The Secret Eleanor (10 page)

Eleanor and the King were riding side by side, not speaking; Thierry was on the King’s right, and behind them. Ahead were only a few pages and squires. When Henry cantered up they scattered, and he rode through them and stopped before the King’s face, right before the Queen.

She could not keep from smiling; her eyes met his for an instant, and a spark leaped.

“I have come to say good-bye,” Henry said, looking first at Louis, and then again at Eleanor.

She lowered her eyes, but she could not hide her smile.

The King said, puzzled, “Well, then, good-bye, my lord.”

For an instant the young Norman held there, blocking the way; she wondered wildly if he contemplated seizing her away, right then, and her whole body rippled, although she knew it would be folly. But then he wheeled and galloped off.

“What did that mean?” Louis asked, blankly.

Beyond him, Thierry shot her a black look. “What did that mean?”

Eleanor kept her eyes down and her smile wide. She knew what that meant. She nudged her horse on, up over the bridge to the royal island.

“You’ve brought her back here?” Eleanor said. Barefoot, in her shift, she flung herself down on the window stool and stared at her sister. “You’re so softhearted.”

“Eleanor.” Petronilla sank down beside her. “She’s just a girl. Let her come back.” She reached up and raked her hand through her hair, damp with sweat. The ugly stink of the almshouse remained with her.

“She’ll just spy on us again,” Eleanor said. The other women had taken Claire off to clean her up. Eleanor had caught only a glimpse of her, but certainly she had no courtly look about her anymore.

“I saw what Thierry did to her,” Petronilla said. “She will not spy for him, of that I’m sure.” She did not say,
I saw it, and I did not stop it
. She took Eleanor’s hand. “We shall need her, anyway—Alys and Marie-Jeanne can’t do everything, and the progress is coming.”

Eleanor squeezed her fingers. “They’d just send somebody else, I suppose.” With her free hand she wiped her face. Her eyes had an inward, dreamy look.

“Did the Angevins like the church?” Petronilla said.

“Oh, yes. Ah, it was magnificent. And then afterward, for amusement, I had my own little disputation of scholars.” Her mouth quirked. She lifted Petronilla’s hand to her lips. “Send the child in; I’ll talk to her.”

Alys and Marie-Jeanne had done what they could for Claire: washed her face and hands, combed her hair, put her in her best clothes, given her some shoes, but Claire could not stop crying. She was terrified of Eleanor; and when she came into the midst of the other women, she could not lift her gaze from the floor.

Instead she sank down on her knees, her hands together as if she prayed and, sobbing and blubbering, confessed everything, that from the beginning she had run to tell Eleanor’s secrets to Thierry, who had given her sweets and money in exchange for gossip about Eleanor’s dreams, what she ate, what jokes she heard, and how she lost at tables.

The women of the Queen’s chamber made a circle around her. Petronilla went to stand beside her sister, who sat by the window, her hands in her lap. When Claire, panting, came to the end of her speech, Eleanor gave a little shake of her head.

Petronilla felt a start of alarm and put out her hand, but her sister waved her off. Alys and Marie-Jeanne stood behind Claire, their hands folded together.

Claire began to cry again, crumpling down over her knees, her hair tousled and damp. Alys had put some disguise over the great livid bruise on her cheek, but the swelling still marred her face.

Abruptly Eleanor said, “Well, my girl, have you learned your lesson? Will you go off again to Thierry with spying reports?”

Huddled at Eleanor’s feet, the child groaned, her teeth clenched. “No, my lady, I swear it. I promise.” Fresh sobs shook her. “I hate him. I hate him.” She lifted her head and spat vehemently, like a stable boy.

Eleanor laughed. “Well, I hope you will come to love me instead. I forgive you. You may stay with us.”

Petronilla swelled, pleased, reached out her hand, and touched Eleanor’s shoulder. Both of the other waiting women were beaming in an easy, sentimental joy. Claire looked up, her puffy, discolored face wide with surprise, suddenly hopeful. She lunged at Eleanor and caught her hand and began to kiss it.

“Your Grace—Your Grace—”

Eleanor snatched her hand away and, with her hand on Claire’s shoulder, held her firmly off. “Don’t blubber on me. You’re wetting my gown. Keep your pride, girl. Or get some, whichever it is.”

Claire said, “Yes, Your Grace, yes, Your Grace,” backing away on her knees. Eleanor lifted her gaze to the other waiting women, her eyes wide, her face grave. “And now we have the progress to come. With only three, and the two of us, here, your work shall be hard. Do we need to find another?”

“No, my lady,” Alys said. “We, who love you both, can do anything you require.” Marie-Jeanne came to Eleanor and kissed her on both cheeks, and Eleanor took these kisses gladly, raising her face to her old nurse, smiling. Claire had drawn back, tears on her face again, her gaze on Eleanor.

Then her eyes shifted, and she was looking at Petronilla, and she smiled.

Later, after prayers, when the women were readying the room for sleep, Eleanor said, “I hope you have been wise as ever in this, Petronilla.”

Petronilla said nothing. Claire was helping Alys shake out the bedclothes. Now that the girl was back among them, her suspicions came swarming in, against her will, her doubts twining around her good intentions, sprouting thorns. “I don’t know,” she said. “I never know what’s going on anyway, Eleanor.”

“Ah,” Eleanor said. “Leave it to me, then.”

Petronilla said nothing. All she knew now was that everything was changing. “What will become of us, Eleanor?”

Her sister said, “I don’t know. But I’m not going to sit here and rot away. I’m going to get back to Poitiers, somehow, and be free.”

“Poitiers!” Petronilla felt her heart leap. “Oh, let it be so, and soon.”

Eleanor put her arm around her waist and leaned her cheek against her sister’s. “I promise you, my dear one.” Her voice dropped to a luxuriant whisper. “We’ll be home again. And there, my darling, we’ll have our own court. With music, and stories, jongleurs and troubadours—” She laughed, exultant, as if it were already happening. “There’s a new age before us. I heard it, when the masters from the Studium talked at court—what Duke Henry said at our feasting. And we will rule over it. I’ll open up my palace to every new idea, every wonderful gift, you’ll see. I mean to make Poitiers the garden of the world.” She pecked a kiss onto Petronilla’s cheek. “I promise you.”

Petronilla heaved up a sigh. In her mind she saw the narrow hill-climbing streets of Poitiers; her imagination leaped past her sister’s words to the promise in them, a new life in a joyous place, where men and women moved happily and freely, where she no longer had to watch every word, or worry who ran with what tale to which enemy.

Then Claire came in again, carrying the dog-faced ewer.

A cold foreboding washed over her. She wondered if she had made a mistake. She stiffened on the stool, drawing a little away from Eleanor. “That makes me worry even more. Now that there’s so much to lose.”

Petronilla glanced toward the center of the room, where Alys sat sewing; Marie-Jeanne had the wardrobe open and was hanging the gown inside, tucking dried flowers into the folds of cloth. Claire was pouring the wine into cups. That at least she had learned to do gracefully. Eleanor reached out and smoothed back the sleeve of Petronilla’s gown where it had been rumpled. “Sometimes, my dear one, you have to risk something. Otherwise, there’s nothing gained.” Her eyes were merry, green in the sunlight, fearless. Petronilla turned to her, wanting that clarity, and laid her head on her sister’s shoulder.

Claire helped Alys shake out the Queen’s dress, trying to imitate the older woman’s grace. It had come to her, as she settled down into the relief of knowing she was back where she belonged, that she really didn’t know as much as she thought she did. It wasn’t that she wasn’t good, so much as she did not know how to be good.

Alys knew something, she carried herself well, and she had a way with face powders and the colors of clothes. But there was more than that. She kept thinking of the Hotel-Dieu, so cold, and then Petronilla’s voice saying, “Come home,” and how that had made her feel; she thought she wanted to be the person who could say that, and make someone else feel that way. Safe again. Wanted.

Eleanor was magnificent, too high above her to make pretend with; that would seem like mockery. Petronilla, gentle Petronilla, was within her reach. She would try to be like Petronilla. Carefully she laid the Queen’s shift down into the chest.

From Paris the Count of Anjou and his sons rode westward toward Angers. The sun beat on them, the heat of the summer. In the middle of the second day, they drew rein at an inn, where they took over the back room, and the innkeeper brought them a keg of ale and a dish of eels and some bread. The Count hung on his younger son, trading empty compliments with him, and both looking sideways at Henry.

Henry could hardly bear even to sit down. He went out and supervised the changes of horses, but he had to go in again to eat. Everything his father did seemed intended to cross him up, keep him in knots, break his charge, and this sudden love for the younger brother was no different. The low, dusty room was so hot they were sitting around in their shirts and still sweating. He sat at the door, where the draft was, and remembered her magnificent green eyes.

He saw no way she could escape her husband. It amazed him such a man had her, that white-livered sickling. To think of them in bed together made him want to laugh, or puke. She would ride Louis, he thought, she would take the lead, and the picture of this flashed into his mind. He caught himself smiling, replacing the King in the bed with himself, on top.