‘When it is my time to leave the world, I have a mind to lie here,’ he said as he walked hand in hand with Alienor in the early morning through the cool, wet grass of the cemetery.

‘Not in Angers or Le Mans?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘Nor Reading or Westminster. All of those places will be open to my hand in the days to come and I can walk there as I choose. But here …’ He sent her a self-conscious glance as if admitting to something untoward that made him vulnerable. ‘Here is a place that I can carry in my heart like a sacred fragment within a reliquary. Even if I do not visit, I know it is here for me.’

Alienor’s throat and chest tightened. ‘That is a wonderful certainty to have.’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘because I can carry it with me and at the same time set it aside and focus on the business in hand.’

It was eminently practical, she thought, and so fitting to Henry’s character. To live in the world and walk through it with power and vigour, and then have a place of personal, tranquil repose when all was done.

She felt the hard grip of his hand and the cold brush of the grass under her feet – solid, tactile reality, weaving a fabric of memory she would keep until she too was laid in her tomb, wherever that might be – perhaps here at his side.

Empress Matilda held her wriggling grandson in her arms. ‘You have done well, daughter,’ she said. ‘A fine healthy boy to carry the line, and more in the fullness of time, one hopes.’

‘If God wills it, madam,’ Alienor replied with courtesy. From Fontevraud, she and Henry had travelled into Normandy and had spent the past three weeks in Rouen with the Empress. Alienor was feeling the strain of being constantly polite and deferential to her mother-in-law.

The Empress meant well in her advice, but Alienor did not always agree with her notions and attitudes, and was often infuriated by Matilda’s patronising air. The Empress was of the opinion that Alienor had much to learn from an older and wiser mentor, and she did not shirk the duty one whit. Alienor was rapidly coming to understand why Geoffrey of Anjou had mostly chosen to live apart from his wife. Even towards Henry, who was her golden child, her firstborn who had achieved every goal set before him, she was no doting mother. Even a much-loved son could benefit from the vast bounty of her maternal wisdom.

‘When you are a king, you should not be too familiar with your subjects,’ she lectured Henry as they sat before the fire. ‘You must preserve the dignity and the distance that exists between you and them.’

Henry nodded. He was playing chess with his knight Manasser Bisset. ‘But I need to know about them too. A distant king is one who may be duped or surprised because he is not paying attention.’

‘There are ways of finding out. Never be over-familiar is what I am telling you.’

‘You are wise, Mama,’ he said without looking up.

‘Demand respect and respect shall be given. Do not let any of them dictate to you. That is not the rule of a true king.’ She warmed to her theme. ‘You should rule them, not the other way around. They are like squabbling children. Divide them and you will conquer them, and after that you must keep them divided. Promise much and give little. Keep them hungry as you would your hawk. That is the way of an accomplished prince. Do not let them sit at ease with their muddy boots under your table.’

Alienor clenched her teeth to prevent herself speaking out of turn. Her mother-in-law had lost her one chance at being crowned queen precisely because of her haughty behaviour. She had incensed the citizens of London and been forced to flee from her own pre-coronation feast when the mob had turned on her. She had been high-handed and insulting to men who came to tender their allegiance and had made more enemies than friends. Stephen with his garrulous, easy ways had held on to the crown for nineteen years and even now his barons would not desert him. For the rest of his life he would be King of England. There was a message in that too.

‘Mama, rest assured, I shall think on your advice when I treat with the English barons,’ Henry said smoothly. ‘I value your counsel, you know that.’

The Empress gave him a hard, slightly suspicious look. ‘I am pleased to hear it,’ she said.

‘Your mother is a lady of great wisdom and experience,’ Alienor said that night when she and Henry retired, ‘but is she right about England?’ She studied a cross on a chain that Matilda had given to her. It was an ostentatious and rather hideous thing set with numerous gemstones of assorted shapes and sizes. Alienor knew Matilda would expect her to wear it. She had been most insistent when pressing it on her, calling her the daughter she never had.

‘I always listen to my mother’s advice,’ Henry replied, ‘but that doesn’t mean I take it.’ He was standing before a table and by the light of a freshly lit candle was examining correspondence that had arrived earlier. ‘She often has useful things to contribute, but it is six years since she left England and much has changed. Besides, she has no notion of how to bend. She would rather snap herself in two.’

Alienor put the necklace in her coffer and closed the lid so she did not have to look at it. ‘Yes, I receive that impression.’ She kept her tone neutral. She had great respect for her mother-in-law even while her patience was wearing thin, and she was still cautious about Henry’s reaction to his mother, because she did not know yet how fond or influenced a son he truly was.

‘She has kept the fight alive and her contacts with the Church and the German Empire are invaluable.’ He gave Alienor a penetrating look as if he could read her thoughts. ‘I may be her son, but I am my own man.’

‘That is good to know,’ she said steadily.

Without reply, he picked up the next piece of correspondence, read it, and suddenly he was tense and alert.

‘What is it?’

‘Hah. Your former husband desires a meeting to settle the future so that there may be peace and amity between us.’

Alienor took the letter from him. The language was that of Louis’s scribes, but it was as Henry said. Louis desired to settle the matter of Aquitaine and was willing to relinquish his claim. ‘We have been asking him to do that ever since William was born, and he has always refused,’ she said. ‘Why now?’

‘He says he desires to visit Compostela and worship at the tomb of Saint James and wants a truce so he can do this.’

‘That sounds like Louis,’ Alienor said with a grimace. ‘If he had his way, he would spend his days travelling between shrines playing the pilgrim king. Suger pleaded and pleaded for him to come home from Outremer, but he refused to heed him until forced because he was too busy adding this tomb or that shrine of miracles to his tally.’

Henry shrugged. ‘I am sure he will receive all he deserves from his pious wanderings, and in the meantime his obsession does us no harm and might even be to our advantage.’

Alienor pursed her lips. ‘Perhaps, but we should be cautious. Louis may be superficial, but he is devious.’

‘So am I,’ Henry said with a glint in his eyes.

Taking shelter from the burning August sun under the awning of a painted canvas pavilion, Henry met with Louis at Vernon, midway between Paris and Rouen.

Alienor had been feeling unwell for several days and suspected that once again she was with child. She had told Henry yesterday as they approached their rendezvous. He had been highly delighted and almost smug. Not only was it further proof of his virility, it was also a barb with which to bait his French rival. They had, however, left their infant son in Rouen with his grandmother. It would have been a jibe too far to bring him, and a political meeting was no place for an infant. To make matters less awkward, Alienor was not attending the face-to-face gathering but was remaining close by to ratify documents and put her seal to them.

Among the French courtiers attending the assembly was Louis’s sister Constance, widow of King Stephen’s son Eustace, and she came to visit Alienor while the men conducted their negotiations elsewhere. Now fully grown, she had a strong look of her mother in the line of her jaw and the way she carried herself. She had the same pale hair as Louis, and a thin long nose. She greeted Alienor with cautious civility.

‘I was sorry to hear your mother had died,’ Alienor said. ‘She was a noble and determined lady, may she rest in peace.’

‘I hope I can be a credit to her,’ Constance replied. Her voice was quiet, but it had an underlying steeliness, and that too reminded Alienor of Adelaide.

‘You do her justice.’ Alienor tried to sound sincere.

Constance inclined her head, accepting the compliment. ‘I am soon to be married again,’ she said.

Alienor was immediately alert, knowing that the groom would be significant to French interests. ‘I congratulate you. May I ask to whom?’

Constance gave Alienor a calculating look. ‘To the Count of Toulouse.’

Alienor went very still. So that was why Louis was open to negotiation. He might have relinquished his claim to Aquitaine, but by allying with Toulouse he could pressurise her borders from two directions and retain his influence in the south. He knew full well that Alienor’s goal was to add Toulouse to her territories. In marrying his sister to the Count, he would give his own descendants a presence there, should Constance bear offspring. ‘I wish you well,’ Alienor said, managing to keep her tone neutral. Indeed she meant Constance no harm, because after all she was only a pawn, and Alienor had known enough hardship caused by the will of others in her own life. Nevertheless, she was heartsick.

‘Toulouse belongs to Aquitaine,’ Alienor told Henry when they were alone in their tent. A heavy dusk had bruised the sky with purple and blue. She slapped at a mosquito whining close to her ear. ‘I will not have Louis laying hands on it through his sister.’

‘You cannot stop the match,’ Henry said. ‘I agree it is an irritation, but as a ruler it is his duty to find a way to compensate for the loss of Aquitaine.’

Alienor scowled. It was the truth, but that made it no more palatable.

Henry lay back on their travelling bed and pillowed his hands behind his head. ‘He is doing more on his “pilgrimage” to Compostela than worshipping Saint James and marrying off Constance. He is also planning a marriage with the house of Castile for himself – to the eldest daughter of King Alphonse.’

She stared at him. ‘He told you that?’

‘With a smile on his lips.’ Henry said, making a face but at the same time unperturbed. ‘The bride is thirteen years old. He will be fortunate to get a living child out of her if he takes her now. Whatever happens, we still have time before he has an heir. Even if he does father a living baby, what chance is there of it being a boy?’

‘And Constance?’

Henry shrugged. ‘There is time there too. We could always wed our own dynasty into that one and take Toulouse by marriage alliance in the next generation.’

Alienor wondered if Henry was being flippant. Something must have shown on her face because he added: ‘I am not just planning for tomorrow, but for ten years’ hence and more. I agree we should watch the situation, but what matters is that he has relinquished his claim to Aquitaine. As far as Toulouse is concerned, I will put my mind to a campaign in the near future.’ He gave her a sleepy smile and changed the subject. ‘I told him you were with child again. I have never seen a man try to smile while swallowing vinegar.’ He patted the bed and beckoned to her. ‘Whatever his schemes, we still have every advantage, my love, and he has none.’

‘We must make sure it stays that way,’ she said as she joined him. ‘Louis often suffers ill luck in what happens to him from day to day, but he always survives.’

‘I have his measure,’ Henry said confidently. ‘Have no fear of that. And he does not have mine.’ He unfastened the pendant cross from around his neck and dangled it over her flat belly. Together they watched it swing gently up and down and begin to gather momentum. ‘Another boy,’ he said, and smiled.

On their first night back in Rouen, Henry was quieter than usual and heavy-eyed when they visited his mother at the abbey of Bec to tell her about the meeting at Vernon and give her the news of Alienor’s pregnancy. Alienor was tired herself after their long ride and thought little of it. The Empress more than compensated for the gaps in the conversation by holding forth on everything from the right way to wear an ermine cloak to the usual complaint about how inept Stephen was as a king. She was also complaining that Emperor Heinrich of Germany had asked her to return the relics, jewels and regalia that she had brought home to Normandy from her widowhood.