The Young Lion (24 page)

The servant returned to say the mare that Lady Xena usually rode was not there. Isabella rushed to the statue of the Virgin. ‘Dearest Madonna, what am I to do?’ she asked.

‘Go to the rabbi,’ the Virgin answered. ‘But send someone to the palace to alert Henry.’

Isabella, calmed, went in search of Maria.

‘Rachel has run away,’ she said to Maria. ‘You must ride to the castle and insist on speaking to Henry. Don’t let Matilda frighten you away. You just tell her it’s about her grandson.’ She gave a tight smile. ‘That might wipe the sneer off her face.’

Isabella herself mounted her best horse and almost galloped up through the town and down to the wharves. She stopped beside the first merchant she saw dressed in the Jewish way. ‘Where’s the rabbi?’ she demanded.

‘Lady Isabella, I’ll take you,’ he said. All of them knew Isabella was concubine to the Old Duke.

It was a short walk to the rabbi’s house. Rachel’s horse was tethered outside.

‘Please God, may I not be too late,’ Isabella prayed.

The rabbi’s wife opened the door to her. ‘Welcome. Welcome to our house,’ she said. It was small, with a low ceiling and the signs of many children and much hospitality. It smelled of cooking.

Isabella realised, I forgot to cover my hair. ‘Is a young woman with a baby here?’ she asked.

The rabbi’s wife looked down. ‘If you would wait here, lady, I’ll ask my husband.’

‘Please lend me a head-covering,’ Isabella said. ‘I came in haste.’

The woman returned with a veil and, when Isabella had covered her head, beckoned to her husband to enter.

After the greetings Isabella said, ‘Rabbi, I believe a young woman, Rachel, the daughter of Avram, visited you this morning.’

He nodded.

‘Where is she now?’

‘She has a babe that she is having circumcised.’

Isabella said, ‘No! You, Rabbi, must stop this. The baby has been baptised a Christian. He is son of the Duke.’

The rabbi turned to his wife, dismayed. He spoke to her in Hebrew. She shook her head. All of them were too shocked to do anything but stare at each other.

Thunderous banging on the door made the rabbi’s wife shriek with fright. The door was opened and the tread of heavy boots down the corridor could be heard. Henry entered, his face flaming. Behind him were two knights and Guillaume. The four angry warriors seemed to fill the whole house. ‘Where are they?’ Henry demanded. He grabbed the rabbi by the front of his clothes and shook him.

‘Lord Duke, lord Duke,’ the man stammered.

‘Henry! Stop it!’ Isabella said, and turned to the rabbi. ‘Please take us immediately to the circumciser’s house.’

The rabbi looked desperately to his wife. ‘The house is this house.’

Isabella thought for a moment that Henry would kill the rabbi with his bare hands. ‘You’ve circumcised my son!’ he roared.

‘Lord Duke! No! No!’ the rabbi answered.

Henry pushed him towards the only other doorway.

At the end of a corridor they came to a chamber where Rachel sat with the baby on her knee, his genitals exposed. Beside them stood the circumciser. They had stopped proceedings when the rabbi’s wife had called him away. The baby’s foreskin had not yet been cut. By now they had heard Henry shouting. He strode into the chamber and snatched the child from Rachel. She stood and with the glare of a tigress hit Henry across the face.

‘Pig!’ she said. ‘Christian pig! Give me back my baby.’

There was silence from the adults. The infant gave a long, piercing wail. Henry slowly handed him back to her. He turned to the others and said, ‘Leave us. All of you.’

They filed out of the chamber, back to the front of the house, the rabbi, his wife and the circumciser trembling with fear.

‘I had no idea the child was of the lord Duke,’ the rabbi said. ‘No idea … She told me she was a widow and was on her way to Antwerp, where she has an uncle. I thought the babe was …’

His wife found seats for them all while they waited. ‘May I offer you a cup of water from our well?’ she asked. They accepted.

Rachel had given the baby her breast to calm him. She ignored Henry’s presence, except from time to time to fling a look of fury at him. ‘Tell me this, Christian,’ she said eventually, ‘your Saviour was circumcised. When Christian men arrive in heaven, will they be circumcised on arrival, to bring them to perfection, like their Saviour?’

Henry paced up and down, speechless. At last he turned on her and shouted, ‘How could you do this to me? How could you do this to him?’

Her voice was icy calm. ‘You won’t marry me. You won’t allow my child to be brought up properly, as a Jew. I sail for Antwerp on the tide. Your father and the Queen provided me with funds. Now I’m free.’

Henry gaped. ‘You’d leave me?’ he asked.

She nodded.

‘Why? What have I done but adore you?’

Rachel took a long, calming breath. ‘I asked you to marry me and you refused.’

‘Well, ask me again!’ he said.

‘Henry, will you marry me?’

‘Yes! I will! We’ll go immediately to the cathedral and we’ll be married. Guillaume and the two knights will be our witnesses.’ With that he grabbed her hand, pulled him to her and kissed her so long and so tenderly they both began to sob and hug each other, the baby pressed between them.

They walked hand in hand down the corridor. ‘There was a misunderstanding,’ Henry announced. He nodded to Guillaume and the knights. ‘You’re to come with us. Mama, please say nothing of this to Father. I’ll speak to him later.’

Isabella nodded. They all thanked the rabbi, his wife and the circumciser. ‘I apologise if I was a little brusque,’ Henry said. ‘Please forgive my ill manners.’

‘No offence, lord Duke,’ the rabbi said. ‘We’re forever grateful to you for saving us from the French. And perhaps you’ll join us again one night for the Sabbath meal …?’

‘Of course, of course I will,’ Henry said. Turning to Rachel he added, ‘My wife and I.’

The rabbi, his wife and the circumciser spoke together in Hebrew, laughing and clapping.

The cathedral was a short ride away, but the priest was having a nap. When he had been roused and had robed himself he emerged, smiling and nervous.

‘Father, you are to marry us,’ Henry said.

The priest looked at the four armed men who stood in front of him. ‘Lord Duke, are you the groom?’

‘I am.’

‘And the name of your bride, who has, I see, been blessed with a beautiful baby?’

‘Rachel filia Avram,’ she answered.

‘That is an unusual name.’ The priest could feel his heart gallop out of his chest in fright. ‘I’m obliged by my holy orders to ask you, my lady: are you Christian?’

‘No.’

‘Well, do you accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your Saviour?’ the priest persisted.

‘No,’ she repeated.

The priest looked up to Henry with an expression of helplessness. ‘Lord Duke, I can only marry Christians,’ he said.

‘I’m a Christian!’ Henry said. ‘Our baby has been baptised a Christian. Why can’t you marry us?’

The priest’s voice was almost inaudible. He felt the four pairs of warrior eyes burning holes through his garments. ‘Because, lord Duke, both husband and wife must be of the one true faith, the Christian faith. I cannot marry you to a Jew. Your lady must convert to our faith.’

‘I won’t,’ Rachel said.

‘God’s teeth,’ Henry muttered. He moved away from her and the other men and paced the nave for a few minutes. When he returned he said, ‘Alright. You men return to the castle. I’m going to sort this out.’ He gave the priest a curt nod of dismissal.

When they were alone Henry said, ‘I’ll marry us myself.’

‘Where? How?’ Rachel asked.

‘There’s a yew tree at the back of the cathedral. We’ll do it there.’ They walked around the side of the building to the yew tree. It was ancient, but not nearly as old as the yew in Scotland, only perhaps, two hundred years.

‘Put your hand on his head,’ Henry said. She did so. He put his hand over hers. ‘I, Henry Plantagenet, swear by the sacred life of
our son that I take you, Rachel, daughter of Avram, as my wife. Now you make the same vow to have me as your husband.’

She did.

‘We’re married,’ Henry said. ‘Not in the eyes of the Church. In the eyes of Almighty God. And His yew tree.’

Rachel began to cry. She wept and wept, as on the day she’d told him about the crusaders in Antioch. ‘I thought you didn’t love me,’ she said.

‘I love you more than ever, if that’s possible. My heart leaped with triumph when you refused to pretend you were a Christian.’ His expression was serious. ‘We are of the same iron, Rachel.’

News of the priest’s refusal to marry them spread swiftly through Rouen. When Geoffrey rode down from the castle, Isabella told him what had happened. Geoffrey listened, groaning. ‘Well, it’s resolved. Thank God, it’s resolved. The vows they’ve made to each other are meaningless to the Church, so Henry can still marry whomever I find for him as a bride.’ He sighed, ‘You have no idea how much work we have to do before we can invade England. This time, I’ll accompany Henry. I’ll lead my men from Anjou and Maine.’

The rest of winter, all of spring and summer passed in a gallop of meetings with vassals, financiers, mercenary commanders, ships’ captains, armourers, equestrian masters, bowmen, victuallers. Henry spent his birthday in Anjou, with a group of knights. When he was not visiting other parts of his demesne, he came to see Rachel and the baby. They lay together in Isabella’s house or, as the weather warmed, outdoors. Henry snuggled the baby inside his shirt and encouraged him to pull at his nipples or his chest hair. Baby Geoffrey would open his eyes and stare at Henry. ‘He recognises me! He knows I’m his father!’ he announced with glee. He insisted the wetnurse accompany them on outings, ordering her and the squires into the forest after he and Rachel had dined.

She was more beautiful now in how she presented herself to the world: her uplifted chin, her forthright gaze, her dazzling smile. She was also more passionate and more responsive to him than when they had first spent five days making love. Yet there was a fine, invisible wall between them. Often he wanted to ask, ‘Do you trust me now?’

One afternoon in early summer, he looked over at Rachel lying on her back in a field, smiling up at the windswept sky, and recognised what was different: she had lost her innocence. I broke it, he thought. He took her hand and kissed her palm. ‘Do you love me?’ he asked.

Her look was serious. ‘Do you remember you once said that you and I are kindred spirits?’ He nodded. ‘Well then, you know the answer: you are the seal upon my heart. Whether I want to or not, I love you. I’ll always love you.’

He wept so piteously she let him suckle her, although her milk had dried weeks earlier and her breasts were once more soft and high on her chest. She sang a lullaby. He slept for a few minutes and when he woke he said, ‘We’ve got to make another baby. Right now. An angel told me while I was asleep.’

‘Is that why you’re lifting my robe?’

‘The angel flew under my tunic … look at the size of it!’

In August, heat lay upon the capital like a fog that lifted not a fraction when the sun set, but stayed through the night, keeping people awake, feeling they breathed more water than air. The darkness throbbed with the croaking and tinkling of frogs and the sounds of a hellish host: insects of all sorts.

The Queen returned from the south. She brought wagons of produce, her cats, a new gyrfalcon, a company of minstrels and Bernard de Ventadour.

Reaching Paris, she declared the palace uninhabitable. Mosquitoes from the stagnant shallows at the river’s banks swarmed out at dusk, flying as high as the royal apartments. Pots of smouldering herbs were set to drive them away, but the mosquitoes hid on the undersides of chairs, beds and other pieces of furniture. As soon as the smoke from the herbs dissipated they came raiding for blood. The cats caught fleas, and servants wearing gauntlets washed them, daring each other to drown them.

Eleanor ordered a tent set up off the island where a dense canopy of leaves cooled the nights and made sleeping bearable and the mosquitoes easier to control. The King had his tent set up nearby and they attended Mass each morning in the open air.

Louis was disappointed she was not with child but hoped once the weather cooled and they returned to the familiar comforts of the palace, they would once more be blessed, this time with a boy. He was gratified to find her so cheerful and refreshed after her months in Aquitaine and that the subject of divorce seemed forgotten. The birth of Alix had left her almost haggard but now she had gained some weight, and it suited her. She sang and played a suite of new songs and made drawings for tapestries for the great hall. Most featured a unicorn and a maiden amid fields of flowers and fruiting trees. She spent hours drawing a coney or a fawn and deciding where, on the canvas, it should appear. She loved her white gyrfalcon – a gift from Geoffrey – and kept it by her side in the tent at night, where the cats spent hours plotting how to attack it. High on its perch, it glared at them and from time to time raised one leg to display its mighty talons.

Geoffrey and she had contrived to meet many times since January: sometimes in hunting lodges, in the grounds of an abbey, in a forest. Their trysts were so dependent upon trustworthy vassals that opportunities to lie together were rare. They fondled and kissed, made a plan for their next meeting, then bade farewell.
‘My balls ache,’ Geoffrey complained. He asked for news about Prince Eustace, and suggested Eleanor write more frequently to her sister-in-law. The idea amused her and she readily agreed.

‘You’re determined to see your son on his grandfather’s throne,’ she said one day. ‘I think you want it more than you want me.’

Geoffrey bowed his head as if she had struck him down like a beast at slaughter.

‘I snatch back those words!’ Eleanor said. ‘I spoke in jest. Forgive me! Forgive me.’

He regarded her for a long while in silence, his expression horrifying to her because it showed nothing. A worm of doubt entered her heart. Perhaps I’ve been mistaken, she thought. Perhaps he just amuses himself with me, with other ends in mind. The idea was so unfamiliar that at first it affronted her, then frightened her. All her life men had adored her. Or hated her. She was unaware they could react in any other way. So to wonder if the one man who had lain with her with such ecstatic passion could, perhaps …