Devil's Consort (102 page)

Did I tell him I loved him? I did not.

Did I soothe and caress my husband newly returned to life? I did not.

‘So you’re awake and like to live,’ I said. ‘And about time too. Do you know how long I’ve been sitting here? Now I can get some sleep.’

‘I knew you’d be here,’ Henry croaked, voice rusty from disuse.

‘Where else would I be?’ My heart leapt with joy.

‘When I was ill …’ he spoke carefully, as if choosing every word ‘ … this was where I wanted to be.’ He stretched out his hand and I took it. ‘I told them to bring me home. To bring me to you.’

I smiled and ran my finger over the strong steady beat of blood at his wrist.

‘You are home. Now you will be well.’

There was nothing more to say between us.

Until Henry’s next words. ‘Is Geoffrey here?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Send him to me.’

‘You need to eat first.’

‘I need to see Geoffrey.’

The familiar flare of jealousy at his single-mindedness sharpened my temper but I did not voice it. Weak he may be but his will was as dominant as ever. I stifled a sigh and gave in, acknowledging that the rest of our life together would be like this.

‘I hear you’ve made a truce.’

‘Yes. Better to have him with me than holding hands with Louis.’

‘A statesman at last, I see.’ I smiled wryly against the little ache that his mind was already leaping ahead, away from me.

‘I’ve grown into it.’ He sighed. ‘A mug of ale would be welcome, lady.’

I walked to the door.

‘Eleanor …’

I stopped but did not look back.

‘Come back when I’ve finished with my brother.’

Now I looked back—and returned his smile. ‘Yes, I will.’

So Geoffrey came, with the ale, and I left them to talk tactics. Henry would never change.

It was dark, before dawn. A peremptory knock thumped against the door of our chamber. Now beyond the sixth month of my pregnancy I was unwilling to stir, but Henry, restored to vigour in a disgustingly short space of time after all the dread he had put me through, was awake in an instant, leaping from bed, sword in hand, while I barely struggled out of sleep.

After a brief exchange of information, he was back, snatching randomly at clothes in the light of a candle taken from the messenger.

‘God’s blood!’ He stubbed his foot against one of his travelling chests. ‘Eleanor! Wake up.’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s come. Wake up!’

Now I sat up, gripped by his voice, the urgency, the underlying excitement. He was already pulling on his boots, swearing as one of the hounds bounded
through the still open door to rub affectionately against his legs.

‘What’s happened?’

‘Get off!’ He pushed the hound away and lunged to kneel beside me, cupping his hands around my face to kiss my lips and cheeks. I could feel his energy all but rebounding from the stone walls. ‘Stephen’s dead. A flux of haemorrhoids. Probably from sitting for so long on a cold throne that didn’t rightly belong to him.’ He laughed in unseemly mirth. ‘Dead. Sooner than I could ever have hoped.’ Henry was already halfway to the door.

‘Where are you going?’ As if I didn’t know. I tried not to sigh. I would be an abandoned wife again before the week was out and I did not like the thought.

‘To Barfleur. And then to England.’

I
DID
not know Rouen, neither was I greatly impressed with it, its grey and forbidding walls reminding me too strongly of Paris for comfort, but I was not sorry to arrive. It was a cold, grey afternoon, the sharp showers of April making travel unpleasant and the going slow. When I arrived, the castle was teeming with soldiers and officials so that I had to display my consequence to find a space in the courtyard to unpack my household. Good to tell that Henry was back.

My heart made a little thud against my ribs at the thought of our reunion.

‘My lady. We did not expect you so soon.’

‘Where is he?’ I asked the steward, who had come to greet me as I climbed the steps after arranging accommodation for my entourage. Agnes, arms full, and a little body of servants equally burdened with boxes and packages followed me. I had need of them all.

‘Ah! That is to say …’

His eyes would not quite meet mine. Perhaps he had come to waylay me rather than greet me.

‘Tell me.’ I continued to walk briskly. Although not knowing my way, it was clear where the main activity was. My ears pricked up.

‘My lord is in the Great Hall.’

‘So I hear.’ There was some sort of commotion ahead. It was uncommonly loud.

‘He’s not best pleased, lady.’

‘Hmm. Bad, is it?’

I knew the steward, a man of integrity. He knew me. He was Henry’s man but not without respect for Henry’s wife.

‘All I can say, lady …’ His voice dropped to a furtive whisper. ‘It’s like Limoges.’

I frowned. Limoges. I had no need to ask for further explanation. Limoges had a habit of preying on the mind.

Oh, yes. At Limoges I had learned fast. Henry was a true inheritor of the renowned Angevin temper, and I knew what devastation it could create. It was an amazing thing when in full flight, and for the briefest of moments there in Angers it made me hesitate, glance back to Agnes and then at the steward, who awaited my decision. Henry in the grip of anger was a man to be avoided.

‘As bad as that?’ I asked.

‘Worse. My lord doesn’t tolerate opposition well. Perhaps you should delay your arrival, lady …’

I considered his wooden expression, his kind advice, then cast it aside. I’d travelled a long way for this meeting. I’d waited until the very limit of my patience. ‘He summoned me here. He’ll speak to me now.’

‘As you will, lady.’ And on your head be it!

I could hear Henry’s furious voice before I even reached the door arch. There I had to wait for the steward to push aside the servants and officials who had withdrawn from the vast hall to take refuge in the outer audience chamber, but eventually I and my little party stood just inside the door, my hand on the steward’s arm to prevent him from announcing me, as I watched the cause of the upheaval, fascination warring with wariness. It was not worse than Limoges—the destruction was not likely to be quite as great—but it was a near run thing.

‘Every time I turn my back,’ Henry growled, face white, eyes blazing, ‘if it’s not one bloody vassal, it’s another. And if it’s not one of my lords bent on betrayal, it’s the King of France raiding along my border. Burnt Verneuil, has he? Attacked Vernon? And still calling himself Duke of Aquitaine, as if it’s a God-given right? The bastard!’ The short Angevin accents reverberated from the stonework. ‘The Vexin’s up in arms again. The Vexin’s always up in arms!’

He flung his arms wide as if to encompass the mess
that had awaited him on his return from England and fired his temper.

‘My wife’s damned vassals are a law unto themselves. Whilst my brother, God rot him, watches me for every chink of weakness. And I daren’t think of what’s going on in England now I’m not there. God’s eyes! I thanked the Almighty for Eustace’s death, but that was a shade previous. With Louis pinning me down here, I’ll warrant those bloody English barons have torn up my pact with Stephen and are sharpening their swords to stir up trouble for me. By God, I’ll crush their balls like a nut between two stones …’

His voice harsh and cracked, Henry lunged to sweep his arm along the trestle, sending cups and flagon flying, maps and documents too. Snatching one up before it fluttered to the floor, he tossed it haphazardly into the fire, where it went up in a crackle of flame, the seal melting with a hiss. Henry did not even register the destruction. It could have been the precious agreement with Stephen, signed and sealed between them in Winchester, bought with so much blood and effort. In that surge of blind rage Henry did not even care. Dragging the felt cap from his head, he now proceeded to wrench it into strips, flinging the shredded wool into the air, like a flock of colourful finches, before it dropped to the floor. A precious crystal cup was hurled at the wall where it shattered into pieces, to lie like tears.

Neither was Henry finished. ‘I’ll have Geoffrey’s
balls as well for this and roast them over a slow fire!’ He might have lowered his voice but it was threatening for all that. He roamed the room, overturning benches, stools, dragging one of the heavy tapestries from the wall, his whole manner without restraint. Hounds fled, servants retreated even further. Men died when Henry was in a temper. Men who had resisted his depredations had died at Limoges. I remained unmoving in the doorway, my fingers tightening on the steward’s wrist.

‘And now I hear that …’

I shook my head at the steward who was still intent on announcing me. Could I control him, restrain him? Now was the time to see, to prove it or to slink away. Eleanor of Aquitaine did not slink. I never had and never would. Henry’s ire was not directed at me so I would advance into the eye of the storm.

Henry would not frighten me.

I walked forward.

Henry’s head snapped round.

‘Ha! And here’s my lovely wife!’ He pounced. He covered the floor between us in a matter of steps. I would not flinch. I lifted my chin. Yes, my heart thundered, my skin chilled to ice, but I was intrigued rather than afraid. Would he actually cause me harm, and so publicly, in this display of terrifying fury? Could I draw the poison from the passion? Only time and experience would tell, and we’d
had so little time together to discover the limits of our relationship …

‘My wife! At last! What took you so long? You should have been here sooner. Did I not command you?’ He was within two strides of me now, face flushed as he loosed his attack. So I was to be the object of his ire after all. ‘Torn yourself away from your milksop singer of stomach-churning sentiment, have you? He slipped out of my grasp fast enough, the miserable whingeing fool. I suppose he fled back to hide behind your skirts again. Did he tell you I ill-treated him? By God, I did no such thing!’

It was true. My less than courageous troubadour had returned to Angers at the first opportunity, and I could not blame him. A military garrison was not Bernat de Ventadorn’s
métier.
But to do so without Henry’s permission had been more than foolhardy. Henry would not have given his permission, of course.

‘Bernat did not accuse you of cruelty, only of lack of sensitivity,’ I replied coolly. ‘Is that all you can say to me, Henry, when you’ve not set eyes on me for over a year? The fact that Bernat returned to me says more about your character than mine. I expect you mocked him unmercifully.’

‘I did not.’ For a brief moment reason slid back into his glare. ‘Well, not much. By God, Eleanor, he’s a poor creature. How can you tolerate him? Did he drip words of honeyed love into your ears?’
‘Yes. He is a troubadour and is paid to do exactly that. I am his Lady and his patron.’

‘God’s blood!’

‘You weren’t there to drip words, honeyed or otherwise.’ I kept the eye contact even as I trembled. Henry’s gaze raked me with hot fire. ‘It’s been over a year, Henry!’

‘Bugger that! I’ve been at bloody war!’

‘I know.’

‘And I don’t like your troubadour!’

‘I know that too. I have left him in Angers.’

‘I’m amazed you can bear to be without him.’ Henry’s eyes narrowed. ‘Have you heard the gossip? I have.’

‘Of course. They say Bernat is my lover.’

‘And is he? Have you let him do more than hide behind your skirts?’

Oh, I was so cool in my replies. I shocked myself but I would not retreat. ‘Do you think that I have?’

‘I think that you are a law unto yourself, madam!’

‘Such that I would couple with the bastard of a kitchen wench?’

‘You have the reputation for it, madam. Lascivious is the word, I think!’

So he was not of a mind to retreat either. Neither would I expect it. I was not unhappy if Henry was jealous. I stepped up my counter-attack, it being an excellent form of defence, and even bestowed on him a contemptuous smile.

‘Any scandals of my past have at least been with men
of birth as good as my own. I do not grovel in the gutter for my pleasure. Unlike you, my lord.’

A thunderous silence.

‘What was the name of your latest slut?’ I asked, silky-smooth. ‘Ykenai? What sort of name is that? A common whore, I understand.’ I considered my next comment, and decided to risk it. ‘And I hear that she has carried you a son.’

Although Henry had stilled, the emotion did not disperse. He watched me, viper venomous. I shivered. ‘You have a sharp tongue on you, lady. Have a care.’

I tilted my chin. ‘Oh, I do. I have every care, my lord. I am the epitome of respectability. My lascivious reputation is a thing of the past.’ I showed my teeth again in a smile. ‘Why would I need a milksop lover when I have you?’

‘Well, at least that is true! Why would you? I think it’s time I reminded you, madam wife!’

He was jealous! Delight sang through me as sweetly as Bernat’s songs as I tracked the easing of the lines around his eyes, the draining of the high colour. Henry was mine. The fury was lessening and with a harsh laugh he was becoming aware of the avid audience of lords and servants alike, mouths open as they took in every word. I did not care. Let them listen to their betters if they so wished.

‘No!’ I stated.

‘No, what?’

‘No, it is not true. I don’t have you. Not often. Hardly ever. What are you going to do about it, Henry?’

‘You’re here now, Eleanor. I’ll show you what I’ll do about it.’

I saw my provocation hit home. Henry raised his hand. I must have flinched. Henry’s eyes widened in horror and his hand dropped away.

‘You thought I was going to strike you! You did, didn’t you? By God, woman!’

‘I have no idea. Your mood is black enough.’

‘I’ve never stuck a woman in my life—’ Henry was speaking in a low voice ‘—and I’m not about to start with you. I’ve killed a fair few men, but I’ll not demean myself striking a woman and, by God, never you!’ The extremity of emotion faded further from the harsh lines of his face as he raised his hand, slowly now, to rub the back of his fingers over my cheek. ‘I’ll not wilfully harm you.’