He must see to Minna’s welfare, make sure she was looked after. So many letters to write. Rainald must be told. His cousin Maud. Ranulf. For a fleeting moment, he experienced a yearning so intense it was like a physical ache, a longing for… what? The company of one who understood, who needed no words. Hamelin meant well, but he’d never found it easy to share the secrets of his soul. So few people he’d confided in over the years, so few he’d truly trusted.
Closing his fist around the pebbles, he called them up, the ghosts of his past. His father. His brother Will. His uncle Ranulf. His mother. Eleanor. Thomas Becket. After a hesitation, he added Rosamund Clifford’s name to the roster, for her loyalty was absolute, wholehearted. The stones clinked together like dice, and he held his hand out over the pond, loosened his grip and let them drop, one by one, into the water. He sat there for a time, watching the eddies ripple across the silvered surface of the pool until his vision blurred and his tears came.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
December 1167
Winchester, England
Eleanor could not stop shivering. Cursing the damp English winter, she moved closer to the hearth, but the flames were not hot enough to dispel her chill. It had been raining for more than a week, an icy, soaking rain that drowned all memories of sunlit springs and better days. Eleanor’s small son had been affected by the gloom, too, fretting and whimpering, resisting his nurse’s attempts at comfort. When Eleanor could endure John’s mewling no longer, she snapped, “For the love of God, fetch Rohese. He cannot cry if he’s suckling.”
Eleanor’s attendants eyed her warily, as they’d learned to do in the eleven months since John’s birth. None complained or protested, even though one of them would have to venture out into that miserable, wet night in search of Rohese. John’s fussing increased in volume, progressing from low wail to high-pitched shriek. The Countess of Chester had always been adept at soothing querulous babies, but she had no luck with John and hastily handed him over to the wet-nurse once Rohese had finally been found.
Maud then took matters into her own hands, announcing that she wanted to visit the chapel to pray for the queen’s safe return to Normandy. This pious declaration earned her a startled look from Eleanor, which she blandly ignored. “Will you accompany me, my lady, so we may pray together?”
Eleanor wavered momentarily between common sense and curiosity, but the latter won. Signaling for her mantle, she rose reluctantly to her feet and was soon following the flickering glow of Maud’s lantern out into the rain-drenched darkness. By the time they’d reached the chapel, her skirts were sodden, her shoes muddied, and she was convinced that curiosity must be one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
Candles flared upon the altar, and a torch in one of the wall sconces was lit, but the priest was not present. Probably warm and snug before a blazing hearth, Eleanor thought sourly, in a mood to begrudge anyone comforts she was not sharing. “The next time you get an irresistible urge to commune with the Almighty, Maud, make it a solitary quest.”
“This was not one of my better ideas,” Maud agreed, wringing moisture from the hem of her mantle with a grimace. “But I could think of no other place for us to be utterly alone, safe from eavesdroppers.”
“There was always my bedchamber, which is not only private but reasonably dry.”
“Now you’re being disingenuous, Eleanor. I could not dismiss your ladies or servants. All I could do was to make you curious enough to..”
When she paused, Eleanor suggested, “Take your bait?”
“Well, yes,” Maud admitted and then she grinned. “I will indeed pray that God gives you an easy sailing, though. Anyone who sets foot on shipboard is deserving of prayers.”
“Is that also true for a wife returning to an unfaithful husband?” Eleanor asked coolly. “I’ll take your prayers, Maud, but I’ve no need of your advice.”
“No? Then why did you ‘take the bait,’ as you put it? I think you do want to talk about your return, and who better than me? I am good at intrigues and at keeping secrets, impossible to shock, and however dismal your marriage may seem at the moment, it is infinitely preferable to the calamity that was mine, so you need not fret that I’d respond with either smugness or pity!”
Amused in spite of herself, Eleanor leaned back against the altar, regarding the other woman challengingly. “What is there to discuss? I will be joining Harry at Rouen for his Christmas Court and you were summoned to Winchester so I could bid you farewell ere I left England.”
Maud was quiet for a moment, knowing that she’d be entering a verbal quagmire, one rife with pitfalls. In their world, a husband’s adultery was something to be endured or ignored. Even queens had to play by those rules. If only she could be sure that Eleanor understood that.
“How are you going to handle it, Eleanor? Do you intend to give Harry an ultimatum about the Clifford wench?”
“Of course.” Eleanor’s eyes glinted. “What would you have me do, compete with that insipid, ordinary child for Harry’s favor?”
“No… but have you thought about his likely response? Even if he is already tiring of the girl, he might balk at being given a command. Men tend to get their backs up as often as their cocks. What will you do if Harry refuses?”
There was a prolonged silence. Eleanor’s lashes swept down to veil her eyes, but the flickering candlelight revealed the stubborn downturn of her mouth. “I will make sure,” she said, “that he greatly regrets it.”
This was what Maud had feared. “I do not doubt that. I just want to be certain that none of the regrets are yours. I understand your desire to punish Harry for his betrayal, but that is such a dangerous road to start down. However justified your grievances, you cannot ever forget that a woman’s power is a derivative commodity, borrowed at best-”
“Forget?” Eleanor spat. “You truly think I could forget that? After Antioch?”
As familiar as Maud was with Eleanor’s combustible temper, she had never seen it take fire so fast. “Antioch?” she echoed, momentarily perplexed.
“Yes, Antioch,” Eleanor shot back, and in her mouth the name of that elegant crusader kingdom became a harsh obscenity. “Do not pretend you do not know what happened in Antioch, Maud. Even holy hermits under a vow of silence heard of the great scandal caused by the King of France’s wanton, wayward queen. If gossip is to be believed, I was guilty of adultery and incest and single-handedly brought the crusade to ruin.”
“Yes… if gossip is to be believed.” The stories that had trickled out of Syria were indeed salacious and shocking. It was said that Eleanor had taken her uncle Raymond, Prince of Antioch, as her lover, declared her intention to annul her marriage and remain in Antioch, and had been compelled by Louis to accompany him on to Jerusalem. Maud had not believed the rumors, though, not once she’d met Eleanor. The young French queen had been willful and reckless, but she’d never been a fool.
“The crusade was botched from the beginning,” Eleanor said, with a bitterness that not even the passage of nearly twenty years had abated. “And then at Antioch, Louis balked at going to the rescue of Edessa, contending he must first carry out his vow to reach Jerusalem. I thought that was madness and so did Raymond, a military blunder that might well lose Antioch, too, to the infidels. When Louis refused to heed us, I warned him that if he did not attack Edessa as agreed upon, I would remain in Antioch and keep my vassals with me. He insisted that I must obey him and he quoted from Scriptures, that wives must submit themselves to their husbands as unto the Lord. It was then that I told him I wanted to end the marriage.”