His expression told Isabella that more questions were futile.
On the morning of the second day of March, when the weather made a lurch into spring, Henry arrived riding the Arab mare. He was wearing a plain iron-hilted sword, buckskin leggings and had his wrists strapped. A film of perspiration shone on his forehead. ‘We’ve been playing,’ he said, jerking his chin in the direction of the palace. A pair of tall loose-limbed hounds had followed his horse and the pages who accompanied him. The hounds leaped around each other and chased every creature they saw: a squirrel, a rooster, three of Isabella’s goats. Hearing his voice, Isabella’s daughters came running outdoors to greet Henry, who swung the youngest in a circle, threw her in the air and caught her just above the ground. They were in torments of curiosity about Xena but obeyed their mother’s instruction not to ask questions.
‘Will you ride out with me?’ Henry asked.
‘Will the pages stay with us?’ Xena responded.
‘If you wish. I’ve sent two on ahead, already.’
She was wearing a new blue robe and a white headdress with a barrette, a style the women of Paris had adopted, copying the Queen. She looked beautiful but Henry felt too shy to say so.
The trees were still bare except for small pale leaves reaching out to the sun. As Henry and Xena passed a pond, they saw grey geese returning from the winter migration. They broke its tarnished surface, bird after bird in a rhythm, as if an invisible hand signalled each its turn to create another ripple. A doe drank at the pond’s edge, her delicate forelegs spread as she bent to the water. Seeing the hounds, she fled. Henry’s whistle brought them loping back to him with reproachful glances; moments later they were capering around the mossed trunks of the trees.
The pages set down a mattress of straw in a clearing in the forest. Over it they laid rugs of brown bearskin. They placed platters of food on a cloth spread beside the furs, and basins of water.
Spring sunshine made it warm enough to remove their riding cloaks. ‘Will you eat chicken?’ Henry asked.
‘It depends.’
‘On what?’
‘On what else there is.’
The answer seemed to please him, although Xena knew it verged on rudeness to reject chicken. It was a luxury. While she was in Byzantium and with the Queen she had learned what, for the Franks, was noble food and what was not. At Isabella’s house they ate plainly.
On the cloth there was bread, cooked and pickled vegetables, a roasted chicken, white cheese, wine, cider and some preserved fruit. There were whittled sticks and sweet herbs for cleaning their teeth. ‘And your fish,’ Henry said, pointing to portions of roast fish.
She thanked him with a shy smile.
While she ate, the hounds pestered her for tidbits then crept forward on their bellies to lie on the rug beside her.
Henry signalled to the pages to withdraw from the clearing. ‘And take these damned puppies,’ he said.
He turned on his back and closed his eyelids against the sunlight. It was so warm now they would both have been more comfortable with one less layer of clothing. Xena hesitated then lay on her back beside him. The thickness of the fur and the straw beneath it insulated them from the coldness of the earth.
She began to feel anxious. Her mind crowded with possibilities: he was about to tell her that with war approaching, she was too much of a liability and she would have to move on. But the money she had hoarded was with the Queen, in Paris, and she could not afford to travel to Antwerp. Forbidden to go into the city to find work for fear of the French, she could not earn more. I’ve been your prisoner from the moment you leaped through the trapdoor, she wanted to say. If you’d have given me money I could have escaped to Antwerp by now.
He was silent a long time, before reaching out to stroke her hand.
‘You have to tell me,’ he said quietly, ‘where you want to go.’
‘Antwerp. I have an uncle there. I want to start a new life.’
‘A new life in a cold, miserable place where nobody knows you.’ His look was sceptical. ‘There aren’t many Greeks in Antwerp, Xena. In fact, I think your uncle is the only one. But I suppose you will look for a husband there?’
She nodded. ‘I’m a widow.’
‘The horse-trader, was it?’
He watched her hesitate, then shake her head. ‘Xena,’ he said quietly, ‘for almost two months you’ve lied to me and my family about who you really are. Now you have to tell me.’ His dark blue eyes rested on her, unsmiling.
Her tongue clung to the roof of her mouth.
‘You have to tell me,’ he said, ‘because in a couple of days I’ll be at war, and I may be killed. I can’t go into death without hearing your real name.’ He turned on his side, resting his head in his hand. ‘You know I’m in love with you.’
All she could force herself to say was, ‘I’m frightened.’
He sat up suddenly. ‘Why? I’ll never harm you. I saved your life.’
She was trembling as she also sat up. ‘You’re going to send me away – and I have no money …’
‘My lady,’ he interrupted, ‘I know you’re not Greek.’
He waited for her to contradict him. She was speechless. ‘I also know this,’ he said quietly, ‘You’re a Jewess.’
‘Who told you?’ she whispered.
He smiled. ‘When I came through the trapdoor you were terrified, because I was not the man you expected. You gave a cry. The word that escaped from you … I puzzled all night to think where I’d heard it before. Then I remembered my moneylenders. I dine with them sometimes on a Friday night. As they break bread at the start of the meal they use that word in their prayer.’
Xena was pale and silent for a long time before she began to weep.
‘What happened to your family?’ he asked.
‘The Christians set fire to our synagogue. Everyone burned to death. They took all the gold and jewels from our house, then burned it. I was in the courtyard of the synagogue because I had my cycle and couldn’t go inside.’
‘How many Christians were there?’
She began trembling so uncontrollably she couldn’t answer. Henry said, ‘Shh, shh. That happened three years ago. You’ve told me. Shhh.’
‘There were four or five of them. Maybe six. One was old.
’ And unlike the others, not competent, Henry thought. The rage he swallowed cut him as he pushed it back down into his belly.
‘You can’t forgive what they did to you. You can’t wreak vengeance on them because they’ve vanished. You can only come to peace about it, within yourself,’ he said.
He wondered, was she a virgin when they raped her in the courtyard of the synagogue? Or was she already married to her cousin in the horse trade? He couldn’t read her.
When he took her in his arms she felt as helpless as an infant. I want you to be mine, he wanted to say. Mine alone!
Her weeping continued.
Henry lowered her body onto the fur where she turned her head away, water and mucus streaming from her face.
She wept in convulsions for almost an hour. He lay and waited, looking up at the tall blue sky and the quickening limbs of the trees. He’d seen men in this state after a battle. But he’d never seen a woman’s naked grief and it moved him to a depth of anguish he’d not felt since early childhood. He felt tears running from the outer edges of his eyes, into his hair. He felt as if he and this girl, whose name he still did not know, were woven together.
At last she sat up. Her puffy eyes and puffed lips made her more vulnerably lovely to him. He kissed her mouth. It felt as soft as pillows. Timidly, she returned his kiss.
‘Who are you?’ he asked.
‘I’m Rachel, daughter of Avram. My father was chief rabbi in Antioch. My mother’s family was in the horse trade. We were rich. I had eight brothers and sisters. All of us were educated. My father believed in education, even for girls. He’d studied in the House of Wisdom in Baghdad before he became a rabbi.’
‘How did you g
et to the court in Byzantium?’
‘The Christian knights gave me to a slaver who took me to the Empress. He got a good price because I could read and write many languages.’
‘Were you married?’
She shook her head. ‘
Do you love me, Rachel?’ he asked.
‘I’m too frightened of men to love anyone.’
‘Surely you’re not frightened of me.’
She smiled, slowly. ‘Henry, everyone is frightened of you. Even your father.’
‘Oh, that’s just other men. That’s because …’ He wondered if he could say it: because I love battle. I love the ecstasy of vanishing from my body to unite with the God of War. He said, ‘Because I’m good at fighting. I was born under the sign of Mars.’
She added, ‘Maybe Guillaume isn’t frightened.’
‘Guillaume is not!’ he shouted gleefully. ‘How I hate him for it! I tell him I’ll kill him and he just laughs at me.’ He grew serious again. ‘There’s something I want you to do for the Jews in Rouen,’ he said. ‘You can write in Hebrew?’
When she nodded he pulled from his clothing a note he had written in Latin. ‘I wrote in Latin because it’s precise in meaning. Not that what this says is complicated. I want you to write it out in Hebrew. Tonight. I’ll have it delivered to my moneylender.’ He read the note aloud: ‘All Jews: bury your gold. Load your merchandise onto ships and send them towards the sea. Do it immediately. Prepare to flee your houses.’
‘It’s not signed. Who will believe this?’ she asked. ‘It could be a trick of thieves.’
‘I can only give them a warning of danger. There are sure to be French spies among them. I have to balance the Jews’ safety against that of my vassals.’
She became thoughtful. ‘I’m a little bit in love with you,’ she whispered.
‘Will you lie with me? A little bit?’ His eyes laughed. In a sudden alarming gesture he reached towards his crotch. Then he took her hand and together they stood up. ‘There’s much work to be done, Rachel,’ Henry said. ‘I have to return to it.’
Riding home they agreed he should call her Xena, until they knew she was safe from France. Her swollen face had recovered and now she appeared just a carefree girl who had spent a day in the spring sunshine.
As they ambled, sometimes trotted, home, a question nagged at Henry’s mind. ‘You were very close to the Queen of France, did you tell her your true identity?’
‘My whole story. It was she who gave me the name Xena and lied to her entourage and the King that I was a Greek. She promised when the Christmas Court was over she would send me, with an escort, to Antwerp.’
At length Henry answered, ‘I think better of her for that. Much better.’ Abruptly his mood lightened. ‘But now you’re with me! You don’t need to go to Antwerp to find a Jewish merchant who wants to marry a widow from Antioch.’
Xena thought, it’s all changed. But it’s all still the same.
‘Would you like to know about the Arabian?’ she asked.
‘The mares will be in season soon. My horse master told me he has no idea what sort of stallion to put to her.’
‘If you want to breed for speed and strength there is an ideal stallion,’ Xena said. ‘Unfortunately, he belongs to King Louis.’
Henry tossed his head in laughter. She could see all his teeth, as white and strong as a hound’s.
Back at the house he dismounted first and helped her down. Isabella and Guillaume’s sisters came out to welcome them. ‘Thank you, Xena. I hope to see you soon,’ Henry said. He gave a small, formal bow, then seized the mare’s saddle in both hands and leaped from the ground onto her back.
The girls gasped.
Showing off, Isabella thought. She and Xena stood side by side to watch him gallop into the gathering dusk. ‘Xena,’ she said, ‘don’t fall in love with Henry. He’s ruled by –’ She wanted to say passions other people do not understand and could not tolerate if they did.
‘– by a terrifying ambition,’ she said. ‘It will destroy you.’
Looking at Xena’s rapt expression, Isabella guessed she was already too late.
That night Xena wrote out Henry’s note in Hebrew. It was Guillaume who came to her chamber to ask if she had something to give him. His face had its usual pleasant serenity. He smiled courteously but said nothing as he took the parchment from her. I misjudged him, she thought. She had considered Guillaume unintelligent compared to Henry. She realised now that Guillaume, like his mother, was wise.
At the castle the Duke had invited Matilda to attend a final war meeting. Maps of their territories were spread across a broad oak table, but Henry and Geoffrey fixed their attention on Rouen, the forest that lay to its south, the river that ran by the palace and the palace itself. The other men present were the garrison commander, several trusted magnates and the treasurer.
‘We’ve arranged to block the river here and here,’ Henry said. ‘We have men equipped to burn the French ships as they sail into Normandy.’
The Empress arrived with her two young sons, and Hambril riding on her shoulder. When he jumped onto the maps Henry snatched him by the scruff and threw him out a window. Matilda screamed, but a few minutes later Hambril climbed back in the window and bit the treasurer on the leg.
Geoffrey said, ‘Duchess, either the monkey leaves, or I leave.’
She swept out, in umbrage, Hambril clinging to her neck.
When the meeting broke up she summoned her second son, Geoffrey the Younger, to demand a report. ‘How do they know the date?’ she hissed.
‘Father has a spy in the French army.’
‘You’re to find out more.’
Late that night Young Geoffrey found Henry in the armoury. Outside blacksmiths were hammering metal while little boys worked bellows for the fires. The noise was deafening. The firelight cast a hellish glow through an iron-grilled window into the armoury. It flashed in red bursts on the hundreds of shields, swords, helmets, halberds and other weapons.
‘Can I have a sword?’ Geoffrey asked.
‘You’re too inexperienced,’ Henry said. ‘I’ll give you a …’ He looked around at the mass of weapons stacked against the stone walls and lifted down a curved spear with hooks on its shaft and a blade. It was cobwebbed and rusted. ‘This is a fauchard. You kill your enemy by striking him anywhere on the torso. He bleeds to death internally.’
Geoffrey’s small, deep-set eyes lit with excitement. He grabbed the weapon but Henry wrested it back from him. ‘It’s for cowards,’ he said. ‘Our family hasn’t used fauchards in half a century. Here, you can have a glaive.’
‘And give me a cultellus!’ Geoffrey said. ‘I can pull a French knight down with the glaive and cut off his head with the cultellus!’
Henry glared at him. ‘Men of our rank don’t kill each other in battle. We fight to show our honour: who is the greater man.’
‘You’d kill the Seneschal of France if you could.’
Henry paid no attention but glanced up as a burst of firelight glinted on something shiny on his brother’s belt. ‘Where did you get that gold belt?’
‘It was a gift.’
‘From whom?’
‘I’ll tell you, if you tell me the name of Father’s spy.’
Henry moved towards Geoffrey in his leisurely, low-hipped walk. But his hand moved as fast as a viper. He grasped his brother by the throat and squeezed his Adam’s apple. Geoffrey’s eyes bulged; he gasped for breath but Henry kept squeezing until Geoffrey threw up his hands in surrender.
‘Never ask such questions,’ Henry said quietly. ‘Never.’
His brother backed out, clasping his injured neck.
‘I’ll be observing how you fight, if and when the battle comes.’
‘You arsehole,’ Geoffrey whispered.
The despatch rider who found the Seneschal’s tent on the morning of the next day reported that, according to the scouts, there was no sign of alarm in Normandy or the Vexin. All along the frontiers banners
were out and the baronage, townspeople and peasants were streaming towards keeps and castles, large and small: men, women and children; on horses, on donkeys, in carts and on foot. The Baron held up a hand to stop the report. They went to Louis’s tent where Prince Eustace, the field marshal and three generals were in conference with the King.
‘Start again,’ the Seneschal said.
Louis listened and nodded. ‘This is not unexpected,’ he said. ‘It’s a great day for them: they’re greeting their new liege. Of course they’ll be eager to attend the fête.’
‘Too eager,’ the Seneschal muttered.
The field marshal asked, ‘Their fortifications?’
‘The ramparts are in good repair. Especially at Rouen.’
‘Don’t like that. Anything else?’
‘Probably just frivolous and unimportant: they’re planning games and competitions. The craftsmen are taking their tools.’
The Seneschal stared at him. ‘Iron tools?’
The man nodded.
‘Like axes? Hammers? Butchers’ knives?’
‘All their tools.’
‘All their valuables!’ the Seneschal roared. ‘Those fiends are stripping the towns and villages – and probably the countryside – so there’s nothing left for us.’
The spy swallowed. ‘It’s just for games of skill in their crafts,’ he said nervously. ‘The women as well as the men will compete. They’re already laying wagers among themselves.’
The Seneschal gnashed his teeth. ‘And the shepherds and cowherds: I suppose they’re taking their prize beasts?’
‘Yes. Their best animals. The strongest plough horses …’
Louis nodded to the field marshal to take charge. The man was scion of a family that traced its lineage to the Carolingians. Seizing Normandy from the Anjevins would be his first battle as head of the army.
‘Thank you. You may leave,’ he said. The despatch rider had another snippet of news but when the Seneschal became so angry with him, he forgot. It was that a large number of ships had left the docks at Rouen, sailing at night, which was unusual. ‘Thank the scouts for me and His Highness,’ the field marshal added. He nodded to guards stationed at the tent doorway that he wished to speak in private.
The Young Lion Page 15
