“Never let me set eyes on you again!” she hissed at Rosamund, then turned her back on the girl, glided from the room with as much dignity as she could muster, closing the door firmly behind her, and descended the stairs.
“The sewing women are up there,” she announced to the ladies who were climbing the stairs in search of her. “I was admiring their skill.” She was surprised at her own composure. “It seems that the steward was right, that many works are being carried out here. This place is wholly unfit for habitation. Like it or not, we must make for Oxford.” She knew she had to get away from Woodstock as quickly as possible. She could not endure to share a roof with Rosamund de Clifford, or even breathe the same air. She must go somewhere she could lick her wounds in peace.
“Now?” echoed her women. “Madame, you should rest before we attempt to move on.”
“There will be an inn on the road,” Eleanor said firmly.
The King’s House at Oxford was a vast complex of buildings surrounded by a strong stone wall; it looked like a fortress, but was in fact a splendid residence adorned with wall paintings in bright hues and richly appointed suites for the King and Queen. Here, in happier days long past, Eleanor’s beloved Richard had been born, slipping eagerly into the world with the minimum of fuss. But this latest babe, unlike its older siblings, did not seem to want to be born, and small wonder it was, Eleanor thought, when the world was such a cruel place.
She had no heart for this labor. She pushed and she strained, but to little effect. It had been hours now, and the midwife was shaking her head in concern. It had been a great honor, being summoned at short notice to order the Queen’s confinement, but the good woman was fearful for her future—and her high reputation in the town—for if mother or child were lost, almost certainly the King would point the finger of blame at her.
Petronilla, tipsy as usual, for she had resorted to the wine flagon to banish her demons, was seated by the bed, holding Eleanor’s hand and looking tragic, as the other ladies bustled around with ewers of hot water and clean, bleached towels. Petronilla knew she would be devastated if her sister died in childbed; she adored Eleanor, relied on her for so many things, and knew her life would be bleak without her. No one else understood why Petronilla had to drink herself into oblivion. Other people looked askance and were censorious, but not Eleanor. Eleanor had also known the pain of losing her children. She too had suffered that cruel sundering, had learned to live with empty arms and an aching heart. Petronilla knew, as few did, how Eleanor had kept on writing to those French daughters of hers, hoping to reseal a bond that had long ago been severed. She knew too that there had been no reply, apart from on one occasion, when hope had sprung briefly in her sister’s breast; but evidently, the young Countess Marie had not thought it worth establishing a correspondence—and Petronilla supposed that one could hardly blame her.
Yes, Eleanor too had her crosses to bear—and probably more than she would admit to. Something odd had happened at Woodstock, Petronilla was sure of it. Before that, Eleanor seemed strong and resolute, a fighter ready to take on all challengers. Now she appeared to have lost the will to live. It was incomprehensible, the change in her—and terrifying. Gulping back another sob, Petronilla reached again for her goblet.
Eleanor lay in a twilight world, enduring the ever more frequent onslaughts of pain as her contractions grew stronger, then retreating to a place where no one could reach her. She almost welcomed the agony of childbirth: it was far preferable to the agony that Henry and his whore had inflicted on her. He had inflicted this ordeal on her too, yet she would have welcomed it a thousand times had it been the result of an unsullied love between them. But that was all finished. He had betrayed her, and she was done with him. This would indeed be her last child. She knew it.
The ordeal went on for hours. They brought her holy relics to kiss, slid knives under the bed to cut the pain. None of it did any good, and, had Death come for her, she would have welcomed him. It was not until the dawn, on Christmas Eve, that the infant who was the cause—and the fruit—of her agony finally came sniveling into the world, a tragic bundle of bloodied limbs and dark red hair.
“A boy, my lady!” the midwife announced jubilantly, breathless with relief.
Eleanor turned her face away.
“Will you not look at him?” Petronilla asked, her heart-shaped face bleary with wine, yet full of concern.
Eleanor made herself look. The infant, wiped and swathed in a soft fleece, had been laid on the bed next to her. She contemplated its crumpled, angry little face and watched dispassionately as it broke into mewling cries of outrage at being cast adrift into the wicked world. She wanted to feel something for it, the sad little mite; after all, it was not this babe’s fault that she herself was in such misery. Yet it seemed she had nothing left to give, no spark of loving kindness or maternal feeling. She felt dead inside. Nevertheless, this was her child, she reminded herself sternly. She must do something for it. Hesitantly, she touched the tiny, downy cheek and gave her son her blessing.
“What is he to be called?” Petronilla asked.
“What day is it?” Eleanor asked wanly.
“Christmas Eve. Even now they are bringing in the Yule log.”
“St. Stephen’s Day is two days hence,” the Queen said wearily, “but I can hardly call him after the martyr, for the English do not hold King Stephen in much repute. I mind me that the Feast of St. John the Apostle and St. John the Evangelist is in three days’ time. I shall call him John.”
Petronilla gazed down at her new nephew.
“I pray God send you a long and happy life, my Lord John,” she said, aware that what should have been a happy occasion was, for some reason beyond her comprehension, a very sad one.
Argentan, Normandy, 1167
“Welcome, my lady,” Henry said formally, bending over his queen’s hand. Their eyes met coldly as she rose from her curtsey. He had put on weight in the fourteen months since she’d seen him, Eleanor thought, and his curly red hair was silvered with gray; that came as a shock, and an unwelcome reminder that they were neither of them getting any younger. Henry looked ragged at the edges, as indeed he was, for he was worn down by the cares of state, his interminable quarrel with Becket—and the recent death of his mother.
Indomitable to the end, the Empress had breathed her last in September, at Rouen, after a short illness. Eleanor could not mourn her deeply, but she knew that Henry must be missing her sorely. Matilda had ruled Normandy for him for years, and given him the benefit of her wise counsel in many matters. Now she was gone, and there would be a void in his world. Even so, Eleanor could not bring herself to feel much grief for him: he had wounded her too deeply.
They avoided looking at each other as Henry escorted her into the castle of Argentan, her hand resting lightly on his. Courtiers were packed against the walls to watch them pass, their King and Queen, come together after so long to hold their Christmas court. There had been much speculation as to the true state of affairs between them, and whispered gossip about a fair maiden shut up in a tower somewhere in England, but the long separation could equally be accounted for by the demands of policy. Eleanor had been in England, preparing for her daughter Matilda’s wedding to the Duke of Saxony; and Henry had been in Aquitaine, suppressing yet another revolt, and then in the Vexin, negotiating an uneasy truce with Louis.