Their horseplay abandoned, they swam a couple of widths of the river, then dragged themselves onto the sh.o.r.e, where they sat awhile in the heat, drying off, before donning their clothes.

"We will need to find a place to spend the night," Geoffrey said. "I should send the scouts ahead. My castle of Le Lude is at Sarthe, not far off. Let us make for there."

Comfortably accommodated in the fortress, and after bestirring the castellan and his staff to action, Geoffrey called for a meal, then sat down at the board with Henry and their entourage to enjoy it. Lifting a silver goblet of sweet Anjou wine, he toasted the success of Henry's planned a.s.sault on England.

"I cannot fail," Henry a.s.sured him expansively. The wine had made him bold and overconfident. He noticed his father looked flushed, but attributed it to the heat, although it was cooler in the stone fastness of the castle. Then Geoffrey waved away the plump roasted fowl, saying that he seemed to have little appet.i.te for food in this weather. A little later, Henry, wolfing down the last of his own dinner, felt the first stirring of concern as the count rejected a proffered bowl of fruit, then suddenly gripped the edge of the table, shuddering.

"Are you ill, Father?" he asked anxiously. To his knowledge, Geoffrey had never known a day's sickness in his life.

"A touch of fever, my son. It is nothing." He sounded breathless.

Henry placed his callused palm on Geoffrey's brow. It was burning.

"I knew I should not have gone swimming in the heat," his father said, attempting a smile. "I must have caught a chill. It has come on suddenly."

"You should go to bed, sire," Henry advised.

"I will," Geoffrey agreed, but when he tried to get to his feet, he had not the strength, and slumped heavily against the table. Henry jumped up, in unison with four men-at-arms, and together they manhandled the sick man up the stone spiral staircase to the bedchamber above, where they laid him heavily on the fur coverlet spread across the wooden bed. By now he was shivering violently, his body hot to the touch, his hands icy.

"He were a fool to go swimming in that river," one soldier commented. Henry glared at him.

"Strip him," he commanded.

"Are you b.l.o.o.d.y mad?" the soldier asked him. "He should be wrapped up warm."

"He's warm enough. He needs to cool down," Henry insisted. "Get his clothes off." Begrudgingly, the men complied, leaving Geoffrey wearing only his braies for modesty's sake.

"Now, fetch a basin of water and cloths." The men departed, muttering that their young lord had gone daft and would be the death of the count, but they complied with his orders nonetheless.

Sponging down Geoffrey's burning body, a task he took readily upon himself, for he loved his father, Henry willed him to get better.

"You are strong, sire. You must hold fast!"

Geoffrey lay there listlessly, his eyes glazed with fever. He was muttering something, and Henry bent an ear down to listen. Most of it was unintelligible, but he could make out the words "Don't, I beseech you" and "Eleanor." Grimly, he understood what his father was saying, and still he chose to ignore him. These were just the ramblings of a sick man.

Henry watched beside Geoffrey all night as the fever raged; he did his best to keep him cool, and turned a deaf ear to his mumblings. In the shadows, the men-at-arms kept vigil also, shaking their heads at his unorthodox treatment. But Henry had learned his wisdom from his old tutor, Master Matthew of Loudun, a very sage man who had taught him much when he was living in England, at Bristol, not just from books, but all sorts of practical knowledge. These uneducated soldiers had never had the benefit of Master Matthew's learning. His father would live, he knew it.

But Geoffrey grew worse, not better, and Henry spent much of the second night bargaining with G.o.d. If He would spare his father, then he would renounce Eleanor. He meant it at the time, although he had no idea how he could bear to give her up. G.o.d, it seemed, was listening, though, and as the sun rose, Geoffrey opened his eyes, from which the wildness had fled, and spoke lucidly for the first time since his collapse.

"My son," he said, his face pale beneath the tan, "will you swear that, if and when you become King of England, you will give my counties of Anjou and Maine to your brother Geoffrey?"

"Father!" cried Henry, alarmed and outraged, for he had little love for his younger siblings. "First, you are not dying, so this is no time for swearing such oaths. And second, you are asking me to swear away my patrimony. I cannot do it, nor should you require it of me."

"Boy, I am dying," Geoffrey said hoa.r.s.ely. "I feel it in my bones. And I order that my body must lie unburied until you swear to do what I ask."

"But Father, Anjou and Maine should be mine by right of birth, as your oldest son," Henry protested.

"You have Normandy, and you will, G.o.d willing, have England." Geoffrey's voice was weakening. "Is that not enough? Can you not humor your dying father?"

"No," Henry declared firmly. "I am sorry, I cannot, for it is an unjust request."

Geoffrey looked at him sadly.

"Then will you at least promise not to pursue the matter of the French queen? I ask only because I fear for the safety of your soul. I am done with earthly concerns."

"I have renounced her," Henry said truthfully, knowing that, if his father died, he would be released from that vow, G.o.d not having kept His part of the bargain.

"Then I can die partly content," Geoffrey croaked, his breath coming now in shallow gasps.

"Father, do not die!" Henry cried in panic, grasping the sick man's hands and rubbing some warmth into them, then recoiling horrified as they fell limply from his fingers and Geoffrey's eyes glazed over. "Father! Father!" He burst into noisy tears.

The soldiers, heads bowed in grief, for the count had been a good lord to them, knelt by the bed in respect for the pa.s.sing of a soul; after a moment a dazed Henry knelt with them. It took a moment more before he realized that he was now not only Duke of Normandy, but also Count of Anjou and Maine, and master of a quarter of France.

Later, Henry stood beside his father's sheeted body, which still lay on the bed on which he had died.

"He has paid his debt to Nature," he told his men, "and yet I cannot order his burial because I would not swear to disinherit myself."

"But it would be a disgrace to leave your father's body to lie rotting here in this heat," cried the castellan, knowing full well that the ever restless Henry would soon be on his way, leaving him to deal with the problem.

"You must bury him, sire," the soldiers urged. "You must swear now to what you would not swear before. You cannot leave him to stink the place out."

"Very well," Henry agreed, almost weeping in frustration. "I vow to give Anjou and Maine to my brother Geoffrey. Does that satisfy you? Now let us go to Le Mans to make arrangements for my father's burial in the abbey of St. Julien." And then, he added to himself, vow or no vow, I will take firm possession of Anjou and Maine and secure the allegiance of my va.s.sals there before setting my sights on England-and the crown that is my right. And I will marry Eleanor, with Louis's approval or without it.

3.

Paris, September 1151.

"Louis, you must listen to me," Eleanor said suddenly, as they sat alone at supper in her chamber. The servants, having placed spiced rabbit, girdle bread, fruit, and hard cheese on the table, had left them alone in the flickering candlelight.

Louis turned his fair head with its shorn hair toward his wife; he had cut off his beautiful long locks in penance after the burning of Vitry. There was sadness in his eyes. He knew he had lost her, this beautiful woman who had strangely captured his heart but never his body, and he feared to hear her say the words that would make the break final.

"We have known, you and I, for a long time, that there are serious doubts about the validity of our marriage," Eleanor said carefully. A great deal hung on the outcome of this conversation, and she was determined not to let her inbred impetuousness ruin everything.

Louis's heart plummeted like a sinking stone. She looked so fine, sitting there in her bejeweled blue gown, that glorious cloud of hair rippling over her shoulders. He could not believe she was asking him to renounce her.

"Pope Eugenius himself blessed and confirmed our union when we were in Rome," he said quietly. "Had you forgotten that?"

"How could I forget it?" Eleanor asked, shrinking inwardly at the memory of the beaming pontiff beseeching them to set aside their differences and their bitterness, and then-it had been hideously embarra.s.sing-showing them into that sumptuous bedchamber with its silken hangings and ornamental bed and urging them to make good use of it. And they had done so, G.o.d help them, with Louis taking his usual fumbling, apologetic approach. Little Alix, now a year old, had been the result. But Louis had not touched Eleanor since. She wondered what all those French barons who blamed her for her failure to bear a son would have to say about that.

"Others, of great wisdom, have different opinions," she said carefully, reaching for some grapes. "Abbot Bernard for one. The Bishop of Laon for another. Bernard is adamant that our marriage is forbidden. He asks why you are so scrupulous about consanguinity when it comes to others, when everyone knows that you and I are fourth cousins. He told me he would speak to you."

Louis's brows furrowed; he was inwardly quailing at the prospect of Bernard hectoring him yet again. He looked at Eleanor helplessly. He had stopped eating. He could not face another mouthful.

"Can't you see-G.o.d Himself has made His displeasure clear," Eleanor went on earnestly. "He has withheld the blessing of a son, an heir to France. Our daughters cannot inherit this kingdom, you know that as well as I. Will you risk your immortal soul, Louis, to stay in this marriage?"

"No, my lady. I cannot fight you anymore," he said sadly. "It seems I must heed the good Abbot's exhortations, even though they run contrary to my own wishes." A tear trickled down his cheek. "Did you ever love me?" he asked plaintively.

"It is because of the love I bear you that I fear for your immortal soul," Eleanor told him, congratulating herself on this spontaneous response that so neatly sidestepped his question. "And I fear for my own soul too." She leaned forward. "Louis, we must part. There is no help for it."

The King continued to sit there in his high-backed chair, weeping silently.

"You have ever had your way of me, Eleanor," he said at length. "Yet have you thought what our separation will mean for me? I will lose Aquitaine, that jewel in the French crown."

"You could never hold it," she reminded him, cutting a sliver of cheese. "You have not the men or the resources. You would be well rid of the responsibility."

Louis nodded, frowning. "You speak truth. It has proved a thankless task trying to govern your unruly lords. But do you think you can succeed where I have failed?"

"I know them," Eleanor said, "and they know and love me. I am their d.u.c.h.ess." She drained her wine goblet.

"They might not love you when you rule against them in one of their interminable disputes."

"That is a risk any prince must take," Eleanor replied.

"You will remarry, of course," Louis stated. Looking at her, in all her vital beauty, he could not bear the thought of her as another man's wife. It was unendurable. She had been his prize, his ideal, and, he had to admit it, his torment. She was so vital and strong, whereas he knew himself to be a poor apology for a king-and a man. He could not help it: he was afraid of the sins of the flesh. He knew he had failed Eleanor in that regard, which was why she wanted her freedom. He understood, of course-he had even forgiven her for her dalliance (he hoped fervently it had been nothing more) with her uncle, Raymond of Antioch, during the crusade-but he could only deplore her craving for sensual pleasures. It was what had always repelled the saintly Abbot Bernard, and Louis's old tutor and counselor, Abbot Suger. If only Eleanor would think more on the things of the spirit rather than of the flesh ...

"I will weigh everything carefully before committing myself to marriage again," she was saying in a noncommittal tone.

"You cannot seriously be thinking of ruling alone?" Louis asked, shocked. "You will need a protector, a strong man who will govern in your name. And one, I might remind you, who is loyal to me and would not seek to abuse his power." Which, he thought to himself, is probably asking for the moon.

"I had thought of that," she said evenly, "which is why I am making no hasty decision. This has to be resolved in everyone's best interests."

There was an uncomfortable silence. Eleanor was holding her breath, waiting.

"Then it seems I must grant your wish," Louis capitulated. She tried to look suitably sorrowful.

"I wish it could have been otherwise," she said gently, reaching across to lay her hand on his.

"You cannot know how deeply I wish that," her husband replied, removing his hand and pushing his plate away, sickened at the sight of the uneaten meat congealing in its thick sauce. "There is but one thing I ask of you, for the sake of my pride, as a king and as a man."

"Yes?" Eleanor responded warily.

"That you allow me to initiate proceedings. Never let it be said that the King of France was abandoned by his wife."

"I agree," Eleanor said, biting back the retort that she was not really his wife. There was no point in making matters worse by sparring. She had gotten what she wanted.

"There is another thing," Louis went on. "I take it you have thought of our daughters."

Eleanor had thought. Those two beautiful little girls with their blond curls and wide blue eyes. Every time she looked at Marie and Alix, she marveled that she herself had helped to create them. She loved them, of course, yet had been constrained to do so from a distance. They had never seemed like hers anyway. As the daughters of France, they were given over at birth to a gaggle of nurses and servants, and she had not been involved in their daily care. They were far closer to Thomasine, their Lady Mistress, than they ever had been to their mother. She had rarely seen her children, and consequently established no close bond with them.

Yet there had been precious moments, as when her daughters twined their soft arms around her neck, resting their downy little heads against her cheek as she told them stories of fairies and demons, or sang them lays of the South, learned in her girlhood; but these came rarely. And of course it was better that way, for one day, not far distant, those little girls would leave France forever, to be married to great lords or princes. It was the way of the world, and she had known from the first that it would not do to allow herself to become too attached to them, for she might never see them again afterward.

For all that, she was hoping she might have a chance to enjoy many more sweet moments with her daughters before that inevitable parting, and the opportunity to forge a closer bond with them.

"Yes, I have given them much thought," she told Louis. "How could I not? Marie and Alix are flesh of my flesh, and very dear to me. How will it be if I take them with me to Aquitaine, then send them back to you in a few years when you have found husbands for them?"

Louis frowned. "Eleanor," he said, his voice cold, "have you forgotten that Marie and Alix are princesses of France? Their place is here, in France, with me, the King their father. My barons would never agree to them going with you."

Eleanor blanched. "Louis, they are but six years and one year in age. I am their mother."

"You should have thought of that when you pressed for an annulment!" Louis said reprovingly.

"I did think of it, constantly! Is it my fault that we are too near in blood? Louis, I beg of you ..."

"Is it not enough that I am to be deserted by the wife I love? Should I lose my children too? I tell you, Eleanor, no court in Christendom would award you custody of them, and it would kill me to have you take them away." There were tears in Louis's eyes, his pain not all on account of his daughters.

"So you would deprive them of their mother?" Eleanor persisted.

"They will have a stepmother before long. You said that I must remarry, remember? And I will be expected to, for the sake of the succession."

"I realize that, but they are my children too!" Eleanor cried. "Do not deprive me of them, I beg of you."

"Eleanor, you know, as do I, that this is not about consanguinity," Louis replied sadly. "You want your freedom, I have long been aware of that. Who is doing the depriving here?"

"I never intended that, G.o.d knows," she sobbed, sinking to her knees. "I know you love our girls." They were both weeping now.

"As usual, you never think things through, Eleanor," Louis said, resisting the urge to kneel down and comfort her. "You just act impetuously, causing a lot of grief. I loved you-G.o.d help me, I love you still-and I feel for you. But on this issue I will not-nay, I cannot-bend. Princesses of France must be reared in France. The people would expect it. Besides, you left Marie for more than two years to go on the crusade. You insisted on coming with me, as I recall."

"It grieved me to leave her, you must believe that. But I had to accompany you, Louis. My va.s.sals would not accept you as their leader. Besides, I rarely saw Marie anyway. She did not need me. Neither of my daughters needs me. It is I who need time to get to know them, to make up to them for what I have not been."

"Alas, I cannot grant you that," Louis said. "Be realistic, and understand my position." There was a pause, a heartbeat as his gaze held hers. "You could always reconsider."

"You know that I cannot," Eleanor told him. She was trembling. The prospects of her freedom, her return to Aquitaine, and a life with Henry of Anjou, not to mention the manifold benefits their marriage would bring, were too precious to her to give them up, but she had now been made devastatingly aware of just how high a price she was to pay for them. Desperately, she conjured up Henry's leonine face in her mind, trying to blot out the plaintive image of those two sweet, fair-haired little girls.

Louis shook his head. "What a mess. We made our marriage with such high hopes."

"We did our best," Eleanor consoled, her mind still fixed fervently on Henry. "But G.o.d's law must prevail."

"I will speak to my bishops," Louis said wearily. "Then we must attend to the practicalities."

"You mean the transfer of Aquitaine to me?" Eleanor snapped.

"Yes. There will be a peaceful withdrawal of my royal officials and French garrisons. We will go there together and oversee it. Your va.s.sals shall attend you."

"All those defenses you built must be dismantled," Eleanor insisted. "My people resent them."

"It shall be done," Louis agreed.

Eleanor rose and went to look out of the narrow window-barely more than an arrow slit-across the broad Seine and the huddled rooftops of Paris. Above them, the inky sky was studded with stars-those same stars under which Henry of Anjou was living, breathing, waiting ... She caught her breath suddenly, certain she had made the right decision. She must suppress her sadness, for there was no other way for her. Her daughters were well cared for and would barely miss her; she must love them from a distance, as she always had-except the distance would be farther. Her own future was mapped out by destiny, and there was no escaping it, even if she wanted to. She had only to contain herself in patience for some while longer, and in the meantime she would be returning to Aquitaine, to reclaim her great inheritance. She was going home, home to the sweet, lush lands of the South, the lands of mighty rivers and verdant hills, of rich wines and fields of sunflowers; where people spoke her native tongue, the langue d'oc, which would sound as music after the clumsy, outlandish dialect they spoke in the North. She could not wait to be once more among her own people, quarrelsome and often violent though they were. It meant more to her to be d.u.c.h.ess of Aquitaine than it ever had to be Queen of France, or queen of the whole world, for that matter.