The First Plantagenet

Chapter 1 – August 1151

In the great hall of the Cite Palace, the King and Queen of France were on their gilded thrones, under blue canopies sprinkled with fleurs-de-lys. Henry Duke of Normandy and his father, Geoffrey Count of Anjou, moved toward them, into the midst of a susurration of whispers and titters behind hands. Every eye turned their way with a sly glance. The two Angevins were not of the type to be overawed by a parcel of overdressed eager-eyed courtiers. They strode confidently forward, leaving their entourages at the back of the hall, in a little cluster, apart.

As reported, the queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, was a most beautiful woman. Her eyes passed over Henry without interest and came to rest on Geoffrey with a look that revealed nothing except that she knew how to arrange her face in the mask of regal composure. Henry expected them to linger there, for Geoffrey’s face was an altogether pleasant place for a woman’s eyes to rest. But, after just a moment, they returned to Henry, and subjected him to a look such as he had never encountered before, as if she was thinking: Now, this is interesting. Nor did she make any attempt to disguise her bold scrutiny.

Geoffrey paused and Henry went forward alone to kneel before the king’s throne. Louis Capet was a pale wisp of a man, as insubstantial as smoke. Henry wondered how he managed the ravishing Eleanor in bed. He was eighteen years-old and could not help such thoughts. They came unbidden, like early-morning erections, like summer fevers. He put his hands between those of the king. Geoffrey, as Count of Anjou, had done this before – this act of homage – but it was a first for Henry and it would be the hardest thing he had to do in his young life.

Geoffrey had plucked Normandy from the feeble grasp of King Stephen of England and those barons who possessed lands on both sides of the Narrow Sea. He had given the duchy to Henry, knowing his son, as a great grandson of the Conqueror, would be more acceptable to English and Norman alike than himself, an Angevin. The history of Norman/Angevin relations had been a bloody one. Each was mistrustful of the other and regarded him as barely civilized. Henry was half Angevin and half Norman.

It was important to Henry at this time to have his right to the ducal title recognized, to enable him to focus his attention on England without Louis attacking Normandy when his back was turned. Abbe Bernard of Clairvaux brokered the peace. Louis agreed to recognize Henry as duke and Henry would do homage to Louis as his overlord and yield up the Norman Vexin. The Vexin was a strip of land that straddled the border where Normandy met the Capetian lands, sundered along its length by the River Epte, a tributary of the Seine. The territory had been fought over for many years, but traditionally the Normans held the northern half, the Capetians the southern half.

This agreement left Henry feeling cheated. The Vexin was invaluable to the defense of Normandy.

It was not in the Angevin nature to give up anything. Even as the words of earthly fidelity mumbled between his stiff lips, Henry was determined to have the Vexin back one day.

The courtiers watched and murmured their pleasure. Louis’s solemn face was wreathed in smiles. Henry withdrew and Geoffrey strode forward, flicking his mantle aside as he went down on one knee. Henry noticed how the queen’s gaze drifted down to rest almost tenderly on that fair face, with its piercing blue eyes, golden skin and full-lipped sensual mouth. Perhaps she was reminiscing about their shared past. Henry mused sometimes about where he came from. He had inherited few of his parents’ traits: neither his father’s good looks, grace and effortless charm, nor his mother’s inexorable pride and dignity. One thing he had in common with both though: tenacity. He had a grip of steel.

Geoffrey was one of those men with plenty of muscle but no bulk. Henry lacked his father’s tall elegance, being of medium height, and his body was stocky. He had a broad chest and a thick neck. He looked somewhat like a laborer. Unlike his father he had no grace – or perhaps it was that he was too restless, seldom still long enough for anyone to measure his grace. His gray eyes looked out into the world directly and fearlessly. They were sharp and missed little even when he appeared not to be watching. Mirrors of his moods, sometimes they were like the clear light of a summer sky before the sun rises, sometimes like a moorland mist or dark as wet ashes, and sometimes frighteningly black, when the temper was on him. His hair was a reddish-brown, like the coat of a bay horse, but shorter than the current fashion, his beard tender, and his nose was freckled. In the sun, his skin turned an alarming shade of red before tanning.

Henry knew how to watch and listen and learn. He listened to the talk around him and watched Queen Eleanor. She had often been the subject of sordid rumors, fascinating to a young man. The latest, the most interesting as far as he was concerned, was that she and Louis were talking about divorce. In that event, who would get the fair Eleanor, for such a prize would not be allowed to languish? He could foresee a queue forming as long as the Seine. But he heard nothing about divorce. It still belonged in the realm of rumors. What he heard was only what he expected to hear on an occasion like this: the promise of future good relations between France, Normandy and Anjou.

This was what the king spoke to him about. Louis Capet had a thin and tired face. He was thirty or so, but sorrow and disappointment were hurtling him into middle age. Geoffrey had told Henry that after Vitry Louis cut his silky blond hair off as a penance. Vitry was where the church burned with fifteen hundred Christian souls inside. It was not Louis’s fault, really. The houses were fired by his soldiers and spread to other buildings, but he took the burden of guilt on himself. Now his hair was thin and receding and the bald spot on top reminded Henry of a tonsure, which he thought exceedingly apt. Once the smoke cleared at Vitry, after the burned bodies had been shoveled out, Louis took to his knees with increasing fervor and frequency.

He was not intended to succeed his father, but his elder brother was tossed from his startled horse when a stray pig ran across his path. The accident was generally considered an act of divine benevolence, for he was an arrogant and unpleasant youth. Louis, who had been educated and prepared for the church, found himself instead heir to the throne and, while still in his mid-teens, king. It was said of him that he resembled more a monk than a king and paid heed to churchmen more than his advisers. One of those to whom he bent the ear was Bernard of Clairvaux.

Henry was presented to Abbe Bernard, who was already known to him by repute. The abbe was a small man, so unprepossessing one was not prepared for the force of his will. His brown eyes were quick to spot a nascent sin, a human weakness, and his wrinkled ears obtruded like jug handles, the better to hear when God spoke to him.

Bernard asked all the right questions: Do you pray daily? Do you give thanks to God for the blessings He has showered on you that He may continue to do so? Are you chaste in your habits? Do you confess regularly? Do you uphold the rights of the church in your lands? Henry gave all the right answers: Yes, yes and yes, and some of it was even true. He did pray daily, although he might not always remember to thank God for his blessings. He was definitely not chaste, having plunged into the sins of the flesh before the first sprouting of chin hairs, and discovered a diversion every bit as gratifying as hunting. As to whether he confessed regularly, that depended upon one’s interpretation of ‘regularly’. He thought Abbe Bernard’s view of that would be vastly different than his own. But certainly he would uphold the rights of the church always. He could see no reward in engaging the abbe in a discussion of his failings and so gave the answers most pleasing, while covertly watching the queen. His eyes were drawn to her as if he had no control over them.

She was the most magnificent woman he had ever seen. Dress her in rags and she would still turn heads: that presence, that face, not merely beautiful but strong and possessing the arrogance of expression that came with vanity. She exuded a powerful allure with every lift of a delicate pointed brow, with every gesture of her slender hands.

He was attracted to her, this queen of bad repute, this sovereign duchess, this incomparable beauty. She must have been thirty, or nearly so, with a questionable past, but that did not make her less attractive to a lad of eighteen. Perhaps more so. Their eyes met and she moved toward him with all the sinuous grace of a dancer, as if her feet barely touched the ground. He wanted her, and if Louis was foolish enough to let her go, he felt sure he would have her.

So…divorce? Is it true? he asked bluntly, because he was a blunt man.

Hush, my lord. It is premature to speak of such matters, she said in a sultry voice, a sound that filled his soul with heat.

Oh, of course, he concurred, and added slyly: But if we were to speak of it, which some are doing already, covertly, would you favor me?

Impudent boy, she murmured and moved away with a backward look over her shoulder.

Henry could feel the blood rushing to his head, the first sign of temper. To be called ‘boy’ by his goddess was a severe blow to his young manhood. He simmered for a good hour. It was only when one of her women intercepted and flirted with him, and told him that Eleanor often walked in the gardens in the hour before supper, that he forgave her.

He was curious about her and his father, especially since she had awakened his interest. He had long known there was no harmony in his parents’ marriage. It was a marriage founded on mutual loathing, punctuated by fierce quarrels, screams and slaps, but with adequate interludes in bed to result in the births of three boys. Henry didn’t blame his father for seeking solace with other women, even as he comforted his mother after the slaps. But was the queen one of them?

He would not trespass on Geoffrey’s privacy to ask where he had put his prick. It was his own business; and he asked himself if he really wanted to know. Would it change how he felt about Eleanor or, more precisely, what he intended for her? He thought not. If she had been unfaithful to Louis, perhaps she had good reason. If, however, she was wed to him and strayed, he would bring the wrath of God down about her head.

His own prick had been busy in the last five years. He thought of the first time: a hayloft, the heavy earthy smell of beasts, spangles of dust caught and held in shafts of golden sunlight shining through gaps in the boards. Technically, he was still a virgin and he had pimples. He could remember those things but had no memory of what the girl looked like. She was seventeen and had only to crook her finger and he went panting after her like a dog. Sometimes she sent him on errands, as if he was her personal servant, and sometimes she disparaged him, but only enough to encourage him to win back her favor.

They were discovered in the end. The girl was sent away in disgrace, and he – well, it was strange, or perhaps not so strange, he thought now, that he was treated by the male denizens of the castle, even his father, as if he had passed unscathed through some kind of initiation, or received a coveted accolade like knighthood. ‘Rutting like a young bullock, eh lad?’ Geoffrey had said, with what could only be described as fatherly pride. ‘Well, it’s man’s nature. Go see one of the chaplains and get yourself absolved.

He was in his father’s chamber, ambling around, while Geoffrey, one of those gregarious souls who could not stand their own company for long, sat with some of his knights. The talk was all of the day’s ceremonies.

So, Eleanor, Henry said at the first opportunity, is it true she has been unchaste?

The question gave rise to laughter and a few crude remarks from some of the others but Geoffrey measured out his words. There are rumors of an incident while she was on crusade, something to do with her uncle, the Prince of Antioch. When Louis found out he had her whisked away, which she didn’t take kindly to. The prince was killed shortly after and the Turks took his head. The crusade was over in any case – it had been a disaster. On the way home the king and queen stopped in to see Pope Eugenius, who did his best to reconcile them and popped them into bed together.

I suppose even the pope can’t stitch over a gaping wound.

True, his blessing had little lasting effect. Except that it produced the little Alix.

The queen had given birth to two girls in fourteen years of marriage, leading to a great deal of speculation about the frequency of Louis’s visits to her bed and Eleanor’s fertility. Henry, who already had a bastard son, thought if she were his wife, she would be busy in the nursery.

Do you think it’s true?

Geoffrey shrugged. I didn’t join the crusade. I had fighting enough in Normandy.

A server came among them with a tray of wine goblets. Henry refused. He was abstemious with food and drink. Few things disgusted him more than a man out of his senses with drink.

Anyone other than Raymond? he asked, and saw the cup halt halfway to Geoffrey’s mouth. Their eyes met and they shared a moment of quiet laughter.

Henry was reminded of a camp in Normandy on one of the occasions he accompanied his father on campaign. He was about seven at the time. Geoffrey raised him to be a soldier, knowing those were the skills needed to hold what was his. Sometimes in the evenings he would sit with the men around the campfires, listening to their stories, their bawdy jokes, curled up next to his father, feeling the most wonderful sense of well-being. And the next thing he knew would be the clangor of pots, the sound of muted voices as he awoke in his father’s bed, or sometimes on the floor next to it if there was a woman in his place. His father would wink and say: ‘We soldiers keep each other’s secrets, eh lad?’ Even when he was small he understood intuitively that his mother must never find out about him sleeping on the floor.

Will Louis divorce her for unchastity though? he wondered. He’ll make himself a laughing stock if he does.

He already is, one of Geoffrey’s companions said.

Geoffrey snorted with amusement. They say when he’s given her a poke he must run to his confessor for absolution. She, poor woman, is probably unaware she’s been poked.

At this, the men in the chamber roared with laughter. It was the sort of joke often made about Louis.

But the word I hear, Geoffrey went on, is that it is Eleanor who has her heart set on divorce and Louis resists the idea. Everyone else thinks it’s a grand idea. The barons of France have never taken to her. She is foreign to them, too independent-minded and pleasure loving and inclined to tempt Louis down paths that lead far from their own objectives.

What does Abbe Bernard say?

He harangues the king at every opportunity, the substance of which is that the royal marriage ought to be terminated, and never mind that the Lord Pope blessed their union not two years past. The Lord Pope was not in possession of a particular salient fact: consanguinity.

Ah! So that will be the reason.

The pretext. It is the only inducement likely to move Louis to give her up. Bernard says the marriage is invalid due to fourth degree kinship and the proof is that God has made His displeasure clear by withholding the blessing of a son.

He loves her truly then, does he?

Beyond reason. It is not a good thing for a man to be besotted with his wife. But he also loves Aquitaine and he will be reluctant to part with those fair fields and valleys.

So there will be no divorce? What do you think?

I think she’ll have her way, because she’s the kind of woman who gets what she wants. Geoffrey smiled a little and leaned toward his son. Now you may tell me what is your interest in the matter.

Henry shrugged. He was not ready to reveal in this company of scoffers how high his ambitions flew. They would think he was being too presumptuous. And he wondered if he wanted an unchaste wife with her best breeding years behind her.

Geoffrey said: Louis’s advisers are trying to persuade him that when she’s free he will still be her overlord and able to keep her lands in safe hands and under French control by arranging a match for her with one of his vassals. Someone manageable. Geoffrey grinned. Plato says, of all the animals the most unmanageable is a boy. I add, of all the boys the most unmanageable is my eldest son.

Henry wondered how his father knew him so well.

If you’re thinking of wedding her yourself, forget it, Geoffrey said then. You’ll never be accepted.

Henry nodded. This he understood. But he was eighteen. Everything was possible.

Stone walls and trellised vines enclosed the gardens of the Cite Palace. Its paths were shaded by fig, willow, cypress and pear trees, and bordered by beds of roses and sweet violets. Henry waded through a sea of multicolored blooms to where an herb garden perfumed the air with the fragrance of mint, rue and thyme. Queen Eleanor sat in an arbor of acanthus. He had hoped to find her alone and was dismayed to see her ladies clustered around her.

My lord of Normandy, she said warmly.

He was of an age when his blood quickened at the slightest provocation, and Eleanor’s smile was the cause of some testicular distress. With a flick of a slender wrist, she sent her women skipping away. Not far away. He could hear them giggling, probably watching as he went down on one knee. This was a role he was unaccustomed to and he wasn’t sure how to begin or how to proceed. After kissing her scented hand – de rigueur he was quite sure – he did what came naturally by plunging right to the heart of the matter.

Everywhere I hear talk of divorce. You must tell me if it’s true.

Henry knew he lacked the striking good looks of his father, the polished manners and elegant speech of her other admirers. Even his dress sense left something to be desired and his voice, he had been told, sounded like gravel sliding downhill. What men found admirable in him was his energy, his ambition, his confidence, his clear-sighted way of assessing a situation. Women liked his raw sexuality, even the edge of roughness they sensed in him. And although his dealings with women had been generally confined to request, acceptance, a quick thrust and no emotional entanglements, he was quite sure he could persuade this beautiful queen that she could find no better match than himself – once he had brought her to admit that a divorce was pending.

If we were able to speak freely of such matters, my lord, she said reprovingly, I should feel compelled to point out that having been a queen, to become a duchess would require that I descend a significant degree in dignity.

That is no impediment. I will have England one day. I will be able to offer you a crown and a kingdom vaster by far than Louis’s. England, Normandy, Anjou and Maine, add Aquitaine and we shall rule an empire. You deserve nothing less and only I can give it to you.

Your mother, whom I honor, has been trying to wrest England from Stephen’s grasp for nigh on two decades without success. When he goes to his Maker his son will succeed him.

Stephen is a usurper and a poor king, he said fiercely. His reign has been a disaster because he is weak and vacillating and his barons flout him. The only thing that kept my mother from the throne was her gender. I have the right gender and I will be king.

This was not just wishful thinking, not just a vigorous hope on Henry’s part, but a certainty. It was an idea that lodged in his mind at quite a young age and, in spite of reverses and losses, it took firm root. Nothing could dislodge it now, nothing could shake it. He knew without a shade of doubt that he was made to fit into this place in history.

You are very sure of yourself for one so young, Eleanor said in the soft breathy whisper of a lover. Her eyes sparkled even more brightly. Her breath quickened.

Henry leapt to his feet and sat beside her on the carved stone bench. His eyes, intense as a touch, moved over her luscious curves beneath the clinging silk gown. He was smitten, as much by her voluptuous body and fair face as her wide and sunny acres, her rich towns and markets, her mighty towers and fast-flowing waters. Or… perhaps not quite as much.

Stephen is a poor king because he wants to be liked. I do not care if I’m liked, only that I am obeyed. I will do what has to be done.

I believe you will.

With you by my side I can achieve anything.

Eleanor demurely lowered her eyes. But we may not speak of such things yet.

He jumped angrily to his feet. Louis is not the man for you!

For Louis he had nothing but contempt, fueled by his being forced to cede the Vexin to a man he knew was his inferior in every way that mattered. Louis was in his prime, in good health and wielding kingly power. He had the most beautiful woman in France, if not the world, by his side and in his bed whenever he wanted her. Yet he had no son to succeed him, and where did he expect to get a son? On his knees, begging God and the Saints to provide one? Meanwhile, his beautiful wife, the mother of his two daughters, was forlorn and neglected.

What Louis needed, what Louis would be content with, was a bovine-faced drab with empty dugs and plenty of piety and a preference for swiving in the dark – if swive they must – draped in yards of linen from neck to toe. He, Henry, deserved this incomparable woman.

His lips curved in a suggestive smile. I intend to have you, and I give you warning, you will not be neglected.

You do have a novel way of wooing, my lord. They smiled at one another like long time lovers who knew each other’s thoughts without need of words.

He rose to go. Taking her hand, he bestowed a chaste kiss on it. After taking two steps away he turned back as if he had just thought of something. One more thing. Taking her face between his two callused hands, he covered her mouth with his own. Eleanor was startled, then overcome. He ravished her mouth. He plundered it with his tongue as if to extort every drop of sweetness it contained.

Do you think, she murmured when he released her, that I am of such shameless disposition as to be swayed by a kiss?

Can’t hurt, he said, and swaggered away.

Chapter 2 – September 1151 – March 1152

After Henry’s formal investiture as Duke of Normandy, he and his father left Paris. Geoffrey intended to return to Anjou, while Henry was off to Rouen to begin preparations for an expedition to England. His plans were interrupted when the news arrived: his father, Count Geoffrey of Anjou, was dead.

Within two hours he was in the saddle. Within twenty-four he reached Chateau de Loire, outstripping his companions and commandeering fresh horses as necessary. Geoffrey’s grieving knights waited for him there.

It was the heat that killed him. Hot as Satan’s cauldron, it was.

Henry remembered how it was in Paris: a sultry, unforgiving heat that caused men to boil in their own sweat.

When we reached the river the Lord Count stripped off his clothes and jumped in. Some of us joined him but we were all right later. Death was stalking only the count.

He took a fever that same day, and then the fever took him.

You wouldn’t think it, would you? That a swim on a hot day could kill a man like the count?

There were no parting words for his son, no farewell blessing. He was thirty-eight, still a handsome and vigorous man, who had gone swimming on a hot day. How could he die of it? Henry knelt beside the bier. Despite the candles burning at the four corners, there was a faint smell of putrefaction, but he hardly noticed as he wept unashamedly and tried to form prayers for the saving of his father’s soul.

Geoffrey used to ride around with a sprig of the planta genesta, the broom plant, stuck in his cap earning him the nickname Plantagenet. Women threw themselves at him. He was always popular with his men too, a respected leader, and the best of fathers, but he was a sinful man, a bad husband, cunning and turbulent.

Henry walked outside into a wall of heat that set the world shimmering to the horizon under the hard glare of a white sun. The wind had stilled its breath. So it was on the day Geoffrey rode to the Loire.

By such vagaries was man’s fate decided: a swim in a cold river, a dish of spoiled eels, a pig dashing across a Paris street. It made him wonder: Where was God’s hand?

Even as a child Henry possessed a prodigious energy, as if there wasn’t time enough to get done all he wanted to do. Sometimes he would take his horse and set off across the wide fields alone, jump hedges and ditches at breakneck speed, charge through woods, his horse’s hooves drumming an exhilarating rhythm on the stony paths. Now he rode and rode until his horse began to tire, when he made for the river, to watch the water glide sluggishly by. In his mind’s eye he imagined the water that killed his father as a separate entity, a darker patch, inky and malevolent, culpable, rushing in serpentine coils, broad shallow stretches and narrow channels to escape into the sea. He was alone now. He was the head of the family. He was Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou and Maine, and he was not yet nineteen years old.

The funeral cortege wound its way slowly south. It was Geoffrey’s wish to be buried in St. Julien’s Cathedral in Le Mans, the principal city of Maine, where he was born and married and where Henry was born. Henry was impatient with the pace but some things could not be hurried, and he devoted two weeks to the journey. In Anjou, people came out of their homes to murmur a last blessing, a hope of eternal life, assurance of God’s mercy. The churches where the count rested at night, where masses were said for his soul, were always thronged with those wishing to pay their final respects. Henry found it very hard to be the object of so much kindly consolation. He often shut himself away.

When lands changed hands it was necessary that the heir made his appearance in order to ensure the succession. There would always be those to dispute his rights. One of these was Henry’s younger brother Geoffrey, who had already given notice that he felt Anjou ought to be his, since Henry had Normandy and might in time have England. In fact, he claimed their father said as much on his deathbed and was heard by some of those gathered there, so Henry ought to respect his father’s dying wish. As feeble as the argument was, there were those willing to support him if only to stir up trouble and see what benefit they might gain. He swatted his brother aside and focused on organizing funeral rites befitting a count of Anjou.

He lingered in Anjou and Maine through the turn of the year, riding around his new acquisitions, to visit his vassals, inspect fortifications along the long border with Blois, and deal with those who resisted his assumption of power and those who might be tempted to do so in the future. His methods varied depending on his man. He would use bribery, promises, coercion or the force of his own powerful personality. He would use threats on the most obdurate while hoping it wouldn’t be necessary to carry out those threats. The names of the worst offenders were stored in his memory; he would not forget. They would not forget either. He taught them they were not dealing with an untried boy. He also met with his father’s officers to discuss the affairs of the two counties. Geoffrey taught him a lot but he knew he still had a lot to learn, and he was willing to be guided by older and more experienced men.

Rainald Earl of Chester came over from England. He was one of the many bastard sons of old King Henry, therefore the young Henry’s uncle. Henry remembered him as a jolly fellow, a boon companion, a garrulous gossip, perhaps a little too fond of wine but the sort of man you would want with you in your leisure time. Henry met him in Lisieux.

I come as an ambassador and as a supplicant, Rainald said with unwonted gravity. Henry, if you have any hope of making England your own, you must act now. The situation is desperate.

Henry poured him a cup of wine, splashed a generous amount of water in his own, and askd about his uncle’s leg, which had stopped a bolt at the battle of Lincoln, tearing up the muscle and leaving him with an awkward gait. Rainald liked to talk about his war wound. Even though it was more than ten years old there was always something new to say about it, and he was diverted for a while. Then, grave again, he said: Brian is doing poorly. He has a message for you. If you can’t bring him help he will have no choice but to surrender.

King Stephen had shown such determination to take Wallingford that he had built two castles to guard the approaches against reinforcements and sorties by the besieged. Henry could afford to lose Wallingford. It was an embarrassment to Stephen, a symbol of defiance, but strategically its loss would not be a severe blow. Wallingford sat on a finger of land poking rather impertinently into territory held by the king and far from Henry’s bases in the west. Brian FitzCount was in command and had resisted the enemy’s best efforts to dislodge him. So far.

I have told him, as I tell you, I will get there as soon as I can.

Rainald looked him in the eye and shook his head. Not good enough, lad. Ever since your lady mother first raised her standard in England, Wallingford has been consistently loyal and defended courageously. Its loss would hearten our enemies and demoralize our friends, perhaps to the point wheret they would feel they had no choice but to come to terms with the king. Your arrival will have the opposite effect: It will demoralize your enemies and hearten your friends.

I understand what you’re saying, Uncle. In any engagement, morale is worth half a hundred knights. But Brian still holds the bridge over the Thames, so he’s not entirely cut off. He can last a little longer.

Rainald put a hand on his arm to keep him still. Look, I can understand the delay when you had to go to Paris and why your father’s death – God assoil his soul – caused a further delay, but for the love of God, what holds you now?

Do you know how many petty rebellions will spring up when my back is turned unless I stamp my authority on my lands?

You risk losing England itself.

I can’t lose what I don’t possess, Henry said with unassailable logic. England belongs to Stephen. Normandy and Anjou are mine and I will make them safe. England will wait. Brian FitzCount will wait.

Your lands here are under no immediate threat.

Uncle, Louis holds the Vexin. How can I leave Normandy so exposed?

He would have liked to tell Rainald the truth, but a secret with Rainald was as safe as a virgin in a convocation of bishops. It would escape from its loose confines with the second cup of wine, and be blared like a trumpet blast with the fourth. From his mouth it would spread across the land like a dust storm in the desert, blowing under sills, through window frames and crevices in walls. It would creep through the streets of Paris to slide into the ear of King Louis, who would receive it with shock and consternation. He would perhaps have a rare temper tantrum. It would leap across the Narrow Sea, and when Brian FitzCount heard it he would say: God’s death! He is ignoring his responsibilities here for a woman? No, not just any woman, Brian – the most desirable of women.

He said nothing to Rainald until the expected news came and he could barely control his elation. Go back to England. Tell Brian I’ll be there within a month, he said, and Rainald whooped with delight.

It was official. The pope had pronounced. The sin of fourteen years was expunged. A conclave of prelates met at Beaugency to consider Louis’ petition for annulment and the Archbishop of Sens declared the marriage of the King and Queen of France to be within the forbidden degree of kinship and therefore invalid. This was a face-saver. Somehow even the boatmen who plied their trade on the river knew it was because Eleanor wanted to be free of Louis.

Beauty allied to rich and wide lands, and now unwed, Eleanor was an heiress of incomparable magnitude, a prize waiting like a ripe fruit to be plucked by any man willing to take the risk. To be ambushed and abducted, to be wed against her will for one of her spirit would be debasement beyond bearing. Henry worried until he heard she had arrived safely in Aquitaine. Shortly after came a letter. Actually, it was more like a summons.

Chapter 3 – May 1152

As he rode south, Henry’s eyes were busy everywhere. He was impressed by all he saw: walled towns, turreted castles, monasteries and small villages nestled beside rivers, most built of a creamy stone with red tiled roofs. Although he was in a hurry to claim his bride, he stopped at markets to sample the produce and ask about prices. He talked to other travelers and farmers working their fields.

The name of Eleanor’s duchy meant ‘land of waters’ because of the great rivers that nourished it: the Garonne, Charente, Vienne, Dordogne and others. It encompassed also the wine-producing region of Gascony, the county of Poitou, and dwarfed the kingdom of France, stretching from the Loire in the north to the Pyrenees in the south and from the Rhone Valley and the Massif Central in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west. The rivers teemed with fish; forests abounded in game; orchards sweetened the air like nectar; vineyards and pastures rolled away to a horizon wavering in a heat haze. All gave evidence of the opulence of Aquitaine.

But the people: a handsome lot with shaved faces, in them he sensed a sly hostility. They had an unfortunate propensity for independent thinking, rebellion, riot and disorder in general. He knew these things because Anjou and Poitou shared a common border and he made it his business to know. They loved and honored their duchess, but they hadn’t liked her husband at all and made his rule as difficult as they were able. They were overjoyed when she discarded him. As the hated French dismantled their defenses, gave up their offices and left the province, the local people followed in their wake, dancing and jeering, and throwing offal. They were quite prepared to dislike anyone who came courting her, in particular an Angevin, who was now Duke of Normandy, both peoples regarded as barbarians by Aquitaine and the rest of the world, disparaged equally as having a reputation for greed, savagery and cunning. Worse from the point of view of the average Poitevin, was that Henry was known to have a claim to the crown of England, which could possibly result in Aquitaine and Poitou becoming English provinces! Rather would they deal with the Devil.

Henry rode through quiet streets toward the palace of Poitiers. There were no cheering throngs. People generally went about their business. Those who looked his way were cold-eyed and spat when he passed by or muttered curses at his sturdy back. Henry barely noticed. What he did notice was that the town was surrounded on three sides by the rivers Boivre and Clain and girdled by a stout defensive wall buttressed with towers at regular intervals. The narrow streets sprawled over the slopes and summit of a plateau, with the palace at the highest point. He had never seen a palace like it. Completely indefensible, it was a confection in pale stone of towers and turrets and narrow lancet windows, topped by red tiled roofs.

He clattered into the courtyard with his escort. Grooms ran from the stables to take the horses. He had sent a message ahead to warn of his arrival, and the Constable of Aquitaine hurried out the door to welcome him and lead him into the hall. He gazed about with interest. The constable informed him that the chamber was called the Hall of Lost Footsteps because it was of such length and the ceiling so high that the sound of a footfall could barely be heard. It required a forest of pillars to hold up the beamed roof. Henry’s eyes came to rest on Eleanor who was seated in a carved chair, her court clustered around the sides of the chamber.

He bowed courteously. She came toward him, her hand outstretched. She was dressed in an amber silk bliaut embroidered with intricate loops and leaves around the neckline and tight fitted sleeves. In defiance of convention, her mahogany hair lay in shining drifts about her shoulders and cascaded down her back to her buttocks, crowned by a gold circlet studded with gems. Ah, she was beautiful. What a pity it was that all flesh must come to ruin, Henry thought. She was lovelier now than when he last saw her. How sparkling her eyes, how flawless her skin. How sinuously she moved, every motion and gesture imbued with such elegance and sensuality that, young and lusty as he was, he could not help the mortification of an erection whenever she was in view or in his thoughts. She was magnificent, a fit partner for him.

Her eyes were shining, her lips parted and moistly inviting. He took her hand and kissed it, when he would rather have kissed her lips. He was not quite sure of the protocol but believed that might be acceptable now that they were to be wed.

Welcome to Poitiers, my lord, she said in her husky voice. I fear you have caught us unprepared. I didn’t expect you to get here so quickly.

With the greatest prize in Christendom awaiting me? Madame, you gave me wings. The court sighed in approval. It was a pretty compliment coming from an Angevin. There is no need for a fuss. Find a priest and we’ll do the deed this very day.

I agree that it is best to keep things simple and discreet. We don’t want to offend Louis any more than necessary. But I hope you will allow me a little time to make the occasion memorable?

It was only two months since the annulment. They were both Louis’ vassals and could not wed without his leave. Eleanor especially, his discarded queen, could not give her valuable hand to just anyone. Particularly she couldn’t give it to an ambitious Angevin, who was already well endowed with lands and likely to claim more. Most particularly she couldn’t give it to an Angevin who was as close to her in kinship as Louis himself. Neither one was thinking of Louis, or any poxy law that might obstruct their marriage. Neither one would object to using church law when it suited them and discarding it when inconvenient.

She led him to her chair. Another chair was placed beside it, of equal size and grandeur. She presented her barons, among them her mother’s two brothers, Hugh Count of Chatellerault and Raoul de Faye, both utterly devoted to their niece’s interests and as protective of her as bears with a cub; the young and handsome Count of Angouleme; and the volatile and violent Lusignans, whose reputation was such as to make sane men avoid them and those who earned their malice flee to distant parts.

Henry spoke to each man in turn, amazing everyone with his knowledge. He had gone to the trouble of informing himself about Poitou and its people. One of his greatest assets was an extraordinarily retentive memory. His words punctured the unfriendliness of the vassals. They were charmed and flattered by him, forgetting for a while that in accepting their duchess’s choice they were simply making the best of a bad situation, because a woman, even one as strong and competent as Eleanor, could not be expected to manage vast territories. They told each other that because Henry was young and had provinces of his own to rule, he would be too busy to interfere with them. So, on the whole, he was not a bad choice.

They accept the lordship of their dukes, Eleanor told him wryly, only as long as it doesn’t interfere with their business – which is pursuing their own feuds and quarrels.

That was not the way Henry ran things.

The hall was in motion as servants brought in wine and dainties and the assembly broke up into noisy groups. Side by side on the dais, Henry and Eleanor were given a measure of privacy in which to talk.

How was your journey?

Made tediously long by my impatience. Rain in Anjou. And yours?

First Theobald of Blois laid an ambush and then your wretched brother tried to abduct me.

This was news to Henry. I don’t blame him. I would have done the same in his shoes, he said brazenly. I’ll give him a good thrashing if you like.

Eleanor laughed to show she was not deeply offended. She understood ambition too. It leapt in the blood like lust.

She leaned closer, delicate chin resting on folded hand. I want to know everything about you, Henry.

Everything? he teased.

But spare my blushes.

He