Eleanor had heard the bells, clanging deafeningly from the tower of the half-built cathedral that stood, dark and squat like a crouching beast, on the hill beneath the castle mound. She knew those bells must betoken something momentous, some great victory—but whose? Had Henry triumphed over their sons at last? Or had he been defeated, and—joy of joys—would her sons soon come to free her?
Her heart ached for freedom. This was a bleak, inhospitable place—and a dirty one, for water was scarce. Isolated on its hill, and surrounded by strong walls and a deep, wooded ditch, Sarum was cut off from most civilized amenities. And the wind! It roared. Amaria had told her that in the cathedral a clerk could not even hear the man next to him singing. Even in summer the blasts whipped and whistled around the castle and its battlements, rattling doors and shutters; in winter the wind came in gales, lashing the walls and howling mercilessly through the window slits, repeatedly extinguishing the fires they tried to keep blazing in the inadequate braziers. Eleanor’s first winter here had been a martyrdom. She had been so cold, colder than ever before in her life. She had suffered miseries with chilblains, and could only thank God that she had not yet fallen victim to the rheumatism that was chronic in this benighted place.
Otherwise she had to admit that she had little cause to complain. Far from being immured in a dank prison, as the townsfolk imagined, she was housed and served as befit a queen. The chambers assigned to her were no worse than those in her palaces, and equipped with luxuries such as the cushions and rich hangings to which she was accustomed. That had been a welcome surprise until she realized that it betokened the permanence of her confinement. All the same, it was good to enjoy once more the privileges of her rank, even if she was deprived of her freedom. She was served reasonable fare, on silver plates, and the good wines of Bordeaux in jeweled goblets. She had even been provided with illuminated books from the treasury at Winchester, an ivory chess set, and the finest silks for her embroidery. For all this, though, the allowance allocated by the King for her household was small, and did not allow for the employment of more than the one maid.
She was grateful that Amaria had been allowed to accompany her to Sarum, yet exasperated that they were still required to share the same bed. At least she had tactfully succeeded in educating Amaria in the necessity of daily washing herself and changing her body linen, but all the same, they faced an uphill struggle to maintain hygiene in the face of the meager supply of water, and the sometimes brackish mess that passed for it in their washing bowl. She never ceased complaining that they were forced to go about smelling of damp weeds.
Her custodians were men of standing, much trusted by the King: the lawyer and diplomat, Ranulf Glanville, was the very man who had captured the Scottish King the previous year. He told her so himself: it was one of the few items of news she had been permitted to receive. Glanville was an energetic, versatile man, wise and well spoken. He had assisted Henry in his legal reforms, and even written a treatise on the laws and customs of England. Eleanor liked him, for all she suspected that his fidelity to the King precluded him from entirely approving of her, and she had early on taken the initiative in inviting him to dine with her. To her surprise, Glanville readily accepted, and his presence at her table was now a regular arrangement. Their lively and witty conversation, which never, by unspoken mutual consent, strayed to contentious matters, helped considerably to enliven the dreary monotony of her days.
Her other custodian—she was impressed to find that Henry had deemed two necessary to keep her under lock and key—was one of the royal chamberlains, Ralph FitzStephen. He was more taciturn than Glanville, yet although he never scanted his respect toward her, she knew he was wary of her, and she could not warm to him. She knew instinctively that if she wanted any favors, it was Glanville whom she should approach. And indeed, he did his best for her. He allowed her to take the air on the battlements, when the wind permitted; otherwise, it was dangerous to go up there, and she—and the guards who had to accompany her—would run a very real risk of being swept over the parapet if they defied the elements.
When the weather was clement, she would climb to her high eyrie and gaze out across the mighty ramparts and the teeming, overpopulated town they protected to the vast sweep of the Avon Valley beyond, with its gentle hills that led to the eastern edge of the New Forest, invisible in the far distance. Then she would turn and look wistfully southward, where—hundreds of miles distant—lay Aquitaine. It pained her to think of the land of her birth, which she feared she might well never see again, yet her heart was drawn toward it inexorably. In her mind, she often traveled the hidden, lushly wooded valleys, the sundrenched hilltops and narrow gorges, and feasted her eyes once more on the mighty castles on their craggy heights, the mellow stone churches and pretty villages, the ranks of vines, and the glittering rivers. Aquitaine was a constant ache in her heart.
Did her people feel grief and anger at the cruel way in which their duchess had been treated? Her imprisonment must have had an unwelcome and brutal impact on their lives, for Henry, in the wake of the war that—she guessed—had almost succeeded in toppling him from his throne, would not scruple to lay his heavy hand of authority on his domains. (No one had thought fit to tell her that Richard now sat in her place in Poitiers, accepted by her subjects and acclaimed as the doughty warrior he had proved himself to be. Richard, who was there at Henry’s command, and subject to his vigilance … )
Perched in her lofty refuge, her useless veil in her hand, ignoring the wind whipping the tendrils that had escaped from her plaits, and with her face pressed forlornly against the rough stone of the crenellations as she stared fixedly into the distance, Eleanor had often reflected that the prophecies had been misleading. The “King of the North Wind”—that was Henry—still wielded his scepter over Aquitaine, but the “Eagle of the Broken Covenant”—that had to be herself; she was beginning to understand its meaning now—had yet to discover why she should especially rejoice in her third nesting. The cubs had awakened, roared loud, as Merlin long ago predicted; but the only person who remained loaded with chains, as the seer had described, was their mother.
Her inner torment was ceaseless. Her harp was turned to mourning, she told herself, reverting in her distress to the language of the troubadours, on which she had been reared. “My flute sounds the note of affliction; my songs are turned to lamentations,” she grieved.
There was only Amaria to whom she could unburden herself, although Amaria was still scared of her superiors, and usually just sat and listened, clucking sympathetically here and there.
“I had a royal liberty!” Eleanor told her, over and over again; she was remorseless with herself. “I lived richly, I took pleasure in the company of my women and delighted in my music. I was a queen with two crowns! I had everything. But now I am consumed with sorrows—my heart is ravaged with tears. I cry out unanswered!”
Then she would grow defiant, her old spirit burgeoning. “Never fear, I will not cease to cry!” she assured Amaria. “I will not weary; I will raise my voice like a trumpet, so that it may reach the ears of my sons. They will deliver me!”
Hearing the bells, her breast was filled with hope surging anew, and she was in a ferment, desperate to know what they betokened. She could not sit, but got up and paced about, up and down, up and down the chamber, hugging herself tightly, as Amaria watched her, dismay all over her face. She had been in the cathedral this morning; she had gone, as she often did, to be shriven, not liking that snooty chaplain charged with the cure of the Queen’s soul. And she had heard of the King’s victory. But, as usual, she forbore to say anything of what she heard beyond these walls.