Alison Weir - Captive Queen

“How think you King Louis will react when he hears of his daughter’s marriage, my son?” the Empress asked as the first course was brought in.

“He cannot complain,” Henry said smugly. “The contract has been signed, and his consent to the nuptials is implicit in it. There was no need to consult him at all.”

“ He might not agree with that,” Eleanor put in, helping herself to some roast pork from a golden salver. “This won’t be the first time we have deceived him over a marriage, my lord!” She smiled at Henry archly.

“Ah, but in this case he has given his consent, in writing. There’s no arguing with that.”

Becket leaned across.

“He might feel that he has been insulted, sire. He could say that the terms of the treaty have been breached, and withhold the dowry.”

“I think not,” Henry said, grinning wickedly. “I have already sent to the Knights Templar, who have been keeping custody of the Vexin, and they have willingly agreed to surrender it to me. And I have decided to take Marguerite into my own household now that she is married to my son. She will be a hostage against any reprisals that Louis might contemplate.”

Eleanor’s head jerked up at that. “And who will be in charge of her upbringing?” she asked.

Henry laid his hand on hers. “Why, you, of course!” he said with a wink.

“But that is against King Louis’s express wishes,” the Empress said, before Eleanor could answer.

“I will not have my wife slighted,” Henry declared. “And who better to be as a mother to our new daughter?”

“You did not say that before!” Eleanor fumed later, when they were in bed and Henry had laid purposeful hands on her, thrusting his knee between her legs. “You have only made this decision because it suits you to do so. My feelings don’t come into it.”

“Yes they do,” he said, mounting her. “And yes, it makes good political sense to have Marguerite with us, in your care. I knew it would please you.” Eleanor was about to argue that he had missed the whole point of her complaint when Henry’s mouth came down hard on hers and he entered her forcefully. Despite herself, she was swept along by the familiar tide of ecstasy, and had no choice but to give herself up to it completely. As so many times before, they made violent love, rolling in the bed, clinging together, and kissing as hungrily as if their lives depended upon it.

Lying spent in Henry’s arms afterward, Eleanor felt such a surge of love for this complex, difficult man that it was like an emotional orgasm, leaving her breathless and near to tears. Involuntarily, she clung to Henry as if she could never let go, and found herself wishing that things could always be this perfect between them.

When she was calm again, they lay there replete, just looking at each other, with Henry’s rough hand resting lightly on her breast. We don’t need words, she thought. We have been married for eight years, and still it can be so good. She basked in the knowledge that her body continued to captivate Henry, and that, for all her thirty-eight years, she was yet a beautiful woman. Despite his dependence on the ever-present Becket, Henry still needed her. She had been at his side all through that great progress of England they made three years earlier; she had seen the wild northern shires and witnessed the submission of the Scots; she had been with Henry when they renounced the wearing of their crowns in Worcester Cathedral, sharing in an act of humility in honor of the crucified Christ; she had ruled England for eight months after that progress, when Henry was absent in France; and she had shared her husband’s joy and pride in their growing family, and borne the pain of his grief and her own in their terrible loss. She had never forgotten Henry’s ravaged face when she came face-to-face with him at Saumur in Anjou, five months after William’s death. Later, back in England, she wept with him before the little tomb in Reading Abbey, where their son had been laid to rest at the feet of his great-grandsire, the first King Henry. It was the heritage of these shared experiences, and the enduring rapture of their physical love, that had become the bedrock of their marriage.

Henry was sleeping now, snoring lightly against her shoulder. Her eyes wandered the length of his body, feasting upon strong limbs and toned muscles. Louis had looked defenseless in slumber, but not Henry. He was like a dormant lion. She wished they could be back in Poitiers together, as they had been the year before. They had lain night after night in her richly hung chamber in the Maubergeonne Tower, exploring new ways to make love and sleeping late in the mornings. In Rouen she was always the guest of the Empress, and felt she was there on sufferance; but in Poitiers she was the duchess—never mind her queenship—and could fully be herself on her home territory. How she yearned for the wild, summer-kissed beauty of her domains! That was where she truly belonged, not in these chilly northern lands, where the freedoms of the South were so much frowned upon.

Henry, however, had been in Poitiers for a purpose. In fact, it had been her idea that he should attempt to enforce her ancestral rights to the southern province of Toulouse. But she set herself up for some prolonged grief, for she had been left fretting in her tower while he rode south at the head of a large army—and she was still fretting, months later, when he rode back in a foul mood, having failed in his purpose. For as soon as he laid siege to the city of Toulouse, Louis had come to its defense, and Henry could hardly fight the overlord with whom he had so recently made that advantageous alliance. So he had been thwarted of Toulouse, and thereafter stayed in Normandy, dealing with pressing affairs there and sulking. Eleanor he had sent back to England, where once again she found herself ruling as regent, touring the kingdom, issuing writs, and dispensing justice. And there she had remained until Henry summoned her back to Normandy for the wedding.

Louis would not make too much trouble, she was certain of that. He might bluster and protest at the marrying of his daughter without his knowledge, but he knew that Henry FitzEmpress was more than a match for him, so it was fairly safe to say that Henry would get away with what he had so impudently done.

Eleanor bit on the sheet and bore down hard, her chin pressed against her chest. The pain was unendurable, and the need to scream overpowering, but even in extremis she remembered that she was Queen of England and Duchess of Normandy and Aquitaine, and must behave as her dignity required.

“Nearly there, Lady,” the midwife said. “One more push.”

Eleanor somehow found the strength to make a final effort. This was her ninth confinement, and she had never suffered such a difficult travail; all her previous babes had slipped out easily into the world with the minimum of trouble and fuss. But she had not had an easy pregnancy, what with one problem or another to deal with—and no end to it in sight.

She pushed—and the tiny head emerged into the midwife’s capable hands, followed by a slippery shoulder—and then the rest of this new little stranger.

“A fair princess, lady!” the midwife announced, beaming, as the infant started squealing. Eleanor, almost drained of energy, took her daughter into her arms and found herself gazing at the very mirror image of herself.

“There’s no doubt as to what your name will be, little one.” She smiled, kissing the crumpled face. “You will be Eleanor, like me.” Henry could never object to that.

Relaxing in bed after the birth, too elated at the safe delivery of so pretty a daughter to sleep, Eleanor recalled how her husband had said that, unlike poor Louis, he was rich in sons and would welcome a girl, because girls could be married off for policy or profit. It was true, but she sometimes wished that Henry would stop seeing his children as pawns to be moved about in some giant game of political chess. There was no doubting that he loved them, but it grieved her that he could speak of disposing of them profitably without a qualm. Marrying off a daughter often meant sending her far away to a distant land—and the pain of a parting that might be forever.