The Young Lion (22 page)

‘How would you feel if he defeated them?’

‘I don’t think I’d feel anything. What’s England? An island full of squabbling vassals, starving peasants and dead animals.’

This’ll be more difficult than I realised. ‘It’s potentially very rich,’ he said. ‘When the Lion was King it was richer than France.’ She did not seem interested so he decided to leave the topic. ‘I heard Bernard de Ventadour is in the palace. He makes me ashamed to sing for you …’

‘One line of yours is worth a thousand of Bernard’s.’

Eleanor had already given days and nights of thought about life after she had gained her freedom from Louis. She was certain of one thing only: she never wanted to marry again. But she had no brothers to protect her and only one brother-in-law who was too preoccupied with problems in his marriage to her sister, Petronilla, to be of any help. When Geoffrey formally handed over Normandy, he could retire to his ancestral seat in Anjou. But he still had an unknown number of children to raise, plus the impediment of the Empress. Everyone knew that lady’s political maxim was, ‘Keep the falcon hungry’ – promise a reward, but withhold it. Matilda would never seek divorce from Geoffrey on the grounds of adultery. The very thought was risible. Eleanor wondered if she
could persuade Geoffrey to run away, as La Dangereuse had. They could live together, sometimes in Anjou, sometimes in Aquitaine. As declared mistress of the Count of Anjou, whose might as a warrior was renowned, a man who had plenty of vassal knights and several warrior sons, plus her own large cavalry to protect her, she would be safe from fortune-hunters. And the elegance they could bring to life when they were together! Music and art and the new ideas that the Church was trying to block in Paris could flourish in their courts.

But a terror entered her mind: Geoffrey had a concubine who had been with him for more than twenty years. The idea that men and women owned each other was, she thought, a perversity imposed by the Church, but she knew herself well enough to realise she would tolerate no rival. If I said to him: choose between me and the Catalan …

There was no one she could confide in or whose advice she could seek. Unless, she thought, I ask Geoffrey himself.

As he promised he would, he lay with her all that day and all that night. Her blood stopped.

‘Now we have a week’s grace, but after that we must ensure …’ He looked at her questioningly. ‘Who taught you how to avoid pregnancy?’

‘A Rumlar physician who attended my confinement and felt pity for me. He’s as ugly as a Turk, but soft-hearted. He knows I crave a divorce. He gave me special herbs and other things …’

They sat on the bed and Geoffrey studied her beautiful face. You’re telling half the truth, he thought. ‘Herbs and small sponges soaked in vinegar are useful,’ he said. He waited for her to respond. In the side of her white neck he could see a small vein flutter. As she remained silent he placed his hand across her forehead and gently but firmly pressed her back into the pillows. ‘How often have you practised sodomy?’ He smiled at her shock of being
found out so easily. ‘Your husband does not realise?’ She shook her head. ‘Good,’ Geoffrey said. ‘Where’s the goose grease?’

In the nights that followed the fire for each other burned unbearably hot. Eleanor no longer bit his shoulders. She died, again and again, in some realm so full of stars the constellations became lost. ‘I’m still alive?’ she gasped. ‘Am I still alive?’

But a sadness began to fall over both of them, for they were counting the days until he must leave. One night she asked, ‘Geoffrey, when I’m free, will you live with me?’

He looked as if she had hit him with a club.

His body was much larger than hers: he was taller by a head and twice her weight. He seized her and held her so hard she could barely breathe. He trembled from head to foot in a convulsion of anguish.

She thought, Once you said you’d give your life to spend a night in my arms. But I ask you to live with me – and you refuse.

When, at last, he looked into her face she wished she hadn’t spoken. His green eyes were lacklustre, as if a part of him had died. In bed that afternoon he only held her and caressed her, his expression as full of helpless love as a monk before an altar of the Virgin. He sighed often. At last he spoke. ‘I’ve imagined it myself a thousand times. I would be ex-communicated for leaving Matilda. I don’t give a fig for ex-communication. The real issue would be an interdict on Anjou and Aquitaine. Louis and Matilda between them would persuade the Pope. All churches closed, no communion for anyone, bodies left unburied in the fields, the common people, peasants, even the baronage, terrified of an eternity in hell … We couldn’t do it to our vassals. Our workmen would leave for other provinces. Our lands would fall into poverty.’

She nodded, aghast. She had been so focused on securing a divorce and the joys of freedom that would follow, she’d not thought through the implications of an open liaison with her lover.

‘The Church was different in my grandfather’s day …’ she replied tonelessly.

‘It was weak and disorganised. It’s well governed now. It’s independent of us. Even of the King.’ Geoffrey paused. ‘You may think me odd, but without the Church we’d revert to barbarism. Our prelates are foolish and corrupt. But not all of them, not even most of them. They lay a gentle hand upon our swords.’ He paused, thinking of something.

‘What is it? What are you thinking?’

‘You’d shrink from me if I told you the details, but when I was younger …’ What I did to those four churchmen is a crime for which I’ve never asked forgiveness. He sighed. ‘Beloved, I was wilful and violent. I misbehaved towards the Church – and she’s never forgiven me.’

‘I forgive you,’ Eleanor whispered. ‘Whatever it was.’

On their last day together Geoffrey judged he could begin talking to her about Henry again. It was after breakfast and they were out riding together. The Count, his son and some vassals escorted them, but rode at a distance that allowed them to speak privately. Supposedly the penitent had visited the shrine and was now on his way home again.

‘I believe my son was unchivalrous the night you met,’ Geoffrey said. ‘He deeply regrets it.’

Eleanor replied without warmth, ‘I hear he treats Xena well.’

‘He wants to apologise to you. Perhaps when he comes to court in August, to pay homage to Louis?’

‘Is it important to you that he does?’

‘Very.’

‘In that case, my beloved, I’ll receive him. If you asked me to cut off my toes I’d do it for you, Geoffrey.’

That’s untrue
, she thought.
I can never love a man – even you – as much as he loves me. It’s not in my nature. Part of me hates all men.

A week before Xena’s baby was due in January, Isabella’s household moved into the chateau of Le Mans. Isabella was too canny to ask where Geoffrey might be; Henry spoke vaguely of trouble with some vassals in Anjou and left it at that. When another week passed and Xena showed no sign of going into labour, Isabell said, ‘We can wait two more days.’

When still nothing happened, she called Henry for a conference with the midwife. ‘She must start today, my lord, or both may perish,’ the midwife said. ‘You know what to do?’

He had not been present at the birth of his other children and it was only from talking to Geoffrey, and now the women, that he knew it was a father’s duty, if his wife were late in beginning labour, to open her womb. He felt panicky. What if I fail and cause her death? I’ll kill myself.

‘It’s your seed, my lord,’ the midwife prompted. ‘She needs your seed.’

Isabella said, in Catalan, ‘Henry, you must give her an orgasm and shoot seed inside her. It will start labour.’

Xena was sluggish and irritable and spent hours pacing up and down. Her honey-brown skin looked sallow. The widwife had set up a large tub in the sleeping chamber that servants filled with warm water. When Henry said, ‘Beloved, come and lie with me,’
she turned away with an expression of disgust. He pushed her gently towards the bed, but she was in such an angry mood she refused to speak to him in French, answering in an eastern language. ‘Everyone leave the chamber!’ he ordered. Isabella, the midwife and three servants withdrew to the doorway. Henry resisted closing it as he usually would, with a good kick. He shut it quietly.

‘Come,’ he said. ‘Come and play with me.’ Normally Xena was eager as soon as he showed her his erect penis. The stare she gave him was made of ice. He raised an eyebrow at her. ‘Is there something …?’

Finally she consented to speak French. ‘If it’s a boy, he must be circumcised,’ she said.

You’re bargaining with me over religion when your own life and our baby’s are at stake? he thought. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘If that’s what you want, of course he’ll be circumcised.’

She smiled and waddled towards the bed. Henry undressed himself quickly, and Xena slowly, kissing her from the neck, down her shoulders to her hips. She relaxed and he found a position from which he could enter her and, without too much force, knock on her womb. As she responded, he pushed faster until his seed pulsed out and she convulsed. Henry felt her womb open. Xena screamed, but not with pleasure. A gush of fluid followed. Suddenly he felt something push back on him. He realised he had stopped breathing, but Xena began to pant. He pulled away and ran to the door. ‘Isabella!’ he yelled. ‘Come quick!’ He was shaking and still naked as he lifted Xena from the bed and carried her to the birthing tub where three women helped him lower her into the water. ‘Is it warm enough?’ he asked. ‘The water’s too cold. She mustn’t get cold.’

‘Get out!’ Isabella said. ‘At least get dressed.’

He pulled on half his clothes and started to cry. ‘I felt it! I felt the baby’s head!’ he said. ‘Its head. I felt it!’

The women ignored him. Xena was immersed in the tub up to her armpits, panting and every so often shrieking. Henry crept over to sit on the floor beside the tub, holding her hand. She dragged it away and hit him across the face, but a moment later reached out for him again and turned to smile.

The midwife ordered more hot water be poured in the tub.

‘Careful, careful you don’t burn her,’ Henry said.

Isabella hissed, ‘One more word and you leave.’

The water was turning red. ‘She’s bleeding to death,’ he whispered. He remembered how the water in which he’d rinsed his hands after beheading the Seneschal had red billows of blood. This is my punishment: I broke the chivalric code.

Isabella said, ‘Guillaume’s outside. Go and talk to him.’

‘I’m not leaving her. Guillaume can come in and talk to me.’

‘He cannot. It’s bad enough having you here. Go and ask him to sing. This could take a few hours.’

Henry went to the corridor where Guillaume was clenching and unclenching his fists. ‘Brother, she’s dying!’ Henry said. One of Guillaume’s concubines had died along with her baby. He wrapped his arms around his brother. Into Guillaume’s shoulder Henry let out the roaring howl he had been holding inside himself.

Guillaume sat him down and fed him three cups of wine. Meanwhile, he tuned his lute. ‘God’s feet!’ he muttered. ‘My fingers are in a tangle. I’m so nervous I don’t know if I can sing.’

‘You must! You must be Orpheus. You must bring her back to life.’

‘I’ll sing …’ Guillaume paused. ‘I know the music she’ll want. They used to sing it when they were riding back from Outremer.’ It was a song about the joys of homecoming.

He practised the chorus and the first verse before he felt ready.

Then Henry opened the door and peeped in. Xena’s hair straggled in the bloody water and perspiration beaded her face. Her
eyes were screwed shut. The women were on their knees, bending into the tub. ‘Breathe, darling!’ the midwife said. ‘Breathe again. And give a little push.’ Xena groaned. Henry turned away and burst into tears.

Guillaume began to play and as he did Xena looked up. Her face was radiant. There was a sound of swishing and the sucking of water; the midwife held a baby’s head and torso above Xena’s open legs. Its purple knotty cord pulsed. The woman stuck her finger in its mouth. ‘Breathe,’ she said to the baby. ‘Breathe, little angel.’ The baby took a breath. And another. Isabella had it wrapped in a cloth and a fur in seconds. Henry had no idea if it were a girl or a boy. ‘Wait, wait,’ the women said to each other. The midwife reached into the tub.

Henry knew what was happening at this stage from watching foals born.

‘Is it all there? Has it all come out? Is it the right shape?’ he asked.

A few minutes later, the midwife cut the cord, and the women lifted Xena to her feet and out of the tub. Isbaella wrapped a red birthing cloth around her and helped her walk to the bed where, laughing, she held her arms open for her baby. ‘Your son,’ Isabella said to Henry.

He wept and laughed at the same time.

‘I’ve got a son! We’ve got a son!’ He covered Xena’s damp face with kisses. He could see only the back of the baby’s head, a wet mass of black hair. The women had dried its body and now covered Xena with furs. When Guillaume entered, he was singing the hymn of praise for life.

‘To hear an angel sing at your birth,’ Isabella murmured. She was thinking of Henry’s birth, as Geoffrey had described it to her. Matilda had refused to let him near her once she was pregnant. She had a long, difficult labour and refused to use the birthing
tub. When Henry was, finally, born alive after almost two days of labour, Matilda took no more than a look at him before she thrust him onto a wetnurse.

Henry snuggled against Xena’s right flank. ‘You’re so beautiful,’ he whispered. ‘So beautiful. And so is he. He …’

There was a loud snore.

Henry was asleep.

The bedchamber was piled with pillows and furs. Geoffrey arrived the next morning and strode in. ‘A sultan’s palace!’ he said. ‘And you, dear lady, are more lovely than the Madonna.’ Xena peeled back the cover from the sleeping baby’s face. ‘Oh, oh, oh!’ Geoffrey said. He kissed Xena’s forehead. She had the triumphant joyfulness of a new mother – and, he could not fail to notice, sumptuous breasts. Aphrodite with black ringlets, he thought. ‘Where’s Henry?’

She nodded towards a lump under the furs. ‘The baby wakes up. He wakes up. The baby goes to sleep. He goes to sleep.’

Geoffrey sat on the edge of the bed and took her hand. ‘This is very good. A son. And a big one.’ He handed her a soft leather pouch. She looked inside: it was full of gold coins, and a jewel. ‘Some is from your Naomi. She said it was yours anyway.’ Xena recognised the ruby in the shape of a heart that Louis had given the Queen. ‘She wants you to wear it, and think of her.’ Xena’s honey-coloured skin felt like silk in his hand. He glanced at the floor for a moment. How wicked I was to order Henry to kill you, he thought.

‘I love you as if you were my own daughter, Rachel,’ he said. ‘You’ve given my son more happiness than he’s ever had in his life.’

‘So you know I’m a Jew.’ She regarded him with knowing eyes. ‘You’re sad,’ she murmured.

He nodded. ‘I look at you and your beautiful baby, and I wonder …’ He gazed out the window. The winter fields lay lifeless, with patches of hoarfrost where there was no sunshine to melt it. ‘What will you call him?’

‘I want to give him two names: one after my father, Avram. But you’ve been like a father to me. You took me into your household. You supported me … I’d like him to bear your name as well. So, Geoffrey Avram. It sounds better that way round.’

He kissed her hand. ‘I’m honoured,’ he murmured. His worldly gaze lingered on her. ‘Your father was chief rabbi in Antioch, I believe?’ She nodded. ‘Henry chose well.’

There was some deep trouble in his heart but she decided to say nothing.

That afternoon Geoffrey returned. Rachel was nursing while Henry watched. When the baby stopped feeding, Henry took Xena’s other breast and suckled until she smacked him away. He then lay his son on his bare chest; its little face drooped against muscle, bone and hair. He jiggled one of his nipples into its mouth. The baby sucked a few moments. ‘Look how he loves me!’ he said to Xena. ‘He already knows I’m his father. I felt his head.’ He gave a languorous sigh.

Geoffrey wondered: how will Eleanor respond if Henry’s infatuation with this woman and this baby continues?

He pulled some of the furs off Henry who, as his father expected, was naked. ‘Come and drink a cup of wine with me,’ he said.

Henry wandered after him to a reading chamber, wrapped in a bed fur, still watching Rachel and young Geoffrey Avram.

They drank one celebratory cup together. Geoffrey poured a second, and as he raised it he said, ‘Louis will accept you as Duke by the end of August. Prepare for war against Stephen in September.’

He was used to Henry’s volatility, but the change astonished even him. The moonstruck young father vanished. Henry drained the cup and flung it over his shoulder into the fire. ‘England!’ he shouted. He snatched the cup from Geoffrey’s hand and flung it, too, into the flames. ‘We’ll build a new England on the ruins of the old!’

‘We?’ Geoffrey wondered. He had a suspicious feeling that ‘we’ was the dusky goddess nursing his grandson.