Lady of the English - By Elizabeth Chadwick Page 0,58

demanded. “Let me see him. Where is my son?” The midwives gasped and clucked at the unseemly intrusion, but Geoffrey ignored them and strode over to the freshly swaddled baby lying on his fire-warmed blanket. “Unwrap him,” he commanded. “Let me see that he is a boy with my own eyes.” Through her exhaustion, Matilda was filled with amused scorn and indignation. “Where would be the advantage in lying to you?” she said. “Do you really think we would say you have a son if it was a daughter?”

“I would put nothing past you,” he growled, his complexion high.

“I have laboured long to bring him into the world,” she said.

“And before that, I carried him inside my body. I am glad to have borne a boy because he will have an immediate advantage in this world. Why should I bear a girl to spite you, when I would be spiting her too because of her very sex?” Geoffrey looked at the unwrapped baby, taking in the evidence with his own eyes. He reached out a forefinger and touched his son’s soft cheek. The infant turned his head in a rooting motion that made him smile. “I own him as mine,” he said. “He is indeed a fine boy. Now we can begin to make real plans for the future. Name him Henry.” With a brief nod in Matilda’s direction, he left the room as briskly as he had arrived.

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Matilda slumped against the pillows and fought not to cry as a maid closed the door behind him. “Bring my son to me,” she said. “Let me see him.”

The midwife rewrapped the baby in his swaddling and carried him gently to Matilda. She rested him in the crook of her arm and gazed down at this child whom she had not wanted to conceive because of fear, because of anger, because her life was a battleground over which she had so little control. Now the field had changed. Her fight was for him now, and she felt as if a part of her that had been hollow and hungry for a long, long time was full and warm and satisfied. “You have done well, little one,” she whispered to him. “Henry.” Although Geoffrey had spoken as if the naming were his sole prerogative, their son could have been called nothing else, and she was content. “You will be a great king one day,” she said. “Greater even than your grandsire.”

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Seventeen

Rouen, Christmas 1133

A deliza knelt on the sheepskin rug and gently rolled a ball of coloured felt strips towards the delightful red-haired baby sitting in front of her. He laughed at her, showing four teeth in each gum, and his eyes sparkled.

With deliberation he leaned forward, picked up the ball, and bounced it back to her. She laughed in return and praised him, feeling joy and an underlying sadness and sense of failure. By marriage she was his grandmother, when, given God’s grace, this could have been her own son. She was glad for Matilda and for Henry, who doted on his grandson, but she ached to know the kick of a baby’s feet against the walls of her own womb. Henry’s recent mistress, Isabelle de Beaumont, had borne him a daughter a month ago and Adeliza tried not to think about it.

Hearing a sound from the curtained-off bed behind her, she looked round as Matilda parted the hangings. Despite having slept for several hours, her stepdaughter’s eyes were dark-circled and she still looked exhausted. She had removed her headdress in order to sleep and her long dark hair fell in two loosely plaited ropes to her waist. Adeliza sent a maid to fetch a hot tisane. “You still look tired out,” she said with concern.

Matilda had travelled from Le Mans to join her father and the LadyofEnglish.indd 146

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court for the Christmas feast in Rouen, bringing baby Henry with her. Geoffrey had remained in Anjou to see to his affairs.

Adeliza suspected that the separation was a relief to both parties.

Having arrived that morning, Matilda had pleaded weariness from long days on the road, and had gone to lie down, which was very unlike her.

The baby held out his arms to his mother and squealed for her attention. She picked him up and kissed his fluffy copper curls. “I am with child again,” she said.

Now that she had spoken, the slight swell of her belly was plain to see. Adeliza