She was overjoyed when Richard arrived at Westminster. Her eyes glowed with pride at the sight of this tall man who had the look of a hero.
They embraced each other and Richard’s eyes glowed with a tenderness rare in him.
‘Oh, my beloved son!’ cried Eleanor. ‘How long the years have been!’
‘I have thought of you constantly,’ Richard told her, and because she knew her son so well she could believe him. Her dear bold honest Richard who did not dissemble as the rest of her family did. Richard on whom she could rely; whose love and trust in her matched hers for him.
‘We must talk alone,’ she whispered to him.
‘I will see that we do,’ he replied.
He came to her bedchamber and she felt young again as she had when he was but a child and she had loved him so dearly and beyond her other children, as she still did.
‘You know why your father has brought me here?’
He nodded. ‘He wants to take Aquitaine from me and give it to John.’
‘You are the heir to the throne of England now, Richard, England, Normandy and Anjou.’
‘He has said nothing of making me his heir.’
‘There is no need for that. You are the eldest now and the rightful heir. Even he cannot go against the law.’
‘He is capable of anything.’
‘Not of this. It would never be permitted. It would plunge the country into war.’
‘He is not averse to war.’
‘You do not know him. He has always deplored war. He hates wasting the money it demands. Have you not seen that if there is a chance to evade war he will evade it? He likes to win by deceit and cunning. He has done it again and again. That, my son, is what is known as being a great king.’
‘I would never stoop to it. I would win by the sword.’
‘You are a born fighter, Richard. A man of honesty. There could not be one more unlike your father. Perhaps that is why I love you.’
‘What think you of him? He has aged, has he not?’
‘Yes, he has aged. But I remember him as a young man … a boy almost when I married him … not twenty. He was never handsome as you and Henry and Geoffrey … and even John.’
‘We get our handsome looks from you, Mother.’
‘’Tis true. Although your grandfather of Anjou was reckoned to be one of the most handsome men of his day. Geoffrey the Fair they called him.’ She smiled reminiscently. ‘I knew him well … for a time very well. A man of great charm and good looks but no great strength. Not like his son. But what has your father become now? An old man … a stout old man. He always tended to put on weight. That was why he would take his meals standing and in such a manner as to suggest he did so out of necessity rather than pleasure. Of course that unrestrained vitality of his kept down his corpulence in his youth but it was bound to catch up with him. I notice he often uses a stick when walking now.’
‘One of his horses kicked him and he has a toe nail which has turned inwards and causes him pain now and then.’
‘Poor old man!’ mocked Eleanor. ‘He should have taken better care of himself. He is never quite still. One cannot be with him long without sensing that frenzied determination to be doing something. In that he has not changed. And how untidy he is! His garments disgrace him.’
‘He never cared for them. “I am the King,” he says, “and all know it. None will fear me the more because I wear a cloak of velvet and miniver.”’
‘In the days of his love for Thomas à Becket when Thomas was his Chancellor and they went about together one would have thought Thomas the King and he the servant.’
‘Yet Thomas died and he lives on and now he proclaims that Thomas loves him even more than he did when they were young and that he keeps an eye on him in Heaven.’
‘That is like him,’ said Eleanor, not without a touch of admiration. ‘He would turn everything to his advantage. But we waste our time talking of him. We know him so well, both of us, and that is good for we are aware of the man with whom we have to deal. What of Aquitaine, Richard?’
‘I shall never give it up.’
‘You have had a troublous time there.’
‘But I have brought it to order. They think me harsh and cruel but just. I have never murdered or maimed for sport. I have meted out terrible punishments but they have always been deserved.’
She nodded. ‘In the days of my ancestors and during my own rule life was happy in Aquitaine. We were a people given to poetry and song.’
‘Poetry and song have done much to inflame the people. You know that Bertrand de Born made it possible for Henry to come against me.’
‘I know it. They loved me. They would never have harmed me. Why could they not have accepted my son, the one I chose to follow me?’
‘They never really believed that I was on your side. They hate my father and they look on me as his son, not yours. But I have won my place by my sword and I shall keep it. I would rather be Duke of Aquitaine than King of England. I shall never give up Aquitaine to John.’
‘He has made John his favourite. That is reckless of him. Do you think John will love him any more than the rest of you did?’
‘I know not. John is like him in one way. He has that violent temper.’
‘That speaks little good for him. Henry would have done well to curb his. I wonder if he has inherited his lust?’
‘I hear it is so.’
‘Let us hope that John has inherited his shrewdness too or it will go hard with him. But it is of you I wish to speak, Richard. You will be King of England when Henry dies.’
‘And Duke of Aquitaine, for I shall never give it up. And when I am King, Mother, my first concern will be for you. Before anything else, you shall be released and beside me. I swear that.’
‘God bless you, Richard. There is no need to swear. I know it will be so. There is another matter. You are no longer a boy and still unmarried. What of your bride?’
‘If you mean Alice, she is still in the King’s keeping.’
‘Still his mistress! How faithful he is to her. What has she to hold him? She’s another Rosamund, I’ll swear. You’ll not take your father’s cast-off, Richard?’
‘I will not. I am determined to tell him that he can keep his mistress and make his peace with Philip. I know not how. There could be war over this.’
‘I doubt not he would find some way out. He has the cunning of the fox and slithers out of trouble with the smoothness of a snake.’
‘Mother, I have seen a woman I would marry.’
‘And she is?’
‘The daughter of the King of Navarre. Berengaria. Her father has intimated that if I were free of Alice he would welcome the match. Berengaria is very young. She can wait a while.’
The Queen nodded. ‘Say nothing of this. We will continue to plague him over Alice. I would I knew whether he clings to her because he finds her so irresistible or whether it is because he fears what might happen if it were known he had seduced his son’s betrothed and is afraid she might betray this. Gh, Richard, this is an amusing situation. You and I stand together against his marriage with Alice. If neither of us was here he would marry her and take her dowry and the matter would be settled. I wonder if he would be faithful to her? It is possible that he might now that he is so fat and walks with a stick and has trouble with legs and feet. Morality sets in with disabilities.’
‘You hate him still, Mother.’
‘For what he has done to you and to me, yes. It could have been different, Richard. All our lives could have been different. If he had not betrayed me with other women I would have worked for him and with him. I would have made sure that my sons grew up respecting and admiring him. He has himself to blame. But perhaps that applies to us all. Oh, Richard, how good it has been to talk with each other.’