Виктория Холт: The Heart of the Lion

‘You do not hope of course that there can be any betrothal between you and King Richard now,’ said Eleanor.

‘I ... I did not think so,’ said Alice. She was fair and fragile. Eleanor could understand how she had appealed to him. She would have been clinging and admiring, adoring him, giving him that which he sought in all women. His Rosamund Clifford – that other great love of his – had been the same. They had some inherent femininity which for all her voluptuous beauty Eleanor had never possessed.

‘Nay and you do right, having been debauched by the father you could hardly expect the son to take you to his bed.’

Alice blushed. A King’s mistress and managing to look so coy! What a deceitful creature she was. The odd quirk was that she was Louis’ daughter. Louis to whom Eleanor herself – when she had been his Queen – had borne two children, her daughters Alix and Marie.

Eleanor could see her father in her – she would be good if she could, for she wanted to be, but fate had been too much for her in the form of her lecherous prospective father-in-law who had come into the schoolroom where she was being brought up with his children since she was to marry one of them, and when she could have been no more than twelve years old had made her his mistress. She would have been shy, reluctant and malleable – everything that was needed to stimulate his jaded senses. She could well imagine how it had started and angry jealousy swept over her. He had wanted to marry Alice and divorce Eleanor to do so. It was not so easy though to divorce the heiress of Aquitaine even if it was for the daughter of the King of France.

And now he was dead and Alice was past her first youth; she had already borne him a child it was rumoured. The child had died though, which was one complication removed.

Sly silly girl – so meek, apeing the virgin, when all the time she had indulged with him, and the Queen knew from experience what such occasions would be like.

‘So here you are,’ said Eleanor, ‘a whore no less, though a King’s whore. It ill becomes the sister of the King of France.’

‘We ... we ...’

‘I know. I know. You loved, and he would have made you his Queen. That was if he could have rid himself of his existing Queen. You know who stood in your way, my little Princess. How you must have hated me!’

‘Oh, no ...’

‘Oh, yes! I’ll swear he talked of me. What did he tell you of me, eh?’

‘He rarely spoke of you.’

‘You are afraid to say. You are a frightened little thing, Alice. You are afraid of me and you’ll be afraid to face your brother when he sends for you. What will you say to the King of France when you are taken back to him, when he hears of the games you played in the bed of the old King of England?’

‘I must ask you for what is due to his memory ...’

‘You silly girl, do you think I am afraid his ghost will haunt me? Let it! How I should enjoy to tell it what I thought of the fleshly Henry. I never feared him in life where I doubt not he was more powerful than he could be in death. Nay, he was a lecher. A woman had but to take his fancy lightly and he would have her in his bed – as he did you. Think not that he held you in any special regard.’

‘Oh, but he did. He always came straight to me when he was in England ...’

‘Straight from the rest and swore he would marry you I doubt not, and laughed at you and the son he was deceiving.’

‘It is untrue. His conscience smote him. He often talked of Richard.’

‘How noble of him! So you talked of Richard and how you were deceiving him and you think that exonerates you from your just rewards for what you have done?’

‘Richard didn’t really want to marry me.’

‘His father prevented his doing so.’

‘There are stories of Richard.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Of the life he leads.’

‘With women?’ cried Eleanor. ‘Who should blame him, deprived of his bride as he has been? He is no boy. He is more than thirty years of age.’

‘And with my brother,’ said Alice boldly. ‘It has been said that he shared his bed when he was at Philip’s court.’

‘A custom when one monarch wishes to honour another.’

‘It is said that there is great love between them.’

‘It is said! Who has said this? Are you, the royal slut of a lecherous king, in a position to judge the conduct of others? Have a care, my little whore, or you could find yourself under restraint.’

‘My brother will not allow that.’

‘You are not in your brother’s court yet. You are in that of King Richard and until he comes to claim his kingdom, I am holding it for him.’

‘What do you intend to do with me?’

‘Keep you here for a while.’ Eleanor came near to Alice and gripped her by the arm. ‘While you were sporting with your lover, I, his true wife, was a prisoner here in this castle. There were guards outside my door. When I walked out they accompanied me.’

‘You took up arms against the King. You led his sons to revolt against him. It was just punishment.’

‘Just to imprison a wife! Think you so? All he suffered he deserved.’

‘And you too,’ said Alice boldly.

‘Have a care. You are in my power now, you know.’

‘Richard will treat me well.’

‘So you think he will have you now? You are mistaken, Alice. You will be sent back to your brother I doubt not. But no man will want you now.’

‘It is not true.’

‘Certainly not the King of England who can take his pick from the world. So a life of boredom awaits you, at the best. You will sit over your needlework in one of your brother’s castles and brood on the past and remember how Henry sported with you and that such adventures are behind you for ever more. In the meantime you will stay here. You will learn what it was like for me to live here as a prisoner. The same apartment which was allotted to me shall be allotted to you. The same guards shall be at your door. Yes, you shall learn what it was like to be a prisoner. The only difference will be that you will be my prisoner and I was that of your lover. Now come, my Princess. You have had enough easy living. You have sinned and must repent. You will have time to do so in your prison.’

The Queen summoned the guards whom she had had waiting.

‘Take the Princess Alice to her new apartments,’ she said.

She was wise enough to know that she could not linger in the castle merely to gloat over Alice’s fate. She knew too that it could not be of long duration. Philip would never allow it and it was not a matter of which she would wish to make a political issue. Still, she could not resist giving the girl a taste of the humiliation she had suffered.

She must prepare the country for Richard’s arrival and make the people ready to receive their new King, so she announced that she was going on a short tour of the country and she set out from Winchester having given orders that if any news of the King’s imminent arrival in England was received it must be brought to her without delay.

As she rode along she contemplated the fact that there was always danger when a king died. It could never be certain how the people would feel towards his successor. To the Conqueror’s descendants England had been an uneasy inheritance largely because the possession of lands overseas had demanded their presence abroad. The English naturally did not like to be neglected. Henry’s life had been spent between England and France and because his possessions in France had been so much more difficult to hold owing to the presence of the Franks on his very borders, he had been more often there than in England.

The people must accept Richard. She had few qualms that they would. If ever man had the appearance of a king that man was Richard. How different he was from his slovenly father who had thrown on his clothes in a disorderly way and looked like a peasant, who never wore riding gloves and because he was out in all weathers had skin like leather. Yet he had won the respect of his people. But how much more readily would they follow a man who looked like a king.