The Silken Rose

by Carol McGrath

  ‘Just a little in your own image, Madam,’ Rosalind said. ‘I hope God does not object.’

  ‘I hope not either.’ Ailenor started. ‘Though an archbishop might.’ She smiled, thinking, but not if he’s my uncle. ‘I think baby Mary looks like my little Margaret.’ She stared at the baby nestled in St Anne’s arms. Her eyes were blue as the background sky. Ailenor’s eyes lit on the glittering stars and the silken roses that created the piece’s borders and exhaled, making a small sound of pleasure. Turning to Rosalind she exclaimed, ‘By my Lady’s halo, it is beautiful.’

  Rosalind accepted a new court gown with trailing sleeves and matching bliaut bordered with seed pearls as a reward, and anticipating the summer court Ailenor presented Rosalind with two new linen gowns for everyday wear.

  ‘You look as well-dressed as Willelma and Margaret,’ Ailenor said when Rosalind presented herself in one of the new gowns. ‘Pink suits you. I shall send you crispinettes for your hair.’ She touched Rosalind’s chin. ‘Chin bands and short veils are more fashionable than those plain linen caps you wear. We shall make a swan of you yet.’ When she spoke to Rosalind like this, years fell away. She smiled as she recollected the day they sat together in her window seat watching the river. She never regretted this friendship and could trust Rosalind’s loyalty.

  Rosalind sank into a deep curtsey. ‘May I say farewell to my family?’

  Ailenor took her hands. ‘Of course you may. We’ll set out shortly after the Pentecost feast.’ She let the girl’s hands drop again and clasped her own to her chest. ‘I love summer. There will be hunting and walks and I hope the sun shines every day.’

  ‘I can’t hunt!’ All the formality had fallen away. They were those girls again.

  ‘You will learn, Rosalind.’

  ‘I don’t know how to be a queen’s lady,’ she said. ‘Most of the time here I am employed with embroidery. But to attend you with only two others. . .’

  ‘Rosalind, we have servants and maids to attend us. As for the rest, we shall teach you. Would you like to have lessons on the lute? And the harp? We value your talent with the needle. We can keep you occupied but I want you to have fun too. Besides, you can read and that is a great thing for a lady to master.’

  Rosalind looked abashed. ‘I want to learn all these things. I am very happy here with you but I’ve never been further than Windsor. I don’t know what lies beyond.’

  ‘Discovering what is out there in England’s forests, rivers, villages, and fields will be a great adventure in which I hope you take joy, for it is a good thing for a woman to know what lies beyond her home.’ Ailenor clapped her hands. ‘Let us start now. Bring me my lute, Mary, for I am, myself, going to show Rosalind how to make just a few notes.’

  Laughing, Ailenor, who delighted to instruct, bade Rosalind sit on a stool. She was sure the girl would learn quickly because she had heard her sing as they embroidered. Rosalind was quick and curious and that endeared her to Ailenor.

  Ailenor wanted everyone else to share her happiness. Two uncles in England, two healthy babies in her nursery, the possibility that her sister might come to England with her mother, a summer adventure ahead with three ladies whose company she enjoyed, and a generous if stubborn husband whom she loved. But, above all, she loved being a great queen who was, she imagined, loved by all.

  Henry intended moving along the border with Wales.

  Ailenor knew it was important to visit the Welsh borderlands since there was a dispute to settle. Two princes vied for control of North Wales and one, Dafydd, had imprisoned the other, Gruffydd. Henry had ordered Dafydd to release his half-brother Gruffydd from captivity in a Welsh castle. Dafydd wrote to Henry, Wales can never be at peace if Gruffydd is released.

  Gruffydd however considered himself his father’s rightful heir, as he was the older of the two brothers, but the succession of the eldest son was not common in Wales as in England, even though the Normans had tried to impose it on the conquered northern territory of Gwynedd. Henry considered himself Dafydd’s overlord, and when there was unrest in Wales it spilled over into the Borders.

  Just before the summer progress set out from Windsor, Prince Gruffydd sent word to Henry that if Henry would free him, he would take over Dafydd’s lands and pay Henry two hundred marks a year. The English barons would take varying sides. Folding his letter, Henry said, ‘I have no choice but to go to Chester and meet with the Marcher lords and, Ailenor. . .’ He pursed his lips. ‘And I’ll raise an army to march on the Welsh if we must.’

  Ailenor wondered if Henry was wise thinking this was to his advantage. Gruffydd would do homage to Henry for his lands and he promised to subdue parts of Wales the Normans had never reached. There could be advantages if Gruffydd supported the English Crown, and more if he paid for the privilege. Henry gathered an army at Gloucester and Ailenor and Henry rode along the border towards Shrewsbury.

  ‘Another letter from Wales,’ Henry said as they sat at the long table talking in the refectory of Shrewsbury Abbey. His mouth began to work in anger. He threw the letter with its dragon seal and fluttering red ribbons onto the table. The seal already opened, cracked into quarters. He lifted it and neatly tried to put the parts together again.

  ‘What is happening now?’ Ailenor sighed. The Abbey at Shrewsbury was comfortable, the gardens pleasant, but she longed for Marlborough. If only Henry were free of this Welsh problem.

  Henry recovered his temper. In a quieter voice he said, ‘Dafydd refuses to come to our council in Chester. It’ll be war yet. You’ll remain here until it’s over. You ladies can. . . well, do whatever you do. . . embroider.’

  Ailenor inclined her head. Hopefully this would be resolved peacefully. She worried for Henry. He was trained as a knight but he was not a warrior like Earl Simon.

  ‘I am sure Dafydd is determined to free North Wales from our control. I cannot trust him. We’ll support Gruffydd.’ Henry said as he folded the letter.

  ‘Will Dafydd free Gruffydd? Are you supporting the most honourable prince? Do you really want Dafydd as your enemy?’

  ‘I want a peaceful outcome.’

  She leaned her arms on the table. Welsh politics were complicated. She had never fully understood the complications, though the Welsh princes had frequently intermarried with English nobility. Henry’s illegitimate half-sister Joanna had been married to the powerful Llewelyn and Dafydd was Joanna’s son, which made Henry Dafydd’s uncle and Ailenor his aunt by marriage.

  The sun slid through the refectory’s painted glass windows, creating lozenges of coloured light. She studied them. How peaceful it was. She released a deeply troubled sigh and thought how sad it would be if this conflict led to battle. How beautiful these borderlands were with their wealthy towns, peaceful abbeys, and glittering rivers filled with jumping trout. War – she shuddered at the thought.

  ‘Dafydd might ride against you. War is costly.’ Caution filled her voice.

  Henry shook his head. ‘There has been a drought in Gwynedd this year. He cannot ride against me. His army would die of thirst. I prefer peace to war. My nephew will come and there’ll be a treaty.’

  Ailenor relaxed. She glanced out through another, unglazed, window into the garden to where Rosalind and her two other ladies were gathering posies of late spring flowers for their bedchambers. Her little dog bounded after them. She would remain in this peaceful abbey and pray for a solution to Henry’s problem with the two Welsh brothers.

  Henry rode to Chester, leaving Ailenor in the pleasant, airy abbey. He returned, to her surprise, after only a few days, galloping into the abbey courtyard late at night accompanied by a blaze of torchlight, the snorting of horses and the clanking of armour. Henry clattered up the outside staircase. She was at the entrance to her bedchamber within a heartbeat.

  ‘Get me ale and meat. I am famished and thirsty as Hell.’ He was breathless. ‘Send your lady.’ He indicated Rosalind. ‘We shall dine privately tonight. I have news.’

  Once they had settled in
their ante-chamber, one of the best rooms provided by the Abbot, clean and well-furnished, its low table laden with a selection of dishes from a well-appointed kitchen, Henry told Ailenor that Dafydd had joined his council at Chester. He agreed to release Gruffydd and other hostages he had held into the King’s care. ‘But,’ he added, ‘he insists Gruffydd is to be incarcerated in London, in the Tower. He insists he is the only King.’

  ‘In London?’ Ailenor said, laying down her jewelled eating knife. ‘His own brother in the Tower. Why?’

  ‘My nephew claims his brother is exceedingly dangerous. I agreed to take charge of Gruffydd as long as Dafydd does homage to me for Wales. The barons along the Welsh borders are content with this outcome. See, my love, I have triumphed without bloodshed and avoided war. To show God thanks, I have ordered the poor of Chester to receive alms for a year.’ He leaned over and took Ailenor’s hand. ‘Would you like to go hunting before we return to London?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘I would enjoy that, Henry.’ At last she could look forward to the rest of the summer with pleasure and with Henry by her side.

  Henry talked about how they would hunt, feast and dance in the castle at Marlborough. ‘We shall pass a month in the Savernake forest. I promised you a country residence and I’ve made improvements at the castle.’ He kissed her nose, tickling her with his beard. ‘And, I want to see if the refurbished chambers are pleasing to you.’

  She pulled him to her, into a deep embrace. A delightful summer of pleasure awaited her. ‘I can’t wait.’ She felt like a young girl all over.

  As summer starlight slanted in through the shutters that evening, Ailenor and Henry entwined their bodies amongst ruffled sheets on the Abbot of Shrewsbury’s feathered bed. Moments later, they were moaning with delight in each other until they rolled over exhausted, sated by lovemaking, glistening with sweat.

  Exhausted by his ride from Chester to Shrewsbury, Henry slept, and Ailenor, not at all tired, raised herself on one elbow and gazed down on his face. She loved him. She truly loved Henry as her king and as her husband. Theirs was a union of body and mind. How fortunate she was, that all those years past, Henry of England had sent to Provence for her. She loved her life and now the summer lay before them. Perhaps God would bless them with a third baby for the royal nursery. She turned on her side and drifted into sleep thinking of a new embroidery stitch Rosalind had taught them that morning.

  19

  Rosalind

  Marlborough, 1241

  The castle keep at Marlborough rose above the small sleepy town. A host of buildings including a buttery, a still room, laundry, and an enormous stable block scattered themselves about the bailey. Ailenor’s apartments were newly painted with scenes from the legends of Arthur and Edward Confessor’s life. The first days passed with unpacking and settling in. Ailenor explored the gardens with her three ladies. They feasted on venison, salmon from the Severn brought to Marlborough by fishermen, and fruit pies, often eating supper in the garden.

  The morning of the Savernake hunt arrived. Rosalind had never ridden a horse other than the aging mare her father had kept for her use. When she saw the palfrey the Queen’s groom had chosen for her to ride, she began stumbling over her words. ‘I can. . . can’t.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Willelma hissed into her ear. ‘You can. I shall ride my mare behind you.’

  Lady Mary, serene as ever said, ‘If I can ride, you can. The sumpter cart follows with refreshments. Just say that your horse refused to canter and stay with the cart.’

  ‘Canter!’ Rosalind was terrified at the thought. ‘I have never ridden at more than a trot. Our horse generally proceeds at a walk. I cannot. . .’

  ‘It’s as well the Queen is delayed this morning. Get up on that mare and a squire will walk you around the yard.’ Willelma waved at a group of squires who had led the King’s chestnut destrier, Confessor, out into the castle yard. ‘Come here. Can one of you walk the Queen’s lady around the yard? She is frightened of new horses.’

  Two squires came at a run. Moments later, white-faced, Rosalind found herself lifted up onto the side saddle, was shown how to catch the pommel with her knee, and, gripping the mane, was walked around the yard.

  ‘My lady, take these.’ One of the pair handed her the horse’s reins, beautifully studded with gems and glinting silver. ‘We are going to go at a trot,’ he said. ‘This horse is called Mirabelle. She is gentle. Are you ready?’

  Rosalind nodded. My lady, she thought as, her confidence gathered, she bounced up and down on the trotting horse He called me ‘my lady’. Would he, if he knew I was a merchant’s daughter? She held the jewelled reins and sat tall, feeling noble, her initial fear dissipated. The palfrey responded to her light tug left as she tapped its withers lightly with her boot.

  ‘I see the Queen and King coming,’ called Lady Willelma across the yard. ‘Hurry. You seem to have mastered the creature.’

  Rosalind, breathless from her trot, slid down from the palfrey’s back. One of the squires moved away, but the other held her palfrey’s reins and bowed as the King and Queen passed. She, who had been constantly and patiently tutored in etiquette by Lady Mary and Lady Willelma, sank into a deep curtsey. As she rose, the young squire looked at her in a contemplative manner as if trying to place her. A moment later he said in French, ‘Merde, I know who you are - Rosalind, daughter to Alfred Fitzwilliam, the tailor. You are the embroideress.’

  ‘I am.’ She held her head up proudly, though she felt her face flush with embarrassment as he had reminded her of her origins. ‘You are?’ she ventured.

  ‘Alain Froissart.’ He studied her. In turn she stared back. His hair was brown, fashionably styled under at his neck and around his eyes. These were grey, hard, and cold as slate. He had a slight curl to his lip which she did not like either.

  ‘I wish you good hunting, Mistress -’

  ‘I’m a Queen’s Lady.’

  He laughed, his mouth shaping into a snarl. ‘Lady Rosalind, huh! I heard. . .oh never mind. . . a rumour.’

  ‘What did you hear?’

  ‘Something told me by that grocer, Master Basing’s son.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘I’m a King’s squire. Of course I know who comes to speak with the King. Master Basing is often at Westminster with Jonathan.’

  She stiffened. Her heart thumped slowly. What, by the cross, had Jonathan de Basing said? It would be nothing good.

  As if reading her thought the squire said with a sly look in his cold eyes, ‘For a start, he said Rosalind the embroideress is a one for enchantment.’

  ‘I am not. He lied.’

  His finely trimmed eyebrows rose. ‘He said your mother was a Cathar and a witch. My father dealt with Cathars in France. He and old Count Simon wiped those sorcerers, witches and heretics out of Toulouse. Walled them up if they didn’t confess, burned them if they did.’ He leaned over her and hissed, ‘Put thousands to the sword, women, children, old and young. God’s own righteous work.’

  ‘My mother was not a Cathar, nor was she a witch. She was Norman and certainly not a heretic.’

  ‘Are you sure? I am only repeating what I heard.’ He opened his hands and dropped the palfrey’s reins. For a moment they dipped to the ground between them.

  ‘Help the lady up,’ he called over to the other squires who had helped the King and Queen onto their mounts and were waiting to follow them out of the castle gateway onto the raised drawbridge.

  A heartbeat later, another squire was helping her onto her mare as Alain Froissart looked on speculatively. She detected a malicious glint in his eyes. He turned away and hurried off to join the King’s squires. She was glad to get away from him. Had her mother only pretended to be Norman? What if her father had lied? He had always said her mother was not raised as the Cathars were, to be damned as a heretic believing that God was as evil as the Devil and the Devil as good as God. She controlled a shudder and walked Mirabelle over to the Queen’s other ladies. She believed her f
ather. This was a foul slander. These uncomfortable thoughts tormented her as she rode behind Lady Willelma, and as the company stopped now and then to send falcons and hawks coursing along sunlit forest streams.

  By the time the sun reached its zenith, they had reached a spacious glade with a scattering of ancient oaks and a stand of beeches. The Queen moved into their midst. ‘My turn now,’ she said.

  The King replied indulgently. ‘Let her take her flight. I see wood pigeons up there.’ He pointed vaguely into the air.

  The Queen tossed back her veil and sent off her sparrow-hawk. It flew high into the trees until it was etched dark against the sky. Ailenor clapped with delight. Then it swooped lower again. Its prey came tumbling down below a beech tree. Delighted, Ailenor slid off her mare and, veil flying behind her, ran to see what the hawk had caught.

  ‘A wood pigeon,’ she shouted as the King’s squires raced forward.

  ‘Don’t touch it, Your Grace. She could turn on you,’ Alain Froissart said, as he had reached her first. Instinctively, not wanting to draw attention to herself, Rosalind remembered to gently ease back on the reins. She was relieved when Mirabelle responded and she could draw the palfrey into the shelter of a sprawling oak.

  Ailenor didn’t listen to the squire. She held up her gloved hand and reached down for the wood pigeon.

  ‘No,’ Henry shouted and cantered back to his wife. ‘Do not!’ It was too late. The hawk lashed out at Ailenor, inflicting a tear in her sleeve. Froissart captured the hawk, but a second later it snapped its tether and soared away, swooping above the company into the air, the dogs racing and barking in frenzied pursuit. The sparrow-hawk rose up into the canopy and circled again in and out of the trees. It vanished.