[The Lion in Winter] Alia Aenor

He hasn't seen her in nigh on four years, since Henry--with an eye solely for his own purpose-- had freed her long enough to cede and sign the Aquitaine to him. (Richard, you've always been my favorite. You cannot doubt it now; come to me.) Yet he swears she grows more striking with each passing day. At age five his heart had known that he would never see a woman more beautiful...or love any woman more.

He knew that four years ago, (Richard, you've always been my favorite. You cannot doubt it now; come to me. She'd held out her arms, and he'd fallen atop her breast) and he knows it still.

He is twenty-six, but he feels five, watching her step from her barge and take his father's arm. In all his travels, he has never met another woman one-tenth as magnificent as she.

It's unfair, he thinks, that women age stronger and finer--not mere vessels of decay collected, as Philip's father had met his quietus. Or as Henry soon would be. Or as he himself one day--if he is not struck down first--must become. Boys are early wonders, racing through the fair flush of youth to shine a few, glorious hours as Adonis in the sun. They then whither only to wait to die...that or to be killed.

But women, though they may be hindered starting life as the weaker sex, only grow more formidable with each passing year.

She glances up at them--at him!--and Richard no longer feels five but a potent and full-blooded man. He strides off in heady confusion and anger afresh at how even now she can control his most basic reflexes with the merest blush of a caprice.

The long years of separation have maddened him. No woman could stand in her compare. He'd raped, pillaged and slaughtered a trail across the lands to find even one who might come close (Richard, you've always been my favorite; come to me), yet there was not one in any of whom he'd lain beneath.

She must be sixty.

She is queen of England.

She is his father's wife.

She is the only woman he wants--can want. Like everything else she has touched, her will has ruined him.

She has molded his desires. She bore him, and he will bear her imprint until the day he dies.

If there is a hell, he is resigned that it awaits him, but that thought does not make him quake half as hard as the fear of disappointing her.

God forgives; Eleanor doesn't. Sometimes he believes that is the only difference between the two.

He will only go to her when it is fully dark. Not so that he will not be seen--God knows Henry doesn't care--but so that he will not have to look upon the dreadful beast with two backs that they make. He is grateful for these abbreviated December days. He aches for her; night cannot come soon enough.

She teases him through the midday feast, tossing back her head, baring her neck, swelling her bosom up. Over the rim of her goblet, her gaze burns him with purposeful intent, as next to her Henry makes love to Alais with his eyes. Then she reaches beneath the table to the Netherlands between her husband's thighs. Henry stiffens, looks to her, and gives a great guffaw, then sinks back with his wine as her arm continues to move.

She strokes Henry's prick while studying Richard, whilst Henry studies Alais, whilst Geoffrey studies all three--and John struggles to best a joint of meat.

Richard stiffens and stalks off. Alone he paces the floors, willing the hours fly away. He wishes devoutly for an enemy to kill.

With each step the friction against his breeches grows, making his condition worse until he is certain he will erupt if this infernal day doesn't end and soon. He aches to touch himself, but he won't do so.

All that he has, he will save for her. Mother must see him at his best.

When night at last falls, he goes to her. A candle burns. She has waited up in bed; he knew she would (You've always been my favorite; come to me.) Candlelight brings out the best in her, softens the lines, plays around her face.

She is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen.

"Snuff it out," he rasps, the congestion in his prick boiling over into his voice.

"In a minute dear," she says in exquisitely cultured French.

For all his love of war and power, what he treasures most about the duchy that is his is the simple pleasure of total immersion in his mother tongue.

Her eyes rove his body. They find it suitable, he trusts. He swells out his chest, and again his penis chafes against its restraint.

"I need to check for knives." She smiles so sweetly. Ten years of imprisonment has not dulled one whit the mother he has known.

He ungirds himself. "I need no knife against you, old woman. If I wished, I should kill you with my bare hands."

She adjusts the bedclothes down. Her bodice slips into carefully planned disorder, baring one breast, and hinting at the other. "No doubt. You always were a peculiarly tidy boy. But it was my own knife I meant." From beneath the pillow, she pulls a bodice dagger and lays it within hand's reach. "I hear that it is unwise to linger in close quarters with you, without some means of defense."

"I only kill the fairly armed." His eyes blaze fire.

There is nothing more arousing than the explosive mix of lust and hate--knowing that she is the one who both incites and directs it. The long years in her bower have been sustained by the thought that she might have one moment like this again.

"And only men. Never women."

She settles down against the pillows. "Yes dear. I believe I've heard that too."

My God, he hates her! The urge to kill is almost too overwhelming to resist.

She holds out her arms. "Don't look at me like that, dear. You know you're my favorite. Come to mother."

She is beyond his power to resist.

He falls upon her and all but devours her bosom. Roughly he pushes apart her legs. She is wet for him, three years saved up let flow at once. She is more than ready. She splays her hips even farther apart to welcome her third son home.

But he will make her wait, just for that very reason. Just because she wants him so.

Calloused fingers working like she schooled him, he toys with her lips, dipping in and out of the font. When she writhes sufficiently supplicated to his power, he brings her off with tiny flicks against the nub exactly the way she likes.

She dies complete.

She is pleased. He has pleased her. His urgency ebbs with that relief.

"Richard, you're getting to be almost as good as your father."

He lunges between her thighs and spears it home.

Most women he takes from behind in one hole or another, their asses round and smooth much like a young boy's. His mother is different. She he takes face to face. He wants to prove to himself what his power can do.

The one power he possesses that she never will... or can.

He wants come watching her cry out in pain.

But she meets him thrust for thrust. For all the great ballads and verse ever writ, a penis is no sword. If affection is a pressure she can bear, then this pressure she can bear a hundredfold need be. He is gone quite wild now, all his proud reserve and masterfully planned forays swept away in the torrent of sweat and lust.

At precisely the right moment, she calls out precisely the wrong name, "Henry!"

He comes with a shudder; she doesn't this time, but she smiles to herself all the same.

As he lies against her, much as he had as a child, she runs fingers through his hair and rocks him between her breasts. "You always were my favorite," she whispers. She closes her eyes and inhales his scent and refuses to allow herself to weep as she realizes this is as close as she will ever get to Henry ever again.

She cannot weep when there is so much still to be done.

"Richard, I want you to do something for me."

He makes a vague sound, a familiar one. Henry was always most pliable at this time as well.

"I want you to overthrow your father."

He rears up. "You vile woman! Is that what this has been about? Having you set free?"

"We can win this time," she presses on. "The north hates your father almost as much as you do. In my name you can rally the Aquitaine. I presume you can get Philip's support."

"I am unsure," Richard lies.

"You can; I know you. You'll do what you have to."

Angrily he leaps from her bed, swaddling himself in a sheet. "You are Satan, sent from God to test me."

"Don't talk like that, Richard. A boy should love his mother." She pauses. "Or hate his father along with her at the very least."

He gathers his clothes and storms behind the screen to dress. He could still move Philip. He remembers how. He must.

He cannot--will not let his mother down.