The Silken Rose

by Carol McGrath

  Defeated and resentful, the Marshals retreated to their lands in the West. Ailenor cared not a jot about Gilbert Marshal’s petulance. He had treated Nell abominably after his brother’s death.

  Simon travelled to Rome that spring. Nell, who was now with child, never journeyed to London, but instead passed her days away from public observance, at Kenilworth. Ailenor missed her company. They shared letters and she was pleased that Nell was to give birth soon. She looked with longing into the bitterly cold wintry landscape at bare trees and snow-filled clouds. If only she could conceive as well.

  When Uncle William sailed for Italy in April to protect his Italian property interests which were under attack from the Emperor Frederick, Ailenor missed him also. She often felt lonely. Henry was busy ruling. She occupied herself by passing much of her day planning embroideries for her new chapel at Windsor, designing them herself, choosing fabrics and threads for them, and learning new stitches from Rosalind who, once the crisis with Earl Richard was over, had reopened the workshop at Westminster. When Ailenor was not engaged with embroidery, she wrote poetry. She read her best poems privately to Henry in her enthusiastic attempts to seduce him night after night.

  Winter had edged into a chill spring but once June arrived the weather grew hot. The sunshine reminded Ailenor of Provence and her mood became joyful again.

  Henry leaned on the thick windowledge of her chamber. July had opened with bad airs drifting from the river. He waved a strip of linen in front of his nose. ‘There are multifarious airs here. We need to be away from the City to where we have gardens and streams, good hunting, and time. We’ll pass summer at Woodstock. You, fair Ailenor, can write your stories of knights rescuing maidens from dragons and I shall devote myself to my own great plans.’

  ‘Your plans?’ Ailenor said from her bed, raising herself on one elbow, a poem discarded amongst their pillows. ‘Which plans?’

  ‘I intend rebuilding Westminster Abbey.’

  ‘And. . .?’

  ‘We shall conceive a child too.’ Henry turned to her. ‘I shall improve the castle at Windsor. We’ll raise our family there, safely away from all bad airs.’

  Ailenor climbed down from the rumpled sheets, stepped over the Turkey carpet, and stood with him by the window. She lifted her husband’s hand and kissed it, smiling to herself. She would have children, a huge family of children. Hers had been a happy family. She was content and loved Henry. Nothing would disturb her and Henry’s future joy.

  ‘Come back to bed, Henry,’ she said taking his hand. ‘And yes, let us go to Woodstock.’

  By September Ailenor was so delighted with Woodstock she could understand why Rosamund Clifford had been happy in this place. Old King Henry, her Henry’s grandfather, had constructed a maze and a tower for his mistress at Woodstock. He imprisoned his wife, Queen Eleanor, in dank castles for years and years, because she had rebelled against him over control of her lands in Aquitaine and Poitou, siding with their sons against him. He only permitted his imprisoned queen to join him at Winchester for Christmases. The unhappy Queen never left this miserable imprisonment, until Henry’s son, King Richard, freed his mother after his father’s death, and returned her to his new court.

  Ailenor began to write down the other Eleanor’s sad story in verse. As she scribbled, she promised herself, I shall never displease my husband. Henry shall always be my true heart’s love. I shan’t ever, ever anger him.

  Once they settled into the palace at Woodstock, Ailenor, as she had long wanted to, felt courageous enough to conduct a court of love in the garden. There, she, her ladies and courtiers debated loyalty, truth, requited love, and unrequited love. Troubadours recounted old tales, stories that had travelled from the courts of Persia and were magical and strange. Balladeers sang songs of England’s greenwoods and moors where dog-headed monsters dwelled, and where King Arthur’s knights had fought valiantly to vanquish them. At Woodstock her days melted into each other, all of them filled with pleasure. Henry visited her bedchamber night after night, growing more amorous as the days and nights passed. He loved her with true, genuine passion, as a true knight ought.

  In September, their world of enchantment was shaken cruelly out of its summer dreaming. Ailenor dozed, her naked limbs relaxed and sated. Henry lay back against the pillows with an arm loosely around her shoulders. He muttered, ‘I have ordered a new curtain wall with eight towers to encircle the Tower. It will be the most fortified castle in the land.’

  ‘We’ll be safer there if there’s trouble again,’ she said sleepily.

  Henry’s arm loosened; his eyes closed and he began to snore softly.

  Ailenor sat straight up, her eyes wide open. A thump and harsh cry had cut into the night. She pushed Henry’s arm away. ‘Henry,’ she said shaking him. ‘Wake up.’ Shouts came from the King’s chamber. She could hear the crashing of overturned chairs, closely followed by the swish of swords. ‘Henry, listen,’ she said again in a frightened voice. ‘We are under attack.’

  Henry sat up. He pushed the coverlet away. ‘What, by Edward’s holy teeth, is going on out there?’

  He climbed from the bed, pulled his night robe on and hurtled himself across the floor straw. ‘Who’s there? Where are the guards?’ He shouted for his squires, yelling through the door, ‘Alain, Guillaume, where are you sons of dogs? By Saint Edward’s bones, is there no one left? Get in here the pack of you.’

  Ailenor clutched their bed linen to her chin. Repressing an urge to scream, she stuffed a bundle of the lavender-scented fabric into her mouth. A breath later she pulled away her gag. ‘Bar the door, Henry.’

  Ignoring her, Henry grabbed a sword from the wall. He seized a shield with prancing lions and with his nightgown flapping about his legs, jumped forward.

  One of the English ladies, Margaret Biset, burst into the bedchamber. ‘My lady,’ she cried. ‘Are you safe?’

  Her other women, led by Willelma, crowded into the doorway. Henry drew back still brandishing the sword. They screamed.

  Squires and guards pushed through the women with drawn swords. One shouted. ‘Where’s the King?’

  ‘Put up those weapons. By the Cross, what is happening?’ Henry waved his grandfather’s sword at them. ‘God’s blood, you are in your king’s presence. By Saint Augustine, has the palace gone mad?’

  The ladies screamed again and clutched each other. Willelma ran to Ailenor.

  ‘There has been an attempt on your life, Your Grace,’ the squire called Alain said. The guards surrounded Henry.

  ‘My life?’ Henry shouted. ‘My life!’

  The squire drew breath. ‘The rogue who entertained us at supper; the foolish fellow who pretended he was a king, tried to enter your bedchamber but you are here with the Queen. God be praised, because, Sire, you have escaped an assassin’s dagger!’

  ‘That idiot intended to kill me?’ Henry laughed. ‘Ridiculous! A beggar assassin?’

  ‘We have captured him. Do we kill him now or question him first?’

  ‘Question him.’ Henry slowly lowered his sword and set the shield on the coffer by the foot of their bed. He shouted at the sergeant, ‘Discover who sets him spinning. Keep him alive.’

  ‘As you wish, Sire.’ The sergeant’s lip curled as he bowed, rose and ushered his guards out of Ailenor’s bedchamber.

  Henry followed the guard into the passage outside the chamber.

  Ailenor tasted bile that rose from her stomach. She felt Willelma’s arms encircle her. Another lady pushed a bowl to her. The chamber, usually so sweet-smelling, had been fouled by the sweating men. She heaved. Lady Margaret ran to the basin on a table by the window and poured water from an urn. She dampened a cloth and shook a few drops onto linen from a vial she took from her belt purse. She returned to the bedside where Ailenor was still heaving. She gently lifted her head and pressed the lavender-scented cloth to Ailenor’s nose.

  ‘Breathe,’ Willelma insisted.

  Ailenor breathed slowly, in, out, in, out, and finally f
ound her voice. ‘Lady Margaret, explain what has happened.’

  She felt Lady Margaret gently place the silk bedrobe about her shoulders. ‘I was at my prayers. I had just risen to leave the chapel. A figure entered the cloister. It was the mendicant the King gave his supper plate to after he had said a beggar should be as well-fed as a king. I followed him. He entered the King’s chambers. Sainted Madonna, he was planning to murder us all. It was then I called for the guards.’

  Ailenor looked up to see Henry had returned to her side. He had heard Lady Margaret’s explanation. ‘Lady Margaret, your devotion has been our protection this night. Thank you.’

  ‘Go and rest, Margaret. Willelma, take my ladies away now. I have recovered my wits.’ She turned to Lady Margaret. ‘The assassin will be punished and we are safe thanks to your quick wit.’

  A squire came to them with wine and wafers. Henry told him to leave it on the coffer and sent him away.

  When Henry returned to her bed, he tenderly tucked the covers about her. ‘Lady Margaret will be rewarded with a gold purse,’ he said with firmness in his voice. ‘I shall double the guards on our chambers. This must never happen again. Who knows what dangers lurk in the darkness?’

  Sinking back down under the coverlet, Ailenor said, ‘We cannot trust anyone. Must we always be alert to danger?’

  Henry poured her a cup of Gascon wine. ‘Sit up for a moment, my love.’

  He held the cup to her lips. She gratefully sipped the ruby wine and when she felt it warm her queasy stomach she said, ‘Let us try to sleep,’ though she knew it would be difficult. She would lie awake until the sky lightened and birds began to sing.

  After that night, Ailenor always kept a dagger under her pillow.

  8

  Winchester, Christmas 1238

  ‘The fault must be with me,’ Ailenor wailed to Willelma as she paced her chamber. ‘Am I to be a barren wife? It’s what they’re saying. Have I offended God?’

  ‘Nonsense, cherie.’ Willelma clicked her tongue and tried to hush Ailenor, settling her against cushions and brushing out her hair with soothing strokes. Ailenor pushed her domina away and, scattering cushions, ran to the corner shrine dedicated to Saint Bridget, her name-day saint. She fell to her knees and wept frustrated tears. Was she wrong in thinking God would make her and Henry’s ardour an exception because they needed a son and heir?

  After her outburst she prayed daily, kneeling on chill tiles in the abbey at Westminster or her chapel in the Tower. She confessed her sins. She gave alms to the poor. She curbed any excess such as untrammelled desire. By Christmas, to her great relief, God had allowed her his blessing. They rode south to Winchester to celebrate Christ’s Feast. She smiled and tossed pennies to the poor. God and his saints had listened to her prayers. At last, she was pregnant.

  Henry loved Christmas and because she enjoyed the season too, and was with child, Ailenor was doubly joyful. They proudly circumnavigated the Hall at Winchester twice, her hands pointedly folded over her stomach, her head high, and her ermine-trimmed sleeves trailing over the rushes. She cared not if her ladies had to pick out camomile and dried stalks from the fabric later.

  She felt herself smiling as she nodded greetings to the aristocratic Anglo-Norman wives who curtsied and wished her a joyful Christmastide. She felt their dislike. More Provençal ladies had joined her court who would steal potential husbands from English earls’ daughters. She could read their thoughts and only kept with her those English women she favoured such as the Biset sisters, Lady Margaret and Lady Mary.

  ‘Everyone is here today; well, everyone except for Earl Simon and Nell,’ she said in an undertone to Henry. Nell and Simon’s first son had been born in November. Brows had been raised when news of that birth raced throughout the court. Ailenor sighed. ‘Simon is in Rome. Nell is recovering.’

  ‘But, I was duped,’ Henry said in an equally low voice. ‘Nell cannot have been with child last December. No child takes eleven months to appear.’

  ‘Maybe Simon just thought she was with child. I miss Nell.’ Ailenor spoke through her teeth as she smiled at a group of abbots standing by a pillar. ‘Order her back to court after she is churched.’

  ‘A month out of childbed. I think not,’ Henry said and patted his wife’s belly. ‘And we don’t order, Ailenor, we invite. Come, now we have shown ourselves, we can retire until the Masses begin. You, sweeting, must rest.’

  Ailenor groaned. Normally she enjoyed the Christmas Masses. As they exited the Hall, she said, ‘Please forgive me. I cannot, I cannot endure them. The frankincense makes me nauseous. I’m so tired.’

  She was not let off so lightly. ‘Frankincense has a pungent scent about it. I’ll order the priests not to wave it over you. You’ll be seated today with a hot brick to warm your feet. We’ll stay for the Midnight Angelus only.’ That was the end of that. She must endure.

  On Christ’s Day, to Ailenor’s approval, Earl Richard swept into the hall wearing a white tunic displaying a red crusader’s cross. Ailenor wondered if his hand lay behind the assassination attempt the previous September. There was no proof.

  ‘No, certainly not,’ Henry said at the time. ‘The madman, if that was what he was, has not incriminated anyone else. He will be punished.’

  When she heard what this death was she said, ‘That’s a cruel death; limbs pulled apart by four horses. Non, terrible, terrible! How can you approve it?’

  ‘It’s just. The mendicant would not have hesitated to murder you in our bed, Ailenor.’

  ‘Even so. . .’

  She’d refused to witness that execution.

  Watching Earl Richard walk about the Hall that smelled innocently of Christmas spices, perfumes and evergreens, she shuddered at the memory of Woodstock. He nodded amicably to everyone, his crusader cross stitched on his shirt for all to see.

  Richard bounced into his oaken-armed chair beside Henry, who could not help but glance up at his taller, darker, younger brother with admiration. She found herself frowning. He may not be guilty of an assassination attempt on his brother’s life, but he must be kept loyal to the throne. Over and over, she remembered her father’s words, ‘keep friends close and enemies closer’. She had not decided which Richard truly was. Henry’s brother was ambitious and he was the wealthiest earl in the land. She had recently heard another rumour. Earl Richard kept a long-term mistress in Cornwall. He’d had children with this woman. Poor Isabel.

  Henry leaned over, stared at the cross on his brother’s gown and said, ‘You are ready to go on crusade, I see.’

  ‘When Earl Simon returns from Rome we shall make a final push to recruit.’

  Richard and Simon had united. Placating Richard had come at a great cost to the royal coffers. Henry, Ailenor suspected, would not want to fund the new crusade from his treasury, not whilst he had new building plans. The Church would donate a crusading tax but it would take time to collect it.

  ‘If only I could join you both,’ Henry said with a sigh as a juggler passed by the table spinning plates on a stick. He threw a silver penny which landed accurately on a dish.

  ‘You are the King and England needs you. The barons are ever dissatisfied.’ Richard raised his aristocratic brow and looked at Ailenor. She knew whom he blamed for the barons’ discontent. Her Savoyard clerks were not popular. They’d taken over the management of finance in many of the shires. The barons were not in control of the sheriffs as before. Henry’s new foreigners were, and when they collected taxes money went into the royal coffers.

  It was as well Henry remained in England, Ailenor considered. Whilst Henry would not join Richard’s crusade, no matter how much he longed to go dashing off at the head of an army to the Holy Land, he was no warrior.

  She said, holding Richard’s gaze, ‘Henry has plans to rebuild the ancient abbey at Westminster, create a New Jerusalem within England. The new Abbey Church will be Henry’s Crusade.’

  This and making heirs for the kingdom - a prince to follow him. The gossip in the
City that she was not capable of giving Henry a child after over two years of marriage would dissipate once she gave them a prince.

  ‘Indeed,’ Richard said. ‘I understand we can soon expect an heir.’

  ‘We are hopeful,’ Henry said, his pale blue eyes looking at her with love.

  ‘When?’

  Ailenor cupped her stomach, though at three months of pregnancy there was little as yet to hold, just a thickening and a constant tingling in her breasts which were growing larger at last. She was capable of bearing children - lots of them. She smiled at Richard. ‘It is early yet but with God’s grace, June is the month my midwives predict.’

  She felt the air shift and glanced up. Silk rustled as Isabel of Cornwall slipped into her place. She greeted Isabel with genuine goodwill. They had become friends after a difficult beginning. Isabel accepted her, even though Isabel was a Marshal and Henry viewed the family with suspicion.

  Isabel arranged her skirts, accepted water from a silver basin to wash her hands and a towel from a page with which to dry them. After all was done, she said, ‘Congratulations, Ailenor. Such good news.’

  ‘God has blessed us, Isabel. We are content.’ Ailenor wondered if Isabel, too, was with child. She looked very pale. ‘Are you. . .?’

  Isobel patted her hand. ‘No, my dearest, just tired. We rode fast to get here in time for Christmas.’

  ‘Thank God for fine Christmas weather.’ Ailenor glanced towards the trestle where the court children had been placed that afternoon. The excited band of youngsters were chattering like magpies. She scrutinised the little gathering of cousins. One was missing. ‘Where is your little Henry, Isabel? I don’t see him.’

  ‘In our lodgings with his nurse. I couldn’t bear to leave him at home, Ailenor. He is too young for the feast, but maybe next year.’

  ‘Your son will be a good friend to our children as they grow up.’

  ‘Full cousins. I shall pray for a growing royal nursery. I have seen you tell stories to your ladies’ children, Ailenor. You like children, I see?’