When Christ and His Saints Slept (128 page)

RAISING
up on his elbow, Henry grinned, for his discarded tunic had been flung across the room and landed atop Felice, Eleanor’s greyhound. It seemed to have snagged on her collar, for it was draped over her like a tent as she sniffed about in the floor rushes. Shifting so he could slide his arm around Eleanor’s shoulders, he smoothed her hair back from her face. Her throat was reddened, chafed by his beard, and he stroked the soft skin with his fingers, saying ruefully, “I really did plan to take a bath first. But you’re too tempting for your own good, love.”

Eleanor yawned, then gave him a smile of drowsy contentment. “I’m not complaining…”

“No,” he conceded, “you’ve been very good-natured about all of this. Are you always going to be such an obliging wife?”

“Not likely,” she said and laughed. “At the moment, I’m inclined to deny you very little. But that mood is sure to pass, so you’d best take advantage of it whilst you can.”

Henry laughed, too, and pulled her still closer. She traced the freckles on his throat with the tip of her tongue, her fingers playing pleasurably with the hair on his chest, gently scraping his skin with her nails. “I just noticed something. Your hair and beard are sort of a copper color, and your chest hair is golden. But down here,” she said, trailing her fingers across his belly, toward his groin, “the hair is bright red!”

He wouldn’t have thought she could arouse him again so soon, but his body was telling him otherwise. “Flames are always reddest where the fire burns hottest. Did you not know that?”

“If your fire burned any hotter,” she teased, “all of Poitiers would have gone up in flames.” Leaning over, she kissed him gently. No longer playful, she looked intently into his face. “Ah, Harry,” she said, softly and quite seriously, “I am so proud of you.”

What surprised Henry was not her words, it was his response to them. He already knew that he’d waged an extraordinary campaign, one that men would not soon forget, not in France nor England. While he was pleased by all the plaudits he’d reaped, he did not need this acclaim to understand the full magnitude of what he’d accomplished. Never had the English crown been so close, and his one regret was that his father had not lived to see his triumph. He’d not expected Eleanor’s praise to mean so much to him, for he’d not realized until now just how much her opinion had begun to matter. Instead of jesting, he said simply, “I’m glad.”

“I want to give a great feast for you,” she said, “one so lavish and bountiful that people will talk of it in awe. I know you do not care much for such revelries, but trust me—this one you will enjoy, Harry. You and I will sit at the high table, eating porpoise and swan, whilst we watch my male kinfolk eating humble pie!”

“You are right,” Henry said, laughing. “I daresay I would enjoy that!”

“I suppose I ought to summon a servant, for you must be starved.” But Eleanor could not bring herself to move. A pity she and Harry could not spend the entire day in bed, the door bolted, the world shut out. “Passing strange,” she said, “for we’re into our fourth month of marriage and we’ve had only a fortnight together so far. I suppose England is already beckoning, too. How long can you stay this time?”

“As long as you want.”

She sat up, staring at him. “Are you serious?”

“I’ve been thinking about it. If England has survived for nigh on seventeen years under Stephen, it can muddle through for another few months. And so…I have decided to put off my invasion for a while. I thought I’d let you show me Aquitaine instead?” Despite himself, his voice rose questioningly, for they were still, in so many ways, intimate strangers, and he could not be sure that she’d not be disappointed by the delay, craving the English crown more than his company. He saw at once, though, that he need not have worried. Kneeling naked before him on the bed, her eyes sparkling and her hair in wanton disarray, she looked of a sudden very young, giving him a glimpse of the girl who’d gone off with such high hopes to wed the French king.

“You and Aquitaine? Harry, nothing would please me more!”

53

Newbury, England

October 1152

T
HE
town of Newbury was an ancient one, strategically situated on the road that ran north to Oxford and south to Winchester. The site had once been settled by the Romans, then the Anglo-Saxons, and it was here that John Marshal had chosen to erect a castle. On this blustery October Thursday, Eustace was approaching Newbury from the east, along the Reading Road. The siege works were already in sight, encircling the castle and occupied town, when an armed force rode out to challenge him.

Eustace recognized the Earl of Northampton, the most steadfast of his father’s allies. It took him a moment, however, to identify the man riding beside Northampton, for William de Mohun had not often come to Stephen’s court. Lord of Dunster, Mohun had been granted the earldom of Somerset by Maude, a title Stephen refused to acknowledge. He was a strikingly handsome man, with a reputation as foul as his appearance was fair. He’d deserted Maude after the siege of Winchester and gone over to Stephen’s side, yet his main interest was in feathering his own nest. The war had spawned so many men like Mohun, brigand barons who’d taken advantage of the conflict to rob and extort with impunity. But not after he was king, by God. Eustace knew how he’d rule. Like the old king. Not like his father. Never like his father.

Mohun’s presence at the Newbury siege was disheartening, for it showed Eustace just how badly his father’s circle of supporters was shrinking if he had to rely upon such untrustworthy self-seekers. Ypres was blind, Warenne dead on crusade, Robert Beaumont well-nigh invisible, Hugh Bigod and the Earl of Chester in the enemy camp. And how many more would be turning traitor once they heard about that Angevin whoreson’s triumph over the French king? Eustace was not a fool. He knew that his father’s kingship was wounded and bleeding. Not hemorrhaging, but even a steady trickle of blood could prove fatal if not stanched. How was he to do that, though? Holy Christ on the Cross, how?

Halting his men, Eustace rode out to meet Northampton and Mohun. He brushed aside their surprised queries, ignored their curiosity. He knew he’d have to talk about the disastrous Normandy campaign, but the longer he could put it off, the better. Instead, he asked brusquely about the siege.

John Marshal, they informed him indignantly, was as treacherous as a serpent and as false as Judas himself, may God smite him as he deserved. This was less than illuminating to Eustace, but with some prodding, he got them to begin with the facts. At the start of the siege, Newbury’s castellan had sought a brief truce so that he might warn his lord, John Marshal, of the castle’s peril. Eustace nodded; that was only to be expected. Marshal had then asked for a longer truce, one that would enable him to confer with the empress and her son, for he held Newbury in their names. Again, this was in accordance with the laws of war, and Eustace was hard put to hide his impatience.

“I assume my father agreed?” His mouth twisted; as if Stephen, the soul of chivalry, would have refused! “But he did demand hostages?”

“Indeed he did, my lord. Marshal agreed quite readily, yielding up his youngest son, a lad of about four or five. But then he betrayed us—and the boy. He took advantage of the truce to sneak supplies and men into Newbury, enabling them to withstand a long siege.”

Eustace knew that his youth put him at a disadvantage with his father’s supporters, and to compensate for that, he’d cultivated the world-weary, jaded air of a man who’d seen too much ever to be truly surprised. The pose slipped now, though, and he whistled soundlessly, almost admiringly, for few men would have had the ice-blooded audacity to gamble with such high stakes.

“Sounds like Marshal has sons to spare,” he joked grimly. “Did my father warn him that the boy’s life would be forfeit?” That was not a question he should have had to ask—not of any king but his father. He was relieved when Northampton nodded somberly.

“Of course he did, my lord Eustace. He sent a warning yesterday to Marlborough, telling Marshal that the lad will be hanged unless Marshal agrees to yield Newbury.”

“Marlborough is how far? Twenty miles? So we’ll hear today then,” Eustace said, and smiled. “It seems I shall be just in time for Newbury’s surrender.”

DINNER
was normally served in the morning, but it had been delayed by Eustace’s arrival, and the trestle tables were not set up in Stephen’s tent until noon. The meal was surprisingly good for camp fare—a savory capon stew—and conversation flagged as men concentrated upon their trenchers.

The faces were all familiar to Eustace. In addition to Northampton and Mohun, their dinner guests included Stephen’s loyal seneschal, William Martel, and a handful of highborn lords. William d’Aubigny, Earl of Arundel, had begun to play a more active role on Stephen’s behalf since losing Adeliza to a Flemish convent and an untimely death. Aubrey de Vere, Earl of Oxford, was Stephen’s chamberlain, but like so many in this war, his past was chequered, for at one time, he’d been allied with Maude. The same was true of Roger Beaumont, Earl of Warwick, a cousin of the Beaumont twins and a former partisan of the empress. Eustace was glad they were eating with such gusto, for it put off their inevitable and intrusive questions about the Normandy debacle.

Stephen alone had no appetite for the stew; it was growing cold on his trencher as he toyed with a piece of bread. Eustace had not seen him since the spring, and he was taken aback by how much Stephen seemed to have aged. He did think Stephen was old; to twenty-two, fifty-six was tottering on the edge of an open grave. But his father had never looked his age before. Eustace studied Stephen as he ate, not liking what he saw. Mama’s death was a wound that ought to be healing by now. It had been five months, after all. He missed her, too. But Papa could not afford to give in to his grieving. There was too much at stake for that.

The meal was almost over when the talk turned to the topic Eustace had wanted to avoid, yet knowing all the while that it would come up, that it must be dealt with, for Henry Fitz Empress’s triumph would affect them all. It was the affable, tactless William d’Aubigny who breached the tacit conspiracy of silence. Sopping up gravy with a thick chunk of bread, he looked inquiringly down the table at Eustace. “Now that you’re here, lad, you can tell us what truly happened in Normandy this summer. What with the rumors and gossip, who knew what to believe? Did the French king really get chased all the way back to Paris with his tail between his legs?”

Stephen glanced up swiftly, frowning. His sympathy stung Eustace as much as Aubigny’s clumsy curiosity, and he said roughly, before Stephen could intercede on his behalf, “If you heard that the French king’s milksop allies fled like rabbits, that is true enough, and may God forgive them, for I never shall. As for my brother by marriage, Louis hardly covered himself in glory, either. He, of all men, had reason to avenge himself upon Maude’s whelp, but he had no stomach for fighting, for—”

Stephen leaned over. “Eustace…”

Eustace shook off his father’s hand. He knew he was being dangerously indiscreet, but he no longer cared. “You wanted the truth, did you not? Well, I am giving it to you. Henry Fitz Empress did not win the war; Louis lost it. Twice he balked at doing battle with Henry—twice! No wonder he was not man enough for that wanton wife of his, for I’ve seen snakes with more backbone.”

There were some involuntary laughs at that, quickly smothered. Eustace ignored them, unable to stop himself now even if he’d wanted to; his rage had been too long pent up. “Once it became clear that this would be no quick and easy war of conquest, Louis’s resolve began to waver like a broken water reed. Instead of confronting Henry at Pacy, he showed his heels. I’d stayed behind to garrison Neufmarché, and by the time I got to Louis, it was too late; all the fight had gone out of him.”

Pausing to gulp down the last of his wine, Eustace shook his head in angry bafflement. “Louis sees ill omens if he so much as stubs his toe. The botched attack on Pacy was bad enough, but then his cousin died suddenly and after that, he was well-nigh useless, convinced that all these setbacks must be proof of God’s disfavor. His brother and my craven cousins had already flown the coop for Dreux, Blois, and Champagne, and so this wretched war ended with the King of France stricken with a convenient fever, skulking back to Paris in shame.”