Twice Royal Lady Page 11

  Letters were dispatched, laying down the conditions for her return. By the time Geoffrey’s replies, undertaking to honour the stipulations of the council, had been received the autumn was well advanced and sailing conditions were unfavourable. Henry had no intention of risking his one remaining legitimate child on the sea that claimed the life of his son, so it was decided that they would remain in England for the winter. Her reunion with her husband would have to wait until the spring.

  The citizens of Rouen were lining the streets in their finest clothes once again. Henry had sent heralds round the city to ensure a good turnout to welcome his son-in-law. It was late May and the sun was shining and the bells in all the churches were ringing. Geoffrey arrived at the head of a glittering cavalcade, mounted on a pure white Spanish courser. Henry met him at the city gates, but Matilda watched him ride into the courtyard from an upper window. It was over two years since they parted, but she was unprepared for the change in him. It was partly that he had grown a beard, close clipped and as red-gold as his hair. It made him look older, but there was more to it than that. He was no longer a pretty boy. He had grown into a very attractive man. His behaviour was different, too. He acknowledged the cheers of the crowd with waves and smiles, but with a new-found dignity. He was not showing off, as he did when they first met. She felt an unexpected stirring of excitement at the thought that they would soon be reunited.

  They met in the great hall of the castle. She was wearing vermilion, with an overmantle of cloth of gold. He was in a blue tunic embroidered with silver thread, white hose and a mantle of deeper blue lined with white satin. He dropped on one knee before her and kissed her hand.

  ‘Madam, I have done you great wrong and I beg your forgiveness.’ The words were a formality but they were gracefully pronounced.

  She raised him and their eyes met, and she was reminded of how intensely blue his were. There was a challenge there, but beneath that she detected an offer of a truce. She said, ‘The faults were on both sides, but they are in the past. Let us look to the future.’

  ‘With all my heart,’ he responded and kissed her on the lips.

  There was the usual feasting in celebration and she was reminded of the two previous occasions when she had sat through course after course in dread of what must follow when the meal was over. Tonight her emotion was not one of fear. She was nervous, but there was something else, a thrill of anticipation, which disturbed and excited her. She noticed that Geoffrey was only drinking in moderation and wondered what that portended.

  At last the feasting ended and she was escorted up to the same room where she spent that first disastrous night with Geoffrey. She wished suddenly that she had gone to him in Angers, or better still that they had met halfway, in a castle they had never visited before. When her women had undressed her and left, she sat looking at her reflection in the polished steel of her mirror. What did he see when he looked at her? That first night he called her an ugly cow. Poets and courtiers had praised her noble ancestry, her learning and her piety. Some had called her beautiful, but usually those who had never seen her, or only at a distance. It was conventional flattery, nothing more. But she could not, in all honesty, call herself ugly. Her chin was perhaps too square for feminine prettiness, but her skin was clear and showed very few lines. Her hair was thick and a lustrous brown and her eyes were large and fringed with dark lashes. What was more, she still had all her teeth. She was thirty years old, but her body was slim from hours spent on horseback or practising with the crossbow; her stomach was flat and her breasts full and firm. She told herself he had no reason for complaint.

  The door opened and he came in. She stood and they looked at each other, and she saw that he, too, was uncertain. She remembered that he had demanded, on that first night, to see her naked and she had refused. With a swift, fluid movement she unfastened her robe and let it fall to the floor. His lips parted in a silent gasp, then he copied her and stood naked. There was no uncertainty about his erection this time. In the candlelight his body was sleek and golden and she was gripped by a sudden urgent desire to feel it pressed against her own. She moved to the bed and got in and he joined her and pulled her to him. His body was warm, his skin silky under her hands. He leant down and kissed her mouth and her pulse began to race. He had learned much in the intervening years. It crossed her mind that Rosanne had taught him, but she dismissed the thought. He began to caress her, but she was overcome by a need that must be satisfied at once. She wound her arms round him and dragged him onto her, her nails digging into his back. It was not a gentle coupling, but fierce as one between wild animals. When he entered she matched him thrust for thrust. She felt him ejaculate and then her own body contorted in a spasm of ecstasy.

  When it was over they lay still, panting, until eventually he drew himself out and rolled onto his side. They looked into each other’s eyes. He murmured, ‘So, I am wed to a lioness. What fine cubs we shall breed together!’

  She smiled. ‘I think we may have already begun.’

  9

  ANJOU, 1133-35

  Her prediction was proved correct. They were in his castle at Le Mans when her pains began. Geoffrey was absent, dealing with some minor disturbance. It was not an easy birth. The child was late, and unusually large, but as the waves of pain engulfed her she told herself that she was finally expiating her sin. Geoffrey, warned by a messenger on a lathered horse, galloped into the courtyard and raced up the narrow stairs just in time to hear the baby’s first cry. The midwife held the swaddled child up to him.

  ‘Praise God, sir. You have a fine, healthy son.’

  He gazed wonderingly at the child in his arms. ‘My son! I have a son.’ Then, a little belatedly, he turned to her. ‘How do you, wife?’

  ‘Well enough, thanks be to God. Bring him here to me.’

  He laid the bundle in her arms and she looked down at the child’s face. It was red but not wrinkled and wizened as she had seen other newborn children look. He opened his mouth and gave a loud, demanding yell. Geoffrey laughed. ‘He has his grandfather’s temper.’

  She thought, Or his father’s, but dismissed the idea. Instead she said, ‘We will call him Henry. It is only fitting.’

  ‘Henry.’ He considered for a moment. ‘I had thought of Fulk, after my father, but no, you are right. Henry he shall be.’

  The child was baptised in the cathedral by Bishop Guy of Ploermel. His patron saint was St Julian, to whom the cathedral was dedicated, and Matilda gave a richly embroidered pall to cover the effigy of the saint in gratitude for her safe delivery. The older Henry was overjoyed with the news and sent gifts and blessings.

  During the intervening nine months they had not been idle. Slowly they had rebuilt the shaky partnership they had begun to construct during the first year of their marriage. She had learnt much from her father while with him in Rouen about the administration of a kingdom and she applied those lessons on a lesser scale in Anjou. Disputes were settled, taxes collected, Geoffrey’s treasury swelled. But many of his barons resented the new regime and he frequently had to ride out with his knights to impose order. In the early days she went with him and earned the respect of the men by her willingness to share the hardships of sleeping on the cold ground and eating the same rations. Usually, the sight of Geoffrey’s banners and his accompanying band of well trained knights and men-at-arms was enough to bring the recalcitrant vassal to heel; but sometimes a show of force was not enough and they had to fight. On these occasions, she was often seen wielding her crossbow to good effect.

  When her pregnancy was more advanced she had to stay behind, but Geoffrey still turned to her for advice. They were not lovers, in the full sense. At the beginning they coupled fiercely every night, but the teaching of the Church forbade intercourse once it was known that she was with child and their relationship was now one of comrades in arms, albeit shot through with suppressed desire.

  As soon as she was healed after the birth, he came to her bed again and the old passion flared
up, but within weeks they discovered that she was pregnant again. She was amazed by this sudden fecundity after so long without conceiving. King Henry was back in Normandy and Geoffrey was still forced to go campaigning at regular intervals, so it was decided that she would be safer in Rouen. She went willingly. It was a place where she had always felt at home and she was glad to be with her father again. He was delighted with his grandson, and with the prospect of another on the way. She noticed that he was putting on weight. He had always had a good appetite but now he tended to gorge himself to repletion. She recalled the physicians telling her first husband that he should eat less and felt a tremor of alarm, but Henry seemed to be in good health. He farted and belched more than before, but did not give any sign of being in pain. She told herself that she was worrying needlessly.

  She was still in Rouen when her second labour began. This time it was clear early on that it was not going to be straightforward. The pains were acute, but they went on and on without result for two days. Then, unaccountably, they ceased and she was terrified that the child might be dead – but in a few hours they began again, more violently than ever. The midwife crouched at the end of the bed, urging her on.

  ‘Take courage, my lady. Bear down! Call upon St Anne, who gave birth to Our Lady. Ask for her aid.’

  She pushed and screamed and begged any saint who might be listening to end her suffering, but she was exhausted. It came into her mind that she might be dying. It was not infrequent for women to die in childbirth. Her ladies clasped her hands and mopped her brow with rose water and dimly she could hear them praying. The midwife called for oil and dipped her hand into it, and she screamed again as she felt the hand thrust into her distended vagina.

  ‘The child is the wrong way round. I must try … Ah, there! Now, my lady, one more effort …’

  She had no more strength to scream but she did not want to die. She thrust downwards and something inside her seemed to split apart, and the child erupted into the daylight in a smother of blood and mucus. She hardly heard them saying that it was another boy.

  She was dimly aware in the hours that followed of being washed and given watered wine to drink and sips of soup. She heard the midwife murmuring something about ‘too much blood’. Then the fever started and she lost all grasp of reality. When she next regained consciousness her father was at her bedside, clasping her hand, his face furrowed with tears.

  ‘I am dying, am I not?’ she whispered.

  ‘We must pray to the Holy Mother to save you,’ he answered. ‘I have prayed and paid the monks of the abbey to say masses for you. We must trust in God.’

  She forced herself to concentrate. ‘I have bequests to make. I need to give away what I own to those who will make good use of it. Fetch a scribe.’

  He protested that there was no need but she insisted. The scribe arrived and she listed her jewels and her lands and dictated that they be given to various abbeys and churches. Then she said, ‘Father, I have one request of you. Let me be buried at Bec-Hellouin.’

  ‘Bec-Hellouin? No, no. You must lie beside your great ancestors in the cathedral here. Your place is with Duke Rollo and William Longsword.’

  ‘No!’ She twisted restlessly on her pillow. ‘I implore you, Father. It is my last wish. Let me be buried there among those holy monks and let them say masses for my soul.’

  He sighed deeply. ‘Very well, since you desire it so. It shall be as you wish.’

  Whether it was Henry’s prayers or the masses he had paid for no one could tell, but miraculously she did not die. The day came when she had the strength to ask, ‘The child – did it live?’

  ‘It did, my lady, God be praised.’

  ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’

  ‘A boy, my lady.’

  ‘And does it thrive?’

  ‘It does. The wet nurse says he is a lusty child.’

  ‘Has he been baptised?’

  ‘He has, madam. He was given the name Geoffrey, after his father.’

  ‘Good, good.’ She nodded, but she did not ask to see him.

  Her father postponed his return to England to stay with his two grandsons. His pleasure in them was undisguised but it seemed to her that he gave them more attention than he spared for her. She was lethargic and unable to feel any pleasure in the new baby. Geoffrey, meanwhile, was occupied with an incursion by some of the Norman lords on his border and could not leave the battle to come to her. She felt abandoned. The thought which she once expressed to Adeliza, that most men regarded women as having only one use, to breed them heirs, returned with augmented force.

  Slowly her strength returned. When autumn brought an end to the fighting season, Geoffrey wrote that he longed to have her at his side and eventually she felt sufficiently recovered to make the journey to Le Mans, where he was quartered. She brought her two sons with her and he greeted all three of them with joy.

  ‘God be praised you are safe! It broke my heart that I could not come to you when you were in such danger, but if I had those grasping barons would have stolen half our lands.’

  That night he came to her bed but she repulsed him. ‘You do not know how close to death I came bearing our last child. I have no wish to risk myself like that again.’

  He was not happy, but he reluctantly acquiesced, with the proviso that this would be a temporary arrangement only, until she fully regained her strength.

  Winter passed. One fine spring day a stranger rode into the courtyard with a small retinue. Geoffrey brought him to Matilda, who was sitting in the garden while little Henry and his nursemaid played with a ball and baby Geoffrey slept on a rug nearby.

  ‘My dear, this is William Talvas. He is the son of Robert of Bellême and we were childhood friends, but we have not met for years.’

  She frowned. ‘Bellême? Your father fought against my father at Tinchebrai. You are the son of a rebel who is in one of my father’s prisons?’

  Talvas bowed. ‘It is true, my lady. My father was unwise enough to rebel against King Henry and paid the price. My hereditary lands have been confiscated ever since.’

  Geoffrey broke in. ‘William wishes to reclaim the castles confiscated from his father. He has done nothing wrong and I do not see why he should suffer.’

  ‘Those castles were given to me as part of my dowry. Have you forgotten that?’

  ‘Together with others, but we have never been given possession of them. If I had had them under my control I would have been able to put down that attack by the Norman lords without the slightest difficulty. Now I propose to back William’s demand that the castles be returned to him and that we be given full control over the others.’

  ‘You have asked before. You know the answer. He will not yield them while he lives.’

  ‘Then by God I shall take them by force! They are mine by right. Robert was one of my father’s vassals and now William is one of mine. I shall not only demand the return of our property, I shall require Henry to do fealty to me for them.’

  She stared at him in disbelief and then she laughed. ‘You must be out of your mind! My father will be furious.’

  ‘Furious or not, I intend to have those castles.’ He came closer and squatted beside her. ‘Think, Matilda. This is our sons’ inheritance. If we do not protect it, it will be lost to them. If your father should die, what protection would we have from those rapacious Normans? Your father may have made us allies in theory, but you know as well as I do that the Normans hate us Angevins. We have been at each other’s throats for generations. While your father lives he may be able to keep them under control but after …’

  ‘Why need we worry about that now? My father is in the prime of life. He will live to see his grandsons grown up.’

  ‘Perhaps. But you know as well as I do how suddenly a life can be cut short. An unlucky blow from a sword, a crossbow bolt, or a sickness … we are all mortal. We owe it to our sons to protect their inheritance.’

  She sighed. ‘It will mean going to war against my father.’

>   ‘Not if Henry gives in.’

  ‘Well, write to him again – but in the name of God don’t mention the question of fealty.’

  As she expected, the request was refused out of hand. Deaf to her protests, Geoffrey assembled his knights and his men-at-arms and marched for the border. Word came that one of the Norman border lords, William of Ponthieu, had risen in rebellion against Henry and he and Geoffrey had joined forces, and that Henry had returned to Normandy and taken the field against them. Geoffrey sent a message urging her to raise further reinforcements and join him.

  Over a long, sleepless night she wrestled with her divided loyalties. There was a time when she would not have considered siding with Geoffrey against her father, but things were different now. She had two sons to consider and their future welfare was her primary concern. If Geoffrey was defeated what would become of them? She reminded herself that her father had twice bound her to an unwanted marriage for his own political ends. All he wanted from her was an heir. Now he had two but he still refused to fulfil the promises he made at her wedding. She had another life now, and it was time to look to the future. In the morning she sent out demands to all Geoffrey’s vassals for further levies of men and arms and as soon as they were assembled she rode to join her husband at the frontier.

  The months passed in one indecisive skirmish after another until winter brought the fighting season to an end. When they returned to Angers, Geoffrey made it clear that he expected to resume normal sexual relations and she reluctantly acquiesced.

  As Advent approached she started to prepare the castle for the Christmas celebrations. One evening as dusk was falling a messenger rode into the courtyard on a lathered horse and almost collapsed as he dismounted. Brought into the great hall, he fell on his knees before her.