When Christ and His Saints Slept

  Henry saw no reason not to name her enemy straight out. “If we are choosing up sides, Lady Eleanor, I would rather be on yours than on Abbot Bernard’s,” he said, and this time her dimple lingered.

  “It is passing strange,” she said, “the odd turns that fate takes. No sensible man would set out upon a long journey without knowing the roads to follow, and yet we all blunder through life without any maps whatsoever. I’ve puzzled you, I can see. I was remembering that long-ago suggestion of your father’s, that we consider marriage for you and my daughter Marie. Who would ever have imagined then what lay ahead? Do not ever doubt, Harry, that the Almighty has a sense of humor!”

  This was the first time she’d called him Harry, and he was young enough to take pleasure in that. But he also felt a distinct letdown. Was this why she’d wanted to see him alone—to revive those scuttled marriage plans? That was such a prosaic and mundane solution to a marvelous mystery. No intrigue, merely a marital alliance. Hiding his disappointment, he said, “I am not sure I understand, Lady Eleanor. Are you offering me your daughter again?”

  “No, Harry, I am offering myself.”

  Henry had been shifting in his seat. But he stopped in midmotion and stared at her. So, she thought, he can sit still, after all. He scarcely seemed to be breathing, his eyes intently searching her face. She knew without being told that he was seeking to make sure she was serious, for it was becoming evident to her that there was a cool, calculating brain behind the heat of those smoke-grey eyes.

  “I accept.”

  “Do not be too quick to commit yourself, Harry. Do you not want me to specify what I am offering ere you say yes?”

  “I assumed you were talking of divorce. But if I misread you and you are offering a liaison, the answer is still the same. I would take you,” he said huskily, “any way I could get you, even barefoot and in rags.”

  “Yes,” she murmured, “but you would not marry me without Aquitaine,” and Henry began to laugh, recognizing in this worldly older woman a true kindred spirit.

  “You are right,” he admitted. “I would not marry you without Aquitaine. No more than you would marry me without Normandy. Since we are being so candid, what of England? Is this marriage of ours contingent upon my first becoming king of the English?”

  “No,” she said, “I’ll take you as you are, my lord duke. Your capture of the English crown is not a contingency. But I think I can safely say that it is an inevitability.”

  Henry exhaled an uneven, admiring breath. “What a Queen of England you will make!” To Eleanor’s amusement, he’d already slid over on the bench so that their bodies were now touching. How quick men were to claim possession, to plant their flags! This lad would need no prompting, for certes. He’d made a very promising beginning, kissing her fingertips, her palm, and then the pulse at her wrist. Laying her hand flat against his chest, over his heart, she said reluctantly:

  “I dare not take you to my bed, Harry. No one can have even a glimmering of suspicion about us, for if they do, Louis will never set me free.”

  He knew she was right. He was warmed, too, by the note of genuine regret in her voice. But that still did not make it any easier to agree. “How long do you think it will take to have your marriage annulled?”

  “Most likely about six months or so,” she said, and smiled when he winced and muttered an obscenity under his breath. His eagerness was sweet balm for an old wound.

  When Henry had seen her in the hall, she’d always been wearing the newly fashionable wimple, a delicate white scarf which framed her face while covering her neck and hair. Today she’d reverted to the older style and wore only a gossamer veil, which left her slender throat bare and gave him his first glimpse of her long, glossy braids, adorned with gold-thread ribbons.

  He should have been surprised that her hair was not blonde, for fairness was the defining measure of beauty in their world. But he was not, for he was learning that Eleanor of Aquitaine was a law unto herself in all things. At first, he thought the braids were black, but when he reached for one and entwined it around his hand, he saw it was actually a very dark brown, burnished with auburn glints. He wondered how long it would be ere he’d get to see her hair spilling across his pillow, and his fingers twitched with the urge to untie those ribbons.

  “One kiss,” he said. “Surely we can risk that. We do have a plight troth to celebrate, after all.”

  Even as he spoke, he was already leaning toward her, and Eleanor decided that a kiss was not an unreasonable request. She tilted her face up and he caressed her cheek with his fingers before claiming her mouth with his own. The kiss was unhurried, gentle at first, but with enough passion to make it interesting. When they drew apart, Eleanor was smiling, very pleased with herself and this youth who would soon share her dreams and her bed. They would rule an empire together, she and Harry, and she would give him all the sons a man could want, confounding Louis and Bernard and those who’d dared to judge her so harshly, to scorn her so unfairly as that greatest of all failures, a barren queen.

  She was still congratulating herself on how well her plans had gone when Henry began kissing her again. Her brain warned her this was too reckless, but her body was more receptive to the message it was getting from Henry. His mouth was hot, his hands sliding up her back, under her mantle, pulling her in tight against him. She started to tell him this was dangerous, but by then he was fondling her breasts, kissing her throat, and instead of protesting, she sought a closer embrace, followed him heedlessly into the flames.

  “Christ on the Cross!”

  The cry was strident, sharp enough to rip them apart. Flushed and dazed, they spun around to confront a highly indignant Petronilla. “Have you both gone stark mad?” she demanded. “If you mean to put on a public display, by all means, let’s invite the entire court so everyone can watch!”

  By now, Eleanor had recovered her breath and her senses. “The rain has stopped, so people will be coming out into the garden. Harry…you must go.”

  Henry was shaken, too, belatedly realizing how foolish they’d been. “You are right,” he agreed hoarsely, and managed a crooked grin. “I do not trust myself around you!”

  But still he lingered, until Petronilla turned and gave him a slight push. “Hurry,” she urged, “for I do not trust either one of you!”

  Henry insisted upon kissing Eleanor’s hand one last time before turning away, adjusting his clothing as he strode along the pathway. He paused once, looking back at Eleanor, as she’d known he would, and she watched until he’d vanished from view.

  Stepping into the trellised arbour, Petronilla sat beside her sister and reached over to pull Eleanor’s hood up. “I hope to God he does not look at you like that out in the hall. Apart from the danger of starting a fire, it would be a signed confession of adultery!”

  “You need not worry, Petra. Harry will be discreet.”

  “For your sake, he’d better be!” Petronilla gave Eleanor a sidelong, appraising glance, and then, a sly smile. “So,” she said, “how did your hunt go? Did you get your quarry?”

  Eleanor nodded, only half listening to her sister’s banter. She was still gazing out across the wet, empty garden. “In truth,” she said softly, “I think Harry and I may be getting more than we bargained for.”

  UPON his return to the abbey guest quarters, Geoffrey had instructed his men to prepare for departure in the morning, and then took his hangover and his headache off to bed. He awoke long before he was ready, to find his head still hurting, the rain still coming down, and his son carrying on like a lunatic, banging around the darkened chamber in search of a lamp and making enough racket to be heard back in Anjou. Rolling over, Geoffrey groaned and called Henry a foul name just as a light flared, half blinding him.

  “Go away, Harry, ere I get my strength back and kill you,” he mumbled, trying to blot out the glare and noise with his pillow. But his son seemed to have developed a death wish, for he snatched the pillow away and insisted that Geoffrey sit u
p, utterly unfazed by the steady string of curses being hurled at his head.

  “Here, Papa, have some wine. It’ll make you feel much better,” he said, sounding so odiously cheerful that Geoffrey began to suspect that Maude was an even worse wife than he’d realized, for how could this be a son of his loins?

  He protested in vain, soon found himself propped up with pillows, scowling at Henry as the young man sloshed a wine cup into his hand and then settled himself cross-legged on the foot of the bed. “Maude put you up to this. I know she did, so you might as well admit it.”

  Henry laughed. “Stop grumbling, Papa, and listen. I have a great favor to ask of you.”

  “Quit whilst you’re ahead, Harry, whilst you’re still in my will.” Geoffrey took a tentative swallow of the wine and grimaced. “Where did you get this? It tastes like goat piss.”

  “You were certainly guzzling it down last night without complaint. I am serious, Papa. I want you to set Giraud Berlai free.”

  Geoffrey’s wine cup froze in midair. “Are you drunk?”

  “I am as sober as the sainted Bernard, and very much in earnest, Papa. On the morrow I am going to tell Louis that I’ve decided to cede the Vexin to him. I want peace with the French king, and I want you to help me get it.”

  “This morning you were determined to hold on to the Vexin. What has changed since then?”

  “Everything!” Henry leaned forward, splashing wine onto the bed, but not even noticing. His eyes were shining, his color high. Geoffrey had rarely seen him so excited, not off the hunting field.

  “I think you’d better tell me what this is all about, lad,” he said, and grabbed for Henry’s wine cup, just in time to keep it from being dumped in his lap. “Why are you suddenly willing to give up the Vexin?”

  “For Aquitaine,” Henry said, and grinned. “For Eleanor and Aquitaine. I’d say that is a fair trade, Papa, more than fair.”

  “You…and Eleanor?” Geoffrey was stunned, but not disbelieving; his son was too euphoric to doubt. “Are you saying what I think you are, lad?”

  Henry nodded vigorously. “As of this afternoon, I have a wife…or I will have as soon as she gets shed of Louis. Once she does, we shall wed. So you see why I need to make peace with Louis. I want nothing to distract him from the urgent matter of getting his marriage annulled.”

  “Holy Mother of God…” Geoffrey shook his head slowly. “I thought I’d taken your measure, Harry, but clearly I’ve been undervaluing you!”

  “No, Papa. As much as I’d like to claim credit for this, the idea was Eleanor’s. She is a remarkable woman, and if she were mine, I would never let her go. But Louis will, and once he does, the English crown will be ours for the taking. Can you imagine how Stephen will react when he hears?”

  Henry laughed again, swung off the bed, and went to get another flagon from the table. “So…what say you, Papa? Will you set Berlai free for me?”

  “Of course I will. Although you’ll owe me for this, lad, and you may be sure I’ll remind you frequently of that. Now pour me some more of this swill and let’s talk. I agree that Stephen will likely have a seizure when word of this gets out, for the day you wed Eleanor, you’ll cast a shadow across half of Europe…and all of France. That is why you must think about how Louis will react, too. He is your liege lord as well as Eleanor’s, and if you marry the woman without his consent—which he’d never give—you’ll be making a mortal enemy.”

  “He’ll not like it any,” Henry admitted, “but he’ll get over it.”

  “No, Harry, I think not. He does love her, you see. And if she divorces him because they are fourth cousins or whatever, and then marries you, also a fourth cousin…well, believe me when I say a wound like that will never heal. Trust me on this, for I know more about hating than you. He’ll be cursing you both with his dying breath.”

  “Mayhap you are right,” Henry agreed, “but what of it? Surely you are not suggesting that I do not marry her?”

  Geoffrey’s smile was wry. “No, I am not—and you’d not heed me even if I did. You cannot turn down an opportunity like this, for marriage to Eleanor could make you master of Europe one day. Normandy and Aquitaine and England and Anjou and Maine—Christ Jesus, Harry, Caesar might well envy you! And if you were mad enough to spurn Eleanor’s offer, you’d have to worry then about the man she might marry in your stead. I just want you to understand that she’ll be bringing you the undying enmity of the French king as her marriage portion. It is still, as you said, a fair trade, but you need to bear that clearly in mind, for this marriage will turn Christendom upside down and that is no lie.”

  “I understand that, Papa, truly I do. But can I not have one day just to be happy about it?”

  Henry’s smile was coaxing, and so contagious that Geoffrey had to smile back. “Fair enough, lad.” Reaching out, he clinked his wine cup against Henry’s in a mock salute. “To you and your bride-to-be. I think I can safely predict that your life together will never be dull. What of your mother? Do you plan to tell Maude?”

  He’d caught Henry off balance. “I’d rather not,” he confessed, “for the fewer people who know, the better. But I suppose I should, for Mama would not soon forgive me if I did not.”

  “No, she would not. But you need not worry about her keeping your secret. Whatever she may say to you about this marriage in private, she’d never breathe a word to the world at large.”

  Henry lowered his wine cup. “You think she will not approve?”

  Geoffrey’s mouth twitched. “The empress will counsel you to wed Eleanor as soon as she is free to do so. But I suspect that the mother will find it deplorable that her beloved son must settle for damaged goods.”

  He saw Henry’s head come up at that, and held up a hand to stave off his protest. “You do not like that, do you? Well, you’d best get used to hearing it, Harry, for you will be marrying a woman whose honour is frayed around the edges, or so men think.”

  “Spiteful gossip and slander,” Henry said scornfully, and Geoffrey shrugged.

  “Gossip is still something we all have to live with, lad. If you can ignore it, more power to you. Look, Harry, I am not saying I believe the stories. I told you honestly on the road to Paris that I do not know if the rumors about Eleanor are true. Nor will I lie to you now just because it would be what you want to hear. Eleanor might well be as pure and chaste as the Blessed Lady Mary. Or she may indeed have strayed. But—”

  “If she did, Louis gave her cause!”

  “I am not arguing with you, lad. You need not defend her to me. But I will give you some advice, and I hope you heed me. Let it lie. Decide now that whatever may or may not have happened in her past is between Eleanor and her confessor, and do not pry. Can you do that?”

  “Yes,” Henry said, after a long pause. “But I still say rumors prove nothing. Accusing a woman of wantonness is the easiest way to discredit her, for some of the mud is always sure to stick.”

  “You are right. But God help you, for you are also sounding like a man smitten,” Geoffrey joked. “There is another matter we ought to talk about, though. You were eighteen last March, and if memory serves me, Eleanor turned twenty-nine this summer. Are you comfortable with so great an age difference?”

  Henry shrugged. “Ten years, five months—not so vast a gap. If my memory serves, Mama is eleven and a half years older than you!”

  “Yes, and we’ve had twenty-three years of wedded bliss and marital joy,” Geoffrey said, with a tight smile, too much rancor for humor.

  Henry was quiet for a moment, not wanting to hurt his father by pointing out the obvious, that Maude had never wanted to marry Geoffrey, whereas he was very sure, indeed, that Eleanor wanted to marry him. “It does not trouble me, Papa, truly not,” he assured his father. “She is still young enough to bear children and that is what counts. I have no doubt that she’ll give me sons. She has been unfairly blamed for failing to bear Louis an heir, for you said yourself that he shied away from their marriage bed. Believe me,
that is not a problem she’ll ever have with me!”

  “No, with you, I’d say the problem will be getting you out of her bed, not into it!”

  “Papa…I am sensing some misgivings on your part. Are you just playing the Devil’s advocate or do you truly have qualms about this marriage?”

  Geoffrey did not respond as Henry hoped, with a hearty denial. Staring down into the dregs of his wine cup, he said, “Not qualms, lad, not exactly. I want you to be King of England, and your prospects will be greatly enhanced by marriage to Eleanor. I am pleased for you, God’s Truth. I just wish you were not so taken with the woman herself.”

  “Why ever not? I think it is my great, good fortune that I shall have a wife I find so desirable. Not only is she beautiful, but she is clever and witty and educated, bred to be a queen. How lucky can I get?”

  “I am going to give you some more advice, Harry, that I do not expect you to take. Save your passion for your concubines, your respect for your wife. The best marriages are those based upon detached goodwill or benign indifference. But unfortunately for you, the one emotion you will never feel for Eleanor of Aquitaine is indifference.”

  “Jesú, I would hope not! Papa, I know you mean well. But miserable marriages are not passed down from father to son like hair color or height. It is no secret that you and Mama made mistakes. But why should I not learn from them rather than repeat them?”

  “Why not, indeed?” Geoffrey conceded. “I hope you do, lad. God knows, I hope you do.”

  This was not a conversation Henry had expected to have with his father; he’d thought Maude would be the one to harbor doubts. He was both amused and irked that Geoffrey should be so protective, for his wariness reflected poorly upon Eleanor.

  “Papa, you need not worry about this marriage. I have always known that one day I would rule over England. I have never doubted that. And I am just as sure now that Eleanor is the woman meant to rule with me. I know in my heart that it is so, I swear I do.”