Alison Weir - Captive Queen

For the thousandth time she pulled herself up. Henry was a king, and, in the wider scale of things, women meant little to him beside his vision for his kingdom and the demands of his far-flung domains. Had that not been the case, his amours would have been notorious rather than discreet, and she would surely have known about them. He was not the kind of man to let a female sway or rule him. Even she herself, his queen, had been kept firmly in what he perceived to be her place, much to her chagrin. No, Henry would not shirk his duties and obligations for so long just for the sake of a woman. And if he had heard evil gossip about his wife, he would no doubt have acted upon it, much as he had all those years ago when he banished that poor fool, Bernard de Ventadour; he would never tolerate any hint of scandal attaching itself to his own.

Having reasoned yet again with herself, she realized that she was no nearer to understanding what was going on than she had been before, and, with her thoughts in turmoil, smoothed her skirts, adjusted her veil and circlet, and descended the stairs to greet her husband.

They faced each other across the polished wooden table in the solar. Henry’s eyes were wary. He looked almost sheepish, guilty even. Her heart plummeted and again she wondered why he had come.

“I trust you had a good journey,” she said, for the second time, betraying how nervous she was. “Some wine?”

Henry sat down, kicked off his boots, and gratefully accepted the goblet.

“I trust you are well, Eleanor,” he said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get here earlier. I was at Clarendon, making sure that my new laws will be properly enforced.”

That had been back in January. It was now Easter. What had he been doing in the meantime? His ships had been waiting at Southampton for weeks.

“I regret you had all that trouble with my barons in Maine,” Henry was saying.

“I have never been treated with such contempt!” Eleanor fumed, anger flaring at the remembrance, and momentarily distracting her from her fears. “Your Norman captains refused to heed my orders. They said they would not take them from a woman.”

“I know, I know,” Henry admitted. “They had no right to say that, and they will be called to account, you may depend on it. But the rebels are crushed. On my way here I taught them a lesson they will not easily forget.”

“I am relieved to hear it,” Eleanor said tartly. She was aware that this conversation was being carried on purely on the surface, and that each was taking the measure of the other and wondering where they really stood. The air was almost crackling with the things they were leaving unsaid.

“Would you like to see our new daughter?” she asked.

“By all means,” Henry smiled, “and our other children.” He would not meet her eyes.

“You will find them much grown,” she told him. “It is so long since you have seen them.” It was a barb, and it hit home. She actually saw him wince.

The baby was brought by the nurse and placed in the King’s arms. Henry gazed down at the copper-haired infant on his lap, with her chubby cheeks and gummy smile, and thought how like Eleanor she was. He chuckled at her, well satisfied, and gave her his blessing, his callused hand on her downy head.

“She’s a pretty one,” he pronounced. “Fit to be a queen, which one day, no doubt, she will be. I hear that Louis at last has a son. Are you thinking what I am thinking?”

“Am I to understand that you have abandoned your plan to marry Matilda and Eleanor in Germany?” Eleanor asked in astonishment. “I thought you were trying to discountenance Louis to pay him back for his support of Becket?”

“I never pass up an opportunity to discountenance Louis, you know that, Eleanor!” Henry grinned, lightening the atmosphere a little. “But I did have hopes of one day annexing France to my domains. All dashed now, of course—if that boy lives. So we rattle Louis now, while planning for the future. His son will need a wife someday, and it would be to my advantage, and that of my heirs, to have an English queen on the French throne.”

“It is a wise plan,” Eleanor had to concede.

He nodded. “I think so. And as I haven’t changed my mind about the alliances I have negotiated for Matilda and Eleanor, I will be putting this little one forward as the future Queen of France. It will be a great destiny for you, sweeting,” he murmured, smiling down at the baby.

“Well, I can only hope that the French court has livened up a bit by the time she gets there,” Eleanor said, her tone still tart.

“She will liven it up, I make no doubt. She has her mother’s charm, I can see it.” He was placating her, she knew it.

“Charm availed me little at Louis’s court,” she sniffed, unwilling to bend. “But it would be a great match, and it could bring a more stable peace between England and France.”

“No doubt the princes of Europe are all rubbing their hands in glee in the hope of securing such a rich matrimonial prize for their daughters as the new heir to France,” Henry observed wickedly. “But I think we have a strong advantage. I can always dangle the Vexin as a carrot!”

“They said Louis was overjoyed to have a son at last,” Eleanor recalled, remembering how, strangely, she had felt so pleased for her former husband when she was brought the news. He had waited an unconscionably long time—and she herself had failed him in the one thing that mattered. Now his prayers had been granted, and she was glad. “There were great rejoicings, I heard. Much will be expected of this little prince. Already they are calling him Philip Augustus, like the old Roman emperors.”

“I heard he was named after the month he was born, and that he’d been nicknamed ‘the God Given’,” Henry said. “Well, I hope, for his sake, he doesn’t take after his father with names like that! He’ll have to live up to them!”

He handed the baby back to the nurse, picked up his goblet, drained it to the dregs, and reached for the flagon.

“Well, I will have one more cup of wine, and then I will change my clothes and slough off the dust of the road and go greet my beloved barons of Anjou.” He poured the red liquid. Eleanor watched, wondering if they would ever again be close enough to get beyond the pleasantries and generalities.

“Is there any news of our friend the Archbishop?” Henry asked, his flippant tone not quite masking his obsessive interest.

“Yes, but it’s not good,” Eleanor told him. “He is still living in the abbey at Sens, and still threatening to excommunicate you. It is said that he is angered by the Constitutions of Clarendon.”

Henry scowled. “He should get over it and accept that change is necessary. My patience is wearing thin.”

It’s about time, Eleanor thought, but she forbore to say anything; she hesitated to disrupt this uneasy peace between them. So she just smiled and called for the nurse again, asking her to bring the other children to greet their father.

Henry came to her bed that night and paid the marriage debt. At least, that’s what it felt like, a duty to be done. Never before had he seemed so uninvolved when making love to her. She lay there afterward, sleepless and in turmoil, suspecting that what she’d long dreaded had come to pass: that he no longer loved her, and all that was left to them was a marriage of convenience, which fulfilled the purpose for which it had been made. Her personal feelings were not supposed to matter, when one looked at the wider picture. But they did, oh, they did!

She looked at Henry’s sleeping back, its solid form white and shadowy in the moonlight that flooded the room through the tall window. It had struck her anew, when she first saw him on his return, how manly he looked in the strength and vigor of his maturity; a little thicker about the girth, true, but still a muscular bull of a man, broad-chested and leonine of feature. How she loved and wanted him! She could not help herself. Of all the men she had known—and known in the biblical sense—none could touch him. Yet she feared he was hers no more. Her pillow was sodden with her tears.