The Young Lion

by Blanche d'Alpuget

  ‘You’ve exhausted me,’ he gasped. ‘What a cruel way to treat your student.’

  Despite herself, Eleanor laughed. It was almost dawn.

  At dinner that day Richard de Cholet whispered to Eleanor, ‘You look radiant, my dear.’

  ‘She tried to kill me,’ Henry said. Everyone chuckled, even the Duchess. She agreed to her husband’s suggestion that she summon her magnates and clergy to parley with their Duke, and after this meeting, that they all ride down to Bordeaux. All, that is, except Guillaume. He had left early that morning for Barfleur, where Henry’s army was gathering.

  The new Duke of Poitou and Aquitaine wrote to Rachel:

  My Darling,

  My soul pants for you. When I think of you, and I sense you thinking loving thoughts of me, I feel them as warm blood around my heart. Your love heals every wound of the world, for you are Love incarnate. Kiss our little Geoffrey a thousand times for me. Close your eyes and imagine my tongue caressing your lids.

  H

  ‘To whom did my husband write?’ Eleanor asked the servant who had taken the letter to a post-rider.

  ‘Someone in Rouen, Duchess.’

  I guessed as much, she thought.

  Wherever he was, Henry wrote each day to Rachel, and once a week to the Dowager, who gushed about her love for Rachel and baby Geoffrey. He had not dared tell his mother in advance that he would marry Eleanor, nor did she in her letters refer to it. Since Geoffrey’s death she had discovered a cache of Eleanor’s love letters to him. Her first impulse was to burn them. But when cool reason defeated emotion, Matilda stashed the harlot’s letters in the strongbox that held, among its other treasures, the crown jewels of Germany.

  News of the marriage reached Louis in forty-eight hours, leaving him at first incredulous, then in a rage so intense royal servants feared for their monarch’s sanity. ‘The vixen planned this all along!’ he screamed. He summoned a conclave of barons to the palace. ‘The Anjevin scoundrel’s stolen my wife!’ he shouted at them. ‘He’s breached our feudatory laws!’

  Some of the barons urged their king to revoke the annulment of his marriage to Eleanor; others that he petition the Pope to excommunicate her and her new ‘husband’.

  ‘I’ll order them to Paris to answer the charge of treason,’ Louis announced.

  When Henry read the summons he tore it in two.

  News of the shocking, lawless marriage and of imminent invasion tormented King Stephen in England. Eustace announced a ban on the singing of ‘The Young Lion’ in taverns, and even in private homes. He ordered that Eleanor be known as ‘the Harlot Duchess’ and ‘the Great Adulteress’, and set sail for France ‘to comfort my brother’. Across the Rhine there was mirth. In Lombardy, riotous song. Even in Catalonia people stopped each other in the street to gossip about it. Henry Plantagenet had just turned nineteen and was recognised as the greatest magnate in Western Europe. Now he was about to conquer England – and some people had it on good authority that he could fly.

  Prince Eustace persuaded Louis to attack Normandy two days before Henry was due to sail to England.

  ‘I shall divide among you the territories we conquer: first Normandy, then Anjou, Poitou and Aquitaine,’ the King promised his allies, among them Young Geoffrey. ‘Nothing will be left of the Anjevin.’ He wanted to refer to ‘Weed Hat’ and to what upstarts the Anjevins were, but wished to avoid insult to his new ally, Young Geoffrey Plantagenet. Louis, his allies and his generals all based their war plan on the expectation that Henry would ride to the defence of Normandy.

  ‘How can a king be so stupid?’ Henry asked Eleanor, who had ridden with him to Caen. ‘Had he waited a week he could have picked off my Norman castles as if they were cherries – and forced me to abandon the invasion of England.’

  His wife was afraid. ‘I’ve seen Louis in a rage … Henry, he’ll burn Normandy – even this castle we’re in – to the ground.’

  Henry looked pensive, but this was a conversation he had been hoping for. ‘My lady, if Louis takes Normandy I’ll lose my title as Duke. But I’ll win it back. His magnates and many prelates, however, will insist you lose your head. And that cannot be restored.’

  She understood. ‘What do you need?’

  ‘Enough gold for twenty-thousand mercenaries.’ She looked stunned. ‘Louis will get the fright of his life. And you’ll share the victory with me.’ He could read from her expression that she was dubious. She had as little understanding of warfare as her ex-husband. He took her chin and kissed her. ‘I’ll tell you a secret,’ he whispered. ‘Normally, I’d only tell this secret to my military commanders …’

  She gazed at him with child-like wonder. Henry bent to her ear. ‘I won’t try to relieve Normandy. I’ll attack the Vexin instead. Fifteen-thousand infantry will easily overrun it. I’ll send reserves towards Paris.’

  ‘Paris!’

  He laughed. ‘A feint. I don’t want Paris. I want Louis to shit himself – I beg your pardon – I want the King to come to his senses.’ His wife’s kisses and his kisses to her were sweeter than on their wedding night. Henry revelled to himself, I’ve sprung open the treasury of Aquitaine!

  Henry rode straight for the Vexin, while mercenaries poured south from Flanders and north-west from Burgundy. The Duke and his cavalry pushed their horses so hard animals fell dead beneath them. Henry ordered that before remounting, each man must make the sign of the cross and bless his horse for its sacrifice. He himself was in tears because a stallion – ‘my friend since boyhood’ – had foundered beneath him with a scream of agony. He leaped clear as it tumbled, and then slashed its throat.

  Henry laid waste to the Vexin and the lands of Louis’s ally Count Robert of Dreux.

  The King complained of fever and withdrew his army further south.

  Henry abruptly swung west and there, with charm and guile, persuaded the castellans of Chinon, Loudun and Mirebeau to surrender to him and join in an attack on his vengeful younger brother.

  Louis’s fever worsened and he took refuge in Young Geoffrey’s remaining and strongest castle, Montsoreau, on the Loire. Henry besieged it. Louis sought a truce and Young Geoffrey flung himself on his brother’s mercy. Henry forgave him and returned all his castles. Sick in body and soul, the King returned to Paris. But nobody doubted that, come spring the following year, he would attack a second time.

  On his journey home Louis broke the truce, burning the town of Vernon.

  Eustace stayed in Paris. He knew the longer Henry was delayed in defending his home territory, the longer before he could attack England. In the evenings the Prince soothed the King’s rat-eaten heart with the songs of a girl he had brought with him across the Channel. She was flat-chested, not yet old enough to bleed. ‘The voice of an angel. Where did you find her?’ Louis asked.

  Eustace sighed. ‘She was singing on a street corner, begging her bread.’

  ‘I’d like to keep her.’

  The Prince fell silent. At length he said, ‘I think she’d grow homesick.’ He glanced inquiringly at the maid, who nodded.

  ‘Does she not speak?’ Louis asked.

  ‘Almost never. I find it hard to get a word out of her. She’s a bird. She just sings.’

  Eustace had cheering news from his father. King Stephen wrote:

  Well done, my son! I’ve had time, and have raised funds through the Church, to import mercenaries to attack the Pretender’s stronghold at Wallingford. They are already wearing it down and only one bridge across the upper Thames remains as its lifeline. It hangs by a thread.

  Wallingford’s castellan, Brian FitzCount, wrote correspondingly dismal news to Henry:

  My Lord, with great sorrow I report that unless you can bring help immediately, I will have to surrender the castle to Stephen before the end of winter. Our rations are down to one small meal per day. The men’s stomachs are as empty as trumpets.

  Henry knew conditions throughout the country continued to worsen: ploughed land, crops, herds, chickens, all were succu
mbing to the years of neglect. Famine was spreading.

  He paced his writing room, unable to bring himself to dictate to the waiting scribe the truth of his situation – that after the war against Louis he had insufficient funds for an attack on Stephen at Wallingford. The mercenaries wanted higher pay to fight in England where, they also knew, rations were scarce. Nor could he command his vassals to contribute to a war in England so soon after they had discharged their feudal duties by fighting for him in France. He sent a man to FitzCount with the message: Keep faith, brave comrade. I hasten to you.

  I have to persuade Eleanor to give me more money, he decided.

  He returned to her in August and together they made the progress through her domains that he had proposed for May. But his wife was now cool towards him and gave every sign she did not want him in her bed. She no longer fears to lose her head, and she knows I’m almost penniless, he guessed.

  Their progress was splendid and excited the populace, but it was not so successful politically. In Limoges a supercilious abbot ordered that the new Duke and his Duchess, encamped outside the city walls, were not to be provided with proper food. When Henry complained of the miserly fare, the Abbot answered that only those within the walls of Limoges had the privilege of its delicacies. Henry flew into a rage. He summoned engineers and had the city walls ripped down while the Abbot stood beside him, Henry holding his wrist in an iron grip. ‘Re-build them with the money you steal from the faithful,’ he snarled as the last stone came down. After this show of power, the southern vassals behaved with respect, if not enthusiasm. They admired their new Duke’s military prowess against Louis, and his will for power. ‘But they hate your ambition for England,’ Eleanor reported to him. ‘They don’t want to join your conquest of a cold, distant island they despise.’

  ‘And you, wife?’ he asked. ‘Do you want to be a queen again?’

  ‘You know I do.’

  ‘If you want to share my privileges, you must share my burdens.’

  Eleanor turned her face away to hide the struggle of her emotions. She wanted to say, get rid of that woman and I’ll give you all the gold in Poitou and Aquitaine. But she remained silent.

  ‘What is it?’ he demanded.

  ‘You write to her every day.’

  ‘What harm is there in a letter?’ His tone was mild.

  ‘Throughout June you did not write to me!’

  ‘I was fighting a war against the King of France. I was somewhat occupied. If I slept, it was four hours a night.’

  ‘But you were not so occupied as to spend three days in Rouen with her,’ Eleanor replied.

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘You spy on me?’

  ‘It was drawn to my attention.’

  ‘I have family in Rouen. I have a mother, three brothers, nine sisters, a son …’

  ‘And her!’

  Henry was seated at a desk about to write to his mother. He smiled to himself, thinking: keep the falcon hungry.

  ‘What do you suggest I do about her?’

  ‘Divorce her!’ Eleanor replied.

  He laughed. ‘Lady, you forget I’m not married to her. Therefore I cannot divorce.’ He thought, I’ll not ask her for a penny. I won’t barter for Rachel with this rich harlot.

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘I know what you say. Say what you mean.’

  ‘Get rid of her,’ Eleanor hissed. Before I do, she thought. ‘I saved her from slavery. The ungrateful wretch has rewarded me by stealing my husband.’

  ‘You’re being ridiculous,’ Henry replied evenly.

  Eleanor had no idea how it had happened, but she thought of Henry every waking moment. Of his tousled head of fire, of his hard blue eyes, his sleek animal strength, his sudden gusts of laughter. The way he sat on a horse – the way horses seemed to love him – the way he cast a falcon, the way he called hounds to heel, the sheer vitality of his body, as if he contained a sun within himself – everything, even the black bile of his temper, absorbed her heart and mind and made her bones melt in yearning for him to love her. He was as beautiful as a rainbow, and as unreachable. His virility was like a coat of shining armour. After their wedding night he had shown desultory interest in lying with her, and only if he had drunk wine. On their progress through her southern domains she suspected he sometimes had whores in his bed, and more than once a young countess.

  ‘Get rid of her,’ she repeated in a quieter tone.

  Henry chuckled. ‘You may as well demand I cut off first my arms, then my legs. What troubles you, lady? We married for your protection, to expand our territories and make ourselves mighty. And to get heirs to carry our line. The fact that my heart and soul belong to Rachel is of no relevance to any of that.’ He stared at her in silence then said, ‘You’ve donated to every church, abbey and shrine that we’ve passed, in order to win moral approval. I think it’s working in your favour. Find yourself a lover.’

  His offer, before they married, to allow her freedom had been the answer to a prayer.

  ‘And be jeered in the taverns again as an adulteress?’ she replied bitterly.

  ‘Choose someone who arouses no suspicion – but allow no cuckoo in my nest. You’re clever at that.’

  They gazed at each other in mutual curiosity. Will it be her favourite troubadour? Henry wondered.

  At length Eleanor answered, ‘I’ll consider your offer.’

  ‘Good,’ he muttered. He’d lost interest in the conversation and was thinking of how to beg his mother for money without inviting the rejoinder that he should ask his wife. Matilda knew the geography of England and understood both military strategy and tactics. He decided to explain his battle plan to her.

  From Henry, Duke of Normandy, Anjou, Maine, Poitou and Aquitaine, to his Beloved mother, Empress Matilda, Dowager Duchess of Normandy, Anjou and Maine:

  Dear Mother,

  Stephen has a stranglehold on our allies in Wallingford and has cut their access to supplies by capturing a bridge across the Thames that was their lifeline. They will starve this winter unless we can relieve them. Our other bases, in Devizes and Bristol, are a long march away through territory already denuded of provisions. Winter rains will make progress difficult if not impossible. I propose therefore to relieve Wallingford by forcing Stephen to leave it, and come to me to defend himself. His stronghold, Malmesbury, is at the point of a salient that thrusts into the triangle of our strongholds of Bristol, Gloucester and Devizes. Therefore I shall attack Malmesbury and make Stephen the one forced to ride through mud. He will not expect a winter attack, but I plan to sail as soon as the Christmas Court is over. I will need three thousand foot soldiers and a hundred-and-fifty knights. I calculate thirty-six vessels should be sufficient to transport them.

  Matilda wrote back:

  I’ve pawned two diadems and a necklace. Rachel has been very helpful and we secured a most favourable rate.

  She added that she would prefer not to spend the Christmas Court with Henry ‘on account of your new domestic arrangements’, but would like to take Rachel and baby Geoffrey to stay in the castle of Caen with her. She had given Rachel the task, she said, of overseeing the breeding program in their stables

  … since her learning in these matters is extraordinary. She works back five generations, allotting each dam and sire a number, and uses an abacus to calculate how their progeny have rated for speed, stamina and courage; based on these figures, she allots certain dams to certain sires. It is most ingenious. The foals out of Jason are doing well, especially the colt from Selama.

  Eleanor meanwhile wrote to Master Erasmus in Paris, asking him to come immediately to Normandy to attend her again as personal physician.

  The Christmas Court in Rouen was more splendid than anyone could remember. ‘My Duchess is the most gracious of hostesses, is she not?’ Henry asked his barons and clergy. He was anxious for her to establish herself in their affection. They were accustomed to Matilda’s imperiousness and parsimony and Henry believed that the new Duchess’s
beauty and elegance would of themselves bring pride to his vassals. The banquets during the month of Advent and the twelve days of Christmas were perfectly suited to Eleanor’s charm, sophistication and experience in organising lavish, lavish feasts. She brought to every undertaking the panache of her artistic nature: the colours with which she hung the feasting tables, the way she dressed the pages and servants, the decoration of the dishes and the order of their presentation. At every feast there was a pièce de résistance, the most fantastic being a large pie from which twenty-four live blackbirds flew out when the crust was cut. Even Henry shouted with admiration and kissed her fervently in front of all their guests. ‘I persuaded my best chef from Paris to come to work for me,’ she whispered to him. A great many other Parisians had come to Rouen in Eleanor’s wake. Ventadour had accompanied them from the south. His singing entranced not only the palace, but the entire city.

  ‘You’re the sweetheart of Normandy,’ Henry told his wife that night. She looked at him with melancholy amusement. ‘You are mine,’ he added, tenderness softening his voice. ‘You and I shall enjoy a month of connubial bliss.’ It’s because Rachel’s away somewhere, Eleanor thought.

  ‘Why have you changed towards me so much?’ she asked.

  Henry seemed taken aback. ‘That was our agreement,’ he replied. ‘During the Christmas Court I’m utterly your husband.’ With a grin, he slapped her backside. ‘If you’re not with child by Epiphany, my lady …’

  He didn’t wait for it to grow dark. As soon as the noontime meal was over he led her to his quarters. The ducal palace was, she told him, a more comfortable building than ‘that monstrosity on the Seine’. But Henry remembered the luxuries of her sleeping chamber in Paris. ‘Make any changes you like,’ he said grandly. ‘I want you to feel at ease.’ After supper, he took her to bed again, sometimes not even to bed, but to a stairwell, or up against a row of shields in the armoury, in a closet, or to the hayloft of the stables. Only once had Louis lain with her other than in their beds, and that was after they had agreed to divorce. ‘You’re a satyr,’ she said as he pushed her into the winter hay. The loft was warm from the horses stabled beneath them and the stallions made low growls and grunts. When they sensed the humans mating, they snorted and pawed at their stalls. ‘This is a good place for us, lady,’ Henry said. You can’t pretend you’re still Queen of France while we’re rutting in a hayloft. Despite your sighing and moaning in Poitiers, you only pretended to surrender to me. But lying in the hay, if I move my hand to your thigh your eyes grow fierce with lust. ‘My little falcon,’ he murmured to her. The voices of grooms walking around below, of the horse master, of other people coming and going, of the stallions growling, all intensifies your excitement. You were born for the shallow thrills of adultery, he thought. My Rachel was born for the sublime incandescence of true love.