The Silken Rose Read online

  ‘Make room,’ he said in a coaxing voice.

  Ailenor found she was gazing at his bulging manhood as she drew up her legs to grant him room. She had never seen Henry totally naked before. His body was a little plump. He was well proportioned, his shoulders broad, and as she had not grown taller during the two years of their marriage she knew they were of similar height. He leaned over and gently slipped her gown from her shoulders. He eased her up and tugged it off and threw it over the rim of their bath.

  ‘I doubt you’ll need it,’ he said.

  ‘My lord.’ She tossed her head and said with a confidence she did not feel, ‘I am yours.’

  ‘Hush, Beauty. Let me -’ He began to soap her breasts with the cloth provided and leaning over kissed her nipples - ‘your breasts are those of a woman and your mouth tastes of strawberries and wine -’ he gently kissed her lips, ‘Come closer, come between my legs. Lay yours over mine.’

  She slid further into the water. Her body relaxed as he stroked her gently with a sponge slippery with soap. She felt as if she were liquid, like the seductively spicy soft soap she could smell wafting in the steam that rose from the water as it cooled. She was lost for words. She began to lose herself completely to sensation as he caressed her, poured water over her, and washed and rinsed her long, long black hair. She felt filled with desire and taking the sponge from him slowly moved it over his body. He leaned back in the tub as if enjoying every moment. At last he said, ‘Come, Beauty, we have a little time before supper.’

  He dried her body and her long dark hair. In turn, she dried him, hesitating only for a moment as she came to his penis.

  ‘Come to bed, my love. Come with me.’

  He gathered her into her arms and laid her on the coverlet, slipped it from under her until she was lying with him upon a bed of fresh linen sheets smelling of lavender.

  When he penetrated her, Ailenor did not feel more than a sharp moment of pleasurable pain. He whispered endearments into her ear as they made love and she kissed him, returning his caresses.

  ‘Ailenor, I love you with all my heart and with my body,’ he said when later she nestled into his arms, her head on his chest.

  ‘I am not the first, I’ll warrant,’ she said. ‘But I love you with all my heart too.’

  ‘You are not the first, my love, but never have I taken a mistress, nor shall I ever have one. You are the only mistress and queen for me.’

  The Hall was crowded and noisy with calls of Christmas cheer. Sir Simon had left Sir Hubert’s side and was coming towards Henry. Ailenor stood, scattering a family of pups that had nestled by her chair. ‘Come with me,’ she said reaching out her hand to Nell. ‘I have wine and wafers in my chambers. We can roast chestnuts. It is cold even though my fire has been lit all day, every day. Have they lit your fire too? I hope so. Let us leave Sir Simon with Henry.’

  ‘Thank you. It is lit. The linen is clean and all is comfortable. My maids are unpacking.’

  Ailenor looked down at Henry. ‘May I steal Nell away?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, indeed, my dove. I have much to discuss with Earl Simon.’ He looked at Nell. ‘The Earl will wish to greet you too, Nell.’

  Nell blushed.

  ‘They all admire my lovely sister. I believe Simon stopped at Odiham on his way to Winchester in September. He speaks well of the castle improvements. But, of course, you can converse with Leicester at supper. He will be seated with us.’

  Sir Simon bowed low to the King and Ailenor and finally to Nell, his face inscrutable. Ailenor lowered her head to hide her amusement. The knight’s confidence was remarkable. They exchanged greetings.

  Ailenor gestured to Nell to follow her and left Henry to discuss what must be discussed with Sir Simon. If only he was asking if Nell’s vow could be reneged upon as he wished to wed her. If only Henry would make it happen.

  6

  Nell

  December 1237 – January 1238

  Nell slipped into the courtyard between the palace and the abbey church, her heavy hood concealing her face. Silent monks and canons passed her on the path leading to the west door but they never looked her way. Inside the abbey, choristers practising plainsong for the Christmas services stared at their choir-master, paying her no attention as she stole through the nave. She hurried into a side chapel dedicated to ‘Our Lady’ where she fell weeping onto her knees.

  Anxiety threatened to drown her with a profound sense of sadness and loss – sadness because she should relinquish her happiness with Sir Simon; loss because to deny her love was unbearably painful. Solace was not an easily won companion, not when you had sinned as she had sinned. Statues standing in the chapel’s corners seemed to admonish her. The Virgin’s usual serenity felt accusative. In her mind’s eye she saw her own confessor, a stern priest who would never gainsay strict Archbishop Edmund Rich of Canterbury. If she confessed to her priest he would tell her to relinquish Simon. Their eternal souls would be damned. This was not what she wanted to hear.

  Across the transept, she noticed an old monk sweeping. He coughed and coughed. One day I shall be old too and must give an account of my life if I am to be permitted Heaven’s grace, unless my vow of chastity is disaffirmed, reversed, and annulled. Her mind swirling in turmoil, she bowed her head, twisting her prayer beads over and over, threading them through her fingers. A monk entered the chapel. Without a word he relit an extinguished candle. She noted the guttering of the candle as it flared up, smelled melting wax, and heard the whisper of his habit as he swept past her into the abbey nave again.

  Her head remained lowered until she opened her eyes to study the middle finger of her right hand. She had removed the ring which bound her to Christ from her right hand to her left hand. If she wed Simon, she would remove it altogether. She was no true bride for Christ. Nell shuddered as she remembered the church wall paintings at Odiham – ladders and devils, vivid flames, curling whips, and vats of boiling water. She had only been sixteen when she had made her vow of chastity. She had not known then what it was to truly love a man as she did Simon. Could such punishments await her?

  They had become lovers at last, when Simon visited Odiham on his way to and from Winchester. After the act of love, they’d wept together because of it. She had taken her vow of chastity before an archbishop, a binding promise approved of by the Holy Father in Rome himself and Simon, whom she knew to be a deeply religious knight, was as frightened of their passion as she. ‘We must marry,’ he’d said to her in the bedchamber where only a month before Ailenor and Henry had consummated their marriage. ‘Live together as man and wife without shame. I love you, Nell, with all my heart. The vow was made when you were too young to know your own nature and your heart. We’ll get it rescinded. There are ways.’ He had been gentle, his tears mingling with hers. ‘Henry will help us,’ he had whispered into her fall of black hair. She’d lifted her violet eyes to his and placed her hand on his heart.

  ‘God willing,’ she had said. ‘For I love you too, Simon.’

  Could God understand that? Could He understand what it was to love and to desire children of her own? She felt a tear slide down her cheek as she remembered Simon’s and her night of passionate lovemaking. She was not meant for the cloister.

  She loved Simon and he loved her. Her brother’s goodwill would be countered by the barons’ fury. A princess could not marry without the Council’s permission. Despite the chill that penetrated the cathedral her hands felt clammy and her rosary beads slippery. If only the Madonna would listen, understand, and intercede with God.

  She began to pray her own prayer. Prostrating herself, she begged God’s forgiveness as Christ had forgiven those who had crucified him. ‘Forgive me, for I knew not what I did when I took a vow of chastity.’

  She prayed to her name-day saint, Cecilia, to intercede for her. ‘Life will be nothing without Simon de Montfort, but if I must give up my love and deny temptation as Christ denied his temptations in the wilderness, I shall obey your will.’ Her tears w
ashed the flags as she sobbed with a heavy heart.

  ‘It was a promise,’ she whispered into the stillness. ‘One I should never have made.’

  As Nell raised her head the Virgin appeared to lift her child as if offering Christ to Nell. Was it the sign she wanted? What was the meaning?

  Nell returned to the chapel daily, hoping for another sign, but the Virgin remained serene, her great blue eyes looking down without emotion. Nell presented alms to beggars outside the church. She spoke to the old monk who swept the choir, wishing him ‘Christ’s Cheer.’ But inside the chapel the Virgin remained still, her blue gown cloaking her in an ambience of calm.

  Day following day, night following night, Nell wore an outer show of Christmastide cheer, particularly whilst in the company of Ailenor and her ladies. She could not confide her dilemma to Ailenor and deflected Ailenor’s oblique enquiries as to the nature of her friendship with Simon.

  Simon avoided her. He did not want to damage their cause by presenting the court with the opportunity to chatter about them. She felt her heart breaking into a thousand tiny pieces. Some days she felt everyone else’s joy weighing down on her like a sack of stones. She felt like returning home. But if she returned to Odiham her departure would be questioned. As she watched Simon playing chess with Henry, dancing with ladies of the court, attending Christmas Masses with his companions, her pain cut deeper and deeper. The miserable state of affairs continued until the New Year’s Eve feast. On this night of high spirits she felt Henry watching Simon and her with a curious expression crossing his countenance, his glance shifting from her to her lover. To Nell’s puzzlement, Henry contrived to bring them together during the games that followed the feasting.

  He drew her by the hand from her place at the High Table, saying, ‘Nell, Simon will blindfold you for catch-me.’ Her fingers tingled as Simon tied the dark cloth about her head, covering her eyes, and as he quickly kissed the nape of her neck and spun her around, a frisson of danger slid through her. She edged her way slowly away into the centre, her out-stretched arms groping air, hoping to catch him yet dreading it in case she fainted at his touch, but she caught Ailenor.

  ‘Your knight has speed,’ Ailenor whispered as Nell blindfolded the Queen.

  Simon squeezed Nell’s hand as they passed by each other in a dance and whispered, ‘All will be well.’ She remembered tumbled sheets, a full moon shining as holding hands they walked on the battlements at midnight and promised each other everlasting love, falling into joyful kisses, returning to her chamber to discover further passion.

  Simon could lose all he had achieved if Henry was displeased. Her brother granted him the earldom of Leicester at Christmas and she must not jeopardise Simon’s future by upsetting Henry, because that which was given with generosity could be taken away with displeasure. Recognising this, Nell remained discreet and cried into her pillow on New Year’s night.

  Snow lay about the palace in thick drifts. When many of Henry’s barons departed Westminster for their own castles, Nell felt a sense of relief. There were fewer watching eyes. Occasionally she and Simon pressed hands. Often now, they exchanged glances. They pretended friendship. She waited and waited, hopeful that their strange situation as half-lovers could be resolved. Simon whispered to her on New Year’s Day that Henry knew about their plight. Simon said he had told him. Henry was thinking about it. He had not yet spoken.

  ‘Was he furious?’ Nell whispered to Simon behind a screen that concealed a door to a small porch off the Hall that led into a garden.

  He snatched a kiss from her. ‘No, he’s thinking of how it can be done.’

  She took fleeting hope from Simon’s words, but as days passed she despaired again and tried to avoid private conversation with Henry. Simon would speak for them both.

  One night between New Year and Epiphany, Henry caught her as she sat playing with Ailenor’s puppies by the fire in the Hall. He spoke in a low voice, so low no one could overhear. ‘Do you love him, Nell?’

  ‘I do,’ she replied with honesty. Henry said nothing more nor, for once, did her bother’s countenance betray his feelings. He moved on, giving her no resolution.

  The diminished court threw snowballs at each other in the greater courtyard. After Henry’s question, she knew she and Simon must talk but there was no opportunity to be private in a court that lived cheek by jowl. Without any decision, she wondered if now it was time to return to Odiham but she did not. She could not, not before Epiphany, not before the Madonna of Our Lady’s Chapel gave her another sign or Henry did. He occasionally caught her eye but every time she tried to speak to him he waved her away.

  She, who was always composed, began to nibble at her nails. She jumped at every odd sound or quick movement. It was a time of shadows. She thought she saw William Marshal’s ghost on the stairway outside her chamber. His pale staring face looked as if the spirit carried with it a warning of great peril ahead. With a flicker of a candle in a nearby sconce her dead husband’s ghost melted into the walls. Nell’s dreams were haunted by memories of him aged and dying. She touched the ring that remained on her left hand and wept.

  Ailenor drew her into her circle of happy ladies. Sensing that Ailenor knew it all too and was sympathetic, Nell gradually relaxed. If Ailenor knew, why did she not confide her knowledge? Ailenor was learning to be a queen and she would not gainsay Henry. It would be a dangerous discussion. That was the nub of it.

  At last Nell’s chance to speak to Simon arose as courtiers tossed snow and laughed. No one looked their way. Simon drew his sport closer to Ailenor and her ladies and, at last, whispered in her ear as he swept snow from her mantle, ‘Have courage, my love. Henry is coming around.’

  ‘What did you tell him?’

  ‘That you might be with child.’

  ‘What?’ she hissed into his ear. ‘You know I’ve had my courses.’

  ‘Look, my love, Henry is working out how we can marry without the Council’s permission. He is adamant that no one knows, especially not Richard, and indeed not the Marshals. Gilbert Marshal and your brother Richard are not our friends. They resent me. Henry is waiting for them to depart for their lands. I had to say it.’

  Nell felt tearful. ‘I do hope for children but if Henry finds out you have deceived him. . .’

  Simon drew breath and took her hand, raised it to his mouth and kissed her fingers. ‘He will not. It won’t be long, my love.’

  She glanced about the courtyard to where the Earl of Cornwall was leaning against a wall talking with a pretty Provençal woman, one of Ailenor’s ladies, and watching them with a frown creasing his brow.

  Nell pulled away from Simon. ‘Richard is observing us. If he discovers us, there’ll be a scandal. He could ruin us both. He’ll make our lives miserable if we wed.’

  ‘Not if we are far away by then – in Kenilworth.’

  ‘When, then, Simon?’ She clasped his arm.

  ‘Soon.’

  She dropped her hand and thanked him loudly for sweeping snow from her mantle.

  Earl Richard stepped away from the lady, pushed between them and hurried her into his own group of courtiers. Isabel was with child again, he said. Nell disliked the way Richard spoke of his wife, as if he had tired of her. He flirted with Ailenor’s ladies and they flirted back. It was a great game of courtly love, one that was permitted Richard but not Simon or Nell herself.

  ‘Are you not concerned for Isabel?’ she said to him when later that day he had challenged her to a game of chess and seemed to be winning.

  ‘Isabel is happy at Wallingford. She has no need of my company,’ he said. ‘Look out. Your rook is gone.’ He seized her piece from the board. ‘I wish Simon were gone too,’ he growled. ‘He does not deserve the title of earl.’ His look was dark as he barked out Simon’s name.

  ‘Simon is pleasing company,’ she said, feeling uncomfortable.

  ‘He is a lowly upstart.’

  Nell froze, a bishop in her hand.

  ‘Concentrate on the game
, Nell,’ he snapped.

  She slid her bishop sideways and captured his rook. From the corner of her eye she saw Simon talking with Henry by the great fireplace. Their heads were bent together, deep in conversation.

  ‘Got you!’ Richard glanced at her, triumph gleaming in his darkened eyes. ‘You’ve lost him.’ He held up her knight.

  ‘When?’ she said again in a very low voice when, later, she bumped into Simon on a narrow stairway that descended through the palace.

  ‘I shall know tomorrow.’ He drew her to him and kissed her deeply. Footsteps echoed below them. He let her go and in a louder voice said, ‘Here are your scissors, my lady.’

  ‘Ah, I thought I had dropped them here,’ she said. He continued up the stairway as she hurried down, passing Gilbert Marshal ascending as she reached her chamber.

  He waylaid her. ‘I see you are not wearing the ring that honoured my brother’s memory.’ His tone was acid.

  ‘It is overly tight,’ she said, and fled into her chamber. She had removed the ring that morning in a fit of anger at it.

  She threw herself on her bed and her thoughts at once filled with Simon, his hair glossy and black, his scent, which was musky, and the touch of his lips on her own. How she longed for him. She allowed a long heartfelt sigh to escape. Henry was unpredictable. They could wait years for his decision. After Christmastide her erratic brother might vent his fury on her and banish her to a nunnery in disgrace, particularly if he thought she was with child.