“He makes a martyrdom of the sport,” his mother complained. She had complied with Henry’s demand, and there was an unspoken if uneasy truce between her and Eleanor when they met in the chapel before breakfast and bowed warily to each other.
“She had actually sent a message asking me if I wished to accompany her to mass,” Eleanor told Henry on his return.
“And did you?”
“Of course. She will never have cause to call me undutiful.” She set down the illuminated book she had been reading.
“Henry—”
“What’s that?” he interrupted, looking admiringly at the book with its bejeweled silver cover. He had an insatiable curiosity.
“It is The Deeds of the Counts of Anjou,”Eleanor told him. “I am learning all about your forebears.”
Henry sniffed. “It might put you off me for life! They were troublesome bastards, the lot of them.”
“It does make for very interesting reading.” she smiled. “And it explains a lot of things!”
“Hah!” cried Henry. “Don’t paint me with the same brush. Although if you listen to Abbot Bernard, I’m worse than all of them put together.”
“So he told me!” She laughed, then her face grew serious. “Henry, how long are we to sojourn in Normandy?”
“I’m not sure,” he said warily. “I wanted to talk to you.”
“You said six weeks.” The prospect of a longer stay with her dragon of a mother-in-law was more than she could stomach.
“I know, but I have just had news from Aquitaine. Some of your vassals are in rebellion. I want you to remain here while I go and teach them a lesson.”
“Rebellion?” Eleanor echoed.
“It seems they don’t like me,” Henry muttered, “but it’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“I could quell them,” she told him. “They will listen to me.”
“And that’s precisely why I am going in your stead, so that they learn to listen to me as well.”
“Henry, I insist—”
“Eleanor, my mind is made up. Don’t worry, my Lady Mother won’t eat you up while I’m gone. She’s got enough of the statesman in her to appreciate the folly of upsetting me, when her power here derives from me.”
“But Henry, you need her to govern Normandy, and she knows it,” Eleanor protested. “That’s an empty threat. She has no need to fear you.”
“Yes, but she has every need to fear you,” he retorted. “Normandy has a duchess now—why should she not rule it in my absence?”
“And when we are summoned to England? I don’t want to stay here!”
“I have many dependable Norman barons, my sweetheart. No, never fear, my mother will behave herself. And you have your ladies and young William to occupy you.”
“You make it sound as if that should be enough to content me,” Eleanor complained. “Take me with you. Let us not be parted again.”
“No,” Henry declared. “It will not be for long, and war is man’s work. Then we can look forward to another reunion.” He grinned at her suggestively.
Again Eleanor experienced that hateful feeling of being trapped and helpless.
“You just don’t understand, do you?” she fumed. “I am the Duchess of Aquitaine, and I am fit for higher things than the company of women and babies. When there is trouble in my domains, I should be with you, putting things right. We said we would do these things together, Henry! And, as you seem to have forgotten already, we have just been parted for sixteen months— sixteen months—yet you are going to leave me again. I can’t believe you would even think of that, not after last night.”
Henry came to her and caught her roughly in his arms.
“Do you think I want to leave you?” He sighed. “Ah, Eleanor, in an ideal world we would be together always, but I have vast domains to rule, and that means I must continually be on the move. Listen. I know you for an intelligent woman, and I do value your political ability, but I need to assert my authority in Aquitaine, and I need to do it alone. When those godforsaken vassals of yours have learned who’s in charge, we will rule the duchy as equals. In the meantime, all I ask is that you stay here in safety with our son.”
“Very well then,” she conceded after a pause, still simmering, “but summon me as soon as you can.”
“No, I will return to you here,” Henry said.
“But why?” she asked in dismay.
“There is news from England,” he said. “I have not yet had a chance to tell you or my mother. King Stephen is ill; it can now only be a matter of time. We must hold ourselves in readiness, and for that reason we should stay here in Normandy. It is only a short distance across the Channel from England.”
“But you are going south,” Eleanor pointed out. “What if the summons comes while you are away?”
“I shall ride like the wind and be here in ten minutes!” Henry chuckled. “And I’ll bring your rebellious vassals with me. The promise of rich pickings in England might make them like me more.”
Rouen, 1154
It was late October. In the solar of the royal palace, the two richly garbed royal ladies sat sewing by a brazier. The wind was howling outside, and the colorful tapestries on the walls stirred in the draft from the slit windows.
“Bring me more silks,” the Empress commanded, and her waiting woman scuttled away. Another appeared with goblets of cognac, which she placed on the table.
“I wish there was news of Henry,” Eleanor said, taking a sip. “Oh, that’s warming.”
“I expect the weather is as bad in the Vexin as it is here,” Matilda said. Her manner toward her daughter-in-law was still merely polite, but months of familiarity had eroded the sharp edge of the glacier. Thrown together by virtue of their rank, both women had had to make the best of it.
“I worry about Henry. He is still not over his illness.” Eleanor shuddered as she recalled her beloved’s close brush with death the month before, after he had been laid low with a rampant, burning fever. Thanks to his vigorous constitution, and no thanks to his inept doctors, he pulled through, but not before his wife and his mother had suffered some searingly anxious moments.
“I worry too, but it is imperative that he puts down this revolt,” Matilda said.
“I know that, madame, but he was still suffering fits of the shivers the night before he left.” And he had been too fatigued to make love.
“I know my son. He is strong, and a fighter. He will recover. But he hates being ill and, as you have no doubt discovered, he will never admit to any weakness, nor will he be told what to do.” The Empress smiled dourly, then turned her gimlet gaze on the younger woman. “You have heard the news about your former husband, King Louis?”
“That he has remarried—yes,” Eleanor said, rising to throw another log on the brazier. “I wish him nothing but happiness—and his bride nothing but fortitude.”
“They are saying that this Castilian princess, Constance, won him by her modesty,” Matilda murmured, “and that his subjects think he is better married than he had been.”
Eleanor ignored the barbs. She had grown too used to them. “More likely he was won by the prospect of a rich dowry from her father, King Alfonso,” she retorted. “At least he has now made peace with Henry and stopped calling himself Duke of Aquitaine. That really did irk me!”
She shifted in her chair and rested her hands on her swollen belly. She was five months gone with child, and finding the waiting tedious. She longed to be back in the saddle, riding in the fresh air, her hawk on her glove.
Mamille de Roucy burst into the room then, her rosy round face flushed with excitement. The Empress frowned at her deplorable lack of ceremony, but the damsel did not notice.