But Alys was a princess, the child of King Louis, who was now supposed to be his ally, and—to make matters infinitely more complicated—she was affianced to his own son. Despite the outward appearance of peace and amity that he had worked hard to establish, Henry was still sufficiently resentful toward Richard to take some pleasure in depriving him of his bride. By God, he was so disappointed in all his elder sons that he had even considered naming John the heir to all his domains!
Now that he had decided he wanted Alys, he knew he must act soon, before Louis started making noises about the much discussed marriage ceremony taking place.
There was just one obstacle: he had a wife already, of course. But both Eleanor and the Pope had proved obdurate, to his chagrin. Neither bribes nor veiled threats could move His Holiness, and that bitch at Sarum was determined to hold onto her lands, come what may. Small good they would do her, shut up as she was, he thought vindictively.
He went to see Rosamund, although it caused him infinite pain to do so; he visited as often as he could get away, and each time he found her in worse condition. He realized she was gone from him forever, the woman he had loved, and in her place was a wraith whose mind was focused on repentance and the hope of Heaven to come. That much, and no more, had the nuns done for her.
Each time he left her, he was in a ferment of grief and longing for what could no more be. Back at court, seated restlessly at his place at the high table, or departing for the hunt, he would catch sight of Alys, alluring and sinuous in her clinging silk bliauts, and feel the old familiar excitement burgeoning. After a time, he became aware that she was watching him too, with her catlike eyes, and posing provocatively to catch his attention. Richard, he knew, had little time for her; Richard was too preoccupied with fighting and whoring, and Alys meant little to him, beyond the fact that she was a great prize in the royal marriage market.
The Pope had not spoken in his favor; Eleanor had refused to go into a nunnery. He was as far from remarrying as he was from growing wings and taking flight, but he wanted Alys in his bed, and no longer cared whether she was there legally or sinfully. And neither, it seemed, did she.
He had stolen to her chamber one night after she spent the evening sending him significant glances across the teeming, noisy dining hall. He found her waiting for him in the firelight, clad only in a chemise so fine in texture that it was diaphanous. He took one look and was damned.
Barely had he caught his breath, it seemed, than Alys too was pregnant. Of course, he had to send her away, to a convent in the wilds of Norfolk, while warding off eager inquiries from Louis as to wedding plans. It was at that point that the news he most dreaded to hear came from Godstow. Rosamund was dead.
So here he was, approaching the church door in trepidation, come to mourn his love in private. The abbess had been waiting to greet him at the gatehouse, and given him permission to enter the enclosure, marveling at how the King had aged since he had first come there with his lady love. He was now a broken man of forty-three, grizzled of hair and portly of body, his ravaged face grooved with the lines of care and sorrow. Whatever the right and wrong of it, he had truly loved his mistress—no one could doubt that.
Henry found himself alone in the church. A single lamp burned in the chancel, signifying that God was here in His house. The King bowed his head in respect, then paced slowly toward the altar and the freshly laid tombstone before it. She was there, beneath the chancel pavement, his Rosamund, no longer fair but food for worms. The thought broke him. He sank to his knees before the grave, weeping uncontrollably, vowing that he would build a fine stone sepulchre to the memory of his beloved, and have it adorned with silken palls and lit by candles. It should be lovingly tended by the nuns; he would pay them handsomely, he swore, and grant many favors to the abbey.
So lost in anguish was he that he did not see the sad-faced, cobweb-fine gray shadow glide slowly up behind him with its filmy arms outstretched, and hover there for a long, wistful moment before vanishing into the gloom of the vaulted chapel—but he felt even more bereft.
Winchester, 1180
Eleanor was fifty-eight, and she had been a prisoner for seven long and difficult years. Yet nowadays her prison was a gilded cage appropriate to her rank, for after her visit to Winchester, the security that surrounded her had been relaxed by degrees. The monotonous tedium of Sarum was gradually ameliorated, as the King had been increasingly pleased to permit her to lodge at different places—in Northamptonshire, in Berkshire, and at the royal castle at Ludgershall in Wiltshire. Always, she was in the custody of the charming Ranulf Glanville or the taciturn Ralph FitzStephen, and attended by the faithful Amaria. Henry had never allowed her any additional personal servants.
Now she was comfortably installed at Winchester again, in greater state than hitherto, occupying well-appointed chambers, with the choicest food on her table and a newly appointed chamberlain to order her small household.
By and by, the rules had been relaxed, and she was permitted to write the occasional letter—although not to her sons; Henry still did not trust her enough for that—and to receive news of the outside world. Ranulf Glanville, whom she now accounted a dear friend, often imparted snippets of information at the dinner table. Amaria, in her forays to the market and through seemingly idle chatter with the castle servants, picked up a lot more, which, these days she was less reluctant to repeat to her mistress. Thus it was that Eleanor learned of Rosamund’s death, although not of the strange rumors that had begun to circulate about it, or of the great scandal of the King living openly with their son Richard’s betrothed; both Glanville and Amaria were anxious to protect the Queen from anything that might cause her pain and distress. Yet the gossip on both counts was rife throughout the kingdom and beyond.
Eleanor indeed wondered why Richard’s marriage to Alys had not yet taken place. Both were of age, and ripe for bedding—and Aquitaine needed an heir. The Young King had sired a son on Queen Marguerite three years ago, although sadly his little William died soon after birth. Eleanor felt deeply grieved that she had never seen any of her grandchildren; it was a continuing sorrow to be cut off from her flesh and blood.
Had Louis been pressing for Alys’s marriage? He had good reason to chafe at the delay, but she suspected that Henry had some devious reason of his own for putting it off. And Richard seemed to be in no hurry. She heard that he was still much occupied with enforcing his authority in Aquitaine—and shuddered to think what that might mean.
By all reports, Matilda was contentedly producing baby after baby in Germany, and Joanna seemed to have settled down happily in Sicily, although something Ranulf let slip had disturbed Eleanor.
“They say that King William has adopted many of the customs of his Moorish subjects,” he told her, “and that Queen Joanna lives entirely in seclusion.”
“Don’t tell me he has a harem!” Eleanor had interjected sharply. She’d seen harems in Constantinople and the lands of the Turks during the long-ago crusade, and knew what ills they concealed.
Ranulf looked ill at ease. “I did hear something of the sort,” he disclosed, “but the Queen his wife has her own apartments.”