The Young Lion

by Blanche d'Alpuget

  Thunderous banging on the door made the rabbi’s wife shriek with fright. The door was opened and the tread of heavy boots down the corridor could be heard. Henry entered, his face flaming. Behind him were two knights and Guillaume. The four angry warriors seemed to fill the whole house. ‘Where are they?’ Henry demanded. He grabbed the rabbi by the front of his clothes and shook him.

  ‘Lord Duke, lord Duke,’ the man stammered.

  ‘Henry! Stop it!’ Isabella said, and turned to the rabbi. ‘Please take us immediately to the circumciser’s house.’

  The rabbi looked desperately to his wife. ‘The house is this house.’

  Isabella thought for a moment that Henry would kill the rabbi with his bare hands. ‘You’ve circumcised my son!’ he roared.

  ‘Lord Duke! No! No!’ the rabbi answered.

  Henry pushed him towards the only other doorway.

  At the end of a corridor they came to a chamber where Rachel sat with the baby on her knee, his genitals exposed. Beside them stood the circumciser. They had stopped proceedings when the rabbi’s wife had called him away. The baby’s foreskin had not yet been cut. By now they had heard Henry shouting. He strode into the chamber and snatched the child from Rachel. She stood and with the glare of a tigress hit Henry across the face.

  ‘Pig!’ she said. ‘Christian pig! Give me back my baby.’

  There was silence from the adults. The infant gave a long, piercing wail. Henry slowly handed him back to her. He turned to the others and said, ‘Leave us. All of you.’

  They filed out of the chamber, back to the front of the house, the rabbi, his wife and the circumciser trembling with fear.

  ‘I had no idea the child was of the lord Duke,’ the rabbi said. ‘No idea … She told me she was a widow and was on her way to Antwerp, where she has an uncle. I thought the babe was …’

  His wife found seats for them all while they waited. ‘May I offer you a cup of water from our well?’ she asked. They accepted.

  Rachel had given the baby her breast to calm him. She ignored Henry’s presence, except from time to time to fling a look of fury at him. ‘Tell me this, Christian,’ she said eventually, ‘your Saviour was circumcised. When Christian men arrive in heaven, will they be circumcised on arrival, to bring them to perfection, like their Saviour?’

  Henry paced up and down, speechless. At last he turned on her and shouted, ‘How could you do this to me? How could you do this to him?’

  Her voice was icy calm. ‘You won’t marry me. You won’t allow my child to be brought up properly, as a Jew. I sail for Antwerp on the tide. Your father and the Queen provided me with funds. Now I’m free.’

  Henry gaped. ‘You’d leave me?’ he asked.

  She nodded.

  ‘Why? What have I done but adore you?’

  Rachel took a long, calming breath. ‘I asked you to marry me and you refused.’

  ‘Well, ask me again!’ he said.

  ‘Henry, will you marry me?’

  ‘Yes! I will! We’ll go immediately to the cathedral and we’ll be married. Guillaume and the two knights will be our witnesses.’ With that he grabbed her hand, pulled him to her and kissed her so long and so tenderly they both began to sob and hug each other, the baby pressed between them.

  They walked hand in hand down the corridor. ‘There was a misunderstanding,’ Henry announced. He nodded to Guillaume and the knights. ‘You’re to come with us. Mama, please say nothing of this to Father. I’ll speak to him later.’

  Isabella nodded. They all thanked the rabbi, his wife and the circumciser. ‘I apologise if I was a little brusque,’ Henry said. ‘Please forgive my ill manners.’

  ‘No offence, lord Duke,’ the rabbi said. ‘We’re forever grateful to you for saving us from the French. And perhaps you’ll join us again one night for the Sabbath meal …?’

  ‘Of course, of course I will,’ Henry said. Turning to Rachel he added, ‘My wife and I.’

  The rabbi, his wife and the circumciser spoke together in Hebrew, laughing and clapping.

  The cathedral was a short ride away, but the priest was having a nap. When he had been roused and had robed himself he emerged, smiling and nervous.

  ‘Father, you are to marry us,’ Henry said.

  The priest looked at the four armed men who stood in front of him. ‘Lord Duke, are you the groom?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘And the name of your bride, who has, I see, been blessed with a beautiful baby?’

  ‘Rachel filia Avram,’ she answered.

  ‘That is an unusual name.’ The priest could feel his heart gallop out of his chest in fright. ‘I’m obliged by my holy orders to ask you, my lady: are you Christian?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, do you accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour?’ the priest persisted.

  ‘No,’ she repeated.

  The priest looked up to Henry with an expression of helplessness. ‘Lord Duke, I can only marry Christians,’ he said.

  ‘I’m a Christian!’ Henry said. ‘Our baby has been baptised a Christian. Why can’t you marry us?’

  The priest’s voice was almost inaudible. He felt the four pairs of warrior eyes burning holes through his garments. ‘Because, lord Duke, both husband and wife must be of the one true faith, the Christian faith. I cannot marry you to a Jew. Your lady must convert to our faith.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Rachel said.

  ‘God’s teeth,’ Henry muttered. He moved away from her and the other men and paced the nave for a few minutes. When he returned he said, ‘Alright. You men return to the castle. I’m going to sort this out.’ He gave the priest a curt nod of dismissal.

  When they were alone Henry said, ‘I’ll marry us myself.’

  ‘Where? How?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘There’s a yew tree at the back of the cathedral. We’ll do it there.’ They walked around the side of the building to the yew tree. It was ancient, but not nearly as old as the yew in Scotland, only perhaps, two hundred years.

  ‘Put your hand on his head,’ Henry said. She did so. He put his hand over hers. ‘I, Henry Plantagenet, swear by the sacred life of our son that I take you, Rachel, daughter of Avram, as my wife. Now you make the same vow to have me as your husband.’

  She did.

  ‘We’re married,’ Henry said. ‘Not in the eyes of the Church. In the eyes of Almighty God. And His yew tree.’

  Rachel began to cry. She wept and wept, as on the day she’d told him about the crusaders in Antioch. ‘I thought you didn’t love me,’ she said.

  ‘I love you more than ever, if that’s possible. My heart leaped with triumph when you refused to pretend you were a Christian.’ His expression was serious. ‘We are of the same iron, Rachel.’

  News of the priest’s refusal to marry them spread swiftly through Rouen. When Geoffrey rode down from the castle, Isabella told him what had happened. Geoffrey listened, groaning. ‘Well, it’s resolved. Thank God, it’s resolved. The vows they’ve made to each other are meaningless to the Church, so Henry can still marry whomever I find for him as a bride.’ He sighed, ‘You have no idea how much work we have to do before we can invade England. This time, I’ll accompany Henry. I’ll lead my men from Anjou and Maine.’

  The rest of winter, all of spring and summer passed in a gallop of meetings with vassals, financiers, mercenary commanders, ships’ captains, armourers, equestrian masters, bowmen, victuallers. Henry spent his birthday in Anjou, with a group of knights. When he was not visiting other parts of his demesne, he came to see Rachel and the baby. They lay together in Isabella’s house or, as the weather warmed, outdoors. Henry snuggled the baby inside his shirt and encouraged him to pull at his nipples or his chest hair. Baby Geoffrey would open his eyes and stare at Henry. ‘He recognises me! He knows I’m his father!’ he announced with glee. He insisted the wetnurse accompany them on outings, ordering her and the squires into the forest after he and Rachel had dined.

  She was more beautiful now in ho
w she presented herself to the world: her uplifted chin, her forthright gaze, her dazzling smile. She was also more passionate and more responsive to him than when they had first spent five days making love. Yet there was a fine, invisible wall between them. Often he wanted to ask, ‘Do you trust me now?’

  One afternoon in early summer, he looked over at Rachel lying on her back in a field, smiling up at the windswept sky, and recognised what was different: she had lost her innocence. I broke it, he thought. He took her hand and kissed her palm. ‘Do you love me?’ he asked.

  Her look was serious. ‘Do you remember you once said that you and I are kindred spirits?’ He nodded. ‘Well then, you know the answer: you are the seal upon my heart. Whether I want to or not, I love you. I’ll always love you.’

  He wept so piteously she let him suckle her, although her milk had dried weeks earlier and her breasts were once more soft and high on her chest. She sang a lullaby. He slept for a few minutes and when he woke he said, ‘We’ve got to make another baby. Right now. An angel told me while I was asleep.’

  ‘Is that why you’re lifting my robe?’

  ‘The angel flew under my tunic … look at the size of it!’

  In August, heat lay upon the capital like a fog that lifted not a fraction when the sun set, but stayed through the night, keeping people awake, feeling they breathed more water than air. The darkness throbbed with the croaking and tinkling of frogs and the sounds of a hellish host: insects of all sorts.

  The Queen returned from the south. She brought wagons of produce, her cats, a new gyrfalcon, a company of minstrels and Bernard de Ventadour.

  Reaching Paris, she declared the palace uninhabitable. Mosquitoes from the stagnant shallows at the river’s banks swarmed out at dusk, flying as high as the royal apartments. Pots of smouldering herbs were set to drive them away, but the mosquitoes hid on the undersides of chairs, beds and other pieces of furniture. As soon as the smoke from the herbs dissipated they came raiding for blood. The cats caught fleas, and servants wearing gauntlets washed them, daring each other to drown them.

  Eleanor ordered a tent set up off the island where a dense canopy of leaves cooled the nights and made sleeping bearable and the mosquitoes easier to control. The King had his tent set up nearby and they attended Mass each morning in the open air.

  Louis was disappointed she was not with child but hoped once the weather cooled and they returned to the familiar comforts of the palace, they would once more be blessed, this time with a boy. He was gratified to find her so cheerful and refreshed after her months in Aquitaine and that the subject of divorce seemed forgotten. The birth of Alix had left her almost haggard but now she had gained some weight, and it suited her. She sang and played a suite of new songs and made drawings for tapestries for the great hall. Most featured a unicorn and a maiden amid fields of flowers and fruiting trees. She spent hours drawing a coney or a fawn and deciding where, on the canvas, it should appear. She loved her white gyrfalcon – a gift from Geoffrey – and kept it by her side in the tent at night, where the cats spent hours plotting how to attack it. High on its perch, it glared at them and from time to time raised one leg to display its mighty talons.

  Geoffrey and she had contrived to meet many times since January: sometimes in hunting lodges, in the grounds of an abbey, in a forest. Their trysts were so dependent upon trustworthy vassals that opportunities to lie together were rare. They fondled and kissed, made a plan for their next meeting, then bade farewell. ‘My balls ache,’ Geoffrey complained. He asked for news about Prince Eustace, and suggested Eleanor write more frequently to her sister-in-law. The idea amused her and she readily agreed.

  ‘You’re determined to see your son on his grandfather’s throne,’ she said one day. ‘I think you want it more than you want me.’

  Geoffrey bowed his head as if she had struck him down like a beast at slaughter.

  ‘I snatch back those words!’ Eleanor said. ‘I spoke in jest. Forgive me! Forgive me.’

  He regarded her for a long while in silence, his expression horrifying to her because it showed nothing. A worm of doubt entered her heart. Perhaps I’ve been mistaken, she thought. Perhaps he just amuses himself with me, with other ends in mind. The idea was so unfamiliar that at first it affronted her, then frightened her. All her life men had adored her. Or hated her. She was unaware they could react in any other way. So to wonder if the one man who had lain with her with such ecstatic passion could, perhaps …

  She set out to indulge Geoffrey in every whim. She wrote to her sister-in-law, who replied that she was greatly distressed because Prince Eustace now employed a poisoner and that his uncle, the Bishop of Winchester, knew of it and had rebuked him: ‘God is not mocked. He sees everything.’ I am so afraid, Constance wrote. She added that the boy was training to poison her husband’s rival to the throne, Henry of Normandy. Their own forces were preparing for an attack in September along the southern coast.

  ‘Can you find out more about the poisoner?’ Geoffrey asked when Eleanor reported to him. His hands and smile caressed her. His mind is elsewhere, Eleanor thought. It drove her mad with jealousy. It’s what I hate about men: they switch from their hearts to their heads, and – poof! – you turn into smoke. The more jealous she felt, the more deeply she was determined to rein in his heart. ‘It’s a dance macabre,’ she said one day. ‘We touch, we fly apart, but we’re caught in a gyre from which we can’t escape.’

  Geoffrey was capable of long silences. At length he replied, ‘That is what love is. It’s why all people are so terrified of it. Perhaps in heaven it’s …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Pure.’ He swept his blond hair from his forehead. ‘I’ve lain with hundreds of women. You’re the only one I’d die for.’

  ‘Don’t speak of dying. I’ll get my freedom and we’ll live!’

  Eleanor redoubled her efforts in courting intimacies from Constance, and in seeking Louis’s plans.

  The King was more than satisfied with the political situation he saw developing. ‘I’ve summoned the Anjevin boy to Paris for the final day of August,’ he told the Queen. ‘When he’s paid me homage for Normandy, he can sail off to be a pest across the Channel.’

  ‘You don’t think he’ll defeat Stephen and Eustace?’ Eleanor asked.

  ‘Not a chance. I’ve bribed the Count of Flanders to forbid any of his men to serve as mercenaries for young – he’s calling himself Plantagenet these days. Our beloved Estienne always called the father that. Remember? Estienne used to laugh at the broom flowers in his hat. Weed Hat, he’d say.’

  Your name just means ‘cap’, she thought. ‘So the young Plantagenet won’t have sufficient forces?’ she asked.

  ‘He’ll be cut to shreds on the beaches. Won’t take a single castle. How sad I shall be!’

  ‘My King!’ Eleanor sighed.

  Geoffrey and Henry laughed when they read her letter. Louis had bribed the Count of Flanders with the promise of a future prince or princess for one of his children. But Henry had bribed him more convincingly by offering him a percentage of the English wool trade.

  ‘I think,’ Henry said, ‘we start a rumour that because Louis kept us hanging on a string so long, we’ve formed an understanding with the Danes. That’ll put the fear of the Almighty into Stephen and Eustace: an invasion by the Danes from the north-east and us along the south.’

  But Henry was worried. With Stephen anticipating an invasion of the south coast, he had decided to sail west, and attack through Wales where he had good relations with the tribal leaders from his time spent fighting for King David. However, the opportunity for such a long voyage diminished as the year wore on and gales arose, threatening the loss of his army at sea.

  At last the day of homage approached. Matilda, her younger children and the servants travelled in three coaches, setting out several days before the men. Geoffrey, Henry and Guillaume would ride to Paris. ‘May I come?’ Rachel asked.

  ‘It’s too dangerous,’ Henry said. ‘The
palace guards will recognise you.’

  The morning he and his father left the palace of Rouen, they rode down to collect Guillaume and bid farewell to their women.

  Strawberries were still in season and Henry had loaded baskets of fragrant berries and pots of conserve onto one of the pack-horses. Rachel had risen early, washed and dried her hair and was wearing her loveliest blue gown. Taking a handful of strawberries, he dragged her to the bedchamber. ‘I won’t see you for ten days. It’s the last chance for the Princess of Antioch to lie with Sir Nobody. Next time you see your husband, he’ll be a duke.’

  Guillaume, Geoffrey and Isabella drank a cup of wine and ate cake and strawberry conserve while they waited for Henry.

  Inside her chamber Rachel was less than ardent.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Henry asked.

  She looked abashed. ‘I’m with child.’

  From the dining chamber, through four stone walls, his cries of jubilation sounded round the house.

  They drowned in kisses. ‘Because you’re fragile at this stage, I’ll just … look,’ he said. ‘I’ll see if it’s a boy or a girl.’

  When he rejoined the others Guillaume whispered, ‘Henry, wash your face.’

  Eleanor wore her most beautiful summer robe for the homage ceremony: it was of violet silk that so perfectly brought out the colour of her eyes palace staff who saw her every day stopped to gape. She had invented a new fashion of slashing the sleeves of her gowns to reveal their silk lining. Hers was orange-gold, matched to the citrines of her tiara. She had dressed to intimidate Matilda, who would be seated, she knew, in a front row of the audience hall. Eleanor wanted her enemy to see how beautiful she was. She had seen the Empress years earlier, when Geoffrey had first paid homage, and remembered then that she was tall and handsome and carried herself with pride. There are advantages to being born a princess, she had thought at the time.

  As soon as she entered the hall to take her place beside Louis, she recognised Geoffrey’s wife. ‘More jewels than Cleopatra,’ she muttered to the King. The pearls around Matilda’s neck were the size of pebbles. Her tiara was a handspan in height, all sapphires, rubies, emeralds, diamonds and more pearls.