HENRY INTENDED TO HOLD his Christmas court at Cherbourg on the Normandy coast. He was still in Rouen when Eleanor arrived in mid-December, bringing with her for the first time young Henry and Richard, leaving Matilda and the baby, Geoffrey, behind. Henry had sent Thomas back to England with some signed charters to be put into immediate effect, and instructions to return no later than February so that he might accompany the royal entourage on a progress through Anjou and Aquitaine. Then he rode to Cherbourg to join Eleanor.
The queen had retired for the night, Henry was told, when he arrived at Compline; he raced up the winding staircase of the small castle and burst into the chamber. Eleanor, in a furred robe, was sitting up in the crimson-canopied bed while one of her women rubbed her hair with pumice so that it gleamed like bronze in the flickering candle-glow. Between her exposed breasts, twice their normal size, Richard lay asleep. One of his fingers curled round a jutting coral nipple.
“Out, out, out,” Henry shouted, startling the ladies who scattered at his coming like so many frightened sheep. He wrenched the baby away from his nesting place and thrust him, howling with rage, into the arms of one of the women. “Take him with you.”
Henry knelt by the bed and gathered Eleanor into his arms, kissing her cheeks, the tip of her nose, and finally her lips, which opened gently under his. “The boy is too old to be sleeping with you like that. Unseemly at his age. Such pampering will only make him soft and girlish.”
“Sweet St. Radegonde, he’s only fourteen months old! And there’s no danger of his becoming soft and girlish, believe me. He’s the most like you of any of your sons, and already has the makings of a young warrior—which you’d know if you ever paid the slightest attention to him.”
He squeezed her tightly against him, drinking deeply of her mouth.
“Be careful,” she whispered against his lips. “I’m very sore. The wet-nurse’s milk disagreed with Geoffrey, and I had to nurse him myself for the last two months until a new nurse whose milk did not upset him could be found. The milk has not yet dried up. Generally, he’s been fussy. I hope this is not a harbinger of his future behavior.”
Henry lay down beside her, carefully nestling his head in the crook of her arm. “It’s hard to believe that just four years ago we set out from this very spot for my coronation,” he said, tracing the outline of her breast with a lazy forefinger. “What a long road we’ve traveled since then—”
“Without a single failure—”
“—and now we’re in control of all our possessions on both sides of the Channel.”
“With four children as the embodiment of our hopes for the future,” Eleanor said with a yawn. “Think how they will extend our power across Europe. A Plantagenet in every major duchy and county.”
“Young Henry will rule Normandy and England, of course, and mayhap France as well. Richard—”
“Duke of Aquitaine, naturally.”
“Perhaps. We can discuss it later.”
“No, Henry, I must insist. Richard will be duke of Aquitaine.”
Henry bit back his retort. No point in making an issue of Richard now. Let the future look to itself. “And Matilda?”
“Only the most high-born husband. A duke—”
“For my daughter? A prince at the very least.”
Eleanor laughed. “Or even a king—if any are still available.”
“What about Geoffrey?” Henry felt his eyelids grow heavy.
“Why should he not inherit Brittainy?” Eleanor kissed the top of his head.
“I have not yet fully secured Brittainy.”
“No, but you will.”
“Do you realize, Nell, that if we have another son, I will have run out of territory to give him?”
Eleanor groaned. “Sweet St. Radegonde, we’ve just had a son and you’re already talking about another! You must think my insides are made of old boot leather. Does your ambition know no bounds?”
“None. Does yours?”
Eleanor pulled his hair. “Now, if I still had Toulouse this unborn son could become its count. It was once part of Aquitaine, you know, and all the vital trade routes still run through it. It was my grandfather’s dream to recapture it for his heirs.”
Suddenly awake now, Henry propped himself up on one elbow. “I’d forgotten about Toulouse. Go on.”
“Well, it has all the Roman roads and waterways that connected Aquitaine to the Mediterranean. At one time it had a brilliant court, just like Poitiers and Provence. My father was born there; his mother, my grandmother, Philippa, ruled there. I’ve always considered it part of my rightful inheritance.”
In the light of the flickering candle, Henry could see her face glow with excitement. “Yes, but it hasn’t belonged to your family for fifty years at least.” He lay back with a sigh. “What I do not need is another rebellious territory. I already have more land than I can easily manage.”
Eleanor leaned over to brush her lips against his. “But you wouldn’t have to. I would be happy to manage it.”
“Didn’t Louis make an attempt to conquer it?”
“Oh, Louis. Trust him to botch everything he touches. Toulouse is a rich prize; its count, Raymond, is weak, inefficient, and on bad terms with his vassals. Not only that, he is at odds with his wife—”
“Who is also King Louis’s sister.” Henry yawned. “This is a totally foolhardy venture. Has anyone ever told you that you are an exceptionally greedy woman, Nell?”
She laughed softly. There was something about the way she laughed—warm, sensual, challenging. He butted his head between her breasts, his favorite place to sleep. “Enough talk of conquest. Let me think on it.”
How good it was to lie here with his loving Nell, dreaming aloud of a golden future. England at peace; the acquisition of northern Brittainy; the Vexin one day to return to the Plantagenet fold. Perhaps, in the future, Toulouse? That would certainly round off his holdings. It really had been a most glorious year, Henry thought drowsily, as he gave a contented sigh.
“Henry?”
“Hmm?”
“Who is Bellebelle?”
The question so shocked him Henry’s blood froze. For a moment he wondered if he dreamed the question. He pretended to be half-asleep. “Ah—the name is not one I recognize—why?”
“I saw it in the Pipe Roll.”
Why was she looking in the Pipe Roll? God’s eyes, the woman had the nose of a bloodhound! On the other hand, what fool had put Bellebelle’s name in the records? “I don’t know the name. Let us sleep, Nell.”
Eleanor kissed the back of his neck. “Let us indeed.”
Jesu! She knew how to pick her moment. Did she know more than she was saying? Henry experienced an unaccustomed spurt of guilt.
It was not a good omen. With a sense of doom, he wondered if the year that had begun so well would end that way.
After Mass the next morning, Henry received word that the Empress Maud would be arriving the following day, having set out from the abbey of Fontevrault a week ago, where she had spent the past month in retreat.
“This is the first time my mother has been able to attend a Christmas court since my accession to the throne,” Henry said to Eleanor as they strode down the passageway from the chapel to the hall. “She hasn’t seen any of her grandchildren since young Henry was an infant. We must make much of her coming.” The incident of last night might never have occurred. Nell was warm and loving, her usual carefree self. Still wary, Henry allowed himself to hope that she had believed him.
Eleanor wrinkled her nose. “Don’t I always make much of your sainted mother? Playing the Old Testament Ruth can be a great strain.”
Henry chuckled. “Yes, you’re very good with her, Nell. Sometimes it isn’t easy, I know.”
They walked into the drafty hall, so much smaller and less prepossessing than the one in Rouen.
“In the expectation that she might come, I’ve invited several of her old friends from the past—Earl Robert of Leicester, his twin brother, Waleran of Muelan, and the bishop of Winchester,” Henry continued.
“Old friends?” Eleanor raised her brows. “Old adversaries, would be more apt. Particularly Bishop Henry, Stephen’s brother.”
“Oh, I think all those fences are mended now. And if not, it’s high time they were.”
The evening of the empress’s arrival, Henry gave a great feast in her honor. She seemed delighted to see her old associates, and they talked away until well after Compline.
“Now does the lion lie down with the lamb,” Eleanor whispered in Henry’s ear, observing them.
“Not a lamb among them,” Henry said with a grin.
The following morning, accompanied by Eleanor and his mother’s three old friends, he took the empress to see his heir, young Henry, who was at his lessons with his tutor. Henry was foolishly fond of his eldest son. A captivating boy with laughing green eyes and honey brown hair, it was impossible not to spoil him, so great was his charm.
“Maman, here is the eldest sprig on the ever-growing Plantagenet tree,” Henry said. “Henry, your grandmaman—”
There was a strangled sound. Henry turned. His mother clutched her throat and swayed on her feet. He, de Beaumont, and Bishop Henry all sprang to her side, fearing she would fall. Between them they half-carried her, white and trembling, to her quarters.
“What could have upset her?” Henry later asked the three men.
They shook their heads, avoiding Henry’s eyes, yet he had the feeling they all suspected the cause. It was maddening.
The next day, claiming that she was ill, the empress insisted on returning to Rouen, allowing only Bishop Henry to accompany her. While Henry did not believe she was ill, it was evident that she was very badly shaken. By what?
“I suspected our son had a lethal charm but I didn’t think it would fell his own grandmother before he even opened his mouth,” Eleanor said.
Under leaden skies, they watched the empress ride out of the courtyard in a litter.
“I can’t understand it.” Henry had been brooding on the incident ever since yesterday and could not shake off a feeling of unease. “Why would she react to young Henry that way?”
A brisk Channel wind flipped the edges of his short blue cloak; rain began to fall. Hastily they walked back inside the castle keep just as the bells rang for Terce.
Eleanor looked thoughtful. “I had the impression that he reminded your mother of someone and it shook her.”
“Yes, that makes sense. But who? Why?”
“I can’t imagine. William—may God rest him—looked like your mother.” She signed herself, as she always did when her late son was mentioned. “Matilda favors you more than me. Richard resembles my father and grandfather. But now that I think on it, young Henry doesn’t look like anyone I know.”
Henry stared out the half-open door of the keep, wondering if he should attend Mass. The bishop of Rouen was going to officiate, and he tended to drone on forever no matter how many times he was told to keep the sermons short and to the point.
“It’s bound to cause talk, Nell, my mother’s leaving like that. Everyone will wonder why.”
“I wouldn’t let it worry me. People always find something to gossip about.”
“Well, it is worrying me. It’s unlike her to behave so oddly.”
The castle steward shuffled by, aided by a knobbed stick. A grizzled man of mature years, he had been at Cherbourg since time out of mind.
“A moment, please,” Henry said.
“Eh?” The steward stopped. “Did you speak, Sire?”
Henry raised is voice. “Young Henry, does he remind you of anyone?”
“Who?”
“My son and heir, young Henry. Does he resemble anyone you know?”
“Your eldest son?” The steward scratched his head, frowned, then broke into a pleased smile, “Now that you mention it, my lord, indeed he does. Why, he’s the image of the Old King of England.”
Henry stared at him. “My grandfather?”
“No, no, Sire. Like Stephen of Blois he is, to the very life.” The steward gave a creaky bow and shuffled away.
“There you are. Our son reminded your mother of her cousin Stephen, her greatest enemy. Naturally she would react—Henry? Henry! Are you all right?”
Henry, who felt as though a stallion had kicked him in the belly, was incapable of speech. Eleanor put a hand on his arm. He shook it off. The steward’s words threatened to open the floodgates of the past, unloosing a tide of half-forgotten memories that he had thought washed away forever.
He pulled his wits together. “I’m fine, fine. I think I will attend Mass.”
“You don’t look fine. Such a long face.” Eleanor paused, her hazel eyes wide with concern. “Come, sweet love, only last night you were telling me how wonderful the past year has been. The next will be even better. Put this trifling business with your mother from your mind and let us make this Christmas a joyous affair.”
Nell was right. What was the matter with him? He had garnered success upon success and there was no reason why it should not continue. Yet Henry could not shake off a feeling of doom. All too similar to the one last night. Had his years of unbroken triumph come to an end?