The Silken Rose Read online

  Sir Galahad wandered onto the stage looking confused. He had lost his way. An old lady with a wavering finger directed him towards a castle painted on the forested hanging. He was met by a lovely lady who promised to help him if only he would follow her onward to the highest adventure ever a knight saw. A gilded makeshift ship on wheels rattled onto the stage. Perceval and Bors waved from its deck, eliciting delighted cries from the audience on the benches. Galahad gazed up at his two companions. The old lady informed Sir Galahad she was Sir Perceval’s sister. She warned him not to enter this ship unless he was without sin. Galahad declared he would be glad to die if he was discovered to be tainted and thus unworthy. He joined company with the other knights. On board the ship, which was crowded and looked as if it could collapse, Galahad fumbled about until he discovered a sword and crown. In turn, they all tried to hold the sword but neither Bors nor Perceval could grip it though they struggled and struggled as Galahad watched. The ship shook. Hal called out, ‘Bring Arthur back. He can do it.’ And then he added, ‘My Papa can. He is without sin.’

  ‘He’s not here and really, Hal, be quiet,’ Nell said crossly.

  Edward turned to Hal. ‘My Papa can beat yours any day. He is totally without sin. He is building a new cathedral for God.’

  ‘Mine was a crusader,’ Hal hissed back. ‘Crusaders have seen Jerusalem.’

  ‘Hush, children,’ Ailenor said with an elegant finger pressed onto her lips. ‘Neither of your fathers are here, so let us see if Sir Galahad can take the sword up.’

  And a moment later, Galahad achieved the feat and held up the sword. He led the knights from the rocking ship which was carefully pushed behind the forested curtain. The sword was a magical sword. Following Sir Galahad, the knights approached a second castle painted behind them and slayed devil-like enemies of God who climbed up a ladder from the ground onto the stage. Margaret closed her eyes. Beatrice clung to Ailenor’s gown. But soon all the devils were vanquished and chased down the ladder. They fled into the changing area.

  Another lady appeared. She was ill and told the valiant knights she needed a dish of blood from a noble maiden’s arm to cure her illness. Edward whispered, ‘Mama. You could offer your blood.’

  ‘No, I could not. Just watch, Edward.’

  That was the moment Ailenor’s day changed. The noise of cantering hoofs penetrated the air. Trumpets sounding outside the courtyard walls competed with the actors’ cymbals and trumpets. Horses were neighing and snorting in the distance. Ailenor could hear male voices. This was not the stuff of stories. A moment later the courtyard was filled with pennants, riders, and knights dismounting. Henry was helped down from his mount by a squire. She ran to greet him expecting joy on his countenance. His face was cheerless. She glanced back towards the stage.

  The play abruptly stopped. Actors fell to their knees. Her court gasped and the children stood together in a huddle.

  ‘Ailenor, I must speak to you privately,’ Henry said. His voice was gentle but seeing his face so sad, her heart seemed to stop beating.

  ‘Are we about to be attacked?’ She could think of no other reason for his unexpected appearance.

  ‘No,’ he said. His knights were dismounting. The smell of horse and sweat cut through that of actor’s paint and the apple blossom that decorated the courtyard.

  Ailenor turned to her ladies and said firmly, ‘There is to be no more today. The servants will lay out our feast.’ She pointed to where kitchen help, who were already covering trestles with cloth and beginning to place cups and goblets on them, had fallen to their knees. She signalled to them to rise and continue. Touching Henry’s hand and saying, ‘A moment, please.’ She hurried forward to the actors and said, ‘It was a fine play. Join the feast. Our steward will grant you places. Perhaps the children could look more closely at your costumes?’ Her eyes searched out Nell, whose face showed the confusion she herself felt. ‘Nell, look after the children. Henry and I must speak privately. I fear bad news.’

  ‘Papa,’ Edward exclaimed, breaking from the group of children and running to Henry. ‘You’re back.’

  ‘Not now, Edward,’ Henry said in a voice that was sobering. ‘Look after your sisters. I must speak with your mother first.’

  The actor who played King Arthur knelt down to the children, ‘My Lord Edward, would you like to come to our dressing room and see our swords?’ Ailenor gratefully nodded.

  Nell ushered the children to the cart where the actors with great reverence allowed the older children to try on masks and hold blunted daggers and swords. The knights silently took their horses to the second courtyard away from the actors’ cart.

  ‘Come, Henry,’ Ailenor said, once all seemed calm again. She led him through a gate into the orchard. ‘We are private here. Now tell me what this is all about.’

  Henry’s face slowly turned ashen as he told her her father had died. It had taken a whole month for the news to reach Henry on the Welsh borders. As he held her in his arms, he promised her that no expense would be spared on Count Raymond’s behalf. They would return to London and services would be held in every Church for his soul. Alms would be distributed to the poor. There would be a period of mourning. His beloved father-in-law, Raymond Beranger, was surely already by God’s side.

  This news broke her heart. She passed hours on her knees in candlelight before the altar in the small Lady Chapel adjoining her apartment. Only Lady Willelma and Lady Mary served her. It was Henry, Nell, and Rosalind who saw life carried on as before in the palace.

  When Ailenor returned to the world she was composed but her heart remained heavy. Nell returned to Kenilworth a few days later. Woodstock fell quiet as Ailenor made ready to remove to Westminster where Sancha and Richard would join them in solemn mourning. Wales, Henry assured her, had been brought under control. It was not necessary for him to return to the borders. It was a small consolation for the loss of her father but she was glad of Henry’s consideration of her feelings and she loved him all the more for it.

  During October, as leaves swirled golden from the trees lining the riverbank, Ailenor and Sancha received a long worrying letter from their mother. Their sister, Beatrice, was to be their father’s heiress. She inherited all. Provence would be Beatrice’s dowry. Ailenor read the letter, feeling as unsettled as the swirling autumn leaves outside in the courtyard. It may come to you as unexpected, their mother wrote, but Provence cannot be divided, nor can the province belong to France or England. Beatrice will be its new countess as she is our only daughter unwed. Ailenor felt resentful.

  ‘At least France doesn’t have it,’ Henry said, with a satisfied smile after he read Countess Beatrice’s letter.

  ‘That depends on who marries Beatrice, doesn’t it?’ Ailenor replied.

  ‘Are there any French princes available?’ Sancha remarked.

  ‘There’s Charles of Anjou. He’s the White Queen’s youngest,’ Ailenor said.

  Henry scowled. ‘Well, we have none to offer. Not Edward. He’s too young and he’s destined for greater than a princess of Provence.’

  Ailenor, feathers ruffled at this foolish remark, retorted, ‘Princesses of Provence are valuable princesses, as you well know, Henry, but in any case no child can wed his aunt.’

  She was pleased to note how Henry looked suitably chastened, his face red and his shoulders slumping. He opened his hands, palms turned upwards. ‘Of course, of course, my beloved Ailenor.’

  28

  Winter 1246

  Snow blew in from the east covering England with its white softness. Ailenor and Sancha retired to Windsor to be with Ailenor’s children. Sancha confided tearfully that her pregnancy of the previous summer had not lasted longer than three months.

  ‘It took me a long time to get pregnant with Edward,’ Ailenor said, trying to comfort her sister. ‘And now I have four healthy children. You have much time to conceive.’

  ‘Richard is away, either involved with the new royal mints or in Cornwall or Wales. I don’t see my h
usband enough to get with child.’

  ‘Travel with him.’

  ‘I prefer to remain at home and watch the new abbey at Hailles grow. It eases my constant anxiety. I seek peace.’ She glanced out of the window at the drifting snow and her tears fell.

  Ailenor placed her hand over her sister’s. ‘In that case, Richard must seek peace too. He has a beautiful, sweet wife.’

  As Sancha clung to her, she held her unhappy, weeping sister.

  Two days later a letter arrived for Ailenor, the second she had received from her mother since Papa’s death. She called Sancha to the hearth, ordered wine to be poured and cakes served. Looking up from the letter into Sancha’s patient eyes, she said, ‘How can I tell Henry this news. Beatrice is married to Charles of Anjou, Louis’s brother, and Charles, is, by all accounts, utterly indulged, totally spoiled, and not very nice.’

  Sancha’s mouth opened and closed like a beautiful bird’s beak. ‘What else does our mother say?’

  Ailenor studied the letter again. Sancha bit into a cake, the crumbs falling carelessly onto her rose-coloured velvet gown.

  ‘Charles will provide protection, she says, by which she means France’s protection. Raymond of Toulouse has been pursuing her too.’

  ‘That old goat. I can understand her fear. Well,’ Sancha said through another dainty mouthful of cake, ‘France is quick to the field. She has inherited our homeland, all of it. And she’s only thirteen.’

  ‘Our dear, loving Mother has betrayed us. Let me read on. . .’ Ailenor studied her mother’s letter. She looked up. ‘Here is the real reason this has happened. King James of Aragon brought an army up to Aix to claim Beatrice for his son. Huh, another greedy toad.’ She started to shake with laughter at the absurdity of it all. ‘What a catch our sister has been. Emperor Frederick, too, wanted her for Conrad, his son. He has sent a fleet for her.’

  Sancha lifted her goblet and swallowed a large amount of Malmsey before saying, ‘What did Mother do about that?’

  ‘She ordered all her ports to refuse his landing. She placed Beatrice under the Pope’s protection and whipped our sister off to Lyon. . . accompanied by Uncle Peter, no less. The Pope sent for the White Queen and Charles of Anjou, having decided that Beatrice ought to wed Charles for her safety. In return, King Louis will protect the Pope from the Great Serpent, as he calls Emperor Frederick. Because. . . oh, no. . . Frederick moved a land army to Lyon once he heard that Beatrice was there. He’s determined!’ Ailenor reached for her goblet. ‘Oh, listen on, they sought refuge in the monastery at Cluny. They are safe.’ She crossed herself. ‘Praise God. Charles and Uncle Peter fetched Beatrice themselves to Cluny with an armed troop. It’s done. They were married in January.’ She threw the missive down. ‘Henry will have much to say about this marriage.’

  ‘I wonder what Richard will think of it all.’

  Ailenor smiled. ‘Not a lot, I imagine. Henry suspected something like this would happen, which is why he sent Uncle Peter to them. He thinks we can control castles in Savoy in return for further marriages between Savoyard heiresses and English heirs so it’s not so bad. We shall have at least one of our cousins here married to Edmund de Lacy or John de Warenne.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Sancha, looking mystified.

  ‘Sancha, don’t you see it?’ Lovely, cultured Sancha was slow to understand political manoeuvres. ‘Because, sister, Henry can control the Alpine passes and decide whether or not to allow Emperor Frederick through to attack France or the Pope or both.’

  ‘Would he really do that, let Emperor Frederick attack the Pope?’

  ‘Probably not, as he would bring France’s wrath down on us, but he could if ever Louis attacked Gascony.’

  That month, Alice de Saluzzo, Amadeus of Savoy’s granddaughter, journeyed to England with Uncle Peter, to marry Edmund de Lacy, a handsome flaxen-headed youth of only seventeen years who was heir to Lincoln. Uncle Peter and Henry were manipulating English interests in Savoy as well as furthering Savoyard interests in England. Ailenor was pleased more cousins were coming to England, though she recognised how the English barons seethed as this match was made. Clearly they worried other foreign marriages would follow.

  Not long after Uncle Peter arrived in England with Alice de Saluzzo, Ailenor and Henry received sad news. Isabella, Henry’s mother, died at Fontevraud Abbey. Henry grieved for her deeply, spending hours on his knees in his private chapel, ordering alms distributed and candles lit day and night in her memory. At the end of her life, Isabella had dwelled in a small cell hidden within the abbey for her own protection. She was accused of organising an attempted poisoning of Louis in Paris and had barely escaped to the abbey with her life.

  The embroidery workshop at Westminster was busy day and night working on new garments for Alice de Saluzzo and her train. The expectation of a wedding in the family lifted Henry’s spirits after his mother’s sorrowful death. A relic he had purchased from Constantinople, a vial believed to contain drops of Christ’s precious blood, made him forget his mother’s death for a time, though he blamed Spanish Blanche, the French Queen-mother, for it. His mother was innocent of the poisoning. She would not have endangered her immortal soul by committing such a wicked deed. Ailenor was not so sure.

  The wedding ceremony was held within the Cathedral of Lincoln on a sun-blessed day in May.

  ‘Did she?’ Sancha said to Ailenor as the sisters snatched a few moments in the de Lacy castle’s garden before the banquet was served. ‘I mean, did Isabella really arrange to have Louis poisoned? They say she bribed his cooks.’

  Ailenor drew Sancha towards the rose hedging, carefully eying Henry, his head bent in conversation with Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, and Earl Simon, the Bishop’s dear friend. She lowered her voice. ‘I don’t want to think Isabella responsible for such a terrible act. Henry denies it, but perhaps she did. It would not surprise me.’

  ‘Richard said the King’s cooks confessed. They were boiled alive.’

  Ailenor shuddered despite the warmth of the afternoon. ‘I heard that story too. Henry says it is speculation, but King Louis has been unlucky. During the war against him in Gascony villagers poisoned wells and when his men drank the water they suffered dysentery. Louis was ill then, too, for weeks.’

  ‘I do remember hearing that story. We were frightened to travel from Provence to Gascony. Villagers might have taken against us and poisoned me too.’ She shuddered.

  ‘Nonsense. They all love a wedding. You were not pillaging their lands.’

  Ailenor led Sancha back to the company. She studied the bride and her young husband. Alice was gowned in blue satin embroidered with golden thread, the embroidery work completed in the Westminster workshop. It pleased her that the de Lacys had gathered around them the most elegant court in Christendom. ‘I suspect Henry might arrange marriages for his own siblings, now Isabella is dead,’ she said.

  ‘Then,’ said Sancha. ‘I am glad we shall have our own cousins married well before he favours the Lusignans.’

  Richard would have remarked on this possibility, of course. After all, the Lusignan stepbrothers and sisters were his half-siblings too. Ailenor glanced down at Sancha’s burgundy gown. Could her sister be with child?

  ‘I know what you are thinking, Ailenor,’ Sancha said quickly. ‘As I told you, he’s always away.’ She glanced over at her husband who was congratulating the bride.

  Ailenor took her hand. ‘Soon, I hope.’

  Sancha removed her hand and changing the subject said, ‘Is it true that Earl Simon is to return to Gascony?’

  ‘Yes, as Gascony’s governor. He is the only one who can manage the warring nobles there. There are so many disputes,’ said Ailenor. She sighed. ‘I’ll miss Nell when they depart.’

  A month later the court visited Beaulieu Abbey for the abbey’s consecration ceremony. On the day of the abbey’s consecration, Edward collapsed, pale as a beached codfish. He was attended by the abbey’s infirmarer and made comfortable in the guesthouse clo
se to the infirmary

  For two days Edward lay in a fever. Ailenor was afraid they would lose her beautiful son. She could not leave him. Henry though could not stay. The successful Welsh campaign of the previous year had that winter turned into a shameful disaster when the Welsh prince Llewelyn decided to attack the border castles again. Henry had to return to Wales.

  The young princely brothers had united. The Welsh were advancing.

  Although Ailenor wanted to stay with Edward until he made a full recovery, the Abbot was not accommodating. The Cistercians did not permit women in their abbey. She determined to remain by her child’s side until he recovered and Henry, due to set out for Wales, agreed. After Candlemas, they’d heard of Dafydd’s death. Owen and Llewelyn, Gruffydd’s sons and Dafydd’s nephews, were now joint rulers in Wales. They were harassing Henry’s new castle of Deganwy in revenge for the sacking of the Cistercian Abbey of Aberconwy during the previous summer.

  On the day the court was to retire to Winchester, Ailenor, Henry and their retainers gathered by the abbey gate ready to depart. Ailenor said firmly that she was staying with Edward. The Abbot wailed to Ailenor, ‘Your Grace, you cannot be accommodated here. It is against our Cistercian Rule. No woman stays in this abbey. We shall care for Prince Edward. He has taken a chill and has a raw throat. Our infirmary has remedies for both. Return to Winchester with the King and Earl Richard.’

  Ailenor stiffened, set her shoulders, and looked the Abbot in the eye. ‘You will bend your rules for your future King. I and my Lady Willelma will take up residence within the abbey precinct to nurse Lord Edward. The rest of the court will return to Winchester. Let this be my final word on the matter. Have a guest room prepared for myself and my lady close to Lord Edward’s chamber.’

  The Abbot appealed to Henry, ‘Why cannot the tutor stay to look after the boy? He is his guardian after all.’ He stopped short of suggesting that Henry, himself, took responsibility for Edward.

  Henry’s forehead creased. ‘Lord Abbot, your abbey has been received by God. My father endowed it, as shall I. There is no care such as a mother’s care for her child. The Queen will remain with her lady to attend her. This is my demand. Heed it. It is as God would wish.’