familiar tilt of her head, the sudden flash of dimples. She had Tilda’s tact, too, for she waited until they’d reached the castle gardens and were out of earshot of curious onlookers before voicing her concern.
“Grandame, forgive me if I am being intrusive. But you’ve seemed restless and out of sorts in these recent weeks. Would it help to talk about your worries?”
“No, child, but I bless you for your keen eye and your loving heart.”
Richenza revealed then how keen her eye really was. “Are you anxious about Uncle Richard’s safety in the Holy Land? I know I am.”
Eleanor regarded the girl in surprise. She hadn’t realized her granddaughter was so perceptive. “I have been melancholy of late,” she admitted, “but it will pass, Richenza. It always does.”
“God willing,” Richenza said softly. She wished that her grandmother was less guarded, for in sharing Eleanor’s sorrows, they could have shared hers, too. She still mourned her mother fiercely, and she suspected that Eleanor’s “melancholy” was a belated mourning for her own dead, all taken during last year’s fateful summer. A daughter dying in a foreign land. The woman who’d been her closest friend. And the husband who’d been partner, lover, enemy, and gaoler. Richenza had seen Henry and Eleanor together often enough to realize that theirs had been a complicated, volatile, and contradictory bond, one few others could understand. But to Richenza, it seemed quite natural that Eleanor could have rejoiced in the death that set her free while grieving for the man himself.
Eleanor reached out, stroking her granddaughter’s cheek. “You are very dear to me,” she said, adding briskly, “now I am going to speak with the castle chaplain about that altar cloth we’ve promised him. And you, my dearest, are going to bid your husband welcome.”
Following Eleanor’s gaze, Richenza saw that Jaufre had indeed ridden into the castle bailey, and a smile flitted across her lips, for she’d found marriage to her liking and when she offered up prayers for her uncle Richard, she prayed even more fervently that the Almighty would safeguard Jaufre, too, in that blood-soaked land where the Lord Christ had once walked. She waved to Jaufre before turning back to her grandmother. But Eleanor had gone.
ELEANOR HAD MENTIONED the altar cloth as a pretext, not wanting to continue the conversation. She had never found it easy to open her heart, especially to those of her own sex. She’d only had two female confidantes—her sister Petronilla and Henry’s cousin Maud, Countess of Chester. Petronilla had been dead for a number of years, but Maud’s loss was still raw, as she’d died barely six months ago. Glancing over her shoulder, Eleanor saw that Richenza was hastening to greet her husband. Turning away, she headed toward the chapel.
It was deserted at that hour and she found the stillness soothing. Pausing to dip her fingers in a holy water font reserved for clerics and the highborn—for even in church class differences were recognized—she moved up the nave. Kneeling before the altar, she offered prayers for lost loved ones. William, the first of her children to die, the image of that heartbreakingly tiny coffin still burned into her brain. Hal, the golden son, a wasted life. Geoffrey, called to God too soon. Tilda, a gentle soul surely spared the rigors of Purgatory. Maud, missed as much as Eleanor’s blood sister. And Harry, whose name had so often been both a caress and a curse. “Requiescat in pace,” she murmured and rose stiffly to her feet.
It had taken her by surprise, this quiet despondency. It was not dramatic or despairing, more like a low fever, but it had lingered in the weeks following the Christmas festivities. And because Eleanor the prisoner had mastered one skill that had often eluded Eleanor the queen and duchess—the art of introspection—she’d been giving some thought to this change in mood. Could Richenza be correct? Was it a mother’s anxiety that was fueling her unease?
There was justification for such fears, God knows. How many of the men who took the cross ever saw their homes again? Outremer had become a burial ground for thousands of foreign-born crusaders. And since she’d regained her freedom, she’d made a startling discovery about her eldest surviving son. Richard had won battlefield laurels at an early age, earning himself a well-deserved reputation for what their world most admired—military prowess. But his health was not as robust as his appearance would indicate; she’d learned that he was subject to recurrent attacks of