The Secret Eleanor (46 page)

His thick hair was dark, but she thought she saw a red tinge in it. For a while he lay there, his eyes open, and his arms and legs waggling aimlessly, while she stroked him and talked to him and counted his fingers and toes, inspected the black stump coming out of his navel, and let him curl his hand around her thumb. He was the most beautiful boy she had ever seen. She told him so several times. He turned toward her voice, his eyes vague.

She lifted him into her arms; he seemed to weigh nothing. He nuzzled at her, and began to mewl. At first she stiffened, frightened, with nothing to give him, helpless before his demands. Then she began to sway him back and forth, and sing. That quieted him, and he lay in her arms, his eyes open, looking up at her face.

She said, “I need to name you. Nothing that means anything, you see, no Williams, or Ranulphs, or Fulks. Or—heaven help us—Henry. Else everybody will know, and you are my secret boy.” She laid him down on the bed again, licked her thumb, and made the sign of the cross on his forehead. “I name you Philip. And may you love horses, and everybody else love you.”

The wet nurse emitted another disapproving squeak. The baby began to quest around with his lips, and presently wailed, and Petronilla drew back and nodded to let the nurse take him.

She sent for firewood and had them lay a good fire in the hearth. Some women she had never seen before came in and made her bed for her. They bowed to her when they left, their eyes never looking at her. One murmured, “My lady Petronilla,” before they left. The name was like a draught of wine. She was Petronilla again forever.

But she dragged along Petronilla’s fate; she was left behind again. She thought of de Rançun, probably well gone now toward his own castle, and shut down the memory before it hurt too much.

The wet nurse took the baby off to wherever she slept, probably next door. She might hear the baby cry in the night. She wondered if she could have him and the wet nurse sleep in her room. Her breasts felt taut, useless. She wished she had milk to give him; it seemed the most tender thing in the world.

She stood alone in the room, suddenly feeling all the space around her. Empty. She had thought herself coming into her own kingdom, and maybe this was all there was, this loneliness, this uselessness, someone else’s child she could not even nourish.

She lit a candle and stood by the fire, taking off her coif; Eleanor had ripped it, and she cast it to the floor. She shook her hair loose. Tomorrow she would find someone to brush it. Now it reached down in a tangled mass to her waist. She would need women of her own, a court of her own. A house, perhaps, of her own. Gracelessly she fought her way out of the filthy gown.

“Petra.”

She whirled, every hair on end.

“Petra,” he said, again, standing there, and she rushed into his arms.

“I looked for you—” She was near weeping. She pressed her mouth to his, her arms around his neck.

“Did you think I could leave you?” He hugged her tight against him. “I could not leave you here.” He laughed and drew back, to look her in the face. “I thought to protect you from her, but it was Eleanor who needed protecting!” He kissed her again. “The way you flew at her—she was afraid of you. You have the soul of a hero, my darling, in a woman’s body.”

His hands pressed against her back, covered only by the underdress and the shift. His lips tickled her ear. His finger slipped over the crevice at the top of her buttocks. “Which I am forever finding you unclothing.”

She kissed him again, her arms around his neck, and felt his embrace tighten around her. She never wanted to stop kissing him. His tongue grazed her underlip, the inside of her cheek. She blazed with a long-pent, pure desire; she had been waiting long, long for this, and she would wait no more.

He said, “Shall I help you take off the rest?” His fingers tugged lightly on the underdress, gathering it up.

She leaned back, his arms still around her waist, and put her hands on his coat. “How do you get this off?” She reached down to his belt and unbuckled it. He gave a startled, amused yelp, and caught the belt and the scabbarded sword before they hit the ground, one arm still around her waist. He tossed the sword to one side with a clatter and bent so she could see his shoulder.

“Undo the clasp.” He went back to pulling her dress up; he got the skirts around her waist, and his hand slid down over her bare buttock. She shuddered in a rush of feeling. She found the brooch on his shoulder and pulled the pin out, and his coat fell away. Lifting her arms, she let him lift the dress and the shift up over her head.

He dropped them on the floor, let her go briefly to strip off his tunic, and stood with his hands on her arms, looking at her body, his eyes wide. She put her hands on his bare chest.

“I’ve never seen you naked before,” she said, and her fingertip ran down a long white scar through the curly blond hair on his chest.

“Nor I you,” he said. “We’re new to each other now; we need to learn everything new.” He bent and kissed her mouth, tender and sweet. “Everything starts now, all new.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, her body tingling with desire, and he scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the bed.

She woke beside him, in the first dawn of Easter Sunday, when everything was redeemed. He still slept. Her gaze trailed slowly along him, his mass of fair curly hair, his sun-browned cheekbone. The square jaw stubbled with light blond beard, which had rasped along her thighs the night before, tickled her in hidden places. He had shown her ways to love she had never known before, more intimate, more thrilling than anything she had ever known before. With his mind sunk away in sleep, his body was like an offering to her: the broad chest with its fair hair, muscled like armor, the belly sunken a little below the ribs, and beneath, the soft curl of his penis. She wanted to touch him there. She wanted to inspect him all over, as she had the baby, hers, now, hers alone.

He stirred. His eyes opened, bright blue. He said, “I have to go soon.” He reached for her hand and held it, and kissed it. “Come with me to Taillebourg. I beg you. I’d not dishonor you, sneaking like this.” His smile bloomed, turning his eyes brighter. “Although there’s too much love between us for a marriage, I think.”

She said, “You have made your honor into a shield for me; you cannot dim it for me now, whatever you do. But I have to stay here, Joffre. There’s still something between me and my sister.”

“What?” He put her hand on his shoulder, pulling her closer; his penis was stiffening, fierce.

“I don’t know,” she said. She wanted him again, and she never wanted him gone again. She said, “Stay with me. Please. Stay.” She gave him her mouth, her lips parted.

He rolled her onto her back and kissed her, long and deep, a kiss that pinioned her fast. “For a while,” he said. “Not forever. You’ll have to choose sometime, Petronilla.”

She gulped; she spread her knees for him.
I have chosen,
she thought. The sudden thrust of his body filled her, connected her, made them one being. She cried out, her head thrown back under the power of it, possessed.

NORMANDY
MAY 1152

 

 

 

The Empress Matilda had ailed all winter, as she sometimes did, getting even thinner and paler, but she would not stay in her own bower. Her sharp voice was always edged with temper. She complained that the trouvère had left, and had more lute players and singers brought to her, in a constant stream, but all of those she cast aside. She sat on her bed, and her servants carried the whole bed around, and she cursed the servants and ordered everybody around, even Henry, when she could find him, although Henry seldom did what she wanted.

Now, some days after Easter, she had her servants carry her, bed and all, to attend the council at Lisieux that would proclaim the Duke of Normandy’s new campaign against England.

The council was in the great hall, and as she came to the door, her son came there also. She paused to admire him, although she would never admit this. He was strong and square and high-headed, and even in his youth he gave off a glitter of power. She thought,
I have done well with him
.

He gave her a proper bow, as she had taught him to do as a child, whipping him soundly when he forgot. He approached her, her strapping son, in a fine coat carelessly worn. The little sprig of yellow broom in his cap was an emblem he had taken from his father. In his hand there was a paper, maybe something to tell the council. His eyes shone. He said, “Arundel has come, and Leicester is here. Did you get the money?”

She said, “There is money enough, in the coffers, if you are not profligate.” She plucked the paper from his hand. “What is this?”

“One last castle to take,” he said. “This one yielding of its own will.”

He watched her eyes turn to the fine slanted writing. Leaving the letter in her hands, he went off toward the hall, where the barons were gathered.

Months before he had come here to an empty room. This time from the door he looked out over a pack of bodies from wall to wall. All waiting on him now, a bow, a smile, a “Yes, my lord, of course, my lord.” He felt his chest swell under his coat. He saw, out there, in a circle of retainers, the Earl of Leicester himself, come from England just for this, tall, white-haired, a bright feather in his cap.

Henry had everything all prepared, a plan in detail for attacking England, and he did not need every one of these men—only some—but having all would bring the some along with them. In fact, he suspected that with the support of some, Leicester, for instance, and the letter he had intercepted from King Louis, he could make an arrangement to win England without a blow struck. Stephen had betrayed them all—and somehow the fool had put it down in writing. But always best to have a mailed fist and a sword ready, in case.

Now he would have another matter to put before them, not that they had any say in it; he would marry where he wanted. It was possible that getting married could delay the invasion. Louis for one would have some objections. Behind him he heard his mother cry out in despair. At last she had felt her way through Eleanor’s letter to the part that mattered. He stood looking into the hall, seeing the men who only a few months ago hadn’t bothered even to answer his summons, who had closed their castle gates against him, until he forced them open. When they saw him they would bow, acknowledging their master. He went down quickly among them, to take them by surprise.

POITIERS
MAY 1152

 

 

 

Eleanor had sent out the letter to Henry soon after the battle with Petronilla. She was Eleanor again, and all knew it. Petronilla kept to her tower. Henry of Normandy kept to the north.

Only a few days after Petronilla reached Poitiers, the wagons bearing Alys and the other women rolled up through the gates. Eleanor met them in the courtyard of the palace. Alys flung herself from the wagon and rushed to her, remembered abruptly to bow, and then came into her embrace.

“Ah, we’re back, we’re back—” Into Eleanor’s ear, she whispered, “Did Petronilla come?”

Eleanor hugged her. “We are all back,” she said, in a voice to reach all those around them, “where we belong. Petronilla’s in her tower, and I am in mine.” She met Alys’s eyes, and Alys gave a little nod. Her smile widened, triumphant, and her forehead smoothed, clear as a child’s.

She said, “Your Grace, wait until you hear our tale.” The other women and the grooms were emptying the wagons; of them only Alys was the Duchess’s real friend, and the two of them went up the steps into the Maubergeon.

In the hall, Eleanor looked her kinswoman over, head to foot, smiling. “I have missed you much. But you seem to have borne it well.”

“Oh, Your Grace.” Alys turned to her; around them the servants bustled with boxes and baskets, a rising chatter of voices, and the other women fluttering and laughing. Eleanor led Alys toward the stairs.

“When we rode into Blois,” Alys said, “it was as we had been warned; a host of men fell on us. We had told each other to scream and fuss and try to hide, to make it that much harder for them to realize they had been duped.” She laughed. “How they looked, when they began to suspect—it was all I could do to keep a long face.”

They climbed the stairs toward Eleanor’s own chamber. Eleanor wound her arm through Alys’s. “I wish I had seen it, the beast. And here is Marie-Jeanne.”

The other woman rushed down the top few steps to Alys and hugged her. They all went into the Duchess’s chamber. Alys was still bubbling with the excitement of the wild flight, although Eleanor suspected it was more exciting now that it was safely done.

She wondered if she would ever hear the rest, how Petronilla had raced away alone into the wild, how Petronilla had escaped.

“Finally,” Alys said, “the Count himself came, who knows you by sight—please sit down, Your Grace—Marie-Jeanne, bring me the brush—and he looked at each of us in turn.”