The Young Lion

by Blanche d'Alpuget

  He was amused to see Henry blush.

  All morning he had wanted the courage to tell Henry that he and Matilda had unearthed two suitable candidates as wives for him. Both had fine dowries and one, a German princess, would drive Louis into a rage – a rage that, properly managed, could persuade him to accept Henry as Duke. Perhaps even abandon his demand for the Vexin. Louis would see an alliance between Anjou–Normandy and Germany as a noose around the neck of France. The way to manage Louis would be to let him know of the intended match, then allow him to persuade Henry not to go ahead with it – for which Louis would show his gratitude by recognising the young man as Duke. And possibly give way on the Vexin. ‘It’s unfortunate,’ Matilda had remarked, ‘that the Princess is said to be as dull-witted as a garden snail, and some compare her appearance to a toad. Our other candidate from Rome has more physical attractions and plenty of money.’

  ‘But no political beauty,’ Geoffrey replied.

  ‘We have to discuss your marriage,’ Geoffrey said.

  ‘I agree. But not today, Papa.’

  There was a view over the river from the windows of the apartment Henry had prepared for Xena. For more than a century the dukes had opened its chambers for noble guests. It was furnished with silks, velvets and brocades in shades of deep red, purple and silver, slightly shabby now because there had been no money to replace them since the struggle for England began. As Henry walked through the chambers he fingered the gorgeous fabrics. The main bed was covered in a thick black cloth because beneath it was an heirloom that needed protection from sunlight. He stripped off the cloth and there it was: a lavender cloud with a world of flowers, butterflies, golden fish, peaches and strange, lovely, unknown fruit, an embroidered quilt filled not with wool or feathers but with thousands upon thousands of silken threads. Fingers so skilful had sewn its pictures one could believe the story the servants told: fairies had made it. A merchant from the east had presented it to the Lion, and ever since it had been in this chamber. Henry wandered the apartment and returned again to gaze at the enchanted covering of the bed. He felt he stood in a sacred space. The chambers, the furnishings, the bed on which he would lie with Xena seemed to radiate a subtle energy that was both replete with meaning for this life, and otherworldly, as if eternal mysteries infused it.

  When he led Xena inside the apartment, western sun shone through its unshuttered windows and cast a light throughout the bedchamber that made the shimmering fabrics glow. She stopped, breathless. She too sensed they were entering a space separate from the ordinary world, a place where an ancient language vibrated. It’s as if there’s music, she thought, just beyond the human ear. Henry took her to the bed in silence. They removed only their shoes and lay side by side on the silken cloud. Xena began to catch the music in the air around them and after a while she hummed it in a long, slow breath. It was the humming women made in the synagogue on certain feast days, and it was the rhythm of Henry’s breathing. As she hummed they felt themselves mingling with trees, birds, fish, water rushing over stones, stars in the sky, ocean waves. They felt the tiny heartbeats of pebbles and field mice, and the hunger of tigers. When the sun set and the chamber was dark, Rachel and Henry returned from where they had been together. His naked back rested on pillows against the wall behind the bed and she was seated in his lap, the rosy soles of her feet caressing each other where they met behind his hips. Through the open window a slipper moon reclined in the western sky. It threw a fragile, silvery light over their skins.

  They stayed in the apartment five days. Servants brought food, filled the bathtubs and re-laid the fires.

  Sometimes they leaned out the window side by side to enjoy the view of the river. On its other bank was a field in which a herd of horses ran. One morning as they watched the herd, Henry said, ‘Look, the Arab is running beside Jason. They’ve mated.’ Rachel concentrated and could see it was the grey who accompanied Louis’s stallion as they grazed and sometimes ran through the field. The other mares in his harem held back. ‘I hope she’s in foal,’ Henry said. ‘I hope you are, too.’

  ‘Don’t say it! You know I must go to Antwerp, to my uncle.’

  ‘You’ll never go to Antwerp,’ he said.

  He overwhelmed her mouth with his own, as he always did when he wanted his own way.

  ‘Don’t you want to stay with me?’

  ‘I’ve lived in fear of my life for two months. Every time the window shutters creak I wonder if, outside, men are waiting to abduct me. I want to be with my own people again. I want to be part of a community where I fit in. I want –’

  ‘What? A little house. A little husband. Little children?’

  He took her by the shoulders and shook her gently. ‘Rachel, wake up! That dream you brought from Outremer is over. You’re with me. We are one.’

  She started to cry. ‘But, Henry, we’re from different worlds, and I hate your life. It’s all danger. It’s all killing. It’s all warfare.’

  He laughed. ‘How else does a man show his spiritual grandeur but in his willingness to defy Death?’

  She was nonplussed. Her father had told her violence was wrong. She had not considered the issue further. But now …

  That evening, as the setting sun reddened the light in their chamber, Henry confessed. ‘The real reason I broke the code of chivalry and beheaded the Seneschal was because of you. I besmirched my honour for you, Rachel – and I don’t regret it for an instant. You were the inspiration for every stroke of my sword. I had to live! I had to triumph so I could hold you in my arms. Love has spiritual grandeur too, does it not? It gives of itself for another.’ He smiled, then sighed. ‘Love is strong as death.’

  Rachel whispered, ‘Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave.’

  ‘You’re the seal upon my heart,’ Henry said. ‘It’s irrevocable.’

  ‘She’s a penniless Jewish orphan!’ Guillaume exploded next morning. ‘We’re her protectors! I’ll visit the rabbi and ask him to arrange a husband for her. We can afford a reasonable dowry. She can live here in Rouen, and maybe the husband will accommodate you …’

  ‘No! No, no, no, no!’ Henry said. ‘The thought of her being with another man drives me insane with jealousy. I’d kill him before they left the synagogue.’

  ‘An old husband?’

  ‘Not Methuselah.’

  ‘So why did you ask my advice?’ Guillaume said.

  ‘I want you to marry her and promise me you won’t touch her.’

  ‘You’re a swine.’

  Henry nodded. ‘We pay a price for destiny.’

  Guillaume sighed. ‘Henry, what are our lives for? What’s valuable?’

  ‘Duty,’ Henry said. ‘My duty is to be a leader and a good shepherd. To point the way forward to other humans who see less clearly than I. Guardians of spirit direct my ambition.’

  Guillaume paused. ‘I agree with that,’ he said after a while. ‘But I won’t marry Xena. Or Rachel. Or Manuela. You’re the one who’s in love with her. You have to persuade her to live as your concubine.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Between the audience hall of Carlisle Castle and its torture chamber, Prince Eustace’s code-breaker, Aelbad, reckoned he had several minutes to save his tongue. The masked man who would tear it out was from the marcher lands to the south-west, Aelbad had determined, and he knew the local dialect. ‘Spare my tongue and I’ll be your catamite,’ the child gambled.

  He wasn’t disappointed. The southerner accepted and for a some months even brought his pet extra food. Aelbad watched and waited for his gaoler to grow soft and careless, until one night the man left a poker by the fire. With the speed of a serpent’s strike, Aelbad snatched the rod, rammed it down the man’s throat and fled.

  It took him many months to make his way from Scotland to the court of Prince Eustace. He lived often in forests, sleeping in trees to avoid wolves and outlaws, whose numbers increased as the war against
Stephen by King David raged on. One night soon after his flight from Carlisle he heard men on horses approaching and recognised the voice of the Highlander. Their path lay directly beneath the tree where he hid. The boy had a stolen dagger. I could pounce like a leopard, he thought. But the Highlander called out, ‘Henry, Henry, this way,’ and they swerved past him.

  Missing his quarry again was a bitterness that occupied Aelbad’s mind when he was cold and hungry. Food was difficult to find. Even the monasteries had little to give to the hungry who came begging succour. Ploughed land, grain and vines dwindled before people’s eyes. Castellans burned whole acreages of ripe barley and rye to reeking smoke to deny food to their rivals, who retaliated in kind. Slaughtered sheep, cows and horses rotted in fields, their carcases stripped in the night by humans who fought off foxes and sometimes wolves.

  Aelbad found edible parts left on carrion, or got his food from theft and, occasionally, from murder. His easiest few months were during autumn when he joined a group of entertainers who went from village to village with a bear that came from lands far to the east, and was taller than a knight in armour. There were drummers and men who could jump through hoops, landing on their hands. There were vulgar women who danced, lifting their skirts to show their legs. It was Aelbad’s job, using the many languages he knew, to urge serfs, peasants and villeins to set their dogs on the bear while wagering with its owners that the bear would be unable to resist the pack of canines. Unknown to these folk, the bear’s paws were reinforced with iron, and a double skin reached from its chin to its hind legs, fitted to its body with such craft it was invisible. Dogs that fastened on this false skin died swiftly from the blows of metal claws.

  As soon as the show was over and the wagers collected – a few eggs, a brace of starlings, a beaker of milk – the troupe moved on. The dogs were food for the bear.

  Aelbad grew fond of it but one day, in a fit of curiosity, he fed it poison he had bartered from an outlaw woman in the forest. The bear died, roaring and frothing at the mouth. Aelbad left the troupe and set out to find Prince Eustace.

  In the summer following his campaign in France, Eustace withdrew to his castle in Faversham to brood. It had been a humiliating spring, which had followed a bitter campaign against King David’s Scottish warriors.

  Sir William Walter, his ransom paid, returned to England. Eustace arrested him for treason, stripped him of his remaining property and placed him in an oubliette. His skeleton was removed six months later.

  Eustace had long ago given up Aelbad for dead. When a youth arrived at the Faversham gate and announced himself as Aelbad Eustace was outraged. He ordered the imposter be arrested and brought before him.

  ‘Write me the code of King David that my code-breaker deciphered,’ he barked at the barefoot half-starved thing that was dragged inside. ‘Give him a piece of charcoal and let him write on the floor.’

  The filthy wretch hesitated then swiftly wrote the code.

  ‘Summon my wife.’

  Constance, Countess of Boulogne and sister of King Louis, stared at the creature who crouched on the flagstones.

  ‘It’s Aelbad!’ she said. He clasped her feet, trailing his knotted hair over her silken shoes. The noble lady shuddered but restrained herself from stepping away.

  ‘How did you arrive here, boy?’ her husband demanded.

  ‘Sire, I had many challenges. But I was determined to return to your service.’

  ‘Take him to a bath house,’ Eustace ordered a servant. ‘You have much to explain,’ he said to Aelbad, ‘but first you need some washing and food.’

  Aelbad was fed, bathed, dressed and doctored. He rested four months in the infirmary. Worms came from his body; he was covered in sores, and the servants feared leprosy. But by autumn the court physician decided it was safe for the Prince to have audience with him.

  ‘So Aelbad,’ Eustace began, ‘what did you learn in the year you’ve been away from me?’

  The youth, regained in health and in confidence, was short for his age but still beautiful. His pale eyes were a fire of mischief and acute intelligence.

  ‘I learned poisons, sire.’

  ‘From whom?’

  ‘The forest people. They know herbs and berries and roots. And parts of animals. They learn them to avoid accidentally eating something that will cause death. It’s knowledge …’ There was no need to finish the sentence, for his lord was smiling with delight.

  Aelbad, Prince Eustace vowed, would be among the great men of England. He’d raise him to the baronage. The youth would need hard training in courtesy, but in intellect, audacity and avidity for a cause he was unparalleled. His father was a prelate who had studied in Rome with Henry Blois, now Bishop of Winchester and brother of King Stephen. Henry Blois was not given to complimenting the erudition or intellect of other men, but of this father-of-Aelbad he declared to Eustace, ‘He could have become our Archbishop. Even a second English Pope … But his immorality! The child takes after him. I’m not surprised his mother threw him out of her house when he was six years old.’

  Along with the power of his mind, Eustace thought, Aelbad has qualities of character useful to a prince.

  ‘You are to become more proficient, son,’ he said. The affectionate term made the boy blink. ‘Our brothers, the French, use men from Lombardy where there is a tradition stretching back more than a thousand years. But here in England our skills are limited. You can change that, my boy. You can change history.’

  That evening he remarked to his wife, ‘I’m gratified to have Aelbad with us again.’

  ‘I shuddered when he touched me,’ Constance responded. ‘Not because he was dirty and diseased. Because, Eustace, he has the spirit of a snake in him.’

  ‘And how did you discern that?’

  ‘My blood turned cold,’ she said. ‘I knew it was a snake around my feet.’

  Her husband was amused. ‘Your discernment is excellent. A snake is most appropriate for Aelbad. He’s to become my poisoner.’

  Constance said, ‘No, Eustace! We must not employ a poisoner! Holy Scripture and Mother Church would forbid it.’

  The Prince knew that in temperament his wife resembled her brother, Louis. Both were pious and politically short-sighted. ‘Holy Scripture forbids, most of the time, shedding blood,’ he answered. ‘So our bishops ride to battle with a mace, to kill without spreading gore around themselves. I think the same rule can be applied to poison.’

  In England there were magnates and barons who now spoke openly against King Stephen and Prince Eustace, saying they were to blame for the anarchy and that the country had fallen to ruin because of them. All had earned her husband’s wrath.

  ‘Whom shall you poison?’ she asked.

  ‘The Anjevin.’

  He had not needed to give a name to Aelbad. The boy had understood immediately who his victim was to be.

  After his audience with the Prince he capered through the corridors to his chamber. It was separate from the other servants’ quarters. It was large, well lit, with a table, an ink horn, quills and parchment, as well as a sleeping platform with an extra sheepskin for when nights were cold. His lord had said that in perfecting his skill he could use any of the older hounds or cats, even cows and horses, as long as they were worn out. With the approach of winter and the grave shortage of food, there were plenty of feeble animals about.

  After some weeks Aelbad asked for a private audience with Eustace. ‘I need some human specimens,’ he said.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  From the moment Eleanor had heard Estienne was dead and Geoffrey was alive her fears and feverishness vanished. Waiting in the doorway in a gown of deep rose-pink embroidered with silver thread, she appeared to Louis when he arrived home from Normandy, more ravishingly gorgeous than ever. He had passed through the palace courtyard to the sound of triumphal music and a chorus of forty minstrels –

  Welcome home, Our Hero

  The Queen’s heart pants

  For the victorious
King

  – and felt abashed at the welcome she had prepared for him.

  ‘I gave those scoundrels a black eye,’ he said. ‘Reminded them they’re my vassals.’

  But the Queen’s relief could not distract her forever. Each day she walked in the park and watched the fishermen on the other side of the river. She thought of the Île and her palace in Paris as a monstrous grey ship caught on a mudbank from which it would never float free. She wanted to go riding in the wood, but Louis forbade it. Her belly had grown but was not yet so large as to make her sluggish or unable to mount a horse. She walked briskly through the gardens and nearby park, outpacing the retinue of palace ladies who accompanied her, keeping in step with her male guards. One morning beside a flower bed a guard asked her if she would give an audience to a noble prisoner, Baron Richard de Cholet, captured during the war against Normandy.

  Her heart skipped. She remembered that Geoffrey regarded Cholet as a trusted friend. And she knew Cholet had spent hours in conversation with Louis and the new Seneschal, Estienne’s eldest son, a courteous knight, highly regarded for courage but the merest shadow of his father. After each meeting between the King, the Baron and the Seneschal, letters went back and forth between Paris and Normandy, or Paris and Anjou – concerning the ransome, she surmised.

  ‘He may address me,’ the Queen said.

  After a greeting in Latin, then pleasantries in French, he shifted to langue d’oc. ‘I knew your father,’ he said. ‘What a man! What a poet!’

  He began to hum one of her father’s songs. Watching eyes and listening ears were everywhere. She hummed along with him and for a moment sang two lines of it: ‘Though my heart should break from missing her, yet shall I live in hope the day will come …’

  She paused to admire a red rose. ‘Three of them speak our language,’ she murmured into the rose. ‘I’ll get rid of them.’

  She summoned the women from Aquitaine and asked them to fetch her cats. ‘Bastet and Sekhmet should walk in the park with us. They’d love to chase those little birds,’ she said.