Виктория Холт - The Queen from Provence

‘Let us pray it may be so.’

They walked through the maze and back to the palace. Later they hunted in the forest and when they returned, pleasantly tired from the chase, Eleanor dressed herself in a gown of blue edged with miniver and wore her hair in two plaits which hung over either shoulder in a manner which delighted Henry.

In the hall they feasted. The King and Queen seated at the high table with a few of the most exalted of the party and the rest at the great table with the enormous salter in the centre to divide the company into those deserving respect and those who were considered of lesser degree.

The Queen had arranged for some of the minstrels she had kept with her to sing to the company. She liked to do this to show the people who so deplored the foreigners she had brought into the country that their performance was superior to anything the English could do.

It was while the minstrels were singing that the mad priest came into the hall. There was a sudden silence throughout as this man stood there facing them all.

His clerical garments, which were in disarray, proclaimed him as a priest; and his eyes were wild.

In the silence, a voice cried: ‘Why ’tis Ribbaud, the priest.’

Henry stood up. ‘Who knows this priest?’

The man who had spoken stood up. ‘My lord, I know him. He is the mad priest of Woodstock.’

Eleanor had reached for Henry’s hand and gripped it tightly for the priest had come to stand before the high table immediately in front of the King.

Henry looked at the tousled hair and the wild eyes of the man and he said gently: ‘What would you have of me?’

The priest said in a voice of thunder which echoed about the hall: ‘You have my crown. I am the King of England. Give it back to me. Usurper!’

Two of the guards had come forward; they gripped the priest by his arms and held him pinioned.

‘Why do you make such statements?’ asked Henry still gentle, for he was always sorry for the weak. It was only the strong who made him uneasy; he could feel compassion for those who were afflicted.

‘I speak truth,’ cried the priest. ‘I am the King of England. The true King … robbed of his crown.’

‘How do you make that out?’ asked Henry. ‘My father was King, my grandfather was King and I am my father’s eldest son.’

‘No,’ muttered the priest. ‘You have stolen my crown. I have come to claim it. You will never prosper until you give me back my crown.’

‘My lord,’ said one of the guards, ‘what is your wish. What shall we do with this man?’

‘Hang him,’ cried a voice from the hall.

‘Cut out his tongue,’ said another.

‘Nay,’ said Henry. ‘Hold. This man is not to blame. He is a man with an addled brain. Through no fault of his he has been sent into the world so afflicted. It is only a man who knows himself not to be a true king who would fear such as he. I would be merciful. Take him away and let him go free.’

There was a murmur of amazement as the priest was taken from the hall.

Eleanor pressed his hand. ‘You are a good man, Henry,’ she said. ‘Few kings would have let him go.’

‘My father would have had his eyes put out, his ears or his nose cut off. But then my father was a wicked man. There was no godliness in him. I want these people to understand that although I am my father’s son there was never one less like him than I am. My ancestors, what would they have done? The Lion of Justice would have freed him for he has committed no crime.’

‘He has shown disrespect to your person.’

‘What he has done is dictated by madness. It was not Ribbaud who spoke but the demons within him. He has gone. Let us forget him. Call for the minstrels.’

The minstrels sang and it was said in the hall that Henry was a good man and it was sad that he could not be as good a king as he was a man.

* * *

Night at Woodstock was enchanted with the moon high in the sky, shedding its light on the still trees of the forest. Through those trees the King and Queen walked together, arms entwined, down to Rosamund’s Bower haunted by the spirit of the Second Henry whose lust had been at the heart of Rosamund’s tragedy.

Here they had sported together; here they had played out their secret lives. There was an aura about the place. The spirits of the past brooded there. In these rooms the King’s bastards had been born – the children who, it was said, the King loved better than those he had had by his Queen.

‘It is almost as though she is here – sweet Rosamund,’ said Henry. ‘Do you sense that, my love?’

Eleanor did; poet that she was her fancy was always ready to soar. They walked through the rooms – small by palace standards – charming rooms, with much of the furniture still remaining, for this place which had become known as Rosamund’s Bower had been kept as it was in Rosamund’s day on the orders of Henry II and the care had continued through the reigns of Richard and John until now.

Eleanor said: ‘Let us stay here a while just ourselves – in Rosamund’s Bower. Here her children were born. I have a notion. There is magic in the air tonight. Something says to me “Stay”. Perhaps here our son would be conceived. Henry, there is some thing which tells me we must stay. It was so strange when that crazy priest stood there. I kept thinking of him. Henry, you were so good to him. You saved him. The saints will reward you … tonight here …’

‘What odd fancies you have. But there is a magic in the air tonight.’

‘Here that other Henry made love with his mistress. Why should not this Henry make love here with his wife?’

Henry laughed. ‘Delightful notion,’ he said.

She sat upon Rosamund’s bed and held out her hands to him.

He took them, kissed them fervently.

He said: ‘There is nothing in the world I would not give you.’ She was happy; she was content; she was glad he had been lenient to the mad priest.

* * *

It was past midnight when they wandered back into the palace.

In their bedchamber was noise and confusion. A babble of voices, a man bound by robes trussed in a corner.

In the light of the torches the King looked round the room and saw a knife embedded in the straw of the bed he would have shared with Eleanor.

A guard said: ‘We caught him as he was making away, my lord. And when we came here we saw what he had done. God’s mercy was with you tonight, my lord, for had you been in your bed the madman’s knife would have been buried in your heart.’

The priest began to shout, ‘I am the true King. You stole my crown.’

Henry looked at the pale face of Eleanor, the terror in her eyes and he thought of her lying in that bed, covered in blood, dead … beside him. Two of them victims of the madman’s knife.

‘This is a dangerous madman,’ he said.

There was a sigh of relief. It was clear that the guards had feared he might have wished to save Ribbaud’s life yet again.

‘Take him to the dungeons,’ said the King. ‘We will decide what to do with him tomorrow.’

When they had gone he turned to Eleanor and took her into his arms.

‘He might have harmed you,’ he said; and a terrible anger took possession of him.

He had been a fool and seen to be a fool. He had once more shown himself to the world as a weak man. His act of mercy in the great hall might have cost both him and his Queen their lives. It would be whispered of … remembered.

Eleanor was shivering.

‘Have no fear, my love. He shall pay for this. No more mercy for the mad priest.’

Nor was there. The next day the man was tied to four wild horses and when they rode off in different directions he was torn to pieces.

The Queen believed that that night there had been a miracle. In Rosamund’s Bower there had come to her the desire to stay there, and so they had while a madman tried to kill them and would certainly have done so if they had been asleep in their own bed. And when she discovered that she was indeed pregnant, she was certain of the miracle.

This was happiness indeed. There was only one irritation and that was the rejection of her Uncle William and the inability of Henry to force his acceptance at Winchester. Moreover Uncle William was not in very good health which was a great concern to her.

But the fact that she was to have a child superseded all minor irritations. Henry was beside himself with delight. He agreed with her that there had been a miracle that night and although they could not be absolutely sure that their child had been conceived in Rosamund’s Bower, that mattered little now. It had actually happened.

Henry cosseted her more than ever. He regarded her with a kind of wonder; he admitted that he had feared they might never have a child but so much did he love her that even that had not made him regret the marriage.

She became very friendly with her sister-in-law Eleanor de Montfort. Eleanor was herself the proud mother of a boy – Henry – and was therefore knowledgeable about pregnancies, having just emerged from one.

The Princess was happy in the Queen’s company because she was missing her husband who had gone to Rome to get a dispensation regarding their marriage.

The two found great pleasure in sitting together stitching and embroidering – and it was their joy to make garments for their children. The Queen dismissed her attendants and set them to work in another chamber so that she and the Princess could talk more intimately.

They had a great deal in common – two contented wives. The Queen thought it strange that the Princess had found happiness in marrying beneath her when she, the Queen, had found hers in the grandeur of her marriage. She could never have been content, as the Princess was, with the lowering of her status.