Eleanor wept again, this time for Henry’s shame and ignominy, picturing him being forced to take refuge in some crumbling, godforsaken castle, which was what appeared to have happened. Fortunately, the winter rains had set in, drawing the campaigning season to a close, and a truce had been agreed upon until Easter. Henry wrote to say that he was at Le Mans and in good health, but Ranulf Glanville, who was with him, wrote Eleanor privately to warn her that his master was ill and in low spirits.
Concerned, she wrote to Henry, pleading to be allowed to join him for Christmas, but he refused, saying that he was not planning any great festival. That was unusual in itself, for Henry had always observed the major feasts of the Church with all due ceremony and revelry, and she perceived by his answer that he was indeed unwell. She considered going to him unbidden, but that would mean evading the vigilance of the conscientious Henry Berneval and finding sufficient money and means for her journey in the depths of winter, which might prove a virtual impossibility. No, all she could do was pray for Henry’s recovery. So she spent hours on her knees before the statue of the Virgin in the castle chapel, almost bullying the Holy Mother into interceding for the King; and, for a few quiet weeks, it seemed that her prayers had been heeded.
Easter came, and with it news of another peace conference. Clearly the princes did not want all-out war if they could help it. Eleanor was on her knees again, praying for a peaceful settlement, when another letter from Ranulf Glanville was brought to her, in which she read, to her dismay, that the conference had to be postponed because the King was too ill to attend. After that, it was back to hectoring the Virgin Mary, often with tears and bribes of masses and manifold good deeds.
June, and the King was better. Eleanor’s heart rejoiced when she heard that he had met with Philip and Richard, but it plummeted again when she was told that Henry had persisted in his determination to marry Alys to John, and that Richard, maintaining that this was the first step in a sinister plot to disinherit him, threw in his lot with Philip and declared war on his father.
War. A dreadful thing in any circumstances, but when son was fighting against father, it was especially terrible. Eleanor lived her days in horrible suspense, for there could be no praying that one side would win, because there could be no winners in this conflict. It was either her husband or her son. Once, she had made that choice. She would not do so again. She gave up going to the chapel, could not constrain herself to pray. God, the protector of the just, would surely show the way to a peaceable solution. She could not believe that He had abandoned the House of Anjou entirely.
But God, it seemed, had His attention elsewhere. Philip and Richard had advanced inexorably into Angevin territory, taking castle after castle; so fearful was their might that Henry’s vassals, long alienated by his oppressive rule, had deserted him one by one. The King, meanwhile, withdrew again to the city of Le Mans, his birthplace, and when the French army appeared before its walls, gave orders that a suburb be torched to create a diversion and give him the chance to attack when the enemy’s attention was elsewhere; but he had not reckoned with the wind, which fanned the flames until much of his favored city was ablaze and Philip was able to breach its defenses. Once again Henry and his knights were forced ignominiously to flee. In yet another letter, Ranulf Glanville disclosed to Eleanor how Henry had railed bitterly against the God who abandoned him: “He warned that he would pay Him back as best he could, and that he would rob Him of the thing that He loved best in him—his immortal soul. He said a lot more besides, which I refrain from repeating.”
Eleanor could imagine it all, could see Henry seated painfully on his horse, silhouetted against the burning city, crying out his impotent anger to an unheeding deity. Her soul bled for his—and yet she could do nothing to ease his sufferings of mind or body. How could it be worth praying, she wondered, when God had turned His face from the King? Was it worth appealing to Richard? But that could—and probably would—be misconstrued. She shuddered to think what might happen if Henry found out. It might be better to get back on her knees and constrain herself to prayer.
Waiting for news was agonizing. She would wonder, a hundred times a day, if Henry and Richard might even now be confronting each other in battle. A letter from William Marshal, whom she had always accounted her champion, brought her a little relief. The King had gone north to Normandy, he informed her, and had deputed him to take a force and guard his back. Not far behind had come marching Richard at the head of a French army, and he, Marshal, had leveled his lance in readiness for battle. “The duke cried out to me not to kill him, for he wore no hauberk. I answered that I would leave the killing of him to the Devil, and had the pleasure of unseating him instead. That gave me the chance to ride away and warn the King of his approach, and thus I enabled him to avoid a direct clash of arms with the duke his son.”
Maybe it could be avoided for good if only each side would give a little, Eleanor thought as the horrendous waiting went relentlessly on, and June dragged itself into July.
It was unbearably hot. Within the sun-baked walls of Winchester Castle, Eleanor and Amaria wore their lightest silk bliautsand avoided walking in the gardens until the heat of the day had subsided. In the lands of France, it was reported, the armies on both sides were suffering miseries from sunburn, fatigue, or dysentery. Henry wrote privately to Eleanor, complaining that he was enduring torture from an abscess, and that sitting in the saddle would soon be beyond him if those damned fool physicians didn’t do something to remedy it quickly.
Hard on the heels of this came another missive from Marshal. The King had been forced to retreat to Chinon to rest, and had gone alone, with only his bastard Geoffrey for company; traveling by back roads to evade the enemy forces. “He can neither walk nor stand or sit without intense discomfort,” William wrote. “We are all worried about John, who has disappeared. It is feared that he may have been taken for a hostage by Duke Richard or King Philip. If so, Heaven help the King.” Reading this, Eleanor redoubled her prayers, beseeching God and His Mother to hear her. Let there be peace, was her earnest cry.
She was listless, not knowing how to fill the hours of waiting for the next letter or report. It took a fast courier up to five days to cover the distance from Chinon, depending on the Channel winds, so anything could have happened. Amaria tried to entice her to games of chess or thinking up riddles; she went to market and bought embroidery silks in the brightest hues, hoping to inspire Eleanor to make new cushions or an altar frontal; she had Henry Berneval send for minstrels, to while away the evenings, and she spent hours herself in the kitchens baking exquisite little cakes to tempt her mistress. But none of these pleasant distractions could alleviate the Queen’s fears or anxieties.
Having little appetite, Eleanor lost weight. She looked drawn and her skin took on an ethereal quality. She was sixty-seven, but she knew without vanity, when she peered in her mirror, that she appeared and felt younger; her graying hair was hidden beneath her headdress and veil, her fine-boned face was only delicately etched with lines, and she had the energy of a woman half her age. That restless energy was pent-up now, surging within her breast; she was desperate to be at the center of affairs, not cut off from them here at Winchester. If she had her way, she would be riding into battle with the rest of them, like the Amazon that she had once pretended to be, long ago, on that distant plain of Vézelay, when they had preached the fatal crusade that ended in disaster for both the Christian hordes and her marriage to Louis. She had been young and reckless then, and afire to show off her crusading zeal in the most attention-seeking way possible; and she would unhesitatingly take the field again, for real this time, if given the slightest chance. But, of course, it could not be: she was a woman, and a prisoner, and all she could do was wait here for news. Wait, wait, wait! They could carve those words on her tomb: She waited.