Louis inclined his head. ‘I can think of no worthier recipient.’
Henry rubbed his chin. ‘I was thinking of Hannibal, and how he crossed the Alps with a multitude of such creatures armed for battle. Truly it must have been a wondrous sight.’
The elephant polished off the basket of apples and looked for more.
‘Edward and Edmund will love it,’ William remarked to John de Warenne, who shook his head.
‘How is he going to get a behemoth like that across the Narrow Sea?’
‘Calm weather and a large ship?’
John folded his arms. ‘It is well thought of by Louis to present the creature as a gift. It is so magnificent and unique that nothing will exceed it save a unicorn, but at the same time he passes the responsibility for housing and feeding it to Henry.’
‘Yes, but think of all that ivory when it dies.’
‘Trust you.’ John rolled his eyes.
‘The King will be thinking of it too. His mind will already be working on how to carve the tusks, mark me. I wouldn’t mind riding it. I wonder what it’s like.’
Joanna shook his arm. ‘No, I forbid it, I absolutely forbid it!’
John and William exchanged amused glances.
‘I have always found it better to do as my wife tells me,’ John said nonchalantly. ‘It saves a lot of trouble in the end.’
25
Windsor Castle, April 1255
Aliza and Joanna sat together in the nursery chamber at Windsor, sewing, talking and keeping an eye on the menagerie of playing children, confined indoors by heavy rain. Joanna smiled as she watched them, all busy with their games and mostly innocent of the world’s machinations. Cousins and brothers and sisters. The garrison children too, romping with royalty.
Iohan and his sister Agnes were playing with a wooden elephant that Jacomin had carved, complete with a miniature stable to house it. They had a bear and three lions too and played with them endlessly. The elephant had fired their imaginations when they had gone to watch it arrive from France in February, brought up the Thames on a purpose-built ship to its new house at the Tower of London. Iohan was constantly demanding to go and visit the beast.
Joanna’s youngest, Margaret, eighteen months old, had been taken away for a nap by her nurse and Joanna decided she would retire soon to do the same. Well into her seventh month of pregnancy she was cumbersome and constantly weary.
The Queen’s youngest daughter, Katharine, lay on a small bed in one corner, tended by her nursemaid. She smiled at people and always beamed at her father and held her hands up to be picked up, but something was very wrong. She never turned to the sound of voices and even the loudest of claps or ringing of bells had no effect. She was a beautiful child with fair curls, delicate features and wide blue eyes, but she was not of the world. Henry and Alienor were extremely protective and no one dared speak of the child’s strangeness. Henry said little Katharine was a precious gift from God precisely because she was flawed. They were all God’s children and a reminder that everyone should be humble before Him, from peasant to king.
Aliza said, ‘I wonder when we are going to see the lord Edward and his new wife.’
‘William says in the early autumn,’ Joanna replied. ‘Edward is supposed to be going to Ireland and Leonora is coming to Westminster.’ Joanna cast a swift glance at Aliza. ‘William told me they had consummated the marriage.’
Aliza frowned. ‘That is dangerous. Boys of fifteen are led by their lusts, and even girls of thirteen, but it is not wise. I would not want that for any daughter of mine.’
Joanna leaned closer to Aliza so they would not be overheard. ‘William says she is with child and that is another reason they are not here yet. She is resting and awaiting the birth in Bordeaux while Edward administers Gascony.’
Aliza shook her head. ‘Oh, that is not good at all.’
Joanna nodded. ‘It is perilously young to be bearing a baby.’
‘Poor girl,’ Aliza said. ‘It is difficult enough to come early to marriage without having to contend with that as well.’
‘Indeed, and none of my daughters shall wed until they are of a safe age to bear offspring. I will light candles for Edward’s wife, and Edward,’ Joanna said. ‘And their baby.’ She placed her hand on her own womb, seeking reassurance from the flicker of life within.
Joanna cradled her six-week-old son in her arms and stroked his soft cheek. Conceived on a hot August night, he was strong and healthy, suckling vigorously at the wet nurse’s breast. He had been christened William, and Joanna was pleased to have everything in balance – two boys and two girls. They had heard that Edward’s young Castilian wife had miscarried of a baby girl in May, born three months too early. While tragic for the young couple, Joanna thought it a disguised blessing, for had Leonora carried the baby to term she could have died or been damaged for life.
Joanna placed little Will in his cradle and tapped the rocker gently with her foot, watching as his eyes grew heavy and then closed. Smiling, she turned away to her needlework, but stopped as a messenger wearing the Swanscombe livery was ushered across the room to her by her chaplain, Father Guydo.
‘Madam,’ Guydo said. ‘There is grave news from Swanscombe.’ He stood aside so that the messenger could kneel to Joanna and present his letter.
