Chapter 30 ALAIS: THE PIPER PAID

Windsor Castle February 1173 I prayed to God for Richard’s safety, standing¹ there steeped in sin, my father’s rosary in my hand. I thought of all I must be shriven for, but I turned that thought aside. There was more to do before there was less. There was a piper to be paid, and I would pay him. Eleanor and I stood alone in Richard’s rooms. His men had fled with him, down the hidden corridor. I thought I saw her reach for me. Then Henry was there, and I saw nothing else. His eyes fell on me, and his men-at-arms stopped short behind him. He stared at me, at the betrayal he had not expected, from the last person on earth he expected it from. For I had warned Richard of his coming, and now Henry’s rebellious² son had once more slipped his grasp. I saw the bitterness rise in his eyes, the same bitterness he had always turned on Richard. Now, for the first time, Henry turned that bitterness on me. “Alais.” He said nothing else. I saw that he would never forgive me. I had betrayed him to the son he hated most. Nothing, not even our unborn child, would succor³ that. I moved toward him and stood before him, in case he ordered his men to take me up, as he would have ordered them to take up Richard. The pain on his face cut me, but I stood firm under it, for I deserved it. Henry raised one hand, his gray gaze boring into mine. I saw his rage build behind his eyes, a great wall of red that swept his reason from him, until there was nothing left but his fury. I did not move even then, but waited for his hand to fall on me. Eleanor stepped between us. “Henry,” she said. His eyes did not leave mine, but his hand did not come down to strike me. “She feared for his life, Henry. You forget, she is only fifteen years old.” Henry’s face contorted with rage. I thought he would spit at her, but he did not; his eyes never left mine. He did not speak, but turned and left me there, standing in Richard’s rooms. He did not say a word, but stalked away. His men followed him like dogs, their pikes in their hands. “What have I done?” “What you had to do,” Eleanor said. My knees buckled⁴. I would have fallen had she not caught my arm. Eleanor held me up until she could get me to a chair. Marie Helene came in then, looking stricken. She came to me at once, and took my other hand. Eleanor had not let me go. “My lady, the king is calling up his men to ride after Prince Richard,” she reported. I felt my stomach tighten⁵ as a wave of pain washed over me. I gasped⁶ under it, as if I had been swept up in a tide. Eleanor squeezed my hand and looked into my eyes. “He will not catch them, Alais. They have gone by barge⁷ to my keep in Oxford⁸. They will be safe there, until they can go down to the coast. Henry will not have them. They have slipped his net. Thanks to you.” I felt light-headed, and I could not answer her. Eleanor knelt beside me, and pressed her lips to my hand. “Thank you, Alais. Thank you for saving my son.” Pain in my abdomen⁹ struck me then, taking my breath away. Eleanor saw something in my face that she recognized, for she stood at once. “Marie Helene, call my chamberlain. Have him take the princess to her rooms.” My waiting woman moved to obey as the dull ache in my abdomen receded¹². I had felt dull pains off and on all day, but had thought nothing of them. As Eleanor watched me, I realized that these pains were something else altogether. Eleanor’s man lifted me in his arms. He tried not to jolt¹³ me, and I was grateful for his help. I was suddenly very tired, and I knew that I had a long night ahead of me. Her chamberlain brought me back to my rooms, and set me not on my bed but on a chair, as Eleanor directed him. As I thanked him, I saw the certain knowledge on Eleanor’s face: my child was coming two months early. Another pain came then, stronger than the last, and in the midst of that fire, Henry, Richard, the court, and my place in it faded as if they had never been. As my agony gripped me, all thought of the loss of Henry vanished. I released my grip on the chair and knelt on the floor of my room, my pain taking me as Henry once had done. I knew that I was truly in the hand of God. Eleanor called for a midwife, and for a birthing chair. Both were brought at once, though the keep was buzzing like a kicked wasp’s nest. All had heard of my betrayal of the king. No woman wanted to tend me in the midst of my disgrace, but one came, for she feared the queen. Henry left Windsor, riding out to his hunting lodge¹⁴ at Wood-stock, which was within striking distance of Oxford. I had lost him, and forever. Amaria whispered this news to Eleanor, but I heard what she said. When the queen turned back to me, she did not speak of Henry or of Richard, but nodded to the midwife, as if my birthing was the most important business to befall her that day. “Alais, between us, you will do well. God knows I’ve borne Henry enough children. I ought to know by now how it is done.” I took heart at her matter-of-fact tone, and felt my fear recede¹¹. Eleanor gripped my hand and helped me stand, so that Marie Helene could strip my silk gown off me. I wore only my shift, so Marie Helene then built up the fires in the braziers, and brought them closer so that I would be warm. Eleanor would not leave my side. She spoke¹⁵ to me of the doings of her women, and of the foolishness they had gotten up to in the presence of her minstrel, Bertrand. Her soothing¹⁶ voice took me back to that simpler time, when I sat with her women, listening to him sing. The time before I ever saw Henry, when Eleanor and her son had been my whole world. Three hours later, I was walking a circuit around the room with Eleanor when my water broke. Fluid gushed¹⁷ down my thighs¹⁸, and I felt much lighter¹⁹. The midwife and her women cleaned up the small pool of liquid from the floor, while Eleanor made me drink a glass of my favorite wine. She helped me walk between pains all that night. For hours she stayed with me, and walked with me in a slow circuit around the room. For the first time, I saw that room as it truly was: an old chamber¹⁰ filled with Eleanor’s castoffs, as my place at court had been from the time I first moved against her. The pillows, the tapestries²⁰, the plate, all belonged to her, as Henry did. As Henry always would. Somehow, in the midst of my childbed pains, this knowledge did not wound me. The world was reduced to what it had always been: myself, alone with Eleanor. As my pains got worse, I bit down on the fine linen²¹ cloth Marie Helene gave me, but it was too thin to do me good. Eleanor’s woman, Amaria, found me a piece of leather, and I bit down on that. Between contractions²³, I laughed. “I am just like Bijou now.” Bijou did not chew her leather thong²⁴, but lay beneath the table, wide-eyed, looking up at me as I walked in circles around the room.
Agony rode me, over and again. In another hour, I could not walk at all, and Eleanor brought me to the birthing chair, from which I did not rise again. I gripped the arms of that chair, praying as each pain passed. Eleanor pressed a damp cloth against my face, and its coolness soothed²⁵ me. I laughed even as pain gripped me, and Marie Helene looked at me as if I were demented. Only Eleanor smiled. She understood. “It is time,” I said. As my pains came upon me harder and faster, there was only Eleanor. Henry now was gone, as was Richard, off to fight over power in the kingdom. As each contraction²² took me, Eleanor stood by me, or knelt with me when I was laid low, the agony too much to bear. I pushed, gripping the arms of that birthing chair, and Eleanor held me up. It was as if we were one flesh, as if she gave me her strength to bear the agony. Her very presence reminded me that childbirth is a triumph, a field of war that men have no part in. Whenever I laughed, she laughed with me, her beautiful bronze hair falling from beneath her wimple, her emerald eyes on mine. The pains ran together, but always I felt my child moving toward me, a fish in a stream that would never run dry. This stream flowed beneath me, and through me, and was bringing my child to me. This stream crested²⁶, and my daughter came into the world. She slid out of me, into Eleanor’s waiting hands. My baby was very small and she was blue, except for where she was covered in my blood. Marie Helene washed me, and Amaria helped me to my bed. Eleanor brought my daughter to me, clean and dry, wrapped in one of the queen’s furs against the cold. “Here she is, Alais. What will you name your firstborn?” I saw my daughter’s face, her rosebud²⁷ mouth and red-tinged hair that was so like Henry’s. “Rose,” I said. “For Our Lady.” “And for our garden,” Eleanor reminded me. When my baby lay in my arms, I was shocked to find her as light as down, as if she were not truly in the world at all. Rose was still blue, so I kissed her, and laid my mouth over hers, until her breath deepened and her color cleared. My daughter cried then as I held her close to my breast, soothing her. She was so small, smaller than any child I had ever seen. When she stopped crying, her eyes opened. She looked at me as if to say, “Finally. There you are.” I kissed her. I was sore, but my young body had been made for birthing. I felt elated, as if I had just conquered London single-handedly and handed the keys of the city to my father. “This is why men fight and kill,” I said. “So that they can feel like this.” Now I knew why I was not afraid of the future, though I had lost the favor of the king, though I would be cast aside, as my father once had been cast off by Eleanor. I got to have my child. My triumph did not linger, as nothing on this earth is meant to last. Eleanor saw before I did that my daughter had trouble breathing. Rose’s sighs rattled²⁸ in her chest, so that Marie Helene had to turn away With tears on her checks, my waiting woman brought me the holy water that I kept on my prie-dieu. I sprinkled the water on my daughter’s head, bathing her in the salvation²⁹ of God. “I baptize thee Rose, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” I had spoken this last in Latin, and Marie Helene and Amaria crossed themselves. Eleanor simply reached out and caressed³⁰ my baby’s head. “And my blessing³¹ do I give you, daughter of my daughter. May your spirit fly free and far, to the paradise your mother so fervently³² believes in.” Rose did not cry when the cold water touched her skin. She smiled at me, and at Eleanor, as if we knew a secret. For that day, it seemed that the world was not what I had thought it was. It was not a world that belonged to kings and princes, to queens and pawns³³. It was a world that belonged to God, but to a God nothing like the one I had known in my childhood. As I lay awash in this truth, I watched my little girl take her last breath, Eleanor’s hand in my hair.

1 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

2 rebellious   

adj.造反的，反抗的，难控制的

参考例句：

• They will be in danger if they are rebellious.如果他们造反，他们就要发生危险。
• Her reply was mild enough,but her thoughts were rebellious.她的回答虽然很温和，但她的心里十分反感。

3 succor   

n.援助，帮助；v.给予帮助

参考例句：

• In two short hours we may look for succor from Webb.在短短的两小时内，韦布将军的救兵就可望到达。
• He was so much in need of succor,so totally alone.他当时孑然一身，形影相吊，特别需要援助。

4 buckled   

a. 有带扣的

参考例句：

• She buckled her belt. 她扣上了腰带。
• The accident buckled the wheel of my bicycle. 我自行车的轮子在事故中弄弯了。

5 tighten   

v.(使)变紧；(使)绷紧

参考例句：

• Turn the screw to the right to tighten it.向右转动螺钉把它拧紧。
• Some countries tighten monetary policy to avoid inflation.一些国家实行紧缩银根的货币政策，以避免通货膨胀。

6 gasped   

v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要

参考例句：

• She gasped at the wonderful view. 如此美景使她惊讶得屏住了呼吸。
• People gasped with admiration at the superb skill of the gymnasts. 体操运动员的高超技艺令人赞叹。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

7 barge   

n.平底载货船，驳船

参考例句：

• The barge was loaded up with coal.那艘驳船装上了煤。
• Carrying goods by train costs nearly three times more than carrying them by barge.通过铁路运货的成本比驳船运货成本高出近3倍。

8 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

9 abdomen   

n.腹，下腹(胸部到腿部的部分)

参考例句：

• How to know to there is ascarid inside abdomen?怎样知道肚子里面有蛔虫？
• He was anxious about an off-and-on pain the abdomen.他因时隐时现的腹痛而焦虑。

10 chamber   

n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所

参考例句：

• For many,the dentist's surgery remains a torture chamber.对许多人来说，牙医的治疗室一直是间受刑室。
• The chamber was ablaze with light.会议厅里灯火辉煌。

11 recede   

vi.退(去)，渐渐远去；向后倾斜，缩进

参考例句：

• The colleges would recede in importance.大学的重要性会降低。
• He saw that the dirty water had begun to recede.他发现那污浊的水开始往下退了。

12 receded   

v.逐渐远离( recede的过去式和过去分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题

参考例句：

• The floodwaters have now receded. 洪水现已消退。
• The sound of the truck receded into the distance. 卡车的声音渐渐在远处消失了。

13 jolt   

v.（使）摇动，（使）震动，（使）颠簸

参考例句：

• We were worried that one tiny jolt could worsen her injuries.我们担心稍微颠簸一下就可能会使她的伤势恶化。
• They were working frantically in the fear that an aftershock would jolt the house again.他们拼命地干着，担心余震可能会使房子再次受到震动。

14 lodge   

v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆

参考例句：

• Is there anywhere that I can lodge in the village tonight?村里有我今晚过夜的地方吗？
• I shall lodge at the inn for two nights.我要在这家小店住两个晚上。

15 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

16 soothing   

adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的

参考例句：

• Put on some nice soothing music.播放一些柔和舒缓的音乐。
• His casual, relaxed manner was very soothing.他随意而放松的举动让人很快便平静下来。

17 gushed   

v.喷，涌( gush的过去式和过去分词 )；滔滔不绝地说话

参考例句：

• Oil gushed from the well. 石油从井口喷了出来。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Clear water gushed into the irrigational channel. 清澈的水涌进了灌溉渠道。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

18 thighs   

n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿

参考例句：

• He's gone to London for skin grafts on his thighs. 他去伦敦做大腿植皮手术了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The water came up to the fisherman's thighs. 水没到了渔夫的大腿。 来自《简明英汉词典》

19 lighter   

n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级

参考例句：

• The portrait was touched up so as to make it lighter.这张画经过润色，色调明朗了一些。
• The lighter works off the car battery.引燃器利用汽车蓄电池打火。

20 tapestries   

n.挂毯( tapestry的名词复数 )；绣帷，织锦v.用挂毯（或绣帷）装饰( tapestry的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The wall of the banqueting hall were hung with tapestries. 宴会厅的墙上挂有壁毯。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The rooms were hung with tapestries. 房间里都装饰着挂毯。 来自《简明英汉词典》

21 linen   

n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的

参考例句：

• The worker is starching the linen.这名工人正在给亚麻布上浆。
• Fine linen and cotton fabrics were known as well as wool.精细的亚麻织品和棉织品像羊毛一样闻名遐迩。

22 contraction   

n.缩略词，缩写式，害病

参考例句：

• The contraction of this muscle raises the lower arm.肌肉的收缩使前臂抬起。
• The forces of expansion are balanced by forces of contraction.扩张力和收缩力相互平衡。

23 contractions   

n.收缩( contraction的名词复数 )；缩减；缩略词；（分娩时）子宫收缩

参考例句：

• Contractions are much more common in speech than in writing. 缩略词在口语里比在书写中常见得多。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Muscle contractions are powered by the chemical adenosine triphosphate(ATP ). 肌肉收缩是由化学物质三磷酸腺苷(ATP)提供动力的。 来自辞典例句

24 thong   

n.皮带；皮鞭；v.装皮带

参考例句：

• He fastened the dog to the post with a thong.他用一根皮带把狗拴到柱子上。
• If I switch with Harry,do I have to wear a thong?如果我和哈里调换，我应该穿皮带吗？

25 soothed   

v.安慰( soothe的过去式和过去分词 )；抚慰；使舒服；减轻痛苦

参考例句：

• The music soothed her for a while. 音乐让她稍微安静了一会儿。
• The soft modulation of her voice soothed the infant. 她柔和的声调使婴儿安静了。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

26 crested   

adj.有顶饰的，有纹章的，有冠毛的v.到达山顶（或浪峰）( crest的过去式和过去分词 )；到达洪峰，达到顶点

参考例句：

• a great crested grebe 凤头䴙䴘
• The stately mansion crested the hill. 庄严的大厦位于山顶。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

27 rosebud   

n.蔷薇花蕾，妙龄少女

参考例句：

• At West Ham he was thought of as the rosebud that never properly flowered.在西汉姆他被认为是一个尚未开放的花蕾。
• Unlike the Rosebud salve,this stuff is actually worth the money.跟玫瑰花蕾膏不一样，这个更值的买。

28 rattled   

慌乱的，恼火的

参考例句：

• The truck jolted and rattled over the rough ground. 卡车嘎吱嘎吱地在凹凸不平的地面上颠簸而行。
• Every time a bus went past, the windows rattled. 每逢公共汽车经过这里，窗户都格格作响。

29 salvation   

n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困

参考例句：

• Salvation lay in political reform.解救办法在于政治改革。
• Christians hope and pray for salvation.基督教徒希望并祈祷灵魂得救。

30 caressed   

爱抚或抚摸…( caress的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• His fingers caressed the back of her neck. 他的手指抚摩着她的后颈。
• He caressed his wife lovingly. 他怜爱万分地抚摸着妻子。

31 blessing   

n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿

参考例句：

• The blessing was said in Hebrew.祷告用了希伯来语。
• A double blessing has descended upon the house.双喜临门。

32 fervently   

adv.热烈地，热情地，强烈地

参考例句：

• "Oh, I am glad!'she said fervently. “哦，我真高兴！”她热烈地说道。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• O my dear, my dear, will you bless me as fervently to-morrow?' 啊，我亲爱的，亲爱的，你明天也愿这样热烈地为我祝福么？” 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

33 pawns   

n.（国际象棋中的）兵( pawn的名词复数 )；卒；被人利用的人；小卒v.典当，抵押( pawn的第三人称单数 )；以（某事物）担保

参考例句：

• The hostages are being used as political pawns. 人质正被用作政治卒子。
• The allies would fear that they were pawns in a superpower condominium. 这个联盟担心他们会成为超级大国共管的牺牲品。 来自《简明英汉词典》