Extract from Lady of the English.

March 5th 2013 celebrates the 880th anniversary of Henry II's birth, so I thought I'd post the scene from Lady of the English where Henry enters the world.

Geoffrey’s servant knocked again.  Matilda closed her eyes and endured the contractions, pushing down with her all her might, grunting and straining.  Vaguely she heard the midwife’s attendant telling the man that the babe was almost born.  Within the hour, if all continued well.

            Matilda gave a humourless laugh.  ‘He is afraid I will birth a girl child,’ she gasped.  ‘Before I entered my confinement he was constantly worrying at the possibility like a dog with fleas.  He says I would do such a thing just to spite him and my father because I am contrary.  It would serve them both right if I bore a daughter.’ She bit back a cry as the next contraction started to build. ‘The books say that a woman is a vessel in which the man plants his seed, so how can a woman be to blame for the sex of a child?’

            ‘Sometimes a woman’s seed is stronger than the man’s, and then the baby is a girl,’ said the senior midwife.  ‘That is the lore.’

            ‘In that case, all my children will be daughters!’ Matilda panted.  

            On the next contraction the baby’s head crowned at the entrance to the birth passage and emerged, followed by slippery little shoulders and crossed arms. Matilda closed her eyes, pushed again and felt a warm, wet slither between her parted thighs.

            ‘A boy!’ The midwife, beamed from ear to ear.  ‘Madam, you have a son, and he’s perfect.’

            An infant’s thready wail filled the chamber as the woman lifted up the bawling, mucus-streaked baby for his mother to see.  Matilda felt no immediate burst of maternal love, but there was satisfaction at a task accomplished, and enormous relief that she had borne a living baby this time, whole of limb and wailing with lusty lungs.  That was what brought a sob to her throat.

            Two women cut the cord and took the infant aside to bathe him in a bowl of warm water, while two more stayed with Matilda to attend to the delivery of the afterbirth.  She was so tired that it was difficult to raise the strength to expel the dark, liverish mass, but she managed. The women made her comfortable, removing the soiled bedstraw on which she had laboured, binding soft linen rags between her thighs to absorb the bleeding, and making up the bed with clean linen sheets.  Matilda drank a small cup of hot wine infused with fortifying herbs and closed her eyes.  She heard the soft splash of water as the women bathed the newborn in a large brass bowl, and the senior midwife cooing to him as she wrapped him in swaddling bands. 

            The peace of the moment was broken by a commotion at the door and Geoffrey burst into the room like a storm. ‘Where is the child?’ he 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 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.

            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 re-wrapped 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 was his sole prerogative, their son could have been called no other, and she was content.’ You will be a great king one day,’ she said.  ‘Greater even than your grandsire.’  

Earlier excerpts.

CHAPTER 1

Speyer, Germany, Summer 1125

Holding her dead husband’s imperial crown, Matilda felt the cold pressure of gemstones and hard gold against her fingertips and palms. The light from the window arch embossed the metal’s soft patina with sharper glints of radiance. Heinrich had worn this crown on feast days and official occasions. She had an equivalent one of gold and sapphires, fashioned for her by the greatest goldsmiths in the empire, and in the course of their eleven year marriage had learned to bear its weight with grace and dignity.

She was the wife and consort of the Emperor. Her people called her “Matilda the Good.” They had not always been her people, but it was how she thought of them now, and they of her and for a moment grief squeezed her heart so tightly that she caught her breath. Heinrich would never wear this diadem again, nor smile at her with that small curl of amused gravity. They would never sit together in the bedchamber discussing state matters in companionship, nor share the same golden cup at banquets. No offspring born of his loins and her womb would occupy the imperial throne. The cradle was empty because God had not seen fit to let their son live beyond the hour of his birth, and now Heinrich himself lay entombed in the great red stone cathedral here and another man ruled over what had been theirs.

Matilda the Good. Matilda the Empress. Matilda the childless widow. The words whispered through her mind like footfalls in a crypt. If she stayed, she would have to add Matilda the nun to her list of titles, and she had no intention of retiring to the cloister. She was twenty three, young, vigorous and strong and a new life awaited in Normandy and England, the latter her birthplace, but now barely remembered.

Turning, she gave the crown to her chamberlain so that he could dismantle and pack it safely in its leather travelling case.

‘Domina, if it please you, your escort is ready.’

Matilda faced the white-haired knight bowing in the doorway. Like her, he was dressed for travel in a thick riding cloak and stout calf hide boots. His left hand rested lightly on his sword pommel.

‘Thank you, Drogo.’ As the servants to remove the last of her baggage, she paced slowly around the chamber, studying the pale walls stripped of their bright hangings, the bare benches around the hearth, the dying fire. Soon there would be nothing left to say she had ever dwelt here.

‘It is difficult to bid farewell, Domina,’ Drogo said with sympathy.

Still looking around, as if her gaze was caught in a web of invisible threads, Matilda paused at the door. She remembered being eight years old, standing in the great hall at Liege, trembling with exhaustion at the end of her long journey from England. She could still recall the fear she had felt and all the pressure of being sent out of the nest to a foreign land and a betrothal with a grown man. The match had been arranged to suit her father’s political purpose and she had known she must do her duty and not court his displeasure by failing him, because he was a great king and she was a princess of high and royal blood. It could have been a disaster, but instead, it had been the making of her and the moulding of a frightened, studious little girl into a regal woman and able consort for the Emperor of Germany.

‘I have been happy here.’ She touched the carved doorpost in a gesture that clung and bade farewell at the same time.

‘Your lord father will be pleased to have you home.’

Matilda dropped her hand and straightened her cloak. ‘I do not need to be cajoled like a skittish horse.’

‘That was not my intent, Domina.’

‘Then what was your intent?’ Drogo had been with her since that first long journey to her betrothal. He was her bodyguard and leader of her household knights. Strong, dour, dependable. As a child she had thought him ancient because even then his hair had been white, although he had only been thirty years old. He looked little different now, except for a few new lines and the deepening of older ones.

‘To say that an open door awaits you.’

‘And that I should close this one?’

‘No, Domina, it has made you who and what you are - and that is also why your father has summoned you.’

‘It is but one of his reasons and driven by necessity,’ she replied shortly. I’ may not have seen my father in many years, but I know him well.’ Taking a resolute breath, she left the room, carrying herself as if she were bearing the weight and grace of her crown.

Her entourage stood in a semi-circle of servants, retainers and officials. Most of her baggage had gone ahead by cart three days earlier and only the nucleus of her household remained with a handful of pack horses to carry light provisions and the items she wanted to keep with her. Her chaplain, Burchard, kept looking furtively at the gelding laden with the items from the portable chapel. Matilda followed his glance, her gaze resting but not lingering upon a certain leather casket in one of the panniers before she turned to her mare. The salmon-red saddle was a sumptuous affair, padded and brocaded almost like her hearth chair, with a support for her spine and a rest for her feet. While not the swiftest way to travel, it was dignified and magnificent. The towns and villages through which they passed would expect nothing less than splendour from the Emperor’s recent widow.

Matilda settled herself and positioned her feet precisely on the platform. Seated sideways, looking forward, and looking back. It was appropriate. She raised her slender right hand to Drogo, who acknowledged the signal with a salute, and trotted to the head of the troop. The banners unfurled, gold and red and black, the heralds cantered out and the cavalcade began to unwind along the road like jewels knotted on a string. The dowager Empress of Germany was leaving the home of her heart to return to the home of her birth and a new set of duties.

Adeliza gripped the bedclothes and stifled a gasp as Henry withdrew from her body. He was sixty years old, but still hale and vigorous. The force of his thrusts had made her sore inside, and his stolid weight was crushing her into the bed. Mercifully, he gathered himself and flopped over onto his back, panting hard. Biting her lip, Adeliza placed her hand on her flat belly and strove to regain her own breath. Henry was well endowed, and the act of procreation was often awkward and uncomfortable between them but God willing, this time she would conceive.

She had been Henry’s wife and the consecrated Queen of England for five years, and still each month her flux came at the appointed time in a red cramp of disappointment and failure. Thus far no amount of prayers, gifts, penances or potions had rectified her barrenness. Henry had a score of bastards by various mistresses, so he was potent with other women, but only had one living legitimate child, his daughter Matilda from his first marriage. His son from that union had died shortly before Henry took Adeliza to wife. He seldom spoke of the tragedy that had robbed him of his heir, drowned in a shipwreck on a bitter November night, but it had driven his policies ever since. Her part in those policies was to bear him a new male heir, but thus far she had failed in her duty.

Henry kissed her shoulder and squeezed her breast before parting the curtains and leaving the bed. She watched him scratch the curly silver hair on his broad chest. His stocky frame carried a slight paunch, but he was muscular and in proportion. Stretching, he made a sound like a contented lion. Their union, she thought, even if it brought forth no other fruit, had released his tension. His sexual appetite was prodigious and in between bedding her, he regularly sported with other women.

He poured himself wine from the flagon set on a painted coffer under the window, and on his return picked up his cloak and swept it around his shoulders. Silver and blue squirrel furs gleamed in the candle light. Adeliza sat up and folded her hands around her knees. The soreness between her thighs had diminished to a dull throb. He offered her a drink from the cup and she took a dainty sip. ‘Matilda will be arriving soon,’ he said. ‘Brian FitzCount is due to meet her tomorrow on the road.’

Adeliza could tell from his expression that his thoughts had turned inwards to the weaving of his political web. ‘All is ready for her,’ she replied. ‘The servants are keeping a good fire going in her chamber to make it warm and chase out the damp. I have instructed them to burn incense and put out bowls of rose petals to sweeten the air. They hung new tapestries on the walls this afternoon and the furniture is all assembled. I….’

Henry held up his hand to silence her. ‘I am sure her chamber will be perfect.’

Adeliza flushed and looked down.

‘I think both of you will benefit from being a similar age.’ Henry said and smiled at her. ‘You will be good company for each other.’

‘It will be strange to call her daughter when she is two years older than I am.’

‘I am sure you will both quickly grow accustomed,’ he said, still smiling, but Adeliza could tell his intent lay elsewhere. Henry’s conversations were never just idle gossip; there was always a purpose. ‘I want you to cultivate her my love. She has been a long time absent, and I need to consider her future. Some matters are rightly for the counsel chamber and for father and daughter, but some things are better discussed between women.’ He stroked the side of her face with a powerful, stubby hand. ‘You have a skill with people; they open themselves to you.’

Adeliza frowned. ‘You want me to draw confidences from her?’

‘I would know her mind. I have seen her once in sixteen years, and then but for a few days. Her letters give me news, but they are couched in the language of scribes and I would know her true character.’ A hard glint entered his eyes. ‘I would know if she is strong enough.’

‘Strong enough for what?’

‘For what I have in mind for her.’ He turned away to paced the chamber, picking up a scroll and setting it down, fiddling with a jewelled staff, turning it end over end. Watching him, Adeliza thought that he was like one of the jugglers he employed to entertain his courtiers, keeping the balls all rotating in the air, knowing where each one was and what to do with it, adapting swiftly as a new one was tossed into the rotation, discarding another when he had no more need. Lacking a legitimate son, he had to look to the succession. Their own union had so far proved unfruitful. He was grooming his nephew Stephen as a possible successor, but now Matilda was a widow and free to come home and make a new marriage, the game had changed again. To think of making Matilda heir to England and Normandy was beyond audacious. The notion of a woman ruler would make even the most liberal of his barons think twice. Adeliza’s brows drew together. Her husband often gambled, but he was never rash and he was accustomed to imposing his iron will on everyone.

‘She is young and healthy,’ he said. ‘And she has borne a child, even if it did not survive the birthing. She will make another marriage and bear more sons if God is merciful.’

A pang went through Adeliza. If God was merciful, she herself would bear sons, but she understood his need to pursue other avenues. ‘Do you have anyone in mind?’

‘Several candidates,’ he replied in an offhand tone. ‘You need not trouble yourself on that score.’

‘But when the time comes, you expect me to smooth the path.’ Henry climbed back into bed and pulled the covers over them both. He kissed her again, with a hard mouth. ‘It is a queen’s duty, prerogative and privilege to be a peacemaker,’ he replied. ‘I do not think for one moment you will fail me.’

‘I won’t,’ Adeliza said, and as he pinched out the bedside candle, set her hand between her thighs, felt the slipperiness of his seed, and prayed this time for success.