学英语系列英文版同人，中文版以及史实注解见【金雀花&亨二父子】再会，我的红发少年

Summary：The young Henry II bid farewell to his dearest father.

"If everything has been settled on the continent, I plan to sail to England next year. This time I am serious and must make some progress." A winding procession was marching unhurriedly in the sunshine on the Loire riverside, led by two men. The beaming young duke of Normandy, riding on his horse, explained his plans to the other middle-aged man marching alongside him, "Now I can certainly impress many Normans in England. If they once sneered at my grandfather King Henry's infant grandson, they cannot ignore their duke of full age. But I need your help, lord father."

"Many years ago, I made a deal with your mother. She and your uncle ,earl of Gloucester were to go to England, and I was to leave them alone and would never claim the throne of England. But they were to leave Normandy to me." The red-haired man wore an ornate fedora with a bouquet of the golden genista that made him known as Plantagenet, glinting in the sunlight, "In fact, I have little interest in England either. You must ask me why, perhaps I just don't like rain."

"But Uncle Gloucester is no longer with us on the earth. Since then, my lady mother's power in England has weakened considerably. Apart from me, you are, of course, our strongest force. And, if I were king of England, you could not resist going to England for the rest of your life. How can a king's father be just the count of Anjou across the Channel? I would make you the richest earl in England, well, maybe create another title for you. You are not really preventing from thinking about these things, are you?"

"I have certainly thought about my future. If you become King of England, I certainly cannot stay in Anjou for the rest of my life." Count Geoffrey of Anjou pondered for a moment, "Perhaps I will go to my half-brother king of Jerusalem and save you, a king, from having to nod and bow to a humble count"

"Father!" Henry, Duke of Normandy, elbowed the other man, prompting the latter to laugh, "You must be joking, don't leave me so rashly!"

"Not so fast, at least I'm going to attend your coronation and wedding. Oh, speaking of Anjou ......" Geoffrey suddenly thought of something, "if you do become the king, I hope you'll leave Anjou to your younger brother."

"What?" Henry strangled his horse at once, "Why?"

"Isn't it enough that you have England and Normandy, already the same as your grandfather? You can't leave your brothers no land or title."

"I certainly have them in mind. I would make them the second and third earls in line in England. Or somewhere else, Brittany, Ireland ...... but obviously not Anjou - I can't lose Anjou!"

"Why?" Geoffery stopped likewise and looked back at his son who was protesting still in place.

"I am your eldest son. What kind of father does not pass on the most of his property to his eldest son？It is against the law, and even if you insist on it for now, I will always have my reason to take Anjou back." Henry clasped his hands to his chest with an air of righteousness.  The law, again the law, just like his grandfather, the boy's uncle had taught him too well. Geoffery thought to himself.

"And what if I give you Maine and leave Anjou to your brother, after all you were born in Le Mans and you have an affinity for it." Geoffrey tried, "Maine is valuable attaching the Normandy southern frontier, for that, I understand."

"No, if I don't have Anjou, then how can I ......!" Henry followed his father's words, but suddenly forced himself to swallow them.

"Finish your speak, son."

"No, it's nothing, really." Henry rode forward a few paces and slowly continued his march.

Geoffrey gave a kind of winning smile, "I've felt something was wrong with you ever since we got back from Paris. What exactly did you want to say just now?" Seeing his son avoiding his gaze, he simply went straight to the point, "Well, let me start it for you. If you don't have Anjou, you won't get Aquitaine ......"

"No!" The young man gave a sudden scream , not one of firm protest, but something closer to a strike of amazement, "I, I didn't mean no, I meant ...... what do you want to say?"

Geoffrey snorted, "Don't even think I don't know what you're thinking. You need Anjou because you have been offered a bargain, someone need you defend Aquitaine, and Anjou is next to Aquitaine's northern border, just a day's walk from the ducal capital, and you, my good son, happen to be obsessed with the thought of being the duke of Aquitaine! --Aren’t you?"

The young duke of Normandy suddenly felt the hot sun directly in his face, and for a moment his whole cheek to the base of his ear was red with heat. He tried at first to avoid his father's charming but dangerous smiling eyes, but finally, out of sheer courage, he puffed up his chest and blurted out before pulling himself back: "Yes! I just want Aquitaine!"

"It is Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, who is wanted." Geoffrey smiled, charming as always, but aggressive.

"Does it make a difference?" Henry began with a sophomoric insistence, "I see no reason why having ambitions for England is right but having for Aquitaine is not."

"Kingdom of England, though now in disorder, once submitted to the sovereign of your maternal grandfather. Although I disliked him, I have to admit that. But what of Aquitaine? None of the dukes has ever truly conquered the whole Aquitaine ......"

"Before the Duke of Aquitaine, I would be styled as King of England, and that makes a fundamental difference."

"...... The king of France has not brought Aquitaine into subjection either. Why do you think England can?"

"You mean the monkish King Louis who almost let the whole world know he couldn't even conquer his wife?" Beside the buxom and radiant queen, the king, who had recovered from a serious illness, was as pale as the freshly painted stone walls of an abbey. The duke of Normandy laughed meanly. How, he thought, could such a cold body meet the needs of his hot mistress?

For a moment, Geoffrey couldn't help but smile too, however, he quickly tensed up: "The king may be pure and innocent as a child, but he is still your sovereign lord. Even if you are the king of England, on this side of the Channel you are his vassal. And you are now planning to seduce your lord's wife!"

Henry shrugged, "Maybe in half or one year，all the world knows they won't be man and wife any time soon.

"And so what? Did you hear Louis himself say to you that he consented to your being the new duke of Aquitaine?" Geoffrey felt his mouth go dry and could not help untying the knot in his chest for a little air, "You would be condemned for having betrayed the king, you ducal title would not be acknowledged, Louis could summon all the French- including Eustace, King Stephen's son - -to attack all your dominions on this side, and no one will be able to help you then. What if you can't even keep Normandy?"

"It's a risk worth taking for Aquitaine's sake." Henry said firmly, followed by a curt smile, "At least Anjou won't attack me, will you, lord father?"

Geoffrey frowned: "If you only want Aquitaine, there is clearly an easier way for you. I advised you earlier to consider marrying Eleanor and Louis' daughter, and who could be more worthy to be your queen than the king's daughter? And that way, not only Aquitaine, but perhaps you might even get another crown, who knows?"

"Or get nothing at all!" Henry bristled, "Who knows if they each will have another son!"

"Wouldn't you have ended up with nothing if you had married Eleanor?" Geoffrey hammered his son's puffy chest, "And by marrying their daughter, you would have a wife of royal birth in the first place, which would help boost your reputation. You are well aware that your father is not a king and your mother is not a queen - at least not of her own country. As you can see, the widow of German emperor is worthless in the eyes of the French and the English. Don't forget that Stephen's son married Louis' sister. Secondly, you would have the goodwill of French king rather than hostility, which would help your French dominions to be secure. Finally, you can always discuss the girl's dowry, and even if it wasn't all of her parents' property, you'd still get some of it. You could ask for some of the fortresses on the Normandy frontier as a dowry for a French princess than those far-away forts of the duchess of Aquitaine." Geoffrey hardly knew how he had managed to finish such a long paragraph of reasoning in one breath, and he could not help but pull his collar loose again to relieve the heat, "Defend yourself against me line by line, son, if you can."

Henry bit his lip, dumbfounded for a moment, sweat continuing to break out on the tip of his nose and forehead. At the end of it, the words popped out dryly, "I don't want to marry a little girl who's not even as high as my belt!"

"In just five or six years, the Church will agree to your marriage. In just ten years or so, she will be mature enough to give you an heir. And you won't be thirty years old then. Until then, you are free to enjoy your bachelorhood. You won't have to put up with your wife's jealousy, your children's bickering - illegitimate children can be disowned if you don't like them, but you'll have to put up with whatever damn things comes out of your wife's womb, won't you? I don't see how that's not to your interest." He looked his son in the eye and said, word for word, "You say you wouldn't marry a maid dozen years younger than yourself, but preferred to marry a woman dozen years older than yourself? Don't tell me you've thought this through, son."

"Obviously I know how is like to marry an heiress dozen years older than oneself." Henry made a grimace, meaning something, "I've seen the worst of such marriages. You and my mother claim to hate each other, but in reality you don't work that badly together. Not to mention ......"

"What's more?"

Henry suddenly stepped forward and stepped in front of Geoffrey. The count of Anjou looked into the sunlight shining on his son, his physique was more like that of a short, stout Norman royal man on his mother's side, and his face has inherited most of his own features, except for the untamed eyes belonged to the Empress Matilda.

"I love her. And I'm sure she loves me too."

He said just as his mother had said she believed the Lord had commanded her to become queen of England. Geoffrey sighed as he looked into those unblinking, cold-coloured eyes.

"Don't talk big about love or not when you're seventeen or eighteen ...... Didn't the King Louis marry that woman when he was seventeen or eighteen too? Did he not love her so passionately? Look at the way they are now!"

"It's not the same at all! How can I be compared to Louis! Eleanor says I'm far more ……" Henry immediately shut up when he realised what he wanted to say.

"Far more......?" Geoffrey squinted at his son and thought to himself that a youth as intelligent as he would be turned into a fool who did not know how many eyes and how many mouths he had by such a bold mature woman. Any saint or jurist will be thrown out of his mind when a kiss comes from the queen. "I've always wondered why when the king and I talk about things together in Paris, you two are always nowhere to be found at the same time. What on earth did you do together?" The question was still to be asked in this way at last, "or rather, to which step?"

Obsessed, Henry simply blurted out, "The last step."

"Oh,only now that you're finally telling the truth."

"Father!" The duke of Normandy was just about to add his own protest when the count of Anjou raised his hand to stop it.

"That's enough. There's no point in dwelling on it with you any longer - it's too hot. Why don't we take a shower in the river before the sun goes down? Forget about women or maidens and have some manly activities."

Henry breathed a sigh of relief, he had just thought his father would turn on him for the continuous backbiting. He wiped the beads of sweat from his forehead and, having lifted the stone weighing down his heart, he realised that his clothes had long since become stuck to him with sweat. "Should say it earlier, father."

Led by the duke of Normandy and the count of Anjou, the procession suddenly spread out across the plain and, from a distance, looked as if countless stones had rolled down from the shore towards the river, eventually exploding in the river with countless splashes.

Henry dove into the water before his own father did, sinking smoothly beneath the surface to gaze at the sun through the sparkling water.

He began to remember the pieces of his time in Paris a month ago, when he and Eleanor had hidden from each other's father and husband, secluding themselves in the shade of trees or in corners at night, in places where the sun did not shine. Even without the sun, he could still feel the hands of the queen and duchess seeking solace in his loneliness; he had had women once ...... but the queen had made him feel like he hadn't any. There was that one time when the two of them almost fell into the sight of King Louis and Count Geoffrey, who, ironically, were talking about their marriage to the princess at about the same time. He remembered the queen's softer breasts and waist as that result. At that moment, he felt at once that he feared nothing and cared for nothing. His sovereign lord, his father, authority and anger, were not worth his care any more. It was as if he had been born to liberate the queen. The memories were humid and stifling for both of them, and despite the lightness of the queen's dress he still felt it was too thick for them. But he was rejected before the final step - yes, he had just lied to his father. In the midst of his dizziness, he turned to offer to take her away into the night and was again refused. The queen said she wanted a real marriage, it could be simple, but it had to be real. She wanted to be the duchess of Normandy, and after that, everything hers would be his.

He had given the queen his promise and for a moment felt like the most marvelous man in the world - and the most foolish. Henry burst out of the water and breathed heavily, feeling cooler than he had ever been since he had gone to Paris - and never so calm. It must all be because the heat had made himself dizzy.

After the heat had temporarily subsided, he didn't feel as eager to get his hands on that woman. Was it really worth it? What if he really did offend the king with Eleanor, incurring endless misfortune and, more importantly, the wrath of his father?

He looked at Geoffrey, who was just a short distance away, rubbing himself. The royal Normans were short, stout, and prone to obesity, and he had been somewhat sorry to discover as a child that he seemed to follow in his mother's footsteps. But his father's appearance had been almost flawless from the time he could remember, handsome but not feminine, athletic but not bulky. Saving the famous red-golden hair now dulled with time, other parts remained largely as it had been in his youth. It was still almost an incredible body for a middle-aged man approaching forty years of his age. Henry watched as the golden sunlight streamed down along the lines of Geoffrey's muscles and a sudden sharp sourness strike him. Somehow it occurred to him that the moment they had both just stepped into the royal palace of Paris, Eleanor's eyes had fallen on Geoffrey first - and then ...... probably even some more time later, on him.

Before he realised that it was jealousy, another thought stopped his indignation. If he had married a mature woman, instead of a little girl who makes him have to wait ten years, then he himself would have been a father in his twenties, like Geoffrey, and then in less than forty, what happy times he would have had with his own son playing in the river like this! Between sweet complacency, marrying the duchess of Aquitaine suddenly became no more of a treason, less alien to the link of love between father and son, between men. He was perfectly capable of having both Geoffrey and Eleanor ......

"What are you giggling at, little brat?" He was almost knocked into the water by the oncoming wave, and by the time he had woefully adjusted his weight, Geoffrey was in front of him, "I'm asking you to have a swimming race with me, what now, are you scared?"

"Damn you, who's afraid? Just swim!" Henry suddenly leapt up and jumped on top of Geoffrey, "But before that ......" with a cheerful laugh and the sound of a huge splash, father and son fell into the water.

 

 

As he collapsed into bed, Henry only vaguely felt that there was something strange about the day, but couldn't put his finger on it. He had beaten his father in the evening swim, proudly boasting that the years had not been kind to him and that he was, in any case, the energetic young man. At dinner, Geoffrey left the table without having eaten , saying that he was drowsy and wanted to rest. Being an old man, after all. Henry thought with a slight smile. When he tried to extinguish his father's portion of the meal, he wondered what would happen if he woke up in the middle of the night without food, and just kept pouring wine from the jug. One glass after another, he expressed the pleasure of the day - half from the relief of having the secret out his mind, and half from the realization that he had found the best of both worlds.

Now, not even wanting to cover himself with the blanket, he stretched out in the coolness of the midnight air, and in no time at all was pushed into dreamland by the strength of his drink. In his dream he was no longer alone in his bed, but with the very woman he had longed for. The queen of his dreams - the former queen - had been spared the burden of her clothes and was unreservedly displayed before him. They knew no day or night, and their sweaty hands kept touching each other ...... Then he and Eleanor were crowned King and Queen together at Westminster Abbey, and at the coronation he announced that he was creating a strange title for his own father that had never been created before, and that all Englishmen who saw him were to address him respectfully as "the most reverend grand duke the King’s Father" ...... Shortly afterwards, he saw Geoffrey proudly holding a infant baby high above his head, announcing that he had his first grandchild, and how much the child looked like himself... ...and again, as if a long time had passed, himself standing before the gates of the palace to bid farewell to his father who had departed for Jerusalem. He was wearing a crown and crying with burst of tears, Eleanor standing by his side, was wiping his tears. Strangely enough, the image of Geoffrey was always the middle-aged man as he was now. He felt vaguely unreal, but he still could not control himself and kept crying out to his father not to leave him ......

"No, father! ......" he woke up with a hoarse scream of his own, it was dusk outside the window and he had surprisingly passed out through the day - or at least a day - through his hangover. In a trance he couldn't tell if the echoes in his ears were coming from a dream or reality. At the same time, his bedroom door was burst open by a group of knights: 

"Your Highness, you, you must go to see your father ......!"

He felt a sharp pain in his chest and jumped out of bed, rushed out of the door as a knight hurriedly grabbed a cloak to cover him so that he would not go to his father unclothed.

 

"What is all this about!?" The duke of Normandy, wrapped in only a cloak, stood in the doorway and shouted at several priests holding censers and balms, "Who called you in? That’s treason! Do you not understand? " He felt around his waist and realised that not only did he not have a sword belt, but he was wearing only a cloak over his dishevelled shirt, so he kicked the nearest cleric instead and was pulled back by several knights, "Get out! Get the damn out, all of you!"

The priests looked on in disbelief, but it was fortunate that the Last Sacrament was over, otherwise they would have feared for the duke's eternal soul. These troubling young knights, having heard the contents of the will, could not resist pulling the young duke over, and one can only imagine the chaos that would have ensued. But their work was done in the vision of God.

"It was me ...... who ask them to come." A dry, mute voice came from behind the crowd. The count of Anjou on the bed gestured, and the priests fishtailed out, leaving the room suddenly filled with the restless and noisy group of lay people.

"What is this, what is wrong with you, father?" Henry practically flung himself on his knees at the head of Geoffrey bed and instinctively touched his forehead with his hand, "Ah, so hot! Why?!" He was so alarmed that he lost his words for a moment. Thinking of that day of swimming at the river, the sun and the heat. But then his father was all as usual; no, no, he said he was hot, and did seem to be weaker than usual; did he sweat? Could it have been from then on ......

"I'm dying, son." Geoffrey said, amazed at how calm he was. This was due to the fact that I had accomplished the mission that God had entrusted to me well.

"No, no, you're not going to die!" Henry grabbed his arm in a death grip and shook him hard, as if he was talking nonsense and was shaking him awake himself. "Why do you call it the Last Sacrament, ah, those priests are expecting you to die so they can get the endowment, aren't they!"

That is why I did not want to call you in the first place; at least I still want to ensure the peace of my soul in the eternity. Count of Anjou sighed inwardly. The fever made it take all his strength to even raise his eyes, but he pushed on, seeing his son's expression, which could almost be described as laced with anger, as if he were wrestling with an unknowable fate. But he had more important things to say now.

"The donation, yes, it's none of your business. But there's something else in the will. I wish to leave......" his throat slid, finding no saliva in his mouth to swallow, "...... Anjou and Maine for your younger brother."

"No!" Henry jumped up in excitement almost as if defending against an attack, "No!"

Geoffrey looked at his son sadly: "For that woman?"

"......" Henry bit his lip and said nothing, and it was then that he realized with a start that his father had grown pale and dry overnight, that the man who had been as fit as a demigod in the sun seemed to be a being of another world. He still could not persuade himself to believe it. Why, when he thought of the equally pale and frail king he had seen in Paris who had survived the illness, was his own father not much older than him? Simply because he was not an anointed king blessed by God? But he was his father, the father of the future king! "You will not die yet!" He finally threw out a sentence half-heartedly to himself, merely reassuring himself.

"I am dying, and of that I know as well as God." Geoffrey said, meeting the grey eyes of the Norman, "I have brought you up as a Norman, you were born to rule Normandy and England ......"

"A Norman?" Henry was suddenly stunned, "I was never just a Norman, you know that."

"You are the grandson of King Henry of England. Your name, everything you have learned since you were a child, is of a Norman." And at the expense of your parents’ happiness, this marriage for your birth. But there's no need to say it like that.

"Grandfather ......" said Henry, "then you must know how joyful grandfather was when he heard of my birth. But as soon as he saw me, he made the depressing comment 'the boy looks too much like his father'." He knelt down again, this time no longer excited.

Geoffrey smiled: "All the Normans would be depressed by that, they would not accept the count of Anjou ruling them, they have never been ruled by a foreigner. It is the Norman blood in you veins that makes them willing to put up with my rule for a while ...... that is why you should give up Anjou."

"Ask yourself how could I give up the other half of the blood in my veins." Henry said, tears glistening in his eyes, "You want me to pretend I'm not your son just to suit others’ wish. I have never done that, and will not ever."

Your mother ...... has always been pretending not to be my wife. Geoffrey thought, but he touched Henry's hand, which already had a thin layer of calluses on it.

"...... Alright. Delete that sentence." He said.

"But, but this will was made in the sight of God." The clerk standing in the corner made a feeble protest under the vicious red eyes of the duke of Normandy.

"No harm in that. I'm already dying anyway." The count of Anjou said, looking around and noticing that one of those young knights who had rushed out in search of the duke of Normandy was missing, the one who happened to know his second son better, and who would report to his master the mistaken good news ...... there would be a sibling rivalry, which was sort of the fate of the Angevin family. He let out a deep sigh and closed his eyes.

"Father, father, Eleanor ......" Henry, seeing that Geoffrey had relented in the matter, tried tentatively to take advantage of the situation, but found no response, and he faltered and felt his nostrils, which were all right for the moment.

 

Night fell and the room was lit with candles. The doctor who had been thrown out by the count of Anjou earlier was invited back by the duke of Normandy, tossed in front of him for a while, and finally offered dryly that he could bleed the count and bet. Henry waved his hand impatiently, and after some manipulation he got nothing but a small bowl of blood and his father's even paler face.

"Useless, all a bunch of useless rubbish!" The duke stomped his feet in place, hating to smash the bowl on the ground, but it was his father's blood in it after all, "Get out of here, all of you!"

Geoffrey grunted a few times at the soreness in his arm. He let his son run amok because he knew Henri's temper and always had to let him die out.

Henry vented in place and turned back to the bed, his face looking little better.

"Should I invite my lady mother to come?"

"I have begged God and St. Julian to cut my misery short ...... she can’t catch up." It was truly the wife's duty, thought Geoffrey, but why should she trouble herself to come to witness his miserable appearance at the last moment, while in the prime of his beautiful youth she had already found herself disgusted for accomplishing her work? "Son, I have to confess something to you. You must listen."

"Do speak, father."

"Seven years ago ......," said Geoffrey, who for a moment found it somewhat difficult to speak, or did not know where to begin, "I went to Paris for the first time to seek the king's recognition for duke of Normandy. In those unseen corners of the garden, I met Queen Eleanor." He saw his son's face turn white as a thunderbolt strike him, "just like you did last month."

"No, it's not true！You must be trying to make up a story so you can scare me off!" Henry's mind went blank with a buzz, what, was he not only interested in his sovereign's wife, but also trying taking possession of his father's mistress ......

Geoffrey pursed his dry, cracked lips and strained to silence his son with a gesture: "Listen. At the time I also thought it was very romantic and ...... exciting to have an affair with the wife of my lord. But it was not so ......" he gathered his thoughts and tried to make the stakes clear to the shaken Henry in as few words as possible, "I soon understood that the queen had grown tired of the king. We flattered each other, but when I offered my ...... 'affection', she firmly rejected me. For I told her that I was only taking Normandy for you for some kind of regency. She lost interest in me immediately and did not date me privately any longer ...... even had not asked if I intended to divorce your mother." He looked at Henry, who was still jaw-dropped, not yet understanding the reason for these words.

"I was then duke of Normandy and count of Anjou. The duke of Normandy was above all other noble men saving the king himself. And Anjou was next to Aquitaine and could protect Aquitaine from the king who would seek revenge ...... Don't you see why the queen came to us in turn?" Geoffrey said at length, "Queen Eleanor is not the kind of stupid woman who can't guard her skirts from men , and you are being calculated by her. If I am right, you two have not gone ‘that’ far ...... and she will not give her ‘nobility’ away like that, until she has the title of duchess of Normandy. Though she is not a chaste woman either."

"I don't believe it!" The duke of Normandy said dryly, dumbfounded by the realization of his earlier brave lie.

"What am I lying for as a dying man?"

"What I don't believe is ......," Henry said at last, confused by his own words, "she's just trying to count on me ...... "

Geoffrey sighed, "So you believe she loves you."

"We indeed aim for each other's wealth and title ...... but we also love each other." Henry said, more or less embarrassed, "So I think she's the woman who deserves me."

"You don't understand, you don't even understand ......" Geoffrey tried to say something, but felt a violent dizziness and took a few feeble breath, which frightened Henry who immediately attached himself to observe his condition.

"You don't understand, my silly son......" he finished his words through clenched teeth as he strained to grasp his own child's hand "It's worse than not loving......than me and your mother, worse ......"

"Father, why, father!" Only the count of Anjou was once again struggling on the verge of unconsciousness from exhaustion. The duke fumbled about trying to feed him a little water, and apart from spilling most of it on himself and the sheets, it only did a useless job, and he had to put his father back on the bed again and get up in a state of loss.

He himself had still not dripped or eaten a single meal since that hangover, and it was only after the depression of frustration that he realised he was thirsty and hungry. But he found it hard to swallow after just two mouthfuls, and after two torturous circles around the room, he began to sulk with himself again, answered only by the muffled thud of his fist on the wall. So far he had not really felt sadness, but more annoyance, anger at the suddenness of all this happening to him. But with no one around and only his father's strained breathing coming through the night, he suddenly lost all caution - his anger was a defence in itself. He sat down on his haunches in dismay, wiped his eyes and found that he could not wipe away the liquid that had flooded him from the collapse of the dike. He then buried his face in his knees and allowed the liquid, so foreign to him, to wet his clothes, only still careful not to let the sick man hear his weak voice.

In his helpless sorrow, the Duke thought to the long darkness, he seemed to care for nothing else anymore. If only he could make a miracle happen, he vowed to God and to his father's patron, Saint Julian, that he would renounce Eleanor of Aquitaine and instead obey his father's wish to marry the king's daughter, or some other woman. For a moment he was startled by his determination, as if he had watched the queen's disappointment, chiding him for not actually being the kind of mature man she saw in him, but he waved his hand in his head to dispel the queen's vision. God, hear the prayer of an obedient son. Or even for me to give Anjou up. He thought to himself. Feeling more or less comforted and at peace, he curled up and went to sleep, thinking of Geoffrey miraculously standing up and picking himself up off the floor as he had done when he was a boy.

In the middle of the night he woke up because he heard someone shouting "Father!" and was awakened, but this time not by himself. He was so tired that he slept without dreaming.

"Father! Why ...... why did you throw me to the Normans?" Henry opened his eyes to find it was his father in bed talking in his sleep, "You threw out your children to the Normans like fish bait, first my sisters, then me, after that you leave us far away for good ......"

Henry walked over to the bed and tested his forehead with his hand, burning. It was late at night, as it would have been. He wrung out the dampened towel and placed it on Geoffrey’s forehead, better than nothing, at least than doing nothing himself.

"Saint Julian of Le Mans, receive your miserable child." Geoffrey suddenly said, his body struggling as if he were wrestling with an unseen ghost.

"I decree that henceforth Saint Julian of Le Mans shall also be worshiped in England and Normandy." Henry attached himself to try and hold the rolling body down, when the doors were opened again and the count's voice clearly attracted more anxious people who had been up all night, all seemed ready for the doomed moment. Henry could no longer care less about the people behind him mingling in their own minds, "I command. It's okay, pa." He said softly, more or less choked up, in the same name he used when he was babbling.

Geoffrey seemed to quiet down immediately and hummed a few times. Soon it was murmured again, "Maud ...... Empress Matilda ...... Aethelic? You always thought I don't know this English name of yours ...... in fact I knew it from the beginning, as early as I knew you don't like me ...... when you were in your elder brother, earl of Gloucester's arms, complaining why you were forced marry to a mere little count, he used that name to called you." He paused abruptly for a moment before continuing, "Gloucester, well, he was almost the only one I liked at your father's court. He taught our Henry well. If he had not been a bastard, he would have been the king, pity for him. If that were the case, we would not have had to force ourselves to marry each other."

"Pa, what are you, what are you talking about ......", momentarily confused as to whether this was gibberish or intentional, Henry asked, bewildered, as he held his hand.

As if had heard him, Geoffrey said, "But we will never have a better child than Henry. Therefore, we do not need to resent each other." And with those words he fell back into the silent stupor.

Some of the older knights and vassals could not bear to see their old master die and turned their backs and whimpered, while the young duke continued to rub his cold hands together, trying to slow down the process, and so it went on until morning. Henry saw the light of the candle danced a few times on his father's face before it was extinguished, and the light and shadows made it seem as if he had come back to life.

"Pa, you ......" he whispered, and Geoffrey really broke off his breath, his eyelids fluttering open and slurring, "A snake, a snake."

"Where is the snake? There is no snake here." Henry looked around, the room was clean, no snake in sight, and all of a sudden he felt a grip tighten on his hand, he felt a tremor and looked back at the bed to find his father's lax eyes open, looking across himself to the end of the bed. They were hardly the eyes of a living man as if they were the withered bones of a man pulled halfway back from purgatory. "No, no, pa, don't scare me ......! Don't scare me ......!"

Geoffrey had tried hard to align his pupils with his son, his gaze just involuntarily past him towards the end of the bed. There loomed a woman, her long red hair as bright as blood, resting on her chest. The lower half of her body was of a serpent, cozily wrapped around the edge of the bed. Now he knew why he had been pulled violently back from the brink of death. The half-snake female demon. When he had previously been ostracised as a barbarian by the Normans for this ancestral red hair, he had come up with this story in return, only to be met with even more violent ridicule. The Normans couldn't believe how one could claim his ancestry to be a demon with a damp, icy snake tail, preferring human heroes wielding battle axes, or at least some fantastic creatures with heroic spirits. But it was true. The count of Anjou thought to himself that before the Angevins died, the banshee would return to them to reveal a secret they most desperately wanted to know.

He spoke, breathlessly, the prophecy he had been ordered to utter: "I saw you crowned King of England with a woman ...... If it is yours, I cannot prevent you from it."

"There's no woman here, there is anything other than woman ......" a panicked Henry just felt the words cutting into his ears like knives, unable to comprehend the meaning of the words, not even understanding what he was saying himself, only knowing that with each word he said, he was one step closer to death One step closer to death, "Damn that woman whoever she is ...... Pa, don't, don't ......"

"Go with my blessing." The count of Anjou only felt the world grow darker as the huge, slippery serpent's tail coiled from his feet to his throat, "But ...... but you will eventually return to Anjou ......" The red-haired serpent laughed with satisfaction and opened its blackened wings to block out the sun. The last scene he saw was a pair of eyes with tears in them, the eyes of a Norman. He was still rubbing his hands in vain, trying to slow the coldness of his skin with his own heat.

"Pa, that’s not funny......you just promised me a few days ago that you would be there for my coronation and wedding. No......there is no wedding......no wedding......". The duke of Normandy clumsily broke the count of Anjou's fingers into his own hand once and for all, pretending to have a tight grip, "No wedding, no wedding ......" He repeated, shivering, fighting nature over and over again, and with each pass the count's fingers would be stiffer than the last, and the duke's would be more feeble. It was not until the laws of nature had declared to the young duke that the mortal man could not do beyond his capacity that he finally let them go, and a hoarse wail broke out from the silent crowd.

 

 

Epilogue

"What has my son the duke sent me again?" Empress Matilda leaned languidly on her throne, her grizzled hair still tied in two braids hanging down in front of her according to the old rules of her father's time, as luxurious and heavy as the emperor's crown, "Read it for me."

Arnulf, Bishop of Lisieux, was just about to open the wax seal when he suddenly stopped his hand: "Your majesty, the duke has written on it that you must open it yourself."

"What else is there but for me to go with you also to Lisieux to attend his meetings, lord bishop. Oh, perhaps their trip to Paris has also given me a charming daughter-in-law for all Normans to see." The empress rose and smiled a little, taking the envelope from the bishop's hand. Before opening it, she couldn't help but touch the image of Henry, Duke of Normandy, on the wax seal.

The bishop saw the smile on the empress's face suddenly go cold with her gaze, her hair braid trembling slightly with her body, before she violently clutched the parchment in her hand and turned her back, breathing heavily.

"Your majesty, what's wrong?"

"Lord bishop, cancel the meeting in a few days, there is no more meeting. Not for a while." The empress said, her voice breaking. Arnulf had understood that the letter was probably some kind of bad news, and instinctively wanted to come forward to assist her, or to call for her ladies-in-waiting to come and help her retreat to her inner chamber for rest. But the empress only turned her back and wandered a few steps in place, her pace slow and firm, until the train of her over-long skirt trailed back and forth across the floor, nearly tripping her, and it was clear that her mind had wandered from there. But the bishop thought to himself that it would help to restore her spirits not to inquire, but to wait for her to say it herself.

After a moment of uncertainty, Empress Matilda turned around, only to see in a flash the large group of people who had been summoned in silently by the bishop, looking at her in confusion. Her parchment was almost crumpled by itself, and she had not noticed the influx of so many people into the room. If she had been so distracted while fighting in England, she would probably have been dragged out of the castle already.

Well, those thrilling, and fearful times, when the earth and heaven could turn upside down, man from king to traitor in one night. Back then, her husband was never there for her, and it made her feel like she was hardly a woman anymore ......

The empress said, "I am here to announce to all the clergy and lords loyal to us that my son, Duke Henry, has just written to say that his father, the former Duke of Normandy, Count Geoffrey of Anjou and Maine, passed away a few days ago due to a sudden high fever."

The crowd erupted in sighs, the laymen in Norman French, the clergy in Latin. All drew the cross and bowed their heads.

The bishop of Lisieux stepped forward, wanting to offer suitable consolation, but hesitating whether he should use those words of comfort for the noble widows. Until just now, the empress had still not said that the count of Anjou was her husband. As a former empress, she would never have called herself the countess of Anjou - she did not even call herself the former duchess of Normandy.

"My son Henry must be devastated with grief." The empress spoke again, still somewhat distracted. "Although the count of Anjou will not get to see his offspring crowned king of England, the whole world will know that he has raised a great king." The empress paused, out of breath, and repeated. "My son Henry would certainly be drowned by sorrow ."

The bishop thought to himself that she had finally uttered what it felt like to be a widow again, if only indirectly in such a way.

"Count Geoffrey was once duke of Normandy and the Normans were obliged to attend his funeral." The bishop said.

"Well." The empress nodded, "Loyal Normans, any of you who wish to attend may go with me. The weather is hot and there is no time to lose. We will leave tonight."

The bishop said, "Unless we travel by all day and night. Otherwise we will only be able to deliver the sacrifice and not make the funeral. The duke will want to bury his father as soon as possible."

"Then we travel day and night. I must see Geoffrey one last time, he is my ......" The bishop spotted the empress's unblinking red eyes, eyes that had finally become a little tender beneath the watery glow, though these eyes were still staring ahead.

"He's my…… old friend."

 

END