Eleanor inclined her head. “It gave her comfort in her last hours.” She said no more than that and they said no more, either, for her grieving was painful to look upon, but intensely private, shielded from the world by a fierce pride that conceded little, asked for even less. When they told her how happy they were to have her back at their abbey, she inclined her head again.
“I regret that I cannot stay for long. My son and the French king are meeting after Christmas, hoping to make a lasting peace by the marriage of Philippe’s son to my granddaughter, and I have agreed to go to Castile to fetch her.”
If she had any qualms about making such a long, dangerous, winter journey across the Pyrenees at her advanced age, she gave no indication of it, and the nuns knew better than to admit their own misgivings. Instead, they expressed their pleasure that her granddaughter should one day become Queen of France.
Thank God Almighty that Philippe is so entangled in his own marital web, caught between the queen he does not want and the concubine the Church will not recognize. Eleanor would have found it difficult to consent to a marriage between her daughter’s child and a man she’d not have trusted with one of her greyhounds. Whilst she knew little about twelve-year-old Louis, at least he was not his father. She did not share these thoughts with the nuns, of course, and echoed their polite wishes that this marriage might end the war, even though she knew that there would be no lasting peace between the kingdoms of England and France as long as Philippe Capet drew breath.
She soon rose, expressing the desire to visit the church ere returning to her own chambers, pausing at the door to say, “Two of my daughter’s ladies have accompanied me. Dame Beatrix and Dame Alicia served Joanna faithfully in life and they wish to take holy vows as she did. They are both of gentle birth, Beatrix the daughter and widow of knights and Alicia the sister of a Templar.” The abbess and prioress quickly assured her that they would gladly welcome the countess’s ladies. She’d expected such cooperation, for their abbey was now the royal sepulchre for the Angevin dynasty.
THE RAIN WAS HEAVIER now and puddles were forming on the walkway. Silver droplets clung to bare tree branches, glistened like scattered seed pearls in the wilted, wet grass, but the rain felt cold against her skin. She drew her mantle more closely, remembering the superstition that it was lucky when it rained on the day of a funeral, as if Heaven itself were weeping for the deceased. It had not rained when her son and daughter were buried within the span of five months. She’d wept even if Heaven had not, shedding her tears behind closed doors in those endless hours ere the dawn.
The church was empty and her footsteps echoed loudly upon the tiled floor as she moved up the nave. Smoldering torches in wall recesses did not keep the shadows at bay, but she had no fear of the dark.
“I did all I could to gain him the crown, Harry,” she said softly, glancing toward the nuns’ choir, where her husband and son’s tombs lay. “But it will be up to John to hold on to it.”
When she paused, the only sound that came to her was the soft patter of rain upon the roof. Fool. Did she think she’d hear voices from the grave? There were no places to sit, only prayer cushions scattered about the floor, and she suddenly felt very tired. She leaned against the altar, thinking that the Almighty would not begrudge her aching bones the support.
“When I return from Castile, Harry, I shall arrange for Joanna’s reburial. It was her dying wish that she be buried with you and Richard. I shall have effigies made for you all, and one for myself. I doubt that I can rely upon John to have it done after I die. He loved Richard not and cannot admit his guilt over betraying you, not even to himself.”
It did not seem strange to her, talking to the husband who’d been her gaoler. They’d been married for thirty-seven years, had loved and fought and lusted after empires and each other. And they’d buried too many children.
“Just two left, Harry,” she whispered. “Lives cut short ere their time. But living too long is a cruelty, too. I know that losing Hal well-nigh broke your heart. At least you were not there as he drew his last breath; at least you were spared that. There is no greater pain than to watch your child die.”
She slowly sank to her knees before the altar. But she did not pray. She wept for her dead.
EPILOGUE
APRIL 1204
Fontevrault Abbey, Anjou
SHE WAS BURNING WITH FEVER, but she welcomed it, eager to shed the body that had become her enemy. It would be soon now, for she was slipping her moorings, one by one, tethered by gossamer threads that trembled with each labored breath she drew. Gradually she became aware that she was no longer alone. She opened her eyes, but she saw only swirling shadows, candles that glimmered like distant stars in the dark.
“God’s bones, woman, how much longer are you going to make us wait?”
She’d not heard that voice, once so familiar, for nigh on sixteen years. “Harry?” she whispered, suddenly uncertain.