When Eleanor entered, she gave her sister a distracted embrace, then sent a servant for wine. “I never thought I’d say this, but today I almost miss those wretched, wet English fogs.”
“How does Harry fare?”
“Better. His fever broke three days ago.” Sitting down heavily upon the settle, Eleanor groped for a pillow to put behind her back. “It was good of you to come, Petra.”
“Of course I came. Your letter made it sound as if you might be a widow at any moment!”
“If I’d listened to those fool doctors, I’d have been picking out my mourning garb.” Eleanor shook her head impatiently. “I told them that unless Harry could rule in absentia, he’d never agree to die.”
“You say his fever has broken?”
“Yes, on Friday, and he’s begun complaining about the food and the doctors and the heat, a sure sign that he is on the mend. Although he did give us a scare yesterday. A courier arrived with word of Becket’s latest outrage whilst I was lying down, and those dolts let the man in to see Harry. He started shouting like a madman, insisted upon getting out of bed, and collapsed in the floor rushes like a sack of flour since he is still as weak as a newborn.”
“What has Becket done now?”
Eleanor grimaced. “On Whitsunday, he celebrated Mass at Vezelay and pronounced sentences of anathema and excommunication upon seven of Harry’s lords, including his justiciar, Richard de Lucy. He also condemned the Constitutions of Clarendon and freed the English bishops from their oaths to obey them. And he even threatened to excommunicate Harry himself and lay all England under interdict.”
Petronilla sighed; she was thoroughly bored by this endless squabbling between Becket and her brother-in-law. “What happens now?”
“Harry means to order the English bishops to appeal to the Pope against these censures.”
A wisp of hair had escaped Eleanor’s wimple and was tickling her cheek; she tucked it away and leaned back against the settle, closing her eyes. Petronilla was not surprised that she looked fatigued; she’d wager every soul in Chinon was careworn from catering to Harry’s sickbed whims. “You ought to be flushed in this heat, not as white as chalk,” she said critically, reaching over to feel Eleanor’s forehead as the door opened and a servant entered with a flagon of wine, two cups, and a plateful of fresh-baked wafers. “Set it by me,” Petronilla directed and filled the cups. The wine was a strong red Gascon and she savored every swallow. “You’d not believe the swill I was served on the road. Here, Eleanor, have one of the cheese wafers.”
Eleanor shook her head, recoiling when Petronilla tried to pass her a wafer. “Just the smell of it is enough to make my gorge rise.”
“Are you ailing?” Petronilla gave her sister a speculative look. “You’ve never been one for queasiness, except… Good Lord, Eleanor, has Harry gotten you with child again?”
“Well, I surely hope it is Harry’s,” Eleanor said tartly. She was obviously irked by her sister’s disapproving tone, but Petronilla doubted that she’d welcomed this pregnancy with heartfelt joy. What woman of forty and four years would?
“I know you’ve enjoyed confounding those who claimed you’d ever be a barren queen, but even so… What are you and Harry doing, going for a baker’s dozen? When is this one due?”
“In January. It happened whilst we were at Angers for Eastertide.” Petronilla scowled, thinking it a pity that Harry had not stayed longer in England. No wonder Eleanor looked so wan. If the fates had been less kind, she’d have found herself a pregnant widow, bequeathed each and every one of Harry’s enemies, struggling to hold together a far-flung empire for a son who was all of eleven years. She held her tongue for once, though, and glancing at her sister’s taut profile, she could only hope that this eighth pregnancy would be an easy one and, God Willing, the last.
No sooner had Henry risen from his sickbed than he was in the saddle. Conan, Duke of Upper Brittany, was viewed by the Bretons as an Angevin puppet, and a rebellion had recently flared up, ignited by a disaffected baron, Ralph de Fougeres. By June 28, Henry’s army was at Fougeres. It was said to be impervious to assault, but it fell to Henry on July 14. He then pushed on into Brittany, where he deposed the inept Conan, betrothed his young son Geoffrey to Conan’s daughter and heiress, Constance, and took possession of the duchy in his son’s name.
Autumn that year painted the countryside in vivid shades of scarlet, saffron, and russet, and the days were clear and crisp under harvest skies. But Henry had little time to enjoy the splendors of the season. Even his passion for the hunt went unsatisfied as he passed the days in a whirlwind of councils with allies and enemies alike-the Count of Flanders; Theobald, Count of Blois; the perpetually discontented Poitevin lords; the new King of Scotland; a papal envoy; and Matthew of Boulogne, scandalously wed to King Stephen’s daughter Mary, former abbess of Romsey Abbey.
By November 20, he was back at Chinon Castle, and it was here that he received his justiciar, Richard de Lucy, and his uncle Rainald, Earl of Cornwall, bearing news of yet another Welsh setback. Owain Gwynedd had taken advantage of Henry’s absence from England to capture and destroy Basingwerk Castle. Under the command of the Earls of Leicester and Essex, men were dispatched to rebuild it, but they’d been forced to retreat back across the border in disarray.
Chinon’s Great Hall was crowded, for Henry’s own retainers were augmented by the new arrivals from England and a sizable contingent of Poitevin lords, squirming under the king’s watchful eye. After a time, Rainald took refuge in a window seat alcove, where he made himself as comfortable as his aching muscles would allow, occasionally intercepting a passing wine-bearer or nodding with forced joviality if he happened to spot a familiar face. The night was mild and the hearth fires well tended; Rainald was soon dozing, his chin resting on his chest, fingers loosening around the stem of a tilting wine cup. But when another hand reached over to steady the goblet, he jerked upright, blinking blearily until his tired brain processed the information that the wine thief was his nephew.
Henry was grinning. “I think you’d rally on your very deathbed if someone waved a flagon under your nose.” Sitting down in the window seat, he waved aside the inevitable flock of hangers-on, indicating he wanted some semiprivacy with his uncle. As they reluctantly retreated, he handed Rainald back his wine cup. “Feeling your age, Uncle?”
Rainald’s answering grin was swallowed up in a huge yawn. “Aye, lad, I am, and why not? When you reach the advanced age of fifty and six, too, you’ll find that even your vast stores of energy will be well nigh empty.” He was not surprised by Henry’s amused disbelief. Still in his high noon at thirty-three, how could he envision a twilight waning?
“These old bones are getting too brittle for journeys like this,” Rainald complained good-naturedly. “Lord knows why de Lucy was in such haste to find you, what with all our news being so bleak!” He glanced toward the center hearth, where the justiciar was chatting amiably with several bishops and the Earl of Salisbury, Henry’s military commander in Aquitaine. “At least Becket’s curse has gone astray,” he said, pointing out the obvious: that none were obeying the Church’s dictate to shun the excommunicate justiciar as one of God’s castaways.
The mere mention of Thomas Becket’s name was enough to sour Henry’s mood. “Have you heard the latest about our archbishop in exile?” he asked, the words dripping with sarcasm. “Becket left his refuge with the Cistercians of Pontigny, is now under the protection of that fool on the French throne. Louis even dispatched a three-hundred-man escort to welcome Becket into his new roost, the abbey of St Columba, outside Sens.”
“It is difficult to understand how a man of God can stir up so much of the Devil’s mischief.” Seeing that his commiseration had chafed rather than soothed, Rainald marveled how easy it was to misspeak if Thomas Becket was the topic of conversation, and hastily sought to change the subject. “How does Eleanor these days? Is she still at Angers?”