Lady of the English - By Elizabeth Chadwick Page 0,200
towards her. “Will?” Her heart began to pound and all the feelings she had put aside as she absorbed herself into a life of prayer and contemplation came flooding back. He had lost some of his robust vigour and looked careworn with more grey in his hair, but his expression and bearing LadyofEnglish.indd 495
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were calm and, as he reached her, there was even a slight curve to his lips.
He knelt on one knee in salute and bowed his head. “Adeliza,” he said. “My queen, my wife, my reason.” Then he rose stiffly and kissed her on either cheek, but did not seek her lips.
“Will.” Her voice was hoarse with shock. “What are you doing here?”
He gave her a sidelong look, guarding against rebuff. “Is it not permitted to visit my wife?”
“I thought…I thought one set of farewells was grief enough.” She had neither expected him to do so, nor prepared herself.
“I am ready to endure the heartache in order to have the joy of seeing you,” he said. “If you are not, tell me, and I will go.” She made a wordless gesture indicating he should stay.
He gazed around. “The gardens are beautiful. There is no such tranquillity in England.”
“I did not expect to see another spring,” she said. “But God has granted me His grace to do so.” She bit her lip. “How are the children?”
“They do well,” he said. “They miss you, but they have their nurses and they have your letters even if they do not have you.
They know this is your home for now and that you have an important task to do.”
“And you, Will?”
He looked away for a moment, then back at her. “I manage, but there will always be an empty and aching place at my side.
I do everything in your name and God’s. Every coin I give, every charter, every act and deed of charity is for you.” She hoped he was not going to ask her to return with him because it was impossible, and she did not want to wound him further.
Something of her anxiety must have conveyed itself to him because he said, “I think I must always have known our time 496
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was borrowed from God. I came to tell you that I have built a leper house at Wymondham and that Rising is now a palace fit for a queen, even if I know she will never hold court there.” She had to swallow before she could speak. “Then fill these places with love and life, Will, in my name; do not make shrines of them. I will send you bulbs to plant in the autumn and they will flower this time next year for you and our children.” He shook his head and cuffed his eyes and for a moment they sat in silence. Then he said, “I have been talking to men from both sides of the divide, and we all agree that Henry FitzEmpress will be our next king. Stephen does not see it now, but it will happen before Wilkin is old enough to grow a beard—I know it.”
“Then I must believe you,” she said.
“I have always spoken the truth to you.”
“Yes, you have.”
The abbey bell tolled for the service of nones. Adeliza rose from the bench and so did Will. Their arms clasped, they entered beneath the decorated arch of the abbey door and walked up the nave to kneel together before the altar as the monks filed in for the service. Between the great candles and beside the cross, the crown that Adeliza had worn to her marriage with Will and upon her wedding night gleamed with soft points of reflected light. Sunshine rayed through the windows, lighting Adeliza and Will where they knelt, and her sense of tranquillity returned. She felt peace settling over Will too, as if, side by side, they had received a joint blessing from the angels that were said to spread their divine light over Afflighem.
When the service was over, Adeliza laid her bunch of violets on the altar step, and went out with Will into the quiet warmth of the afternoon sun, and neither of them spoke, because the things unsaid were already known.
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Author’s Note
E mpress Matilda, as one of the strongest female personalities of twelfth-century English history, has often been the subject of historical fact and fiction. She is frequently portrayed in a less than complimentary light and I was curious