The Winter Crown (23 page)

‘As you will,’ Henry said, knowing he had caught his fish, but content now to let it land itself.

Harry wore a new blue tunic that enhanced his eyes, turning them the colour of wild harebells. His cloak was of bright red wool banded with gold and his belt buckle carved from a piece of walrus ivory. Today he was leaving the care of his nurse, his mother and her women, and entering the Chancellor’s household to begin a more rigorous regime of education.

Alienor’s throat tightened as she looked at him, so grown up yet still so much the little boy. ‘I want you to work hard at your lessons,’ she said, smoothing his dark golden hair. ‘One day you will be a king and a duke, and what you learn now will stand you in good stead for then. I want to hear good reports of you from the Chancellor.’

‘Yes, Mama.’ Harry nodded manfully, his expression a mixture of anticipation and bravado. He knew Chancellor Thomas well because he was often about the household, speaking to his parents about matters of finance and government. He had wonderful clothes, much finer than Papa, and two muscular white gazehounds with red collars and silver bells. Harry knew from overheard conversations that Thomas was going to be the new Archbishop of Canterbury, and that it would make him very important indeed. When he had asked his papa if Thomas was going to be more important than the King, his papa’s eyes had hardened but he had then laughed and said that no, the Archbishop of Canterbury was still the King’s servant and Thomas would have to do as he said.

Becket arrived wearing a magnificent cloak lined with squirrel fur and pinned with a round gold brooch.

Alienor steeled herself to be polite to him. ‘May I congratulate you on your new position, my lord chancellor,’ she said.

Becket’s expression was calm, but his eyes were wary as he bowed to her. ‘Madam, I do not underestimate the importance and difficulty of the task I have b-been set and will attend to it as diligently as I am able.’

‘I am certain you will,’ she answered with diplomatic grace. Time would tell, she thought. He had many enemies among the barons and prelates, including the Bishops of Hereford and London, who had been passed over for the appointment, but he had friends too, several at the papal court, and that counted for much. She still thought Henry insane to give one man so much power, but for now she would hold her peace.

‘I am counting on you to educate my son with integrity,’ she said. ‘Teach him what he needs to know in order to rule wisely and well.’

‘Madam, I shall do my utmost.’

Alienor bade formal farewell to Harry. She had already said her heartfelt goodbyes, and this was not the time for more beyond the official kiss of peace. But even so as she felt his child’s lithe body and inhaled his scent, it broke her heart to know that never again would he be a small boy playing underfoot in her chamber. This was his moment of severance from the world of women, the time when he turned away from her towards manhood and absorbed different, harsher influences. Her chest constricted, but she held her head high as he left the room, Becket’s arm sheltering him like a wing.

Alienor had been feeling exhausted and queasy all morning. From the beginning of this pregnancy she had been unwell and the sickness had continued beyond the early weeks. The usual remedy of drinking barley water with a pinch of ginger and taking more rest had done nothing to alleviate the symptoms. This was the seventh occasion that Henry’s seed had taken root in her womb in nine years. She was thirty-eight years old and the frequent pregnancies were taking their toll.

She brought her embroidery to the window seat and joined Isabel, who was working on a chemise. For a short while Alienor picked away at her own stitches, but the act of looking down increased her nausea. Raising her head she looked at the light filtering through the lozenges of glass in their lead housings and tried to distract herself from her discomfort.

‘You know that the King has marriage plans for you and his brother,’ she said to Isabel. ‘When I tried to broach it before, you said you were not ready.’

Isabel’s needle wove in and out glinting with silver light. She said nothing and Alienor received the impression that she would have melted into her work if she could.

‘I need you to consider it now. My lord is looking to make this match before the end of the year.’

Isabel set her needle in the fabric without looking up. ‘You have been very patient, as has the King, and I am grateful.’

‘But that patience is finite. The King has agreed you may stay with me until the child is born. That will give you and my husband’s brother time to become better acquainted before you are wed.’

Isabel’s expression was blank. ‘Yes, madam.’

‘Think on it,’ Alienor said. ‘I can do no more for you, even though you still have my protection. It is your obligation to do your duty, as we all must.’

She picked up her sewing again, but before she could make the first stitch, a deep, squeezing pain struck in the small of her spine and she doubled over with a gasp.

Isabel pushed aside her own work, put her arm round Alienor and cried for help. Alienor’s women came running and helped her to her bed, although Alienor was barely able to walk. Her belly cramped and she felt the first hot flush of blood between her thighs as the miscarriage began.

Someone ran to fetch a midwife, someone else a physician and everything became a blur of frantic activity. Nothing could be done to stop the labour and save the baby. Alienor saw the fear in her women’s eyes and it mirrored her own. This was not an early miscarriage and there was a lot of blood. Her chaplain had been sent for too; she could hear his voice in the antechamber.

The midwife arrived, rolled back her sleeves and set to work, externally massaging Alienor’s womb and entreating the intercession of Saint Margaret, patron of women in travail. Isabel held Alienor’s hand and, in between her own entreaties to the saint, murmured reassurance.

The baby was another boy, no bigger than the length of Alienor’s palm, born still and dead, followed swiftly by the placenta. The midwife quickly covered the blood-spattered bowl with a cloth. ‘He died in the womb,’ she said. ‘It happens sometimes. There is naught to prevent you from bearing another child when you are well.’

Alienor stared dully at the wall without answering. The midwife’s pragmatic remarks, the soothing murmurs of her women, and all the looks exchanged across her body seemed to be part of someone else’s experience and she a stranger watching it happen. Journeying in the Holy Land she had miscarried of a boy child on the road between Antioch and Jerusalem, and this experience had exhumed all those terrible memories. No matter how deep she buried them, they would always resurface, unquiet and crying out to be acknowledged. There was nothing to prevent her from bearing another child, the midwife said. That had to be a curse, not a blessing. No consecrated ground for this little corpse. No baptism, no resurrection; just the long void of limbo.

Alienor passed the next several days in a state of pain and fever. The latter burned so high that her wits wandered and she thrashed in nightmare dreams. Isabel, Marchisa and Emma attended her constantly, cooling her with rose water and soothing her when she cried out. Physicians came and went. Once Alienor saw Henry watching her at the bedside but could not be sure if it was real or just the fever dreams. She thought she heard his voice, hoarse with anxiety: ‘She is going to live, isn’t she?’

‘Sire, she is in God’s hands,’ the physician replied gravely.

‘I say to you again, she is going to live – isn’t she?’

‘What for?’ Alienor heard herself ask in a scratchy, faded voice.

Henry leaned over the bed and she could smell the fresh scent of outdoors on his clothes, and the more pungent aroma of hard-ridden horse and sweaty man. ‘Because, my love, you are always contrary; you will not give up the fight, even if it is only to spite me.’

‘I could spite you by dying,’ she murmured. Across the darkness behind her lids, a white gyrfalcon soared into her vision, wings outspread like those of a fierce angel.

When next she woke, Henry was still at her bedside. Morning light filled the room, turning his hair to tongues of fire, and making the green of his tunic as vivid as new grass. His grey gaze met hers. ‘I told you so,’ he said.

‘I am most certainly not in heaven,’ she croaked. ‘It remains to be seen whether I am in hell.’

He lifted a sardonic eyebrow. ‘That is up to you, my love, but I am glad you decided to stay.’ He leaned over to take her hand and pressed his lips to her wedding ring.

A memory surfaced of blood and pain. ‘The child,’ she said. ‘I lost the child.’

‘Hush, it does not matter.’

‘But it does.’

‘You are still very weak; rest now and grow strong. I do not want to lose you.’ He kissed her brow, and left the room, his footfall quiet for once.

‘He has been here every day, madam,’ said Emma as she tidied the covers and poured Alienor a cup of barley water. ‘He cares for you, truly he does.’

Alienor sipped the cold, cloudy drink. She felt frail and hollow, but she was hungry, and her mind was clear. ‘Yes,’ she said with weary cynicism. ‘He cares that I should live because if I do not, he will face upheaval and rebellion in Aquitaine. He cares for the prestige and the affinities I bring to our marriage, but he cares for me only in the way of pushing against a familiar obstacle. Should that obstacle suddenly disappear, it will unbalance him, at least for a while.’ She shook her head when Emma made to protest. ‘It is the truth. I know where I stand with him; better that than living with delusions.’

September sunshine bathed the walls of Chinon Castle, turning the stone to the same mellow gold as the surrounding harvested fields. Orchards hung heavy with ripening silver-green pears and red-flushed apples. In field and meadow, animals fattened on the last of the glut before the autumn slaughter.

Alienor had been slow to recover and only now was she beginning to feel strong and well. Recuperating, she had been glad to sit at her sewing, and involve herself with her children, playing games with them, reading, listening to music. She had found peace of mind in taking time for contemplation and prayer. Let others see to the details of policy, government and diplomatic striving. What did they matter?

She had been quietly indifferent towards Henry during this time. It was as if she was contained within a protective bubble and whatever he did had no impact on her. A favourite opinion of his was that women lost their wits when they were breeding and became as bovine as cattle. Alienor had felt that way throughout the long weeks of recuperation and only now in the mellow autumn days was she beginning to feel lighter in her being, and to look beyond the bower. The world was developing focus and colour again, and her appetite for its caprices was sharpening.

Standing by the open window she saw Henry’s brother William strolling towards the stables with Isabel at his side. A falconer walked behind, William’s peregrine perched on his gloved wrist. William was gesticulating to Isabel and talking rapidly. She had her head down and slightly turned away. He had asked her to come riding with him, and although Isabel had agreed, she had left the bower with the look of someone going to their doom.

Out on the sward, Hamelin was practising swordplay with Richard and Geoffrey, teaching them their strokes and defences. Richard was hammering at his uncle as if he were on a battlefield and meant every blow, whereas Geoffrey’s movements were more measured, lacking the killer fire.

Alienor looked round with a start of surprise as Henry burst into the chamber, disturbing the tranquil atmosphere. This morning when she had seen him in the great hall his humour had been sharp and cheerful but now his lips were set in a hard, thin line and his eyes were narrow with fury. ‘Whatever is the matter?’

‘Becket.’ He almost spat the name and kicked a stool out of the way. ‘I cannot believe he has done this to me. How could he, after all the privileges I have bestowed on him, the lowborn ingrate.’

‘Why, what has he done?’

Henry’s jaw worked as if chewing on gristle. ‘Resigned the chancellorship. Says he cannot in conscience dedicate himself to both Church and State. God’s teeth, he knew when he accepted the position he would have to deal with both.’

Alienor raised her brows. ‘You took the risk when you appointed him,’ she said and forbore to comment that she had warned him against choosing Becket.

Henry glowered. ‘Why can he not delegate more duties as he agreed to do when I appointed him?’

‘Perhaps he has more responsibility than he thought – more to learn and to do if he is to control the Church?’

Henry exhaled hard. ‘Hah, Thomas is capable of that with one hand tied behind his back.’

‘Then perhaps he prefers to give his full attention to the greater calling,’ she said. ‘As head of the English Church, he is your equal, not a subordinate. He little needs to answer to you as archbishop in the same way he does as chancellor.’ She suspected that for Henry it was like having his favourite hawk fly off into a high tree from where he could neither retrieve nor control it. In his mind, it was one step away from betrayal and even while he was prepared to break his own word as easily as washing his hands, it was unacceptable for others to mete out the same treatment to him. ‘What are you going to do about it?’

‘I shall refuse and tell him to think again.’

‘I fear you may have sown a crop that will cause you a bitter harvest.’

‘There will be no harvest,’ Henry snapped. ‘If the crop is poisoned, then I shall uproot it.’

Alienor eyed him with foreboding. She knew what he was like when thwarted. She saw the same behaviour in her sons when they had tantrums. If the difficulty was straightforward and Becket was indeed just overtaxed, then perhaps matters would resolve themselves, but she suspected the issue was more tangled and difficult than that. It would not be as simple as uprooting. Anyone who tried to do that to nettles always got stung. ‘You will need a chancellor in the meantime.’

‘Geoffrey Ridel can take on the task. He’s Archdeacon of Canterbury and knows the working of the Chancellery. He’s competent – but still not what I intended.’ His tone became harsh, almost petulant. ‘Thomas knew; that is what sticks in my craw.’