The Dragon and the Jewel

  Then Richard of Cornwall called the barons together and Simon spent a week talking with them. Most of England’s noble families were represented. Before Simon de Montfort had spent three days with them, they recognized him to be a man of rare ability with keen political insight. There was a dearth of leaders in England, and they saw he was a man with a lofty purpose and a resolute mind. Here was no foreign Provençal or Savoyard, but an Anglo-Norman like themselves who would give his all to this England that he had adopted and clearly loved.

  He pointed out to them the genius of the old English institutions established by the late, great Henry II, and each baron realized that here was a man cut from the same cloth.

  Simon was impatient to get back to Leicester to get on with the business of borrowing money for Rome, but before he took leave Richard returned his bribe of five hundred crowns. He handed over the money, saying “When my sister’s happiness depends upon it, how can I think of profit?”

  When Simon returned to Kenilworth, the only opposition remaining to his marriage came from the church. He had traveled so far, so fast that his horse was exhausted, yet Simon himself was not even tired. His spirits were buoyed by what he had accomplished. Now he was keyed up to face the Pope and the papal court to overcome the great remaining obstacle.

  35

  As he neared home Simon realized that Eleanor must know by now of the terrible scandal she had caused and that, by edict of the Archbishop of Canterbury, they were no longer married. It was close to the end of March and she was in her seventh month.

  Word of approaching riders spread quickly at Kenilworth. Eleanor was in the buttery where everything was kept cool, from wine to cheese, when she heard that mounted men were upon the causeway. She rushed to the high Caesar Tower to see if it was Simon de Montfort. She was blazing with anger at him and angry at herself. She should never have let him pursue her, never have succumbed to his charm and his physical magnetism. Sparks had ignited between them from their first encounter. What had begun badly had ended badly. Now the price she would pay would be horrendous.

  He had made her pregnant, talked her into a secret marriage that had been invalidated immediately, then he had deserted her for a month. By the time Simon climbed the stone steps to the Caesar Tower she was ready to draw her knife, but when his tall, broad figure filled the doorway, blocking out the world, she rushed into his arms, blinded by tears, clinging to him, straining to him, for his strength, his protection, and his love.

  She did not want the tears to spoil her face, but to Simon she was always beautiful. He picked her up gently and cradled her with infinite tenderness. He lowered her to the bed and lay down beside her to comfort and hold her. “Try not to be so upset, my own sweetheart. I have accomplished much. The barons and the men of the Cinque Ports will support me.”

  She recoiled from him. “Against Henry?”

  He held his patience. “Eleanor, you cannot have it both ways. Either the barons and all their armies are against us and Henry alone supports us, or it is the other way about. Your brother Richard supports us. He and Isabella are having a child,” he said to divert her thoughts.

  “’tis easy for them, they have a valid marriage!” she cried, struggling up from the bed.

  His powerful arm held her at his side. “It was not always so. Eleanor, as you well know. Compose yourself; it is bad for the child when you are angry and upset.” He smoothed back her wild tangle of black curls and kissed her temple.

  She looked into his dark eyes and saw the tiny reflection of herself there. I am a part of him, she thought, just as he is a part of me. She slid her arms about him possessively. His smooth, full lips molded to hers, and his powerful hands slid down her body to mold her to the great, hard length of him. His hands massaged her back until she relaxed against him. Until she felt his magic touch she had no idea how tense she had been. They curled their bodies together, touching, kissing, tasting, trying to get enough but unable to.

  As he fondled her, she quickly lost all semblance of resistance to him. “Sim,” she whispered, “I don’t give a damn if they keep us from being legally married! I’ll live with you in sin. Kenilworth will be our world.”

  “Kathe, my darling love, I pledge to do everything in my power to get the church to recognize our marriage. Tomorrow I go to Rome to prove that your vow was not binding. I am determined to have the lawfulness of this marriage established.”

  “Oh, Sim, if only it could be so.” The tears slipped down her cheeks and he kissed them away.

  “Why do you cry, love?” he murmured.

  “We only have ’til dawn. ’tis ever the same with us. Promise me when you return you will never leave again,” she demanded passionately.

  “You know I cannot, sweet. I will promise to take you wherever I go … will that satisfy?”

  An unbearable thought came to her. “Oh, Simon, you’ll be gone when my time for the baby comes!”

  He saw the fear in her eyes. “Nay, not if I can help it,” he vowed. His resolution almost failed him. For the first time in his life he knew real, numbing fear. She was so very tiny he feared any child from his loins would be big enough to kill her. Splendor of God, he would have to move heaven and earth to get his marriage validated and return before the month of May was out.

  He held her safe until she slept, then eased himself away from her in the great bed. He knew that almost everyone in Kenilworth was devoted to her, from Jack who supervised the bathhouse to Dobbe the shepherd. He communicated all his worries about childbirth to Bette and begged her to keep Eleanor safe for him. Then he left Kenilworth in the capable hands of Sir Rickard de Burgh.

  He decided the fastest possible way was across the English Channel, then overland to Rome. He took six of his hardest-bitten knights with him because he knew the roads on the continent were thick with thieves, and he carried over five thousand marks.

  In the Holy City there was protocol to be observed before he got an audience with the Pope. He used his time to set out everything on paper about Eleanor, Countess of Pembroke, who lost her husband the marshal at sixteen years of age. He told how she had been so grief-stricken she had sworn a vow of chastity and perpetual widowhood and asked for a dispensation so that his marriage to her could be declared valid. He had a scribe make copies for each member of the papal court, then was left to cool his heels.

  After a week had gone by, he decided to take matters into his own hands. He visited the Pope’s treasury clerk and spoke of money, a language the Vatican understood. “When I arrived I placed five thousand marks with a goldsmith as a donation to the Holy Church of Rome. Each day my men and I stay in Rome depletes the amount of gold on deposit. I have six knights and two squires, and the expense of stabling and feeding our horses alone is heavy. If you could find a way to expedite matters, the money I save on our food and lodging could find its way into your hands.”

  At the end of another week Simon de Montfort had his ruling, but not before promising another two thousand marks. To get the paper in his hand ruling in his favor he would have solemnly pledged another two million, let alone two thousand! He would take a page from Henry Plantagenet’s book this one time and promise whatever it took.

  Simon started the long trek home, arriving back at Kenilworth in record time. May in England was incomparable. It seemed as if the entire country was in bloom. As the earl rode from Dover, his love for England increased a thousandfold. The grass really was greener there, the hedgerows dotted with wildflowers, the meadows neatly bordered by stone walls. Every hill was covered with sheep and lambs, every valley held milky herds, and field after field sprouted from spring planting.

  There was much wrong with England, of course, all of it stemming from the crown. The country was almost split in half. The greed of the Provençals and Savoyards, which the king did nothing to discourage, sowed seeds of discontent among the Anglo-Norman barons so that the king had no English adherents. Disloyalty and disaster loomed.

  In spite of all this, deep in
his heart and soul Simon de Montfort had an overwhelming sense of homecoming. His hungry eyes swept Kenilworth possessively from the distance, and as he neared the causeway he smiled with satisfaction to see that waterfowl had nested upon his newly created mere. Inside his chest a knot of excitement that he’d held in check for so long suddenly exploded. Anticipation of seeing her, touching her, then watching her face as he gave her his news filled his imagination and set his pulses racing.

  Eleanor had despaired that he would ever return with good news. As March ended and April began, her patience and faith wore thin. When April galloped into May she began to panic that her child would be born illegitimate. When hope deserted her she was willing to settle for Simon’s return before she gave birth, but even that was dwindling rapidly.

  She had kept herself busy, of course. Kenilworth did not run itself. She had directed the spring planting and then she had tackled the books. It was very involved. Parchments listed acreages, livestock, produce, and revenues. The books told what taxes had been paid and what were still owed. There were long lists of debts and expenses. Another book listed the names of Kenilworth’s villeins, the land worked, which days they worked for Kenilworth and which for themselves. It listed the rents, the crops, and the profits.

  She had taken it upon herself to order land cleared and planted and the wood sold for a profit. She had also gone into debt to increase the livestock. Eleanor had fought off labor for three days. Her pains almost cut her in half, but by sheer dint of will her mind had stopped them after two hours, only to have them start again in the middle of each night. Ironically it was not the hours when she was on her feet at her busiest that labor threatened, but when her body was still and at rest.

  At times she cursed and vilified Simon de Montfort, cataloging every offense, every fault, swearing she would never, ever allow him access to her bed again. He was the author of all her trouble and pain, and she would make sure that he never, ever put her in this position again. She had learned her lesson. She had committed a sinful crime and she was receiving her punishment.

  Eleanor knew she must keep active. Unfortunately, she could not walk far. Then she decided she would get a mount saddled and ride among the outbuildings. Bette forbade her to leave the Caesar Tower, but she flared, “Who do you think you are, my mother?”

  Eleanor was spoiling for a fight by the time she reached the stables and ordered a groom to saddle a horse for her. A young knight stepped forward in alarm. “I would not advise a ride, my lady.”

  “Why not?” she demanded, bristling.

  Her condition was obvious and surely he need not point it out to her. “The Earl of Leicester …”

  She cut him off. “A pox on the Earl of Leicester!”

  Simon de Montfort dismounted and in three strides swept his wife into his arms.

  “Faugh! You stink of horsesweat and leather,” she protested.

  “And you stink of fire and brimstone, my reckless little bitch!”

  “Put me down, you ugly great giant! Your natural demeanor is assertive. You speak as if you expect to be obeyed always. I give you back your own words, de Montfort. If you attempt to control me, you are in for a battle royale.”

  “I am taking you upstairs to whelp,” he said crudely.

  She clenched her fists and began to pummel him, but a contraction stiffened her body and turned her words into a scream. Simon started to run. He took the stairs two at a time, calling out for Bette as he entered the tower. He lowered his wife carefully to the bed and left her to her women.

  He spent a good deal of the next ten hours on his knees in the chapel. “Dear God, now I have all I desire in the palm of my hand, do not snatch it away from me,” he prayed fervently.

  Eleanor experienced every emotion known to woman during those hours, from deepest despair through hysterics, rage, acceptance, and finally on to joy.

  When Simon was allowed in to see her, she was utterly exhausted with her newborn son tucked against her breast. They both looked so tiny in the vast bed that he was overwhelmed. He sat down beside her and took hold of her hand. Finally he lifted it to his lips and reverently kissed each finger.

  She whispered, “I could not hold it off any longer.”

  A great lump came into his throat. Blood of God, she had fought against the birth thinking shameful stigma attached to it. He said softly, “Eleanor, the papal court ruled in our favor.” He took a crackling parchment from his doublet. “This is a dispensation that says there was no invalidity in the marriage I contracted with you.”

  “Oh, thank God and St. Jude!” she breathed. “In my own heart I knew that my vow was not binding.”

  “I am going to get the scribe to make a copy of this for the Archbishop of Canterbury, so there’s an end to it,” he said firmly. “Now we can get on with our lives.”

  She looked down at her child with love-filled eyes. “I am going to call him Henry because he was the one who made it all possible,” she said fervently.

  Simon’s mouth twisted wryly. He had pursued this woman against all odds, planted his seed until it had taken root, obtained Kenilworth for her, ridden across England to appease the Duke of Cornwall and the barons, begged and borrowed enough gold to go to Rome and bribe the Pope for a dispensation, but all her gratitude was reserved for the king.

  “We will call this son Henry after his illustrious grandfather. We will call the next son Simon,” he said, grinning.

  She pulled her hand from his. “Oh, you brute, to speak of the next before I have recovered from this one. From now on I think I shall have my own chamber so I can avoid your attentions!”

  The next months were to be among the happiest of their lives. Eleanor did anything but avoid Simon’s attention. She was so proud to be slim again, she showed off her figure to him every chance she got.

  Bette no longer hovered about her. Instead she had transferred her attentions to the baby. Eleanor chose two young sisters, Emma and Kate, to help Bette in the nursery, which left Eleanor free to take Kenilworth in hand and make some changes. She began in the kitchens by ordering 350 new utensils all made from shining copper. The kitchen, with its high-vaulted ceiling to reduce heat, smell, and smoke, was becoming a showpiece. Eleanor discovered an immense painting of an ox carcass with instructions on its proper carving and had it hung on the west wall.

  The wine that came from Wiltshire was decidedly iron-flavored and Eleanor ordered that it be discontinued. In its stead she ordered expensive, imported wine be brought in. She ordered hens from Buckingham, eels from Bristol, and herrings from Yarmouth. The amount of food eaten daily grew steadily as Kenilworth expanded. Eleanor appointed a stewardess rather than a steward to keep a tally of kitchen supplies and expenditures and went over the accounts with her each month. Eleanor did not bat an eye that over 3,000 eggs were consumed in a week as well as 188 gallons of ale at a half pence per gallon, with 80 skins of Gascony wine.

  Merchants, Franciscan brothers, scholars, artists, and mercenary soldiers all began to flock to Kenilworth. Eleanor began to compile a library with the works of Aristotle, Ptolemny, Thomas Aquinas, and Roger Bacon.

  Whenever Simon noticed that something had been changed or something new had been acquired for Kenilworth and he questioned someone, he always got back the same answer. “The Countess of Pembroke ordered it.” He would grit his teeth and correct them. “You mean the Countess of Leicester, I believe.”

  When de Montfort found the armory and guardrooms deserted one day, he was informed that Tuesday was now market day. The Countess of Pembroke had established it and it was thriving. The last straw came for Simon while he was holding a Court of Justice. His eyebrows rose a little when he saw Eleanor arrive gowned in an extravagant creation of green and gold, interwoven Syrian silk edged in sable. She sat quietly enough while he held court—until the last case. Apparently the brewer in Banbury had died, and there were two applicants for the position. One was the brewer’s brother, which seemed right and proper to Simon since he did not
have a son to fill his shoes, but the other claimant for the job was the brewer’s widow. Simon heard them out and decided in the brother’s favor, explaining to the woman that brewing was a job for a man.

  Eleanor swept forward with her challenge. “Not so, my lord earl! This woman knows all there is to know about brewing ale. She has helped her husband for years and in fact has done all the brewing during her late husband’s illness. His brother, on the other hand, has been a farmer all his life. Surely you will not discriminate against her because she is a woman, my lord? In my judgment I think we should have a breweress in Banbury.”

  Simon’s anger was aroused. Why couldn’t she have had a private word with him about this matter? Why did she find it necessary to try to overrule him in his own court? He almost made the wrong decision purely and simply to teach Eleanor a lesson. However, his sense of justice saved him. It was only logical to appoint a breweress since she had the requisite experience.

  Simon de Montfort was looking for his wife within half an hour and was told the Countess of Pembroke was in the kitchens. It seemed to him this day that his household was overfull of women. He was forever tripping over cooks, bakers, washerwomen, maids, nannies, and stewardesses. He entered the kitchen, took one look at the excessive display of new copper utensils, and demanded, “Who the hell ordered all this?”

  The head cook, a red-faced country woman, full of her own importance in the pecking order beamed. “The Countess of Pembroke, my lord.”

  Simon booted a stool across the kitchen, which sent a copper cauldren rolling after a pot-boy. “Christ Almighty,” he exploded. “Once and for all time, she is the Countess of Leicester. The next person to call her Countess of Pembroke gets chucked in the bloody mere!” He looked about him in frustration at the gaggle of women. “All hens and no cocks … too many women in this household for my taste!” Simon strode toward Eleanor and with hands firmly planted upon her hips she met him halfway.