The Captive Queen Part 6

After Henry finally let her return to their pavilion, when the choking dust became too much to bear, she just wanted to flee as far from Limoges as possible, or crawl into a hole like a badger, for she keenly felt her citizens' grief and anger, and the conviction that, in failing to save their walls, she had betrayed them. She burned with fury against Henry, and even more so when they met for dinner later and he made no reference to the events of the day and was his usual genial self. In bed he was once again the ardent lover, by turns demanding and tender, and Eleanor almost managed to persuade herself that all was well, but found it hard to respond because she was deeply preoccupied with concern about what her people now thought of her.

She could not stop brooding. It seemed to her that this marriage that she had defied the world to make had become, in its own way, as much a form of captivity as her union with Louis had been in another. This was not the partners.h.i.+p she had planned for, but a vile endurance, she told herself angrily. She had been duped, no doubt of it. Henry's pa.s.sion had driven her sense of power, but now she saw that it had all been an illusion. Yes, they'd had mutual aims, and he had been happy to consult and defer to her, but only when it suited him. The reality was, he had the mastery of her, by all the laws of G.o.d and man-and was determined to a.s.sert it, even if it meant riding roughshod over her feelings and sensibilities. She seethed at her own helplessness, chafing against the invisible chains that bound her.

There were, of course, no cheers as they rode away from the destruction that was now Limoges, but the rest of the progress pa.s.sed without incident, and Henry cheered up considerably when the people of Gascony showed themselves more than willing to be recruited for his English offensive, and ready to provide him with s.h.i.+ps and supplies. He put it down to word of his strong and uncompromising rule going before him. In the future, these G.o.dforsaken southerners would think twice about defying him! Small wonder they were groveling.

At last they came to the Talmont, that pretty village nestling above the Gironde estuary on a promontory of high white cliffs. Here, Eleanor's family had built a hunting lodge, a place much beloved by her. Yet even here her subjects' antipathy toward Henry was palpable. She cringed when, on the first day they arrived at the mews, her falconers took no pains to hide their dislike, and kept Henry waiting an unconscionable time in his saddle for a bird; and when it was brought to him, he was not pleased to find that it was a lowly sparrowhawk-a bird deemed suitable only for priests or women-instead of the royal gyrfalcon he had been expecting, and which was his right. She, on the other hand, had a most n.o.ble hawk perching on her glove. It had been horribly embarra.s.sing, because for all the servile excuses that no suitable falcon was available, quite clearly the slight had been deliberate.

She said nothing. Secretly, she was gratified to see Henry so discomfited. Let him reap what he had sown!

On the surface, however, they were existing in a tacit state of truce. The weather was still good, despite the lateness of the year, and they rode out hawking daily, admired the spectacular views from the cliffs, went to ma.s.s in the squat stone church of St. Radegonde, and enjoyed each other's bodies every night. And gradually, unwillingly, Eleanor found herself succ.u.mbing again to her husband's charm and dynamism.

"I could live here quite happily," Henry said, stretching, as they lay abed one sunny morning.

"It is beautiful in summer," she told him, her tone still a little clipped and formal, for resentment was yet festering in her. "There are hollyhocks everywhere."

"Then we will come back next year," he promised. His eyes sought hers.

"You are still angry with me about Limoges," he said.

"You had your way. There is nothing more to say." Eleanor shrugged, her eyes veiled.

"But you are holding aloof from me," Henry complained. "I f.u.c.k you every night, and in the mornings too, but I can't reach you."

"What did you expect?" she asked. "You have no cause to find fault with me. I played the part of submissive wife to perfection, at the risk of alienating my subjects. I allow you the use of my body whenever you want it. I am with you in bed and at board. Many couples rub along with less."

"But we had so much more!" Henry flared.

"We did," Eleanor agreed vehemently. "It was you who decided to play the aggressive husband, you who set at naught my hopes for a partners.h.i.+p of equals. I am a captive in this marriage!"

"So I'm being punished," he retorted.

"No, that is how things are now." Eleanor made to rise from the bed, but Henry caught her wrist.

"I love you, you know," he said urgently.

Tears welled in her eyes.

"I love you," he said again, staring at her.

Slowly, she came into his arms, her body racked with uncontrollable sobs, and clung to him.

"There now," Henry soothed. "Now you are mine again. By the eyes of G.o.d, I will make things right between us!" As he fell to kissing her hungrily, Eleanor allowed herself to relax a little. Could things really be once more as they had been before Limoges? She had thought not, but now saw that she must stop nurturing this resentment, and give her feelings for Henry a chance to flower again. As they were flowering now, G.o.d be thanked-or cursed, was it?-under the onslaught of his caresses ...

Returning to Poitiers in December, Eleanor's heart was heavy. Henry was bound for England at last, and impatient to be gone.

"I should make haste," he told her. "I must stop at Rouen on the way to visit my Lady Mother the Empress. It's the least I can do, since she's been so generous with funds for this venture. And I want to consult her about my invasion plans."

Eleanor fumed inwardly. He could rarely be pressed to discuss them with his wife, and still made no secret of his opinion that women should not interfere in politics. But clearly he was willing to make an exception for his mother.

As if reading her thoughts, Henry said, "She is to govern Normandy while I am abroad-there is much to talk over with her. And she knows England well-and King Stephen."

"By all accounts she knew him very well!" Eleanor said tartly.

"Don't believe those old tales," Henry said lightly. "But he did have a chivalrous regard for her, despite their being enemies."

"I wonder at your naivety!" Eleanor grimaced. He threw her a filthy look.

"Remember it's my Lady Mother of whom you are speaking," he reminded her. "Although I wouldn't have put it past her! She'd have eaten him for breakfast, poor weakling that he is."

"I should like to meet her," Eleanor said, not meaning it.

"You will, one day," Henry told her. His disinterested tone betrayed no awareness of any possible grounds for antipathy between his mother and his wife. Eleanor wondered if he knew about her own affair with his father. He had never mentioned it, and neither would she, ever.

Henry's quick, restless mind had moved on.

"I'm leaving Anjou and Aquitaine in your hands," he said. "I know you will rule them both well." Eleanor was surprised and touched, and felt not a little guilty for having jumped to unfair conclusions about him; for not only was he trusting her to look after her duchy in his absence, but also his own county of Anjou, the domain of his forefathers. He was trying to make amends, she suspected.

She smiled at him at last, her eyes brilliant.

"I will not fail you, my lord," she promised.

In the early hours of the morning, Eleanor awoke. It was still warm in the bedchamber, for two braziers had been left burning. In their flickering red glow she could see Henry lying naked on his stomach beside her, the sheet tangled around his legs. He was watching her drowsily, a rare gentleness in his eyes.

"You're awake," she whispered.

"How can a man sleep with you lying next to him?" He chuckled, feasting his eyes on her full b.r.e.a.s.t.s and her long limbs stretched luxuriously before him. "There is no one like you, Eleanor. There never has been, and I doubt there ever will be."

"So there were others before me?" she teased, really wanting to know. Henry had never spoken of any previous encounters with women, although she had heard rumors.

"Legions!" he grinned. Eleanor made to thump him with her pillow, but he stayed her hand. "I am a man, with a man's needs. Of course there were others. But believe me when I say that none compared to you. They meant nothing."

She believed him, yet still felt a pang of jealousy.

Henry was regarding her closely. "Now you tell me," he said, "what happened in Antioch?"

Eleanor was startled. "What have you heard about that?" she asked warily, feeling herself flush.

"That you cuckolded Louis with Raymond, the Prince of Antioch, your own uncle, for Christ's sake, and were bundled out of the city in shame." Henry's gimlet gaze was fixed on her face. "Is it true?"

"Yes, it is true," Eleanor admitted. "You know how barren of love my marriage to Louis was. Like you, I took my pleasure where I found it-but I paid for it dearly. Louis barely spoke to me for a whole year."

"And did you take your pleasure with anyone else?" Henry demanded to know. He was no longer bantering with her.

"Yes, twice, and that only briefly," Eleanor replied in a low voice.

"With my father?" he asked, his expression unreadable.

"You knew?" She was shocked.

"He told me before he died. He begged me not to marry you."

"But you defied him-and, knowing that, you did marry me." Eleanor was incredulous.

"Of course." Henry pulled her toward him. "That's how much I wanted you. For you, I have defied my own father, the King of France and the Church itself!"

"The Church?" Eleanor echoed.

"Yes, my ignorant lady. Don't you realize that your coupling with my father places us within the forbidden degrees of consanguinity, closer than you ever were to Louis?"

"I was not married to Geoffrey," Eleanor said.

"That's immaterial. Our marriage is forbidden-or it would be if the Church had known what you'd been up to."

Eleanor felt a s.h.i.+ver of fear; it was as if the carefully constructed edifice of her world had been rocked. She saw that by her rash actions she had put at risk everything she now held dear. A tremor coursed through her. Henry felt it and tightened his arms about her.

"Fear not," he soothed. "I won't betray our little secret, if you won't."

"But what of the legality of our marriage?" Eleanor asked, shocked, seeing the foundations of their glorious future, the empire they were building, rocking and then crumbling ...

"I care not a fig for that." He grinned. "We Angevins came from the Devil, remember? Why should I bother myself about a trifle like that? No one knows, so no one can question it. Should it really matter to us?"

"No," she said after a pause. "It matters not one whit."

"What does matter," Henry said purposefully, "is this ..." He pulled her on top of him and thrust himself up inside her, fully aroused. "I swear to you, Eleanor, that no Pope or bishop will part us. You are mine forever, mine ... oh, G.o.d!"

Afterward, sated, he lay with her in his arms.

"Who was the other man?" he asked.

"The other man?" Eleanor, relaxed and contented, had no idea what he was talking about.

"You said you took your pleasure with two men besides Raymond of Antioch."

"This sounds like an inquisition," she said, only half joking.

"It is," Henry said. "I need to know. You are my wife and, G.o.d willing, will be the mother of my sons."

"And if I tell you, will you also tell me about the women with whom you have slept?" she challenged him.

He snorted. "I've forgotten most of them. They were just casual encounters. One was called Joanna, another Elgiva ... Oh, and perhaps I should mention Hersinde, Maud, Lucy, Ghislaine, Marie ..." He was laughing.

"Stop!" Eleanor cried. "You're making those names up!"

"Well, I really can't remember them all," Henry said ruefully, playing with her hair. "And talking to them wasn't really called for!"

"You're impossible," Eleanor told him.

He raised himself up on one elbow to look into her face. "There, I've told you what you wanted to know. Now you keep your part of the bargain."

"Very well," Eleanor said. "It was a brief affair with a troubadour called Marcabru."

"A troubadour?" Henry echoed, surprised, and not a little jolted. "A lowborn varlet? You might have looked higher than that!"

"You forget, I had looked higher," Eleanor shot back. "I was married to the King of France, no less, and much satisfaction I got from him!" She snapped her fingers. "Marcabru showed me how to make love, and for that I will always be grateful-and so should you, for you benefit from it."

"Did Louis ever find out?"

"He knew that Marcabru had written verses to me. He considered them overfamiliar and banished him. He a.s.sumed I shared his outrage, and I did not disabuse him of that notion-in fact, I played along with it."

"You lied to him?" Henry asked uneasily.

"I had no cause-he never asked if I had been unfaithful. It would never have occurred to him that I would actually permit a troubadour to make love to me. You princes of the North are all alike in dismissing troubadours as being of little account, but may I remind you, Henry, that in Aquitaine they are accorded a proper respect for their talents."

"This one certainly seems to have had talents beyond the ordinary," Henry threw at her, not quite rea.s.sured. "What was he like as a poet?"

"Terrible!" Eleanor replied, and suddenly they were both heaving with laughter, and the awkward moment had pa.s.sed.

"I will recite you some really good troubadour poems," she said later, when they had calmed down and were once more lying peacefully against each other. "It would be fitting to speak of love on this precious night." And she began telling him about her celebrated grandfather, the talented Duke William the Ninth.

"They call him the first of the troubadours," she said, "and indeed, he did have a wondrous way with words. Some of his works are very bawdy, some very moving. I particularly like the one in which he says, 'All the joy of the world is ours, if you and I were to love one another.' And elsewhere, 'Without you I cannot live, so thirsty am I for your love.'"

"He could have written those lines for us, that good duke," Henry observed, his callused fingers caressing her bare arm. He bent forward and kissed her. "What of his bawdy lyrics? I should like to hear some of them!"

"He was always chasing women in his verse, to one purpose of course, and he wrote that he usually ended up with his hands inside their cloaks." Henry guffawed, as Eleanor went on: "He wrote of women as horses to be mounted, yet at the same time he believed that they should be free to bestow their love freely, and not be forced into marriage."

"That's all very well for the lower orders," Henry opined, "but I can't imagine my barons approving of it! We cannot have our highborn ladies sleeping with whom they please-no man could be certain that his heir was his own!"

"Yet you yourself did not object when I bestowed my love freely upon you?" Eleanor reminded him archly. "I do not recall my holding out for marriage."

"We are not ordinary mortals," Henry told her, only half joking. "We can defy custom and tradition, and break all the rules. We've proved that already, haven't we?" His lips were again on hers, his tongue inside her mouth. For the third time, they gave themselves up to the sweet pleasures of love, knowing it would be long before they tasted them again.

9.

Angers and Poitiers, 1153.

Eleanor was at Angers, Henry's capital of Anjou, when she discovered that she was to have a child, conceived on that glorious night. She regarded her pregnancy as proof that G.o.d looked with favor upon her irregular marriage, and bore the discomforts of morning sickness and fatigue with triumphant fort.i.tude.

Her heart still ached for those dear little girls she had left behind in Paris. It pained her to think there was barely the remotest chance of her seeing them now, for Louis must surely still hate her for marrying Henry, his enemy, behind his back. Yet she consoled herself with the knowledge that this new baby would compensate in some way for the loss of her daughters, and promised herself that never again would she allow any child of hers to be denied a close bond with its mother.

She missed Henry appallingly. Despite the strange changes that pregnancy wrought, she wanted him, needed him. At night her longing for his caresses and his body inside hers was so acute that she had to bite on the sheet to stifle her unwitting moans. Yet the news from England was good. He had landed safely and been rapturously received. Sermons were preached, proclaiming: "Behold, the ruler cometh, and the kingdom is in his hand." It was all stirring tidings that portended well.