“We will need to find a place to spend the night,” Geoffrey said. “I should send the scouts ahead. My castle of Le Lude is at Sarthe, not far off. Let us make for there.”
Comfortably accommodated in the fortress, and after bestirring the castellan and his staff to action, Geoffrey called for a meal, then sat down at the board with Henry and their entourage to enjoy it. Lifting a silver goblet of sweet Anjou wine, he toasted the success of Henry’s planned assault on England.
“I cannot fail,” Henry assured him expansively. The wine had made him bold and overconfident. He noticed his father looked flushed, but attributed it to the heat, although it was cooler in the stone fastness of the castle. Then Geoffrey waved away the plump roasted fowl, saying that he seemed to have little appetite for food in this weather. A little later, Henry, wolfing down the last of his own dinner, felt the first stirring of concern as the count rejected a proffered bowl of fruit, then suddenly gripped the edge of the table, shuddering.
“Are you ill, Father?” he asked anxiously. To his knowledge, Geoffrey had never known a day’s sickness in his life.
“A touch of fever, my son. It is nothing.” He sounded breathless.
Henry placed his callused palm on Geoffrey’s brow. It was burning.
“I knew I should not have gone swimming in the heat,” his father said, attempting a smile. “I must have caught a chill. It has come on suddenly.”
“You should go to bed, sire,” Henry advised.
“I will,” Geoffrey agreed, but when he tried to get to his feet, he had not the strength, and slumped heavily against the table. Henry jumped up, in unison with four men-at-arms, and together they manhandled the sick man up the stone spiral staircase to the bedchamber above, where they laid him heavily on the fur coverlet spread across the wooden bed. By now he was shivering violently, his body hot to the touch, his hands icy.
“He were a fool to go swimming in that river,” one soldier commented. Henry glared at him.
“Strip him,” he commanded.
“Are you bloody mad?” the soldier asked him. “He should be wrapped up warm.”
“He’s warm enough. He needs to cool down,” Henry insisted. “Get his clothes off.” Begrudgingly, the men complied, leaving Geoffrey wearing only his braiesfor modesty’s sake.
“Now, fetch a basin of water and cloths.” The men departed, muttering that their young lord had gone daft and would be the death of the count, but they complied with his orders nonetheless.
Sponging down Geoffrey’s burning body, a task he took readily upon himself, for he loved his father, Henry willed him to get better.
“You are strong, sire. You must hold fast!”
Geoffrey lay there listlessly, his eyes glazed with fever. He was muttering something, and Henry bent an ear down to listen. Most of it was unintelligible, but he could make out the words “Don’t, I beseech you” and “Eleanor.” Grimly, he understood what his father was saying, and still he chose to ignore him. These were just the ramblings of a sick man.
Henry watched beside Geoffrey all night as the fever raged; he did his best to keep him cool, and turned a deaf ear to his mumblings. In the shadows, the men-at-arms kept vigil also, shaking their heads at his unorthodox treatment. But Henry had learned his wisdom from his old tutor, Master Matthew of Loudun, a very sage man who had taught him much when he was living in England, at Bristol, not just from books, but all sorts of practical knowledge. These uneducated soldiers had never had the benefit of Master Matthew’s learning. His father would live, he knew it.
But Geoffrey grew worse, not better, and Henry spent much of the second night bargaining with God. If He would spare his father, then he would renounce Eleanor. He meant it at the time, although he had no idea how he could bear to give her up. God, it seemed, was listening, though, and as the sun rose, Geoffrey opened his eyes, from which the wildness had fled, and spoke lucidly for the first time since his collapse.
“My son,” he said, his face pale beneath the tan, “will you swear that, if and when you become King of England, you will give my counties of Anjou and Maine to your brother Geoffrey?”
“Father!” cried Henry, alarmed and outraged, for he had little love for his younger siblings. “First, you are notdying, so this is no time for swearing such oaths. And second, you are asking me to swear away my patrimony. I cannot do it, nor should you require it of me.”
“Boy, I amdying,” Geoffrey said hoarsely. “I feel it in my bones. And I order that my body must lie unburied until you swear to do what I ask.”
“But Father, Anjou and Maine should be mine by right of birth, as your oldest son,” Henry protested.
“You have Normandy, and you will, God willing, have England.” Geoffrey’s voice was weakening. “Is that not enough? Can you not humor your dying father?”
“No,” Henry declared firmly. “I am sorry, I cannot, for it is an unjust request.”
Geoffrey looked at him sadly.
“Then will you at least promise not to pursue the matter of the French queen? I ask only because I fear for the safety of your soul. I am done with earthly concerns.”
“I have renounced her,” Henry said truthfully, knowing that, if his father died, he would be released from that vow, God not having kept Hispart of the bargain.
“Then I can die partly content,” Geoffrey croaked, his breath coming now in shallow gasps.
“Father, do not die!” Henry cried in panic, grasping the sick man’s hands and rubbing some warmth into them, then recoiling horrified as they fell limply from his fingers and Geoffrey’s eyes glazed over. “Father! Father!” He burst into noisy tears.
The soldiers, heads bowed in grief, for the count had been a good lord to them, knelt by the bed in respect for the passing of a soul; after a moment a dazed Henry knelt with them. It took a moment more before he realized that he was now not only Duke of Normandy, but also Count of Anjou and Maine, and master of a quarter of France.
Later, Henry stood beside his father’s sheeted body, which still lay on the bed on which he had died.
“He has paid his debt to Nature,” he told his men, “and yet I cannot order his burial because I would not swear to disinherit myself.”
“But it would be a disgrace to leave your father’s body to lie rotting here in this heat,” cried the castellan, knowing full well that the ever restless Henry would soon be on his way, leaving him to deal with the problem.
“You must bury him, sire,” the soldiers urged. “You must swear now to what you would not swear before. You cannot leave him to stink the place out.”
“Very well,” Henry agreed, almost weeping in frustration. “I vow to give Anjou and Maine to my brother Geoffrey. Does that satisfy you? Now let us go to Le Mans to make arrangements for my father’s burial in the abbey of St. Julien.” And then, he added to himself, vow or no vow, I will take firm possession of Anjou and Maine and secure the allegiance of my vassals there before setting my sights on England—and the crown that is my right. And I will marry Eleanor, with Louis’s approval or without it.
Paris, September 1151
“Louis, you must listen to me,” Eleanor said suddenly, as they sat alone at supper in her chamber. The servants, having placed spiced rabbit, girdle bread, fruit, and hard cheese on the table, had left them alone in the flickering candlelight.
Louis turned his fair head with its shorn hair toward his wife; he had cut off his beautiful long locks in penance after the burning of Vitry. There was sadness in his eyes. He knew he had lost her, this beautiful woman who had strangely captured his heart but never his body, and he feared to hear her say the words that would make the break final.