The Courts of Love - Jean Plaidy [144]
This was a turning-point in my life. I was now making a great decision. I would leave this land of cool days and cloudy skies. I would return to my native country, where I was the ruler. And perhaps I would take my children with me. I was the one whom they loved, the one to whom they gave their allegiance . . . and not only Richard: the others too.
Henry would learn that, although he might have his will with Rosamund Clifford, it would not be so with Eleanor of Aquitaine.
My time was near. Another Christmas was approaching. I decided to spend it at the Beaumont Palace in Oxford, and there my child should be born.
Henry did not come to us for Christmas. It was a disappointment because I wanted to tell him what I had discovered and that I loathed him and had made up my mind to leave him.
It was frustrating that he absented himself.
My son was born on Christmas Eve.
He was unlike the other children. He lacked their golden looks and was smaller than they, a dark-haired creature. I could feel little love for him. It was a pity. The boy could not be blamed for his father’s sins. It was just that he gave me no joy. In the past, though I had deplored my pregnancies while they were in progress, I was always thrilled when the child arrived. But this was not the case with John. I handed him over to his nursemaids.
My thoughts were occupied with my plans for a new life . . . without Henry.
The Turbulent Priest
I WAS IN NO HURRY to leave England. I was feeling in limbo after the birth of John. I could not completely repress the revulsion the child aroused in me. Poor mite, it was unfortunate that he should have come at a time when I felt such an aversion to his father, and I was filled with a sense of shame every time I looked at him to remember how at one time I had enjoyed my relationship with Henry.
Moreover, it would soon be time for my daughter Matilda to leave England for her marriage. She clung to me. She was apprehensive of the future, as well she might be. But I was of the opinion that Henry the Lion would be indulgent as some men can be when they are so much older than their wives. I prayed this would be so.
I tried to make her excited about our preparations. We discussed her trousseau and the jewels she would have. And while I planned what Matilda would need, I was thinking of my own freedom, which could not be far away.
I wanted desperately to see Henry so that I could pour scorn on him. I wanted to tell him that I had discovered Rosamund’s bower and how I wished him well of her, for he should never be a husband to me again. But that could wait. I had many plans to make and I did not want to be rash.
I would not lose my children. They were mine more than Henry’s. I was the one to whom they gave their love. It always had been so. Henry would discover that in time.
So while I waited I planned, and the months passed.
Henry was occupied in Normandy and the Vexin. He had no plans as yet to return home. Trouble there must be rife. It could even keep him away from the fair Rosamund.
I saw little of the new baby and left him to his nurses. I tried to overcome my dislike of him, but in vain. My anger against Henry was so great that I was angry with myself, I supposed, for allowing him to get this child on me.
Henry was bent on using our children to extend his domain, and after leaving the Vexin he was in Brittany.
He had supported Count Conan, whom he intended to use to further his designs, for he wanted Conan’s daughter, Constance, for Geoffrey. This would need a cautious approach as, although Conan might agree, the people of Brittany, like those of Aquitaine, were not eager to accept Henry as their overlord. In due course Henry was successful. Conan gave his promise and Geoffrey, aged nine, was betrothed to Constance, aged five. Henry was doing well: Saxony and Bavaria through Matilda, Castile for Eleanor, and even baby Joanna was given her part,