A Lily on the Heath (Medieval Herb Garden 4)

PROLOGUE

England

April 1166

“I shall have her murdered!” the queen raged. The long, pointed edges of her sleeves brushed the stone floor, flowing and sweeping as she stalked across the solar. “When I find that woman who tempts my husband from my side, ’twill be her bitter end!”

Judith of Kentworth, Lady of Lilyfare, did not flinch at her mistress’s fury. It was not the first time she’d seen Eleanor of Aquitaine, Queen of England and wife of Henry the Plantagenet, boiling with anger. Nay, she did not flinch or skulk or hide from the queen’s wrath as the maids and even some of the more spineless ladies did. She listened sympathetically, as a confidante and friend would do, for there were few whom the queen could truly count as both.

“I will have her banished,” seethed the queen. “Or married to a coarse Welshman and sent off to the mountains. ”

“But my lady, your highness, surely no man would be tempted from the side of a woman as beautiful and wealthy as yourself,” ventured Lady Amice from the silk cassock on which she perched, edging as far from the raging queen as possible.

Judith barely kept from rolling her eyes. She would have turned on the boulder-headed Amice herself, but the queen, in as fine a fettle as Judith had ever seen her, was already shrieking at the hapless woman.

“You fool! Do you not have eyes in your vacant head? The whole of his court knows of his wandering eye and his pinching fingers. Get you out of here!” Eleanor cried. Now, true tears, not those born of rage, threatened her blue eyes. “Get from my sight!”

Judith pulled to her feet for ’twas past time to intervene. Glowering at Amice, the only other of Eleanor’s ladies to remain after she launched into her tirade, Judith snapped her fingers to send the foolish woman from the chamber.

She and the queen were alone.

“My lady…Eleanor. Do you sit. This raging cannot be good for the babe. ” Judith gently took Eleanor’s slender arm, ready to release it if the queen wasn’t ready to succumb, and urged her toward a large chair piled with cushions. Any intervention with the queen must be done gently.

“The babe of my faithless husband,” Eleanor muttered, smoothing her hands over the small, tight bulge under her gown. But she heeded Judith’s advice and sank onto the bean-filled cushions.

“Some wine, my lady? Mayhap another apple?” The queen had shown a particular fondness for apples during this breeding time. This was a difficulty, as it was early spring and fresh apples were out of season. The dried, bruised ones kept in the cellars beneath the kitchens did not ease her longing, but the king had had several baskets shipped from the Holy Lands.

“See you, the king loves you, my lady,” Judith reminded her truthfully as she selected one of the red-orange fruit to slice in two. “Else he would not make certain that every ship from Jerusalem carries your apples. ”

“Nay, ’tis his heir he loves,” Eleanor snapped. Her face, arguably the most beautiful in all of Christendom, shined with a streak of tear-tracks on each cheek. Rounder now, due to pregnancy, her countenance bore traces of harshness and anger. Her wide blue eyes narrowed, and a soft curl of honey-blonde hair had loosed uncharacteristically from her intricate coiffure. “He cannot keep his cock stuffed inside his breeches. ’Tis a wonder there are not thrice as many bastards as heirs in this court!”

That was saying quite a lot, for the king and queen already had a surplus of living children: Henry, Matilda, Richard, Geoffrey, and Eleanor.

Judith offered the queen a bejeweled salver, with the halved apple resting on it. “My lady, this truth I speak, and I know you will hear it from me…the king might have a wandering eye, but his hands and cock do not always follow. And indeed, ’tis always your bed to which he returns. And you on which his eyes settle. ’Tis you to whom he goes for advice. You have his head and his heart, your highness. ”

Eleanor pushed away the plate, and Judith replaced it on the table betwixt them. She nodded, yet her eyes were sad. “Aye, Judith, I wish to believe you. Despite my strong ways, he does bear me some love. And ’tis my great cross that I must love him so, so that it pains me thus when he seeks release elsewhere. ”

“But you are his queen, and ever will be,” Judith added gently. She lifted the errant wisp of blond hair and smoothed it into place, rearranging a jeweled pin to hold it as Eleanor sighed.

The queen nodded, and Judith, who had only seen her so sad and lost once before, was relieved to see a spark of determination flare back in her eyes. “Aye. Though I grow large with child, and longer in tooth, I am still Hank’s queen, and I remain his partner. ’Tis true he comes to me for advice as oft as he does his Chancellor. ’Tis a cross I must come to accept, then. His wandering hands. ”

“Longer in tooth? My lady, you are hardly over two score. The king’s mother Matilda still lives, and she is nearly sixty years. ”

Eleanor smiled and reached to pat Judith’s arm. “Thank you, my dear. You have done your duty and pulled me from my sulks. You know that I count you as friend as much as attendant, Judith. ”

“I am most privileged, your highness,” she replied.

But Judith could not help but compare the benefits with the drawbacks of such a position. Being close to the queen was a double-edged sword, and she must step lively to assure she did not meet the wrong side of it.

“Should I live to be such a ripe age as Matilda, I’ll have skin trailed with wrinkles and breasts sagging to my belly, but now I am still young enough to turn the heads of the men both young and old. If Hank does not tend to his queen, mayhap she will find another lion of her own. ”

Being witness to such a threat was an example of the wrong side of the sword—the one that Judith did not want slicing into her flesh, literally or nay. Though the king might sow his oats wildly, he would not accept being cuckolded himself. “My lady, I know this has been a difficult breeding for you…mayhap once you have birthed this babe, you will feel differently. ”

Eleanor’s laugh held a raw edge. “Aye, after I have birthed this babe, Hank will no doubt eagerly find his way back to my bed. ”

“’Tis where he belongs, my lady. An’ he knows it too. ”

The queen sighed, smoothing her hand over her belly once more. “Aye. Thank you, Judith. I am relieved I can trust you to listen even when I rage. ”