The Queen held an osprey fan with which she covered her mouth to add, ‘Stolen. From the Germans.’
She watched Geoffrey’s face from the safety of her fan. She hoped that, seeing her seated beside her husband, he felt as jealous as she did. She could tell nothing from the calm, reserved look he wore. In fact, Geoffrey felt his heart had become an eggshell, cracked, life oozing out of it.
He wore dark green silk with a gold belt and gold boots. Eleanor flicked her attention to the son and for a moment was surprised. She remembered a ruffian with a dagger, smelling of horse dung. This was a young man of vibrant intensity. All the movements of his body and the glances from his eyes held an edge of excitement. When he doffed his hat to the King she liked his tangled halo of copper hair and ruddy complexion. Sanguine in temperament, she thought. A beautiful, taller, dark young man stood beside him. ‘Who’s that?’ she whispered behind the fan.
‘A bastard,’ Louis muttered.
The Catalan’s, Eleanor realised. She felt a surge of jealousy so intense she feared her face was turning green. The sight of Geoffrey’s sons stabbed her heart, her liver, her bowels. The way those men stood together, shoulder to shoulder, each of them prepared to die for the other: one could see it in their movements.
She looked at Matilda and the younger children gathered beside her. The girls were pretty and so was the youngest boy, but she did not like the look of the second son who was, as she had warned Geoffrey, passing information via a bishop to the new Seneschal in Paris.
Matilda has everything, she thought. And here am I, a prisoner. For a moment her eyes met her enemy’s; unexpectedly, she smiled. The Empress’s smile was slightly ironic: she knew the iron bars that held a queen who gives her realm no heir.
‘I’ll invite her and the younger children to tour the palace with me,’ Eleanor said to Louis. She beckoned a page whom she sent with the verbal invitation to Matilda. ‘Will you invite the new Duke hunting with you? It would demonstrate forgiveness.’
Louis sighed. ‘My conscience tells me I should. My bad angel tells me to accept his homage and dismiss him. Master Weed. What happened to your Phoenician maid, by the way? She ran off with the father.’
‘She transferred her affections to the son,’ Eleanor said. ‘I hear they have a child.’
Louis snorted. ‘Coneys.’ As an afterthought he added, ‘And foxes. Coneys and foxes all in one coop. And under one hat!’ He allowed himself to laugh at his joke. He was thinking that on other people, a weed in your hat would look ridiculous, but the Anjevins carried it off. Even in dress they make their own rules. It niggled at him that the Old Duke, as in a few moments he would be, had trespassed into the Queen’s closet to seduce the Phoenician. Not to mention lying with his milking maids. ‘Where do they lodge?’ he asked.
‘I have no idea,’ Eleanor replied. She and Geoffrey had been unable to work out a safe place to meet in the Île de France. But an idea came to her. ‘Why don’t we hunt deer?’ she suggested to Louis. ‘It’s perfect weather.’ And a perfect way for Geoffrey and me to get lost together. She dared to look at him directly, but the look he returned puzzled her.
Louis was saying, ‘I’d prefer to hunt boar. You see more of a man’s character in a boar hunt.’
The ceremony had been arranged for immediately after breakfast. Knights and ladies from Normandy, Anjou, Maine and the Île de France filled the hall, most of them standing, while the senior nobles and clergy had seats.
The Bishop of St Denis approached at Louis’s nod. A page hastened to place a cushion at the King’s feet. Henry stepped forward, knelt on the cushion, bareheaded, his eyes lowered.
‘I vow homage to you, King Louis, my lord and liege,’ he said. ‘I shall defend your realm and your life with my own life. Your life is more valuable to God and to man than is mine. It is at your service.’
Louis was gratified the Anjevin had used the entire vow, acknowledging his greater worth in the eyes of God. Some vassals, particularly the ungovernable Bretons and some of Eleanor’s men in the south, omitted that part.
The Bishop blessed Henry, asked God to witness what had just been said, and sprinkled him with holy water.
Louis said, ‘Arise, Henry Duke of Normandy. Let us exchange the kiss of peace.’
As he stood, Henry felt a flow of affection for Louis. They kissed and looked more deeply into each other’s faces than they ever had before. He has soft eyes, like my Rachel, Henry thought. He has the courage of a lion, Louis thought. Both thought, we could be friends.
As he stepped back from the throne Henry knew his face was coloured with emotion. He was surprised to see the Queen had turned the colour of parchment.
While Henry and Louis had exchanged the kiss of peace Geoffrey had mouthed to her, ‘Adieu.’
‘What about a boar hunt before it grows too hot?’ Louis asked his new Duke of Normandy. ‘Your brother is welcome to join us.’ He added in a mutter, ‘And your father, of course.’
There was a brief consultation between the Anjevin men and Matilda. Henry returned to the throne. ‘Sire, my mother is honoured to accept Her Highness’s invitation and we greatly appreciate your invitation to hunt. But my father, brother and I need to ride to Le Mans today. We have urgent matters to attend to.’
Now the thing had been done, Louis relaxed. ‘And then across the Channel?’ He smiled.
‘Sire, you understand my ambitions too well, I fear.’
‘But do you understand my brother-in-law?’ Louis asked. He had been disgusted to hear from Eleanor that Prince Eustace now employed a poisoner, and that the boy was somewhere in France.
Henry made a sudden decision to drop pretence with the King. ‘I understand he desires to have me murdered. Possibly by poison,’ he replied.
‘Good,’ Louis said. ‘He does, and unless you’re careful, he will. It would be an unholy act and I am displeased by his intention.’
He rose. Eleanor, with a smile to hide her confusion, rose and followed the King into the reception hall behind the audience chamber where, in a few minutes, Matilda and her tribe of children would arrive.
Henry strolled through the throng of magnates, barons and ladies, greeted with waves of applause and adulation. He shook hands, slapped backs and blew kisses to some of the women. A group began singing, ‘A Young Lion steps forth …’ and soon the entire hall took up the song. He reached down to grasp Geoffrey’s hand and hold it aloft, so they walked side by side, Young Duke and Old Duke, the toast of Paris. He was surprised by how heavy Geoffrey’s palm felt.
‘Let’s dine in that tavern where I used to stay when I was visiting the Queen,’ Geoffrey said.
Henry and Guillaume rolled their eyes. ‘Papa, it’s full of ruffians,’ Henry said. ‘And we’re all dressed up –’
Guillaume gave him a kick.
‘– but it’s a good idea. Beautiful memories for you,’ Henry said.
Used to the food of Normandy, they considered Parisian fare execrable: oily, expensive and stale. But the tavern served simple, tasty workingmen’s food. They had a long ride ahead and the day was growing hotter by the minute, so they ate lightly. In an upstairs chamber they exchanged their silk tunics and gold boots for comfortable riding clothes. Henry couldn’t help noticing how subdued Geoffrey seemed. He had spoken hardly a word since they left the palace. Outside the tavern, in its two-seater privy, he asked Guillaume, ‘What’s wrong with Papa?’
Guillaume shrugged. He too was puzzled.
An hour beyond Paris, close to Chartres, they rested on a grassy spot where the river narrowed and the water was fresh-flowing. The men, even in flimsy linen tunics, were drenched in perspiration. Their horses had sweated up.
‘We’ll all swim,’ Henry said. They and the squires, seven men in all, stripped naked and ran into the river. Geoffrey floated on his back, throwing water over his face with his big hands. Henry and the others raced each other from bank to bank. When they’d cooled down they took their mounts in to swim. Geoffrey shouted a cur
se. He had swum too close to one of the horses, which had caught his ankle with its shoe. When he led it ashore blood flowed over his foot.
‘Lord, let me clean and bandage that,’ a squire said.
Geoffrey looked at the gash. ‘It’s just a scratch,’ he said.
The squire persisted, ‘But, lord, in this hot weather …’
Geoffrey groaned with frustration but lay on the grass and allowed his ankle to be bandaged.
That night they stopped at a chateau a few miles from Le Mans to eat and rest. Both sons noticed their father limped when he dismounted. He often limped when he was tired. It came from an old wound to his foot from his earliest, and unsuccessful, attack on Normandy. Henry said, ‘We need a physician. And post-riders.’
‘I’ll get Mama from Rouen,’ Guillaume said.
‘No. You stay with me and Papa. I’ll send a post-rider.’
A physician arrived when it was already night. ‘It’s nothing, my lord,’ he said. ‘Your father is tired. He’s thirty-eight. He needs rest.’
The man was perched on the sleeping platform. Henry jerked him to his feet. ‘Tired, I grant you. Rest, I grant you. Thirty-eight is nothing! His father lived to seventy. His great uncle, in the cloister, reached more than eighty. I tell you: he’s ailing. Do you have no physic for him?’
‘He has no fever,’ the physician said.
‘He has no fever yet,’ Henry said. ‘You are to stay here tonight, in case he becomes feverish.’
When he and Guillaume returned to lie beside their father he remained taciturn. ‘What ails you, Papa?’ Henry asked.
Geoffrey turned his big head and gave his slow, wolfish smile. ‘Something incurable.’
‘The Queen,’ Guillaume murmured.
Geoffrey nodded. ‘When I saw her today, so beautiful, so youthful, so full of vitality and hope, I knew it was immoral to encourage her to believe she and I could ever be together. I can’t give her the life she deserves. I have neither the means nor the prestige …’ He let the sentence ebb into the darkness of the candlelit room.
Henry said, ‘Papa! You can’t decide you’ll die from a broken heart!’
‘Why can’t I?’ Geoffrey snorted. ‘Better men than I have died from the disappointments of love. They get themselves killed in battle, or in the hunt, or in a tournament. It’s not the wound you see that slays. It’s the invisible wound within.’
Henry took his father’s hand. ‘Papa! There’s nothing wrong with you! The physician said so. You’ve got to see me sitting on the throne of England!’
‘I will. I will,’ Geoffrey smiled.
Guillaume had rolled off the sleeping platform and was pacing the chamber. ‘Sing something,’ his father said.
While Guillaume fetched his lute, Geoffrey said, ‘My heart hurts. It began to hurt in the palace when I saw Eleanor and decided I could never hold her in my arms again.’ His full lips curled in an ironic smile. ‘You know what, Henry? I don’t think she ever really loved me. She loves the excitement. She loves the idea of lovers kept apart by fate. I don’t think she knows what love is. I was foolish to ask you to marry her. For God’s sake, don’t even think of it. She’s the most dangerous woman in Europe.’
Which is what made her so fascinating to you, Henry thought bitterly. Neither of them referred to the Church’s condemnation of Eleanor for inciting Louis to war against Champagne, during which he burned to death more than a thousand people who’d taken refuge in the church of Vitry. Bernard of Clairvaux had proven the only man capable of controlling the wild young Queen. It was almost ten years ago, but the scandal of Vitry was remembered.
Geoffrey sighed and stroked his son’s hand. ‘Once you’ve got the throne of England you can choose any heiress you like … Anyway, go to sleep. I’ll be fit to ride tomorrow. I want to reach Le Mans.’
When Guillaume returned and began to sing, Geoffrey breathed more deeply and the pallor left his cheeks. Henry lay beside him again, his body pressed hard against his father’s. ‘Take my strength, take my strength, Papa,’ he murmured. Geoffrey was asleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Geoffrey’s spirits rallied next morning. When the wall around their chateau came into view he waved his hat at it. Le Mans was less humid than Paris, and the chateau was on a slight hill where it enjoyed a view of the countryside around it and a light, cool breeze. Henry and Guillaume walked beside their father up the stone staircase to the sleeping chambers, each steadying an elbow. ‘I’m alright. I’m fine,’ he said. But as soon as he entered the chamber he collapsed onto the bed without removing his boots.
Henry summoned the family physician, who arrived and sat beside his father. Geoffrey had once taken him hunting in the ducal forest, and among the man’s most prized possessions were the antlers of a stag taken that day.
He felt the Old Duke’s pulses, looked into his eyes and at his tongue and lay his head against his chest. ‘Cough,’ he said. He asked Geoffrey to piss into a flask, which he took to the unshuttered window to examine for colour and smell. ‘Your humours seem in good working order.’ He pulled back the sheet to look at Geoffrey’s ankle and foot. ‘I think I’ll poultice it with seaweed,’ he added. Brown seaweed from the Normandy coast was famous for its curative powers. It was collected and dried, and when needed soaked in hot, boiled water. Sometimes a pinch of it, powdered, was used in half a cup of water as a drink.
Henry escorted the physician downstairs. ‘Who bandaged his foot?’ the physician asked.
‘A squire. What does it matter?’
‘Whoever did it neglected to wash the wound in clean water.’
‘It was clean river water.’
‘River water must be boiled for a wound. And your father rode for hours with a boot over his ankle.’
Henry’s face contorted with rage. ‘You’re telling me he must lose his foot! Well, men get by with one foot. It happens all the time. Even I know how to cut off a foot.’
The physician made no answer.
Henry muttered, ‘Stay. I want my brother to hear you.’
When Guillaume arrived Henry said, ‘The master says Papa will lose his foot.’
The physician cleared his throat. ‘With respect, lord Duke, that is not what I said.’
‘What do you say, master?’ Guillaume asked.
‘Your father has an infection that may develop into blood poisoning.’
Henry flung himself against the doorway, beating his fists on it, screaming. Guillaume wrenched him upright and for the first time in their lives he struck Henry across the face.
‘Now is not the time for one of your fits of self-pity, brother!’
Henry collapsed into his arms. ‘May the Saviour help us! May the Madonna have mercy on us!’ he whimpered.
‘Maybe they do,’ the physician murmured.
‘Who will cut off Papa’s foot?’ Henry asked.
‘Let’s wait and see if the seaweed poultice works,’ the physician said. He continued to stare at the ground. He knew the look of men who were weary of life. ‘Maybe we can save it. In Chartres the monks have a medicinal drink that will ease his suffering in the event we do have to take his foot. Father Bernard may give me some.’
‘He said I was born of the Devil,’ Henry said. ‘So presumably Papa was part of that plot.’
‘We’ve all heard the story. Nevertheless, Bernard is a strange man. His meanings are often difficult to fathom.’
‘Brother,’ Guillaume said softly, ‘you must cancel the invasion of England.’
Henry looked as blank as a sheep. ‘The what?’ he asked.
‘You cannot invade England while Papa is so ill.’
Henry grunted. ‘Of course. I’ll put it off until next year. Fetch the Seneschal. And …’
He couldn’t be bothered finishing the sentence.
The physician rode hard to Chartres, hoping to arrive before the hour of compline, after which no man could speak until the cycle of morning prayers began. But when he dismounted before the cathedral
the monks were already singing the fourth psalm.
In disappointment, he wrote a note and sent it in to Father Bernard, asking for an audience when possible.
He sat on a bench at the back of the cathedral, which had recently been rebuilt after its eighth or ninth fire, and waited. He fell into a light doze as he listened to the chanting and only became aware something had changed when he felt a cool energy flowing up his arm. He blinked awake and turned to see Father Bernard himself had left the choir of the cathedral to sit beside him. Silently, he motioned the physician outside.
‘You’ve come for medicine for one of the Dukes? The father or the son?’ Bernard asked.
‘The father.’
Even in the dim light the veins on his temples and wrists were visible. His pale skin stretched across the bones of his skull with so little flesh beneath it his body appeared almost translucent.
‘You shall have it.’
The physician could feel rather than see that Father Bernard was gazing at him, waiting for more information either from him or from whatever spirit it was that spoke to him. ‘I hear the boy has changed his family name to Plantagenet. That is his correct name. He has been blessed to discover it. Very few in this world know their true names.’
The physician was lost.
‘The vegetative energies are exceptionally strong, are they not?’ Bernard added. ‘We look around ourselves and everywhere we see the energy of trees and plants. What did the Saviour say? “I am the true vine.” One abandons a building for a year or so and what happens?’
‘Vines, grass and trees …’
‘Exactly,’ the holy man cut him off. ‘The vegetative force.’ He beckoned a monk. ‘Go to the infirmary and fetch a cask of medicine. A full cask.’
‘It will require a cask?’ the physician asked. A cask indicated not the severing of a foot, but of a leg.
Bernard’s thin hand was warm and the physician could feel its every bone. ‘Dear physician,’ he said, ‘human plans are clumsy. God’s plans are subtle. But we are loved. All of us. Saints and sinners alike.’ He paused. ‘I find that hard to understand. Day and night I pray for my spiritual pride to abate and grant me comprehension.’
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