When the list of traitors arrived, the king asked me to read the names to him. I unrolled the parchment and gasped. “Sire, may God help us.”
“What is the matter, Marshal?”
“The first name written is that of Count John.”
“My son, John Lackland? That same John whom I loved most? That same John for whom I fought this last hateful war?”
I nodded yes.
“Read no more, William,” he said. He turned his face to the wall and whispered, “Shame, shame. Shame on a conquered king.”
He spoke no more, my king. My one-time foe. My friend.
11
IT WAS now Richard who bade me to cross the Channel to take news of death to the queen. But this time, there was good news, too. I was to set her free.
When I arrived, the queen was giving orders and was very much in charge.
“You know already, my lady?” I asked.
“Of course, I know. Come, William, there is much work to do.”
“I am retiring for a while, my queen.”
“Retiring, Marshal?”
“I am soon to be something more than a marshal. I am to marry the Duchess of Pembroke. We will live on her estates, and I shall manage them. I shall be an earl. I’ll be in Pembroke if you need me.”
“I don’t know if I shall need you, but Richard will. He is quite a boy, that Richard, that Lion Heart. But he has much to learn. Damn! He’s never even learned to speak English. The time he’s spent in England since his birth can be measured in weeks. There is much to do to make the people love him.”
“He is a direct descendant of King Henry, your husband, may his soul rest in peace. I know the people will accept him.”
“I did not say accept, William! I said love. I am determined that Richard shall be loved. An accepted king accomplishes nothing. A respected king accomplishes something but must fight for what he gets. A loved king has his people fighting for him. Richard will be loved, as I have made King Arthur loved.”
“He has a lot to recommend him, my lady. He is handsome. People are always receptive to a comely person. He is a good poet and a chivalrous knight.”
“How could any son reared by me in my court at Poitiers not be chivalrous?”
“But Richard is a great knight.”
“I see that you have changed sides again, William. Are you now Richard’s man?”
“What is strange about that, my lady? I have always been on the side of the Plantagenets.”
Queen Eleanor smiled. “Yes, William. You stand firm, and it is we Plantagenets who change partners.”
“That is exactly so, my lady. I did not find it difficult to become Richard’s man. He is a most chivalrous knight. When I was fighting with King Henry, your husband, may his soul rest in peace, in the battle at Le Mans, I fell behind King Henry, your husband, may his soul . . .”
“Get on with it, William. His soul may rest in peace, but my behind will not. Tell your story straight.”
“Yes, my queen. The city of Le Mans was in flames, and I had stopped to help an old lady whose clothing had caught fire. My training as a true and noble knight would not allow me to pass so sad a sight without offering my help.”
“Certainly, William.”
“Yes. Well, Richard came upon me, and I aimed my lance at him. ‘Do not kill me, Marshal,’ he said. ‘You cannot kill an unarmed man.’ And the truth was that Richard wore no armor. The code of chivalry commands that one not fight an unarmed man, so I said, ‘May the Devil take you, for I will not.’ I then plunged my lance into his horse, for I wanted my king, Henry, your husband, may his . . .”
“William!”
“Yes, my queen. Sorry. I wanted King Henry to be able to escape, and he did. When next I saw Richard, it was at his father’s grave. Richard looked at me and said, ‘William the Marshal, you tried to kill me the other day.’ ‘No, sire,’ I replied. ‘I tried to kill your horse, and I did. I could have thrust my lance in you as easily as I did in your horse. I chose your horse. I cannot believe that I have done wrong.’ Richard said, ‘I forgive you. I shall not hold it against you.’ So you see, my lady, he has forgiveness, and forgiveness is a mark of greatness.”
“That may be, William,” Queen Eleanor said, “but I must make that mark grow. I am going on a good-will tour, William. I am going to travel to every shire in England and listen to the people. You see, it is always the incidental inconvenience that upsets the common man. I am going to right some incidental wrongs. And that is the first thing that I am going to do to make Richard the Lion Heart a great king. The English will claim him for theirs, and they will love him, even if he can’t speak their language. He ought to learn it though, William. English is a strong language. It has a great assortment of four-lettered words.”
ELEANOR SMILED at William the Marshal, at Matilda-Empress and at Abbot Suger. “I was sixty-seven when I was let out of prison. I believe that my real life began then. I had used that time. I had lost two husbands and two sons before I was released, for Geoffrey had died, too, of the fever that plagued the Plantagenets. Yet for all those losses, I felt that I had gained something while I was there.”
“What could you have gained in prison?”
“Understanding,” Eleanor answered. “Understanding freedom for one thing. It looks even brighter when viewed from its dark side. As a matter of fact, when I arrived Up, and I was asked what age I wanted to be, I answered sixty-seven without a moment’s hesitation. And I answered, knowing that I would be sixty-seven for all Eternity. I could have chosen twenty-five when I was fresh and comely in Constantinople, and I could have chosen thirty when I was madly in love with Henry, but I chose sixty-seven. For I wanted all those years, even the years in prison, with me in Heaven.”
Matilda-Empress said, “One thing you never learned in prison was to slow down your tongue.”
“But something has softened it,” Abbot Suger commented.
“Don’t defend me, dear Suger,” Eleanor said, laughing. “Move over, all of you. It’s time I told about myself. From this point on, no one can speak for me. Being in prison is like looking at life inside out. You learn to know its fabric and its seams. After I was released from prison, I learned what it means to be a queen.”
“I never knew you to have any doubts about that,” Matilda-Empress said.
“Then say that I learned not to know but to understand.”
“Excuse me for interrupting, Queen Eleanor, but it is soon the time for King Henry’s verdict.”
“The noble knight still does not forget a purpose.” She looked over the three of them and laughed. “All right. All of you are more interested in the gossip of my life than in its spirit. Even you, Abbot. Now, listen while I take you rapidly through the last fifteen years of my life. Listen, all of you, while I push you into the thirteenth century.”
1
I TRAVELED throughout England after Henry’s death, and as I did, I made friends. For one thing, I relieved the monks of the chore of keeping Henry’s horses. Henry had demanded that he have fresh relays of horses throughout his territories, and he had forced the abbeys to maintain his stables. They resented that; I excused them from the responsibility, and I did so in Richard’s name; that made the monks very happy.
Then I began a uniform system of weights and measures for the whole country. What an aggravation to have a piece of cloth measured by one system in Nottingham and by an entirely different system in Oxford. That made the merchants very happy.
And I did the same for coins. I made a uniform system of coins to be used throughout the country. That made everyone but the money changers very happy. It benefited no one but the money changers for a merchant traveling from the city of Sandwich to have to change money at the borders of Canterbury, a few miles away. And to show that Richard was responsible, I had his face engraved on the coins.
And everywhere I went, I listened to the people, and I served justice. In castle after castle, I set free all those poor souls who were waiting fo
r Henry to finish his wars with his sons so that he could hold court. In his last years Henry had become a fanatic about people who hunted on his royal grounds. Henry would kill a man for killing a deer. I stopped that, too.
And I did all this in Richard’s name.
For entertainment I planned Richard’s coronation. The people of England were entitled to a festival, and they had it. There is nothing like a lavish display to give people pride in their country. Governments still do it; they call them World Fairs or Inaugurations, but they are what a coronation was—an acceptable form of showing off.
By the time Richard arrived on the shores of England, he was everyone’s hero. Right after his coronation, he announced his desire to go on Crusade to Jerusalem. The Holy City had finally been captured by the Turks, and Richard thought it was time for a Plantagenet to take the cross. King Philip Augustus was to go, too, and so was Frederick Barbarossa, King of Germany. My son with the sons of the two kings who had led the Second Crusade, the Crusade that I and my Amazons had gone on.
Richard was outfitted according to his tastes and mine; both of us shared a love of splendor. Philip Augustus was no match for Richard the Lion Heart. He was not handsome, and he had only one eye that worked. Richard was richer, handsomer, and more popular. Philip was jealous.
Shortly after the men started their journey, I made a journey, too. I went to Spain, and there I fetched a princess. I took her to Sicily where Richard was waiting for some ships that would carry him to the Holy Land. Richard liked my choice, and so he married the princess.
I had to do that. Richard had no heir, and if he should die on Crusade, I wanted someone other than my son John to claim the throne.
* * *
The Third Great Crusade ended with the following results: Frederick Barbarossa drowned. Philip Augustus got sick and lost all his hair, his fingernails and toenails, and he was less than handsome to begin with. After he lost those parts, Philip Augustus went home—before the real fighting began. Richard was shipwrecked on his way home and was captured in Austria and held for a king’s ransom; it took me two years to raise the money to set him free.
While Richard was prisoner, Philip began attacking our castles in the Vexin. Before they had left for the Crusade, Philip had asked for the return of the Vexin. He had argued that since Young Henry was dead and Marguerite had returned to the Capets, the Vexin should, too. The Vexin had been given to us only as her dowry. Richard had stalled him. “Let us settle these differences after the Crusade,” he had said. “Let us not talk of distributing the Earth. Let us first save it. For Christianity.”
Philip Augustus was not the man that his father was. Louis would never have broken the Truce of God; he would never have attacked another man’s castles—especially when that man had been captured fighting a battle that he had run out on.
Richard returned at last as a conquering hero. Even though Jerusalem was still in the hands of the Turks, he had made a treaty that would allow Christians to visit the Holy City. Philip was more jealous than ever of Richard’s popularity and reputation. And the fighting over the Vexin got more serious.
* * *
It was not in any great battle that Richard met that arrow. It was not in any important siege that my son met death, and it was not any famous warrior who fired the arrow that killed him. Richard’s death was brutal and painful. And meaningless. But I must tell of it to show that my son Richard earned his name, Lion Heart.
A young man, not an important young man, was defending the walls of a castle, not an important castle, that was under siege by Richard’s men. The young man used a fry-pan for a shield, and he used as weapons the arrows he could pull from the castle walls, those very arrows which Richard’s men had fired at him. The young man fired at a mounted knight, and the arrow pierced the knight’s shoulder, and it went deep. The boy did not know that he had felled a king.
No one, except the men immediately near him, knew that Richard was hurt. Richard finished his round of inspection and went to his tent and there, at last, he allowed the men to pull the arrow from his shoulder, but it had gone deep, too deep. As the men pulled, the shaft broke. The men gouged at Richard’s flesh in an attempt to cut the barb out. They plunged searching fingers into the raw meat of my son’s shoulder, but their fingers could not pry loose that sharp triangle of iron. It stayed to rust, to rot. Richard knew he would not live. He asked to have the young man who fired the arrow brought before him.
“Why,” asked Richard of the scared young man, “why did you wish to injure me?”
“Because,” the boy said, “you killed my father and my brother. I do not repent. Do with me as you like.”
“Go in peace,” Richard said. “I forgive you for my death.” The Lion Heart commanded that the boy be unchained. Then he died.
Richard died. He was forty-two years old; he had no son. I would now have to construct a king out of John Lackland.
2
THERE WAS MUCH to be done. I was seventy-seven years old, and I did not know if I would have enough years to do something with John. That spoiled, reckless John.
The narrow slits of prison walls had sharpened my focus on my times. I realized that there was rising a new class of people, something between noble and peasant, a middle class. They were merchants, they had money, and they would be heard. So as I rode through the towns of my native lands, my Aquitaine, I granted charters to these towns. The people then became responsible for their own government—and for their own defense. I knew that I could not expect these people to be loyal to John. But, I could expect them to take pride in a town they could call their own, and I gave them their freedom. For a price.
I also visited abbeys and made arrangements for my body to rest in Fontevrault next to Henry’s and Richard’s. Of course I chose Fontevrault; it was the only abbey in all of France that housed both nuns and monks, but which had a nun not a monk as its head.
I established hospitals, another important good work that makes one popular. And I saw to it that the roads were in good order; the merchant class needed to transport their goods, and I needed them on my side.
And then to insure peace, I went to King Philip Augustus and there in front of all the court of Paris, I swallowed my pride, bent my rusty knees and paid homage to a Capet. A gentle reminder that I wanted peace; I was reminding Philip that he was my overlord and was sworn to protect me. Me and mine. John was mine.
3
THE QUESTION of the Vexin was still not settled. It was, as it had been, on and off for forty years, a raw sore between the lands of the Capets and the Plantagenets. I had a plan for that, too. I thought it would be a good idea if Philip’s son became engaged to one of my granddaughters. The Vexin, which we still held, could then go to Philip’s son as dowry for my granddaughter. What a strange fate for that land. That same Vexin that had brought Henry to the court of King Louis and that Louis had traded back in exchange for the marriage of their Marguerite to our Young Henry would now be the parcel of trade for the marriage of one grandson of King Louis for one granddaughter of mine.
At that time I had outlived all my children but two: John, who was King of England, and Eleanor, who was Queen of Castile. The daughter who was my namesake had lived in Spain since she was in her early teens.
And so it was that at the age of eighty, I crossed the mountains between France and Spain in the middle of winter. I arrived to fetch a granddaughter of mine as a bride for a grandson of my ex-husband. I found my daughter Eleanor worthy of my name. Her court was gay and beautiful, and so was she. My daughter Eleanor had eleven children, one more than I had had, and it had taken me two husbands to do it.
Of Eleanor’s eleven children, two girls were eligible to be wives for Philip’s son. They paraded the girls before me, and the girls bowed and curtsied and performed. It was expected that I choose the elder, the one named Urraca.
We were at the table, and the two girls were sitting on either side of me. Both of them had manners that were tidy and serene. “Wha
t do you like best to do?” I asked them.
Urraca, the elder, answered, “There is nothing I like better than the songs of the troubadours. I love to listen to the troubadours.”
“And you?” I asked Blanca, the younger of the two.
Blanca answered, “I like to read, and I like to ride. Both reading and riding allow me to go as far and as deep as I choose.”
I picked Blanca as the future queen of France. When my daughter asked why, I told her, “The French could never like someone with as foreign a name as Urraca. We’ll make Blanche out of Blanca, and the French will love her.”
And so I marched back over the mountains to France with my bounty, Blanca, Blanche of Castile. I was delighted. I was still enough of a judge of people to know that a girl who wants control over her spare time can control a kingdom: Time proved my judgment to be correct.
There was peace in England and France when I died. I did not die without cares, but I did die without regrets.
My life was marked by good happenings, bad happenings and sad ones, too. There were times when the bad and the sad could have weighed me down. But to drink life from only the good is to taste only half of it. When I died in that year 1204, I smiled, knowing that I had drunk fully of both flavors. I had wasted nothing.
“HOW DID YOU feel when you learned that your son King John is considered the worst king that England has ever had?” Abbot Suger asked.
“I am not too impressed with such ratings,” Eleanor replied. “John was spoiled and fickle, but he had wit and fits of generosity. After Richard died, I got to know him better. I was only sorry that I didn’t have more time to develop his better nature.”