The Winter Crown (52 page)

The guards on the walls bowed to her and made way. Gazing out into the star-salted night, the moon a luminous white disc, she observed a female figure crossing the ward, escorted by a soldier bearing a torch. Rosamund, she thought with scorn. Poor, deluded, silly girl. Why would anyone want to be Henry’s queen? What kind of power was that? He would use her as he used everyone and discard her when he had had enough.

Hearing voices further along the battlements, an interweaving of masculine cajolery and soft feminine giggles, she frowned. The only people who should be up here were the soldiers on duty and those who had authority. It was not a trysting place for lust-struck squires and their conquests. The voices came closer, shushing and whispering, and Alienor stood tall to confront the approaching lovers. By the grey light of the moon they were an odd sight, for they were bundled into a single cloak, hence the hilarity as they strove to match footsteps and bumped against each other.

Their meander stopped short as they came up against Alienor. The girl gave a frightened scream and the youth stifled an expletive.

‘Do you not kneel before your queen?’ Alienor demanded icily, her annoyance exacerbated by what she had just seen in the courtyard.

With a desperate flurry the pair struggled to their knees, the girl falling over and the youth yanking her up.

‘Madam, forgive me, I did not realise…’

She recognised the voice now, and with it came recognition of the features too. Jeoffrey, Henry’s bastard, and perhaps about the business of begetting another one.

‘What are you doing here?’

He made a gesture of appeasement. ‘I was showing Sara the battlements under moonlight. I didn’t think…’

‘Indeed you did not,’ Alienor said. ‘This is no place for trysting. Do not think to persuade the guards to look the other way just because your father is the King and you think it gives you privilege. It doesn’t. Get up.’

He lunged to his feet and extricated his partner from inside his cloak. Alienor vaguely recognised the trembling girl as belonging to the dairy. ‘Go,’ she said to her. ‘And thank God on your knees that I am not going to order you whipped.’

The girl ducked her head and beat a hasty retreat, disappearing into the darkness of a turret entrance.

Alienor looked at Jeoffrey. Henry had appointed him Archdeacon of Lincoln in September with an eye to confirming him to the bishopric at a later date, but the young man, although enjoying the fiscal benefits of the post, showed no intention of taking vows. If anything, since his appointment, he had turned the other way, and could be found constantly training in the military arts, swaggering about and making trysts with silly girls who should know better. ‘I wonder what your grandmother would say if she could see you.’ She moved to the wall and looked out over the starlit landscape. ‘What sort of man do you want to be, Jeoffrey?’

He adjusted his cloak, pulling it straight. ‘I want to serve my father,’ he replied after a short but prickly silence. ‘I want to do my best for him as he has done for me.’

‘And this is it? Your best?’

‘It was a moment of fun,’ he said sulkily.

‘Indeed, but you have responsibilities and a position to uphold. And clandestine fumbling with dairy maids is not part of that position if you desire to be honoured.’ That was how he had been begotten – a result of his father’s tumbles with a common woman. She did not say so; he was intelligent enough to make the connection. ‘You have a life of privilege, granted to very few. Will you use it, or abuse it? Think on what I have said.’

When he had gone, she closed her eyes and breathed deeply of the cold starlit air. She had asked him what sort of man he wanted to be, and she feared that the answer he had avoided giving her was that he wanted to be just like his father.

Despite the various frictions, the Christmas sojourn at Chinon had its pleasures and entertainments. Alienor went hunting with her gyrfalcon and her sleek white gazehounds. There was the exhilaration of the chase in the bright, brisk cold and, as always, the sensation of a fast horse under her saddle and the wind flurrying against her mantle made her laugh aloud with exultation. Each day, when they returned in red winter sunsets with the trees stark and black behind them, there was feasting and merriment and tale-telling in the hall. She played chess with Jeoffrey. Occasionally he defeated her, but most of the time she still won.

John and Joanna arrived from Fontevraud and Henry was delighted to see his youngest son, now turned six years old, so nimble and intelligent and eager to please him. Joanna was a delightful, pretty little girl and Henry derived great pleasure from having her sit in his lap where she fed him preserved fruits from a bowl, seeing how fast he could devour them. Observing him with his youngest offspring, Alienor remembered when he had been like that with the others – until the girls approached marriageable age, and the boys became old enough to potentially challenge him.

Henry took John up on his fast courser and cantered him round the yard before setting off to hunt; and John was exhilarated until he was put down and left behind with his nurse. Alienor noticed how hungrily John watched his father. He would emulate his walk and dog Henry’s heels everywhere he went. Richard treated his youngest sibling, nine years his junior, with amused indifference, occasionally verging on scorn. He would cuff him and bowl him over, the way he did when playing with his father’s half-grown pet gazehound. He called him ‘John Sans Terre’, and laughed when John became angry – until the day that John stole Richard’s sword and hid it under a pile of dung in the stable yard.

The ensuing fracas was cataclysmic. John denied all knowledge despite having been seen lurking in the area by a groom, but it didn’t save him from being held upside down and shaken by Richard, who had then thrown him into the dung heap and threatened to slit his windpipe with the sword. By the time a passing knight intervened and came to John’s rescue, he was a shaken wreck, tears and mucus streaming down his face, and he had pissed himself. But he wasn’t sorry. Forced to own up and apologise, he spoke the words by rote, but his eyes flashed fire and retribution. Richard, taken to task by Henry for excess violence against a child and his own brother, was not sorry either and stormed off to clean his sword, muttering that he would kill John if he came near his weapons ever again.

There was constant turbulence. The heavy tension was like waiting for snow to fall as the sky darkened. The silence from Bonneville, where Harry was holding his own Christmas court. The late evenings when Alienor knew that Rosamund was slipping through the postern to Henry’s chamber. All under their noses and all unsaid while their Irish harpist plucked sweet notes that trembled in the air as he sang songs of betrayal and deception. Alienor’s white gyrfalcon preened on her perch, and men rested their cups on their bellies, listened to the musician, and cast each other sidelong glances.

The Narrow Sea was an expanse of hurtling grey waves with spindrift blowing off their tops before they crashed into the shoreline in explosions of silver spray. In other halls in England, men talked at fires, warming their hands and sharpening their blades ready for next year’s campaign season. At Canterbury the common folk crowded to the tomb of Thomas Becket and, in the scarlet glow from the shrine lamps, heard tales of miracles as they made offerings in exchange for vials of the ‘Water of Canterbury’, and called for their king-slain martyr to be made a saint.

‘I wish Henry would give Harry and Marguerite their own lands,’ Alienor said to Isabel as they sat together in Alienor’s chamber. Outside, the ground was covered with a light dusting of snow, but it wasn’t enough to interfere with the court’s preparations to move on to Fréteval. The sounds of bustle carried up through the narrow window arch. ‘He will be eighteen next month, and he needs a focus.’ She watched John and his cousin Will constructing a castle from wooden blocks. Despite the usual childhood squabbles, the boys had formed a firm friendship, which pleased her, because John was generally aloof with other children and they tended to avoid him.

‘It doesn’t seem a moment since Harry was a little boy playing with his toy knights and castles,’ Isabel commented with a fond look at their sons.

‘And that is the problem,’ Alienor said, her tone heartfelt. ‘That is how Henry would see our son even now that he is on the cusp of manhood. He gives him playthings – money and gifts – but not responsibility, and then complains when the money is gone and he is asked for more. What does he expect? If he does give him tasks, they are no more than sealing charters and witnessing covenants. There is no meat to the matter. Harry needs more than that for his own sake and the country’s, but Henry does not wish to see it. It is not the same for Richard because I give him leeway and he can perform a man’s duties in my dominions, and when Geoffrey comes of age Brittany will be his. But what is there for Harry to govern? Henry would have to give him Normandy, England or Anjou and he will never do that.’

‘I do not know what to say.’

‘Because there is nothing to say,’ Alienor replied. ‘The solution is for Henry to change, and that will happen when the seas run dry.’ She looked at the children playing round their feet. ‘You have but one son; that is precarious, but at least you will not face squabbles over inheritance.’

‘Indeed,’ Isabel agreed and put her hand on her belly. ‘I do not think there will be more than these four. My fluxes are scant these days and Hamelin is absent much of the time with Henry.’

‘You miss him, don’t you?’

‘I do,’ Isabel said softly. ‘Things are so difficult because of what has happened. I do not want Hamelin – or me – to change so much that we no longer recognise each other. I still want to take his hand, and have him take mine.’

‘It is too late for me and Henry,’ Alienor said bleakly. ‘I shall be relieved to return to Poitiers.’

‘I am sorry.’

‘I took someone’s hand once.’ Alienor gazed into the distance. ‘But I lost him a long time ago.’ Isabel started to ask a question and then changed her mind, and Alienor was glad, for she would not have answered it, no matter how firm their friendship. Some things were best left unspoken.

Alienor was sorting out a box of tangled embroidery silks when Henry came to her chamber. He had taken John out riding, and the latter was dancing at his side, his small face still alight from the pleasure of the experience. A small pang went through Alienor, another shard. Henry was so good with small children – while they were easy to control – and when he could be bothered.

‘To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?’ she enquired. Normally Henry would have given John to his nurse and not come anywhere near her chamber.

‘Pleasure?’ Henry smiled and ruffled John’s hair. ‘I think we are past that stage, but I wanted to keep you informed since we will be parting company soon.’

‘Well, that makes a change from keeping me in ignorance.’ She raised her head from the knotted silks. Henry had picked up one of John’s toys – a cone on a string attached to a ball, and was busily popping the ball in and out of the socket. ‘But that is obviously not your intention today.’

He chose to ignore her sarcasm. ‘I was talking earlier with emissaries of the Count of Maurienne. You’ll meet them at dinner. Count Humbert has a daughter, and is interested in matching her with John if terms can be arranged to our mutual satisfaction.’

‘Maurienne.’ Alienor pursed her lips. ‘That would mean lands in Piedmont and Savoy?’

‘Yes, and the opportunity to become Count of Savoy.’

Alienor glanced at John, who was listening with interest. ‘What of Ireland?’

‘There is still that possibility, but the Maurienne lands are strategic for controlling the mountain routes through the Alps.’

She heard the eagerness in his voice. Once again he was building worlds, expanding his territories and horizons, and in spite of herself she felt an echo in her bones. ‘And in exchange?’ she asked. ‘What does Humbert of Maurienne want to trade for such a treasure?’

Henry cupped the ball. ‘That is to be discussed. I have invited him to Claremont in two months’ time to see what can be arranged. I shall want all my heirs there since we did not have a full gathering this Christmas.’

‘Will I still be King of Ireland?’ John demanded.

Henry chuckled. ‘We shall see, my little hawk,’ he said. ‘We shall see.’

A gleam entered John’s eyes. ‘Richard won’t be able to call me John Sans Terre any more.’

‘No, he won’t.’ Henry handed him the toy in dismissal and ruffled his hair. ‘And certainly not when I am by.’

‘I will be interested to see just what you are going to give Humbert of Maurienne in exchange for his daughter,’ Alienor said when John had gone.

Henry tugged on his earlobe. ‘I am thinking about it. Enough to make him commit but as little as I can get away with.’

When Henry had made his will during his last serious illness, there had been nothing for John. She failed to see what there could be unless Henry raided his coffers and offered coin and treasure in lieu, and she knew how reluctant he would be to do that.

‘Mama!’ Harry stooped so that Alienor could embrace him. His smile was warm, his hair shone like gold, and his eyes were as clear as a calm northern sea. Since last she saw him he had become a man, gaining another finger joint in height and broadening out.

‘It is so good to see you!’ Alienor was laughing and crying at the same time. ‘It has been too long! You’ve grown so much!’ She turned to embrace Marguerite. ‘And you look well too, daughter.’

‘Yes, madam, I am.’ Marguerite responded with a curtsey and a dutiful kiss. She was as plump as a pink silk cushion, her forehead and chin spotty with adolescent blemishes. Yet her brown eyes shone and the smile on her lips made all the difference. Alienor noted the possessive look she sent towards Harry and the one he returned to her. It wasn’t adoring, but there was a knowing air of complicity that excluded Alienor and reminded her of her first marriage where she and Louis had done the same before Louis’s mother – who was this girl’s grandmother. Marguerite was now a queen in her own right, although not anointed at Westminster, and not by Becket. Alienor imagined a small, almost hidden crown on her head, as opposed to the great diadem she envisaged on Harry’s.