Текст книги "The Plantagenet Prelude "
Автор книги: Jean Plaidy
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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 23 страниц)
And so it happened.
She was with him when he died. She held his little hand in hers and he gazed at her with wondering eyes as though to ask her why she had borne him since his stay on earth was to be so brief. He was but three years old.
She took him into her arms and held his frail body close to hers.
‘Rest my little one,’ she said. ‘It may be that you have been spared much sorrow.’
And so died little William, the firstborn, the son of whom they had had such bright hopes.
The newly born child was a daughter. Eleanor thought it would please the Empress if this child was named after her so they called her Matilda.
It had not taken Henry long to bring Geoffrey to his knees.
Of course Henry had no intention of giving him Anjou. Their father had promised it, it was true, but Henry knew that his father had not been noted for his wisdom. Henry was not going to give Anjou into his brother’s feckless hands. But his father had left that fair land to Geoffrey. There were the conditions plain enough. To be Geoffrey’s when Henry became King of England. So Henry compromised by promising to pay Geoffrey an income of several thousand pounds a year for possession of Anjou.
This seemed a reasonable arrangement to both brothers. To Geoffrey, because he knew he would never be able to hold it against his brother, and to Henry, because he knew Anjou would never be safe while he was not at hand to protect it. Moreover promises could always be broken, and if Geoffrey were such a fool as to believe he could be paid so much money yearly he deserved to lose it.
So the arrangement was made and then Geoffrey had an unexpected offer from Brittany. That province was in turmoil. It was the prey of robbers and needed a strong ruler. As Geoffrey was the brother of the man to whom many were beginning to show respect and who could come to his help if need be, he seemed a good candidate to take over Brittany. It was a heaven-sent opportunity in Henry’s eyes.
Geoffrey would now have a land to rule. He would be an important man. He was to get his pension for handing over Anjou – or rather for refraining from attempting to take it.
All was well for a while.
Henry decided that England could safely be left in the hands of Leicester and Richard de Luci and of his ministers, and that Eleanor who had suffered the loss of young William and had recently undergone the trials of childbirth, should spend a little time in her beloved Aquitaine. The winter would be more comfortably passed there.
Eleanor was delighted, not only to rejoin her husband but to be once more in her native land.
What a joy it was to be there! She felt young again. These were like the days when she and her sister Petronelle had sat in the gardens and played their lutes and sang their songs of the pleasures of love.
Petronelle was now at the court of France of course. She often wondered about her marriage with Raoul de Vermandois and thought of how she had felt a little jealousy because Ralph’s impassioned glances had once been directed towards her. They had two daughters now – Eleonore and Isabel e. That seemed long ago and she wondered how she could have considered the fastidious Raoul de Vermandois attractive.
Now she compared all men with Henry and they suffered in the comparison. That seemed strange for even she had to admit that he was not a handsome man – nor was he tall as Raymond of Antioch had been. Raymond had been a man whom everyone would notice not only for his handsome looks but for his outstanding stature. Henry was a man who commanded immediate attention because of his strength. He was not fastidious as the men she had previously admired had been. He was not gal ant; he was too impatient to waste words. There was too much of interest in his life to give him time to rest. He slept little; he was up with the dawn; he rarely sat down; he could not endure inactivity. When his hair, which was thick and curly, was clipped square on his forehead, he resembled a lion, for his nostrils flared and his eyes could be hot with rage.
He was clearly made to fit a saddle and when he sat a horse he and the animal were as one. His clothes were never fancy except for State occasions when he realised the need to appear kingly and impress the multitude. His hands were strong and their skin rough, for he scorned gloves and would ride out in biting winds without them. They impeded his progress he said, and were for ladies. He was a great huntsman, a trait he had inherited from his ancestors. It was his most popular form of relaxation.
Notwithstanding all his interests he was a scholar. He never forgot the training which his uncle – his mother’s bastard brother – had determined he should have. Henry was a man who needed little sleep, who wished his mind to be active every moment of his waking hours as his body was.
It was small wonder, Eleanor often thought, that she had remained enamoured of him.
He was always in her thoughts. She wondered what would have happened if she could have married him when she married Louis. That made her laugh. Henry had been but a baby at that time. She had never noticed the difference in their ages. Had he, she wondered?
Their passion was as strong as ever, and after their separations which happened frequently, they were united as they had been in the first days of their marriage.
She was, of course, learning to know him. His temper was quick and violent and when it arose everyone around him was terrified. His nostrils would flare and his eyes flash; he would kick inanimate objects and sometimes lie on the floor and pummel it with his fists.
These rages were terrible and when they occurred it was as though devils possessed him.
Eleanor, capable of showing anger herself, was horrified to see the extent to which Henry’s rages carried him.
During the first years of their marriage she had seen little of this side of his nature because he had been so content with his marriage and his gaining of the English crown. But when any crossed him, these fits of anger would take possession of him, and once he had decided that any man or woman was his enemy he could never see them as anything else.
Nevertheless she understood him and she loved him and he was sufficient for her. She would have liked him to have joined her on those occasions when her troubadours were gathered about her. She would have liked Henry to have sung a song of love which he had written to her.
Henry had little time for such pastimes. So she sighed and decided that she would hold her little court without him.
There were many who were ready to sing their songs to her. She felt young again. Ardent eyes glowed into hers while delicate fingers – different from Henry’s blunt weather-battered ones – plucked at lute strings.
What have I done since my marriage to Henry? she asked herself as she listened. I have borne children – three in three years. I have either been pregnant or giving birth.
She laughed. The duty of a queen of course but hardly fitting for the heroine of a love song.
Henry had seemed content. The death of little William had shocked him, not so much for the loss of the child but because he was his eldest son. They had young Henry – that was good – and Matilda, but Henry wanted more sons.
He was constantly speaking of the plight of his grandfather Henry I who had had one legitimate son – though many illegitimate ones – and when that son had been drowned there was only his daughter to follow him. What had happened? Civil war.
‘We must get sons,’ said Henry. ‘We have my little namesake but look what happened to William. We need more sons and we must get them while you are of an age to bear them.’
He was in his early twenties – plenty of time for him. But her? The time when she would cease to be able to bear children was not so far away.
This was the first reference to the difference in their ages. It ruffled her like the faintest stirring of a rising wind.
And so she must go on bearing children. She could be a fond mother but she was a woman of too strong a personality to subdue it to that of others – husband or children.
Encroaching age, childbearing, those were matters for the future. Here she was in her beloved château surrounded by troubadours whose delight it was to sing songs to the lady of their dreams, and who could inspire them to such ecstasy as their Queen?
There was one among all those who sang to her who attracted her attention more than any other. This was a handsome young man named Bernard. He called himself Bernard de Ventadour but it was whispered that he had no right to the name. It was true that he had been born in the Château de Ventadour, but his enemies said that he was the son of one of the kitchen women and a serf. The Comte and Comtesse de Ventadour, as was the custom with so many, allowed the child to be brought up on their estate and so he would have had access to the castle.
That he was possessed of especial gifts was soon apparent, and as the Count and Countess loved song and poetry he was allowed to join their company of singers.
It soon became clear that he was a poet of no small ability and as both the Count and Countess encouraged him, his fame spread and many came to the castle to hear his verses.
The subject of these was, naturally, love, and every poet of the day selected the most beautiful and desirable lady of his circle to whom to address his words. The Countess of Ventadour was undoubtedly a beautiful woman and to whom should a member of her household address his poems but to the lady of the castle?
The songs of Bernard grew more and more daring and as he sang them he would sit at the feet of the Countess and give her the benefit of his eloquent love-hungry eyes.
This was the custom; each troubadour had his lady; but most of the troubadours were of noble families and that the son of an oven girl and a serf should raise his eyes to a countess and sing of his longings was more daring than could be countenanced.
In any case the Count thought so. He told Bernard that there was no longer a place for him at the Château de Ventadour.
Bernard could do nothing but prepare to leave. He was not unduly disturbed, for he had heard that Queen Eleanor was in residence in her native land and his reputation as one of the finest poets in the land had traveled far.
He presented himself to Eleanor who received him immediately for she had long admired his poems and even set some of them to her own music.
‘You are welcome,’ she told him. ‘I look forward to hearing you sing for us.’
To express respectful admiration was second nature to Bernard. And now that the beauty of the Countess was removed it was replaced by a brighter luminary. Eleanor could not help but be pleased by the frank admiration, bordering on adoration, which she read in his eyes. It was comforting following on Henry’s implication that they must get sons while she still had time to bear them.
Bernard, now known as Bernard de Ventadour – as fine a name as any of Eleanor’s courtiers – became the favoured poet of the Queen’s entourage. He was constantly at her feet. Poems and songs poured from him and their subject was always Eleanor, the Queen of Love.
She could not but be pleased. Bernard had such a beautiful voice. He was writing some of the best poetry in France and it was to her. Such words intoxicated her.
Henry came once upon her circle of troubadours and sat down among them. His quick eyes took in the sprawling figure of Bernard de Ventadour at her feet and he noticed the soft looks Eleanor cast in the poet’s direction.
His eyes narrowed. He did not think for one moment that this emotion which was obviously between them could possibly be the result of physical love. Eleanor would have too much sense. Any child she bore could be a king or queen of England and she was enough a queen to know that child could have only one father and he the King. Even so, there was no doubt that she liked this pretty fellow with his delicate beringed hands. He wondered whether Eleanor had given him the rings he was wearing.
He watched and listened and he remembered that very soon he would have to bring his bastards to court. For Avice’s children that would be easy, for they had been born before he had known Eleanor. But young Geoffrey, Hikenai’s son, would need a little explaining because he had been born after their marriage. For all Eleanor’s lively past she had been a faithful wife, which was surprising. But she had been fully occupied with childbearing. No sooner was one child born than another was on the way and there had been little time for any extra-marital adventures as far as she was concerned. He could see by her fondness for these poets who sang of a love which never seemed to reach any physical fulfilment that she was living in some romantic dream and that meant that it would be difficult for her to accept the needs of a man such as himself. He was no romantic. He was a realist. Women were important in his life and he had no intention that it should be otherwise. It was something she had to come to terms with, and she would on the day he brought young Geoffrey to court and had him brought up in that special manner reserved for a king’s bastards. His grandfather Henry I had had enough of them. William the Conqueror had not it seemed. He had never heard of a single one of his. But no one could hope to be like the Conqueror who had only lived to conquer and rule. These were good enough matters but not enough to fill a man’s life. And Eleanor would have to be made to understand.
He saw in this Ventadour affair a means of making his task easier when the moment came to confront her with young Geoffrey.
He rose suddenly in the middle of one of Bernard’s songs and left the company. Eleanor looked after him with amazement but she remained seated until the song was finished.
Then she said: ‘It seems that the King was not pleased with your little piece, Bernard.’
‘And my lady?’
‘I thought it excellent. If the lady you sing of really is possessed of so much beauty and virtue she must be a goddess.’
‘She is,’ replied Bernard fervently.
‘And your recital of her virtues clearly bored the King.’
‘I care not for the King’s boredom if I give the Queen pleasure.’
‘Be careful, Bernard. The King is a violent man.’
He bowed his head. How graceful he was! How gallant!
And how she loved his poetry!
When she was alone with Henry he decided to begin the attack.
‘That oven girl’s bastard will have to leave the court,’ he said.
‘Bernard! Why he is reckoned as one of the greatest poets in the country.’
‘A slut’s bastard to give himself airs!’
‘His talent makes him equal to an earl.’
‘Not in my eyes,’ said the King. ‘And I like not the insolent manner in which he regards you.’
‘Insolent! He is never that. He respects none as he does his Queen.’
‘By God,’ cried Henry, ‘it seems the fellow aspires to be your lover.’
‘Only in his dreams.’
‘Dreams! The upstart dog! Tell him that I shall send him back to the ovens where he belongs.’
‘No great poet belongs working at an oven. You have some learning, Henry. You have a respect for talent...one might say genius.’
‘And I say insolence,’ shouted the King. ‘I’ll have his eyes put out.’
‘The whole of Aquitaine would rise against you. A great poet...one of our greatest...and simply because he writes a poem...’
‘To the Queen,’ cried Henry, ‘to whom he suggests...
what does he suggest? By my mother’s blood; if words were deeds he would be in your bed. I swear it.’
‘But words are not deeds and I trust I know my duty.’
The King seized her by her shoulders and threw her on to the bed.
‘Know this,’ he said, ‘if ever I heard that you had deceived me I would kill your lover. Do you know that?’
‘And rightly so. I would not blame you.’
‘So you would not have blamed Louis if he had killed your lovers.’
‘Talk to me not of Louis.’
‘Indeed, I am no Louis.’
‘Would I have loved you, borne your children if you had been?’
‘You bore Louis children.’
‘I was younger then. I was trapped and I had not then found the way out of the trap.’
‘I like not this dalliance with your poet.’
‘Why do you fear I should prefer him to you?’
The king picked up the stool which stood in the room and threw it against the wall.
Through the castle there was hushed silence. The King was in one of his tempers. He was showing his anger and jealousy and suspicion against Bernard de Ventadour and the young poet was warned that he should slip quietly away until the storm had blown over.
Henry raged about the apartment accusing her of infidelity but there was something lacking in this bout of rage.
Finally he flung himself on to the bed where Eleanor had lain watching him.
He seized her with sudden passion and declared once more that he would run his sword through any man who dared to make love to her.
Eleanor accepted his embraces; Ventadour retired from the court although he was to return later; and very soon after that incident Eleanor discovered that she was once more pregnant.
Since Henry’s appearance in France the situation there had become more peaceful and he felt it was time that he returned to England.
He had no intention of leaving Eleanor behind in France.
He decided that she and the children should travel back to England ahead of him. The new child should be born there.
She missed Aquitaine and her troubadours for although there were many poets and singers at her court they did not seem the same as those of Provence. Often she thought of Bernard de Ventadour who had been driven from the Castle of Ventadour because of his verses to the Countess and now had displeased the King because of his devotion to Eleanor.
Bernard was a man who must have a lady to whom he could address his poems. No doubt by this time he had found another castle and another lady.
She shrugged aside romantic thoughts and gave herself up to the matter of preparing for another birth. My destiny, she thought! Is there to be no end of it? If I get another son I shall call a halt to this pattern.
She dreamed of a son. She wanted a son this time. She was fond of her children but young Henry was too overbearing, and already looked like his father. He bullied Matilda who did not show the spirit of the grandmother for whom she had been named.
This son would be different, she promised herself. Tall and handsome as Raymond of Antioch, as great a ruler as his father, in truth a king. But how could he be, when he had an elder brother?
It pleased her to dream of this son who had been conceived in the warmth of Aquitaine. Aquitaine should be his. She patted her body and whispered: ‘I shall bequeath it to you, little son.’
The child moved within her and she laughed delightedly.
He must have understood her. She was convinced this one was going to be no ordinary child.
She had traveled to Oxford for she had decided that in this neighbourhood the child should be born. Just outside the walls of the city, close to the northern gate was Beaumont Palace with its serene views of green meadows beyond which rose the turrets of Oxford Castle from which years ago Henry’s mother had escaped on the ice. Here her child should be born.
She had no intention of nursing the child herself and asked her women to find a good woman, with child herself, who could act as wet-nurse to the royal infant.
The woman, clearly in a very advanced stage of pregnancy, was brought to the palace and there she was installed in the royal nursery.
The Queen lay languidly on her bed and bade the woman sit down that she might study her. She was clean, a country woman clearly. Her skin was fresh-looking and she was buxom and quite comely.
‘It cannot be long before you are brought to bed,’ said Eleanor.
‘Nay, my lady. I expect it hourly.’
‘You have no fear of childbirth?’
‘Why no, my lady. ’Tis all natural like.’
She was not new to breeding and it was for this reason that she had been chosen, for she was known to have good milk and enough for two babies.
The royal child would be fed first and if there was enough over then she might feed her own baby. She understood this and was delighted to do the service asked of her. A stay in the royal palace, the honour of suckling a royal child.
Everyone knew a woman was well rewarded for that.
‘What is your name?’ asked Eleanor.
‘It is Hodierna, my lady.’
‘Well then, you must take good care of yourself for by so doing you will have good milk and only the best will be good enough for my child.’
‘I know it well, my lady,’ said Hodierna.
She was brought to bed the very next day and gave birth to a boy. Eleanor herself visited her and admired the child.
He was to be called Alexander.
A few days later a son was born to Eleanor.
He was called Richard and from the first he was more handsome than his brother. His limbs were long and straight and Eleanor loved him dearly.
Hodierna was the best possible foster-mother and she was right when she said she had enough milk for two boys.
As the months passed they grew into two of the finest boys at court and in time they were very much aware of each other like brothers.
When Henry returned he came to Oxford to see his new son. He admired young Richard, none could help doing that. But it was clear that he had something on his mind.
He had. He had seen Hikenai again and she had reminded him of his promise to do something for their son.
He knew he could not delay the matter much longer.
Little Geoffrey would have to be brought to the nursery and while the good foster-mother was there with her little son Alexander, it seemed a good moment to introduce him.
He said to Eleanor when they were in their bedchamber, ‘There will be an addition to the nursery.’
She did not understand him at first. ‘An addition? We have two sons and a daughter. Is that not enough? Do you want me to spend all my time in the awkward state of pregnancy?’
‘Nay, nay,’ he said. ‘I was not thinking of another for us, though doubtless there will be more. It is a boy in whom I have an interest.’
‘You have an interest!’ Eleanor had sat up. She threw back her long hair and there was bright colour in her cheeks.
‘Aye,’ he answered firmly, ‘a very special interest.’
‘Why so?’ she demanded.
‘I do not intend to be interrogated.’
‘Perhaps not. But I intend to interrogate.’
‘You forget, Madam, that you speak to the King.’
She had leaped from the bed. She stood facing him, her arms folded across her breasts.
‘Are you telling me that you want to bring one of your bastards into my nursery?’
‘I am telling you, Madam, that I shall bring one of my bastards into my nursery.’
‘I’ll not have it.’
‘The boy will be arriving in a few days.’
‘He shall not stay.’
‘He will stay with his half-brothers. That good woman Hodierna will be told that he is to have the same treatment as the others.’
‘How old is he?’
‘Some three years.’
‘A little younger than William would have been. So...’
She stared at him incredulously. ‘You...you lecher!’
He laughed at her. ‘A fine one to talk. A woman who lay with her own uncle.’
She lifted her hand to strike him, but he caught it and flung her from him.
‘Know this,’ he said. ‘I am the master here. You are a subject no less than any other.’
‘I...your subject! What were you but a mere Duke of Normandy! I brought you Aquitaine.’
‘That is in the past. I am the King of England now.’
‘And I am the Queen.’
‘Through my good grace. Remember it. I could have you imprisoned this very night had I wished it.’
‘How...dare you!’
‘You will find that the King of England dares much.’
‘So you were not faithful to me...not even at that time...in those early days!’
‘I was away a long time. How did you expect me to keep from women? She was a woman of light morals. There was nothing more than that.’
‘And I must have the bastard of a woman of light morals brought up with my children!’
‘He is of the King’s blood.’
‘Do you think I will have him in my nursery?’
‘Yes, Madam, I do. And I swear to you that should you try to harm him in any way I will take my revenge on you and such will it be that you will wish you had never lived to see the day.’
‘Do you think I am of a kind to take revenge on babies?’
‘Nay I do not. I think you are sensible enough to see reason.’
‘Henry, I am a ruler in my own right. I will not be treated in this way.’
‘You will be treated in what manner I think fit.’
‘I have done much for you...’
‘And I for you. Did I not marry you...a divorced woman twelve years older than myself!’
‘I shall hate you for this.’
‘Do so. We will beget more sons in hate. Come, we will begin now.’
She tore herself away from him but he would not release her. He was exultant. The difficult task which he had dreaded was over. She knew there was a child and that that child was coming to her nursery and she accepted this fact just as she accepted him now. He was still irresistible to her.
She would grow out of her romantic fantasies. She would forget the songs that were sung by her troubadours. Life was not like that.
Men such as he was when away from their wives took other women. He had thought she would have been experienced enough to know that. There would be separations in the years to come and other women...legions of them. She must learn to accept it and if there was a bastard or two whom he wanted brought up at court then that bastard should be brought up at court.
She did accept it. She was too much of a realist to stand against that which was inevitable. But her feeling for him changed from that time. She would no longer consider what was good for him; she would think of her own will and pleasure.
The bastard Geoffrey came to the nursery. He was an engaging little fellow and, the King was particularly interested in him and determined that he should not be made to feel inferior to his half-brothers.
As for the Queen she ignored the boy, and for her son Richard there grew up within her a tenderness of which she had not thought herself capable.
The relationship between them having changed they began to see in each other faults which they had not noticed before. To Eleanor Henry seemed often crude in his manners; his style of dress was unimaginative; she disliked his rough hands. Although he could be overbearing where his will was concerned she often thought he lacked the bearing of a king. That was not true exactly. His manner was such as to command immediate obedience. What she objected to was his lack of grace, his simple clothes and the manner in which he rarely sat down to eat but took his food standing as though eating was a habit he had little time for. When she thought of the gracious banquets which had taken place at her father’s court and that of Louis too, she was impatient. His rages too had increased. He made no attempt to control himself in her presence. She had seen him lie on the floor and gnaw the rushes in his fury. There were times then when she thought he would go mad, for his eyes would be wild, his nostrils would flare and he would indeed resemble the lion to which people compared him. It was these violent rages which held so many in awe of him.
Yet she had to admit he was greatly respected, and he bound men to him in a manner which was surprising for he thought little of lying or breaking promises. His one idea was to make England great and to hold every bit of land which had come into his possession. He wanted people to regard him as they had his great-grandfather, the mighty Conqueror. There was a difference though. Great William had been single-minded in his conquests. He had married his wife and in spite of long separations had been almost entirely faithful to her. William had been a cold man sexual y; Henry was hot. Eleanor knew this and it was a sadness to her that her feelings had changed, for he was still important to her. She could not regret her marriage.
She despised herself for having endowed it with an idealism which she should have known it could never possess. She was a romantic; Henry was a lusty earthy man. The quality they shared was a love of power and it had wounded her proud spirit that she should have to accept his infidelity. What hurt most was that while she had been faithfully dreaming of him he had been sporting with harlots, and one in particular he must have thought of with affection, since he brought her child to the royal nursery.
How many bastards of his were scattered round the country? she wondered.
She could not hate the child in the nursery, but Henry, to subdue her, made much of the boy. He had made it clear that he was to be treated no differently from Henry or the baby Richard or young Matilda. It would be a different matter when they grew up. Young master Geoffrey would learn the difference then between the heirs of the King and his bastards. She knew that Henry made much of the boy chiefly to annoy her and refused to let him see how much it did.
Her baby Richard was a great comfort to her. He was going to be handsome. Already he showed signs of his spirit, screaming for what he wanted and charming everyone in the nursery at the same time. Henry ignored the child. Sometimes she thought Richard was aware of it, for whenever his father came near him he yelled in anger.
Henry, too, considered their changed relations. She was a virago, he decided, and all kings should have meek wives who obeyed unquestioningly. Stephen had been lucky with his Matilda, for although she had been a clever woman, quite a strategist it had turned out, and had done so much to further her husband’s cause, she had never criticised him and always wished to please him. Had he married my mother, thought Henry, he would have noticed the difference. Henry laughed remembering the fierce quarrels between his father and mother. Whenever they were together there had been conflict. He could remember hearing the shouts of abuse which they had flung at each other. What hatred there had been between those two! His mother had been ten years older than his father. And he was twelve years younger than Eleanor. Was it a pattern in their families – young husbands, older wives, and stormy marriages?
But he could not compare his marriage with that of his parents. Theirs had been one of pure hate and contempt from the start. How his father had ever got his mother with three sons was hard to imagine. But they had done their duty and here he was – thank God the eldest, for he had little respect from his brothers Geoffrey and William.
