The Dragon and the Jewel (33 page)

“And then there is you, the real scandal of the family. Your insatiable sexual demands upon William Marshal were so excessive he actually died ‘on the job.’”

Eleanor’s throat closed and a great lump developed that threatened to choke her. Tears sprang to her eyes to blind her and a great roar came into her ears to pierce her very brain. Through a watery blur Eleanor saw Simon de Montfort enter the hall and walk a direct path toward her. Now she was really in a panic. Her mind screamed to him, No! No! No! She dashed the tears from her eyes and saw that he was not looking at her, but at the queen. He knelt before the woman in glittering gold, presented her with a birthday gift, and passed on down the hall.

Thank you, Simon, for not looking at me … thank you, Simon, for keeping our shameful secret … thank you, my darling love, for returning to me, her heart whispered.

“I should like to cause a scandal myself with that one,” said the queen in a low, excited voice. “Did you notice how he paid court to me with those black eyes of his? He is waiting only for me to give him a signal.” The queen shivered with desire. “He is desperately seeking an heiress because he needs money so badly. The European widows he woos are said to be so old and ugly he can only bear to fuck them in the dark.”

Eleanor did not remember leaving the great hall; did not remember making her way from the Lower Ward in the chilly winter night through the Middle Ward and on into the silent Upper Ward. She became aware of her surroundings only when she realized she was sitting in her walled garden.

Her bare arms and shoulders were very cold. The night wind rustled the leaves about her feet and her nostrils picked up their pungent but pleasant fragrance. The stars hung like brilliant jewels in the dark sky, and she wondered briefly why there was no moon to shine its pale light upon her misery.

She did not see or hear him, yet she sensed his presence. “Kathe.” The word stole to her softly. It was an endearment, a caress, a pledge of love. She was torn asunder. She wanted him, she needed him, she loved him, but she knew she could and would not have him under any circumstances.

“Do not touch me.” It was a cry from the heart. The leaves rustled to give her warning. “Come no closer.” It was a cry from the soul.

He was the man, she merely the woman. He would make the decisions. “You are freezing,” he said as he pulled her hard against him and enfolded her within his cloak, next to his heart.

She cried out in pain and he was all tender concern. He knew his strong hands were capable of brutality, but he could have sworn he had not handled her too roughly. “What, love? Where did I hurt you?”

She drew in her breath upon a ragged sigh. “My breasts … they are so tender I want to scream.”

Simon de Montfort’s heart did a cartwheel. If he guessed
correctly he had bound this woman to him forever. His seed had planted his babe in her.

“De Montfort, you say you love me, yet I have just learned that you have been searching for a wealthy widow on the continent.”

He allowed her to pull from his arms. He removed his heavy cloak and wrapped it about her before he spoke. “The king proposed a couple of names because I was in debt. A marriage of convenience is a common enough practice, but I am the most relieved man on the face of the earth that nothing came of these proposals. Anyway, it was before I ever met you, Eleanor. I am not in the habit of explaining myself to a woman, but in your case I have made an exception,” he said quietly.

She was so still and silent.

“On my honor as a knight I swear to you there is no need for you to be jealous.”

Yes, she thought, jealousy is devastating me, jealousy is consuming me, jealousy is killing me! By sheer willpower she stopped herself from swaying toward him. The unbelievably wild emotions he stirred in her were too devastating. The passion, the jealousy, the insatiable appetite were taking her dangerously close to Plantagenet madness.

She was covered with guilt remembering that William had never inspired such a passion in her. But that love had been a pure love, a safe love, sweet and steadfast. She decided that was the only kind of love for her … harmless, shielding, without risk. She must stop this headlong dash to abandon with Simon de Montfort. He would lead her directly into scandal. His very nature made him risk all. He had just gifted her with a month of misery. She would end it now before he brought her a lifetime of misery.

“Jealous?” she said in a tone of incredulity. “My dear Earl of Leicester, my feelings and emotions are not involved in this in any way. When my husband died I built an iron carapace around myself, and such as you cannot pierce it. My reputation is so precious to me I cannot jeopardize it by a sordid little affair with you. Apparently there has been gossip of my sexual excesses and I am ashamed to admit that the gossip is true; they simply have the wrong man. The things I have done in bed with
you are immoral. Thank God I have finally come to my senses. It is finished.”

Suddenly the moon floated out from behind a cloud to illuminate the lovers. Simon thought her more beautiful than he had ever seen her, but in this moment she was inviolate. As she gazed up into his face, her heart was breaking into a million tiny pieces.

“Then all there is left to say is good-bye,” he said quietly, taking her small hand and placing a gold bangle upon her wrist. A single tear fell upon his hand before she turned and left him forever.

Simon lifted his hand to his lips to savor the salt tear. He knew before many months she would cry a river of tears, and he cursed himself for being the cause.

Alone in her chamber, she clasped the gold bangle to her heart, thankful that she had some small but very real token to cherish from her beloved Sim. She took it from her wrist to examine it more closely. It was pure Welsh gold. Her eyes fell upon a date inscribed inside. For a moment she was puzzled, then a pink blush suffused her throat. It was the day they had first made love.

T
he Countess of Pembroke withdrew her personal court to her private estate of Odiham. She managed to fill the winter days with elaborate plans for Christmas and the New Year. Her nights, however, were endless. It was exactly like being bereaved once again. No, it was worse. She was totally honest with herself for the first time in years.

William Marshal had been a fine man, but she could clearly see now that he had been a father figure to her. He had educated her and she had excelled to win his approval. Her love for him had been very real, but it was almost the love a daughter gave to a devoted parent. When he died she had taken the full blame upon herself. She had struggled beneath a mountain of guilt and had thought to expiate her sins by devoting her life to the church.

It had taken the magnificent Simon de Montfort to make her realize she was not cut out to be a nun. She did not regret one moment of her interlude with Simon. If she had only met him before she had married England’s marshal, things could have been different. They were a perfect match for each other. Both were made up of equal parts of pride and passion.

Her night hungers for him never ceased, but as each day melted into the next she began to feel very virtuous that she
had been able to deny herself happiness and live the chaste life she had vowed.

The Earl of Leicester was busy from dawn until well past dusk. He was training an army that grew larger every day, but not from allegiance to the king. Simon de Montfort drew men like a lodestone. He was a natural leader who was admired and looked up to. All men knew there were more underdogs in the world than top dogs, and Simon’s name came to be synonymous with justice. On his journeys to his own lands he became great friends with the Archdeacon of Leicester and the Bishop of Lincoln. They in turn introduced him to the learned scholar Adam Marsh and Walter, the Bishop of Worcester, who talked among themselves that here at last was a leader with every noble quality, who believed in justice and the rights of the common man.

Simon missed Eleanor totally, completely, painfully, but he was a patient man who was playing a waiting game. He was heartsore that she had seemingly withdrawn her love. There were times during the lonely nights when his vulnerability rose up to defeat him. She seemed to have turned away from him, back to William Marshal. He could have challenged and vanquished any other man, but competing with a ghost made him heartsick.

Resolutely he pushed away the negative thoughts. The outcome was certain. She would have to turn to him whether she loved him or not, and he would take her any way he could get her.

Eleanor’s maid Brenda was delighted by the changes at Odiham. There had been an infusion of new people to the household both from Durham House in London and Chepstowe in Wales. Now that Eleanor was in residence, the dining hall was a merry place with minstrels and music and laughter and an abundance of choice dishes to sample at every meal.

Bette was helping Eleanor chose a gown for dinner when an innocent remark she made sent Eleanor down a path of thought from which there was no return.

“I can’t get into that green gown, Bette. In fact, all my dresses and shifts seem to have shrunken. Who on earth has been doing my laundry?”

Bette’s busy hands sorted through the wardrobe to find a loose-fitting garment for her mistress, making a mental note to check up on the laundress. Her mind was on the Christmas festivities now that it was the first day of December, and Bette said absently, “I hope I don’t get my menses on Christmas day. It seems like every holy day festival that comes along is spoiled for me by the curse.”

For some inexplicable reason Eleanor lied to her woman. “Bette, I’m feeling tired tonight. I don’t think I’ll go down to dinner.”

“I’ll fetch you a tray, love,” said Bette.

“No, no, I’m gaining far too much weight. I’ll just have some of this fruit,” she said, pointing to a silver dish overflowing with late-autumn pears and nuts. After Bette left, Eleanor spoke out loud to herself. “You’ve made such a pig of yourself lately, you look like the fat woman at the fair!”

A voice from within called her a liar. That is not true. Since you said good-bye to Simon you have hardly eaten a thing.

Aloud she said, “Only this morning I had ham and eggs and wheaten cakes.”

The voice mocked, and she promptly vomited!

She removed her clothes and stepped before her mirror. Her stomach protruded to an alarming degree. Her breasts, which had always been round, pert, and upthrusting, could only be described as voluptuous. Her ears were pounding and a growing fear was threatening to consume her. She stared into the mirror and the face that looked back at her was full and positively blooming.

She snatched up her underclothes and searched them frantically for the tiniest trace of blood. Her mind flashed about helter-skelter trying to pin down when she had last had her menses. With growing horror she realized it had been before she had gone to Wales. Her fingers nervously twisted her gold bangle and the date inscribed inside it burned into her brain. September! This was December. She immediately denied to herself that she was four months gone with child.

Eleanor spent the next week willing herself to menstruate. She checked every half hour for the telltale signs of blood. Denial disappeared quickly and was replaced by conviction
that she was indeed carrying a bastard. Her very first thought was suicide. Her second was abortion. Her third was running away, disappearing for good. She was so emotionally distraught she became dysfunctional and did nothing, nothing but sit and stare into space.

Before she realized it, Christmas was upon her. The king and queen and their respective courts had gone to Winchester to celebrate, as had become the custom. Odiham would get no visitors, thank God, which suited Eleanor, yet she was in a panic that Simon de Montfort would not let the holiday go by without trying to see her. As she frantically pushed her problem away and tried to make a festive occasion for her overflowing household, she began to panic that Simon de Montfort
would
let Christmas go by without trying to see her.

A score of times she almost confided in Bette, then changed her mind. A dozen times she decided to take Brenda into her confidence and a dozen times she stopped herself. On New Year’s Eve she found herself sitting alone except for ghosts from the past that rose up to haunt her. She called up a scene from Ireland that was so vivid it could have happened yesterday. She heard the terrible voice of the Bishop of Ferns cursing her and William. “The almighty Marshal family will end! In one generation the name shall be destroyed. You will never share in the Lord’s benediction to increase and multiply.” Then she heard her answer ringing clearly, “I swear by Almighty God that before I am twenty I will have a houseful of children.”

She took a goblet of watered wine. She had said so many prayers in the last three weeks that had not been answered that she felt hopeless. She knew it must be close to midnight. If only she could hold back the hands of time. If only she could stay in the old year forever, like a butterfly frozen in amber. The dawning of the new year frightened her beyond her darkest nightmare. How would she ever face it?

She lifted the goblet to her lips and thought cynically, When we sip from the cup of knowledge, we lose our faith. Then she drank more and her thoughts swirled about her. Suddenly a calm descended and she finally acknowledged, When we drain the cup to the dregs, the face of the cosmic God gazes up at us
from the empty cup. She must face the truth. She must share her guilty secret with Simon de Montfort.

She heard the bells begin to ring out the old year and ring in the new. She threw open her tower door that led onto a little balcony. The tall figure of Simon de Montfort was ascending the pentice, the outside staircase leading to her tower. She gasped. Was he the devil? Had she conjured him?

His arms reached out to enfold her on that fateful New Year’s of 1239. She clung to him desperately and his very size brought her a feeling of security. She whispered, “Simon, I …” but her voice failed her. She tried again. “Simon, I-I am with child.”

The sound of the bells receded and the silence about them was heavy. Had he heard her? she wondered wildly. If he had, he was not about to make it easy for her. She trembled against him and finally he spoke.

“And so, Eleanor?”

“Simon, I am a princess of England, I cannot have a bastard,” she whispered raggedly.

“And so, Eleanor?” he repeated.

“Simon, you will have to marry me!”

He swung her up into his powerful arms. “My God, I thought you’d never ask me.”

He carried her through the balcony door and locked it. He sat down in a carved chair before the fire, and she sat propped upon his knees like a child.

“I don’t know why I said that, you know it is impossible,” she said frantically.

“Nothing is impossible, my Kathe,” he soothed.

“Anyone in the royal family needs the consent of the council before they wed. They will never give it. Henry fought with them for years to give me consent to wed William Marshal, and there was no impediment then. The church is an even greater stumbling block than the council. Holy vows cannot be disregarded or recinded,” she said, her voice choking.

His strong hands curved about her shoulders and he shook her to make her listen to reason. “When we tell them you are with child, they will be forced to make an exception.”

She looked at him with horrified eyes. “De Montfort, swear
to me you will not reveal my shameful secret. I will kill myself if it gets out!”

He shook his head in disbelief. “Embarrassment to you is more horrifying than premature burial.”

She clutched his doublet frantically. “Swear you will keep my secret.”

He covered her hands tenderly. “It is
our
secret, my love. You may be willing to allow your child to be a bastard, but I am not. It is imperative that we marry, Eleanor.”

“Then it will have to be a total and absolute secret,” she insisted vehemently.

Simon sighed. “I will go to the king and explain we are in love and wish to marry.”

“No, no, no,” she begged.

“Eleanor, stop it!” he ordered firmly. “The whole thing can be secret, but if I wed you without the king’s knowledge I can be imprisoned and beheaded for treason.”

“Henry would never allow that to happen to you, Simon. He is your friend … he is my friend, my flesh and blood.”

He could not bring himself to assassinate her brother’s character, but he could not help saying “You do not think him a friend when he gives away your property.”

“He is allowing me four hundred crowns a year for Ireland.”

Simon was appalled. By Christ, it was time someone took control of Eleanor Plantagenet’s affairs—overtime!

Her lips trembled as she said nervously, “I will go to Henry and ask him to let me wed secretly. Then you must take me away, Simon … to Leicester or somewhere. Please let the baby be a secret between just you and me?”

“I would prefer to go to Henry myself,” he said firmly.

“Please, please, Sim, let me do it my way? I will never ask you for anything again.”

He kissed the crown of her head and smiled wryly to himself. He knew the little minx would ask him for something before five minutes went by. “Eleanor, you may do it your way or any way, so long as you do it. Don’t be afraid. What happened to the courageous woman who rode with the wild ponies?”

She burst into tears, for that was the day she had thrown
caution to the wind and allowed Simon to make love to her, to make a baby in her.

He carried her to the bed and undressed her with firm hands. “You should be abed. My own precious love, what is between you and me can never be torn asunder. You are my world and I want to be yours. The marriage ceremony is merely a legality so that our children will be legitimate and inherit my lands and titles and so that you will be the legal Countess of Leicester.”

He was naked now, and slipped into the bed to enfold her in his massive arms. She clung to him desperately as if she was drowning. “I pledge that with me at your side you need never fear anything. I will give you all my love, my understanding, my strength, my friendship, my courage, my castles, my name, and all my protection. But tonight, more than anything else in the world, you need to be held.”

“We should not be here like this,” she whispered against the sable fur of his chest.

“No power on earth could keep us apart tonight. You need my strength; lean on me. Talk and I will listen. I’ll banish the darklings and the fears.” His beautiful hands brushed the silken tangles of hair from her lovely face, and he stroked her back until he soothed and lulled her to relax in his arms. They did not sleep, they simply lay entwined, their secret child surrounded by two heartbeats that mingled into one. They curled their bodies together, kissing. Their language of love was wordless murmurs. Their hands and lips pledged promises to each other that bound them eternally.

As always, before dawn they grew desperate because of the approaching separation. He gathered her up and lifted her on top of his long, hard body. His eyes were black and bottomless and he whispered raggedly, “I need the feel of your breasts spilling into my hands.”