“And so his advisers convinced him that you were bedding Raymond?” Eleanor nodded tersely. “For a time, they did,” she said dismissively, making it clear that she had no interest in discussing her uncle. “They persuaded Louis that it would look unmanly for him to leave me in Antioch. And so I was awakened in the middle of the night by men sent by my husband, taken by force from my lodgings and out of the city… as helpless to resist as any cotter’s wife, for all that I wore a crown.”
“You are right,” Maud conceded. “You need no lessons from me as to how the scales of power are weighted between men and women. It is just that I know you, Eleanor, I know that at heart, you are a rebel and have never been one for doing what is expected of you.”
The corners of Eleanor’s mouth softened, curved upward. “You need not worry, Maud. I will not do anything rash… not unless Harry provokes me, of course. And yes, that is a joke.” She did smile, then, although without humor. “Unfortunately, so is his little blonde bauble.”
Patrick d’Evereaux paused before entering the great hall of Argentan’s castle. He moved with the careless confidence of one accustomed to attracting attention, trailing authority and honors and his long-suffering wife like the spume churned up in a ship’s wake. And indeed his entrance did turn heads, for he was not only the Earl of Salisbury and Sheriff of Wiltshire; to those on this side of the Channel, his importance lay in the power he wielded as Henry’s surrogate in Aquitaine.
The hall was very crowded, for attendance at the king’s Christmas court was a matter of prestige as much as pleasure. A baron’s absence might well give rise to rumors that he’d lost royal favor, even encourage his enemies to try to sow seeds of discord with the king. Salisbury’s gaze raked the throng, noting that many of the Poitevin lords were not present even though the queen, their liege lady, was expected to arrive any day now. Their conspicuous absence did not bode well for his tenure in Aquitaine. Seeing that Henry was occupied with the Bishops of Liege and Poitiers, Salisbury decided to approach him later and instead looked about for one who would know if Eleanor’s anticipated appearance was rooted in reality or gossip.
The Earl of Cornwall was the perfect choice, and Salisbury grasped his wife’s elbow, heading in Rainald’s direction. The two men were on friendly terms, and Rainald greeted Patrick and Ela with boisterous, wine-flavored goodwill, kissing her gallantly on the cheek and thumping Salisbury on the back heartily enough to send the earl into a coughing fit. The next few moments were awkward, for courtesy demanded that Salisbury and Ela ask after Rainald’s wife, even though they both knew the frail and unstable Beatrice had not left her Cornwall estates for years. They politely pretended to believe the excuses Rainald made on his wife’s behalf, but then Salisbury remembered he’d not seen Rainald since the death of the empress, and it was necessary to tender their condolences for her loss.
Rainald’s Christmas ebullience was temporarily dampened by these specters of death and derangement conjured up by the Salisburys. Snatching a wine cup from a passing servant, he drank deeply. He soon brightened, declaring that his son had accompanied him to Argentan. Salisbury knew, of course, that Rainald doted upon a natural son, named Henry after the king, but as he followed the other man’s pointing finger toward a youngster in his midteens, he saw that Rainald was speaking of his legitimate heir, the son born to Beatrice.
“The lad over there, standing behind the king…?” Salisbury frowned then, but Ela covered for him smoothly, saying “Nicholas” so naturally that none would notice his lapse of memory. Salisbury took her adroit intercession for granted; that was what a wife was supposed to do, after all. Nicholas was richly dressed, but he lacked Rainald’s vivid coloring and robust stature. The youth standing by Nicholas’s side was far more impressive, tall and well favored, and Salisbury felt a flicker of family pride.
“That is my nephew talking with your Nicholas,” Salisbury said, “my sister’s son, Will Marshal. He was knighted a few months ago and has asked to enter into my service. He’s a likely lad, a good hand with a sword, too.”
Rainald made a sound that passed for polite agreement; his interest in Salisbury’s kin was minimal. But then the name pricked a memory. “One of John Marshal’s get?” When Salisbury nodded, Rainald turned to look at young Marshal with genuine curiosity. He was not surprised that Will needed to make his own way in the world, for John Marshal had a surfeit of sons, six in all between his two marriages, and there would be little provision made for a younger lad. But William Marshal had acquired a certain fame as a small boy, for his father had offered him up as a hostage and then dared King Stephen to hang him, boasting that he had the hammer and anvil with which to forge other sons.
Salisbury knew Rainald was thinking of that same siege of Newbury, for men invariably did upon first meeting Will. But he had no desire to discuss his brother-in-law’s notoriety, Stephen’s unkingly compassion, or his nephew’s narrow escape, and he acted quickly to head off Rainald’s reminiscences. “Is it true that the queen is expected at Argentan?”
“So I’ve been told. She sent the king word that she’d arrived at Rouen and would be joining him for their Christmas court, but I do not know if she’s-” Rainald never finished the sentence. “Now what do you suppose that is all about?”
Straining to see for himself, Salisbury too, was puzzled, by the tableau meeting their eyes. Henry had swung around to face Nicholas and Will, interrupting his conversation with the bishops. Both youths had gone beet-red and even from across the hall, their discomfort was obvious. Rainald and Salisbury exchanged perplexed looks; had Nicholas and Will been foolish enough to offend the king?
Salisbury was inclined to let his nephew flounder to shore on his own, but Rainald’s first impulse was to rush to the rescue, and he was starting forward just as Henry turned away. Their eyes met and Henry murmured something to the bishops, then headed in Rainald’s direction as Ela moved off to greet a friend. Rainald restrained himself until after the exchange of courtesies, but not a moment longer. “What happened? Nicholas looked as if he’d swallowed his tongue!”
“Oh, that… your son was sharing some of the gossip being bruited around the court these days. I suppose he thought they were safely out of my hearing, and in truth, I only caught part of the conversation. But I heard enough to justify putting the fear of God into the lad, so I spun around and told them rumor had it that I was going deaf, too.”
Rainald laughed, relieved that Henry seemed to be taking it in such good humor. He could well imagine the sort of rumor a youngster would find most interesting, the more lurid the better. There was a time when he wouldn’t have been able to resist a bawdy joke, but he was developing a modicum of discretion in these, his autumn years, and he decided that his nephew would not appreciate jests about wronged wives, not with Eleanor about to descend upon Argentan like one of the Furies of ancient Greece. The classical allusion was not his own; that was not Rainald’s style. He’d heard it from Arnulf de Lisieux and it had lodged in his memory, for he’d always had a healthy respect for the queen’s temper, convinced that Aquitaine could match Anjou in sheer heat any day of the week.
Henry had already forgotten about Nicholas’s faux pas; he had far weightier matters on his mind than a young cousin’s gaffe. “Actually, I was looking for you,” he confided to Rainald and Salisbury. “A messenger arrived this morn from England, bearing word that Owain Gwynedd has taken Rhuddlan Castle.”
This was a significant loss for the Crown. Owain had been quick to take advantage of Henry’s troubles in Brittany and Poitou, and the siege had been dragging on for more than three months. Henry was tempted to blame the castellan, but he knew the fault was his; he’d delayed too long in putting together a rescue expedition, thinking the castle could hold out safely till the spring. The Welsh prince had become overly bold, would have to be dealt with. But when? He still had to punish the de Lusignans and the rest of Eleanor’s troublesome subjects. What was it his father had ofttimes said about Aquitaine? Ah, yes… that the barons of Poitou were as perverse as any in Christendom, likely to double-cross the Devil on a whim and then laugh all the way into Hell. They were a vexing people, his wife’s Poitevins, as impulsive and unpredictable and hotheaded as his uncle Ranulf’s Welshmen.