They’d not been as discreet as they’d believed; their voices carried across the garth. Eleanor gave her new kinswoman an apologetic smile, but the abbess shrugged, unperturbed. “I fully expect,” she said dryly, “that as I lie on my deathbed, I’ll still hear whispers about the White Ship. Who knows, even the Almighty’s angels may have a question or two to put to me!”
Eleanor laughed. She’d expected to encounter one of God’s holy lambs, for Mathilde had lived most of her life within Fontevrault’s sheltering walls. Instead she’d found a handsome woman of forty or so, one who ruled her cloistered domains with competence, pragmatic piety, and wry good humor. Eleanor thought those were admirable qualities for abbess and queen alike. “I remember,” she said, “a childhood riddle that my sister fancied: What can never be outrun? The answer was supposed to be my shadow, but it could as well have been gossip and rumor, too.”
“We’ve both been the quarry in that hunt,” Mathilde said candidly, but Eleanor took no offense, for she knew none was intended. She should have realized that Geoffrey’s sister would have her share of Angevin spice; whatever might be said of her husband’s family, no one could ever accuse them of being bland. Smiling, she followed the abbess down the shallow steps into the church.
Almost at once, Eleanor stopped in surprise. She’d often wondered why churches were invariably filled with shadows and solemnity instead of ablaze with God’s light and joy. Here in this Benedictine nunnery of the Blessed Lady Mary, she’d finally found a church to gladden her heart and dazzle her eyes. Sun spilled into the chancel from ten soaring windows, the frescoed walls of the nave glowed with vibrant color, and the floor, a gleaming white marble, shimmered like glazed ice.
Eleanor had always been intrigued by Fontevrault, for it had been founded upon the precept of the Lord Christ to St John, “Son, behold thy mother.” At Fontevrault, women reigned supreme; even the adjoining community of monks was subject to the authority of the abbess. That alone would have endeared Fontevrault to Eleanor. The fact that it had once given sanctuary to her grandmother and was now ruled by her husband’s aunt made it all the more appealing, and she’d been pleased to grant the abbey a charter confirming their existing privileges. She’d also made a generous donation of five hundred sous to the convent’s coffers. But as she gazed admiringly now upon the sunlit splendor of the Great Minster, she wished she’d given more.
Dipping her fingers into the font of holy water, Eleanor dutifully made the sign of the cross. “Did you see much of Harry as he was growing up?”
“Not as much as I would have liked. He’s always been my favorite nephew, although I suppose I ought not to admit that? Tell me, is it true that the French king ordered you both to his court to defend yourselves against a charge of treason?”
Eleanor nodded. “We got the summons just as Harry was about to depart for Barfleur. He told Louis’s messenger that it was not convenient for him to visit Paris this summer, but he’d let Louis know when he had some free time.”
Mathilde joined in her laughter. “That sounds like Harry. Bless him, it sounds like Geoffrey, too. But might it not have been wiser to seek to placate Louis?”
“Possibly,” Eleanor conceded, “but it would not have been as much fun,” and the abbess concluded that her nephew and his beautiful, controversial bride were a well-matched pair, indeed.
When Eleanor began to ask about Henry’s childhood, Mathilde was pleased, seeing Eleanor’s curiosity as a promising proof that their marriage would prosper, for only a contented wife would be interested in her husband’s boyhood misdeeds. Since Henry had never lacked for imagination, she did not lack for stories, and she was quite willing to acquaint Eleanor with some of Henry’s more memorable escapades: the time he found a fox cub and smuggled it into the castle, hoping to tame it, only to have it eat his mother’s pet magpie; the time he tried to climb from his bedchamber, using sheets knotted together, and fell into the moat; the time he sneaked blue woad dye into his brother Geoff’s bath.
They were still laughing over that last prank when they heard the footsteps out in the nave. Turning, they saw an elderly nun hastening toward the chancel, at a pace rapid enough to compromise her dignity. “Holy Mother,” she panted, “there are men come to see the duchess. We wanted to escort them to the guest hall, explaining that males may not roam about in a nunnery at will, but they refused to wait, insisting upon seeking out the duchess for themselves.”
“Did they, indeed?” the abbess said, sounding to Eleanor more like Geoffrey facing down Abbot Bernard than one of Christ’s Brides. “Just who are these ill-bred intruders, Sister Pauline?”
“The duchess’s kinsman, the Viscount of Chatellerault, and her seneschal, Reverend Mother. They were most rude-” The banging of the church door cut off the remainder of her complaint, and she spun around with an indignant cry. “There they are!”
Eleanor’s uncle Hugh de Chatellerault had always been volatile, given to emotional outbursts and dramatic posturing. She saw nothing significant or sinister in his discourtesy, for he was quite capable of forcing his way into a nunnery on a whim. But Saldebreuil de Sanzay was another sort of man altogether, rarely riled, the most levelheaded of all her counselors. And Eleanor had never seen him look as he did now-thoroughly alarmed.
Neither man responded to the abbess’s sharp challenge, not even hearing her. At sight of his niece, the viscount quickened his stride. “Christ Jesus, Eleanor,” he erupted, hoarsely accusing, “what have you brought upon us?”
Eleanor’s eyes narrowed, moving dismissively from her uncle to Sanzay. “Saldebreuil? What has happened?”
“War, my lady,” he said grimly. “A French army has gathered on the Norman border, poised to strike.”
Eleanor caught her breath. Could she have so misread Louis? She’d expected him to rant and rave and even to bluster and threaten, but not to back up those threats with force. His nature was pacific and passive, not at all martial. He was never belligerent or combative, not unless goaded to it-as at Antioch. She should have guessed there would be those to goad him at Paris, too.
“Louis is not being a gracious loser, is he?” she said, with more coolness than she felt. “And as always, his sense of timing is deplorable. If he’d just waited another fortnight, Harry would have been in England when he attacked.”
The viscount gave a snort of disbelief. “You truly think your young lordling will be our salvation?”
Her coolness was no longer feigned. “That is not the first time you’ve spoken of my husband with disdain. Let it be the last, Uncle. Harry is more than a match for Louis, as he’ll soon prove.”
Her seneschal slowly shook his head. “You do not know all of it, my lady, nor the worst of it. The French king has assembled a formidable coalition, allying himself with his brother, the Count of Dreux, Count Eustace of Boulogne, the Counts of Champagne and Blois…and Lord Henry’s younger brother, Geoffrey Fitz Empress.”
Eleanor paled. Beside her, the Abbess Mathilde gasped; Fontevrault was close enough to the border of Poitou for her to have picked up sufficient langue d’oc to understand the gist of what Sanzay had just said, that her nephew had been betrayed by his own brother. There was a moment or two of stricken silence as Eleanor admitted to herself just how badly she and Henry had erred, utterly underestimating the furor their marriage would create. But then she rallied and smiled scornfully. “Harry is a match for any of them, too.”
Her uncle started to scoff, but daunted by her warning, he thought better of it just in time. Sanzay looked at her in somber sympathy. “Mayhap he would be a match for any of them,” he agreed politely, “but for all of them?”
“Yes!” Eleanor glared at them defiantly. “You do not know Harry. I do. He will prevail against them, that I can assure you.”
Neither man looked convinced, but neither dared to contradict her. “I hope your faith in the duke is not misplaced, my lady,” Sanzay said bleakly, “for this will not be a war you can afford to lose. You see, the F
rench king has promised his allies that your domains will be carved up between them like a Michaelmas goose.”
“The French king,” Eleanor echoed acidly, “can promise them half of Heaven for all the good it will do him. Louis was ever one for promising more than he could deliver, and his greedy accomplices will learn that soon enough. We’ll see no blood spilled on our soil, for they’ll never get that far. Nonetheless, it behooves us to take all sensible precautions. We’d best return to Poitiers straightaway, for there is much to be done.”
The men were in full agreement with that, if with nothing else she’d said. Her vassals must be warned, men summoned for military duty, castles made ready to withstand sieges, patrols sent out to guard their borders. These were familiar activities, and for that reason, reassuring to Eleanor’s uncle and seneschal, much more so than her conviction that the Angevin youth she’d wed would be able to defeat a vengeful king, his most implacable enemy, his own brother, and three highborn and land-hungry lords, all eager to turn Normandy and then Aquitaine into a smoldering wasteland of razed castles and plundered towns.
Reaching out, Eleanor took Mathilde’s hands in hers, bade her farewell, and promised to return to Fontevrault once the war had been won. The abbess kissed the younger woman lightly and approvingly on both cheeks. “Bear in mind,” she said, “what Scriptures tell us, that David prevailed over the Philistine with but a sling and a stone. I think we can safely say that Harry will be far better armed.”
Eleanor smiled and they embraced briefly. It was only then that the abbess realized how much of Eleanor’s impressive aplomb was sheer bravado, for she whispered, softly and urgently, in Mathilde’s ear, “Pray for us.”
In July, the French king invaded Normandy and laid siege to the castle Neufmarche. On the 16th, Henry led an armed force from Barfleur, riding hard for Neufmarche. But he was too late. By the time he got there, the castle had already fallen to the French. At Henry’s approach, Louis pulled back, and a battle was averted. When Louis withdrew toward Chaumont, Henry followed and the skies over the Vexin were soon smoke-blackened. Then in August, Louis suddenly crossed the Seine again. Henry broke off his harrying campaign in the Vexin and raced for Verneuil, Louis’s likely target. But on a sweltering-hot Monday, the French army appeared before William de Breteuil’s castle at Pacy.
From the battlements at Pacy, William de Breteuil looked out upon a scene that fulfilled all his expectations of the netherworld. Darkness was falling and torches had begun to flare in the enemy encampment. Bodies still lay sprawled beneath the castle walls, for it was too risky to come within arrow range merely to retrieve the dead. The assault had been a bloody one, fiercely fought on both sides. The defenders had been able to repel the first attack, although at a high cost. They’d lost more men than they could spare, and when the onslaught resumed on the morrow, William doubted that they could hold out for very long.
Moving stiffly, for he’d suffered a leg wound in the assault, William clambered down a rope ladder and limped across the bailey. A few of their dead still lay unclaimed, where they’d fallen from the battlements, but most had been dragged into the great hall, which was doing double duty as charnel house and hospital. As he sent men to relieve their comrades up on the walls, William found himself wondering how many of them would be among the wounded and dead at this time tomorrow.
He fully expected to be one of them, for he would never yield. He’d fought too long and too hard to gain Pacy ever to relinquish it, not if he still had breath in his body. He knew the odds were against him, but that had been true all his life. He ought never to have gotten Pacy for his own; it was also claimed by the powerful Beaumont family. But the strife over the English crown had offered opportunities for men wise enough or lucky enough to choose the winning side, and in 1141, Count Geoffrey of Anjou had granted him all he’d ever wanted, the honour and castle of Pacy sur Eure. He would rather die defending it than surrender and have to watch as the French king turned it over to Waleran Beaumont.
He found his wife in the great hall, tending to the wounded. Bending over a youth who’d been burned when a fire arrow ignited his clothing, she was applying goose grease and fennel to his raw, blistered arm, so intent upon her task that she did not notice her husband’s approach, not until he said, “Emma,” very low.
She looked exhausted, her skin sallow in the smoky rushlight, her eyes shining with blinked-back tears. There were bloodstains on her skirt and her hair had been pulled back severely, caught up in an untidy knot at the nape of her neck, her veil long gone. He’d never seen her so disheveled or so indifferent to her appearance. Moving away from the moaning man at her feet, she let William lead her toward a window seat.
“It is so ungodly hot,” she said, but she did not suggest that the window be unshuttered. She knew better; while night attacks were rare, they were not unheard-of. Her husband had slumped into the seat beside her, his chin sunk down on his chest. She could see dried blood in his beard and hoped it was not his. She knew, though, that he’d been in the midst of the hand-to-hand fighting up on the wall. Just as she knew he’d be there on the morrow, swinging a sword as long as he had the strength to wield it. After a while, he bestirred himself and began lying to her again, saying what he thought she needed to hear, assuring her that they’d be able to stave off the next assault, that they’d be able to hold out until the duke arrived.
Emma wanted desperately to believe him. But the duke had been heading for Verneuil, and they could not be sure that their man had reached him with their urgent plea for aid. And even if he had, even if the duke at once swung about and rode for Pacy, it was nigh on forty miles between the two strongholds. Pacy would suffer the same fate as Neufmarche, and by the time the duke got there, it would be too late.
“Will…” She got no further. It would do no good to urge him to surrender. She’d never known a man so stubborn, so prideful, for there was no pride as fierce as that of an outsider, one whose birthright was tainted by the Bar Sinister. William’s father had been a Fitz Osborn, an only son, but born out of wedlock. He’d spent his life in an embittered struggle to claim the honours of Breteuil and Pacy, and her William had then taken up the quest, too. No…God help him, but he would never yield, not with his father’s vengeful ghost dogging his every footstep. “Come abovestairs,” she said wearily, “and let me put some fresh plantain leaves on your wound, Will.”
They were just entering the stairwell when they heard the shouting. William spun around so hastily that he tripped. Emma grabbed his arm to help him regain his balance, and held tight, for they shared the same fear-that the French king had decided not to wait until the morrow, was attacking now.
As they hurried back into the hall, one of William’s knights came bursting through the door. “My lord, come quick! Something strange is happening in the French camp!” Laboring for breath, he leaned upon a chair for support and startled them then with a sudden smile. “It is going to sound mad, I know, but it looks like they are pulling out!”
William did not believe it, not until he stood on the battlements and saw for himself the confusion and turmoil in the French camp. “Jesu,” he breathed, awed beyond words at God’s Goodness, for the French army was indeed in retreat, breaking camp with such urgency that he knew there could be but one explanation. They’d gotten warning of another army’s approach. “Tell my wife,” he directed joyfully, “to go to the chapel, thank the Almighty and the duke for our deliverance!”
As the Pacy garrison watched and cheered and hooted from the battlements, the French army made a hasty retreat, leaving behind bodies and tents and smoking campfires. Soon afterward, riders came into view. The horses were caked with lather, and the men looked as though they’d been bathing in dust. But their smiles shone triumphantly on begrimed, drawn faces, and when the drawbridge was lowered to admit them into the castle, they were mobbed by the grateful garrison. The youth on a rawboned grey stallion was just as fatigued and filthy as the others, but the word soon spread among t
hem that this was their duke, and Henry rode into the most heartfelt and heartening welcome of his life.
Shoving his way toward Henry, William de Breteuil had a protective arm around his wife’s shoulders and was brandishing a wineskin in jubilant celebration. “Drink, my lord,” he urged, sloshing the wineskin upward. “All that I have is yours for the asking.” And to the men crowding to get closer, “For the love of God, give the duke some room! How can he dismount with you coming at him from all sides?”
“I cannot stay,” Henry interjected, reaching gratefully for the wineskin. “We have not a hope in Hell of overtaking them, not after the way we’ve had to use our horses. But we ought to make sure that they are in full retreat. We’ll be back, though, so start breaking out your wine casks!”
“Your men can drain every last one,” William promised, “and with my blessings. If I had all the wine in Christendom at my disposal, I’d pour it out like a river for your troops and never count the cost. You saved us from certain defeat, my lord, and I still do not know how you did it. You could not have gotten here faster if your horses were winged. In all honesty, I never expected you to reach us in time.”
Henry took another deep swallow from the wineskin, and then grinned down at his beaming vassal. “Neither,” he said, “did Louis!”
Maude was a woman with a keen sense of injustice, one who neither forgave nor forgot her grievances. She’d not thought there was anything more she could learn about betrayal, for she’d been wronged so often. Her father had betrayed her by naming her as his heir and then failing to safeguard the succession for her. Stephen had betrayed her trust and stolen her crown. The English had betrayed her by refusing to accept her as queen, despite Stephen’s decisive defeat at Lincoln. Geoffrey’s betrayals were beyond counting. By her stringent standards, even Robert had betrayed her at first, by acquiescing in Stephen’s illicit kingship. But nothing had prepared her for the pain of her son’s betrayal.
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