Richard threw him a menacing look, but, respecting the season, walked on without comment. But he was obviously seething inside and determined to settle the score as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
“If Geoffrey had been made Count of Anjou in your place, hewould have known how to enforce his rights!” Bertran whispered, his words dripping like poison into Young Henry’s ear until, in the end, he could bear it no more, and seeking out his father in private, exploded in a furious outburst, much to the secret amusement of Richard and Geoffrey, who were looking on.
“Father, I swear I will renounce my titles and take the Cross if you refuse to allow me more power!” he shouted.
“When you have learned discretion and wisdom, I might consider doing that,” Henry said calmly, leaning back in his chair.
For answer, the Young King burst into hot, angry tears. “At least make Richard dismantle the castle he has built on my land!” he cried.
Henry’s brow creased in a frown. He was aware that Philip of France was waiting for an opportunity to make trouble between the Angevin princes, and he feared that a disaffected Young King might seek Philip’s support, much as he had sought King Louis’s eight years ago. And look where that had led! Good statesman that Henry was, he saw the necessity of appeasing his son and warding off the threat.
“Henry, you are my heir,” he said in a steady, placatory tone. “Your brothers come after you in the succession, and therefore they shall do homage to you as their overlord. Will that content you?”
“Yes, Father,” the Young King sniffed.
“Richard, Geoffrey, will you now render homage to your brother?” the King demanded.
“Yes,” muttered Geoffrey.
“No, by our Lady, I will not!” Richard snarled. “It might have escaped your notice, Father, that I hold Aquitaine of the King of France, and to him only do I owe homage. And,” he went on, as Henry opened his mouth to protest, “might I remind you that I had my domains as a gift from my Lady Mother, whom you have unjustly held prisoner these many years!” The venom in his voice was frightening. “If my brother the Young King wants land, let him go and fight for it, as I have had to do!” With that, he picked up his lyre and slammed out of the room, uttering threats and defiance, and leaving Henry looking at his remaining sons in perplexity. One glance at the Young King’s face told him that all his efforts to reconcile his feuding brood had been for nothing. Young Henry’s blood was up; war was in his heart.
As for Eleanor, despite what Richard had said, Henry had no intention of freeing her. The thought of what havoc she might wreak in this present conflict and chaos was enough to deter him from even considering it. In fact, her presence in Winchester, the ancient capital of England, was now a matter of concern to him. Security must be tightened … That meddling woman must go back to Sarum!
Sarum, 1183
Eleanor was awakened by the dream and sat bolt upright in the bed in alarm, disturbing Amaria.
“What is it, my lady?” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes.
“Nothing. Go back to sleep,” Eleanor whispered, breathing deeply to still her thudding heart. She needed privacy and quiet to work out what the dream might mean. For in it she had seen, as in a vision, her son, the Young King, lying recumbent on a couch, his hands pressed together as if in prayer. It struck her, with a chill, that he had looked not unlike an effigy on a tomb. But what puzzled her were two things: one was the ring, a great sapphire, that twinkled and flashed on his finger. It was a ring she had never seen before. The sapphire, of course, symbolized the sky, God’s Heaven and His protection; in the East, she had heard, people believed it warded off the evil eye. Was there some portentous meaning to be divined from this?
The other thing that troubled her beyond measure was the remembrance of two crowns hovering in the air above her son’s white face. One she recognized as the crown Henry ordered for his son’s coronation; the second was no earthly crown, but a circle of pure dazzling light that shone with the incomparable brilliance of the Holy Grail itself.
She knew in her heart what the dream must mean, yet her reason and her terrified soul rejected it. She rose from the bed and fell on her knees before the window, gazing up at the narrow view it afforded her of the starry summer sky, and prayed as she had rarely prayed before that this dream was but a warning of what might pass if this bitter war between her sons did not cease, rather than a preparation for news she must shortly have to hear.
The morning brought with it a strange calm, as if she were cradled in a cocoon of peace and security from which she would emerge strengthened and ready to take on lions or wolves. The dream now seemed a distant, unreal memory, born of the fears that come by night. In the dark, everything seems more frightening, she told herself, and by and by the memory faded, until her fear had dissipated. In its place she was left with the uplifting feeling that even if her dream foreshadowed the worst, death was merely the gateway to unimaginable bliss and joy, and should be a matter for rejoicing, not sorrow.
Her calm mood persisted, even when Ranulf Glanville, his face gray, announced the arrival of Thomas Agnell, Archdeacon of Wells.
“The King has sent him to you, my lady,” he told her, his voice unusually tender.
Even before Agnell entered, she knew the tidings he had come to break to her. The dream had foretold this; that, and the fact that Henry himself had sent this man to her.
The archdeacon came in unwillingly. He was a devout and compassionate man, and his placid face was lined with distress. He bowed low, not just out of respect to one who was Queen, but with deference to one who was about to have cause to grieve. Eleanor stood to receive him, marveling that she should feel so serene. God, she believed, was succoring her, holding her in His loving hands. The thought, and the vivid memory of the dream and its promise, sustained her.
“My lady,” Agnell said quietly, “I am asked by the Lord King to inform you that your dearest son, the Young King, has departed to God.”
She had known it.
“I was prepared,” she said simply. “I had a dream.” She told him about it.
“What other meaning than eternal bliss can be ascribed to that brilliant second crown, that perfect circlet with no beginning and no end?” she asked. “What can such pure and resplendent brightness signify, if not the wonder of everlasting joy? That crown was more beautiful than anything that can manifest itself to our senses here on Earth.”
The archdeacon marveled. This was not the wicked queen to whom rumor attributed all manner of scandalous deeds, but a brave and venerable lady honed by adversity, strong in her faith. He looked on her in admiration.
“God in His goodness has vouchsafed you the tiniest glimpse of what Heaven must be,” he told her. “He was surely offering you divine comfort against your sad loss.”
Eleanor could not even think of what that loss would mean for her. The time for that, and for grieving, would come later. But she was fortified by her belief that her son was in a better place and that there was no real need to mourn him, only to await the time when she could be reunited with him in Paradise.
“I have had my epiphany,” she told Agnell. “As the Gospel says, ‘Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of Man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.’”