A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver by E. L. Konigsburg Read Free Book Online Page B

not stay with Louis?”
    “Oh, I don’t know,” Eleanor said. She rested her forehead on her knees and then turned her head toward Abbot Suger. “Your not being there made a difference,” she said, smiling.
    “That’s not what made the big difference,” boomed Matilda-Empress.
    Abbot Suger turned to look at Matilda-Empress and then said, “Are you going to tell me what made the big difference?”
    “Eleanor met my son Henry, and she fell madly in love with him. It’s as simple as that.”
    “Not quite that simple, Mother Matilda. Nothing in our century was that simple. There was my boredom with life at Louis’s court. And there was always the Aquitaine.”
    “Move over,” Matilda-Empress said. The tiny abbot moved to the left, Eleanor moved to the right; the cloud compressed as Matilda-Empress sat between them. She glared at her daughter-in-law. “I’ll tell it as I saw it,” she said.
    “There is no other way to tell a story,” the abbot answered as he settled himself deeper into the cloud.

 

1
     
    IN THE SUMMER following the death of Abbot Suger, my husband, Geoffrey, went to the French court to pay homage to Louis. He took our son Henry with him. Geoffrey, my husband, was Count of Anjou; everyone called him Geoffrey Plantagenet because he always wore a stalk of that beautiful wild broom,
planta genista
, in his hat. Henry, our son, had picked up the habit, so he was called Plantagenet, too. It became our family name.
    Geoffrey, my husband, was also called Geoffrey the Fair because he was handsome; he knew it. Henry, my son, was also handsome; he knew it, too.
    There were a lot of things that Geoffrey could have done but did not. He could have joined Louis on Crusade, but he did not. He could have paid homage to Louis years before, but he did not. Geoffrey never did anything that did not suit his purposes, his immediate purposes.
    Neither love nor loyalty brought Geoffrey to court at that late date to pay homage to his king and queen. Necessity brought him. Henry, our son, had been named Duke of Normandy. In order for him to collect the taxes on his lands, he needed the royal stamp of approval; Henry needed to pay homage to his overlord, King Louis, and at the same time receive the kiss of peace from his king.
    Henry’s good looks may have come from his father, but his important titles came from me—Matilda, daughter of King Henry I of England and granddaughter of the man who even today was the last successful conqueror of England. Before he had invaded England in the year 1066, my grandfather was called William the Bastard because he was. After the year 1066, he was called William the Conqueror because he was.
    When Stephen, the present king of England died, the crown would go to Henry, my son. Stephen was my worthless nephew. I had kept alive my claim to the throne by making a lot of noise about it both in England and France, and by lining up barons and lords who pledged their support to me. Geoffrey and I thought it would be a good idea to get Henry engaged to Marie, the daughter of Eleanor and Louis. Marie was five years old at the time. Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux, however, said that he could never allow a marriage between our son, Henry, and any daughter of Eleanor. “Cousins,” he said. It seems that the Abbot Bernard found
cousins
in any marriage of which he did not approve. I was tempted to ask him whom he thought Cain and Abel had married, but Geoffrey made me hold my tongue. He was already in enough trouble with the abbot. Abbot Bernard had recently had him excommunicated.
    The Abbot Bernard made a habit of doing that to my husband. It was always done more for politics than religion. Bernard always sided with Louis in any quarrels that came up between Louis and Geoffrey. And now that Louis had returned from the Crusade and now that Abbot Suger was dead, Abbot Bernard was always using the Church as a club over Geoffrey’s head. What had Geoffrey done that was so terrible? I put his case