Captive Queen by Alison Weir

radiant,” the abbess observed. “I am delighted that you have found such joy in your union with my nephew. I hear that he has ambitions to be King of England.”
    “Which I have no doubt he will fulfill,” Eleanor said.
    “I was in England thirty years ago, before I entered religion,” Abbess Isabella recalled. “I was married to William, the son of King Henry, who was himself son to William the Conqueror, and grandfather to your husband. They called King Henry the ‘Lion of Justice.’ He was a lion indeed! Strong and respected as a ruler, but a terrifying man, cruel and ruthless. I can never forget what he did to his grandchildren.”
    “What did he do?” Eleanor asked, thrusting away the unwelcome thought that the same violent blood ran in her own Henry.
    “One of his daughters defied him, with her husband, and he had the eyes of their two little girls put out as punishment.”
    Eleanor shivered. “How vile. That’s too awful to contemplate. What was his son like?”
    “William? They called him ‘the Atheling,’ after the old Saxon princes before the conquest. He was another like his father, proud, fierce, and hardhearted. Mercifully, I was not married to him for very long.”
    “Was he the prince who drowned when the White Ship sank?”
    “The very same.”
    “I have heard my lord speak of his death. He said King Henry never smiled again.”
    “For the King, it was a tragedy. He had no other son to succeed him. Not a legitimate one, at any rate. His bastards, of course, were legion.” The abbess’s lips twitched. “But God in His wisdom took unto himself my young lord, and King Henry forced his barons to swear allegiance to his daughter Matilda as his heir.”
    “The Empress, my mother-in-law,” Eleanor supplied. “Did you ever meet her?”
    “No, she was then married to the Holy Roman Emperor and living in Germany. He died later on, and she married my brother Geoffrey, but she never came to visit me. By all accounts she is a strong woman. She has certainly fought hard for the kingdom that was lawfully hers.”
    “And lost,” Eleanor put in. “But my lord will reclaim it in her name. She has ceded her rights to him. The portents are good.”
    “King Stephen still lives, though,” Isabella stated.
    “He is hated and despised, my lord says. Those barons who would not accept a woman as their ruler are far more amenable to Henry, especially now that he has proved himself a ruler to be reckoned with. Tell me, Mother, what is England like?”
    “They call it ‘the ringing isle’ because there are so many churches. It is green and lovely, and a lot like France in some parts, but the weather is unpredictable. The people are insular, but hospitable. And no, before you ask, they do not have tails, as is popularly bruited here!”
    Eleanor laughed. “I never heed such nonsense!” She accepted a tiny fig pastry. “I will look forward to seeing England someday. Oh, I wanted to tell you that my lord and I have commissioned a window commemorating our marriage in the new stained glass. It is to be set into the east window of the Poitiers cathedral, that all who see it will remember where we were made man and wife.”
    “A fitting gesture,” the abbess said. “And an enduring one.”
    “Yet more precious to God will be my thanks and praise,” Eleanor said, swallowing the last of the pastry and rising to her feet. “If you would excuse me, Mother, I shall go into the church now. Summon your scribes, if you would. We can have the charter written out later.”
     
     
     

8
     
Aquitaine, 1152
     
     
       “Louis has summoned us,” Henry announced, bursting into Eleanor’s solar and thrusting a parchment into her hands. Briefly, she perused it.
    “This was addressed to both of us,” she said, anger rising, born of her fear of what Louis might do, and shock at Henry’s presumption. “You should not have broken the seal without my being there.”
    “I am the duke,” Henry stated