Winchester Castle April 1169 The day Louis’ daughter came to me, I was not prepared for her. Louis, my ex-husband. My old lover. My old enemy. The only man I ever left weeping who was not strong enough to hide his tears. Or, perhaps he was simply too strong to feel the need. She came to me and stared up at me out of Louis’ eyes. The color was her mother’s, a light brown tinged¹ with yellow. But her seriousness, her gravity, she had learned from him. I was alone when she arrived at Winchester Castle. I was surrounded by women, but none of them knew me. They feared me, and loved me, the way a worshipper in a cathedral claims to fear and love the Christ. But none of them saw behind my mask; I would never allow it. My son Richard was at my castle at Oxford², as were the rest of my living children, until we left in a few months’ time for Aquitaine. I had borne nine children for Henry, the daughters for foreign marriages, the sons to follow their father. But in my heart, Richard was mine, born for me alone. My husband, Henry, had left me years ago in all but name, following the skirt of Rosamund. She was nothing but some knight³’s daughter born of a family that had held their obscure strip of land an hour, while my family, descended⁴ from Charlemagne himself, had held the Aquitaine for centuries. The thought of that woman, her blond hair coyly displayed, her beguiling⁵, vapid⁶ eyes, raised a taste of acid on my tongue. It was said Henry found peace with her, that he loved her silence as much as her chatter⁷. Perhaps he did. For a certainty, he got neither peace nor silence from me. From the day we met, all Henry got from me was fire. A fire that never burned, but warmed, and singed⁸ his fingertips when he touched me. A fire that kept him in my bed for years longer than anyone said I could, for I was older than he by more than a decade, too old at twenty-nine to catch the eye of a king even when we met. But Henry was no king then, only a hardscrabble

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