The Silken Rose Page 9

  Earl Richard left for Wallingford. With his departure Nell breathed more easily.

  The same night Richard had ridden off into a snowy landscape, there was a banging on her chamber door. Having just climbed into bed, she pushed back her coverlets and threw a robe over her night gown. Her fire had died down and the air felt chill. The knocking came again. It was more insistent.

  ‘Who is it?’ she called out. The Angelus bells were ringing. Her response was lost amongst the cacophony.

  The person who had knocked waited until they stopped chiming. ‘The King requires your lady’s presence in the Painted Chamber.’ The voice was that of Earl Simon’s squire, Thomas. Why by the Blessed Virgin was Thomas requesting her to come to the King’s chamber at such a late hour?

  ‘Let him enter,’ she said to her maid, who had risen from her pallet at the foot of Nell’s bed and was standing by her side. ‘Fetch my burgundy gown and mantle.’

  ‘Wait in my lady’s ante-chamber,’ she heard her maid say in a shrill little voice to the squire. ‘My lady must dress.’

  Her hair was combed and plaited. She was wearing her best gown and had pulled a mantel lined with fur about her shoulders against the chilling air.

  Thomas stood in the doorway. ‘My lady, please hurry. The King is waiting.’

  ‘My maid. . .’

  ‘She may accompany you.’ Thomas lifted a wall sconce and bade the women follow him. As they glided through dim passages and climbed down twisting stairways to the King’s apartments, Nell questioned the squire.

  ‘Explain this,’ she said feeling her stomach heave.

  ‘The King awaits you,’ was all Thomas said in response.

  As they approached the King’s chambers Earl Gilbert stopped them. Nell looked away when he put out his bony hand. ‘We have a habit of meeting in shadowy places.’ His face was too near to her own, his breath stinking of sour wine. ‘Visiting the King and Queen? The hour is past midnight,’ Gilbert said with a saturnine smile.

  A pool of moonlight slid in through a window of painted glass, casting eerie patterns on the corridor wall and crossing Gilbert’s face with a lurid streak of red. He appeared devil-like. ‘I am Henry’s sister. If he requests my presence I attend him. Let us pass.’

  ‘Sir Simon’s squire accompanies you, my lady?’ He was frowning now. There was a note of displeasure in his tone.

  ‘That is none of your concern.’

  ‘That we shall see.’ Earl Gilbert, nevertheless, lowered his hand and granted them passage. She felt his cold eyes bore into her back as they proceeded to the Painted Chamber. She gathered her mantle about her and raised her head. In the sconce light Thomas looked at her with admiration in his soft blue eyes. She managed a smile and he nodded. She had handled Earl Gilbert well.

  There were others, even at night, drifting about outside Henry’s chambers, curious courtiers, sycophants, and pages. Guards stood by the doors of Henry’s private apartments to prevent anyone curious entering the Painted Chamber. Nell, her maid, and Thomas were ushered inside. Time stilled. Candles lit about the chamber illuminated the beautiful wall paintings depicting Edward Confessor. The saint’s crimson robes appeared more vivid than ever. Once they had passed into the Painted Chamber, a page guided them to Henry’s bedchamber to the heavy arras that separated his private chapel from his bedchamber. She smelled frankincense mingling with rose. The scent of roses was drifting from Ailenor who stepped towards her from behind the arras. The Queen took her hand. ‘Come, Earl Simon is waiting by the altar for his bride.’

  Nell’s heart raced. There was no room in the chapel for their servants, whom Ailenor bade wait outside. As Nell entered the chapel it was as if Simon, who looked around smiling, was a creature from Heaven, and not a mortal knight. He wore chainmail, which gleamed in the candlelight, and a short mantle of softest blue wool. His black hair touched his shoulders and his dark eyes as he turned towards her glowed with love.

  Although a brazier heated the tiny shadowy room, Nell momentarily shivered as Ailenor guided her towards Simon. He looked down at her with reassurance and whispered, ‘Are you well, my love?’ She had no time to respond because Walter, the chaplain of St Stephen’s, emerged from behind green velvet hangings to greet them both. Henry entered with the priest and stood by Earl Simon’s side. He was wearing his favourite green and his ring jewels shone in the candlelight as he held his hands in a palmer’s gesture. She could smell his favourite sandalwood perfume and ridiculously in that moment she wished she had been granted warning so she could bathe and anoint her own body with perfume. Henry never smiled, but after she and Simon clearly repeated their marriage vows, those the chaplain mumbled to them, he solemnly lifted Nell’s hand and kissed it. She breathed more easily. Still unsmiling, Henry knelt before the altar with Simon and herself as Walter, the chaplain, said a brief garbled wedding mass over them.

  Simon and she rose again as man and wife.

  Before the palace stirred that morning they rode out from the courtyard, surrounded by retainers who would accompany them to Kenilworth. Others would ride to Odiham with news of their wedding.

  7

  1238

  Ailenor was happy for Nell. Surely once their wedding was accomplished the nobles, many of them in their far-flung castles by now, would be accepting of the fact that her friend Nell and Henry’s favoured knight, the Earl of Leicester, were married in the sight of God. She resumed her busy life, embroidering, reading, playing on her harp, and dancing.

  A full week after the departure of the Christmastide court, Henry burst into Ailenor’s solar, slamming her door behind him in a fury. The sudden draught caused fragile fabrics to drift to the floor tiles. His face, usually pale, was to Ailenor’s horror blotched a fiery red as if he were stricken with the spotted fever. Ailenor’s mouth fell open. As he approached her chair, the needle she was holding slipped from her fingers, a length of crimson silken thread clinging to her gown where it caught. She scrambled to her feet, almost tripping over the hem of her skirt. Her ladies dropped their embroidery. With wary countenances, they curtsied to the King and stood like a guard of frightened hoverflies around their Queen. How could she have displeased him? The unspoken question hung about her bower like an unpleasant odour.

  ‘Whatever is wrong?’ she managed to ask.

  ‘Everything. Have your women pack at once,’ he said, his tone angry. ‘We sail for the Tower on this afternoon’s tide.’ He glanced around the women, his eyes resting on the embroideress, Rosalind, who was holding a square of linen in her hands.

  ‘And as for you,’ he said, ‘you will return to your father’s house.’

  The girl curtsied. She looked terrified.

  Turning to Ailenor again, he said, ‘There’s an army waiting at Kingston to attack us, Richard and Walter Marshal at its head. Traitors, the pack of them. No doubt they will infect the City burghers with their opinions. London, too, could rise against us. We must retreat to the Tower.’

  ‘What has happened?’

  Henry waved his hands which seemed to claw the air with a will of their own. Her damsels drew back. Ailenor stood erect and signalled to them to leave her. They ran for the window benches where they sat in a quivering row.

  Henry said with a grunt, ‘It’s Simon and Nell. The earls want their marriage annulled. Send for your cloak at once. I shall wait for you in the Hall. Your ladies will follow with the sumpter wagons.’ He swept out, shouting angrily they must be ready to depart before the tide turned. ‘You have an hour.’

  Ailenor spun around to face her ladies. ‘They’ll not dare attack the King. We had best do as the King says. Willelma, you will stay with me and travel on the river. Rosalind, go and tell your embroiderers to close up the workshop until you return. They can take sanctuary in the Abbey.’

  Rosalind nodded and fled the chamber.

  After a chilly journey down river, huddled in her cloak, Ailenor was safely ensconced in the Wakefield Tower. She remained quiet as Henry, huffing and puffing
, called a council meeting to include his loyal knights who had remained at court following Christmastide, and her uncle, William of Savoy, who was his most trusted advisor.

  Hours passed. The candle clocks burned low. The sumpter carts arrived in the inner courtyard during the hours following Vespers. Ailenor paced her chamber. She could not wait to hear any rash decision. She was Henry’s Queen. If the crown was in danger she would have her opinion listened to. Nell’s marriage must not be annulled. ‘Willelma, take charge here. Send for wine and cakes.’ Ailenor knew she looked fiercer than she felt as she glanced about the frightened women. She rested her eyes upon English Mary who was of sound sense. ‘Lady Mary, come with me and wait outside the King’s chambers in case I have need of you.’

  Ailenor hurried from the chamber, Mary following. She swept forward along a dimly lit corridor. Sconces wavered as she strode past. Guards looked at her askance. Ignoring them she marched on. She would attend the King’s Council whether or not she was welcome.

  There were only a few knights present when, with a swish of velvet mantel, she entered the council chamber. Henry rose, hand on the hilt of his sword. He gave her a half-smile and ordered a chair to be placed between his own and Uncle William’s at the round oak table. His left eyelid drooped, his eye almost concealed.

  Ailenor drew her shoulders back and sat up straight, her neck rising from her mantle.

  Henry addressed his knights. ‘They come to threaten me, their King, whilst Earl Simon is at Kenilworth. They know my weakness. Simon should be here with us. He is an abler soldier than all of them.’ He laid a long hand on an unrolled parchment sitting on the table and tapped with his middle finger. ‘They send me this. Ultimatums!’ Addressing the scribes sat against the walls, he said, ‘Write to the custodians of all our ports from Norwich to Portsmouth. Write these words - receive no orders from my brother, who has risen against me because I have married our sister to Earl Simon.’

  Silence followed, except for pens dipping into ink and scratching across parchment. When Henry’s instruction was written down by ten monks, the portable desks hanging from their shoulders thumping, Henry lifted his seal from the council table and placed his stamp on each letter. ‘See these are carried forth to the ports this night.’ He dismissed the monks, and quickly called after them. ‘Be at hand, Brothers, because I’ll have more words to send out later.’ As one, the scribes bowed, desks knocking against habits. They scurried from the chamber to seek messengers to take the letters to all the prominent East Anglian and Kentish ports.

  ‘Uncle William,’ Ailenor whispered, ‘Is Richard intending a civil war? Is he threatening the Crown?’

  William shook his head. ‘We don’t know yet.’ He patted her hand. ‘You are safe here in the Tower.’

  Henry lifted the scroll from the desk. ‘I’ll warrant Richard wants money. That is what this is about. He has complained about having to return our sister’s estates, those he had in trust for her. The Marshals are after the estates they still owe her as her widow’s third portion. Her inheritance, her widow’s portion, goes now to Earl Simon as he is her husband. Here, they list his shortcomings.’ He tapped another scroll she had not at first noticed, by his right hand. ‘The barons say he is ruthless. Are these men not hard-hearted that they would hold a king and his queen to ransom? I must do nothing of importance without the advice of my subjects, they claim.’ He looked at Ailenor and with a hard smile, said, ‘They complain, too, that I take advice from foreigners, mostly from Savoy like Bishop William, your uncle.’

  ‘They would say that,’ Bishop William protested. He stroked his beard and rapped his stubby fingers on the table. ‘There is, of course, the matter of Princess Eleanor’s vow.’

  Henry was quick to challenge any hints of Church objection, even those of Ailenor’s own most treasured Uncle William. ‘That was a vow made when she was overly young to know her mind, taken under duress. Earl Simon will have it annulled.’

  Uncle William raised his eyebrows but did not challenge. Ailenor nodded her agreement. It would mean a hasty journey to Rome to seek the Pope’s blessing on their marriage, an official release for Nell from her oath, but Simon would go. He promised he would before they departed for Kenilworth. He would do anything for Nell.

  The knights seated around the table began to discuss whether the vow was, in fact, made under undue duress by Archbishop Edmund. Ailenor thought it was and said so. They pondered how many knights they could call on to fight Earl Richard if he attacked. Henry shook his head. Their conversation went from knights to ships and ports, to exile and to sieges. As the night deepened, Gascon wine was served. Occasionally one of the company hurried from the chamber to seek the privy. Voices raised and fell. Henry’s left eye angrily drooped more and more.

  Ailenor puzzled how her father would settle such a quarrel. He may have lacked finance but he had castles and connections. He always called on her mother’s brothers when his territories came under threat. His rule over Provence was absolute. Henry must flex his power more firmly, control Richard of Cornwall, and destroy Gilbert Marshal’s rebellion. Henry might buy Richard off but if he did there should be conditions.

  She leaned over and tapped Henry’s arm. ‘May we speak privately? I have a suggestion.’

  Henry inclined his head and nodded. He rapped the table. ‘I shall withdraw with the Queen for a while. Remain here until we return.’ He turned to Ailenor’s uncle. ‘William, come with us.’

  In the waiting chamber, Ailenor said, ‘Earl Simon must travel to Rome at once, have Lady Eleanor’s vow absolved. He must receive forgiveness and recognition from Pope Gregory for his marriage with our sister.’

  Henry said, ‘That has been agreed between myself and Earl Simon already.’

  ‘Earl Simon should accompany Richard on the crusade Richard so often talks of though he has not yet taken the Cross. Many will gladly join a new crusade. What better to distract an enemy than a unified cause?’

  Henry clasped his hands. ‘Ailenor, you are right. A crusade, what a good idea. Money to finance it from both Church and Crown.’ He smiled. ‘I do not see why the Church cannot be taxed for a new crusade. I think there will be many monks and priests relieved to see Jerusalem freed from the infidel by English knights. Earl Simon and Earl Richard are leaders of men, the perfect warriors to take an army to Jerusalem.’

  ‘A united cause,’ said Ailenor, pleased they liked her idea so well.

  ‘I’ll put it to this council,’ Henry said.

  When they returned to the council chamber, Henry put her plan to the nobles. They all began to smile at last. This was a clever way out of an extremely difficult impasse and Ailenor found a smile hovering about her own mouth. She had made them listen to her. All her father had taught her was put to good use.

  Henry elaborated on her suggestion. ‘My brother will receive six thousand marks to lead a crusade. I shall support it. This will please them all - Cardinal Otto, the Papal Legate; Archbishop Edmund will support it; our earthly Father in Rome will be pleased with England. Earl Simon must accompany Richard to Jerusalem. It will take a year or two to organise, perhaps three, but I have no doubt there are those present who welcome a straight pathway to the Heavenly Kingdom.’ He beamed at Ailenor. She clasped his hand under the table and raised her head in a queenly manner. Henry went on, ‘A part of my sister’s wealth must also be directed into God’s work.’ He let go Ailenor’s clasp and raised his arms as if embracing Heaven. ‘We shall rescue the Holy Lands from occupation. Christ’s homelands will be returned to the faithful.’

  His smile was, Ailenor considered, self-satisfied. It was, after all, her idea.

  Yet she wore a serene demeanour and nodded. It would be a diversion from the unfortunate marriage. She had heard Richard talk of crusading and now his words would be made into action. What better to distract an enemy than a perceived unified cause? She moved her lips in hopeful prayer as she watched the council consider it.

  Uncle William quaffed a beaker o
f Gascon wine and cleared his throat.

  ‘There is the issue of the vow, Your Grace, we suggested -’

  ‘The Queen suggests that Earl Simon travels to Rome at once, has the Lady Eleanor’s vow absolved and receives forgiveness for and recognition from Pope Gregory of his marriage with our sister.’ Henry narrowed his eyes, the droop having lifted slightly. ‘He will have plenty of coin from my sister Eleanor’s lands to buy Gregory’s pardon and enough left over to go on Crusade.’ Henry smiled again.

  Clicking his fingers, Henry called for a scribe and dictated terms to be written to Earl Richard. These would be delivered by Bishop William.

  That night Ailenor and Henry shared her rose bedchamber, still favourite of all her luxurious chambers. ‘Henry,’ she whispered, removing his shirt. ‘The only way to keep our brother, Richard, away from our throne - and prevent him from seeing Earl Simon as too close to the throne – is for me to have a child. We must try harder.’

  Henry kissed her as he reached for her and took her with passion. ‘Are we sinful?’ he sighed afterwards.

  ‘No, this is our duty. If we enjoy it, God will forgive us, especially if we have heirs.’

  She was Queen and she would bear her husband’s children. Passion would result in beautiful children for the Crown, as their subjects expected of their king and queen.

  ‘More than anything, I want a child, and, Henry, we must have children, lots of them.’

  Later that month, Ailenor mused at how after receiving six thousand marks, Richard had withdrawn from Kingston. She was present when he made his peace with Henry and with Earl Simon, whom Henry had sent for, ordering him to Rome as soon as winter passed and the Swiss mountains were navigable.

  ‘You will make over a portion of my sister’s dower lands,’ Henry said to Earl Gilbert at a meeting to discuss the new crusade.