The Young Lion (31 page)

‘For a moment, I was terrified. But then I saw she was just a lonely old woman, disappointed in life, with no one to love her.’

‘I love her,’ Henry mumbled.

He decided not to tell Rachel he’d slaughtered Matilda’s pet monkey. One afternoon he’d come across Hambril poking his finger into duck turd, then licking it. With a reflexive disgust, he chopped him in half.

When they alighted from the carriage Isabella asked, ‘Well?’

‘Total success,’ Henry replied. ‘The Dowager Empress is in love with her grandson.’ He added shyly, ‘I think she’ll love Rachel, too. But what an ordeal! I need a cup of wine.’

For Rachel’s delivery, Henry installed her and the midwife in the guest apartment where they had first lain together. On the Feast of St Valentine, the exact day her baby was due, Rachel gave birth to a daughter. But the cord had wrapped around her neck and despite the skill of the midwife, the infant arrived dead.

Henry spent three days in bed beside Rachel, weeping and caressing her, cleaning up the blood that seeped from between her legs. ‘Our next one will be born in Le Mans,’ he said. ‘All our children in future must be born in Le Mans.’

When he emerged from the apartment, he discovered Orianne had been waiting to speak to him for more than two days.

‘The Queen would like to meet with you,’ the girl said. ‘She wishes to ask your advice.’

‘No letter?’ Henry asked.

‘No, lord Duke. I’m to memorise your response. She suggests the abbey at St Varent, not too far from the chateau of your friend, Baron de Cholet. She asks if you could be there on the twenty-eighth of this month?’

Henry sighed. ‘I can.’

‘She further asks if you and your brother could come in the guise of pilgrims.’

Henry nodded. ‘Anything else?’

‘I’m very sorry your baby died.’

‘But my wife is unharmed. She’s mourning, of course. But unharmed,’ he replied.

As the girl was about to leave he added, ‘Stay a moment.’ In his writing chamber he found a small parchment and drew on it two intertwined hearts, broken, with tears falling from them. He did not use his thumb or the quill or anything else to sign the drawing.

‘Why did you send her that?’ Guillaume asked afterwards.

‘If I’m to marry Eleanor, she must get used to the idea that my heart stays with Rachel. I’m not going to be her puppy, like Louis. Not even her golden leopard, like poor Papa.’

Guillaume said, ‘Father Bernard has greatly affected your thinking. Before you went to see him you found the idea of marriage to Eleanor repulsive. But now …’

‘I still find it repulsive,’ Henry interjected. ‘I can’t help remembering the sight of her teeth marks on our father’s neck.’ As he spoke a sudden change of mood gripped him. ‘That’s it!’ he said. ‘Guillaume: I’ll warn her I have a penchant for blindfolding the women I lie with. Then you can sneak in and …’

‘My liege,’ Guillaume said, ‘stick your head up your arse.’

As he was leaving the chamber, Henry called after him, ‘We could take it in turns. You’d go first. Then I’d go. She’d think she’d married Samson.’

Guillaume stared at his brother. ‘Sometimes I think you’re mad. When will you tell Rachel?’ he added.

Henry groaned. ‘I can’t upset her yet.’

Matilda asked Rachel to stay on in the palace. She sent her personal masseuse and physician to look after her, and had the kitchen prepare special dishes for a woman recovering from stillbirth. After ten days Rachel gently, firmly, insisted she must return to ‘the house’. Several times a week she brought baby Geoffrey to his grandmother. Isabella thought with ironic amusement: now she who taught Henry to keep a falcon hungry, is the hungry falcon herself.

Henry and Guillaume had to leave for the Chateau de Cholet a week after the baby was stillborn. Isabella observed her son choose his clothes for the journey, and that among them was a grey hooded riding cloak of the type pilgrims wear. ‘Whose shrine will you visit?’ she asked. Her expression was sceptical.

‘I apologise, Mama, that I must go away for a few days. Henry and I will be back before his nineteenth birthday.’

‘Matilda is arranging quite a celebration in the palace. She’s inviting the town’s merchants, including Jews. I talk to the rabbi’s wife often these days. Matilda sent word that food they could eat would be specially provided. They’re beside themselves with excitement about being invited to the palace.’

Guillaume was rarely angry but his face flushed. ‘We’re squeezing every drop of blood from our vassals for this war. We can’t be seen to be throwing money around on birthday celebrations.’

Isabella shrugged. She continued watching him from the doorway. ‘Son, is this journey dangerous?’

‘No.’

‘So why the need for a disguise?’

‘It’s political. It could have some bearing on the invasion of England.’

She nodded. She had observed the quality of the horses they were riding. The destriers, and intuition, made her believe that Henry was preparing to meet the Queen.

In the middle of that night she woke with a scream. She rushed to Rachel’s bedchamber, but mother and son were sleeping soundly, Rachel humming a little. She’s dreaming, Isabella realised. Feeling sheepish, she returned to her own bed.

In the year 1138, Father Bernard had inducted an Italian monk, Bernardo da Pisa, into his Cistercian order. By 1145 Bernardo was Pope Eugenius III, a man, in Bernard’s view, too innocent and simple to be Bishop of Rome. It was this Pope who had refused Eleanor and Louis a divorce in 1149; he who had thought to mend their ruptured marriage by tricking them into sharing a bed in his house in Tusculum. Throughout his pontificate, Eugenius had been Bernard’s puppet. It was to him now that the mystic wrote, instructing him to agree to a royal divorce.

On the last day of February, well before the synod, with Guillaume as their only guard and witness, Eleanor and Henry met.

All three, dressed in the garb of pilgrims, arrived at night at the small blue-painted chapel dedicated to Archangel Michael at the St Varent Abbey. It had only one entrance. Guillaume stood in the doorway. Kneeling as if in prayer close to the dimly lit altar, Henry and Eleanor could not see each other’s faces beneath their hoods.

Henry allowed her to speak first.

‘I was so sorry to hear of the death of your baby,’ she said.

He murmured thanks then wordlessly handed her the bundle from Father Bernard.

She stared at it, wondering what it contained. ‘Do you know what it is?’

He shook his head. She continued, ‘Before the end of March I’ll be a free woman. Father Bernard has promised that after the synod has agreed to my divorce, the approval of Pope Eugenius is a formality. The bishops’ agreement is certain. Sens has assured Louis. The Archbishop of Bordeaux and your own Archbishop of Rouen have assured me. Louis will make the petition on grounds of consanguinity and I shall not contest it. The Archbishop of Rheims will represent my interests and make sure my dowry is returned in full.’

‘You’ll be pestered to death by fortune-hunters,’ Henry answered.

His plan was to raise more and more problems for her, mentally stalking her towards the idea that he was the man she needed to
protect her. Then he would pounce, asking her to do him the honour of marrying him.

‘Your Highness, they may even try to assassinate you. For the safety of Aquitaine and Poitou you must quickly find another husband and get from him an heir.’

She made no reply. It was this grim realisation, arrived at during her game of chess with Cholet a few weeks earlier, that had prompted her to meet Henry.

‘Will your brother-in-law protect you? Can he help in finding you a suitable spouse?’ Henry persisted.

The Queen remained mute.

Henry glanced up. Above the altar a candelabra lit a mosaic on the wall behind it. It showed Archangel Michael trampling Satan, his sword raised for slaughter. The martial image distracted him. It drew his attention to the angle at which Michael held his weapon: if you strike from there, with your elbow at that height, you’ll miss, he thought. The distraction cleared his mind. He knew what to do next. Do not ask, Father Bernard had said.

He bowed, as if giving thanks, sighed, and stood up. He held out a hand to help the Queen to her feet.

‘Highness, if I can in any way assist you, please let me know,’ he said. ‘Good night to you.’ He motioned her to walk before him towards the door. She stood still and stared at him.

‘You’re to marry me,’ she blurted.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I said, I want you to marry me.’

Henry drew a sharp breath. ‘Shall we …?’ he motioned towards the cushions on which they’d been kneeling.

When they knelt a second time Henry threw off his hood. Eleanor did the same. ‘I must tell you, Highness, that in the eyes of God and in my own eyes, I’m already married.’

‘I’ve heard that. To my maid.’

‘My wife, Rachel, is my heart.’

He could sense Eleanor’s agitation. Such heat radiated from her face he felt its warmth. She’s scarlet with a blush, he thought.

‘But you and she are not married in the eyes of the Church. And she’s still a Jew, is she not?’

‘Indeed. For remaining true to what is sacred to her, I love her even more. If that were possible.’

He listened to Eleanor’s shallow breathing.

‘Therefore,’ she said icily, ‘you are free, as far as the Church is concerned, to marry me, are you not?’

He did not answer immediately. The kneeling woman at his side seemed to writhe in anguish like the dragon on the wall.

In a husky voice he murmured, ‘I had never imagined such an honour, Your Highness. You so took me by surprise I … I babbled.’

She must have been holding her breath, because she panted an exhalation. ‘So you’ll do it?’ she asked.

‘May I call you Eleanor?’ he replied.

She nodded.

‘Eleanor, I’d be honoured to marry you. But as soon as God’s Truce ends I’ll invade England. It’s my life’s ambition to avenge the wrong done to our family: to reclaim the crown and territory that is mine by right of inheritance. How can I possibly …?’

From the doorway, in Catalan, Guillaume called, ‘People coming. Cover your faces.’

A group of five pilgrims entered the chapel. Henry and Eleanor rose and, heads bent, made their way past the newcomers to the doorway. They walked out onto the damp grass around the chapel. A white goat woke in a fright and bleated. Otherwise, the night was undisturbed, the black air still and slightly misty. There was just enough light from a ragged half moon and the glow from the chapel windows for them to see where they were going. They
moved towards a small grove of trees, Henry and Guillaume keeping a sharp eye for any moving shadows. Their horses, and the guards who had accompanied the Queen, waited in the opposite direction, near the abbey.

Henry said, ‘Eleanor, nobody at all must know about this. Louis will forbid it. He may go to war against us. Nobody must know but we three.’

What about Xena? Eleanor thought. But she was so relieved she had accomplished what she needed, she did not dwell on the question. She would have preferred Henry to propose to her, but when she saw he was too shy, she decided she’d do it herself.

‘We’ll be the greatest magnates west of the Rhine,’ he added, as if this thought had just occurred to him.

‘If you win England, we’ll be the greatest in Europe,’ she replied with a laugh, as if she, too, had just chanced upon the idea.

Henry grinned. His ambition was for the House of Plantagenet to overwhelm the House of Capet. And he had already begun, by stealing Capet’s Queen. He wanted to give her a hearty kiss of appreciation. ‘May I kiss you, Eleanor?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she said.

He stepped back. ‘Well, perhaps …’ He turned to Guillaume. In Catalan he said, ‘She asks me to marry her then refuses a kiss!’

Guillaume said, ‘You’ve hooked the fish.’

Henry and his brother bowed, turned, and walked off into the dark, past the goat, which, for a second time leaped up, bleating.

When they had mounted and were out of earshot, Henry said, ‘If she won’t be so amiable as to give me a kiss …’

Guillaume laughed aloud. ‘That woman will chase you from now until Doomsday. She is hooked.’

‘How do you know?’ Henry asked after a while.

His brother shrugged.

‘You inherited that intuition from Papa.’ Henry laughed.

‘Maybe. What are you going to tell Rachel?’

‘I’ll tell her the truth.’

‘She’ll be angry.’

‘Yes. So am I. I won’t beg kisses from the Duchess of Aquitaine. She can kiss my arse.’

They stayed the night with Cholet, and before they left the next morning, a post-rider arrived with a letter for Henry. He strolled with Guillaume onto the château’s balcony to read it. Eleanor’s note was short. ‘I apologise,’ she wrote. The curious thing was: she had written it in blood.

Guillaume said, ‘What did I tell you!’

‘God’s teeth!’ Henry exclaimed. ‘I’m beginning to feel sorry for her. She has no one to advise her. She can’t trust any of the prelates. They’re all Louis’s vassals, except … what about Father Bernard?’

He wrote back immediately, a note enclosed in a letter apparently from the Baron de Cholet, suggesting they meet in the labyrinth at Chartres, on a date she should nominate, but at least three days after the fifth of March.

Henry arrived in Rouen just in time for his nineteenth birthday celebration, held at midday. Matilda had invited Rachel to assist her as hostess. Rachel seated herself with the rabbi and a half-dozen of Rouen’s most prosperous merchants and their wives. Mother may be ready to pawn her jewels for England, Henry thought. I may not need Eleanor’s money. Inside, he boggled at the idea of having as his legal wife the richest woman in the world. And the most dangerous, his father had said.

Easter was early that year and Lent had already begun. Although some people still ate meat during Lent, they did so sparingly, usually choosing instead fish and vegetables. The Jews were fasting
for Passover. They ate vegetables and fruit, but no bread because they feared leaven, despite Rachel’s assurance the unleavened loaves came from the Jewish baker. ‘We can’t be too careful,’ the rabbi’s wife apologised. We were never as fussy as this in Antioch, Rachel thought. As well as the solemnity of the season, the birthday celebration, coming less than six months after Geoffrey’s death, was restrained. Matilda, Henry and Rachel wore black. There were more clergy present than the palace had seen in three hundred years. The Archbishop blessed Henry. He was due to set out immediately after the banquet for Orléans. A carriage of five horses awaited him outside the palace. Before departing he drew Henry aside, his expression dolorous.

‘Are you aware, lord Duke, of the frightful decision that confronts Mother Church in these days?’

‘Tavern gossip says it may concern the royal marriage.’

The Archbishop nodded. ‘Terrible, frightful,’ he muttered.

‘Will the Princesses be declared illegitimate?’

The Archbishop, who was not a bad sort of fellow in Henry’s view, whispered, ‘A sin committed in ignorance …’

Henry was tempted to remark, ‘Like Eve’s?’ but responded with a grave nod.

The Archbishop shuddered. ‘Legitimate? Or illegitimate? And which parent shall have them? Only prayer will lead us to the answer.’ His ringed hand rose to his forehead, as if already his head ached from the conundrum he and his brother clerics faced: not only would they need to admit that they and the Pope had been in error for fourteen years and that the royal marriage was invalid, they would also have to consider the question of the Princesses. Were innocent girls to become bastards overnight?

Henry knew from Eleanor’s remarks that every detail of the divorce had been established already. ‘It must trouble their parents greatly.’

‘Greatly! Oh, the difficulties I have to face …’ The Archbishop heaved himself into his well-padded coach and waited for an acolyte to place a footstool beneath his finely shod feet before crying, ‘Off! Off we go! Goodbye, my dear Young Duke.’

Guillaume had not attended Henry’s birthday. Instead he had travelled to Barfleur to meet a group of English nobles. As the men walked ashore their pleas began:

‘Henry must invade as soon as possible!’

‘Freemen have lost their lands to castellans, and turned into outlaws!’

‘Villeins and slaves are joining them. Every day children and babies die from hunger!’

‘Our village churchyards overflow with little mounds of earth marked with a couple of sticks tied at right angles!’

‘The parents are too poor to buy wood for a cross!’

‘During winter the old people died!’

Guillaume arrived with the English in Rouen on the sixth day of March. Henry received them, and begged them to wait a few days longer before they made plans on where and when he should invade. He had to leave for a meeting related to the invasion, he explained, but would be back to discuss their military options within five days and invited them to pass the time enjoying the delights of his territory, especially hunting and falconing. A note from Eleanor had been delivered on the day of his birthday, appointing their meeting in Chartres for the eighth of March. He would need five or six changes of horses to make it in time. Guillaume would stay with the English in Normandy. ‘Guillaume, Mother: entertain them for me,’ he said and left.

He took Rachel into the guest apartment and, for the first time since their daughter had been stillborn, lay with her, holding her to his chest while they stroked each other’s faces.

‘I have to go, I’m already running late,’ he finally said.

Henry arrived at Chartres Cathedral just before three o’clock on the morning of the eighth. Father Bernard, who had attended the service of matins, waited in the doorway for him to dismount. The light of a torch made him visible, and beside him Henry saw a bear.

‘Douglas!’ he shouted, his fatigue vanished as they rushed to each other’s embrace. After a moment Douglas held Henry at arm’s length to stare into his face.

‘You sleep,’ he said.

Father Bernard nodded. Henry was so exhausted he allowed Douglas to carry him to a cot in a cell. The four knights who had ridden with him were conducted to other cells. Father Bernard gave them milk to drink and pieces of black cloth to put over their eyes so they could sleep until sext, at noon. Henry would be woken for terce, after which he could breakfast then enter the labyrinth.