Elizabeth Chadwick - The Summer Queen

Alienor took little William from his nurse and handed him to Mathilde.

‘Just like his father as a baby! Look at that hair. He’s a proper Angevin.’ She gave the baby a smacking kiss on the cheek.

‘I should hope he is, madam my aunt,’ Henry said. ‘Lions breed true.’

She took them to their lodging in the guest house where she had refreshment brought, and then sat down before the hearth to dandle the baby in her lap. ‘So,’ she said to Henry, ‘you are now officially England’s heir.’

‘God has willed it so,’ Henry replied.

Mathilde bounced William up and down, making him crow with laughter. ‘Strange to think had my husband not drowned, I would have been Queen of England and my son heir to the throne.’ She kissed her great-nephew’s soft cheek. ‘Motherhood was not my path, but my nieces and nephews have brought me great pleasure – as has my work here; and I have contentment that I would not have found in the world. Everything happens for a reason.’

Alienor felt a brief moment of envy for Mathilde’s lot. ‘To have power and contentment at the same time, that is a rare thing indeed.’

‘Yes, but hard won.’ Mathilde gave her a shrewd look. ‘When I came to Fontevraud, my heart was full of grieving and bitterness. It took many years of prayer and searching to discover joy beyond sorrow and to accept what had happened instead of railing against the dish fate had served to me. I found healing here and I rediscovered my pleasure in life. If not for Fontevraud and God, I would still be lost.’

During their time at Fontevraud, Alienor witnessed a very different side to Henry. He was still exuberant and full of restless energy, but in church he found the patience to be quiet, and the sharper edges of his character smoothed out and became more relaxed. He slept for longer at night and was not in a tearing hurry the moment he rose in the morning. Fontevraud’s spirituality was a grounded, practical one that well suited his personality, and the place had been that kind of haven for him since childhood.

‘When it is my time to leave the world, I have a mind to lie here,’ he said as he walked hand in hand with Alienor in the early morning through the cool, wet grass of the cemetery.

‘Not in Angers or Le Mans?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘Nor Reading or Westminster. All of those places will be open to my hand in the days to come and I can walk there as I choose. But here …’ He sent her a self-conscious glance as if admitting to something untoward that made him vulnerable. ‘Here is a place that I can carry in my heart like a sacred fragment within a reliquary. Even if I do not visit, I know it is here for me.’

Alienor’s throat and chest tightened. ‘That is a wonderful certainty to have.’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘because I can carry it with me and at the same time set it aside and focus on the business in hand.’

It was eminently practical, she thought, and so fitting to Henry’s character. To live in the world and walk through it with power and vigour, and then have a place of personal, tranquil repose when all was done.

She felt the hard grip of his hand and the cold brush of the grass under her feet – solid, tactile reality, weaving a fabric of memory she would keep until she too was laid in her tomb, wherever that might be – perhaps here at his side.

Empress Matilda held her wriggling grandson in her arms. ‘You have done well, daughter,’ she said. ‘A fine healthy boy to carry the line, and more in the fullness of time, one hopes.’

‘If God wills it, madam,’ Alienor replied with courtesy. From Fontevraud, she and Henry had travelled into Normandy and had spent the past three weeks in Rouen with the Empress. Alienor was feeling the strain of being constantly polite and deferential to her mother-in-law.

The Empress meant well in her advice, but Alienor did not always agree with her notions and attitudes, and was often infuriated by Matilda’s patronising air. The Empress was of the opinion that Alienor had much to learn from an older and wiser mentor, and she did not shirk the duty one whit. Alienor was rapidly coming to understand why Geoffrey of Anjou had mostly chosen to live apart from his wife. Even towards Henry, who was her golden child, her firstborn who had achieved every goal set before him, she was no doting mother. Even a much-loved son could benefit from the vast bounty of her maternal wisdom.

‘When you are a king, you should not be too familiar with your subjects,’ she lectured Henry as they sat before the fire. ‘You must preserve the dignity and the distance that exists between you and them.’

Henry nodded. He was playing chess with his knight Manasser Bisset. ‘But I need to know about them too. A distant king is one who may be duped or surprised because he is not paying attention.’

‘There are ways of finding out. Never be over-familiar is what I am telling you.’

‘You are wise, Mama,’ he said without looking up.

‘Demand respect and respect shall be given. Do not let any of them dictate to you. That is not the rule of a true king.’ She warmed to her theme. ‘You should rule them, not the other way around. They are like squabbling children. Divide them and you will conquer them, and after that you must keep them divided. Promise much and give little. Keep them hungry as you would your hawk. That is the way of an accomplished prince. Do not let them sit at ease with their muddy boots under your table.’

Alienor clenched her teeth to prevent herself speaking out of turn. Her mother-in-law had lost her one chance at being crowned queen precisely because of her haughty behaviour. She had incensed the citizens of London and been forced to flee from her own pre-coronation feast when the mob had turned on her. She had been high-handed and insulting to men who came to tender their allegiance and had made more enemies than friends. Stephen with his garrulous, easy ways had held on to the crown for nineteen years and even now his barons would not desert him. For the rest of his life he would be King of England. There was a message in that too.

‘Mama, rest assured, I shall think on your advice when I treat with the English barons,’ Henry said smoothly. ‘I value your counsel, you know that.’

The Empress gave him a hard, slightly suspicious look. ‘I am pleased to hear it,’ she said.

‘Your mother is a lady of great wisdom and experience,’ Alienor said that night when she and Henry retired, ‘but is she right about England?’ She studied a cross on a chain that Matilda had given to her. It was an ostentatious and rather hideous thing set with numerous gemstones of assorted shapes and sizes. Alienor knew Matilda would expect her to wear it. She had been most insistent when pressing it on her, calling her the daughter she never had.

‘I always listen to my mother’s advice,’ Henry replied, ‘but that doesn’t mean I take it.’ He was standing before a table and by the light of a freshly lit candle was examining correspondence that had arrived earlier. ‘She often has useful things to contribute, but it is six years since she left England and much has changed. Besides, she has no notion of how to bend. She would rather snap herself in two.’

Alienor put the necklace in her coffer and closed the lid so she did not have to look at it. ‘Yes, I receive that impression.’ She kept her tone neutral. She had great respect for her mother-in-law even while her patience was wearing thin, and she was still cautious about Henry’s reaction to his mother, because she did not know yet how fond or influenced a son he truly was.

‘She has kept the fight alive and her contacts with the Church and the German Empire are invaluable.’ He gave Alienor a penetrating look as if he could read her thoughts. ‘I may be her son, but I am my own man.’