The Winter Crown (60 page)

Henry had not visited her again and she thanked God for that mercy, but she was constantly worried that he would. She had nightmares where the door burst open and he stood on the threshold, ready to batter her to a pulp. She had other dreams where her sons defeated their father and came to set her free, but as the days passed and the seasons turned, they faded and became as dull as the linen over which she toiled in the pale light from her window. Day in, day out, pecking at the stitches, creating garments for people whose lives she would never know. Her hands grew rough for lack of unguents, and the clothes she wore were the same as the kind she was stitching. Her world was a grey chamber, stitching grey linen and looking to a future where she faded into the walls and became nothing.

Lacking a scribe and the wherewithal to send messages, she wrote letters in her mind to her children as she worked, some of them filled with grief and outpourings of love, some dark pools filled with anger at the events that had led her to this. And then she was disgusted with herself for such thoughts.

Worse than all the fighting and arguments was being deprived of company and conversation, of being forgotten and consigned to this sackcloth existence. This chamber might as well be an oubliette.

She had taken to pacing up and down between stints of needlework to keep up her strength, but the act reminded her of Henry’s pacing and filled her with hate as she walked from wall to wall to wall, muttering to herself.

One morning, hearing footsteps outside and the murmur of voices, Alienor rose to her feet and faced the door, needle at the ready. When it opened, she could only stare at Isabel, her arm around Joanna and John, one on each side. Tears scalded her eyes and overflowed. Joanna ran to her with a cry of ‘Mama!’ and flung her arms around Alienor’s waist, pressing her face into the hollow beneath her heart. John, more reserved, joined his sister, but waited for Alienor to put out her arm and draw him in. She felt their hair under her hands, their soft skin, their supple bodies. Dear God, dear God. ‘Oh, I have missed you!’ Her voice cracked. ‘So much!’

‘Papa said you had to be taught a lesson,’ John said, giving her a narrow look. ‘He said he was going to put you so far up a tower you would never come down for what you had done, and that’s what happens to traitors!’

Isabel made a sound in her throat and started forward, hand outstretched.

His words struck Alienor like a blow. So Henry would set her youngest children against her too, and use them to wield the club. ‘You must not believe everything your father tells you,’ she said, unable to keep the anger out of her voice. ‘It is not always the truth. Whatever happens, I love you, and that love is without boundaries.’ She forced a smile through her tears, and touched each of their noses to emphasise what she was saying.

‘But it is true, you are in a tower.’ John looked round, taking everything in, the bare, crude simplicity.

‘But not forever,’ she said. ‘And I am not a traitor … Go and sit by the hearth while I greet your aunt.’

The children did so, hand in hand, solemn as small adults. Alienor turned to Isabel and embraced her, although it was more as if she were drowning and clutching the side of a small boat amid the waves. ‘He has consigned me to a living death,’ Alienor wept in grief against Isabel’s neck. ‘He might as well have put out my eyes because he has left me blind. You are the first visitor I have had beyond a priest.’

Isabel returned her clasp. ‘I would have come to see you long before now, but Henry would not allow it. Nothing anyone could do or say will ease his bitterness. He is a changed man.’

‘Henry has not changed.’ Alienor wiped her eyes on her cuff and straightened up. ‘If he appears changed to you it is only because the cloak has been stripped away and you are seeing him as he really is.’ She went to the children and embraced them again, unable to believe they were here in the room with her. She was overjoyed and she was grief-stricken. She wanted to be there to see them go forward into the world, but because of Henry, because of this dispute, it was denied to all of them. She had given all to her older sons and had nothing for these younger ones; her store was bare. The knowledge of what it meant for them and for her was a bitter draught indeed.

Thawing a little, John opened his mouth to show her where he had recently lost his front baby teeth.

Alienor gave a tearful laugh. ‘Ah, you are almost a man,’ she said, and wanted to weep in earnest as he preened and puffed out his small chest. A man with all that entailed, especially in respect of his treatment of women under his father’s tutelage.

She had nothing for them because all she possessed were the stark necessities, but Isabel had come armed with a merels board and counters so that the children could play while she and Alienor talked.

Alienor eyed the board and laughed harshly. ‘I made one of those at Chinon. I drew it in the ashes from the hearth one day after I was allowed a fire, and I played myself, right hand against left, using lumps of charcoal for counters. I pretended Henry was my opponent and I always won. In my room I always won, if nowhere else. Will you leave this behind when you go? There is a certain irony to planning strategies in cold ash, but this would be so much more elegant.’ Hearing the brittle note in her voice, she pressed her lips together.

‘Alienor, don’t,’ Isabel pleaded.

She drew a deep breath and steadied herself. ‘So,’ she said. ‘How did you manage to win your way through all these doors to visit me? What bribes did you use?’

‘I didn’t.’ Isabel gave a shrug. ‘I kept asking Hamelin to speak to Henry and eventually he agreed for my sake, even though the King was reluctant. Hamelin told him he should consider the wider implications and that it might be to his advantage. Henry eventually agreed to grant me permission to come and bring John and Joanna.’ Isabel’s complexion flushed. ‘He also told Hamelin that no woman was trustworthy and he should have me watched because all women were scheming whores.’

‘That sounds like Henry. What did Hamelin say?’

Isabel looked away. ‘That not
all
women were thus marked.’

A servant entered bearing a flagon, two goblets, buttermilk for the children and some small pastries crusted with honey and nuts. Alienor’s mouth watered. Her nourishment had been a penance of bread, pottage and sour wine with the occasional piece of chewy salt beef or stockfish. These sweet delicacies that she had taken for granted before were like treasure to her now.

‘He would not give in just to humour Hamelin,’ she said after she had devoured one of the flaky, sticky pastries, which made her feel a little sick. ‘There has to be another reason.’ She gave Isabel a sharp look. ‘Is he receiving a drubbing from my sons and needs me to mediate? Is that it?’

Isabel looked flustered. ‘I was only permitted to see you on the condition I did not speak of the outside world.’

‘Oh, in God’s name, I’m a prisoner!’ Alienor spat. ‘Locked up with my own company for weeks on end. My clothes are checked for messages; I see no one but the guards. I don’t even know what month of the year it is any more! The sky in that window does not tell me, and neither does the priest. Why are you here if you cannot speak? Shall we just talk about sewing and hair dye and the best way to get stains out of garments?’

Isabel reddened. John glanced up from the merels board at the sound of his mother’s raised voice, and Joanna bit her bottom lip.

‘I promised, and it was to Hamelin,’ Isabel said. ‘He trusts me and I will not break that faith.’ Eyes liquid, she removed her cloak and poured wine for both of them. ‘I suppose it is not breaking that trust to tell you there have been skirmishes and truces and that the situation is similar to what it was when you were taken. Your sons are still fighting; so is the King.’ She handed Alienor a cup. ‘And it’s July.’

Alienor sipped the wine, which was strong and rich, the kind she used to drink before she was a prisoner. The wine of power and command, now no longer hers except by the whim of a man she loathed and the kindness of her sister-by-marriage. ‘Just tell me that my sons are well.’

Isabel gave a cautious nod. ‘Yes, they are, all of them … and you are right, I am here for a reason other than just a social visit.’

Alienor set her cup down. ‘I knew it,’ she said. ‘Henry would not be persuaded to do anything that did not serve his purpose. Tell me and let us have it out in the open.’

Isabel clasped her hands. ‘Henry is going to England and taking you with him. He asked me to arrange for your things to be brought to the ship, and that I accompany you and the children.’

‘England?’ Alienor raised her brows.

‘The whole court is going, including Marguerite, Alais, and Constance of Brittany – and the Earl and Countess of Leicester.’

Alienor gave a short laugh. ‘A veritable prison ship of hostages. What happens to us when we arrive there?’

‘I have not been told. You are to have new attendants though. Emma is to wed Davydd ap Owain, Prince of North Wales, by the King’s order.’

Alienor stared at Isabel in dull shock. Henry could do anything he wanted and no one could stop him. Her heart went out to Emma, who had been raised by nuns and had then dwelt in her household as a gentle companion. She was still of childbearing age, but only just. ‘That is so cruel and unnecessary,’ she said.

‘The King has disbanded your household,’ Isabel ploughed on, her voice unsteady. ‘Marchisa is to go with Emma to attend her and you are to be assigned to the care of Robert Maudit, who will be responsible for all your expenses.’

Alienor’s heart dropped like a stone. England was further away again from Poitiers and there would be an island of separation between her and her sons. It would be easier for Henry. He could complete the process he had begun and shut her away out of sight and out of mind until she had neither sight nor mind remaining. But she would surely have the company of attendants once settled, even if they were Henry’s creatures, and they were a project she could work upon.

‘I asked to be given the task of telling you this,’ Isabel said. ‘There has been enough cruelty done already. I will understand if you loathe me for it, but I had to do something to bring some decency and compassion into this terrible state of affairs.’ Her chin wobbled.

‘Of course I do not loathe you, you goose!’ Alienor said with exasperation. ‘You are as dear to me as a flesh-and-blood sister, not just by marriage. It may be too late for decency and compassion, but I love you for trying … and do not dare weep!’

‘I’m not.’ Isabel sniffed and cuffed her eyes.

Alienor set her jaw. ‘I will not let him win. He may shut me up in the darkest oubliette, but he will not break my will.’

The journey from Falaise to Barfleur took four days at the sedate pace of the covered wain in which Alienor was secluded. She was able to see the rolling Norman countryside out of the back, decked in summer greenery, and feel the warm breeze touch her face. Observing fields and trees in full growth was a bittersweet shock after so many dark months with bare stone walls for company. She had become so accustomed to living within herself that the brightness of the world was almost painful to her dulled senses. Conversation was awkward because what was there to say? The political situation was out of bounds on pain of renewed isolation. All she knew was that her sons were still fighting their father, but from the supplies in their train and the well-equipped number of soldiers, Henry did not seem to be under any kind of strain and such talk of their escort that she happened to overhear was bullish and cheerful.

Arriving in Barfleur on the fourth day was another shock to Alienor’s battered senses, for the port was heaving with people like a fishing net straining at the seams. The rumble of cartwheels, the hard thud of horse hooves, the harsh voices of Brabançon and Flemish mercenaries, the pungent fishy miasma of a sea-port town in hot weather assaulted her in a great wash of stench and sound. Henry was obviously shipping an army over to England, and men who fought for pay were more trustworthy than the vassals upon whom he dared not turn his back lest they stuck a sword in him.

‘Make way, make way!’ roared Robert Maudit’s herald, his complexion the same hue as the boiled lobsters being served in the hostelries. ‘In the name of King Henry, make way!’

Not
make way for the Queen!
Alienor noted. Once that cry would have resounded, confirming her authority, but no longer, and the omission, more than her prison walls, more than all her endurance of solitude, made her realise how powerless she was and how low Henry had brought her.

The wain rattled to a halt in the castle bailey, and as Alienor was descending from it, Henry rode in on a lathered stallion, bloody foam spattering the bit. He was shouting over his shoulder, issuing brisk orders to his adjutants concerning matters of embarkation. New lines creased his brow and deep seams were carved between nose and mouth corner. He saw her as he was dismounting and gave her a look filled with venom. She stared through him as if he did not exist, raised her chin and refused to show him deference, even though beside her Isabel curtseyed and bowed her head.

Henry abruptly turned on his heel and stamped away, bellowing more orders.

‘It would be easier if you did not antagonise him,’ Isabel said softly.

‘I shall not yield to him again in this life, whatever it costs,’ Alienor replied grimly. ‘Besides, it would make no difference to his treatment of me whether I curtseyed or not.’

‘Madam, let me escort you to your chamber,’ said Robert Maudit.

Alienor gave him a contemptuous look. ‘Do I have a choice?’

‘Madam, all the ladies of the household are waiting there until embarkation,’ he replied smoothly. He had served the Empress as a steward, hence to outsiders it might look as if he was performing that service now, but to all intents and purposes he was her gaoler.

‘All the ladies?’ That was interesting. ‘And are we free to come and go as we please?’

‘That would be unwise with so many soldiers in the town. It is for your own safety, madam.’

‘And the Countess de Warenne?’ Alienor enquired.