WAVES OF PLEASURE COURSED through Alais’s body and her excitement increased as the knight who shared her bed brought her closer and closer to the moment of fulfillment. The waves intensified. A sudden breaker caught her, carried Alais to the crest, and spun her down the other side. A small cry escaped her lips as the swells of rapture slowly receded. An instant later the knight, Roger, collapsed like a deflated pig’s bladder.
“That was delightful.” She gently pushed him aside, turned over, and immediately fell asleep.
Some time later Alais was suddenly awakened by a sense of—not fear, exactly. Danger. The chamber was in semi-darkness, lit only by a single candle guttering in its silver holder. There was nothing that she could either see or hear yet her uneasiness grew. What was the hour? It must be well after lauds.
After a moment she lay back against the pillows. Perhaps her instincts had misled her and there was no cause for concern. After all she would have been warned. . . .
“How wonderful you are,” Roger murmured sleepily in her ear as he tried to take her in his arms.
Young and comely with a head of raven curls that reminded her of Bertran de Born, Roger had been one of a banneret of knights who had recently escorted her from Winchester to Beaumont Castle in Oxford. This was the first time he had come to her bed and though he was an ardent lover, now she only wanted him gone.
“I am most flattered, but it is time you left,” she said, moving away from his embrace.
Over the last two years, certain that Henry was never going to make her his queen and with her hopes of marrying Richard frustrated again as a result of this new crusade, Alais had decided to please herself. Approaching her thirtieth year, old in the eyes of the world, and her encounters with Henry having resulted in no issue, Alais was convinced that she must be barren. If she behaved with the utmost discretion, why shouldn’t she indulge herself? “As lovers, married men are preferable to bachelors,” she remembered the countess of Narbonne explaining at one of the courts of love. “They do not take unnecessary risks, behave with more courtesy, and are more appreciative of the favors bestowed.”
Roger, who was married, was her third lover, if one counted Henry as her first. She had taken her second at Windsor ten months earlier when she allowed—encouraged, was more the case—a visiting envoy from the court of Toulouse to seduce her. This brief affair had been a revelation to Alais, who was starved for the pleasures of love far more than she had realized. Henry had been away from England for two years and, even when he was present, had hardly bedded her at all. The Toulousian, while personable if no longer in his first youth, had certainly lacked Henry’s fire and passion, but was artful and never in a hurry. When Alais discovered that he been a former lover of the countess of Narbonne, it almost seemed like divine intervention.
“Must I really leave?” Roger put an adoring hand on her breast. “I will never forget you.”
“Nor I you.” Alais firmly removed his clutching fingers. She hoped he was not going to prove tiresome. “My women are due to return by prime. They must not find you here.”
With a shiver she slid out of bed, groped her way to the chest, and lit the seven-branched candelabra from the guttering candle. It was chilly on this March dawn and the charcoal in the brazier was reduced to ash.
“May I visit you again?” In the newly lighted chamber she could see his eyes—they reminded her of a doleful hound—pleading with her. “I have sworn to take the cross and, with God’s grace, will be on my way to Outremer within the next month or two.”
“May God keep you safe.”
There were three soft knocks on the door and Roger’s eyes widened in alarm. Alais put a finger to her lips, ran to the door, and opened it a crack. It was one of her trusted attendants who always kept watch in the passageway. The woman whispered a few words and Alais shut the door. Her sense of uneasiness had been well justified.
“I have been told that a courier arrived within the past hour with news that King Henry landed at Dover two days ago. He spent last night at Canterbury and is expected to ride first to Westminster and then Oxford.”
Alais was amused to see Roger hop out of bed with alacrity and begin to dress himself—although it would be at least three or four days before Henry arrived at Beaumont, and there was no immediate danger. She slipped on her chemise, gown, and crimson tunic and began to search the rushes around the bed for her stockings and shoes.
The bells started ringing for prime. “Come quickly.” Evading his last-minute attempt to embrace her, Alais carefully opened the chamber door and peered both ways down the passage. At the far end her attendant beckoned. “It is safe to leave. If you mingle with the others on their way to morning Mass, you will not call attention to yourself. Hurry.”
She almost pushed him out into the passageway then watched until he disappeared around a corner. With a sigh of relief, Alais firmly shut the door and leaned back against it. Her thoughts turned immediately to Henry. Apprehensive at seeing him again, she knew she must be very careful to act as she always did and not alert him to anything unusual in her behavior. He was sure to be worried and out of sorts, as the Christian world was in a state of turmoil, and England was resisting his latest tax, referred to as the Saladin Tithe, which was being levied to collect funds for the Holy Land. Added to this, he was having difficulties with her brother, Philip. Or so she had heard. In truth, he would probably pay her little or no attention. Still, it was always a mistake to underestimate Henry’s powers of observation. On no account must he find out about her—diversions.
Alais ran her fingers through her tangled mane of hair and splashed cold water on her face from a silver basin. Sweet Marie, why should she suddenly feel guilty? After all, hadn’t she heard the countess of Narbonne say countless times, and in Eleanor’s presence, that only ecclesiastics and the foolishly devout were concerned about lust and carnality? God did not interest Himself in these little sins of the flesh. Alais could still see Eleanor nodding in agreement and hear the tinkle of her appreciative laughter.
Henry arrived at Beaumont vexed in spirit and feeling as if the weight of the world bowed his shoulders. The smoldering tensions on the Continent were bad enough, but upon landing in England he was even more dismayed to find that there had been delays in calling out the knight service, and such widespread opposition to the Saladin Tithe that the sheriffs were having difficulty collecting it. He had brought with him now a large entourage of justiciars, barons of the exchequer, military commanders, sheriffs, and the chancellor of England to help him reverse the situation with all due speed.
Henry spent long hours with his council working out ways and means but found his attention wandering, returning to his last troubled meeting with Richard and Philip, where he had displayed more arrogance than judgment. It would have cost him little to acknowledge Richard as his heir, grant him nominal control over Anjou and Maine, which would come to him anyway, and send Alais back to Paris. But he had taken these demands as an ultimatum, not only from Richard but Philip as well, and dug in his heels. Still, he had not been prepared when Richard, who had accompanied the French king back to Paris, publicly renounced any allegiance to his father and declared himself Philip’s man. Following this blow, Richard then wrote more than two hundred writs requesting that his vassals, who were also Henry’s, join him in making war on the king of England. Aghast, Henry had quickly dispatched letters and embassies, pleading with Richard to return to the fold. In desperation he finally sent the archbishop of Canterbury to the Cité Palace to intercede for him. Richard refused to see, let alone treat, with anyone sent by his father. Marie, countess of Champagne, had written Henry in Rouen that Richard was so distraught he did not trust himself, fearing he would be tempted to relent if he met with either Henry or his embassies. Aware of Marie’s kind heart, Henry did not know whether to believe her or not.
“You must make some concessions to your son, Your Grace,” the archbishop had urged him on his return. “The situation is rapidly going out of control. Who can say where it will end?”
But Henry felt that if he yielded now the world would take this as a sign of weakness on the part of the mighty Plantagenet. And the vultures that encircled his domains would descend. Greatly concerned, the archbishop had also told him that it was being whispered about Paris that Richard and Philip were inseparable: the two ate from the same dish and slept in the same bed. It was Geoffrey and Philip all over again, Henry thought in despair, but with deeper implications as far as Richard was concerned.
“London is proving particularly obdurate, my lord king,” said Ranulf de Glanville, intruding on Henry’s reflections. With a weary sigh he forced his attention back to the urgent matters at hand.
As Alais had hoped, Henry was totally preoccupied with affairs of the realm and spent the first three days at Oxford closeted with his council members. On the fourth day he sent his body servant to tell her they would be riding together the following morning sometime after tierce.
The next day she waited a good three-quarters of an hour in the courtyard before Henry finally made an appearance. He had a distracted air, his eyes were bloodshot, and he looked as if he had not slept in weeks. It was a morning marked by intermittent sunlight and brisk winds that sent puffs of cloud scudding across gray-blue skies when they left Beaumont and rode along the Oxford road. Due to the unpopularity of the Saladin Tithe there had been minor skirmishes throughout Oxfordshire, and an escort of knights and archers accompanied them.
They were riding well ahead of the escort when Henry suddenly began to talk. Alais listened in growing dismay as he explained in detail what had transpired between Philip, Richard, and him at their meeting in the Vexin, and the grim developments that followed.
“Despite the pope’s injunction to keep the peace, your brother and my son have made it plain that they plan to attack Normandy before Easter, backed by all of Aquitaine’s forces, which are supposed to be en route to the Holy Land,” Henry said. He fell silent for a moment. “As there was no more I could do, I left William Marshal and Prince John in charge of mustering the troops in Normandy and Anjou, and returned here.”
Alais could tell from his grim expression that these events were like a death knell to Henry’s hopes for a possible reconciliation with Richard. And also to her future, she suddenly realized.
“Am I to understand that at your last meeting in the Vexin, Richard made a public declaration that he wanted to marry me before he left for Outremer?”
“More or less. That was certainly the implication.”
“Did you believe him?”
“In all truth, I thought that Richard spoke at Philip’s prompting. Your brother has a great influence on my son.” Henry, who was wearing a blue cap with a feather stuck in it, pushed it back from his forehead.
“But if you had not lost your temper, Richard might well have felt obligated to follow through on his public declaration. He would not want to shame my brother, would he?” Alais heard the note of accusation in her voice but did not care. By his own admission, Henry had botched that meeting, and with it perhaps her last chance at any sort of future. “If only you had agreed to Richard’s demands.” Tears pricked her eyes.
“It would have been the politic thing to do.” He sighed. “Forgive me.”
“So what is to become of me? If I am never to marry Richard, then I must return to France and plead with Philip to find me another husband!” She glared at Henry, who bit his lip and had the grace to look ashamed.
After a moment he said, “Now that there will be war between England and France I think it would be a mistake to return to your brother.”
“Why?” The wind whipped the hood of her black cloak about her face. “You certainly don’t expect me to remain here.”
“It is my belief that your brother knows about our liaison. Although he has too much pride ever to speak of it, even to Richard I suspect, in his eyes you are damaged goods. If you had married Richard earlier, Philip would have been able to ignore the rumors and turn a blind eye. But not now. As the leman of Philip’s avowed enemy you can only be a source of embarrassment to the French crown. To find you another husband of suitable rank will prove extremely difficult, if not impossible.” Henry paused as if to steel himself. “And to spare everyone further humiliation, he will no doubt place you in a prestigious convent.”
Alais let out a small shriek and swayed in the saddle. Retirement to a convent was no better than a living death as far as she was concerned. “You might as well have said a life chained in a dungeon.”
“Yes, my dear, I know,” Henry replied wearily. “God assoil me but I have much to answer for in this affair. That is why I urge you not to leave England. At least not for some time. You will be well looked after here and want for nothing.” He gave her what she felt was a forced smile. “I could even try and arrange for you to be wed to John, although negotiations are already under way for a possible marriage to the heiress of Gloucester.”
“Marry John? Sweet Marie, I would rather enter a convent than marry that odious toad!”
Henry looked taken aback. “Come now, the boy is—”
“It is your fault!” she screamed. “My life is virtually ruined because you seduced me, kept me here on false hopes and glib promises you never meant to keep.” Alais knew she was out of control and flinging accusations at him that were not true, but she no longer cared. It was Henry’s fault, all of it! “I should have married Richard long ago.”
Suddenly Alais felt she would suffocate from a surfeit of resentment that threatened to choke her. Only half aware of what she was doing, she spurred her ginger mare closer to Henry’s, raised her arm, and lashed out at him with her riding crop. The calf tip caught him above the right cheekbone, barely missing his eye and leaving a raw weal. His stallion shied away and with a jerk of his head, Henry clapped a hand to his face.
“Oh—” Aghast at what she had done, Alais brought a fist to her mouth. “I am sorry, my lord! Please forgive me. I did not mean to hurt you—” She turned to see one of the escort knights spurring his mount forward but Henry waved him back.
“Yes, you did.” He was obviously shaken “But I cannot deny you had cause.” When he took his hand away it was covered in blood and his face was white as alabaster. “God’s eyes! I should get this seen to.” He looked around him. “We are closer to Woodstock now than Beaumont. The steward will have someone put a poultice on the wound to stop the bleeding.”
In the far distance Alais could see the castle of Woodstock and the wall surrounding the park, not realizing they had ridden so far. She usually made it a point to avoid Woodstock whenever possible, but this time she had no choice but to accompany Henry. In silence they galloped toward the gate.
After the steward had tended to Henry’s wound, he served them wine, cold meat, and wheaten bread. To Alais’s relief, color began to return to Henry’s face.
“I am sorry,” she began in a low voice. “I cannot think what came over me. But the thought that I would be forced to remain here for the rest of my life while you were gone to Outremer . . .” She felt a lump in her throat and could not go on.
“Better England than a convent.” He sipped his wine. “And I daresay you will find new ways to amuse yourself.”
Alais caught her breath and stole a glance at him, but his expression was unreadable. An idle remark? Or was it Henry’s way of letting her know that he was aware of her lovers?
“One day, as I said, you may be able to go back to Paris with impunity. When your brother returns from the Holy Land, matters will have settled down; scandals of the past forgotten. After all, I will be gone . . .”
Alais stared at him. “Gone where?”
Henry looked startled. “Is that what I said? God’s eyes! Perhaps you have damaged my wits as well as my face.” He stretched and rose, gingerly touching his wound, which was starting to turn purple. “We should be starting back.”
The steward came in then with news of a new colt that had been dropped not an hour since, and would His Grace like to see it before he left? Alais followed Henry to the stables to see the newborn still wobbly on his long legs. While the head stableman was explaining to Henry about the difficulties of the birth and why they had almost lost a valuable mare, who was still in some danger, Alais tried not to look at the stretch of woods across the park that hid Everswell from view.
“I surely miss the healing skills o’ Mistress Rosamund when there be a difficult birth,” said the stableman as they walked out of the stall. “Never lost a mare nor a foal when she be here.” He crossed himself. “But I does feel sometimes that she be watching over this place. Keeping the horses safe like.”
Alais watched Henry turn his head toward Everswell. “I also miss her. But you’ve done well.” He clapped the stableman on his broad back. “Indeed you have.”
“Thank’ee, me lord king.” The grizzled face broke into a toothless smile as he went back into the stall.
“Do you really miss Rosamund?” Alais could not help asking.
“Not often, not anymore. In truth, although I recall that she was beautiful, the details are no longer clear.” They walked from the stables around the side of the castle and into the courtyard.
“Yet you were going to make her your queen if she had not—died.”
Henry shrugged. “I believe I said something of the kind. At the time I was very angry with Eleanor, acting like a madman, and threatening all manner of improbable things. But I would never have taken any serious steps in that direction.” He gave her a faint smile. “I should have thought that was obvious by now.”
Alais flushed. Was he referring to her own thwarted ambitions in that quarter? The castle grooms brought their horses; the escort of knights and archers awaited them. She saw Henry take another long look across the park.
“Odd, but I still cannot bring myself to go to Everswell since Rosamund died, and it has been what? Twelve years?” Henry mounted his stallion. “Perhaps when someone dies an unnatural death it leaves an aura about the place.” He signed himself.
A groom helped Alais climb into the saddle. “Why do you call her death unnatural? It was an accident, surely? After all, deadly nightshade grows near Woodstock, hares eat it and die naturally as a result of the poison. How could Rosamund be expected to know that the hare she ate contained a poisonous plant?”
It was midafternoon and the sun was a golden sphere in the western sky as they crossed the park, rode through the gate, and turned onto the Oxford Road. After a long silence Henry slowed his mount and trotted close beside her.
“I am sorry, but my wits are a bit thick right now. You did say, ‘How could Rosamund be expected to know that the hare she ate contained a deadly plant?’”
“Yes.” One look at the frozen expression on Henry’s face and Alais knew she had badly blundered but for the moment could not see how.
“How did you know that the hares near Woodstock had ingested deadly nightshade?” He was looking at her with that unblinking gray stare that never failed to unnerve her. “Or that Rosamund had eaten one?”
Alais thought her heart would stop. Holy Mother, how did she know? Frantically, she tried to remember the exact sequence of events, but it was all so long ago and her mind had suddenly gone numb.
“It was—let me see. I saw—verderers burning dead hares.” She could hear the tremor in her voice but now events were beginning to come back to her. “They said the rabbits had eaten deadly nightshade and it was dangerous to leave them about.”
It sounded perfectly logical and furthermore it was true. Afraid now even to risk a glance in Henry’s direction, Alais kept her eyes on the road ahead.
“That still doesn’t explain how you knew Rosamund had eaten one.”
“There were rumors that she had been poisoned.” Although her heart had started pounding and she could feel the breath constrict in her throat, Alais tried to keep her voice steady.
There had been all sorts of rumors whispered about Rosamund’s death, and poison had been mentioned, she was certain of it, although she was unable to recall if anyone had said deadly nightshade was the specific cause. Not that it mattered as long as Henry believed she had heard such rumors. She began to breathe more easily.
“Thus you deduced that Rosamund had died as a result of having eaten a tainted hare?” Henry sounded like he was sitting in the assizes judging a case.
“Yes. No. That is to say, I am not certain—” She swallowed convulsively.
Whatever he might suspect, there was nothing he could prove, she told herself. All she had to do was keep her head. When she finally forced herself to look at him, Henry’s face was contorted into such an expression of rage that she repressed a scream of fear. He raised his arm, his fist clenched as if to reach out and strike her, then let his arm fall. Spurring his stallion forward, he galloped the rest of the way to Beaumont. Faint with dread, Alais galloped after him.
It was dusk when they rode into the courtyard at Beaumont and the bells were ringing for vespers. Henry dismounted and walked swiftly toward the keep. Alais ran after him, catching up to him when they were inside.
“Will you come to my chamber later after the council has met—” She stopped when she saw the menacing look on his face.
“Have you no shame? Do you really think I could ever bring myself to come to your chamber again?”
“What do you mean?” She gasped and took a backward step, feeling as if she had been physically struck by the blaze of anger and contempt in his eyes.
“Do not play the innocent with me,” he hissed. “Only four people knew that Rosamund had eaten one of the tainted hares: the infirmaress at Godstow, who told my son Geoffrey, bishop of Lincoln at the time; Eleanor; and myself.” His voice was low, trembling with fury. “None of us believed it was a mishap. Rosamund was too knowledgeable about plants and herbs, as well as animals, ever to have picked up a dead hare from the ground without questioning how it died. On the other hand, if someone left the hare for her as a gift, she would not have questioned it.”
Henry paused, fixing her with such a fierce glare that she was unable to look away. “But dazed with grief as I was, there seemed little point in pursuing the matter further. No one thought it was intentional.”
His gaze seemed to pierce the very depths of her soul. Henry knew. As surely as if she had told him word for word, he knew. Terror flooded her body and Alais felt herself buckle at the knees. As she sank to the floor, she reached out and grabbed Henry’s booted legs.
“Please. Forgive me. I did not mean—I—I throw myself on your mercy.”
“I have none to spare.” He bent and removed her hands, thrusting her away from him as if he could not bear to touch her. “You shall be provided for while you remain in England and treated as befits your rank, but we have nothing further to say to each other. You may thank the Holy Mother I do not have you thrown into a dungeon as you deserve.”
Tears ran down Alais’s face and she tried to clutch again at Henry’s legs but he stepped back out of her reach.
“Now, get up from the floor before someone sees you and wonders why you are making such a spectacle of yourself.”
Glancing fearfully in both directions, Alais rose shakily to her feet. With a shuddering breath she wiped her eyes, adjusted her cloak, and smoothed her skirts. Without a backward glance, Henry strode down the passageway.
Overcome with humiliation, Alais watched his retreating figure disappear around a corner. Henry had shamed and humbled her, and she had debased herself. All because of a lowborn creature who put spells on horses! To think she had groveled like the meanest felon before this—this aging upstart Norman who ruled over a barbaric land filled with louts and ale vats. What was he, in truth, but the crude descendent of a bastard adventurer, while she was the product of three hundred years of royalty. The blood of Charlemagne flowed in her veins! Lifting her chin high and straightening her back, Alais drew the tattered remnants of her pride about her like a royal mantle. She would never again forget that she was a princess of France.
It was all she had left.