ELEANOR, AFTER SEEING HER new baby safely ensconced at Tower Royal in London, took to leading a wanderer’s life once more, this time in the south of England. She rode through meadows, over streams, stopping at castles, manors, towns, and abbeys issuing official writs and documents. The yellowing stone roofs of Sherbourne, ancient abbeys, the iron-gray hues of Cornwall, the rust-colored battlements of castles in Devon were fast becoming almost as familiar to her as the castles and villages of Sarlat, Niort, and Blaye. The weeks of riding, while often tiring, did not bother her. On the contrary, she believed the constant exercise kept her body slender and firm after her many childbirths.
Not only that, but Eleanor took genuine pleasure in her accomplishments. After all, the fact that the roads in England were now safe, the sheriffs conscientiously dispensing justice and collecting taxes, was due as much to her endeavors as to Henry’s and Becket’s labors. If one counted all the months since Henry ascended the throne, she had probably spent more time in England than he had, although she was still considered only Henry’s surrogate and never recognized in her own right.
Now she was on her way back to London. Watling Street, this day in late November, was lined with crowds come to see royalty pass by. Although Eleanor was never greeted with the same rapturous acclaim as in Aquitaine, there was always a cordial response to the Eagle, the king’s “foreign queen.” How she hated that misnomer, forcing herself to remember that it probably meant no more than that, since time out of mind, she was the first English queen not born and bred on English soil.
Eleanor waved and smiled, slowing her palfrey to greet people, letting them crowd around her and even fearfully touch her garments in superstitious awe. She noted that they looked prosperous and content, a far cry from the miserable wretches she had seen when she first arrived in England almost seven years earlier. Something else she could take pride in.
As she rode on, Eleanor also observed that the cattle in the meadows looked fat and sleek; they should fetch a good price at market. Had the number of monks working in the abbey fields increased since the last time she had passed this way? Or were the abbeys amassing more land? Cassocks tucked up around their knees, the brethren paused in their labors to gaze at the royal cavalcade riding by.
The sight of sheep grazing on the hill crests filled her with a sense of satisfaction. Surely the flocks were growing each year? Lots of sheep meant more bales of wool leaving the port of London, just as row upon row of Bordeaux vineyards meant casks of wine stacked in Channel ports. Eleanor had heard that the demand for wine in the English inns and taverns was starting to compete with that for ale.
All this prosperity spread out before her eyes bore witness to how the realm was expanding, not only in England but on the Continent as well. She had persuaded Henry to build new city walls and bridges in Poitiers, add a spacious hall to the ducal palace, and plan for the construction of another cathedral. He had also decided to build a new palace at Bures in Normandy, so vast that hundreds of oak trees had already been felled. There were also additions to the castles at Angers and Rouen, a royal park, and stronger fortifications along the Maine and Normandy borders. Together, she and Henry had had built several hospitals and a leper-house at Caen, and encouraged the abbess at Fontevrault to found similar abbeys at Eaton and Westwood in England.
All their endeavors prospered—with the exception of Toulouse, the loss of which still rankled. Louis, however, had had little time in which to gloat. The wind had been taken out of the French sails with the hasty marriage of young Henry to the Princess Marguerite, and the recovery of the Vexin. In fact, Louis of France had once again foundered on the shoals of Plantagenet ambition and cunning—
Ambition and cunning? Why was she thinking like that? Eleanor passed a hand across her forehead. She felt as if she had just eavesdropped at the door of her own thoughts. Her thoughts? Sweet St. Radegonde, she was looking at the world exactly the way Henry or Thomas Becket might look at it.
There was a time when she would have simply feasted on the beauty of the landscape, reveled in the glory of an autumn morning. Now all that was translated into cattle prices at market, wool for export, wine for import, the abbeys desire to gobble up more land, not to mention Henry’s and her own drive for building and improving their vast holdings. It was a sobering realization, an unwelcome indication of how far she had come from the carefree, joyous maid she had been in Aquitaine.
Now, deliberately, Eleanor looked with new eyes at the rolling green downs that stretched on either side of the winding road. She became aware of the brisk wind that throughout the morning had brought sudden flurries of rain and bursts of sunlight on its wings. The air was redolent of moldering leaves and damp earth. Somewhere a bird sang. A flock of geese soared across a slate sky patched with charcoal gray clouds.
It was late afternoon when Eleanor rode through Bermondsey, where she had a manor house she hardly ever saw, then across the river to the Strand in London, and, finally, back to Tower Royal again. She arrived just after Compline, exhausted, and went straight to bed.
It was not until the following morning that Eleanor discovered that sometime during the three weeks she had been traveling, young Henry and his wife, plus their entire household, had been moved to the quarters of the chancellor in Westminster.
“But the chancellor is in Rouen, surely?” There must be a mistake, she thought. It was inconceivable that without consulting her, his mother, young Henry had been removed from her custody. Not to mention the fact that she had grown attached to the little golden-haired Marguerite.
“No, Madam,” the steward informed her, “the chancellor returned five days ago, with the king’s writ in his hand, ordering the prince and his household to be transferred.”
She could not believe it. After breaking her fast and greeting her other children, Eleanor ordered a litter, and, tired though she still was, rode through London to Westminster. It was a cold blustery morning the first day of December, and despite her fur-lined cloak and additional coverlets piled over her, she shivered throughout the tedious journey. How could Henry have done this? Only a month ago they had been so close, so in harmony—or so she had thought. What possessed him to change from a loving, appreciative husband to a near-tyrant? How could he so totally ignore her wishes or feelings? It must be due to Becket’s influence; nothing else could account for … the litter came to a shuddering halt.
Without waiting for a groom to help her, Eleanor jumped down and marched across the courtyard to the chancery. For a moment she was brought up short. Surely it had been completely rearranged since her last visit several years earlier? Two guards with long pikes now flanked the entrance. The cheerless hall was lined with long benches filled with petitioners, and the antechamber was crowded with at least fifty clerks working at rows of long tables. The secretary, Fitz-Stephen, directed her to a small stone apartment that led directly off the antechamber.
Eleanor paused outside the open door. From where she stood, she could see that the walls were lined with ornate crimson-and-blue tapestries, the chamber filled with copper charcoal braziers, two polished oak tables, and embroidered stools. From a seven-branched silver candleholder, slender white tapers burned brightly. The room was warmer and more comfortably appointed than any other administrative office Eleanor had ever seen.
A frown on his face, the chancellor was seated at one of the small tables piled high with quill pens, containers of ink, sheets of parchment and vellum, and scrolls sealed with wax emblems. He was listening intently to a light-haired knight with a beard who leaned over the table, talking rapidly in a low voice.
Without preamble, Eleanor stepped into the chamber. “What is all this nonsense about young Henry being moved to your household?”
The knight looked up and abruptly stopped talking. It was obvious from the concerned looks on both their faces that they were fearful she might have overheard them.
“Attend me later,” Becket told the knight with a dismissive gesture.
The knight nodded and limped away. Eleanor noted that he wore an unusual silver medallion set with emeralds.
“Who was that?”
“A petitioner. How may I help you, Madam?”
“Why has Prince Henry been transferred to your household without my knowledge or consent?”
Becket looked genuinely surprised. “I thought you knew, Madam. After all, the boy is well over six years old now, married, and should have begun his formal education long before this. As heir, young Henry must succeed to the king’s wisdom and learning as well as his throne. I have under my care many noble youths whom I educate in letters and knightly accomplishments. Surely you expected such an arrangement to occur sooner or later?”
What could she say? Every noble youth was educated in the household of another noble. “Naturally I expected it, but no one consulted me as to where, or with whom, young Henry would be educated. Now it is a fait accompli. I cannot but regard this as an affront to my position as both mother and queen.”
“I deeply regret any offense you may have been caused, Madam, though I assure you none was intended. It is your son’s future at stake.”
The chancellor’s cool demeanor enraged her, the more so because Eleanor knew he was right.
Becket looked down at his littered table, a pointed reminder of how busy he was. “Please bear in mind, I’m only following His Majesty’s orders. If the king did not see fit to consult you, Madam, I can hardly be blamed. I suggest you take the matter up with him. He should be arriving within the next few weeks, in time for the Christmas court.”
His casual arrogance took her breath away. Even she hadn’t known that Henry planned to hold his Christmas court in England. There was a slight but significant change in Becket’s manner that could only mean—Holy Mother, had Henry already offered Becket the plum of Canterbury? She prayed he had not, but there was a look about Becket, reminding her of a sleek, self-satisfied cat that’s swallowed the cream. Eleanor already found him insufferable as chancellor. What would he be like after attaining the highest church office in England?
Feeling like a fool, Eleanor realized there was nothing more to be accomplished here. Young Henry was lost to her, and she must make the best of it. “I wish to see my son.”
“Of course. Whenever you like.”
Eleanor could tell Becket was enjoying this.
With a lofty smile, he rang a silver bell on his table, and when several clerks came running, gave orders that the queen was to be taken to his private household.
“Not too long, Madam. We have young Henry on a strict routine now. Best not to disturb it.”
Refusing to dignify that with an answer, Eleanor turned and stalked out of the chamber. On her way out of the chancery Eleanor saw the knight with the medallion lounging against the wall. His glance shifted away from her. Something about him—his wary stance, his reptilian eyes—chilled her, and she hugged her cloak closer about her shoulders. She wondered again who he was and what business he had with the king’s chancellor.
“Have you seen my chessboard, Henry?”
Henry looked up sharply to find his mother’s eyes upon him. “Chessboard?”
He and his mother were seated in the great hall of the ducal palace at Rouen, dawdling over the remains of an early supper. Most of the ducal mesnie had left the hall, and they were virtually alone at the high table.
“The silver-and-gilt chessboard with the ivory figures, you know, the one the emperor gave me. It appears to have vanished,” the Empress Maud said. “I asked Eleanor before she left for England but she hadn’t seen it.”
“You probably mislaid it. When did you notice it had gone missing?”
“I’m not in the habit of mislaying things.” She paused. “Let me see … I’d promised the bishop of Rouen a game, and I was mortified when the board and men couldn’t be found.”
“A bishop playing chess? How have the mighty fallen.”
“That irreverent tone doesn’t suit you, Henry. Have you seen it?”
Some time ago, Henry had taken the chessboard to England and impulsively given it to his bastard son, Geoffrey, about whom his mother knew nothing. There was no immediate way now to return it, but he could hardly tell her that. In truth, he had assumed she would not notice its absence.
“I’ll look for it,” he said, avoiding her eye. “It may have gotten mixed in among my own possessions.” He paused. “Perhaps it got shipped to England by error. Surely you have another chess set?”
“That’s hardly the point, is it? That particular one is all that remains of my life in the empire; I should hate to lose it.”
Lying to his mother was not easy—she could see through him like water—and Henry wondered how he could get her off the subject. There must be a way to divert her attention. Something controversial perhaps?
“I offered the See of Canterbury to Thomas,” he said, after a lengthy pause.
The empress, a silver goblet of wine in her hand, arrested it halfway to her lips. “Ignoring my advice not to do so.”
“Your advice is not infallible, Madam.”
“How would you know? It’s been so long since you listened to me.
“Let’s not quarrel.” Henry sipped from his goblet of red wine and made a face. It had recently arrived from Bordeaux and was already turning bitter. “You’ll be interested to know Thomas refused it.”
The empress arched her brows in disbelief. “Refused it? Such cat-and-mouse games on the chancellor’s part don’t fool me for an instant. He’ll ultimately accept the post if you’re still foolish enough to keep it open.”
“You’re probably right.”
“Of course I’m right. By the way, what was that disgraceful business with Thomas and the Rouen drab all about? The ducal palace is not a brothel, and I won’t have you turning it into one.”
“God’s eyes, you sound as prudish as a Cistercian priest. It was just a bit of tomfoolery, a test to see if Thomas practiced what he preached. How did you come to hear of it?”
She gave him a withering look. “When the day comes that I don’t know what goes on in Rouen you can dig my grave and bury me. What reasons did Becket give?”
“For not bedding the whore?”
“Don’t be impertinent. I could have told you he wouldn’t bed her—or anyone else for that matter, if anyone had had the foresight to ask. What reasons did he give for refusing Canterbury?”
Henry shrugged. “None very valid. He was a worldly cleric, he said, as everyone knew, not even a priest if it came to that. He had far too much work to do in the chancery and could not possibly hold both chancellor and Canterbury as well, and so on and so on.” Henry thoughtfully scratched his chin. “He also mentioned that if he became archbishop he feared it might destroy our friendship. Which made no sense at all.”
“Thomas Becket said that? Well! I didn’t think he was so discerning. But of course he’s right.” His mother nibbled on a leg of guinea hen.
Henry frowned. “I don’t see why promoting him to the See of Canterbury should make the slightest difference in our friendship.”
“Yes, well, if you don’t see why, my telling you won’t help, will it?”
There was a brief silence while Henry cursed himself for having been fool enough to broach the subject of his chancellor. He had gone from the cauldron directly into the fire.
“Is it true you’re putting young Henry in his household to be educated and trained by him?” The empress put down the leg of guinea hen.
“Yes. He’s been there some weeks by now.” God’s eyes, was there anything she didn’t know?
“What does Eleanor say about that?”
“I haven’t told her yet, but when she returns to London, if she hasn’t already done so, she’ll know soon enough. Why? You sound as if you think she will object?”
“Why? Why? Sweet Marie, she’s his mother! She has a right to be consulted on the plans for her eldest son’s education! If Geoffrey of Anjou had dared to send you somewhere without first getting my agreement …I don’t say Eleanor will object, only that she should have been asked, or at least told!”
In the back of his mind Henry noted that she did not say “your father” but Geoffrey of Anjou. He tried to remember if she had ever referred to the count as “your father.”
“Sometimes I think there is a female conspiracy in my household against poor Thomas Becket, the brightest jewel in my administrative diadem. You disparage him; Eleanor despises him, even Belle—” he stopped abruptly.
His mother pushed away her trencher of food and fixed him with a level gaze. “Even Belle what? Who is Belle?”
“No one of importance.” Henry could feel himself flushing and quickly downed his wine.
Uncomfortable under his mother’s scrutiny, Henry looked around the hall.
“I am very proud of you, my son.” The empress placed a veined hand over his. “Your accomplishments have exceeded my wildest hopes, and I am the last one to advise you in matters about which I know nothing, but do be circumspect.”
“Point taken.” Henry took her hand and lightly kissed the gnarled fingers.
A servant passed round a silver basin of water and white linen towels. The empress washed her hands and wiped them dry.
“On the other hand, there are some matters upon which I feel very confident in advising you.”
Henry inwardly groaned.
“Thomas Becket,” she continued, “like many a man of humble origin, is highly ambitious. He cannot resist power. You have offered him the most powerful post in England—excepting your own.”
Henry laughed. “Do you, of all people, tell me ambition is restricted to those of humble origins?”
“I’ve told you not to be impertinent.” She paused. “In this matter, my son, heed me. There is a difference between those born to power and those who must fight every inch of the way to achieve it. What I do tell you is, beware of men such as Thomas Becket when they are given too much power.” She began to twist a gold ring set with an emerald stone round and round on her finger.
“At heart, Madam, you are a royal snob. All right. You’ve told me your thoughts on the matter and I’ve listened.” Henry yawned. He was tired of sitting and impatient to be gone.
“Take Becket at his word, that your close friendship will be destroyed if he becomes archbishop.” The empress gazed at him with a troubled expression and sighed. “You court disaster by this folly. I’ve done my best to teach you how to rule, guided you down the path of judgment—with some success, obviously. But in this instance—well, a fool’s bolt is soon shot. In the end, blood will tell.”
The empress’s goblet clattered to the floor. She had pulled the gold ring with the green stone off her finger and was clutching it in her palm. In the deathlike silence that followed what Henry suspected was a fatal slip of the tongue, he could hear his mother’s sharply indrawn breath. For a moment their eyes met; in hers, he saw a reflection of his own grave alarm. Then her lids folded down; her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists.
Watching her fight for control, a variety of thoughts stirred in Henry’s mind. The Empress Maud was approaching her middle sixties. Though her wits remained as sharp as a spear point, she ailed frequently and spent long periods in retreat at Fontevrault. More and more often she spoke of taking the vows of a nun before death claimed her. This worried him greatly. Ever since the unfortunate incident with her grandson at Cherbourg, Henry had meant to have a long talk with her about the past. If, before her demise, his mother had matters on her conscience that needed to be expiated, far better that she unburden herself to him rather than someone else—even her confessor.
Unwittingly she had just presented him with the perfect opportunity. But now that the moment was at hand, Henry found himself curiously reluctant. Did he really want to know the truth? What purpose would it serve? Yet such an opportunity might never come again, and he felt driven to know.
“As you often remind me, Madam, the Normans have always been known for their wily ways and quick wits,” Henry said while he still had the courage. “Geoffrey of Anjou, may God assoil him, however unsatisfactory your relations with him may have been, however reluctant you are to refer to him as my father, was a person of sound judgment, perhaps the shrewdest man I ever knew.” He paused. “To whose blood do you refer?”
The fateful words had been spoken; Henry steeled himself for the answer.
It was an answer he never received. Pale as a ghost, his mother suddenly staggered to her feet, calling for her women.
“I’m unwell—quite faint—unable to continue—I pray you, excuse me—” Several attendants sprang to her side.
Both relieved and frustrated, Henry watched in grudging admiration as she was half-carried from the hall, taking her secrets with her. Old now, scarred by too many battles, and preparing for death, the empress was a cunning campaigner to the last, able to defend herself with all the wiles and weapons of her sex.
Henry, who knew perfectly well he ruthlessly used women for his own interests at every opportunity, had never, ever made the mistake of underestimating the formidable power they could wield. The empress had once told him pigs would fly before any son of hers would get the better of her. At the time, she had been referring to his late brother, Geoffrey, however …
Henry knew he would never reopen the matter. How could he ask his mother, straight out: Was Geoffrey of Anjou my real father? Especially when, in the deepest recesses of his soul, he feared what the answer might be.
His mother, dignified, elegant, and redoubtable, had been a remarkably beautiful woman—one need only look now at the bone structure of her face to see that—but Henry remembered her in the full flower of her russet-haired, pewter-eyed beauty. It was exceedingly difficult, as well as uncomfortable, for him to imagine her in the throes of a wild, all-consuming passion with her cousin, Stephen of Blois. Was he the result of a single night of incandescent desire? Or brief moments of rapture stolen over the years? There was no question in Henry’s mind that his mother must have loved Stephen deeply. Only such a love would have caused her to dishonor her family’s crown and jeopardize the royal succession.
For the remainder of his stay in Rouen, Henry agonized over and over again: Whose son was he?
To have believed yourself the legitimate scion of an acknowledged union between two great houses—Anjou and Normandy, whose roots stretched back hundreds of years—then suspect you might be the secret by-blow of a forbidden love …It was like teetering on the edge of a vast bottomless pit.
Henry left Rouen in mid-December, parting from his mother on amicable but formal terms. He was accompanied on the voyage across the Channel by his cousin William, earl of Gloucester, and his two favorite bloodhounds. The sea was calm until dawn the following day.
From then on it was a rough voyage, typical for December. A brawling wind chased dark clouds across a flint-colored sky and whipped the sea into green-capped swells. The vessel pitched and tossed. While William voided last night’s supper into the sea, Henry, an excellent sailor, rode easily with the rocking waves. He felt an overpowering need to ask someone about the past, someone of his immediate family whose history he shared. But the subject was fraught with potential danger; he must guard himself against revealing his doubts to anyone—even those to whom he felt the closest: Thomas, Eleanor, and Bellebelle.
Henry could hear the sound of the captain shouting orders and the men answering. A scarlet sail bellied wildly in the wind. The prow of the vessel, carved into a dragon shape like the old Viking ships, climbed up a rising wave then shot down the other side like a stooping falcon.
Even the weather could not dispel the doubts that continued to torment him. Henry remembered his first council meeting in London, that disparaging snicker when someone pointed out that Stephen and he had adopted each other as father and son. But even before that, there had been subtle hints—his parents had lived in an atmosphere of mutual dislike and bickering, but underneath his mother’s iron control, Henry had sensed a deep-seated sadness, a sense of loss that was always present.
The ship bucked and twisted; the wind howled. Strange, but he was not afraid. With that sense of destiny strong within him, Henry knew he would survive. In truth, whatever had or had not occurred between his mother and Stephen of Blois, how could it threaten him now?
It couldn’t. He had been an anointed king for seven years; a successful ruler of a vast empire. Who would dare to circulate rumors about his paternity, brand him a bastard? Yet even the whisper of such a rumor could throw the entire succession into jeopardy. His enemies would ruin his mother’s reputation. Taint the House of Normandy with scandal. Provoke uprisings. Cast doubt on his right to have ascended the throne. Perhaps set in motion a move to topple him from power. And to put such a potential weapon into the hands of Louis of France …
A green wave rose up to spray Henry’s face. The shock of the icy water was bracing. Why was he allowing himself to fall prey to idle fancies? There was nothing to be concerned about, except his own fears. And the cure for his fears—groundless though they were—was to ensure that young Henry was crowned as soon as he was old enough. With Thomas as archbishop of Canterbury there would be no problem in crowning him. His demons would be laid to rest.
While the crew shouted excitedly that there was land over the bow, Henry realized that for the first time in his life, he actively resented his mother. As far back as he could remember, he had put her on a pedestal. Now he felt she had betrayed him. It was like a knife thrust into his belly. How could she have—
Of a sudden, the curtains of the past drew apart, and he saw himself when he was fourteen years old, standing in an English wood at dawn, looking up at a comely knight who smiled down at him then tossed him a bag of coins—his safe passage home. That single foolhardy act of generosity had cost King Stephen—and his heirs—the crown. Henry’s jaw clenched; his hands gripped the vessel’s rail. Blood will tell indeed! His mother was wrong; never in his life had he behaved—nor would he ever behave—so foolishly, so outrageously …
Ahead now he could make out the coast; white cliffs surmounted by lowering clouds. The busy port of Dover would soon be in view.
Titles, possessions, the acquisition of wealth, the exercise of power, the crown, kingdoms, even the heirs of his blood were of no account without his lineage. Lineage defined you, gave you an identity. Without it … Desperately, Henry tried to conjure up the red beard and cornflower blue eyes of the man whom he had always believed to be his father, the only father he wanted: Geoffrey of Anjou. But the image that stayed to haunt him was the golden smile and emerald eyes of Stephen of Blois.