“AUNT AGNES SAYS THAT I remind her of a bitch in heat,” Eleanor said to Henry the day after he arrived.
They were walking in a cool section of the courtyard where the linden trees were in bud. Eleanor carried her favorite white gyrfalcon on her wrist. The bird wore a black hood decorated with seed pearls; leather jesses trailed from her feet, and silver bells tinkled around her legs.
“And is that the case?” Henry stooped to stroke several of Eleanor’s greyhounds who had attached themselves to him and now followed him everywhere.
Simply dressed, his black tunic covered by a thigh-length scarlet mantle embroidered with the gold lions of Anjou, Henry looked much more presentable than he had in Paris.
After the initial excitement of seeing each other, Eleanor was aware an awkwardness had developed between them. It was hard to imagine any situation daunting enough to cast a dent in the armor of his Norman confidence, but Henry appeared ill at ease. Intimidated perhaps by being in Poitou where she reigned supreme? Eleanor had repeated her aunt’s remark in an effort to break through the barrier.
Now she was pleased to see a broad grin soften his lips. “We’ll just have to see, won’t we?” she said with a teasing smile. “In truth, after an absence of seven months I feel I must get to know you all over again.”
Henry took her hand and swung it briefly before letting it go. “I think we know each other rather better than most people in our position. Usually it is a case of Anjou-Normandy marrying Aquitaine. The people involved are rarely consulted and often have never even met, like my mother and father.”
“Also Louis and myself.”
“But you and I had a choice. No one arranged or forced our union.” He grinned. “So if matters go awry we will have no one to blame but ourselves.”
“Quite true,” Eleanor said. She had never looked at the marriage in quite that light. The feeling of being in control was very reassuring.
“There is one time-honored way of getting to know each other better,” Henry continued, “should you wish to make certain that all is to your liking. For myself I would like to see if Aunt Agnes is correct.” He paused to raise his brows. “Though that is the last thing I would expect an abbess to say.”
Eleanor laughed. “In Aquitaine even the abbesses are a different breed. As far as getting to know one another better, the castle is packed with people like herrings in a barrel. Alas, we must wait. Not too long, fortunately.”
He took her hand again and brought it to his lips, letting his mouth linger on the soft palm. “No, thank God, otherwise I should never live up to your expectations.”
Extraordinary. She had not expected Henry to be so discerning. She grew warm as the pressure of his lips blazed a fiery path from her palm up her wrist, arm, and shoulder to spread throughout her whole body. Uncanny that he was so sensitive to her, a quality totally at variance with his overwhelming virility, and the sense that he was poised on the string of a taut bow, an arrow ready to fly straight toward its goal.
For Eleanor the next week passed in a fever of impatience. She longed to be part of Henry’s driving energy and could hardly wait for that moment.
Fortunately there was an enormous amount of detail to attend to that kept her constantly occupied, otherwise she didn’t know how she could have borne the delay. Of necessity—not wanting to alert Louis to their plans—it was to be a small, unpretentious wedding. Eleanor invited only a select number of guests to the castle: the most important barons, influential clergymen, a few relatives, and several high-bred ladies who would become her attendants.
At the last moment, the archbishop of Bordeaux arrived with several canons in tow to issue the proper dispensations and ensure the validity of the marriage contract. Eleanor’s astonished vassals, who had had no inkling of the wedding plans before arriving in Poitiers, were introduced to their new duke at a prenuptial feast in the great hall of the Maubergeonne Tower.
Trying to conceal her anxiety, Eleanor called for silence, and in what she hoped was a magisterial voice, addressed the guests:
“My lords of Poitou and Aquitaine. As you know, my marriage to King Louis of France has recently been dissolved. As you also may have heard, on my way home from France I was twice subjected to the threat of ambush and only just escaped an enforced captivity. These misadventures made me realize that to keep Aquitaine’s sovereignty and possessions intact it is needful that I have a duke to rule with me. But one of my choosing.” She took a deep breath; her eyes swept the assembled throng. “Here is Henry, duke of Normandy and count of Anjou, whom I have chosen as consort. A knight of high birth and great strength, whose lands border our own; a man who will help protect us from any and all dangers. Fellow Aquitainians, as you love and honor me, your duchess, please welcome him in good faith as your new duke.”
Henry immediately rose to his feet. “I hope you will accept me,” he said with a disarming smile. “I promise to uphold your rights even as your duchess does now. I pledge to protect the honor of Aquitaine even as I do Normandy and Anjou.”
“That is more than Louis of France ever promised—or did,” Eleanor said loudly, casting a worried eye over the group.
She had been prepared for an initially unfavorable reaction and was not disappointed. Expressions of shock and resentment were to be read on virtually every face. Eleanor could almost hear their unvoiced reproach: We have just thrown off the chains of one tyrant and now you wish to yoke us to another? After a few moments of hostile silence there was a sullen acknowledgment. At least there was no overt demonstration of antagonism. She prayed that her vassals’ harsh reaction would soften before Henry’s youthful vitality and high spirits.
“Here is no sour zealot helplessly dependent on disapproving clerics,” she told Ralph de Faye, her mother’s youngest brother and newly appointed seneschal, who sat next to her at the high table. “But a man of action who has already gained a reputation for himself as a shrewd and just leader.”
“Hmm. All that may be true, Niece, but we are a people who hate any authority except our own, and we can barely tolerate that—as your forebears knew only too well.”
“But this is a trait any Norman will understand. They are the same.”
Her uncle raised incredulous brows. “Are you so blind that you cannot see we are as different from the Normans as the moon is different from the sun? If your people did not love you, they would never accept Duke Henry.” He sighed and shrugged. “Well, we must hope for the best. At least you are pleased for a change.”
“Oh, Uncle, you cannot know how pleased. My stormy subjects will come round in time, I doubt not.”
She did not add that it was all but impossible to resist Henry’s engaging charm for long.
Eight weeks after the annulment of her first marriage, Eleanor was wed to Henry Plantagenet on the eighteenth day of May in the Chapel of Notre Dame right after morning mass. Vows were joyfully exchanged; the kiss of peace given. How different was this marriage from the one fifteen years earlier! Then, dependent and innocent, she had been forced to bow to necessity and might. Now, despite the very real political advantages, she was also following her own inclinations. It was indeed a miracle.
“Well, Madam,” said the archbishop of Bordeaux after the ceremony. “Thus far God has smiled on this marriage. Louis’s army has not come charging over your borders but there are sure to be consequences to so illustrious an alliance. The merging of Aquitaine, Anjou, and Normandy under a single rule reduces France to one third its former size, more than sufficient to cause Louis not only alarm, but the most bitter humiliation.”
She felt sorry for Louis, of course she did, but deep in her heart Eleanor could not deny a certain twinge of satisfaction when she recalled all the years of misery she had suffered at his hands.
A small feast had been prepared, and Eleanor’s favorite troubadour, Bernart of Ventadour, entertained the wedding guests until well into the afternoon. The atmosphere was subdued, with nothing of the humor and ribaldry of her first wedding. But Eleanor, who had eyes only for Henry, was not concerned. Her subjects would come round. Give them time.
Finally Henry turned to her. “Have we not had sufficient songs and poetry? I think now we may leave the guests and please ourselves.”
To her surprise Eleanor felt herself blushing like a convent maid as she experienced a quiver of anticipation. “Don’t you like our music, my lord?”
He shrugged. “Well enough. But in truth, jongleurs, troubadours, games of chivalry, and the like are not to my taste. There is too much to be accomplished for me to waste my time on nonessentials.”
Before Eleanor could take in the implications of the remark, Henry added, “Let us hope my appreciation of other pursuits will more than make up for this lack.”
She promptly forgot his first remark.
A few hours later Eleanor and Henry were finally alone in the turret chamber of the Maubergeonne Tower. Here they had been put to bed by Eleanor’s attendants and blessed by the archbishop of Bordeaux. The long-awaited moment was finally at hand and she had expected to feel rapturous, but from the moment the chamber door closed, Eleanor’s sense of anticipation had abruptly vanished. Lying naked in the great bed, the chamber softly lit by tall white tapers, she felt enfolded in a web of anxiety.
For the first time Henry would see her unclothed, and for the first time she wondered how his eighteen-year-old eyes would view her twenty-nine-year-old body. Eleanor had always taken her beauty and desirability for granted, much as she took her position of royalty for granted. In her own eyes her body, lithe and firmly slender, had changed but little over the years despite the birth of two children. But Henry’s youth suddenly made her uncertain. Suppose he did not find her fair? Suppose she did not please him? Suppose—
“God’s eyes, what are you thinking about?”
“Blow out the candles.”
“Blow out—why?”
“Please. Just blow them out.” Eleanor turned her head away.
“Not unless I’m told why.” Henry reached over, grasped her firmly by the chin, and turned her head back toward him. “Tell me.”
“You’ll think I’m too old.”
“Too old? For what?”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I, by Christ! Too old for what?”
“To please you,” she whispered.
Henry stared at her in astonishment. “God’s splendor, I wonder if I shall ever understand women. Well, there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?” He threw back the blue coverlet exposing both their naked bodies.
She screwed her eyes shut tight and held her breath. In the long silence that followed, Eleanor could hear only the pounding of her heart, and feel a rasping dryness in her throat. Suddenly she felt Henry’s lips nibbling at her ear.
“If I were one of your clever idle troubadours I might be able to describe your perfection as it deserves, but being just a simple country Norman, I can only show you.”
His mouth came down hard on hers. Weak with relief and gratitude, Eleanor wrapped her arms around Henry’s heavily muscled body. After Raymond’s seasoned expertise, she had wondered how she would respond to Henry’s youthful ardor. Raymond had been smooth and silken, a goblet of mellow Gascon wine in the purple dusk of a desert night, a tender melody sweetly strummed by a master player, infinitely skillful, always remote.
By comparison Henry was rough, raw, demanding. His lips forced hers to open; his hands explored her body as if he were invading a foreign country. His fingers grasped her breasts, squeezing them, rubbing the points against his palm until she almost screamed. When his lips traveled down from her lips to her nipple he sucked so hard she cried out in protest.
But Henry was in the moment, his attention wholly with her, every part of him involved. His excitement was so intense it poured off his body in rivulets of heat, fueling her own. It grew ever stronger, gaining momentum, consuming her body in a conflagration of desire. In her dreams Eleanor had imagined Henry touching her gently, expertly, as Raymond had done, worshipping her body with the practiced ease of a long-known rite. Instead he threw himself upon her with the force of a conqueror mounting an attack. He was larger than Louis, but after a moment’s adjustment she opened to receive him.
Suddenly, at last, she felt all the hard pounding energy that was Henry Plantagenet plunging inside her like a primitive force of nature. It was terrifying. Wait, Eleanor cried out, wait, stop. Anticipating her own undoing, she pounded her fists against his back then tried to thrust him aside. Henry paused for the space of a single heartbeat, then renewed his assault, penetrating deeper and deeper through layer after layer of resistance. Her cries were drowned out, the voices in her mind silenced by a sensation so excruciating, so unexpected, so overwhelming that terror and pleasure merged, became one. Her last thought before the whole world crested, crashing out of control, was that Henry had not just taken possession of her body but violated the deepest recesses of her being.
When Eleanor slowly opened her eyes, the chamber was bathed in pale pink light streaming in through the narrow window. Was it really dawn already? The events of the previous night passed hazily through her mind. Had it all really happened or was it only a glorious dream? But no dream could have produced this delicious feeling of peaceful joy. With a sigh of deep contentment she turned her head to find Henry propped up against the pillows reading a book.
“What are you reading?” she asked in a sleepy voice.
“Good morning, slug-a-bed,” Henry said, carefully closing the book and laying it beside him. “A fourth-century Roman handbook on war that belonged to my father. Are you ready to get up?”
“Get up?”
“Yes. Time is limited and I want you to show me Poitou before I leave.”
Henry leapt from the bed and began to pull on his drawers and hose. Eleanor watched him with a smile. She would have preferred to wile away the day in Henry’s arms but his energy was contagious.
“Why is time limited?” she asked. “Surely we can please ourselves. There is no need to leave for a few months I hope.”
“A few weeks is more likely. Unless Louis causes trouble here, I must return to Normandy and continue my plans to invade England.”
“Oh, Henry, a few weeks?”
Henry walked over to the bed, threw back the coverlet, and pulled Eleanor to her feet. “Don’t you want to be a queen again? Meanwhile, I’m here now. Let us make the most of it.” He kissed her. “Did I tell you that I’ve never spent a more fulfilling night?”
“Nor I. Oh, Henry, nor I.” Flown with happiness she flung her arms around him, wanting to prolong the moment forever.
The chapel bells rang the hour of Prime. Henry kissed the top of her head and disengaged himself.
“Best that I remove myself from temptation. I will see you in the chapel.” With a grin he tucked the book under his arm and left the chamber.
A short time later Eleanor joined him in the chapel. To her amusement, Henry paid no attention to the service but alternately read his Roman book, whispered bawdy nonsense in her ear to make her laugh, or asked questions of the seneschal who sat on his other side. After mass he bounded out of the chapel and raced into the great hall to break his fast. The moment the chaplain had finished grace Henry gulped down a goblet of Gascon wine, tore off the end of a wheaten loaf, and was back on his feet before Eleanor had barely started.
“Meet me in the stables before Sext,” he said, then grabbed the old chaplain, Master André, by the arm. “I want you to tell me the whole history of Aquitaine. Now. You can eat later.” Before he could protest Henry had led the astonished cleric out of the hall.
“Sweet St. Radegonde, has a whirlwind landed in our midst?” asked Eleanor’s uncle in a grumbling voice. “What a life he will lead you, Niece.”
“Nell looks as if she will thrive on such a life,” said Aunt Agnes with a tart sniff. “She glows like a candle. Just remember, my child, all flesh is grass.”
Whatever that meant. But Aunt Agnes was certainly right about her thriving. When Eleanor remembered the frustration of bedding with Louis compared to the ecstasy of last night …
The next two weeks were spent in a blissful round of passionate nights, days crammed with activity. When word of the nuptials was spread abroad, troubadours and knights flocked to Poitou. As the marriage seemed to be gaining acceptability and the general atmosphere became increasingly festive, Eleanor arranged for more elaborate celebrations. She had the great hall decorated daily with spring flowers, the floor strewn with fresh green rushes mixed with horehound, myrrh, and coriander.
In the evenings tall white tapers in silver sconces cast flickering shadows over tables set with snowy clothes and great silver salt cellars. Jeweled goblets sparkled with wine from Bordeaux and Gascony. To tempt Henry’s indifferent palate, she had ordered a variety of dishes: roast swans decorated with leaves and red-and-blue ribbons, peacocks in their feathers, sole, oysters, and sperlings. There was a profusion of sauces spiced with sage, cumin, garlic, and dittany, as well as silver dishes of candied fruit, figs, and tarts.
Every night jugglers tossed balls and knives into the air; acrobats turned handsprings. Troubadours sang chansons de geste, joi d’amour, and the bawdy love songs of Eleanor’s grandfather. Storytellers wove spells with their tales of King Arthur, Charlemagne, and Roland; beauteous Helen of Troy, crafty Odysseus, his faithful wife, Penelope, and the enchanting siren, Calypso. To Eleanor’s delight Henry had never heard these tales before and was suitably impressed. The legend of Odysseus, in particular, caught his fancy. With the exception of a single incident, no ripple of discord marred the harmony of Henry’s visit.
One night Bernart de Ventadour introduced a new song he had composed in honor of the beautiful duchess of Aquitaine. When he came to the lines “… if she but graciously consent one night, while shedding all her clothes, to set me in some chosen place and make a necklace of her arms,” there were murmurs of praise and loud clapping. The Aquitainians were connoisseurs of the gai saber of the troubadours and made a great show of their appreciation.
Pleased, Eleanor turned to Henry, expecting him to be equally appreciative. His face was a deep crimson and the expression in his eyes frightened her.
“Henry, what is it? Are you unwell?”
“Is there any truth in what that whoreson says?” he asked between clenched teeth.
At first Eleanor did not understand. “What who says?”
“Have you shed your clothes for that rogue?”
“Don’t raise your voice. Of course not. Are you mad? Bernart is a great troubadour and this is how troubadours entertain, singing courtly love songs to the lady or duchess of the castle.”
“Not to my duchess he doesn’t. Order him to stop.”
His attitude reminded her of Louis and Eleanor felt a chill. “I will do no such thing. These joi d’amour are the custom here, a tradition started by my own grandfather; you must know that by now. No one attaches any significance to them except as a form of the gai saber.”
To her horror Henry seemed to lose all vestige of control. He fell to the ground; a white froth bubbled around his lips; his eyes bulged.
“The duke seems to be having a fit of some kind,” said her uncle, his voice laced with alarm. “Perhaps we should carry him to the solar and have a physician examine him.” The seneschal’s mouth fell open. “Sweet St. Radegonde, listen to him, he cannot know what he is saying.”
By this time Henry was writhing on the ground, kicking his legs and mouthing incoherent abuse. The object of his violence appeared to be both troubadours and Aquitainians. Suddenly he gnashed his teeth and began to chew the rushes. Truly terrified, Eleanor signaled for Bernart to stop singing. It took four large guards to lift the thrashing duke and carry him out of the hall.
By the time the white-bearded physician arrived, Henry had become calmer. After examining him, the physician recommended that he be bled to let out the foul humours.
“Is he seriously ill? What can have caused this?” Eleanor asked, badly shaken. She glanced at Henry lying on the bed. The deep purple color was fading from his face and his body was no longer twitching uncontrollably. “It is as if a demon possessed him.”
The physician shrugged. “They say the Angevins are a devil’s brood but I leave such matters to the priests. In my opinion this demon has been brought on less by the devil than by a deep displeasure.”
Eleanor stared at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean only that displays of this kind may have won the duke favorable attention in the past. My advice, Lady, is to let the matter go. Say nothing; do nothing, lest you cause more harm than good. Such behavior may solace him in some way we cannot understand. I will bleed him now.”
Concerned, Eleanor followed his advice. When Henry recovered, it was as if nothing had happened. He made neither excuse nor apology, nor did he ever refer to what had occurred. After a few days Eleanor wondered if she had imagined the whole scene. What she hadn’t imagined, however, was that Henry had ultimately gotten his way. She had hurriedly sent Bernart to Bordeaux; the other troubadours were more circumspect in the lyrics dedicated to her.
“He hasn’t changed much, has he?” Aunt Agnes remarked before returning to Saintes.
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Eleanor.
“Have you forgotten his display at your betrothal feast in Bordeaux?”
“No. But I do not see the connection.”
Aunt Agnes gave her a withering look. “If you would know the man, observe the boy.”
After she left, Eleanor grew thoughtful. A new aspect of Henry’s character had been revealed, at least to her. Eleanor wondered if she would ever truly know the man she had so hastily married. Henry was a mixture of so many contradictory qualities it was like living with four or five men at once. In bed he was a constant revelation. After having initially established who was master, he turned out to be both tender and affectionate, quite willing to let her take the lead if she wished. He was also an apt pupil, soon practicing all the arts Raymond had shown her. If he applied them with more zest and less skill, what did it matter? Not since her childhood could Eleanor remember such a period of uninterrupted happiness.
Unlike Louis, Henry, who had had a diverse education on both sides of the Channel, was deeply interested in everything. Music and song were wont to leave him indifferent but history, political matters, and people fascinated him.
“You never told me that your grandfather threatened to build for his convenience a special brothel in the shape of a nunnery and install an entire order of whores under a harlot-abbess,” he said to Eleanor with a roguish grin as they rode together, exploring the countryside beyond the city gates.
“He loved jests,” Eleanor said. “Everyone adored the Troubadour—except his long-suffering wives, of course. I believe his first wife was your father’s aunt. A very short-lived marriage, I’m told. His mistresses, on the other hand, he treated like queens. What was your grandfather like?”
“I don’t recall him, unfortunately. But he was not a jesting man. Feared and respected rather than adored. Although he had plenty of mistresses too.”
“Is that typical of most Normans?” Eleanor glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.
“Which? The fear and respect or the mistresses?”
“Take your choice.”
“Well, my grandfather kept England and Normandy under iron control,” Henry said. “Can the same be said of your grandfather? According to your chaplain he hardly ever won a battle. Most of his life, so legend goes, was spent pursuing women, seducing them, and writing songs about his conquests! By God’s eyes, what kind of sons will we have with such a heritage?”
“The conquest of women is surely more civilized than the conquest of land.”
“More enjoyable certainly.” Henry rolled his eyes suggestively then jabbed a finger at her. “One day I will remind you of those words, Nell. However, had I known of these frivolous qualities in your blood I would have thought twice before aligning myself with the decadent House of Aquitaine.”
Eleanor stuck out her tongue at him.
In addition to his scholarly pursuits Henry loved to hunt with hawk or hound. He was immensely pleased whenever his gyrfalcon brought down a larger bird than Eleanor’s. Since hawking was simply a pleasure, not a game to be won or lost, she was happy to let his bird beat hers.
“My mother once got the better of my father in falconry,” Henry told her one afternoon as they rode, falcons on wrists, to hunt crane. “It was only days after they had met, an isolated incident, but he never forgot it. Years later he would bring it up.”
“It’s only a sport. Why did it matter to him?” Eleanor was surprised, and grateful that she had never known this aspect of Geoffrey le Bel.
“Oh, I can readily understand why. In the hunt, in battle or political affairs, even with women—” he slid his eyes toward her—“a man plays to win. Always.”
“So do women. But some things are more important than others, surely? It sounds as if your mother was more than a match for Geoffrey.”
“In truth, my mother could best my father in most things.” A brief frown creased his brow. “For instance, she was a much better chess player. He always resented it and she learned to let him win.”
Eleanor pulled her horse to an abrupt stop. “Let him—Would you expect me to do the same?”
“I? But the issue would never arise with us, my dearest Nell,” Henry said with an innocent smile. “There is nothing you can do that I cannot do better.”
“Oh, such arrogance! Such outrageous male vanity!” Henry looked at her face then quickly spurred his horse forward; she rode furiously after him.
Henry’s indefatigable energy was a constant source of amazement to her. He rose before Prime every day no matter how hard or long he had made love the previous night. Always restless, he rarely sat except on horseback, and only briefly at meals, where he ate and drank sparingly, never noticing what food was set before him. Eleanor, blissfully happy, sometimes wondered if Henry was as happy as she was.
“Can you tell how much I love you?” she asked him one night when they had just finished making love.
She lay on her back with his head between her breasts.
“Of course,” he murmured in a drowsy voice.
“And you? Do you feel the same?”
“About what?”
She pulled at his hair. “You know perfectly well: loving me.”
Henry rolled away from her with a sigh. “Why is it necessary to discuss these things?”
He always shied away from any talk of his feelings.
Certainly Henry behaved like a man in love—in bed at any rate. Yet sometimes she felt compelled to hear him say so.
“It isn’t. Not if it makes you uncomfortable.”
“Well, it does.” He propped himself up on one arm and regarded her thoughtfully in the flickering light of a single candle. “Why do women always want to hear about how much you love them? Don’t I show you how I feel?”
“Often you do. What other women do you refer to?”
Henry looked exasperated. “God’s eyes, I was referring to women in general! Do I ask you about the men you might have known?”
“There’s only Louis—to speak of.”
“That’s not what I’ve heard, but I don’t plague you with questions, do I?”
Eleanor turned her head away. She had not told Henry about Raymond, nor did she intend to, and since their first meeting in Paris he had never again asked her about Geoffrey. Thank the Holy Mother there was no revelation she need fear where the count of Anjou was concerned.
“I should hope you don’t listen to scurrilous gossip put about by my enemies.”
“Of course not,” Henry said in a testy voice. “On the other hand you seem rather experienced for a woman who has known only an inept semi-monk. One might wonder why.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that the less said about our past conquests, the better.”
Eleanor was ashamed of the fact that she felt jealous of every female Henry had ever known intimately. Including his mother who, up until now, had been the only important woman in his life. Or so she surmised.
“My father once told me that he would prefer never having to see a woman out of bed,” Henry said, glowering at her. “I, on the other hand, enjoy women for their company and conversation, even their advice. But perhaps he had a point! In fact there is only one way I know to silence you.”
He rolled toward her and began to kiss her with warm hard lips that sent ripples of desire throughout her body. The ardor of her response always excited him the more. The nipples of her breasts, always prominent, became even more so when Henry teased them with his thumb and forefinger, or took them into his mouth. She had been embarrassed to express her pleasure aloud until she realized how much he liked this.
When Henry slid his hand between her parted legs, Eleanor felt her entire body tremble. His touch was so exquisite that her body twisted and turned in ecstatic rhythm with the pulse of his fingers. After a few moments, Henry entered her deeply, moving very slowly, stopping, moving again, teasing, tantalizing, all the while kissing her open mouth. She was lost in a churning sea under a blazing canopy of stars. With each thrust and roll she sailed up the wave then down into the trough, up and down until she could bear it no longer. The waves pitched her impossibly high, the stars fell, and she screamed aloud, drowning in bliss.
One of the most astounding things about Henry was that he took such an intense satisfaction in creating these powerful effects upon her. Sometimes she wondered if this did not mean more to him than his own pleasure.
Their idyll was abruptly terminated by a letter from Henry’s mother in Rouen. Eleanor had found an old shield of her grandfather’s painted with the likeness of Dangereuse and was in the midst of showing it to Henry.
“My grandfather claimed—so the tale goes—that he wanted his beloved mistress over him in battle as he was over her in bed—”
A dust-covered messenger raced into the hall and handed Henry the missive. “From Normandy, my lord. Most urgent.”
The Empress Maud wrote that the strategic castle of Wallingford was under siege, and his supporters in England urged the duke to invade at once without delay. Two hours after receiving the message, Henry was packed, his horse saddled.
“Must you go?” she asked, knowing the answer. He had already put off the invasion once in order to come to Poitou and marry her.
“Achieving my life’s goal is at hand—surely you can understand the need for me to leave.” The lover was gone, replaced by the hard-headed man of affairs.
“Understand and share it. Still, I will miss you.”
“And I you.” They were standing in the courtyard. “When next we meet I may be king-elect of England. That thought should console you in my absence. Now, if Louis should attack, there are sufficient forces in Aquitaine to hold him at bay. I’ll need all the men I can muster to guard Normandy and Anjou and invade England as well. If I require more men and ships, you will send them?”
“Of course,” she replied.
The realization that, in England, he would be going into battle terrified her. She could not bear the thought of losing him but knew better than to mention it. Henry would not take kindly to a fearful, whining woman. For an instant she clung to his solid frame, sensing his impatience to be gone.
A moment later he had disentangled himself from her embrace, mounted his horse and, followed by his few attendants, galloped out of the courtyard. He did not look back. Her eyes brimming with unshed tears, Eleanor wondered if he had already forgotten her.