They saw me as the deliverer. I was their true ruler. They had glorified my grandfather and my father, conveniently forgetting certain strife which had been evident during their reigns. They saw in them the great romantics. Aquitaine was never the same as when we had our own among us, they said.

And I was the direct descendant, but being a woman, I had married and brought strangers among them. Now I was back. There were rumors of what had happened to me. I had been cruelly imprisoned by my monster of a husband, but now I was free to come back among them and take my rightful place.

The troubadours came back to Court, which was filled with jongleurs seeking to return to the ways of the old days which, looking back, they were assured had been full of pleasure.

They wanted no strangers among them. They wanted to live their lives as their grandfathers had. And I ... the true heiress ... one of themselves, was back.

Calm settled on Aquitaine.

Henry had been right. This was what was needed.

So passed the days and life began to return to the old carefree ways. The people were happy.

A great deal was happening far away. I could not forget Henry as he had looked when he stood before that picture of the eagle and the eaglets. No wonder he turned to Alais for comfort. I think she must have cared for him, for it was not to her advantage to remain the mistress of an old man when she might have been the bride of a young one with a kingdom in view.

I wondered if Henry realized how dangerous were his eaglets. He was still deceiving himself about John. And John was the least likely to bring him happiness if all I heard of him was true.

My youngest son was wild, sadistic, profligate, a hypocrite and a liar, according to reports. Geoffrey might be pleasure-loving, suave and self-seeking, but he was not as bad as John. Richard of course was cold and stern and in a way high-minded; he would call his rule just, but some called it cruel. But John, from what I heard, was depraved.

Henry had been foolish to send him to Ireland. He ought to have known that that would end in failure. I could imagine John, surrounded by young men imitating him to curry favor. John would not care for the good of the country, of making it a prosperous addition to his father’s Empire. All he would think of was his own pleasure.

Messengers brought news to the Court of how John had roamed the countryside looking for mischief, ridiculing the local inhabitants, because of the way they dressed and wore beards, which he was reputed to have tweaked provocatively and insultingly. The Irish would not accept that. Of course his main pursuit was women, and as he was the King he thought that all were at his command. He was immediately in conflict with Hugh de Lacy, who had been sent over earlier and was governing the country.

I remembered Hugh de Lacy. He was a very dark man, by no means handsome, with small black eyes and a flattened nose; he was short of stature and far from elegant; but he had power, I remember. I could imagine his dismay at having John giving orders above him.

After a while, having run out of money, John returned to England, where Henry apparently received him warmly, still deceiving himself that this was the one son who loved him. I could imagine John’s playing the affectionate son, laughing inwardly at the old fool, determined to get what he could out of him.

Soon after that Hugh de Lacy was murdered. He was in the process of building a castle at Durrow when a man from Teffia with an unpronounceable name—I think it was Gilla-gan-inathar O’Meyey—picked up an axe and severed his head from his body.

Henry was deeply shocked and perturbed for de Lacy had kept good order in Ireland. John’s comment was that it was the old fool’s just reward.

In the meantime Geoffrey was at the French Court. Henry was uneasy about his sons’ friendship with the French King. I wondered if Philip Augustus knew that Henry’s worst enemies were now his own sons; and of course Philip Augustus was Henry’s perennial enemy—just as his father had been. There would always be strife between the kings of France and England while England owned so much of France; constantly there would be on one side the desire to retrieve and on the other to acquire more.

But between the King of France and Henry’s sons there was a great attraction. Philip Augustus was a clever young man, quite different from his father. He might not be as powerful on the battlefield as Richard, so successful at the joust as Geoffrey, but he had a subtlety they lacked.

At the Court of France Philip Augustus was now treating Geoffrey as an honored guest. It might have been that he was trying to sow further distrust between Henry and his sons. That would not be difficult. However, the entertainment he arranged for Geoffrey was lavish.

Geoffrey loved tournaments above everything else. He was brilliant in the lists, and it was only natural of course that with a prince from England there should be rivalry between the two countries, and as the jousts were conducted as a war, the two sides should vie with each other for victory.

They had agreed that this should be a mock battle. The two sides were to face each other, and if one member of the party could be separated from the rest and forced to dismount, that was considered a capture. Later they would count their “prisoners.”

Constance, Geoffrey’s wife, was with him. She was pregnant at the time. They had one daughter only, Eleanor, named after me, and this time they were hoping for a son.

He wore her colors, I was told, as he rode confidently out.

None quite knew how it happened. Perhaps he was overconfident. Perhaps he was taken by surprise. The joust had scarcely begun when a lance struck his horse, and the creature reared and fell, throwing Geoffrey. He was called upon to yield in the name of the King of France. I could imagine his chagrin. He, Geoffrey Plantagenet, to yield to a knight of Philip Augustus! He raised himself and as he did so a rider and horseman came thundering past. The horse’s hoof caught him at the side of his head and he lost consciousness immediately.

He was taken into the castle. Constance ran to his side while Philip Augustus shouted for doctors.

But when they came it was too late. Geoffrey was dead.

We had lost another of our sons.

I was grief-stricken and knew that Henry would be, too. What was this ill fate which dogged him? Did he remember the curse of Heraclius? Did he go into that chamber and look at the eaglets? One would not now peck him to death.

Two remained—Richard and John—and he was at odds with Richard and putting his trust in John.

I imagined that he would be even more fond of John now. He would delude himself in his grief that he had one son who loved him.

I remembered so much—Geoffrey when he was a baby, sweet and dependent. That was often how I thought of them ... before they grew up, before the faults began to show, when they were royal babies and the years before them seemed full of promise.

I was due to return home. Aquitaine was quiet now ... at peace. It had worked out as Henry intended. The duchy was mine now, and that meant a return to the old way of life.

I said I would come back to them again. Oddly enough, much as I loved my native land, I wanted to know what was happening. I felt I had to watch over Richard’s inheritance, for I was sure the King planned to cheat him of it.

I was met at Dover. The King had given orders that I was to be taken to my old quarters in Winchester.

I could not believe this.

I was once more a prisoner.

What a fool I had been to come back when I could have continued in freedom in my beloved Aquitaine. I had trusted Henry. I should have known better. I had settled affairs in Aquitaine; the duchy was at peace; the people looked on me as their ruler. So now, for the time being, he had no further use for my services; and having done his work for him I could return to being his prisoner.

For some time I was so overcome by hatred for Henry that I was unable to think of anything else. Later my anger abated a little as I saw that it was really as well that I was back. I could keep an eye on what was happening here, and I had to be watchful of him. He was planning to disinherit Richard and make John his heir. That was something I had to prevent, and I could do that better even as a prisoner here than I could in Aquitaine.

Constance’s child had been born. I heard that Henry was delighted with a grandson and had wanted him named after himself. It amused me that the people of Brittany refused to allow this, and the boy was named Arthur after their national hero.

Being an inveterate matchmaker, Henry was immediately planning remarriage for Constance—a match which would be advantageous to him, of course.

Henry was far from well. I gleaned little bits of news about his indisposition. The ingrowing toenail was making walking painful, but of course he spent a great deal of time in the saddle. There was something else. He was suffering from a vague internal disease and could no longer ride for a whole day without becoming exhausted. He had indeed not worn as well as I had. No one would have believed I was the elder. The thought gave me considerable gratification when I remembered how he had taunted me that I was eleven years older than he.

With the coming of autumn there was disturbing news from Jerusalem. Heraclius had warned of impending disaster; now it had come. Saladin, the legendary Saracen hero, had taken Jerusalem, and the tomb of Christ was now in the hands of the Infidel.

Everyone was talking of the need to save the Holy Land for Christianity, and all over Europe people were taking the cross.