Alison Weir - Captive Queen

Her mind was in a ferment. What if this were the only opportunity she would ever have of knowing that kind of love? Should she not seize it with both hands, and follow the demands of the flesh?

She fell asleep wondering what it would be like to lie in the arms of the King of England.

Eleanor was lying in after her confinement, cradling her newborn daughter, Joanna, in her arms, when a letter arrived from Champagne. She opened it with trembling fingers, supporting the baby against her shoulder, and read the neat, pointed script of some unknown clerk. Her daughter Marie politely sent her greetings and inquired after her mother’s health. She herself was well and happy, and wished Madame the Queen to know that she remembered her in her prayers.

That was all, but it was something, and it was more than she had received from Alix, who could not have remembered her in any case. It was but little, but it was something—something she could build on.

The siege did not last long. When the last defense had been torn down, Henry came to Rosamund in her silken bower, and she received him with open arms. She was tight when he entered her, and gasped a little as her maidenhead fractured, but thereafter she twined herself sinuously around him as if she would never let go. Afterward he lay there with his head on her breasts, stroking her firm, flat belly and thinking that it had been a long time since he had experienced such joy with a woman. Pleasure, yes—but not this surging tide of delight and well-being. Once, he had known a similar joy with Eleanor, and something of that survived still, when they were together; but when he was apart from her, he felt detached and even hostile.

He would not think of Eleanor now, not when his fair Rosamund lay beneath him, his for the taking again as soon as he caught his breath and rested a bit. Rosamund, whose blond tresses lay tangled across them both, tickling his cheek, and whose straight limbs with their pearly sheen lay stretched out with abandon. His fingers crept to the cleft of her sex, parted it and slid farther, as her eyes widened in surprise and she began to moan with unexpected pleasure. God, she was beautiful, he thought, raising himself on one muscular elbow and raking her with his gaze as his kneading became more insistent—beautiful in a different way from Eleanor, for there was a fragility about Rosamund, and an innate delicacy. She was aptly named, with her petal-soft skin and her rosy cheeks! He knew he could never bear to be parted from her.

Henry could not leave Rosamund alone. He kept wanting her, at all hours of the day and night, and exulted in the breathless fervor with which she returned his ardor. Yet, so young and inexperienced was his love, for all her growing artfulness in bed, that every time they made love it seemed like the first time—as if he were deflowering her all over again. It was utterly irresistible!

He tarried at Woodstock all through the autumn, kept Christmas there, then made excuses to stay until the spring. He called in masons and master builders to construct a new tower for his lady, and gardeners to lay out a labyrinth for her delight, planting the young hedges of yew and briar in an intricate circular pattern. He knew that the time would come when he must leave Rosamund, and that she would be lonely and in need of recreation, and with the summer coming, this maze would divert her and the damsels he had appointed to wait on her. It never occurred to him that, one day, it would become the source of many rumors and legends.

When he wasn’t dallying in bed with Rosamund, Henry was hard at work formulating his planned legal reforms, and in the depths of winter he went to meet with his Great Council at Clarendon, where his new Constitutions, as he was pleased to call them, became law. One in particular gave him great satisfaction, for it meant that Becket’s criminous clerks would no longer be entitled to claim benefit of clergy. Henry had won his long, hard battle—but he doubted he had won the war.

The wounds dealt by Thomas still festered. Lying awake at night, he would torment himself by reliving the heady days of their friendship, or engage in bitter disputes with the absent Archbishop, saying all the clever things he wished he had said at the time. Occasionally, with Rosamund sleeping peacefully beside him, he would let the tears fall, and wonder when he would ever be free of this turmoil. He had loved Thomas—so why had Thomas defied and abandoned him? At such times he would reach out for the sweet girl lying beside him and try to lose himself in her, to blot out the pain and the anger. He never discussed Becket with her; he did not want to sully her purity by unburdening himself. She was his refuge, his peace, his joy: that was all he needed from her.

He could no longer tarry: he was needed in Maine, to quell some godforsaken rebel vassals; his ships were even now waiting at Southampton.

He kissed Rosamund long and lovingly in farewell, his heart aching. God knew when he would see her again. She stood on the mounting block, slender and utterly alluring in her soft wool gown, and lifted the stirrup cup to him as he sat on his horse at the head of his retinue, ready to depart. He made himself say his last good-bye, his voice gruff with emotion. Parting with her was unbearable, tragic, not to be borne …

He rode south determinedly, making good time, but they had not gone far when, driven by his unspeakable need, he suddenly wheeled about and cantered back toward Woodstock, his astonished train in his wake, struggling to keep up. When they arrived, he leaped off his lathered steed, raced up the spiral stairs two at a time, and burst into Rosamund’s chamber, scattering her women with a wave of his hand. As soon as the door banged behind them, he crushed her to him, devouring her with kisses.

“I had to come back to you, to see you one more time!” he gasped.

Rosamund was momentarily too stunned to respond.

“What will people think? That I keep you from your royal duties?” she asked, sounding panicked, but letting him do with her as he would.

“I care not a fig for what they think!” Henry growled. “All I know is that I have to have you once more before I cross the sea. I had to see your face, oh my darling!” His hands were everywhere, his eyes were drinking her in. He was desperate to bed her, could wait no longer. As they tumbled between the sheets, the outside world forgotten, downstairs in the hall and the courtyard, the King’s household officers and men-at-arms exchanged knowing glances, then shrugged and grinned at one another.

Eleanor saw Henry and his long line of followers approaching as she was taking the air on the battlements of the castle of Angers. She paused and stared. So he had come at last. Finally, he had bestirred himself and remembered that he had a wife. There was bitterness in her heart. She had not set eyes on him in more than a year; he had not come to greet his new daughter, Joanna, and had not even come for Christmas. That was a cruel blow, for never before had they spent a Christmas apart, and she had still been under the impression that things were mending between them. He could at least have thought of the children’s disappointment, if not hers, she thought, aggrieved.

She had wondered if Henry heard wanton talk of her closeness to her uncle Raoul, or if Jean aux Bellesmains had blabbed of his damned suspicions. Or, worse still, had Raoul kept something back when he had spoken of Henry having other women? That would hardly be surprising, given her reaction. But supposing there was another woman? If a love affair was the cause of Henry abandoning his wife and family for so long, then it surely posed a serious threat to all that she held dear. The prospect was nightmarish, and she had worn herself down with wondering and playing out horrible what-if scenarios in her mind. She wished she could let it all go and not care, but that was proving impossible.