As always, he smiled at her use of “Henry.” She’d made a good-faith attempt to switch over to “Harry” in order to please him, but she was so obviously uncomfortable with the informality that he’d soon taken pity and urged her to revert back to his given name. Now she alone called him Henry and she’d come to relish the exclusivity of it. He was still as restless as he’d been as a boy, never able to sit still for long, and he’d begun pacing as he considered her question. She felt a great surge of pride as she watched him, and an empty, hurtful ache, a bittersweet regret that this son she so loved could not have been Brien’s.
“It is hard to say, Mama. It all depends upon who has the French king’s ear. If it is Abbot Bernard and the Bishop of Lisieux, they may well persuade him to talk peace. If he is fool enough to keep listening to Eustace, we’ll all be the losers for it.”
Ranulf was intrigued by his nephew’s candor, for it was his experience that young men invariably proclaimed their eagerness to go to war, and with many, that eagerness was even genuine. But Harry had an uncommonly pragmatic view of warfare for one in only his nineteenth year; he’d proved himself willing to do what must be done to win, but it was clear he took no pleasure in it. To test his theory, Ranulf said, “So you hope your differences with Louis can be settled by negotiation?”
“Of course. I’d choose bargaining over bleeding any day, as would all men of sense. So it goes without saying, then, that Eustace is lusting after a bloodletting. The more I learn about this rival of mine, Uncle Ranulf, the more I realize that Eustace is the most convincing argument possible against hereditary kingship.”
Ranulf and Maud laughed, but Henry’s mother did not, for that sounded like blasphemy to her, even in jest. “How could anyone argue against hereditary kingship?” she protested, and Henry grinned.
“I can assure you, Mama, that I’d be the last one to make such an argument,” he said and was leaning over to give her a hug when one of Maude’s servants entered with an urgent message. Once such a message would have been for Maude; now it was for Henry, for “the lord duke.”
“It is from Papa,” Henry said, gazing down at the familiar seal. Moving toward the nearest lamp, he read rapidly. “That contest over the French king’s ear? Well, it seems that Eustace lost. Louis has agreed to enter into negotiations and Papa wants me to return straightaway, for we are expected in Paris in a week’s time.”
“Thank Heaven,” Maude said fervently. “Now we can concentrate upon the real enemy—Stephen and his wretched son.”
“Easy, Mama,” Henry cautioned. “We’ve not made peace yet. These talks might well come to naught. But we have nothing to lose and possibly much to gain. So…it looks like I’m off to Paris.” He glanced at the letter again and then over at Ranulf. “At the very least,” he laughed, “I’ll finally get to meet Eleanor of Aquitaine!”
THEY had just passed the abbey of Saint-Denis, so Henry knew Paris was only seven miles away, and he spurred his stallion to catch up with Geoffrey. “Tell me,” he said, “about the French king. What sort of man is he?”
“One of meagre importance if not for a hungry sow.” Seeing his son’s bafflement, Geoffrey grinned. “You never heard that story, then? Louis was the second son, pledged to the Church. But when he was ten, he was snatched from the cloisters and thrust back into the world, courtesy of that aforesaid pig. It was foraging for food along the River Seine just as Louis’s elder brother, Philippe, happened to ride by. When the sow spooked his horse, Philippe was thrown and killed. So little Louis was suddenly the heir apparent, and it is a great pity, for he would have made a far better monk than he has a king.”
“Tell me more, Papa,” Henry urged. “What are his virtues and his vices?”
“His greatest vice is that he has none.” Geoffrey laughed at his own joke, and then gave his son a serious answer. “He is very devout, has good manners and a good heart. Nor does he lack for courage. But he is cursed with the worst sort of stubbornness, the stiff-necked, inflexible obstinacy of the weak. And because he is so troubled by self-doubts, he tends to be too easily influenced—invariably by the wrong people. He is melancholy by nature and suffers periodic pangs of guilt over his disastrous attack upon Vitry—that the town where more than a thousand villagers took refuge in the church and died when it caught fire. And he is burdened with a paralyzing sense of sin, a truly pitiful affliction for a man wed to one of the most desirable women in Christendom!”
“He shuns her bed?” Henry was incredulous. “Jesú, the man must be mad!”
“You’ll get no argument from me, Harry. But monks are not supposed to indulge in carnal lust, and Louis remains a monk at heart, a monk married to Eve. They sound even more mismatched, by Corpus, than your mother and me!”
“They do, indeed,” Henry agreed cheerfully; he had no illusions whatsoever about his parents’ marriage. “Tell me more about Eve. Is she that, in truth?”
“Well…she is indeed willful, much more than any woman has a right to be. She is worldly for certes and high spirited and too clever by half. Is she a wanton, too? Mayhap yes, mayhap no. I never had the opportunity to find out for myself. But then, I never thought wantonness to be a female character flaw, at least not in another man’s wife!”
Off to their right, a village came into view, which Geoffrey identified as Clignancourt. In the distance the wooded hill of Montmartre rose up against the hazy August sky. Geoffrey said there were the ruins of an ancient Roman temple on the summit, which offered an impressive view of Paris. Henry was sorry they did not have time to stop and see. He’d never paid much mind to gossip himself, but his father was a reliable source for humor and scandal. “I’ve heard such unlikely tales about their crusade, Papa. Just what did happen in Antioch?”
“Louis made an ass of himself, refused to go to the rescue of Edessa, and doomed the crusade, the Prince of Antioch, and his marriage—all in one fell swoop.”
That made no sense to Henry. “I thought it was the fall of Edessa that stirred men to take the cross. So why did Louis balk?”
“That is what Prince Raymond wanted to know, too. Ever since Edessa’s capture by the Turks, he’d feared that Antioch would be next, and he was relying upon the French king’s crusaders to stave off disaster. When Louis insisted that he could do nothing until he’d fulfilled his vow to reach Jerusalem, Raymond took it badly. Eleanor agreed with Raymond, but she had no luck in changing Louis’s mind, and by all accounts, the quarreling got very hot, indeed.”
“Raymond was her kinsman, was he not?”
“Her uncle. Like many a younger son, he’d gone off to seek his fortune in the Holy Land, and by luck and guile and a fair measure of charm, he’d won himself a great heiress and the principality of Antioch. But when Eleanor sided openly with Raymond, Louis’s advisors claimed that proved she was not to be trusted.”
“I’d say it proved she had more common sense than Louis. If Antioch fell, Jerusalem’s fall would be a foregone conclusion. Was this when Eleanor declared her intent to end the marriage?”
Geoffrey nodded. “And she was shrewd enough to pick the one argument likely to shake Louis to the depths of his pious soul—that their marriage was a sin. Raymond had revealed to her, she contended, that she and Louis were fourth cousins and thus forbidden to wed without a papal dispensation. She then reminded Louis that after eleven years of this ‘sinful’ marriage, he still lacked a male heir. What greater proof could there be of God’s displeasure? Louis was distraught, for in his innocent, odd way, he truly loved his wife. He could not bear to lose her—and Aquitaine—but neither could he abide the fear that he’d offended the Almighty. As I said, Eleanor knew her man; her thrust had gone right to the heart.”
“What provoked him then, into dragging her away from Antioch by force?”
“He sought counsel and comfort from his chaplain and a Templar named Thierry Galeran, a eunuch who’d long chafed under Eleanor’s barbs. He seized his chance to repay her in kind, and he and Odo, the chaplain, convinc
ed Louis that Eleanor’s real reason for seeking a divorce was arrantly sinful—because she’d taken Raymond as her lover.”
Henry was not easily startled, but now he almost dropped the reins, so hastily did he swing around in the saddle to stare at his father. “They accused her of bedding her own uncle? Jesus wept! Was it true?”
“I seriously doubt it,” Geoffrey conceded, with a trace of regret. “Sins are no more equal than men, and incest is a grievous transgression, indeed, far more damning than mere adultery. It is clear from his subsequent conduct that Louis did not really believe it, either, else he’d never have been able to reconcile with her and share her bed again. Be that as it may, he was hurt and jealous and angry, and he heeded his counselors, compelled Eleanor to accompany him to Jerusalem.
“What happened after that, lad, you doubtless know. Louis made a halfhearted assault upon Damascus, retreated after four days, and the glorious Second Crusade was over.”
“I’d say your decision not to take the cross was a wise one, Papa. And their troubles did not end in the Holy Land, did they? I heard they had a harrowing journey home.”
“That they did. Eleanor’s ship was captured by the Greeks, rescued in the nick of time by the King of Sicily’s fleet, then blown far off course toward the Barbary Coast, finally coming ashore at Palermo, where Eleanor was gravely ill for weeks, and where she got word of her uncle Raymond’s death, slain in a courageous, foolhardy clash with the Turks, his head cut off and sent as a gift to the Caliph of Baghdad.”
“And she blamed Louis for that, I daresay?”
“Wouldn’t you? But by then they’d reached Tusculum, where the Pope did his best to mend the rifts in their marriage, assuring them they had God’s Blessing upon their union and tucking them into bed together to make sure poor dim Louis got the point! When she became pregnant, Louis could not contain his joy, never doubting that the Almighty would at last reward him with a son.”
“It must have been a nasty shock when Eleanor gave birth to a second daughter. But I’d wager,” Henry added wryly, “that Louis blamed Eleanor and not God.”
“His counselors did, for certes. The talk in Paris is that a divorce is inevitable. Louis is still resisting—so far. But the marriage is being crushed under a double burden: his conscience and his need for a son. I’d not offer odds on its survival.”
Ahead lay the wooden stockade that protected the right bank of the River Seine. To Henry’s right, he could see a small chapel, surrounded by weathered tombstones; this open, marshy field was the Cemetery of the Holy Innocents, burial ground for Paris. He instinctively made the sign of the cross, but his thoughts were still focused upon the hapless French king and his beautiful, wayward queen.
“So Louis is well meaning and out of his depth—shades of Stephen—whilst Eleanor is willful and mayhap wanton. What else need I know?”
“That she is dangerous,” Geoffrey said and laughed. “Consider yourself warned, lad!”
Henry laughed, too. “You need not worry. I plan to be on my best behavior in Paris. I shall have to be, since you’re intent upon stirring up trouble enough for the both of us!”
THE heart of Paris was a walled island in the middle of the River Seine, the Île de la Cité. Its eastern half was given over to God, to the archbishop’s church and lodgings. The western half held the royal palace. In between lay a maze of narrow, crooked streets, by turns mud-clogged or dust-choked, for the ancient Roman paving stones had survived only in patches. These streets were deep in shadow even at midday, for the houses had overhanging upper stories that effectively blotted out the sun, and they were noisy from dawn till dusk, echoing with the strident cries of peddlers, the pleas of beggars, the boisterous tomfoolery of students, the arguments of tradesmen, the barking of dogs, and always, always the chiming of church bells, pealing out over the city in deafening waves of shimmering sound.
This was Henry’s first glimpse of Paris, and it would be a memory that time would not fade. For the rest of his life, he was to remember the August heat and the clamor and the foul smell of the river, the clouds of white doves circling above the steep tiled roofs as he and his father rode across the bridge known as the Grand Pont, toward the palace where the French king and his queen awaited them.
The Grand Pont was the finest stone bridge Henry had ever seen, almost twenty feet wide, lined on each side with cramped wooden stalls and booths, most occupied by money changers and goldsmiths. It was crowded with pilgrims and merchants and students, exchanging their coins for the French silver deniers. They moved aside for the Angevins and their entourage, and Henry heard his name and Geoffrey’s bandied behind them. It seemed all of Paris knew they were meeting with Louis. He just hoped that some good would come of it.
They were on the island now, passing through the gateway into the Cité Palace. A flight of broad stone stairs led up to the great hall. As they reined in, Geoffrey said that he’d heard of knights riding their horses up the steps and into the hall, and for a moment, their eyes met in a glance of mutual mischief. But the temptation was fleeting. Dismounting, they made a decorous entrance into the hall, not without a shared twinge of regret.
Once stilted greetings had been offered and introductions made on Henry’s behalf, he stepped aside, deferring to his father, for this was Geoffrey’s moment, and he was content to have it so. He welcomed this opportunity to study their adversaries, most of whom he was meeting for the first time.
Louis Capet, the Most Christian King of France, was in his thirty-first year, but he looked younger, tall and slender, with mild blue eyes and bright blond hair. Henry had heard he often wore a hair shirt, and he could not help speculating whether Louis was wearing one now, under his royal robes. He could think of far better uses for the flesh than mortifying it.
Louis’s disgruntled brother Robert, Count of Dreux, stood close at hand, glowering at Geoffrey. Rumor had it that he’d returned from the crusade so disgusted with his elder brother’s military leadership that he’d had it in mind to relieve Louis of the burden of kingship. But even if the rumors were true, nothing had come of his seditious ambitions. Mayhap incompetence was in their blood, Henry thought uncharitably, and turned his attention to a more interesting member of the royal family, Raoul de Péronne, Count of Vermandois, seneschal of France, Louis’s cousin and brother-in-law, for the Church had finally agreed to recognize his adulterous marriage to Eleanor’s sister.
Raoul was much older than Henry had expected, well past fifty. His silvered hair was still abundant, he covered the loss of an eye with a jaunty leather patch, and he had an easy self-confidence that many a younger man might have envied. But Henry could not get past the fact that Raoul must be nigh on thirty years older than Petronilla. He’d long thought their reckless affair was foolhardy. Now that he’d met Raoul, it seemed even more incomprehensible to him. A young heiress with a sister on the French throne, rich lands in Burgundy, and her own considerable charms did not need to settle for scandal and a married, aging lover—and yet she had.
Geoffrey liked to say that if marrying for lust was foolish, marrying for love was madness. For his age, Henry had a fair amount of experience with lust, none yet with love, but he saw no reason to doubt his father’s jaded assessment of matrimony. He wondered if the impetuous, passionate Petronilla was in the hall, for he was looking forward to meeting her. And he wondered, too, if she and Raoul still thought it had all been worth it.
Standing at the rear of the dais, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, was a man Henry had met at his father’s court, the Count of Meulan, Waleran Beaumont. Waleran’s luck had yet to change for the better. After being forced to choose between Stephen and Maude, he was now caught again between two feuding overlords, Geoffrey and Louis. His presence here at Paris showed that he’d cast his lot—however reluctantly—with the French king. He’d come to regret it, though. Henry meant to see to that.
The stocky, balding man in the white surcoat and blood-red cross of the Knights Templars must be
Thierry Galeran, the embittered eunuch whose enmity had done Eleanor such damage. Henry felt an involuntary flicker of pity, for his youthful imaginings could envision no greater loss than the one the Templar had suffered. Thierry Galeran was flanked by the Bishop of Lisieux and Odo de Deuil, formerly Louis’s chaplain, now the new abbot of Saint-Denis. But all of the men upon the dais, even the king, were overshadowed by an aged, gaunt figure clad in the unbleached white habit of the Cistercians, the most celebrated monk of their age, Bernard of Clairvaux.
Bernard was sixty-one, but if Henry had not known that, he’d have added another decade to his age. His hair was snow-white, although his beard still held glints of auburn. Tall and stoop-shouldered, he was so thin that he seemed skeletal, for he’d ruined his health with the harsh privations he’d imposed upon himself in his continuing struggle to humble the body and elevate the soul. But illness had not weakened his intellect or diminished the power of his personality. His smoldering, deep-set eyes burned with combative zeal, with the mesmerizing force of one who knew with absolute certainty that he did God’s Work.
It was Bernard and not Louis who seized the initiative, demanding to know if Geoffrey had brought Giraud Berlai to Paris, as agreed upon. Henry thought it ironic that the saintly abbot would be so concerned over the fate of a lawless baron like Berlai, for the man was no better than a brigand. He understood why, of course. It was all about power. Even princes of the Church were protective of their prerogatives. Especially princes of the Church, he amended, and then braced himself for what was to come.
“Indeed, I did,” Geoffrey said blandly, with a smile that should have warned them, but didn’t. Turning, he ordered one of his men to fetch Giraud Berlai into the hall, and then he winked at Henry, who camouflaged a smile. He did not fully understand why his father took such pleasure in baiting his enemies; he preferred a straight-as-an-arrow path to the target himself and thought feuding was a waste of time. But he tended to be tolerant of other men’s amusements and he made ready to watch Geoffrey’s sport.