by Jean Plaidy
And so he set sail for his troubled possessions across the sea.
There was much to occupy her.
She had set about making a court in England to compare with those which had delighted her in Aquitaine and Paris. Already troubadours from Provence were coming to her court. They were singing their songs of love and often she was the heroine of the romantic stories they portrayed.
Whenever she rode out her clothes were admired by the people who gathered to stare at her and raise a loyal shout. She set new fashions. She was often seen with her hair loosely plaited covered by fine gauze; her gowns with their long hanging sleeves were the delight and wonder of the citizens of London, a city of which she was becoming very fond.
She delighted in the Tower of London at the east end of the city; she liked to pass under the gateway of Ludgate and enter the old cathedral; she loved the river down which she sailed to Westminster past the Strand with the beautiful gardens running down to the river’s edge. It was the power of the city that she loved for it was the richest city in England, and she liked to remind herself that these people were her subjects and that she with Henry ruled over this land.
There were times though when she sighed for the warmer breezes of Aquitaine and she longed to be there again, Henry and her troubadours beside her; but she realised that the destiny which had made him a king decreed that they would often have to be parted from each other, as now when it was her duty to watch their interests in England while he made sure that his turbulent brother did not succeed in his ambitious schemes.
Since she was pregnant she did not miss him so sorely. Her children occupied her time. It seemed that after all she was meant to be a mother for she changed when she became pregnant and when her babies were young. She often thought of Marie and Alix and wondered if they missed her. She thought too of Louis with his new wife and whether he had forgotten her.
But there was too much near at hand and in the present for her to concern herself with far-off days.
There was the new baby, the mischief which little Henry was constantly brewing and the growing weakness of little William.
That was her main concern. His nurses shook their heads over him. He grew more pale and listless every day; and very soon before the new baby was born she knew for sure that when she gained one child she would lose another.
And so it happened.
She was with him when he died. She held his little hand in hers and he gazed at her with wondering eyes as though to ask her why she had borne him since his stay on earth was to be so brief. He was but three years old.
She took him into her arms and held his frail body close to hers.
‘Rest my little one,’ she said. ‘It may be that you have been spared much sorrow.’
And so died little William, the firstborn, the son of whom they had had such bright hopes.
The newly born child was a daughter. Eleanor thought it would please the Empress if this child was named after her so they called her Matilda.
It had not taken Henry long to bring Geoffrey to his knees. Of course Henry had no intention of giving him Anjou. Their father had promised it, it was true, but Henry knew that his father had not been noted for his wisdom. Henry was not going to give Anjou into his brother’s feckless hands. But his father had left that fair land to Geoffrey. There were the conditions plain enough. To be Geoffrey’s when Henry became King of England. So Henry compromised by promising to pay Geoffrey an income of several thousand pounds a year for possession of Anjou.
This seemed a reasonable arrangement to both brothers. To Geoffrey, because he knew he would never be able to hold it against his brother, and to Henry, because he knew Anjou would never be safe while he was not at hand to protect it. Moreover promises could always be broken, and if Geoffrey were such a fool as to believe he could be paid so much money yearly he deserved to lose it.
So the arrangement was made and then Geoffrey had an unexpected offer from Brittany. That province was in turmoil. It was the prey of robbers and needed a strong ruler. As Geoffrey was the brother of the man to whom many were beginning to show respect and who could come to his help if need be, he seemed a good candidate to take over Brittany. It was a heaven-sent opportunity in Henry’s eyes.
Geoffrey would now have a land to rule. He would be an important man. He was to get his pension for handing over Anjou - or rather for refraining from attempting to take it.
All was well for a while.
Henry decided that England could safely be left in the hands of Leicester and Richard de Luci and of his ministers, and that Eleanor who had suffered the loss of young William and had recently undergone the trials of childbirth, should spend a little time in her beloved Aquitaine. The winter would be more comfortably passed there.
Eleanor was delighted, not only to rejoin her husband but to be once more in her native land.
What a joy it was to be there! She felt young again. These were like the days when she and her sister Petronelle had sat in the gardens and played their lutes and sang their songs of the pleasures of love.
Petronelle was now at the court of France of course. She often wondered about her marriage with Raoul de Vermandois and thought of how she had felt a little jealousy because Ralph’s impassioned glances had once been directed towards her. They had two daughters now - Eleonore and Isabelle. That seemed long ago and she wondered how she could have considered the fastidious Raoul de Vermandois attractive.
Now she compared all men with Henry and they suffered in the comparison. That seemed strange for even she had to admit that he was not a handsome man - nor was he tall as Raymond of Antioch had been. Raymond had been a man whom everyone would notice not only for his handsome looks but for his outstanding stature. Henry was a man who commanded immediate attention because of his strength. He was not fastidious as the men she had previously admired had been. He was not gallant; he was too impatient to waste words. There was too much of interest in his life to give him time to rest. He slept little; he was up with the dawn; he rarely sat down; he could not endure inactivity. When his hair, which was thick and curly, was clipped square on his forehead, he resembled a lion, for his nostrils flared and his eyes could be hot with rage. He was clearly made to fit a saddle and when he sat a horse he and the animal were as one. His clothes were never fancy except for State occasions when he realised the need to appear kingly and impress the multitude. His hands were strong and their skin rough, for he scorned gloves and would ride out in biting winds without them. They impeded his progress he said, and were for ladies. He was a great huntsman, a trait he had inherited from his ancestors. It was his most popular form of relaxation. Notwithstanding all his interests he was a scholar. He never forgot the training which his uncle - his mother’s bastard brother - had determined he should have. Henry was a man who needed little sleep, who wished his mind to be active every moment of his waking hours as his body was.
It was small wonder, Eleanor often thought, that she had remained enamoured of him.
He was always in her thoughts. She wondered what would have happened if she could have married him when she married Louis. That made her laugh. Henry had been but a baby at that time. She had never noticed the difference in their ages. Had he, she wondered?
Their passion was as strong as ever, and after their separations which happened frequently, they were united as they had been in the first days of their marriage.
She was, of course, learning to know him. His temper was quick and violent and when it arose everyone around him was terrified. His nostrils would flare and his eyes flash; he would kick inanimate objects and sometimes lie on the floor and pummel it with his fists.
These rages were terrible and when they occurred it was as though devils possessed him.
Eleanor, capable of showing anger herself, was horrified to see the extent to which Henry’s rages carried him. During the first years of their marriage she had seen little of this side of his nature because he had been so content with his marriage and hi
s gaining of the English crown. But when any crossed him, these fits of anger would take possession of him, and once he had decided that any man or woman was his enemy he could never see them as anything else.
Nevertheless she understood him and she loved him and he was sufficient for her. She would have liked him to have joined her on those occasions when her troubadours were gathered about her. She would have liked Henry to have sung a song of love which he had written to her.
Henry had little time for such pastimes. So she sighed and decided that she would hold her little court without him.
There were many who were ready to sing their songs to her. She felt young again. Ardent eyes glowed into hers while delicate fingers - different from Henry’s blunt weather-battered ones - plucked at lute strings.
What have I done since my marriage to Henry? she asked herself as she listened. I have borne children - three in three years. I have either been pregnant or giving birth. She laughed. The duty of a queen of course but hardly fitting for the heroine of a love song.
Henry had seemed content. The death of little William had shocked him, not so much for the loss of the child but because he was his eldest son. They had young Henry - that was good - and Matilda, but Henry wanted more sons. He was constantly speaking of the plight of his grandfather Henry I who had had one legitimate son - though many illegitimate ones - and when that son had been drowned there was only his daughter to follow him. What had happened? Civil war.
‘We must get sons,’ said Henry. ‘We have my little namesake but look what happened to William. We need more sons and we must get them while you are of an age to bear them.’
He was in his early twenties - plenty of time for him. But her? The time when she would cease to be able to bear children was not so far away.
This was the first reference to the difference in their ages. It ruffled her like the faintest stirring of a rising wind.
And so she must go on bearing children. She could be a fond mother but she was a woman of too strong a personality to subdue it to that of others - husband or children.
Encroaching age, childbearing, those were matters for the future. Here she was in her beloved chateau surrounded by troubadours whose delight it was to sing songs to the lady of their dreams, and who could inspire them to such ecstasy as their Queen?
There was one among all those who sang to her who attracted her attention more than any other. This was a handsome young man named Bernard. He called himself Bernard de Ventadour but it was whispered that he had no right to the name. It was true that he had been born in the Chateau de Ventadour, but his enemies said that he was the son of one of the kitchen women and a serf. The Comte and Comtesse de Ventadour, as was the custom with so many, allowed the child to be brought up on their estate and so he would have had access to the castle.
That he was possessed of especial gifts was soon apparent, and as the Count and Countess loved song and poetry he was allowed to join their company of singers.
It soon became clear that he was a poet of no small ability and as both the Count and Countess encouraged him, his fame spread and many came to the castle to hear his verses.
The subject of these was, naturally, love, and every poet of the day selected the most beautiful and desirable lady of his circle to whom to address his words. The Countess of Ventadour was undoubtedly a beautiful woman and to whom should a member of her household address his poems but to the lady of the castle?
The songs of Bernard grew more and more daring and as he sang them he would sit at the feet of the Countess and give her the benefit of his eloquent love-hungry eyes. This was the custom; each troubadour had his lady; but most of the troubadours were of noble families and that the son of an oven girl and a serf should raise his eyes to a countess and sing of his longings was more daring than could be countenanced.
In any case the Count thought so. He told Bernard that there was no longer a place for him at the Chateau de Ventadour.
Bernard could do nothing but prepare to leave. He was not unduly disturbed, for he had heard that Queen Eleanor was in residence in her native land and his reputation as one of the finest poets in the land had travelled far.
He presented himself to Eleanor who received him immediately for she had long admired his poems and even set some of them to her own music.
‘You are welcome,’ she told him. ‘I look forward to hearing you sing for us.’
To express respectful admiration was second nature to Bernard. And now that the beauty of the Countess was removed it was replaced by a brighter luminary. Eleanor could not help but be pleased by the frank admiration, bordering on adoration, which she read in his eyes. It was comforting following on Henry’s implication that they must get sons while she still had time to bear them.
Bernard, now known as Bernard de Ventadour - as fine a name as any of Eleanor’s courtiers - became the favoured poet of the Queen’s entourage. He was constantly at her feet. Poems and songs poured from him and their subject was always Eleanor, the Queen of Love.
She could not but be pleased. Bernard had such a beautiful voice. He was writing some of the best poetry in France and it was to her. Such words intoxicated her.
Henry came once upon her circle of troubadours and sat down among them. His quick eyes took in the sprawling figure of Bernard de Ventadour at her feet and he noticed the soft looks Eleanor cast in the poet’s direction.
His eyes narrowed. He did not think for one moment that this emotion which was obviously between them could possibly be the result of physical love. Eleanor would have too much sense. Any child she bore could be a king or queen of England and she was enough a queen to know that child could have only one father and he the King. Even so, there was no doubt that she liked this pretty fellow with his delicate beringed hands. He wondered whether Eleanor had given him the rings he was wearing.
He watched and listened and he remembered that very soon he would have to bring his bastards to court. For Avice’s children that would be easy, for they had been born before he had known Eleanor. But young Geoffrey, Hikenai’s son, would need a little explaining because he had been born after their marriage. For all Eleanor’s lively past she had been a faithful wife, which was surprising. But she had been fully occupied with childbearing. No sooner was one child born than another was on the way and there had been little time for any extra-marital adventures as far as she was concerned. He could see by her fondness for these poets who sang of a love which never seemed to reach any physical fulfilment that she was living in some romantic dream and that meant that it would be difficult for her to accept the needs of a man such as himself. He was no romantic. He was a realist. Women were important in his life and he had no intention that it should be otherwise. It was something she had to come to terms with, and she would on the day he brought young Geoffrey to court and had him brought up in that special manner reserved for a king’s bastards. His grandfather Henry I had had enough of them. William the Conqueror had not it seemed. He had never heard of a single one of his. But no one could hope to be like the Conqueror who had only lived to conquer and rule. These were good enough matters but not enough to fill a man’s life. And Eleanor would have to be made to understand.
He saw in this Ventadour affair a means of making his task easier when the moment came to confront her with young Geoffrey.
He rose suddenly in the middle of one of Bernard’s songs and left the company. Eleanor looked after him with amazement but she remained seated until the song was finished.
Then she said: ‘It seems that the King was not pleased with your little piece, Bernard.’
‘And my lady?’
‘I thought it excellent. If the lady you sing of really is possessed of so much beauty and virtue she must be a goddess.’
‘She is,’ replied Bernard fervently.
‘And your recital of her virtues clearly bored the King.’
‘I care not for the King’s boredom if I give the Queen pleasure.’
‘Be careful,
Bernard. The King is a violent man.’
He bowed his head. How graceful he was! How gallant! And how she loved his poetry!
When she was alone with Henry he decided to begin the attack.
‘That oven girl’s bastard will have to leave the court,’ he said.
‘Bernard! Why he is reckoned as one of the greatest poets in the country.’
‘A slut’s bastard to give himself airs!’
‘His talent makes him equal to an earl.’
‘Not in my eyes,’ said the King. ‘And I like not the insolent manner in which he regards you.’
‘Insolent! He is never that. He respects none as he does his Queen.’
‘By God,’ cried Henry, ‘it seems the fellow aspires to be your lover.’
‘Only in his dreams.’
‘Dreams! The upstart dog! Tell him that I shall send him back to the ovens where he belongs.’
‘No great poet belongs working at an oven. You have some learning, Henry. You have a respect for talent … one might say genius.’
‘And I say insolence,’ shouted the King. ‘I’ll have his eyes put out.’
‘The whole of Aquitaine would rise against you. A great poet … one of our greatest … and simply because he writes a poem …’
‘To the Queen,’ cried Henry, ‘to whom he suggests … what does he suggest? By my mother’s blood; if words were deeds he would be in your bed. I swear it.’
‘But words are not deeds and I trust I know my duty.’
The King seized her by her shoulders and threw her on to the bed.
‘Know this,’ he said, ‘if ever I heard that you had deceived me I would kill your lover. Do you know that?’
‘And rightly so. I would not blame you.’
‘So you would not have blamed Louis if he had killed your lovers.’
‘Talk to me not of Louis.’
‘Indeed, I am no Louis.’
‘Would I have loved you, borne your children if you had been?’
