Time and Chance (50 page)

She huffed up the stairwell to their chamber, then shed her wet mantle, kicked off her clogs, and hurried over to thaw out by the hearth. Rosamund Clifford had been lying down, but at the sound of the opening door, she jerked the bed hangings aside. “Where did you go, Meliora? Look at you, you’re soaked through.” Snatching up a garment from a wall pole, she hastened toward the hearth. “Here, put this on.”

Meliora snorted incredulously at the sight of what Rosamund was holding out, the new bedrobe given her by the king. Made of finely woven scarlet, the most luxurious of all woolens, it shimmered in the lamplight, a deep, rich mulberry. “Child, I’d be lucky to get my elbow into that wisp of cloth, much less my rump. And even if it fit, I’d be as skittish as a treed cat, wearing something more costly than my late husband’s best cow.” She sketched a cross in the air, adding a perfunctory “May God assoil him,” and then grinned. “The husband, not the cow.”

Rosamund grinned, too. “I was fretful about wearing this myself,” she confided. “I was sure I’d spill wine in my lap or stand too close to the hearth and get smoke smudges on it, and the king would think I was shamefully careless. When I finally confessed my unease, he raised a brow in that way he has and said he was reasonably sure that ruining a robe was not a hanging offense.”

Meliora was amused that Rosamund continued to observe the pro prieties, always taking care to accord her lover his regal title. Henry Fitz Empress was a lucky man, she thought, for this was one royal concubine who’d never be a player in those dangerous and tempting games of chance in which no stakes were higher than the king’s favor. Even after more than five months of sharing his bed, Rosamund Clifford showed no symptoms of that pernicious ailment Henry had once sardonically dubbed “Crown fever,” and Meliora was worldly enough to appreciate how rare such an immunity was.

She hadn’t counted upon this, upon becoming so fond of the lass. She would have preferred to keep an emotional distance, to avoid getting sucked into the whirlpools and eddies as the love affair ebbed and flowed. But it was too late; her shepherd’s eye had taken on a maternal glint and she was already regretting the hurt that would inevitably befall the king’s little lamb.

“Has your headache eased up any?” she asked, noting the pallor in Rosamund’s cheeks, the puffiness shadowing her eyes. “You still look a mite peaked. Well, I’ve a remedy for that,” she announced, reaching for the apothecary’s sack, knowing all the while that herbs were no cure for what ailed the girl. The king had departed yesterday morning for Southampton, where he planned to take ship for Normandy, and Meliora had heard Rosamund softly weeping several times in the night, despite her efforts to muffle her sobs in the pillow. The lass would have to toughen up if she hoped to survive this perilous liaison with nothing worse than a few calluses of the heart. But for now, betony would have to do.

“My grandmother used to swear by this,” she said, rooting about in the apothecary’s sack, “whenever any of us was stricken with head-pain. She’d mix a spoonful of betony juice with honey, wine, and nine pepper-corns, have the ailing one take it every morn and eve for nine days.”

Ignoring Rosamund’s half-hearted demurrals, Meliora set about preparing her potion, only to remember that she’d finished the last of the red wine during their dinner; since Henry’s departure, they’d been taking their meals in the privacy of their bedchamber rather than under the curious stares of the garrison in the great hall. Rosamund protested in earnest once she realized that Meliora meant to venture out again into the storm, but the older woman laughed away her objections and pulled on her sodden mantle, then squeezed her feet back into her muddy clogs. No one ever said that a shepherd’s lot was an easy one.

The rain had not slackened and it was so blustery that Meliora turned her ankle in her rush to reach the buttery. She was limping back toward the square tower, clutching the wine flagon to her chest and cursing under her breath when a shout echoed from the battlements. Men were running along the rampart walks, gesturing toward the castle’s great gate with enough urgency to attract Meliora’s attention. Riders were coming in, and to judge by the sudden spurt of activity, they were men of considerable importance. Meliora’s curiosity, always a potent force, won out over her discomfort and she lingered to watch the arrival of these high-ranking visitors. A moment later, she was splashing through the muck of the mid-bailey, intent only upon reaching the man on a familiar, raw-boned grey stallion.

“Your Grace!” Panting, she waved to catch Henry’s eye. He saw her at once, and after shooting off a barrage of instructions over his shoulder, he swung from the saddle and strode toward Meliora, who’d prudently stopped some feet away, remembering his stallion’s unpredictable temper. “Is something amiss?” she cried as soon as he was within hearing range. “Why are you not at sea by now?”

Henry’s shoulders twitched under his mantle in what might have been a shrug. “The weather was so foul that I decided to delay crossing the Channel until the storm passes.”

Meliora could not hide her astonishment, for it was well known that he’d often sailed in seas rough enough to make the Devil himself greensick. Henry had the grace to look somewhat sheepish as he realized how lame his excuse sounded. This time his shrug was more pronounced. “I can spare a few more days,” he said, as close as he could come to admitting his reluctance to leave his young mistress. “How does she, Meliora?”

By now he’d steered her across the bailey and into the square tower. “You’d best see for yourself, my lord. You needn’t wait on me, though. I’d as soon stay here till I catch my breath.”

The smoking rushlight above their heads caught the gleam of his smile, the damp gold of his hair as his hood fell back. Meliora sat down on the stairs, listening to the jangle of his spurs as they struck sparks against the grooved stone steps. He was taking them two at a time, and within moments, she heard the door open, heard Rosamund cry out in wonderment: “Harry!” Meliora settled herself more comfortably against the stairwell and took a deep swallow from the flagon, unconcerned with the lack of a cup. The wine was a heavy, sweet malmsey from Crete, far superior in quality to the sour white wines of southern England that Meliora’s late husband could afford. She savored the taste and smiled then in the dark, for it now seemed as if she’d have more opportunities to drink the king’s fine wines than she’d first envisioned.

 

 

 

HENRY RETURNED with Rosamund to Woodstock, where they passed another week together. It was not until March 16 that he rode back to Southampton and sailed for Normandy. Reunited with his queen, they held their Easter court at Angers. Henry then set about punishing those lords who’d defied Eleanor’s orders during his absence in England. Marching into Maine, he dealt first with the rebellious Count of Seez, William Talevas, and in a lightning-fast campaign, he forced Talevas to yield his strongholds of Alençon and La Roche Mabille. He also found time to confer with the King of France, to pressure the monks of Pontigny to expel Thomas Becket from their abbey, to summon his lords to Chinon for a council on the turmoil in Brittany, and to plan another meeting with Louis. But as spring’s warmth yielded to the scorching heat of a dry, searing summer, word spilled over the castle walls of Chinon, shocking even Henry’s multitude of mortal enemies. The English king was gravely ill, it was said, so ill that it was feared for his life.

 

 

 

THE DAY WAS HOT, the sky a brittle, cloudless blue, and the soaring, white walls of Chinon had come into view, high on a spur overlooking the River Vienne. The Countess of Vermandois recognized it with a mingled sense of relief and dread, thankful to end her dusty, uncomfortable journey but uneasy about what she would find. Sending her men to seek refreshments in the great hall, she insisted upon being taken at once to see her sister, the queen. If death had come to Chinon, better that she know it straightaway.

She was escorted across a dry, barren bailey, the earth cracked and sere. The air was cooler inside the great round keep, the Tour de Moulin, but not by much. Following a servant into the shadowed stairwell, Petronilla blinked as she emerged into the light of the solar, where windows were unshuttered, open to the sun. As she sat on a cushioned settle, she could feel perspiration trickling into the lacings of her bodice; it was so tightly fitting that it seemed molded to her skin, and she wondered why fashion must be so damnably uncomfortable. Hoping for an errant breeze, she moved to a window, but the smell from the river was too pungent and she soon retreated.

When Eleanor entered, she gave her sister a distracted embrace, then sent a servant for wine. “I never thought I’d say this, but today I almost miss those wretched, wet English fogs.”

“How does Harry fare?”

“Better. His fever broke three days ago.” Sitting down heavily upon the settle, Eleanor groped for a pillow to put behind her back. “It was good of you to come, Petra.”

“Of course I came. Your letter made it sound as if you might be a widow at any moment!”

“If I’d listened to those fool doctors, I’d have been picking out my mourning garb.” Eleanor shook her head impatiently. “I told them that unless Harry could rule in absentia, he’d never agree to die.”

“You say his fever has broken?”

“Yes, on Friday, and he’s begun complaining about the food and the doctors and the heat, a sure sign that he is on the mend. Although he did give us a scare yesterday. A courier arrived with word of Becket’s latest outrage whilst I was lying down, and those dolts let the man in to see Harry. He started shouting like a madman, insisted upon getting out of bed, and collapsed in the floor rushes like a sack of flour since he is still as weak as a newborn.”

“What has Becket done now?”

Eleanor grimaced. “On Whitsunday, he celebrated Mass at Vezelay and pronounced sentences of anathema and excommunication upon seven of Harry’s lords, including his justiciar, Richard de Lucy. He also condemned the Constitutions of Clarendon and freed the English bishops from their oaths to obey them. And he even threatened to excommunicate Harry himself and lay all England under interdict.”

Petronilla sighed; she was thoroughly bored by this endless squabbling between Becket and her brother-in-law. “What happens now?”

“Harry means to order the English bishops to appeal to the Pope against these censures.”

A wisp of hair had escaped Eleanor’s wimple and was tickling her cheek; she tucked it away and leaned back against the settle, closing her eyes. Petronilla was not surprised that she looked fatigued; she’d wager every soul in Chinon was careworn from catering to Harry’s sickbed whims. “You ought to be flushed in this heat, not as white as chalk,” she said critically, reaching over to feel Eleanor’s forehead as the door opened and a servant entered with a flagon of wine, two cups, and a plateful of fresh-baked wafers. “Set it by me,” Petronilla directed and filled the cups. The wine was a strong red Gascon and she savored every swallow. “You’d not believe the swill I was served on the road. Here, Eleanor, have one of the cheese wafers.”

Eleanor shook her head, recoiling when Petronilla tried to pass her a wafer. “Just the smell of it is enough to make my gorge rise.”

“Are you ailing?” Petronilla gave her sister a speculative look. “You’ve never been one for queasiness, except . . . Good Lord, Eleanor, has Harry gotten you with child again?”

“Well, I surely hope it is Harry’s,” Eleanor said tartly. She was obviously irked by her sister’s disapproving tone, but Petronilla doubted that she’d welcomed this pregnancy with heartfelt joy. What woman of forty and four years would?

“I know you’ve enjoyed confounding those who claimed you’d ever be a barren queen, but even so . . . What are you and Harry doing, going for a baker’s dozen? When is this one due?”

“In January. It happened whilst we were at Angers for Eastertide.” Petronilla scowled, thinking it a pity that Harry had not stayed longer in England. No wonder Eleanor looked so wan. If the fates had been less kind, she’d have found herself a pregnant widow, bequeathed each and every one of Harry’s enemies, struggling to hold together a far-flung empire for a son who was all of eleven years. She held her tongue for once, though, and glancing at her sister’s taut profile, she could only hope that this eighth pregnancy would be an easy one and, God Willing, the last.

 

 

 

NO SOONER had Henry risen from his sickbed than he was in the saddle. Conan, Duke of Upper Brittany, was viewed by the Bretons as an Angevin puppet, and a rebellion had recently flared up, ignited by a disaffected baron, Ralph de Fougères. By June 28, Henry’s army was at Fougères. It was said to be impervious to assault, but it fell to Henry on July 14. He then pushed on into Brittany, where he deposed the inept Conan, betrothed his young son Geoffrey to Conan’s daughter and heiress, Constance, and took possession of the duchy in his son’s name.