Read Online Beloved Enemy by Ellen Jones - Free Book Online

childhood.
    Unexpectedly she met the cornflower blue gaze of a stranger seated at the far end of the table. He was extraordinarily handsome, with red-gold hair and fair skin. Also sumptuously dressed in a green-and-blue tunic, gold-embroidered mantle, and blue cap, from which protruded a sprig of yellow broom. He raised his jeweled goblet to her with a disarming smile. Her pulse quickened and she smiled back. It was then she noticed that he seemed to be holding something in his lap. A dog, perhaps? She could not see clearly.
    She leaned toward the archbishop of Bordeaux, who sat on her right. “Who is that lord with the broom in his cap?”
    “Count Geoffrey of Anjou. You will recall that shortly before your father—may he rest in peace—went on pilgrimage to Spain, he joined the count in his initial effort to reclaim his wife’s duchy of Normandy from Stephen of Blois.”
    “Yes, I remember.” So this was the man referred to as Count Geoffrey le Bel. Anjou was her nearest neighbor to the north; its borders marched with that of Poitou. “Surely Normandy is not yet won?”
    “Not yet. But a slight wound in the count’s foot forced a temporary return to Angers. It is a great honor that he came all the way to Bordeaux to pay his respects.”
    Eleanor was about to turn her attention to her other guests when a loud scream brought her eyes back to the count. What she had thought was a dog turned out to be a little boy of about four years of age with reddish hair and an angry scowl. Count Geoffrey, obviously discomfited, was talking rapidly into the child’s ear. As Eleanor watched, the boy shook his head vigorously, screwed up his eyes, and screamed again with such violence that his plump little face turned purple.
    The count, his own face now bright red, stood up and slung the child over his shoulder like a sack of flour. As he limped past Eleanor, the boy’s blazing gray eyes met hers. Unexpectedly he grinned. Eleanor grinned back, then blew him a kiss; absurdly, she felt a conspiratorial bond had formed between them. The cunning little rascal had contrived the entire episode. His dramatic exit, followed by sympathetic laughter, had gotten everyone’s attention. It was exactly the same way she might have behaved at that age.
    The archbishop lifted up his head and sniffed. “Trust the lively young sprig of the House of Anjou to create a stir,” he said. “I hear the young Henry is headstrong and self-willed, just like his Norman mother, and after that exhibition I can well believe it. I shudder to think what he will be like when grown.”
    “A force to be reckoned with, I imagine,” Eleanor said.
    By the time the fruits, figs, and berries had been served, the silver pitchers of red and white wine emptied, the men had loosened their belt buckles and slipped off their fur-lined surcoats. The women drowsed. Even the dogs, stuffed with scraps, lay panting under the tables in the July heat. The steward blew a silver horn, servitors cleared the center of the hall. Several troubadours entered the hall and began to play their instruments. As the sounds of viol, rebec, and pipe reverberated across the hall, many Aquitainian lords left their seats and began to perform rustic local dances.
    After a time, the rhythm changed as the click of castanets struck a new sultry beat. Eleanor’s blood responded and she rose from her place, threading her way past the tables toward the center of the hall. The Lord of Ventadour joined her, and accompanied by the enthusiastic clapping and singing of her vassals they danced the fandango, a lively new dance that had crossed the Pyrenees from Moorish Spain. Whirling, dipping, spinning, Eleanor felt the blood pound in her ears, the rhythm of the music drumming through her entire body. Everyone’s attention was upon her; all eyes turned in her direction.
    Flushed and breathless, she finally returned to the table. Abbé Suger’s eyes almost popped from his head, while Louis was apparently