his life, the child-wife who’d eventually share his throne and bear his children—one day far in the future. Until then, he would not lack for female company; girls had been chasing after him since he was thirteen and he usually let them catch him. Now he gazed down at the heart-shaped face framed in a linen barbette, the chin-strap made newly fashionable by his mother, her fair hair covered by a gauzy veil of saffron silk, and he was stunned by the changes in her. She was so stylish of a sudden, slim and curvy where she’d been skinny and flat, so…so womanly.

He sketched a bow, she responded with a graceful curtsy, and he pantomimed that he’d be down straightaway. When he looked back at the men, they were all grinning. He was too amazed to take offense. “She is lovely,” he marveled, counting surreptitiously on his fingers.

Henry spared him the trouble. “She is fourteen now, lad, and as you say, very lovely, indeed.”

Hal hesitated. “Um…is she old enough to—?” He flushed slightly, but grinned, too, and his father laughed.

“Um…I would say so. But if you have doubts, you can always ask her.”

Hal usually did not mind being teased, could give as good as he got. “I will,” he said, winked, and headed for the ladder, descending to the bailey so rapidly that they half-expected him to land in a heap at Marguerite’s feet. Instead, he sprang lightly to the ground and was soon gallantly kissing his wife’s hand as she blushed prettily and cast him adoring looks through fluttering lashes.

“Well,” Henry said, “I do believe the lass is answering him without even being asked,” and they shared smiles, remembering what it was like to be young and bedazzled by a come-hither look, a neatly turned ankle. For Henry, memory took him back to a rain-spangled garden in Paris, an afternoon encounter with Louis’s queen that would change lives and history. He could still remember how breathtakingly beautiful Eleanor was that day. He’d have been content to gaze into her eyes for hours, trying to decide if they were green with gold flecks or gold with green flecks. She had high, finely sculpted cheekbones, soft, flawless skin he’d burned to touch, and lustrous dark braids entwined with gold-thread ribbons he yearned to unfasten; he’d have bartered his chances of salvation to bury his face in that glossy, perfumed hair, to wind it around his throat and see it spread out on his pillow. He’d watched, mesmerized, as a crystal raindrop trickled toward the sultry curve of her mouth and wanted nothing in his life so much, before or since, as he wanted her.

She’d known that Louis was heeding his council’s advice, planning to divorce her, and then compel her to wed a man of their choosing, a pliable puppet who’d keep her domains under the control of the French Crown. In that soaked summer garden she’d taken her destiny into her own hands, offering him Aquitaine and herself, and he was so besotted that he could not say which mattered more to him, the richest duchy in Europe or the woman in his arms.

They’d agreed to wait, though, for she shared his pragmatism as well as his passion, and they both knew even a glimmer of suspicion and Louis would never set her free. Nine months later, they were wed in her capital city of Poitiers. Never had he been happier, not even on the day he became England’s king. Lying entangled in the sheets on their wedding night, she’d confided that their lovemaking had been like falling into a fire and somehow emerging unscathed, laughing huskily when he showed he was not yet sated and murmuring, “My lord duke, tonight all of Aquitaine is yours for the taking.”

Henry returned to reality with a start, staring blankly at Roger as he realized he’d not heard a word of his cousin’s question. Eleanor’s alluring ghost receded into the past, leaving him with a sense of wonder that twenty years could have passed since that torrid May night. He also felt an odd sense of loss, although he wasn’t sure why.

“I want to talk with you, Will,” he said abruptly, and the young knight, who’d been sidling toward the ladder, straightened his shoulders and braced himself for what he knew was coming. “I’ve been warned,” Henry continued, “that my son has been consorting with the wrong company. I cannot do much about his association with Raoul de Faye as he is the queen’s uncle. But Hal has gathered around him a band of youths who are rakehells and idlers, light-minded, callow malcontents. Several of them accompanied him to Avranches: Juhel de Mayenne, Simon de Marisco, Adam d’Yquebeuf, and Hasculf de St Hilaire. You know them for what they are, Will, know that barnacles clinging to a ship’s hull can slow it down, even render it unseaworthy. Why did you not alert me that he was being led astray?”

“My lord king…” Will was miserable, knowing that whatever he said, he was sure to be in the wrong, either with his young lord or his sovereign.

“Why do you think I chose you to tutor my son in the arts of war and chivalry? Because you sit a horse well and can wield a sword? There is no shortage of knights with those skills. I chose you because you are steadfast and honest, because you have more mother-wit than most men, because I thought I could rely upon you to watch over my son, to keep him safe.”

“I would give my life for the young king,” Will said simply, with such sincerity that none of those listening could doubt him. “I do watch over him, my liege. I’ve done my best to teach him what he must know, and I am proud of his prowess, for he is an expert rider and has mastered both sword and lance with admirable ease. But I cannot spy on him, not even for you, my lord king. I am his sworn man, and my first loyalty must be to him. To do less would be a betrayal he would not forgive. Nor could I forgive myself.”

The silence that followed was stifling. Girding himself to bear the king’s wrath, Will raised his head and met Henry’s gaze. The king’s eyes were the color of smoke, his mouth tightly drawn, as if to stop angry words from escaping. “Keep him from harm, Will,” he said at last. “Do not let me down.”

Will swallowed, knelt hastily, and then retreated just as hastily, vastly relieved by his reprieve but not fully understanding it. Rainald did not understand, either. “The impudence of the man! Why were you so forbearing with him? Had he dared talk to me like that, I’d have dismissed him straightaway.”

“If I did that,” Henry said, “Hal would lose the one trustworthy and honorable man in his service, the one man who’d be loyal to his last breath. How would that benefit my son, Rainald? Do you not know how rare such men are? Men who put loyalty above ambition and greed and royal favor?” And even Rainald realized that Henry was speaking not only of William Marshal, but of Thomas Becket, the false friend who’d betrayed him for reasons he could never comprehend.

P
EOPLE HAD BEGUN TO GATHER
at dawn before the Cathedral church of St Andrew the Apostle, not wanting to miss the spectacle of a king brought low, forced to do penance like all mortal men. They were to be disappointed. Henry arrived with the papal legates and barons and bishops beyond counting. They’d all gone into the cathedral, where Henry swore upon the Holy Gospels that he’d neither commanded nor desired that the Archbishop of Canterbury be slain, and that when he was told of the crime, he was horrified and truly grieved for the death of Thomas of blessed memory. He admitted, though, that the killing was the result of his heedless, angry words, and he pledged to honor the commitments made to Holy Church on this, the last Sunday before Ascension in God’s Year 1172, the eighteenth year of his reign. His son the young king then took an oath to honor all those commitments that did not relate only to Henry. But all of this was done out of sight and sound of the waiting crowds.

When Henry finally emerged from the church, the spectators were disappointed anew, for he was not bareheaded and barefoot and clad only in his shirt. A few men explained knowingly that he was spared the usual mortification because he’d not been excommunicated, but most of the bystanders took a more cynical view, that kings were always accorded special treatment, even by the Almighty. Henry knelt upon the paving stones, only then removing his cap, and received public absolution by the Cardinals Albert and Theodwin. When he rose, the cardinals and the Bishop of Avranches led him back into the cathedral, a symbolic act of reconciliation with the Church and the Almighty.

The dissatisfied onlookers dispersed when they realized the show was over. Roger, Bishop of Worcester, stood alone for a moment before slowly reentering the church, for he had been close enough to Henry to hear him say softly after the absolution: “Check, Thomas, and mate.”

F
ROM AN OPEN WINDOW
of the queen’s solar in the Mauber-geonne Tower, Maud, Countess of Chester, looked down upon a garden vibrant with summer flowers and echoing with youthful high spirits. Eleanor’s son Geoffrey was playing quoits with two friends, a game that was by its very nature boisterous and somewhat hazardous. When the players were youngsters of thirteen and fourteen, it was guaranteed that the horseshoes would be flung about with abandon, missing the targeted hob more often than not, scarring the grassy mead and scaring songbirds from budding fruit trees and overhanging willows. The shouts of the boys and the barking of their dogs had drawn an audience of giggling girls, all of them highborn and destined for the marriage beds of princes.

The oldest of the girls was Maud’s daughter-in-law, Bertrada, who’d wed her son Hugh three years ago, becoming at thirteen countess of one of England’s richest earldoms, the Honour of Chester. The prettiest was Geoffrey’s sister Joanna, only in her seventh year but already showing signs that she’d inherited her mother’s fabled beauty. Eleven-year-old Constance, dark-haired and whip-thin, was a great heiress in her own right; betrothed to Geoffrey in early childhood, she would bring to him the Duchy of Brittany. And Alys, also eleven, was a daughter of the French king, plight-trothed to Geoffrey’s older brother Richard, one day to rule with him over the vast, lush domains of Eleanor’s Aquitaine.

Eleanor and Aquitaine. Maud always thought of her friend in those terms, for it was Aquitaine that had defined Eleanor, that had conferred upon her the queenships of France and then England. Few brides had ever brought such a dowry as Aquitaine to their husbands. Eleanor’s duchy comprised the counties of Poitou, Berry, Saintonge, Angoulême, Périgord, the Limousin, La Marche, the Auvergne, the Agenais, and Gascony. Stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Massif Central and the Rhone Valley, from the Pyrenees to the River Loire, it encompassed much of southwestern France, dwarfing the lands controlled by the French king, and it had been blessed by nature and God with a mild climate, fertile soil, deep river valleys, ancient oak forests, and some of the best vineyards in Christendom. By taking Eleanor as his queen, Louis had gained greatly in stature and the French coffers had overflowed with the riches of Aquitaine. Maud thought that her cousin Harry might not even have won his crown had he not wed Eleanor as soon as she was free. Aquitaine had been his stepping-stone to the English throne.

Maud’s friendship with Eleanor had endured for almost twenty years, but she’d never spent that much time in the other woman’s domains, for neither had Eleanor. For much of her married life, she’d been traveling with Henry or acting on his behalf in Normandy and England or occupied with her many pregnancies. It was only four years ago that she’d taken up residence again in Aquitaine, holding her own court at Poitiers and gathering the reins of government into her own hands.

Turning away from the window, Maud wandered restlessly about the chamber. Eleanor had excused herself to confer with Saldebreuil de Sanzay, her constable in Poitou, and Maud was growing bored with her own company. Several charters were spread across a trestle table and she scanned the top one briefly. It was a routine act of patronage, remitting taxes for a citizen of La Rochelle in exchange for his agreement to pay rent to the abbey of Fontevrault. What caught Maud’s attention was the change in the form of address. Instead of the usual
Fidelibus Regis et suis,
it read:
Fidelibus suis.

Maud gazed down thoughtfully at the parchment. Eleanor’s charters had always begun “To the king’s faithful followers and hers.” This one was addressed simply to “her faithful followers.” Did it matter? A careless mistake by her scribe? Or another feather in the wind, a subtle but significant indication that Eleanor was asserting her independence and her authority? Her right to govern in her own name?

A sudden spate of cursing drew her back to the window. Geoffrey’s friends had begun to quarrel over a throw and before long, they were rolling around in the grass as Geoffrey and the girls cheered them on. Maud watched serenely; with two sons of her own, she knew how little such youthful squabbles meant.

She didn’t hear the opening door, did not realize she was no longer alone until Eleanor joined her at the window. Eleanor, the mother of four sons, paid even less heed than Maud to the garden brawl. “Petronilla’s daughter has just ridden in,” she said, hazel eyes luminous with pleasure. “I was hoping she’d arrive in time to witness Richard’s investiture.”

Maud jogged her memory. Isabelle was the elder of Petronilla’s two daughters, wed as a child to the Count of Flanders; Alienor, who’d wed Isabelle’s brother-in-law, the Count of Boulogne, a few years ago, was already here. As far as Maud knew, Eleanor had not spent much time with her sister’s children. That she had taken the trouble to make sure both girls were present in Poitiers showed Maud how much her friend missed Petronilla, whose death that past year had robbed Eleanor of her last living link to a sun-drenched, blissful childhood, to a time when she’d been indulged and pampered and cherished as her father’s favorite in this exotic land she so loved.

Below in the garden, Joanna had decided the tussling had gone on long enough and, with an authority that would have done credit to a girl twice her age, she demanded that the boys stop fighting. They did, probably glad of an excuse to end their pummeling, but Maud was amused by the little girl’s aplomb, thinking that the young Eleanor must have been just as self-assured and poised. Smiling at Joanna’s mother, she said, “Are the rumors true about Joanna? That she may soon be plight-trothed to the King of Sicily?”

“There have been talks,” Eleanor confirmed. “But we’re still in the preliminary stages of negotiation, so it is too soon to tell how it will go. There is no hurry, after all, for Joanna will only be seven in October. I see no reason for her to grow up in a foreign court,” she said, so emphatically that Maud thought of Joanna’s older sisters. Tilda had been the first to go, wed two years ago in far-off Saxony at the age of twelve. Then it was the turn of Eleanor’s namesake, known as Leonora, wed to the young King of Castile at the age of nine.

The two women looked at each other, the same thought in both their minds. In their world, princesses were born to be bartered for foreign alliances, and although the Church officially disapproved of child marriages, it was a common occurrence. Henry’s mother had been sent to Germany at the age of eight. Marguerite had been wed to Hal before she was three. Eleanor had been thirteen when her father’s unexpected death set in motion the events that would give her the crown of France and a life in exile. Maud had been older than Eleanor, but not by much, when she’d been married to the Earl of Chester, a man utterly lacking in either honor or mercy, but one of the great lords of the realm. Because she was quick-witted and resilient and pragmatic, Maud had learned to live in relative peace with her savage, unstable husband, to take solace and joy in her children, and, eventually, to revel in the freedom of widowhood. But she had made sure that her daughter would be no child bride; Beatrix had not wed Ralph de Malpas until after she’d celebrated her nineteenth birthday.

As the only daughter in a family of sons, Maud had often longed for a sister, and as she gazed at Eleanor now, it occurred to her that this woman was as close as any blood-sister could be. They had much in common, both beautiful in their youth, both strong-willed, proud, and confident in their powers to charm, both now within hailing distance of their fifth decade, for they would celebrate their forty-eighth birthdays that summer.

“I had an interesting conversation this morn with your niece Alienor,” Maud commented, with a wry smile. “She wanted to know why I had never remarried after Randolph’s death.”

“I hope you did not shatter all her illusions about marriage,” Eleanor said, no less wryly. “You must remember that her parents were that rarity, a couple who’d wed for love…or lust. And Alienor seems content enough with her own husband…so far.”

“No, I was circumspect…for me. I said merely that my memories of Randolph were too vivid for me to contemplate taking another husband.”

Eleanor laughed approvingly. “It is no easy feat for a wealthy widow to escape her legion of suitors. You must have been very fleet of foot, indeed, dearest.”

“I made sure,” Maud acknowledged, “never to leave my lands without a sizable escort, one large enough to discourage any ambitious young lordlings with ambush and marriage on their minds.” Knowing that Eleanor had fended off two such attempts to force her into matrimony as she’d journeyed back to Aquitaine after her marriage to the French king had been annulled, she indulged her curiosity to ask: “If you could have been certain, Eleanor, that you need not fear being remarried against your will, would you have remained unwed?”

Eleanor’s mouth tightened, almost imperceptibly. “You do not truly think that the French court would have permitted that? No sooner was the ink dry upon the annulment decree than Louis’s advisors were arguing amongst themselves, deciding which French puppet to place in my bed. Had they even suspected I’d so hastily wed a man of my own choosing, they’d never have allowed me to return to my own domains. But yours was a conjectural question, was it not? So in that spirit: ‘Be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage.’”

Maud blinked, for Eleanor rarely let her bitterness show so nakedly. “Your interpretation of Scriptures is somewhat uncanonical,” she said dryly. “That is from St Paul, is it not? If my memory serves, he also said it was better to marry than to burn, hardly a rousing endorsement of wedlock.”

“I have never understood,” Eleanor confessed, “why the Church sees lust as so great a sin. Why would the Almighty have made coupling so pleasurable if it were so wrong? But when I tried to argue that point with Louis, he was horrified that I dared to question the teachings of the Holy Fathers, and it convinced him that we were a depraved and wanton lot, we southerners. He could never forgive himself for the carnal pleasures he found in my bed. He was not much of a husband, or a king, either, for that matter, but by God, he’d have made a superb monk.”

Eleanor’s face shadowed, for even now, memories of her marriage to the French king were not welcome ones. “He may well have been right, though, about the people of the south. We view lust as we do wine and food and laughter, as essential ingredients for a joyful life. My grandfather…ah, how he loved to vex his priests and distress his confessor! He wrote troubadour poetry, you know, and some of it would have made a harlot blush. He liked to joke that one day he’d establish his own nunnery and fill it with ladies of easy virtue. On our wedding night, I told Harry some of the more scandalous stories about my grandfather, and he laughed until he nearly choked, gasping that between us, we had a family tree rooted in Hell.”

This last memory was both more pleasant and more painful than those from her marriage to Louis, and Eleanor fell silent for several moments. “I think,” she said at last, “that I would have wed Harry even if I were not threatened with a husband of the French court’s choosing. I wanted children, for I knew Louis would never let me see our two daughters, and indeed, he did not. I needed an heir for Aquitaine and I wanted to give Harry sons, to prove wrong those who’d dared to call me a barren queen. I always knew it was Louis’s failing, not mine. How could I conceive if I so often slept alone?”

“And I am assuming that you had no trouble getting Harry into your bed?” Maud queried, so blandly that Eleanor could not help smiling.

“You could safely say that,” she conceded, and Maud felt a surge of sadness that things had gone so wrong between her cousin and his queen. She remembered how it had once been, remembered the early years of their marriage, when they’d been so sure that the world, like the English crown, was theirs for the taking, lusting after empires and each other, striking such sparks with their quarreling and their lovemaking that the air around them always seemed charged, as if a storm were about to break.

Eleanor’s attention was focused again upon the gardens. She was still a very handsome woman, but even queens were vulnerable to the passage of time. Now, though, her smile was dazzling, chasing away the years, cares, even regrets. Maud glanced over to see what she found so interesting.

Another youth had sauntered into the garden, accompanied by a huge wolfhound. Maud guessed him to be about sixteen, for he was already taller than many grown men, and he moved with the athletic grace of one utterly comfortable in his own body. Maud knew how unusual it was for one so young to have such physical presence; both of her sons had been as clumsy and gangling as colts when they were this boy’s age. He had curly red-gold hair and a scattering of freckles, and she would later marvel that she had not known his identity at once, but it was not until Joanna gave a delighted squeal and flung herself into his arms that she realized she was looking at Eleanor’s second son, Richard, who would on the morrow be invested as Duke of Aquitaine.

“Jesu, that is Richard!”

“Indeed it is.” Eleanor glanced curiously at her friend. “Why do you sound so surprised?”

“Because the last time I saw him, he was a boy, not a man. He looks older than his years, for he will not be fifteen until the autumn, no?”

“September. He was born on the Nativity of Our Lady. The first and only time that Harry was present for one of my confinements.”

Maud grinned at the memory, for she’d been present, too, at Richard’s birth. “I remember now. Harry’s brother Will later told me that they’d been hard put to keep him from bursting into the birthing chamber. Harry was never one for waiting.”

Below in the garden, Richard was swinging Joanna in circles, making her shriek with laughter. The other girls had clustered around him, but Geoffrey and his friends did not seem as pleased by his arrival in their midst. Maud could not blame Geoffrey for his discomfort. Although only a twelvemonth separated the birthdays of the two boys, Geoffrey looked like a child next to his brother, his slightness of build and his lack of height cruelly accentuated by Richard’s adult appearance. Maud’s two sons had been allies from earliest childhood. She suspected that was not the case with Richard and Geoffrey.