Devil’s Consort

ANNE O’BRIEN

All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II B.V./S.à.r.l. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

HQ is an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

Published in Great Britain 2011.

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© Anne O’Brien 2011

ISBN 978-1-4089-3583-5

Version: 2019-04-12

About the Author

ANNE O’BRIEN taught History in the East Riding of Yorkshire before deciding to fulfil an ambition to write historical fiction. She now lives in an eighteenth century timbered cottage with her husband in the Welsh Marches, a wild, beautiful place renowned for its black and white timbered houses, ruined castles and priories and magnificent churches. Steeped in history, famous people and bloody deeds, as well as ghosts and folklore, the Marches provide inspiration for her interest in medieval England.

Visit her at www.anneobrienbooks.com

Also by ANNE O’BRIEN

THE SHADOW QUEEN

THE QUEEN’S CHOICE

THE KING’S SISTER

THE SCANDALOUS DUCHESS

THE FORBIDDEN QUEEN

THE KING’S CONCUBINE

DEVIL’S CONSORT

VIRGIN WIDOW

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Epilogue

Other titles by the author

Extract

Read all about it…

About the Publisher

For George, as ever, with love.

And for my father, who gave me my first

love of history.

If all the world were mine From the seashore to the Rhine,

That price were not too high

To have England’s Queen lie

Close in my arms.

—Anonymous German troubadour

An incomparable woman … whose ability was the admiration of her age.

Many know what I wish none of us had known.

This same Queen in the time of her first husband went to Jerusalem.

Let no one say any more about it …

Be silent!

—Richard of Devizes

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

All my thanks to my agent, Jane Judd,

who continues to be enthusiastic about

my versions of medieval history.

And to Helen and all her experts at Orphans Press,

who make my hand-drawn maps and

genealogy look splendidly professional.

CHAPTER ONE

July, 1137:

The Ombrière Palace, Bordeaux.

‘WELL, he’s come. Or at least his entourage has—I can’t see the royal banners. Aren’t you excited? What do you hope for?’

Aelith, my sister, younger than I by two years and still with the enthusiasms of a child beneath her newly developing curves, battered at me with comment and questions.

‘What I hope for is irrelevant.’ I studied the busy scene.

I had got Louis Capet whether I liked it or not.

I had thought about nothing else since my father’s deathbed decision to place me under the hand of Fat Louis—the King of France, no less—had settled my future beyond dispute. I wasn’t sure what I thought about it. Anxiety at the choice vied with a strange excitement. Queen of France? It had a weighty feel to it. I was not averse to it, although Aquitaine was far more influential than that upstart northern kingdom. I would be Duchess of Aquitaine and Queen of France. I need not inform my newly espoused husband which of the two I considered to be the more important. Although why not? Perhaps I would. I would not be disregarded in this marriage.

I was Eleanor, daughter and heir to William, the tenth Duke of Aquitaine, the eldest of my father’s children, although not born to rule. Not that I, a woman, was barred by law from the honour, unlike in the barbaric kingdom of the Franks to the north, but once I had had a younger brother who had been destined to wear the ducal coronet. He, William—every first-born son was called William—was carried off by a nameless fever, the same as relieved my mother Aenor of her timorous hold on life. Leaving me. In the seven years since then I had grown used to the idea. It was my right to rule.

But I was nervous. I did not think I had ever been nervous before: I had had no need, as my father’s heir. My lands were vast, wealthy, well governed. I had been brought up to know luxury, sophistication, the delights of music and art. I was powerful and—so they said—beautiful. As if reading my mind, my troubadour Bernart began to sing a popular verse.

He who sees her lead the dance, sees her body twist and twirl,

Can see that, in all the world, for beauty there’s no equal

Of the Queen of Joy.

I smiled. The Queen of Joy indeed. My looking glass confirmed what could be mere flattery, the greasy, self-seeking compliments of a penniless minstrel towards his patroness. But I was not ingenuous. Alone, unprotected, unwed, there would be a limit to my powers. I needed a husband with a strong sword arm, and powerful loins to get an heir on me—for him and for myself. A puissant lord who would stand with me and secure the future for Aquitaine, a man who could lead men and demand the obedience of the power-hungry lords who would snatch what was mine. A man who would be a fit mate for such as I.

Ah, but would Prince Louis fit this mould?

‘Well?’ Aelith nudged me.

‘What do I hope for? A prince, of course,’ I replied.

‘That’s no answer.’

‘A man after my own heart.’

‘Self-important?’ Leaning against the carved window ledge, Aelith ticked them off on her fingers. ‘Opinionated? Arrogant?’

But I sidestepped my sister’s chuckling malice and answered seriously enough. ‘Why not? He will rule my lands. He must do it well. He’ll not do it if he has neither the backbone nor the spirit for it. Better a man with arrogance than one who’d sell himself short to make friends. My vassals need a firm hand.’

We were standing in my bedchamber, Aelith, my women and I, high in the old keep, a spacious, graceful room with large windows to catch the light and any breath of air on this day of impossible heat. A room that I loved, full of my own possessions, and from where I could look out across the Garonne to observe the whole scene unfold hour by hour. It was July, hot as the gates of hell, and I was restless with impatience as Aelith and I observed the settlement grow. Tents, pavilions, sprouting like mushrooms, covered the open meadows, transforming them into a town in its own right. A vivid, richly-coloured Capetian town on Aquitaine soil. A foreign presence, and above it all the fleurs de lys of France. A portent for the future, I acknowledged, a French symbol of ownership over the mighty Duchy of Aquitaine. Before me, horses and armed men swarmed. Farriers and wheelwrights set up their booths and a market was soon under way. Small boats plied back and forth with Frankish noblemen or mounds of cabbages. My vassals, I was well aware, would question the relative importance of the two. It would not be a popular marriage but we would all have to live with it.

‘He must be handsome, of course,’ Aelith announced. She was already precociously aware of the male sex.

‘Of course.’ I had no thought of a husband who was less than pleasing to the eye.

‘Like Raymond.’ Aelith sighed a little.

Raymond of Poitiers, my father’s young brother, now ruling as Prince of Antioch in distant Outremer.

‘Yes. Like Raymond,’ I agreed. My only meeting with Raymond had been of the briefest, four years ago now and for a mere few weeks, but my memory of his golden beauty had not faded with time. Raymond was to my mind the epitome of the perfect knight. ‘If the French prince is in any measure like Raymond, I shall be everlastingly grateful.’ My attention was caught by a flurry of movement across the river. ‘Look! That’s the royal standard!’ I pointed. Aelith leaned to see the blue pennants with the gold lilies of France. ‘So Prince Louis is here at last.’

‘As long as he’s prettier than Fat Louis,’ she remarked.

‘I’ll give you my gold circlet if he’s not. Fat Louis is naught but a mountain of lard ridden with dysentery.’

But I knew better than to underestimate King Louis. His body might be corrupt but his mind was still keen. He might be too corpulent to rise from his bed, too obese to mount either a horse or a woman, so rumour said, but he had seen me as a gift dropped from heaven into his enormous lap.

We watched as another pavilion was erected, larger than all the rest. The Capetian banner was planted beside it to hang limply in the windless air. A group of horsemen drew up and dismounted. Impossible to make out one figure from the next at this distance.

‘They won’t like it, you know.’ I spoke softly. ‘My vassals will detest it.’

‘But they have no choice.’ Aelith pursed her lips. ‘And if the Prince keeps the brigands from our doors, they’ve no right to complain.’

True in essence, but far too simplistic.

Was this, this Frankish marriage, what the Duke my father had intended when he had placed me into King Louis’s keeping? Arrange a marriage for my daughter, he had left instructions for Louis as his life drained from him on the pilgrim’s road to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. And do it fast, before rebellion can take hold. Until that time, I give her and Aquitaine into French safe hands.

What was my father, Duke William the Tenth of Aquitaine, thinking? Surely he’d understood that King Louis would never allow me to escape from his fat fingers. It would be like expecting a fox to show goodwill by keeping out of the hen coop even though the door was left invitingly open, and the King of France was no kindly fox. Arrange a fast marriage for me? By God, he had. Between the vomit and the bloody flux that tied him to his bed, Fat Louis had moved heaven and earth to secure me for his son before anyone could voice a protest.

And there had been plenty. My father’s vassals may have sworn an oath of homage to me in his lifetime, but our lands were torn by unrest. The Count of Angoulême, a vassal lord of Aquitaine, was vicious in his condemnation and was not alone. They would have accepted someone like Raymond, one of their own. They would have just about tolerated a noble lord of the south who might win my hand. But not this Capetian interloper, this foreign northerner from some insignificant Frankish tribe. I knew what they would be thinking as they too watched this impressive arrival. They would see Louis Capet as a foreign power who would drain us to further his own ambitions. My father may have insisted with his final breath that Aquitaine remain independent from France, ruled separately, to be inherited in some distant future by the heir of my own body; he might have insisted that Aquitaine must not be absorbed into French territory, but how many of my vassals would remember that, when faced with this invasion of unveiled power?

‘It might have been more politic—’ I spoke my thoughts ‘—if my father had not thrown us into the hands of a Frank.’

And I marvelled at my father’s unwarranted stupidity in drinking water fouled by a horde of pilgrims, all of whom had doubtless washed and spat and pissed in its shallows. Did he not see, scooping up the bad fish, gulping the rank water, his mind taken up with the successful culmination of his pilgrimage? All he got was a night of fever, of vomiting and flux, rapidly followed by a pain-racked death before Saint James’s altar.

An excess of piety can make us all stupid.

‘Perhaps the vomiting addled his brain,’ remarked Aelith dryly.

And perhaps the outcome would be civil war. It might be like setting a brand to dry timber, insurrection sweeping through Aquitaine and Poitou before we had finished dancing at my marriage feast.

A quick wash of fear replaced the nerves and the anticipation.

Behind me the troubadour, obviously listening in, struck a strident note on a lute so that I turned to look, seeing the lifting of his brow in my direction. When I smiled in appreciation of his intent, Bernart began to sing a popular if scurrilous verse in a soft growl.

Your Frank shows mercy, just to those who can pay him,

There’s no other argument ever can sway him …

He hesitated, breath held, fingers lifted from the strings, to assess my reaction, and even though I knew what would come next, I waved him on. Bernart struck another heavy chord.

He lives in abundance, his table’s a feast,

But you mark my words, he’s a treacherous beast.

My women joined in with relish in the last line. The Franks were not well loved. A coarse, aggressive, unpolished people, compared with our Roman sophistication in Aquitaine.

‘Enough!’ I moved into their midst. ‘We’ll not be discourteous.’

‘No, lady.’ Bernart bowed over his beloved lute. ‘We’ll make our own judgement when the Prince becomes Duke of Aquitaine.’

I frowned at the smooth cynicism but could find no fault with so obvious a statement.

‘It’s an honour that he should come to you.’ Aelith still leaned her arms along the sill, unwilling to abandon the entertainment without. ‘Travelling all this way from Paris, in this heat. They say he travelled at night.’

It was true. Everything had been settled with such speed, as if the King of France had the hounds of hell baying at his heels, although what Prince Louis thought of it I had no idea. Perhaps he would have preferred a Frankish bride. I lifted my chin. I too could be cynical.

‘The Prince only came to me because his father the King instructed him to do so. Fat Louis and my guardian the Archbishop feared that if I set foot outside this palace I would be abducted by some scruffy knight with an eye to a rich wife. I’m far too valuable to be allowed to travel the breadth of the country.’ Impatience tightened its grip, now that the Prince was in my sights. ‘How long do I have to wait before I can see him?’

Aelith laughed, a pert toss of her head. ‘At least he’s old enough to play the man and not so old as to be near his grave.’

‘He’s two years older than I.’

‘Old enough to keep you in line?’

‘No.’ I didn’t like this line of humour. ‘I’ll not be a vessel merely to bequeath my royal Aquitaine blood to my children. I am no brood mare, without opinion or wit, to slave and carry at the behest of a husband. I’ll rule my own lands. The Prince must accept that.’

‘But can you protect them, lady?’ Bernart asked with grave familiarity.

Before I could reply, the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Geoffrey of Lauroux, my kindly guardian since my father’s death, was announced and entered. Resplendent in clerical robes despite the heat, he bowed, puffing from the effort of climbing the stairs.

‘Lady. The Prince is come.’

And I knew immediately what I wanted. ‘I would go out and meet with him.’

‘No.’

I thought I had misheard. ‘I wish to see the Prince. Will you arrange it, sir?’

‘Regretfully, no, lady. You will wait here.’

‘But I wish it.’ I would not be thwarted in this.

But the Archbishop remained adamant. ‘To arrive before your future husband, windblown and hot, in the middle of a camp of soldiers and the usual rabble of camp followers? Less than perfect, my dear Eleanor. I think not. You will wait here. You will allow Prince Louis to come to you. As he should, of course.’ The Archbishop’s eyes twinkled with crafty appeal to my pride. ‘The Kingdom of France cannot compare with the Duchy of Aquitaine. You will stand on your dignity. You will control your impatience.’

Dignity. Control. Maturity was rushing up to meet me, so fast that it took my breath. And I knew it must be so. The days of my wilful girlhood were gone for ever.

‘How long must I wait?’

‘Not long. Tomorrow I will bring him to you.’

Another whole day. But to ride into the Capetian camp, as any common sightseer to peer and pry … No. I would not do that.

‘Tomorrow then. We will hold an audience in the Great Chamber.’

‘I will arrange it.’ The Archbishop bowed again and departed, well satisfied, as was I.

I went back to the window, straining to see if I could make out the distant figure of my future husband. I could not, of course. My gaze strayed to the nearer, familiar vista of Bordeaux. My days here were now numbered. I would have to leave all this, my well-loved home, the dry, sun-baked south. I had known Bordeaux all my life, the warm, golden walls enclosing vineyards and gardens as well as our own ducal palace. Churches with their spires arrowing to heaven. The market and port with ships landing goods from all the known world. Paris? What did I know of it? Very little, I admitted. Landlocked. Cold and damp and northern. Whatever it was, it was about to become the centre of my new life.

‘And have you decided which language you’ll use to address your most puissant Prince?’ Aelith murmured, coming up to tuck her hand through my arm. She was definitely in the mood to annoy.

‘I shall speak my own language, of course.’

‘You’ll not make it easy for him?’

‘Why should I? He’ll gain far more from this marriage than I. Our new combined kingdom …’

‘Never mind the politics, sister. You’re too solemn. Far more important—what will you wear to meet him for the first time?’

‘Aelith! Life’s not all about dresses and mantles …’

‘Sometimes it is. Which reminds me, will you lend me your pleated undergown—the blue silk patterned with silver?’

‘No.’ It was new and precious.

‘Well, if you’re of a mind to be bad-tempered …’

It was in my mind to snap at her but I could not; marriage might demand a parting between us, a thought that brought me no happiness. Moreover she had a point. It mattered that I make an impression on Louis Capet. I would make him notice me. I was Duchess of Aquitaine, not some poor petitioner to fall on her knees to beg the Capetian hand of charity to raise her from the dust.

The Devil whispered in my ear.

Are you sure you want to be bound to a man, to be dependent on his yea or nae? Is this how you see your life—at the beck and call of this unknown prince, for you to be his vassal, his possession, obedient to his commands?

No, I didn’t want it but I had no choice. I was fifteen years old, Duchess of Aquitaine and Gascony, Countess of Poitou in my own right. Unable to defend my lands from the jackals and vultures, I must bow to the inevitable. I had made up my mind to it.

I would mate with the Devil himself if it would keep Aquitaine safe.

Aelith borrowed my undergown anyway, but by then events had overtaken me: blue silk undergowns had become entirely inconsequential.

‘You are magnificent,’ Aelith observed.

I raised my chin. I knew it. True to his word, early next morning, before the heat of the day built to a furnace, Archbishop Geoffrey had himself ferried across the river to escort the Prince to meet me, his affianced wife. I sat in my audience chamber and waited for him, a vision of Aquitaine splendour.

Aelith’s advice in mind, I had chosen a gown of deep blue. To be the possessor of hair the rich red-brown of a vixen’s pelt put many colours out of bounds, but the blue of the Virgin’s robe was becoming. Beneath it I wore under-tunics of silk and fine linen, while over it a long flowing surcoat so that the full skirts lapped around me, trailing as I walked in gilded leather shoes. A jewelled belt clipped my waist with another loop around my hips. A long transparent veil secured by a gold and jewelled filet did not hide my hair but drew attention to it, braided along its length with blue and gold ribbons to hang almost to my knees. All in all a statement of imperious power—if not entirely comfortable in the sultry heat. Attention was drawn to my eyes, to my lips and cheeks by the judicious use of artificial colour. Rings flattered my hands, earrings dripped from lobe to shoulder.

And I waited.

An hour passed.

He kept me waiting.

I was not used to being kept waiting, in a life where servants leapt to do my bidding. But I would show neither anxiety nor anger. I would not go to the wall-walk to look out. I sat on my high-backed chair on the dais and stilled my fingers that wanted to tap their impatience. I watched the door at the far end of the vast chamber. The sun lifted towards noon and sweat trickled down my spine.

Still I sat. Temper began to hum beneath my skin. He dared to keep me waiting! Me, in whose veins ran the blood of a long line of victorious warrior knights. He would slight me, Eleanor …

Where was this Prince of France? By God, I’d wait no longer …!

And then the tramp of an armed guard. The soft murmur of voices. The Frankish soldiers marched into my audience chamber—much as an invading force—to position themselves into a protective phalanx at the door. But I focused on the man who came to a halt under the arched doorway, looking around with wide eyes, only stepping forward at a murmur from my Archbishop on his right.

Louis Capet walked slowly towards me. Louis le Jeune. Now that the moment was here my palms were slick with sweat. I resisted the urge to wipe them down the silk of my skirts.

The Prince halted, as if looking for encouragement.

I studied him while he was still distant from me, gaining a fistful of impressions. My heart sank. Who would I compare him with? The only men I had known, of course. My grandfather. My father. My father’s younger brother Raymond, now Prince of Antioch. With these men as my only measuring stick, I had expected a warrior, a bold knight to march forward to claim the prize, a lord with presence, as much at home in a chamber of government as in the lists or on the battlefield. As a Prince of France I had at least anticipated a supreme confidence. When the men of my family had entered a room, it had been instantly full of their authority and forceful personality.

The lingering shades of the rulers of Aquitaine faded as Prince Louis walked forward slowly, the Archbishop once again at his side with an encouraging smile. This, then, was the man I would wed. He stopped before me, bowed with elegance and smiled. As good manners dictated, I stood and, lifting the trailing hems of my skirts, stepped from the dais and held out my hand in greeting.

Louis was tall, as tall as I, for which I was grateful. His hair was long and fair, waving to his shoulders. Blue eyes, the blue of a summer sky, were direct and almost childlike in their openness. Fine features, a straight nose and austere cheeks. His mouth was well moulded, curved into a sweet, disarming smile. He had taken a razor to his cheeks and chin, his skin soft and smooth. Without doubt, as any woman would see, an attractive man.

Will he be attractive in bed?

The thought that leapt into my mind, as silkily as my rosary beads slipped through my fingers at Mass, did not surprise me. After all, what was the purpose of this union if not to safeguard the future of my domains through the begetting of a child? Would he be pleasing? I thought he would. His shoulders were broad, his figure elegant. His hands were beautiful and slender. I would not object to intimacy with this man.

‘My lady.’ His voice was soft, pleasant to the ear as he bowed again with exquisite grace.

‘My lord, you are right welcome,’ I replied in similar Latin, the formal diplomatic language of the court.

As he bent his head to press his lips to my fingers, I assessed his clothing with some surprise. His garments were of fine wool, the best I had seen, and in the most magnificent red that I did not wear but coveted—a red-haired woman would not choose to wear such a hue unless she was totally witless—but the garment was in what I would have called an outdated fashion. The overgown reached Louis’s ankles, rather than his knees, over a plain linen under-tunic that showed at neck and hem. No bands of braiding or embroidery to enhance the collar or sleeves, only minimal stitching around the neck and that without style. He wore no jewels. His belt was of good quality but plain leather, as were his boots. He had dressed well but completely without show to draw attention to his rank.

He wore no sword at his belt. The Dukes of Aquitaine wore a sword unless in the bedchamber. And even then, until persuaded to remove it by the lady who shared their sheets.

How could the heir of France not wear a sword, the ultimate symbol of power?

I pursed my lips faintly through my smile, trying not to be over-critical. So he did not like display and ostentation. That did not make him less of a man. Perhaps as a Prince of France he saw no need to emphasise his status with sword and poignard on the day he met his intended bride. But his hands and face were pale, un-weathered. The fingers that held mine bore no calluses from sword or shield or even horse harness. He was no warrior, no fighter for sure. He bore no trace of hard campaigning through rain and sun.

Neither was he finding it easy to choose what to say next to me. An awkward little silence fell between us. Which I broke.

‘I have looked forward to this moment when we would meet, my lord,’ I said.

Louis flushed, his fair skin pink as an early rose. I saw his throat convulse as he swallowed.

‘Lady. I have heard much of your beauty. The rumours were not false. Your eyes are as fine and rare as … as emeralds.’

His flush deepened. I saw myself reflected in his eyes and knew that he was much taken with me. But that was not the reason for the ripple of surprised pleasure that stirred the fine hairs at my nape. Oh …

His flattering words were not in Latin!

How this man had courted me. And I had not at first noticed. He had gone to the considerable trouble to learn at least some words in my own language, the langue d’oc of the south, the official language of Aquitaine, rather than the langue d’oeil that Louis would speak in his Frankish kingdom.

‘You honour me,’ I murmured, failing to hide my astonishment.

‘I have tried. I learned the phrases on my journey here,’ he admitted with a soft laugh. ‘But my conversation would be limited. Perhaps we should revert to Latin. God give you good health, my lady.’

And so we slid smoothly into Latin again because we must, but the gesture to me was a fine one.

Louis kissed my fingers again, then my cheeks, enveloping me in a cloud of sweet perfume. His lips were gentle on my skin. So he had bathed and anointed himself before coming to me. My pleasure deepened.

‘Forgive me that I did not come sooner,’ Louis explained. ‘I ordered a Mass to be said. I had to give thanks to God for my safe arrival.’

‘You are certainly well protected,’ I observed, with an eye to his guards.

‘My father and Abbot Suger—my father’s chief counsellor who has accompanied me at my father’s orders—both insisted. They must guarantee my safety in dangerous territory.’

It was said completely without guile, despite the covert slur on the state of law in my lands, neither was it the reply I had expected—but, of course, his father would be concerned. ‘Of course.’ I raised my hand to indicate a table with two low chairs set for us in a window embrasure. ‘Here is wine, my lord. Please sit and be at ease.’

We sat. At a signal my servants approached to pour the wine and uncover gold dishes of candied fruits and sugared plums. Louis accepted the cup from my hand.

‘Let us drink to our union.’ I raised mine to my lips. ‘May it be long and fruitful, to the advantage of both France and Aquitaine. As sweet as the sugarplums.’ I gestured to the bowl.

‘It will be my greatest delight.’

Louis took a small sip before pushing the cup aside. He declined the sweetmeats. His gaze was fixed on my face. Again an uneasy silence fell between us.

‘What is it?’ I asked. I did not care to be stared at quite so fixedly.

He shook his head, formally grave. ‘I can’t believe my good fortune. If my brother had lived, he would have wed you. His misfortune is my gain. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. How can I not love you?’

My breath caught on a little laugh of surprise at his lack of worldliness. ‘I am deeply grateful.’ It was impossible to respond in any other fashion to so ingenuous an admission after ten minutes of acquaintance.

Louis was unaware. ‘I have brought gifts for you, lady, to express my esteem.’ He motioned forward one of his servants, indicating that he lift the lid of a little gold-bound coffer. ‘My father considered these to be a suitable gift for a young bride.’

His father considered …

If I was disappointed I did not speak it. Neither did I show my initial reaction to the choice of adornment for a new bride. In the coffer coiled a heavy chain of gold. A brooch to pin a mantle. Heavy matching bracelets. Valuable without doubt, set with magnificent cabochon gems, as large as pigeon’s eggs, but heavy, as suitable for a man as for a woman. And somehow northern, without finesse or the delicacy of form that I knew. Chains of gold, I thought, to tie me to the marriage. I promptly buried the thought and expressed my thanks.

‘Rubies are the most prized of jewels,’ Louis informed me ingenuously. ‘They preserve the wearer from the effects of poison.’

Poison? Did he expect me to be poisoned in my own domain? Or in Paris? It was in my mind to ask him. And rubies, for a red-haired woman. How unfortunate. And then not least—why had the Prince not chosen them himself for the woman he would marry?

How could a gift have been so unacceptable on so many levels?

‘I will value them,’ I replied graciously. My upbringing had been superb. ‘I have a gift for you too, my lord.’

I had thought long and hard about it. What to give a man on the occasion of our marriage. Not a sword—far too warlike. A stallion? Perhaps. I had rejected jewels. Then I had decided on something lasting, of beauty, an object of great value that would remind Louis of this moment every time his glance fell on it.

It stood on the table beside the wine flagon, wrapped about in silk. With a twist of my wrist I loosed the shroud to reveal a truly spectacular piece of workmanship from our own treasury in Aquitaine. It was old and very rare, a vase of roc crystal, decorated with gold filigree work, inset with pearls. The crystal shone with inner fire in the sunlight.

Louis touched it with one finger, his face solemn. ‘It is beautiful, but no more beautiful than you, lady.’

And that was it. He neither touched it nor looked at it again. Was it not to his taste? How could such a thing of exquisite workmanship not please? It cried out to be handled, the crystal facets stroked and warmed between palms and fingers. I felt a frown gathering and struggled to smooth it out.

He does not look at it because he cannot take his eyes from your own face! You should be gratified indeed.

True enough.

Louis took my hand again, holding it strongly between his as if he needed to urge me. ‘We’ll wed immediately. I must return home to Paris—as soon as we can settle our affairs.’

Oh! So soon! My days in Aquitaine were fewer than I had supposed. ‘I had hoped to show you the hospitality of Aquitaine, my lord,’ I suggested. ‘We can take our time. Do you not wish to know your new land, your new subjects? What need to hurry so?’

Louis leaned forward so that his face was close to mine, lowering his voice. For one brief moment I thought he was actually going to kiss me, and stiffened at his boldness. No such thing.

‘Are your lords so peaceful and welcoming, then, to a Frankish prince?’ he asked, his breath warm on my cheek. ‘I do not think so. Abbot Suger is wary of staying longer than necessary.’

‘My lords are not hostile,’ I remarked carefully, unsettled by his openness, reluctant to admit to the lukewarm acceptance he would receive. ‘It is just that they don’t know you.’

Louis smiled immediately. ‘Then I’ll speak with them and win them over. I’ll be a fair ruler. I know they’ll accept that.’

Was he quite so innocent? So guileless?

‘They’ll come and swear fealty to you,’ I assured him. ‘They have been summoned.’

And pray God they buried their sour temper and bent the knee or we’d have trouble on our hands. How would this gentle, unassuming man deal with open defiance?

‘Then we’ll await their coming. Two weeks, my lady, but no longer. My father is ill. I am instructed to return by Abbot Suger.’

I chose my reply carefully. Soft acquiescence until I knew him better. ‘Then we will leave in two weeks, my lord, as you wish.’

Louis rose to his feet, drawing me with him with a hand to my arm. ‘There’s no need for concern, lady.’

‘Concern?’

‘I can understand your trepidation at being taken so far from your home. Neither have you your mother to give you advice.’

‘I don’t fear it, sir.’ My voice had more of an edge than I had intended.

‘We’ll make you welcome in Paris. My own lady mother is keen to meet you. I trust you’ll not be lonely there. I wouldn’t want you to be unhappy in any degree.’

My reaction at what I had considered to be a slight to my maturity softened. Here was care for my well-being, where I had not expected it. It wrapped around my heart, a warm hand, that the Prince should even consider my isolation in a foreign land, in an unfamiliar court.

‘I would bring my women with me, sir. My sister.’

‘Of course. It’s my wish that you be comfortable,’

Whatever else this prince was, he was kind, generous. I curtsied deeply. ‘Tonight we hold a feast in your name, my lord.’

He placed his hand on his heart and bowed. ‘It will be my pleasure.’

And then as the Prince departed, surrounded by his bodyguard, I was left to sort through those first impressions. A mixed bag, for sure.

He had great charm, a winning smile. He was good to look at—but Prince Louis was not his own man, his actions, even his choice of gift under the thumb of his father. How … disappointing! I had expected a more forceful personality from a Frank, with their reputation for drawing swords first and asking questions later. Louis had not even worn a sword.

I ate one of the neglected sugarplums, licking the sugar from my fingers, considering the weight of jewellery in the casket.

Could this Louis Capet protect my lands for me? Hard to imagine at first sight. Louis was no war stallion, forsooth! More a gentle palfrey. I suspected that, if it came to a fight, the rebel Count of Angoulême would trample him into the dust of Aquitaine before the Prince had buckled on his weapons.

I sighed.

But perhaps all was not lost. Perhaps there were advantages to be gained here. If the Prince came readily to his father’s hand on the bridle, why should he not come equally readily to mine? Could I not replace Fat Louis’s influence with my own? Surely it was not an impossibility? Since the Prince admired my person and my face so greatly, could he not be persuaded to listen to me and take my advice? I would tutor him in how to deal with my vassals. I would educate him in ruling Aquitaine. I would make myself indispensable to Louis Capet.

I smiled as I ate another plum.

Prince Louis might not be the worst husband in the world.

I stood and brushed the sugar from my sleeves. As I prepared to leave the chamber, waving my women to go before me so that I could fall into step with Aelith, it caught my eye. Louis had left the vase. There it stood, the sun still creating tiny rainbows within its crystal. Conscious of a little knot of disappointment, I instructed a servant to wrap and pack it carefully for the long journey to Paris. Then I closed the lid on the French casket. I supposed I would have to wear the gift for my wedding but I would not choose to wear it again. Still, I had hoped that Louis would have admired the vase …

‘Well?’ Aelith.

‘He’s good to look at. He’s thoughtful and considerate.’

‘He’s as pretty as a girl. So your husband will protect your lands for you, will he?’ As ever, my sister was not slow to voice her opinions. ‘Will this boy do it, do you think?’

‘Why should he not?’

‘He’s milk and water compared to our father!’

A flash of my eye silenced her. The fact that she had mirrored my own misgivings did not comfort me. I wanted a hawk. An eagle. I feared I was being matched with a dove.

‘He’s young.’ My reply was diplomatic. ‘We’ll grow together. And I will be at his side to strengthen him.’

‘I think your pretty prince is a virgin, lady.’ Bernart tapped an impudent rhythm against the belly of his lute.

I was feeling beleaguered here. Were Louis’s shortcomings as obvious to everyone as they were to me? I hoped not. To be the object of pity was more than I could tolerate.

‘Perhaps he is a virgin still. He is a perfect knight.’ I tried for magnificent sangfroid.

‘But will he be able to couch his lance?’ Aelith smirked, squeezing my hand.

A jest as old as time. I think I laughed with her.

I did not laugh later.

CHAPTER TWO

‘HOW long will this … this affair last?’ The Prince’s lips tightened into a thin line of disapproval.

As was customary at so momentous occasion as a ducal marriage, we gathered in the antechamber of the Ombrière Palace, to lead the procession through the Great Hall and up to the High Table. Louis looked weary, as if he would gladly cancel the whole affair and make a run for it. It could not be. Today, the day of our marriage, we were on show, and I was alert for even one disparaging expression, one whispered aside.

‘As long as it takes to impress your new vassals!’ I smiled at him with clenched teeth, my new husband of less than an hour, and closed my hand over his arm to shackle him to the spot. Words hot enough to scorch sprang into my mouth. Did this Frankish prince not understand what he was getting from this marriage, how much land was now his? Surely it was worth an hour or two of feasting, of building bridges. I almost lost my struggle not to lecture him on the value of diplomacy over a cup of wine and a platter of succulent meats—until Aelith attached herself to my side. She pulled me a little away.

‘We’ve no time for gossip,’ I remarked, seeing Louis almost physically retreat from the crush without my restraining grip.

Had I said that all was done in a hurry? Two weeks was all it took to get us to the altar. Two weeks that gave my vassals ample time to respond to the summons to attend the wedding and pay homage to their new overlord. Most did, with ill grace, but at least they put in a stiff-necked, close-lipped appearance. Some were conspicuous by their absence—the Count of Angoulême being the one to cause tongues to wag—but enough were present to raise their voices in acclaim of Louis, who, in joining his hand with mine, was now Duke of Aquitaine and Gascony, Count of Poitou. Walking through streets afterwards to cheering crowds, music, leaves cast before our feet, Louis’s guards had pressed close about us, but still it was an auspicious beginning. The cries were not hostile, although, in truth, the roasting carcasses of beef and the hogsheads of ale craftily provided by my Archbishop for the populace would have sweetened the voices.

Now the deed was done.

In those two weeks I never set eyes on the Prince unless he came as a reluctant guest to a celebratory event, and never alone, always hedged about by soldiers and under the watchful eye of the man I learned directed his every step. Abbot Suger, right-hand man of Fat Louis. I knew no more about the Prince than on that first day. Rumour had it that he spent the hours in his pavilion on his knees, thanking God for the success of this venture and praying equally for a safe return to Paris. For certain he had no stomach for outstaying his welcome in Bordeaux, just as he had no stomach for the feasting so beloved by the Aquitanians.

Now back in the Ombrière Palace for our marriage feast, I fixed Louis with a stern regard, willing him not to move, ignoring Aelith’s whisperings as I renewed my own silent vow. Louis le Jeune might now be my sovereign lord, my husband and able to command my obedience. I might have moved seamlessly from the dominance of a father to the authority of a husband, but I would not be an impotent wife, destined to sit in a solar and stitch altar cloths.

‘Eleanor! Who is that?’ Aelith persisted.

‘Who?’

‘The lord in the blue silk and grey fur—the man who’s looking at me.’

Her eye gleamed and I followed its direction.

It was worth the looking. Tall and impressively built, the Frankish lord was well on in years but his hair retained its dense hue and his face was striking, with hawklike nose and heavy brows. At this moment his mouth was taut in consideration of something that had taken his attention—perhaps my sister. His dark eyes were fixed firmly and with appreciation on her. And why not? I thought. Aelith’s burgeoning shape was revealed by the clinging deep green silk and silver embroidery. Obviously the lord was one of Louis’s entourage but I did not know him. Perhaps he was newly arrived.

‘Find out for me,’ Aelith demanded, not so sotto voce.

‘Aelith! In the middle of my wedding feast?’ But I humoured her. ‘Who is the lord with the fiery eye?’ I moved to murmur to Louis.

He looked across, face open in welcome. ‘My cousin, Raoul. Count Raoul of Vermandois. Why?’

‘No reason. He looks very proud.’

Louis raised his hand to draw the lord’s attention. ‘And rightly. He’s Seneschal of France. His wife’s sister to Count Theobald of Champagne. Powerful connections.’

The Count approached, bowed and was introduced.

‘Lady. A happy occasion.’

His voice was as smooth as the silk I wore. When he had retired back into the crowd, to the side of an austere lady with a calculating slant to her eye—his extremely well-connected, powerful wife from Champagne, I presumed—I relayed the information to Aelith as the procession formed behind us.

‘He’s married. He’s also old enough to be your father.’

She looked at me solemnly. ‘He’s handsome. A man of authority. A man—not a boy.’

‘And of no interest to you!’

As ever, Aelith was an open book and I saw her intent: a frivolous flirtation at the feast to pass the time between one extravagant course and the next. I paid it no heed other than to consider that sometimes my sister, for all her high breeding and lack of years, had the heart and inclination of a camp whore.

‘Don’t demean yourself,’ I warned.

‘I would not!’

So now we processed down the length of the hall, took our seats and looked out over the no-expense-spared glory of our celebration. Louis and I acknowledged the good wishes and sipped the marriage cup. I tried not to notice the juxtaposition of my braided hair as it lay on my breast, with my gown and the flash of rubies in the sunlight, but I found time to regret that on the day that I was a bride, at Louis’s insistence I wore red silk damask and Fat Louis’s rubies. Louis would not be gainsaid. Red was a royal colour, he said. I should be clad as the future Queen of France. I humoured him—by the Virgin, the gold was heavy!—but not in the style of my gown. The cut of it was opulent and pure Aquitaine so that Louis’s pale brows rose at my trailing skirts and oversleeves that had to be tied in elegant knots to prevent them dragging in the dust. I was right—he did not approve of ostentation.

At least for once Louis looked the part, fair and comely beneath the Aquitaine gold of the ducal coronet, despite the compressed lips. His servants had got to grips with him and turned him out as a prince, as if he had more than two silver pennies to rub together. In fact, he dazzled the eye. Perhaps his father and the omnipresent Abbot Suger had insisted on the red and gold tunic, heavy with embroidery, giving bulk to his figure and an unquestionable air of majesty.

The feast began, the troubadours sang. The great names of the lords of Gascony and Aquitaine were spread as a mosaic before us. Lusignan and Auvergne, Périgord and Armagnac. Châteauroux. Parthenay. My father had kept them tightly controlled by a clever show of force coupled with an open hand of generosity, but I knew that as soon as I was in Paris they’d be gnawing at the edges of my land, like rats on a decaying carcass. The image made me shiver. I sent platters of food and flagons of ale in their direction and bent a beaming smile on them. Nothing like a feast to soften hostilities. Along the table to my right I tried not to watch as Aelith cast inappropriate glances towards the forbidden Count Raoul, who was not slow in returning them, despite his wife’s obvious displeasure, her hand fastening like a claw on his wrist to keep his attention. On my left Louis was toying with a meagre plate of roast suckling pig whilst all around tucked in with hearty appetite.

‘Does it not please you, sir?’ I asked.

Before us on the white cloth was spread a beribboned swan, proud and upright, its neck skewered with iron to keep it erect, the whole resting on a lake of green leaves. Accompanying this masterpiece of creation was a peppered peacock, a spit-roast piglet, a haunch of venison, while servants carried in an endless procession of ducks and geese and sauced cranes.

Louis frowned at the display. ‘I am not used to such opulence.’

‘But this is a celebration.’

‘And it would be wrong of me not to enjoy it.’ He speared a piece of the meat on his knife and ate it. But only one piece, unlike my vassals who stuffed piece after piece into their mouths until they were sated. Perhaps, I made the excuse, it was a reaction against his father’s gluttony. I could not fault him in that.

Bernart, my favourite of all my troubadours, sank to his knee before me.

‘I ask permission to sing of your beauty, lady.’ And not waiting for assent, because no Aquitanian ever refused a song, he broke into the familiar verses.

For beauty there’s no equal

Of the Queen of Joy.

I threw a pouch of gold to land at his feet in acknowledgement of his compliment, as he slid into a verse I did not know.

‘From afar the King has come, come to interrupt the dance.

‘For he fears another man may boldly seize the chance to wed the April Queen.’

So the gifted Bernart had written this verse for the occasion—and my heart fluttered a little at the compliment. My troubadour knew my value to the King of France and would broadcast it to the winds. April Queen. I liked it almost as much as Queen of Joy—and I certainly approved the idea that I was much sought after. What woman would not? And so I turned to Louis, laughing in surprised delight.

‘Well, sir? Do you like the sentiment?’

‘No. I do not.’

‘Why not?’ The flat denial astonished me. ‘Any woman would be delighted with the idea of rivals for her hand. It is the essence of love.’

The muscles in Louis’s jaw tightened. ‘I don’t like the sentiment of having to snatch you up before another man forestalled me.’ I saw his nostrils narrow as he inhaled. The corners of his mouth were tightly tucked in as if the scents of the spiced meats were suddenly distasteful. ‘And I have feasted enough.’ Casting down his knife, he signalled for a finger bowl.

‘Do you not find it pleasing?’ I asked, suddenly uneasy, uncertain of his intentions. It seemed to me petulant beyond words. Did he want the feast to end? Did he intend to leave? It would be far too discourteous. To end my wedding feast now would be the height of bad manners. Did Louis not see that?

‘Not inordinately. Not as much as you, it seems.’ His soft voice had acquired an edge as he turned to stare directly into my eyes. ‘Do you know what they say of you? The lords at my father’s court?’

‘Of me? No. What do they say of me?’

‘Not of you,’ he amended, ‘but of your people. They say that men from Aquitaine and Poitou value gluttony rather than military skill.’

How patently untrue! Was he being deliberately gauche? Surely he would not be so coarse in his criticism on this day of all days. ‘Is that all they can find to say?’

‘They say you’re talkative, boastful, lustful, greedy, incapable of …’

The words dried on his tongue, his cheeks flew red flags, as he suddenly realised to whom he spoke. ‘Forgive me.’ He looked down at his dish with its uneaten mess of meat and sauce. ‘I did not think …’

I felt resentment stiffen my spine. How dared he slander me and my people on so short an acquaintance? I might see their shortcomings but it was not this Frankish prince’s place to denigrate them. By what right did he measure them and find them wanting? ‘Do you not feast and sing in Paris, then? Do the Franks not find time from government for pleasure and entertainment?’

‘I did not sing and feast. Not at Saint-Denis.’

‘What is that? A palace?’

‘A monastery.’

‘Did you visit there?’

‘I was brought up there.’

The words sank in, but with them not much understanding. ‘You were brought up in a monastery?’

‘Did you not know?’

‘No. As a priest?’

‘More or less.’

‘Did you enjoy it?’ I could not imagine it. My quick anger was replaced by interest.

‘Yes.’ A smile softened the tension in his jaw and the feverish light in his eye faded. ‘Yes, I did. The order of the day, each one like the last. The serenity in the House of God. Can you understand?’ His voice took on an enthusiasm I had not heard before, his pale eyes shone. ‘The perpetual prayers for God’s forgiveness, the voices of the monks rising up with the incense. I liked nothing better than to keep vigil through the night—’

‘But did you not learn the art of government?’ I interrupted. ‘Did you not sit with your father and hear good advice and counsel?’ Surely that would have been of far greater use than the rule of Saint Benedict.

‘I was never intended to rule, you see,’ Louis explained. ‘My elder brother—Philip—was killed by a scavenging sow at loose on the quay. Philip fell from his horse when it reared.’ Louis’s voice was suddenly hoarse with suppressed grief. ‘There was no hope for him—his neck broke in the filth of the gutter.’

‘Oh!’

‘He was an accomplished warrior. He would have been a great king.’

‘My son.’ A soft voice from Louis’s other side broke in. The ever-present Abbot Suger, sent by Fat Louis to keep his eye on the son and heir. He leaned forward, a slight, elderly man with deceptively mild demeanour, to look at me as much as at Louis. ‘My son, the lady does not wish to hear of your life at Saint-Denis. Or of Philip. You are heir to the throne now.’

‘But the Lady Eleanor asked if I had enjoyed my life there.’

‘You must look to your future together now.’

The Abbot had the thin, lined face of an aesthete. His hair was as glossily white as an ermine, his small dark eyes just as inquisitive. They summed me up in that instant and I suspected they found me wanting.

‘Of course. Forgive me.’ Louis nodded obediently. ‘That life is all in the past.’

‘But I think you miss it.’ I was reluctant to allow the Abbot to dictate the direction of our conversation.

‘Sometimes.’ The volume of noise rose around us again as Louis smiled self-deprecatingly. ‘I was intended for the Church, you see. I was taught to value abstinence and prayer. To give my mind to higher pursuits than—than this.’ The sweep of his hand to the now roistering crowd was, whether he intended it or not, entirely derogatory. Unfortunately Bernart, roaming the room with lute to hand, chose the moment to swing into a well-loved song, with a raucous chorus for all to join in. Since the wine was flowing, the merrymakers were in good heart.

Don’t marry this cheat, sweet Jeanne, for he is stupid and unlettered.

Don’t take him to your bed, sweet Jeanne, your lover would be far better.

Louis smacked his hand down on the cloth, making the silver dishes dance. ‘Listen! How can you approve of that? Your minstrels sing of lust and intimacy not sanctioned by the Church or by any moral code. They have no respect for women and encourage them to behave without restraint.’

The hearty phrase ‘these flaming whores’ was bellowed from a hundred throats, both men and women.

‘It is immoral. Degrading. Such verses should be forbidden. Such foul-mouthed braggarts as this … this scurrilous minstrel should be whipped through the streets for their impertinence.’ Louis’s voice rose alarmingly.

‘But he is not a scurrilous minstrel,’ I objected. ‘He is Bernart Sicart of Maruejols.’

A blank look, and derisory at that.

‘He is famous throughout Aquitaine. My father thought very highly of him.’

‘His words are insulting and offensive! I don’t want him at my court.’

A trickle of fear, as hard and cold as ice, invaded my chest. It hadn’t taken my new lord long, had it, to wield his new authority over me? He did not know me very well.

‘I’ll not dismiss him.’

‘Even if I demand it?’

‘Why should you? He is mine and I’ll remain his patron. You’ll not change my mind in this.’ I closed my lips against my lord. I was beyond terms of respect.

As Louis sought for a reply, quietness fell, as sometimes happened in a crowd.

‘Colhon!’

I heard the comment drift across from my left. No attempt was made to mute it and I froze, my fingers clenched around my spoon, in humiliation for Louis—for myself. I felt my skin flush as bright as his. Abandoning the spoon, I curled my fingers round Louis’s wrist. I could feel the temper rising.

‘Do you think that of me? As ruler of Aquitaine? That I am immoral, my thoughts fit only for the sewer?’ My cheeks might flame, my temper might burn, but my voice was tight with control.

‘No. I think you are beautiful beyond measure,’ Louis replied with disarming candour, his voice returning to its low timbre. ‘I think your mind is as fine as your face. I can find no fault in you. I can’t believe you are my wife.’

My mind struggled to grasp the quick lunge and feint of this conversation. Was Louis so naive that he would think to win my favour by this lurch from condemnation to flattery? How dared he pick and prod at my own people, at my way of life, within an hour of our marriage? So he could find no fault in me. I admitted to no fault in me! Or with the uninhibited behaviour and language of my guests. Temper remained hot in my blood as I retrieved my spoon in a pretence of sampling a dish of succulent figs.

Clearly disturbed at the flash in my eye, Louis lifted his cup, intending to take a hearty swallow of wine—but Abbot Suger was instantly there to place a hand on his wrist.

‘Perhaps not, my lord.’

And Louis immediately pushed away the cup. ‘No. It would be better if I did not.’

‘Do you always take his advice?’ I demanded.

‘Yes. My lord Abbot always has my best interest at heart. He would never advise me wrongly.’ Louis looked puzzled. ‘Do you have no one to advise you, lady?’

‘No.’

‘Then how do you know what to do, what decisions to take?’

I had to think about that. It was not a question I had ever been asked, to justify my desires and needs. The answer was simple enough. ‘When my father was alive, we travelled constantly. I watched and I learned. And now I act as I know he would have done. He was a good man. I miss him,’ I admitted.

Louis’s face was transfigured by a blinding smile. ‘You need me, Eleanor. I will advise you.’

Could a child brought up as a monk give me advice, brought up as I had been in my father’s court? I did not think so. ‘I hope we will come to an agreement,’ I compromised.

‘My lord will rule your lands wisely, my lady,’ Abbot Suger interposed.

I bit back a sharp reply. Of course, it would happen whether I liked it or not. I lowered my voice, leaning towards Louis, suddenly intent on mischief.

‘If we are speaking of advice, my lord—try this dish.’ I offered a flat silver platter stacked high with translucent grey shells. ‘Oysters are known to raise the humours and make a man think of a night heating the bed linen with a beautiful woman. Oysters give a man magnificent stamina.’

He looked at me as if I had struck him. ‘My lady!’

‘I am your wife. Is this not a proper conversation?’

Louis swallowed. ‘I think it is very forward, madam …’

I hooded my eyes. ‘It would please me if you would try them. I shall. We might both be pleased with the result tonight.’

Louis le Jeune looked like a hunted rabbit. With regret, I thought we were both in for some inexpert fumbling before we came to know each other. I wished my husband might have some experience, even if he lacked finesse. Entirely oblivious to my anger, my barely concealed scorn, Louis accepted the oysters without comment. I prayed silently that the old wives knew the efficacy of the succulent shellfish.

Barely had he lifted one, unenthusiastically, to his mouth than a courier approached down the length of the hall, pushing aside servants and guests alike. I expected him to come to me, but, of course, he would approach Louis—no, he bowed before the Abbot, which spiked my irritation further. The messenger stooped, whispered in Suger’s ear so that I could not hear. The Abbot issued a number of terse replies, brusque enough to fix my attention. Relaying the information to Louis, there passed between Abbot and Prince a welter of instructions and affirmations as the courier left the hall as fast as he had come.

I had been involved in none of it.

‘What is it?’ I would not be kept in the dark.

Louis turned reluctantly to me. ‘A problem.’

‘Well?’ I raised my beautifully plucked brows.

‘We leave now.’

‘Leave … You mean the palace? In the middle of the feast?’ As bad as I had feared.

‘We leave Bordeaux. It is not safe.’

‘Not safe? How could it not be safe in my own streets, my own city? No one would dare harm me here …’

Abbot Suger offered the explanation, speaking around Louis, his expression bleak. ‘An ambush, I am informed, outside the walls, my lady. Planned for tomorrow, under the auspices of the Count of Angoulême. Your vassal. He will take you both prisoner and assume the power in Aquitaine for himself.’

‘Angoulême? I don’t believe it. A show of force would soon drive him off …’

Louis took my hand, actually patted it as if I needed his comfort. ‘I’ll not risk it. I’ve given orders for my camp to be struck and your immediate possessions packed. We ride at once.’

So he would order the disposition of my own possessions. ‘Are we to run away?’ I asked between disbelief and fury.

‘No, no. We’ll forestall him. A far better course of action.’

‘It seems cowardly to me. Where do we go?’ To leave now before the bridal night? I had a sudden vivid picture of spending it in a ditch, beside a road.

‘It’s arranged, by my lord Abbot. We stay at the castle of Taillebourg tonight.’

‘It’s … it’s more than eighty miles to Taillebourg!’

‘It’s owned by one of your vassals who did homage to me—so it’s safe for us.’ Louis stood. Everyone on the dais surged to their feet, startled. Louis ignored them. ‘Make ready, my wife.’

I had, of course, no choice but to comply. It was as if the prospect of action had given Louis a much-needed bolt of confidence, and I could do nothing but walk at his side between the ranks of guests. Pairs of eyes followed us, in shock or amusement. Did they think we would pre-empt the bridal night? That Louis was too urgent to wait? All I saw on his face was strain, perhaps even fear.

Stopping only to change my marriage splendour for garments more suitable for an all-out flight, I was hurried from the palace—my vassals still unaware and feasting in the Great Hall—and rowed across the Garonne to where Louis was already preparing to mount and waiting for me, clad in mail as if expecting trouble to descend on our heads at any moment.

‘Lady!’ He waved his hand impatiently as I stepped from the boat, Aelith and some baggage following me. ‘What took you so long? Do you really need all of that? We mustn’t stay. I’ve ordered a horse litter for your comfort.’ He pointed to the cumbersome transport with its enveloping curtains, slung between four sturdy horses. I had travelled in such a palanquin—but rarely—and remembered the bruises and bone-shuddering jolts. And the tedium.

‘I thought we were in a hurry,’ I remarked.

‘We are.’

‘Then what point in a litter? I’ll ride.’

‘I think not. It’s too slow,’ Louis fretted, pulling me to one side with a hand around my forearm as if he would rather not have me question his decision in public view.

‘Slow?’

‘Too slow, with a sidesaddle and planchet for your feet and a groom to lead.’

Now I understood. I despised the litter but not as much as I despised the wooden seat with its solid foot-rest to allow a lady to ride in safety. I shook Louis’s hand off. He might be my husband of five hours but this was not good sense. ‘I’ll ride astride. No need of a groom or a leading rein. I’ve ridden all my life.’ I pulled on a pair of serviceable leather gloves, keeping my eyes firmly on his.

‘What?’ He was horrified.

‘I can keep up with you, my lord. Fetch me a horse to match your own.’

Louis cleared his throat and looked askance. Would he deny me that right, to decide the manner of my travel?

‘That is what I wish. And I will do it.’ I left him in no doubt.

‘The lady is right.’ The Abbot, stripped of his ecclesiastical garb for leather and light mail, strode up to chivvy us along. ‘If she is willing …’

‘She is!’ I flashed a warning look, by now thoroughly exasperated. ‘And we are wasting time here, if the danger is so great.’

So I had my way. Louis, his face flaming with high colour, was obviously nettled by my boldness, but I left him no choice. ‘Good!’ I nodded at the well-muscled mount that was brought forward for my approval, and raised my foot for his hand. ‘Lift me, and then we can be gone.’ As I mounted astride, I tried not to look for any sense of grievance in his resigned expression. But it was there.

We rode at breakneck speed, changing horses at every river crossing, soon outstripping the escort of Frankish knights who at first pounded around us, a human wall of defence against my recalcitrant vassals. I tried not to let the snarls against treacherous southerners hurt my heart, even as I accepted the rightness of them. So we rode as if the Devil himself pursued us rather than the Count of Angoulême—and we saw no trace of him. Hour after hour, without rest except to snatch a mouthful of bread and a gulp of wine to sustain us. Abbot Suger urged us on at every brief halt. And since he had our safety at heart, and my own people were the cause of our flight, I could hardly resist, even though I could have fallen from my saddle with weariness towards the end. Aelith, as rank and filthy as I from sweat and dust, fared no better, but Louis showed surprising stamina. Or perhaps it was determination not to be bested twice in one day by a woman.

As the hours and the miles passed, I felt his anxious eyes travel over me when my muscles shrieked their weariness and my eyelids threatened to close. Yes, he had concern for me, I thought. There was no malice in the frequent glances, even though I had insisted and must now pay the price. I doubted there was a malicious bone in his body. But I would give him no cause for complaint. I stiffened my shoulders, set my mind against aching muscles and chafed skin and pushed my horse—a clumsy, raw-boned creature but the best to be had in the circumstances—on again into a gallop.

‘Did you hear what they called him?’ Aelith whispered over a shared cup of wine at the next brief halt. ‘At the feast?’

‘Yes.’

‘Colhon! Stupid as a testicle!’

‘No need to repeat it!’

What woman would wish to be wed to a figure of ridicule?

Taillebourg. At last. In the considerable fortress belonging to one of my more loyal vassals, I was shown into the private quarters of Geoffrey de Rancon where comfort closed around me. Too exhausted to do more than give passing thanks for the hospitality, I took possession. A bathtub was commandeered, hot water ordered. My body might ache unmercifully from crown of head to feet but I would go clean to my marriage night. I looked at the lord of Rancon’s bed, appreciating the solid wooden frame and silk hangings complete with down mattress and fine linen sheets. The whole might not match the splendour of mine but it would suffice. Better than the threat of a dank and very public ditch.

Anticipation was a pleasant murmur in my blood as the servants arrived with a tub and buckets of water. I was neither unwilling nor anxious. I sensed that Louis, an ignorant child-monk, would have more qualms than I. I laughed softly, perhaps unfairly. Louis would not have the good Abbot to offer advice on this occasion. The water steamed, herbs filled the room with aromatic fragrance, my limbs cried out for soothing. Aelith fussed to unlace me. I cast off my gown, my undergown, my full-length shift.

A knock sounded on the door. I raised my hand to the chambermaid to forbid entry, but too late. The door opened and Louis himself, still in tunic, boots and hose and mail, stepped in. He halted on the threshold, pushing back his coif, thrusting a hand nervously through his matted hair, which clung wetly to his neck.

‘Forgive me.’ With a shy smile and what could only be described as a charming little bow, mailed gloves still clutched in his hand as if he had come straight from the stabling—as perhaps he had—he took in our surroundings. ‘I came to ask after your well-being, my lady. I see that everything has been provided for …’

His words dried. His jaw dropped. His eyes focused on my legs, where they became fixed, until they slid nervously away to my face.

‘My lord?’

‘Madam!’

I waited.

‘That … that garment …’

It had been made for me, of chamois leather. Soft, figure-hugging, hard-wearing and above all protective, it enclosed my body, covering each leg as with a soft skin of its own. Wonderfully supple, wonderfully liberating, it enabled me to move and stretch with great freedom. And to ride without discomfort. As accommodating as a man’s chausses on which it was clearly modelled.

‘Excellent, is it not?’ It pleased me to tease him. His opinions were as inflexible as stones set in gold. His reaction was much as I had anticipated.

‘It is indelicate, madam!’

‘Do you expect me to ride well nigh a hundred miles, astride, in a shift? In linen drawers perhaps?’

‘No … I … That is …’ Louis stumbled.

‘I had them made for me. For hunting. We enjoy hunting in Aquitaine.’

‘It is not seemly. The women at our court in Paris would shrink from wearing such a garment.’

‘A woman from Paris would not shrink from it if she had to flee for her life on one clumsy animal after another! But do your women not hunt? I think I must instruct them on such a garment’s practicality.’

‘You will do no such thing. My mother would be appalled.’

‘How so?’

Louis shook his head, refusing to elaborate. He did not see a need to, only to enforce my obedience. ‘As my wife, you will not wear them again.’ The expression that settled on his face was not attractive, almost vicious in its intensity.

Would I not? As if I, Duchess of Aquitaine, did not know how to conduct myself, how to present myself. ‘Really?’ I opened my mouth to tell him exactly that. But realised that I was just too tired to cross swords with this man who was almost squirming with embarrassment. If the floor had opened before his feet I swear he would have willingly leapt in. Glancing round, I saw the sly smile on Aelith’s face. I could not humiliate him more. Louis would soon learn and become accustomed to my ways. Taking pity on him, I donned a robe to cover the offending article. But that was as far as I would go.

‘I should inform you, my lord—I shall wear this garment again tomorrow when we ride on to Poitiers. You have no right to forbid it.’

‘But I am your husband.’ His response was brutally frank.

‘As I am your wife.’

‘You have sworn to obey me.’

‘You will not dictate what garments I choose to wear. Particularly when they are covered by my skirts and not obvious to any onlooker. Only to a man who entered my chamber without my invitation when I might—after the day I’ve had—expect some privacy!’

As a stand-off it was magnificent.

‘As I see it,’ I continued before Louis could draw breath, ‘we’re set to travel another vast distance tomorrow. I will ride at your side, my lord, but not without protection.’

‘As you say, madam.’ He glared his rancour but I knew I had won. Louis’s response was as tight as the muscles in his neck and shoulders. ‘I advise you to take some rest. You must be exhausted. We leave early tomorrow.’ There was that flare of colour again in his face. ‘I’ll not make more demands on you. Your sister will keep you company tonight.’

It took a full minute for his words to make sense.

‘You will not stay with me?’

‘I need to pray, my lady.’ Again almost a rebuke, as if I were thoughtless and inconsiderate of any needs but my own. ‘For my father the King’s health. For our safe travel. Archbishop Suger awaits me in the chapel.’

I wrapped my dignity around me with the chamber robe. He had no intention of spending our wedding night with me. Dismay and disappointment twined to create a bright fury that I could barely contain. ‘Of course it is necessary to pray,’ I snapped. ‘You must not keep God or the Abbot waiting.’

Louis was immune to my barbs. With a bow, he was gone. I might even have thought him relieved to escape.

The water in the tub was cooling as I stepped into it and sank up to my chin, my mind not at ease. Despite the relish of victory over what I might or might not wear, I was mystified by the Prince’s rejection of me. My pride was hurt, and I resented the fact, for was I not descended from an impressive company of proud women? I considered myself not the least of their number. How could I not see my own supremacy in them? Their fire was in my own blood. Their knowledge of what was due to them coloured my own self-worth. Their ghosts had stalked me, their exploits had been the tales of my childhood.

What would they say if they had seen my weak compliance in Louis’s absence from my bed? Forsooth, my female forebears would have taken me to task.

Women such as Philippa, my paternal grandmother. High minded and unbending, she lived by the principles of duty and obedience to God, and the respect due to her as the heiress to the county of Toulouse. A formidable woman, although I found it difficult to condone her retiring to spend her final days with the nuns at the Abbey of Fontevrault, assaulting the ears of God with her prayers for revenge, when the ninth Duke, her husband and my grandfather, lived openly with his lover under Philippa’s very nose, in Philippa’s own favourite palace. I would not have left the field. I would have waged war against my neglectful husband who dared humiliate me, and against the upstart whore who had usurped my bed.

Or perhaps I would not.

Because that whore—Dangerosa—was my maternal grandmother. Originally wife to the Viscount of Chatellerault, she saw my grandfather William in full glory of mail and weaponry, and fell into love, like a gannet diving head first into the waves off Bordeaux. So too did William fall, so heavily that he must abduct Dangerosa from her bedchamber—with no obvious protest on Dangerosa’s part—and carry her off to his palace at Poitiers, where he established her in the newly constructed Maubergeonne Tower. They were besotted with each other, making no secret of their sinful union. Dangerosa raised her chin at the world’s condemnation, whilst Duke William had the lady’s portrait painted on the face of his shield. It was, he boasted, his desire to bear her likeness into battle, as she had borne the weight of his body so willingly and frequently in bed.

A tasteless jest. My grandfather had a strong streak of coarse humour.

Dangerosa never regretted her choice. She was his whore until his death, keeping her unpredictable lover more or less faithful with a will of steel, and with fearful cunning. Since she could not get Duke William legally into her bed, then her daughter would get William’s son. Thus Dangerosa’s daughter Aenor was wed to my father. Dangerosa keeping it in the family, if you will.

What would Dangerosa think of me now?

‘Am I so ugly? So undesirable?’ I asked Aelith. But I knew I was not. What I did know was it would be common knowledge that my husband had chosen not to share my bed, that he would find more fulfilment on his knees before a crucifix than with me. ‘Do you think he dislikes me?’

‘I think he finds you too beautiful,’ Aelith crooned to comfort me as she combed out my hair.

‘But not in chamois drawers.’

‘He is a man. What does he know?’

‘I thought he would erupt in a storm of temper when I refused …’

‘I doubt he has a temper in him,’ Aelith disagreed.

‘Perhaps you’re right.’ Yet there had been just that one moment when I thought I had seen a dark flare of barely controlled rage. ‘But why does he not want me?’

‘He does not know women. He does not know how to please them. Now, his cousin Lord Raoul would not hold back, I swear.’

I slapped her hand away when she tugged on a painful tangle, but she only laughed.

‘I don’t even know that he wants to please me.’ I frowned at my knees emerging from the water.

‘You didn’t make life easy for him, Eleanor,’ Aelith pointed out, fairly enough, I suppose. ‘You challenged him over how you would and would not travel—and what you would and would not wear.’

‘And that wasn’t the first. I’d already been more than forthright over the court position of my troubadour Bernart,’ I admitted with a twinge of guilt.

‘What’s wrong with Bernart?’

‘Nothing—that’s the point. Never mind—we just didn’t agree.’

‘And you haven’t been wed a full day …’

‘I suppose I’ve not been a dutiful wife, have I?’

‘There you have it. He’s a prince. He’s not used to a woman taking him to task.’

My thoughts circled round to the main issue. ‘He seeks the company of God before mine.’ For the first time in my life I was touched with true uncertainty.

‘Then you’ll just have to show him the error of his ways, won’t you?’

I was not much comforted. Aelith shared my pillows. I rose next morning from my marriage bed as much a virgin as I had entered it.

CHAPTER THREE

WHAT a welcome we received as we rode into the city of Poitiers, making our way towards the Maubergeonne Tower, grandmother Philippa’s tower, the home I loved the most. There was not the slightest hint of the rebellion that troubled the Abbot’s mind. The streets echoed to the cries of joy of my people so that even Louis was forced to smile and wave at their overt approval. And the crowds responded, urged on by Abbot Suger’s largesse. I saw the coin passed from the bound chests in the baggage-wains to the hands of the greedy populace, even if Louis did not. Louis accepted the acclamation as his right. And why should he not? When his face was filled with happiness and he was clad in mail astride a high-blooded destrier as had been arranged for this entry, he was superbly striking, a prince that they could take to their hearts.

Hope surged within me. This night would see the fulfilment of my marriage.

I was bathed and stripped by my women and took to the soft canopied bed in my own bedchamber. Nervously, expectantly, I waited. A soft knocking at the door. It was pushed open and there, at last, was Louis, under escort from Abbot Suger but otherwise alone. Well, this would be no riotous bedding ceremony with coarse jokes and bold innuendo, and I was not sorry. But it seemed to me that Louis looked as if he was under guard to prevent a precipitate flight. His expression was mutinous.

‘It is time, my lord,’ the Abbot murmured. ‘It is your duty to the lady. This marriage must be consummated.’

‘Yes.’ Louis, wrapped about in a furred brocade chamber robe, stood, hands fisted at his sides, face sullen like a child caught out in some misdemeanour.

‘Perhaps if you joined your bride in the bed, my lord …? Now, my lord!’

It might have been a request but Suger’s face was implacable.

Allowing the robe to fall to the floor, Louis stalked across the room. I was impressed. He stripped well, as I had thought he would, revealing broad shoulders and slender hips. The ascetic life had suited him. Lean, smooth, good to look at, he was well made—but obviously not aroused.

That could surely be rectified. My nurse, left behind in Bordeaux, had been explicit in what was expected of me. I had not been raised to be timid with thoughts of the flesh.

At a further impatient gesture from the Abbot, Louis slid between the sheets and leaned back against the pillows beside me, his arms folded across his chest. Making every effort not to brush against me, leaving a chilly space between us from shoulder to foot, he sighed loudly. Was it resignation? Distaste? I think he sensed the sudden leap of trepidation in my blood because he turned his head to look at me. With another little sigh, more a controlled exhalation, I saw his body relax. His smile was warm, reassuring. No, I had no need to be anxious after all.

‘My lord,’ the Abbot intoned, wasting no time. ‘My lady. God bless your union. May you be fruitful. May an heir for France come from your loins this night, my lord.’

From his capacious garments he produced a flask of holy water and proceeded to sprinkle us and the bed with a symbol of God’s presence. With a brisk nod in Louis’s direction, he looked as if he might be prepared to stay to see the deed done. We were not an ordinary couple, to order their lives to their own wishes: our marriage must be consummated before the law.

Such a necessity proved not to be to my husband’s taste. Louis scowled.

‘We’ll do well enough without your presence, sir.’

‘It is a matter of witnesses, my lord …’

‘God will be witness to what passes between myself and my wife.’

‘His Majesty, your father, will—’

‘His Majesty is not here to express his desires. It is my wish that you leave us.’

Well! Louis’s decisiveness impressed me. Abbot Suger bowed himself from the room, leaving us sitting naked, side by side. The room was still, the only sound the soft hush as ash fell from the logs in the fireplace. I sat unmoving. My husband would take the initiative, would he not?

Louis slid from the bed.

‘Where are you going?’ I demanded when I found my scattered wits.

Without replying, shrugging into his robe again, Louis crossed the room and knelt at my prie-dieu, clasped his hands and bent his fair head in prayer, murmuring the familiar words with increasing fervour so that they filled the room.

Ave Marie. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.

Blessed art thou among women

And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of Grace, pray for us now

And in the hour of our death. Amen.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.

Blessed art thou.

On and on it went. Should I join him on my knees, to pray with him? But he had not invited me, neither did I think it appropriate when this occasion demanded a physical rather than spiritual response. I clawed my fingers into the linen. I’d wager Dangerosa and my grandfather did not begin their reprehensible relationship on their knees before a crucifix.

‘Hail Mary.’

‘Louis!’ I said, cautiously. Should I disturb him in his prayers?

‘Blessed art thou among women …’

‘Louis!’ I raised my voice to an unmaidenly pitch.

Unhurriedly, Louis completed the Ave, rose, genuflected, and returned to the bed, where he once more removed his robe and slid between the sheets, but bringing with him my little Book of Hours that he proceeded to open, turning the pages slowly from one illuminated text to the next.

‘This is a very beautiful book,’ he observed.

I was tempted to snatch it from him and hurl it across the room.

Instead, I said, ‘Louis—did you not wish to marry me?’

‘Of course. My father wished it. It is an important marriage to make our alliance between France and Aquitaine. The Scriptures say it is better for a man to marry than to burn.’

I did not think, on evidence, that Louis burned.

‘But do you not want me?’

‘You are beautiful.’

So was my Book of Hours! ‘Then tell me, Louis.’ Perhaps he was simply shy. Was that it? A boy brought up by monks might be reserved and indecisive in the company of a woman who was naked and expecting some degree of intimacy. I would encourage him. ‘Tell me why you think I am beautiful. A woman always likes to know.’

‘If you wish.’ He did not close the book, keeping one finger in the page, but now he looked at me. ‘Your hair is … the russet of a dog fox. Look how it curls around my fingers.’ He touched my hair. ‘And your eyes …’ he peered into them ‘ … green.’ Lord, Louis was no poet. My troubadours would mock his lack of skill. ‘Your skin … pale and smooth. Your hands so elegant and soft but so capable—you controlled your horse as well as any man. Your shoulders …’ His fingers skimmed them thoughtfully, until he snatched them away as if they were scorched.

‘Look,’ he said suddenly, urgently. ‘Here.’ He lifted the Book of Hours so that I might see and thumbed through the pages until he came to the illustration he sought, the coloured inks vibrant. ‘Here’s an angel with your exact colouring. Is that not beautiful?’

‘Well, yes …’ It was beautiful, but unreal, with its painted features and heavy with gold leaf. Did he see me as a gilded icon? I was a woman of flesh and blood.

‘What about my lips?’ I asked. Daring, certainly forward, but why not? Once my troubadour Bernart had compared them to an opening rose, pink and perfectly petalled.

‘Sweet …’

I despaired. ‘You could kiss them.’

‘I would like to.’ Louis leaned forward and placed his lips softly on mine. Fleetingly.

‘Did you like that?’ I asked as he drew away.

His smile was totally disarming. ‘Yes.’

I placed my hand on his chest—his heart beat slow and steady—and leaned to kiss him of my own volition. Louis allowed it but did not respond. He was still smiling at the end. As a child might smile when given a piece of sugared marchpane.

‘I enjoyed it too,’ I said, desperation keen. Did he not know what to do? Surely someone would have seen to his education. He might not have been raised to know the coarse jokes and explicit reminiscences that to my experience men indulged in but surely …

‘I think we shall be happy together,’ he murmured.

‘Would you like to hold me in your arms?’

‘Very much. Shall we sleep now? It’s late and you must be weary.’

‘I thought that …’ What to say? Louis’s eyes were wide and charmingly friendly. ‘Will the Abbot not wish for proof of our union—the sheets …?’ I wouldn’t mince words. ‘The linen should be stained to prove my virginity and your ability to claim it.’

And saw the return of the initial stubbornness as his brows flattened into a line. His reply had a gentle dignity. A complete assurance. ‘The Abbot will get his proof. When I wish it.’

‘But, Louis … My women—they will mock.’

‘I care not. Neither should you. It is not their concern.’

‘They will say you have found me wanting. Or—’ even worse ‘—that I was no virgin.’

‘Then they will be wrong. I have never met a woman who has touched my heart as you have. And I know you are innocent. There now, don’t be upset. Come here …’

Abandoning the book, Louis folded me into his arms—as if he were a brother comforting a distressed sister. His manhood did not stir against my thigh despite his appreciation of me. Should I touch him? I may not have had the practice but I knew the method.

But I couldn’t do it. I dared not touch him so intimately. In the presence of God and the Book of Hours and Louis’s strange sanctity, I just could not do it.

When Louis released me to blow out the candle and we lay side by side like carved effigies on a tomb, I was mortified. My marriage was no marriage at all. I knew that Louis slept, as calmly composed as that same effigy, his hands folded on his breast as if still summoning God to take note of his prayers. When I turned my head to look at him, his face was serene and completely unaware of the disillusion that I suffered.

Eventually I slept. When I awoke with daylight, he was gone, the Book of Hours carefully positioned on the empty pillow at my side, the page open to the gilded angel. The linen of my bed was entirely unmarked. There were no bloody sheets to testify to my husband’s duty towards me or even his desire.

Well, I could have faked it, couldn’t I? A quick stab to my finger with my embroidery needle—but I did not. It had not been my choice and Louis must answer for his own lack. Faced with the Abbot’s gentle enquiry the following morning, I was haughty. I was defiant but icily controlled.

‘If you wish to know what passed between us in the privacy of our bed, you must ask the Prince,’ I informed him.

I silenced my women with a blank stare and a demand that I would break my fast as soon as they could arrange it. Perhaps now rather than in their own good time. I would not show my humiliation but coated it in a hard shell, as my cook in Bordeaux might enclose the softness of an almond in sugar. As for Aelith’s obvious concern, I shut her out. I could not speak of what had not occurred, even to her. If I had, I think I might have wept.

What passed between the Abbot and the Prince I had no idea.

In a bid to impress my subjects, Abbot Suger himself, in the glory of the great cathedral, placed the golden coronets to proclaim us Count and Countess of Poitiers. Louis accepted his new dignity with an unfortunate show of shy diffidence, whereas I spent the ceremony taking note of those who bent the knee and bared their necks in subservience, and making an even more careful accounting of those who did not.

Such as William de Lezay, my own castellan of Talmot, my hunting lodge. So personal a servant to me, he should have been first in line. He was not. Always an audacious knight with an eye to his own promotion, he sent me an insolently verbal message by one of his knights, who trembled as he repeated it. He had a right to tremble. I considered consigning him to a dungeon for a week for his weasel words—except that the sin was not his. One does not punish the messenger, my father had taught me. It only increases the trouble tenfold.

De Lezay was unable to attend my coronation: there were too many demands on his time. He informed me that such a ceremony was not to his taste, to acknowledge a Frank as his overlord. Such dislike of all things Frankish even overrode his sincere allegiance to me, with my pure and undisputed Aquitaine blood. I almost spat my disgust at the sly insincerity. With careful questioning, I discovered that the man had recently increased the number of troops at Talmont and was preparing for siege conditions.

So he had taken my castle for himself, had he?

He would hold it in the face of my objection, would he?

My temper began to simmer. That he should dare to inform me so blatantly of his defection. But that was not the worst of it. De Lezay’s messenger, remarkably straight-faced, handed over a small flat leather packet. And within it as I tore it open? A handful of white wing feathers, beautifully barred and speckled with grey and black, fluttered to the floor.

By God! I knew the original owners of those magnificent feathers. The simmer of temper bubbled and overflowed. The sheer insolence of the gesture! The birds were mine! My rare white gerfalcons, a gift from my father, kept and bred for my own use. Not fit for the wrist of a commoner such as William de Lezay.

‘God rot his soul in hell!’

The messenger trembled.

‘May he burn in everlasting fires!’ My voice was close to shrill.

‘What is that?’ Louis enquired mildly, entering the antechamber as my rage reached its zenith. He gestured to the knight to rise to his feet. ‘What has this man said to disturb you?’

‘News of de Lezay.’ I could barely force the words out. ‘My own castellan at Talmont. He has stolen my birds. And my hunting lodge. And—before God!—has the audacity to inform me of it.’ I still did not know what hurt most, the lodge or the gerfalcons. ‘My castellan! My father’s chosen man!’

Louis’s features relaxed. ‘Is that all? Most have taken the oath. He’s the only one to refuse.’

All? Is that how he saw it? My temper did not abate. ‘One is one too many! And he thinks he can get away with it because I am a woman.’ I rounded on Louis. I stared at him.

Louis Capet, Prince of France. Looking capable and surprisingly efficient in wool and leather hunting clothes, a knife in his belt. I tilted my chin to appraise him. His hair gleamed beneath his felt cap. Today he looked like a knight capable of holding his own. And there it was. I might not lead a punitive force against my errant castellan, but. Of course! Louis would uphold my rights for me, because they were now his rights too.

Ah … but would he? I was not certain of Louis’s mettle. When Louis had suspected Angoulême of setting an ambush, he had been quick to hitch his tunic and flee. What price de Lezay keeping his low-born fingers latched onto my property? But I strode to Louis’s side and took his arm, tightening my fingers into the fine cloth. I was determined. Louis must not be allowed to run from this. He must be a warrior lord, not a fool to be ridiculed and despised.

‘What will you do about it?’ I demanded. ‘De Lezay defies you as much as he defies me. He usurps my power and yours. Let him get away with this and we’ll have an avalanche of insurrection on our hands. I can just imagine him with one of my—of our—priceless white raptors on his fist, laughing at us from the battlements of Talmont.’

Louis studied the floor at his feet. Then stared thoughtfully at the messenger for a moment, to the man’s discomfort. Finally he looked at me. ‘What would you have me do, Eleanor?’

‘Punish him for his temerity. Take back my property.’

‘You wish me to launch an attack against him.’

‘Yes.’

Louis blinked as if struck by this novel idea. ‘Then if it will please you, I will,’ he replied, as if it were the easiest thing in the world. ‘I would not have you distressed in any way.’ Astonished pleasure lit his face. ‘I will restore your birds to you. And your castle.’

‘Thank you, my lord.’ I made my smile gracious to hide the flood of satisfaction, and reached up to kiss his cheek. I was not powerless in this marriage after all.

‘It will be my wedding gift to you—the restoration of your property …’

‘Ah, Louis. I knew you wouldn’t fail me.’

Before the end of the day Louis and a band of well-armed Frankish knights set out for Talmont to teach de Lezay a much-needed lesson. I watched them go, wishing that I had been born a man and so could ride out to protect my own, but accepting that I must be content with my triumph so far. Ready enough to respond to my promptings, perhaps I could yet magic a dominant, forceful man out of the sweet, shy trappings that made up this Prince of the Franks. A warrior out of a bookish man of thoughts and dreams rather than deeds. Perhaps I could, if I could get him into my bed to do more than praise my hair. The sight of him, face stern and beautiful, clad in chain mail with his royal tabard and glossy stallion, fired my hope.

‘Have you led an expedition before?’ I stood at his side as he prepared to mount.

‘No. It wasn’t considered a necessary part of my education at Saint-Denis. But I must start somewhere.’ His mouth twisted ruefully. ‘I dislike the idea of shedding blood.’ He squinted at the stallion tossing its head in impatience.

‘Even if it’s warranted?’ I gripped his hand to steady his nerve. ‘I know you’ll do the right thing. God go with you. I’ll pray for your safe return.’

‘I too have prayed,’ he replied solemnly.

A little tremor of worry unsettled me, but I thought there was no need. Louis was well enough armed and escorted. I could see nothing but victory for him. Surely they could put de Lezay in his place without bloodshed. As I stepped back from the melee of departing horsemen, I saw Abbot Suger watching us. He approached, bowed, but his eyes were on the departing figure of his Prince.

‘I hope the outcome will be as you wish, lady.’

‘Do you not approve, my lord?’

‘I do. It’s vital to the peace of the realm to put down any breath of treason at this early stage of your union. But the Prince is not always wise in his choices.’

‘He needs guidance,’ I replied coldly.

The cool eyes now turned on me. ‘As long as it’s wise and measured guidance. I advise you to have a care, lady.’

I bridled. ‘Is that a warning, my lord?’ My suspicion grew that the royal counsellor condescended to my intellect, believing me incapable of understanding the nuances of government. ‘As my husband’s wife, I will stand at his side. You must accept that. He is no longer the child under your jurisdiction at Saint-Denis.’

‘As long as you accept that I might not always allow you free rein, lady. On this occasion it is to our advantage, but it may be that in future …’

It was a challenge, issued and accepted on both sides. I learned in that one short exchange that Abbot Suger would stand against me, keep me from influencing Louis if he considered it best for the future of France. Was he my enemy? No, nothing so extreme. But a clever, astute man, with government at his fingertips, in his blood, the Abbot was not a man to underestimate.

Barely had the sky paled into dawn than I heard the noise and commotion of Louis’s return in the courtyard below the window of my chamber. Before I could do more than leap from my bed, pull on a chamber robe and lean to look down, Louis was bounding up the stairs, flinging back the door. Flushed with excitement, the energy still lay hot on him, whilst on his gauntleted fist sat a white gerfalcon, hooded but in a serious state of ruffled disturbance. The bells on its jesses rang as it lifted its wings and flapped wildly, uttering harsh cries.

‘I did it!’ Louis announced in the doorway.

‘Perhaps you should place the bird on the bed pole. For all our safety.’

‘Yes. Of course.’ He strode across the room to transfer the magnificent bird to the carved pole where it sat in a sullen hunch and rustle of feathers. Clad in leather jerkin and chausses, all heavily stained with sweat, Louis was jubilant, hair wild, eyes blazing. Stripping off his gauntlets, he swooped on me, gripping me by the shoulders. And then he transferred his hands to cup my cheeks, hold me still, and he kissed me full on my startled mouth. A hot, demanding, intemperate kiss that broke my lips against my teeth. He lifted his head.

‘Eleanor!’

And kissed me again.

‘I’ve brought your gerfalcons here for you. All of them.’

I felt an urge to laugh at the foolish extravagance of the gesture, but I could not spoil Louis’s pleasure. Neither did I have the breath to reply at length. The passion in him astonished me.

‘That’s wonderful,’ I managed.

I don’t think he heard me. His fingers dug into my flesh, hard enough to bruise. ‘I led the expedition. It was a glorious success. You’ll need a new castellan, Eleanor.’

‘What?’

‘A new castellan.’

H swung away to pace the room as if he could not contain the energy that victory had brought, brushing at the bed hangings with one hand, stroking the other down the feathers of the now quiescent hawk.

‘Is de Lezay dead, then?’

‘Yes. By God, he is. And deserved it. I’ve no regrets.’ The words spewed out, heated, excited. Uncontrolled. ‘It was so hot. And we were not careful. We took off our chain mail and sent it on ahead with our weapons on the baggage carts …’

Stupid! Louis must have read it in my astonished stare for he came to a stand in front of me again and tempered his voice.

‘It was very quiet—no danger, our scouts reported—but when we followed our baggage into Talmont, the first knights were taken prisoner. So we had to fight it out with the rebels.’ Suddenly the exhilaration snapped into furious temper. ‘No one will dare to stand against me in future. We killed them all. Including de Lezay.’

As quickly as it had appeared, his anger faded. The satisfaction drained from his face, leaving it set in strained lines as his thoughts turned inward.

‘Did you fight well, my lord?’ I asked.

‘Yes. I did.’ Eyes flashing back to mine, surprise gave him a tremulous smile. ‘It was so simple. A sword was thrust in my hand and I fought.’

‘And de Lezay?’

Louis blinked at me. ‘He was guilty. I chopped off his hands. The punishment for theft, you see.’ He looked down at his own, turning them over, as if he would see blood on them. I tried not to shudder at the thought of those palms so recently framing my face. ‘I ordered my men to hold him—arms outstretched. I lifted my sword and I struck …’ Louis looked as shocked as I. ‘I’ve never spilt blood before.’ He swallowed heavily. ‘But I did what was expected of me—I punished a disobedient vassal. The rest will toe the line now. My father will be proud of me.’ Again he searched my face as if the answer there was all-important. ‘Are you proud of me, Eleanor? Do you approve? I reclaimed your castle. Your falcons …’

I saw my chance since my praise mattered so much to him.

‘More proud than you could ever imagine,’ I soothed. ‘How could a wife not be proud of the husband who won back her lands and her possessions? And her pride. You’ll make a magnificent king, Louis—when the time comes, of course.’

‘I shall!’

He was flushed, his eyes bright. Raising a hand, I touched his cheek with my fingertips. Followed by my lips. His skin was hot, the scent pungent of man and horse and outdoor living. A heady mixture. Even the pallor of religious life had been overlaid by the effects of the sun. I transferred my lips to his mouth in experimentation, a soft, virginal kiss.

With a grunt of pleasure, Louis banded his arms around me, pulling me hard against him, without thought for the sweat and dust and the effect of their proximity to my silks. His blood ran as hot as his skin—I could all but feel it as he trembled against me. His kisses rained down on my face—lips, cheeks, temple—undoubtedly extravagant but disappointingly without finesse.

‘I want you, Eleanor,’ he croaked. ‘I love you.’

And he was pushing me back onto my bed, almost tripping over his own feet in his haste, fumbling with the lacings of his chausses as he climbed beside me.

‘Wait, Louis …’ I tried.

But already he was dragging aside my robe and shift, parting my thighs with his knee, spreading himself over me with clumsy haste. At least he was erect, I observed as if I were not truly involved in this event, but aware of the hardness of him against my belly. Hopefully this time it would happen … A heave, a thrust, and he was inside me. I caught my breath at the dry pain that seemed to tear apart my body but Louis, his face buried between the pillows and my neck, oblivious to my own responses or lack of them, continued to thrust in increasing urgency to end in a final, tense, shudder and groan.

And that was it. All over before I had concentrated my mind to it, Louis spread-eagled still, heavy on my body, gasping for breath like a floundering plaice cast up on the fish dock at Bordeaux—an unfortunate thought in the circumstances—the heat of him all but suffocating me. Crushed and uncomfortable, I wriggled beneath him.

‘Forgive me …’ Immediately Louis propped himself on his elbows and looked down at me, eyes feverish, a little diffident as the extreme energy drained from his face to leave it lax, as if his features were blurred. ‘Dear, beautiful Eleanor. Now you are my wife.’ His mouth on mine was dry-lipped and tender. ‘Did I hurt you?’

‘No,’ I lied.

‘I’ll never hurt you, Eleanor.’ He searched my face. ‘Are you sure? You’re very quiet.’

I was very sore. I could not lie again but, moved by a surprising rush of tenderness, I pushed my fingers through his sweat-slicked hair. It seemed to reassure him.

‘You fired my blood. I pray God will forgive me if I took you too forcefully. I must go and order a Mass—for my safe return and the health of my lovely wife. I’ll pray for an heir.’ His face broke into a radiant smile. ‘Do you think you have conceived?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘My father will be doubly proud if you already carry my child when we return to Paris. Will you kneel beside me and pray for a son of our begetting?’

‘Yes. I’ll pray with you.’

‘God’s wounds! I feel like shouting our good fortune from the roof of the palace.’

‘I hope you won’t,’ I replied dryly. Everyone would wonder why it had taken us so long to get to this point. But Louis was no longer there to listen. With a bound he was gone from the bed, straightening his clothing, making for the door.

Leaving me to lie on the disordered linens, and consider—was this what all the fuss was about? I could not believe it. A discomfort, a sharp pain—nothing to write eloquent verse about. I had felt no pleasure in the deed. All rather messy and undignified, I decided, conscious of the slick stickiness between my thighs. Your innards will become as liquid. Your belly as the sweetest honey, your skin as hot silk. My nurse had had a way with words but not, it seemed, with truth. My muscles had tightened, clenched, against what had seemed a hostile invasion rather than a longed-for consummation. Giving pleasure to a man was one thing, but should I not receive pleasure too? Was the fault mine or that of Louis? He seemed pleased enough. It had all been rather—brief! And I thought his desire for an heir took precedence over his enjoyment with me, despite his sensitivity in asking if I had survived the experience.

Did I think I had fallen for a child? I buried my face in the pillow. Was he so untutored to think I would know so soon? The door opened and I rolled onto my back. Since it was Aelith who approached the bed with a smug smile, I pushed myself up, pulling down my shift and clasping my knees as I met her avid expression.

‘Well! The blood-letting aroused him, I see. Was he a good lover?’

‘Too quick to tell,’ I admitted ungraciously.

‘Was it as magnificent as the troubadours say? I’d arrange another expedition if I were you.’

‘Perhaps.’ I forced a smile. I’d not tell her of all my misgivings. I was not sure of them myself. Louis had been so thoughtful, and yet. ‘At least I am now his wife in the eyes of God and man.’

‘And in need of a bath!’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Horse and sweat!’ She laughed. ‘So he was successful.’

‘Yes. Order some hot water for me—and then I must pray with Louis for an heir. Do you know … he thanked me as if I had bestowed a miracle on him.’

‘And so you had. Not everyone beds a princess of Aquitaine! Did you enjoy it?’ she asked.

‘Not greatly.’ I saw her disappointment as I began to loosen my hair from its night braid and was sorry for my brusqueness. ‘It’s early days, Aeli. We need to grow to know each other, I expect.’

It was true, after all. We had made a start. I could teach him more of the intimate pleasures of the bed, to his and my benefit. Once we had settled into our accommodation in Paris, life would become simpler. Louis would not feel so pressured by constraints of time and those around him. I would live with him, replacing Suger’s voice with mine. I would teach him what he needed to know about me and the vast lands he had taken on.

‘Do you know what he did?’ I found myself asking her. It had preyed on my mind through all that had followed Louis’s blurted confession. ‘He chopped off de Lezay’s hands.’

Aelith’s lips made a soundless ‘Oh’.

‘Louis said it was a just punishment for a thief.’

‘Our father spilt enough blood in his time,’ Aelith said consideringly.

‘I did not think our father was so.so vindictive.’

‘It’s nothing out of the way, as I see it,’ Aelith concluded, as if it did not merit further discussion. ‘De Lezay was an arrogant fool.’ She carried my ruined shift to cast it on the bed. ‘I see we have the proof at last. And not before time.’ She had lifted the bed linens, stained with Louis’s sweat and semen and my blood. ‘What shall I do with them?’

I pushed aside the persistent scrape of concern that Louis could be unpredictable in his response to threats or danger, and smiled with not a little malice.

‘Send them to Abbot Suger, of course. I trust he’ll be satisfied. You can tell the Abbot to parcel up the sheets and send them to Fat Louis. His prayers have been answered.’

Fat Louis was never to receive the happy news of his son’s consummation of our marriage. Next morning when we were on our way to Paris before the sun had risen, when we had travelled no longer than one hour, a hard-riding messenger, his fleurs de lys all but obliterated by dust, intercepted us. He flung himself at Louis’s feet.

‘Your Majesty!’

Which was enough to tell us all the news. The courier gasped it out. Louis the Sixth, Fat Louis, was dead.

Louis wept into his hands. And when he finally raised his head and turned his face towards Paris, his blue eyes held the panicked fear of an animal caught in a snare. It was in my heart to feel pity for him, but not much. Why would he not want to be King of France? There had been no close affection between father and son as far as I could tell.

I did not weep for a man I did not know. Instead I appraised my new horizons.

I was Queen of France.

CHAPTER FOUR

I HAD travelled all my life. We in Aquitaine were an itinerant restless court, winter and summer alike, journeying from one end of our domains to the other. Since my father insisted that I travel with him, I had stayed in every variety of accommodation, from castle to hunting lodge, from palace to northern manor to villa in the south. From campaigning tent to luxurious pavilion, in Limoges and Blaye, Melle and Beyonne. I knew gardens and tiled fountains, light, airy rooms in summer, satisfying heat in winter.

Nothing could have prepared me for my new home in Paris that Louis brought me to with such pride. Louis might appreciate his inheritance, I did not. Grim and decaying, the Cité palace seemed nothing to me but a pile of stones, a frowning bleak tower standing on a drear island in the centre of a sluggishly running river. The Ile de la Cité, as I learned to call it, connected to the two banks by stone bridges.

A place of great safety, Louis enthused, protecting us from our enemies.

A prison cut off from the world, I thought. Cold, uncivilised, unwelcoming.

Even before I set eyes on the palace, my heart sank, for Paris, the world outside my new home, stank. Unpaved streets, gutters running with the effluent of two hundred thousand souls who clustered along the River Seine, Paris squatted in a thick cloud of noxious stench. Black flies swarmed in the fetid air. The welcome of our entourage did nothing to detract from the stink. More likely, I decided sourly, the mass of cheering hordes probably increased it, but I acknowledged the welcome. I knew what was expected of me, their new queen.

But my spirits fell to the level of my inadequate footwear as Louis escorted me through the corridors and endless chambers of my new home. I walked at his side in horrified silence. I shivered. Even in the heat of summer it was so cold, so bone-chillingly damp. And dark. The only light to enter was through the narrowest of arrow slits, thus casting every room into depressing gloom. As for the draughts. Where the air came from, I could not fathom, but my veils rippled with the constant movement of chilly air. I wished I had one of my fur mantles with me.

‘The windows have no shutters!’ Aelith muttered from behind me. ‘How do we keep warm here?’

‘There!’ Louis gestured, hearing her complaint. He pointed to two charcoal braziers that stood in the small antechamber we were passing through. ‘I think they give enough heat.’

‘And enough fumes to choke us!’ I replied as the smoke suddenly billowed and caught in my throat. ‘How do you warm the larger rooms? The Great Hall?’

‘A central fire.’

‘And the smoke?’

‘Through a hole in the roof.’ He sounded mildly amused, as if I were a fool not to know.

Letting in the wind and the rain too, I had no doubt, as well as the occasional exploratory squirrel or unfortunate bird. In Aquitaine we had long moved past such basic amenities, borrowing what we could learn from the old villas of Ancient Rome with their open courtyards, hypocausts and drainage channels. I did not speak my dismay, I could not. Unnervingly I could feel Louis’s eyes on me as he smiled and nodded, as if he might stoke my tepid enthusiasm from spark to flame. It was a lost cause, and since I could think of nothing complimentary to say I said nothing but stood in shocked, shivering silence.

‘And we are to live here?’ Aelith marvelled as Louis stepped aside to speak with a servant who approached with a message. ‘Do we die of the ague?’

‘It seems that we do. And probably will.’ My heart was as coldly heavy as the stone floor beneath my feet.

‘I wish we were back at Ombrières!’

So did I.

Perhaps my own accommodations, prepared and decorated with the new bride in mind, as surely they must have been, would be more comfortable. Momentarily I closed my eyes as the shadowy form of a rat sped along the base of the wall, claws tapping against the stone, to disappear behind a poor excuse for a wall hanging that did nothing to enhance the chamber. A woodland scene, I surmised, catching the odd shape of wings and the gleam of stitched eyes, except that the layer of soot was so thick it could have been the black depths of Hell. The rat retraced its scurrying steps, and I wished the livestock to be confined to the stitchery.

When the rat—or perhaps there were many—reappeared to gallop once more in its original direction, I requested that Louis show me to my private chambers immediately, but he had other ideas. Taking my arm in a gentle hold, he detached me from my women and guided me through a doorway, down a long, dark corridor and knocked on the door at the end.

‘What is this?’ I whispered since he did not explain. I felt a need to whisper as the stone pressed down on us. It was like being in a coffin.

‘Dear Eleanor.’ Louis enclosed my hand within his. ‘My mother has asked to meet with you.’

It was the only warning I received. I had not known that the Dowager Queen even resided in this palace. The door was opened by an unobtrusive servant into an audience chamber, the walls bare and shining with damp, the furnishings few and unremarkable. Except for one attendant woman, Louis’s mother sat alone, waiting. Hands clasped loosely on her lap, she gave no sign of acknowledging our entrance. The emotion in that small room was chilling: my flesh crept with it.

‘Madam.’ Louis left my side to approach her.

The Dowager Queen of France raised her head and looked not at her son but at me. It was an unambiguous stare, and I swallowed at what I read there, my throat suddenly dry. I had not expected this. I was instantly on guard.

Louis bowed, the respectful son, took his mother’s hand and saluted her fingers. ‘I regret your loss, madam.’

The Dowager Queen bowed her head in cold acknowledgement. I thought her loss was not as great as her son might fear. There was an air of fierce composure about her. Her features were small and pinched but from a lifetime of dissatisfaction rather than from present grief. The lines between nose and mouth had not been engraved in a matter of weeks.

Adelaide de Maurienne. Queen of France. Whose position I had just usurped.

She was a pious woman from the presence of a prie-dieu, numerous crucifixes and books of religious content and a rosary to hand on the coffer at her side. Clad in black from her veils to her feet, she all but merged with the shadows. I sensed she had been invisible for most of her life as the neglected wife of Fat Louis.

‘My son. At last.’ She did not immediately rise to her feet, even though her King and Queen had entered the room.

‘Madam,’ Louis urged with a not-so-subtle tug on her hand. ‘I would present my wife. Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine. Now Queen of France.’

Without haste—an insult in itself to my mind—Dowager Queen Adelaide stood, her hand clamped on her son’s wrist, and managed a curt inclination of her head rather than the curtsey she should have afforded my rank. The welcome from Louis’s mother was as grim as the stench of mould from the wetly gleaming walls. Did she think to intimidate me, a daughter of Aquitaine? I knew my worth. And I knew my power as Louis’s wife. With a genuflection as conspicuous as her lack, I sank into a deep curtsey. My face, I made sure, was full of remorse.

‘Madam, I trust your faith gives you consolation. If I can do anything to alleviate your grief during your visit to the Cité palace, you have only to ask. Do you stay long?’ A neat little challenge to her presence, deliberately spoken in my own language.

Adelaide looked to Louis for clarification. When he could not, I repeated my greeting in Latin. Adelaide flushed at the implication that the days of her occupation of these rooms might be numbered. Her spine became rigid.

‘You do not have a facility with the langue d’oeil?’ she asked in that language.

‘I do,’ I replied smoothly. I understood her perfectly well. I had made some progress on my journey to Paris. ‘But I prefer the langue d’oc.’

‘Here we speak the langue d’oeil.’

Sensing the imminent clash of wills, Louis eyed his mother cautiously. ‘We will, madam, converse together in Latin.’

Adelaide inhaled. ‘As you wish, my son.’ And then to me, sliding into rapid Latin. ‘My advice is to learn our language. As a mark of courtesy to your husband and your new country.’

‘If I deem it necessary, I will, madam,’ I responded promptly, switching to perfect Latin. Satisfied with the temporary outcome, my answering smile was bright and my Latin excellent. ‘I have great skill with languages.’

The Dowager Queen allowed her pale eyes to travel over my figure, taking in every aspect of my clothes and appearance. For a brief moment I wished I was not so travel-stained but I raised my chin. I was not answerable to this woman for what I wore. And I deliberately caught her eye.

There! I had not been mistaken. Loathing. A rampant hatred. The depth of it startled me. I had never experienced such abhorrence—one did not exhibit such flagrant emotion towards the Duchess of Aquitaine—but it was impossible to mistake it. Adelaide’s nostrils flared, her lips narrowed into a curl of disdain. The glitter in her eye was an acceptance of my challenge, a return of my gauntlet to signal the onset of warfare between us.

And the prize for the victor?

Louis, of course.

Abbot Suger’s warning had arisen from political necessity, as he saw it. He would control Louis’s ruling of France and thwart me if I demanded a voice. Here before me was quite a different level of opposition: vindictive jealousy, entirely personal, and perhaps all the more dangerous for it. Adelaide would control the heart and soul of her son.

And the object of so much desire to control and manage? I glanced at him. Did Louis see this potential battle of wills between the two women in his life? Would he stand up for me against Queen Adelaide if it ever became necessary? Was he even aware of the tone of our exchange?

Of course he was not. Louis was irritatingly occupied elsewhere, astonishingly oblivious, leafing through the pages of one of his mother’s devotional missals. So be it. I must rely on myself in a conflict that Adelaide must not win. I was not raised to bow before an inferior force.

Adelaide deliberately turned her shoulder to me and addressed Louis. ‘We shall meet again at supper, my son—a banquet has been prepared to mark your return and your marriage.’ She fixed him with the same formidable stare as she must have done at any time over the seventeen years of Louis’s life. ‘You will be there, of course. There must be no excuses.’

A strange comment, one that caught my attention but then slid away as Louis bowed and ushered me rapidly from the room, striding away purposefully.

‘Will you show me my own rooms?’ I asked, trying to keep up and my skirts from contact with the walls, watching my footsteps in the gloom.

Suddenly Louis was in a hurry. ‘Yes.’ He did not slow his pace. There was an urgency about him.

‘Where are your own chambers?’ I asked.

‘Through there.’ He waved vaguely towards a distant door before ushering me into my suite of rooms. ‘There!’ A light kiss on my cheek, his words delivered in a rush. ‘If anything is not to your taste, you must tell me. This is now your home. I want you to be as comfortable here as you were in your own lands in the south.’

Looking around the stark rooms, their air of abandonment, I doubted it.

But before I could reply, Louis had gone and closed the door behind him. I sat on the bed, sneezing as the mildew from the hangings released its unpleasant odour. Whatever was pulling at him was far more important than his staying with me. But at least now that we were here, in Paris at last, even in the face of the Dowager Queen’s disapproval—which I intended to ignore—we could start to make some sort of life together.

* * *

By the end of that day I was more exhausted than if I had—in my imagination since I had no experience of it—been on a military campaign. Moreover, it proved to be an education, a squint into what was to be my future. How little of my life I had lived so far—a mere fifteen years—and how much still stretched before me with all its promise and excitement. The promise was smothered by my experience of that day, the excitement all but snuffed out. What I had seen so far in the palace, the lack of any refinement or luxury, was merely replicated in the royal apartments. The vast bed with its moth-eaten hangings and damp linens made me shudder. My women for once were smitten into silence.

‘By the Virgin!’ Except for Aelith.

And then the ceremonial feast to acknowledge the new King and Queen.

Louis presided. Why had his mother found the need to insist? He led me to the dais and presented me to my new subjects. I felt their interested gaze, heard the whispered comment, particularly of the women of the court who were so far behind the fashions of the day as to appear ridiculously outré. Louis attracted no such attention. He looked no better than a well-to-do merchant in a plain tunic and hose. His chamberlain was better garbed. How could he demand their respect as King when dressed little better than a servant? I determined to take him in hand. But for tonight I settled myself to be celebrated and entertained.

I did not expect to be astonished: to be so rudely awakened into the reality of the Frankish court. But I was.

Where was the procession of courses at the royal feast? The peppered peacocks, the candied fruits, the rice cooked with milk of almond and powdered cinnamon? The lobsters fried with egg? There was no shortage of food, for sure. Meat upon meat upon meat—venison and wild boar, game birds aplenty—but so coarse and unflavoured. Fish appeared—and languished on its platter. It was not popular. No delicacies of tarts or junkets or fritters. No leaves or salads. Vegetables abounded—particularly onions and garlic—a matter for much regret—stewed or pounded without finesse into an unrecognisable mush.

Louis ate sparingly. I did what I could. And made a point of ignoring the fastidious grimaces of my women. But even I could not pretend indifference for ever to the presentation of the food.

‘What is it?’ Louis raised his cup to sip the thin wine.

I found my attention fixed on a congealing pool of strangely green sauce on the scrubbed table surface, where a clumsy page had spilt it and failed to mop it up. Nor was the wooden planking that made up the table-top particularly clean despite the scrubbing. It looked no better than the butchery block from the kitchens, and the scars might suggest a pig had been dismembered on it. Did no one care?

‘Do you have no table linen?’ I asked bluntly.

‘No.’ Louis was surprised.

‘Not even for the High Table?’

‘No.’

I focused on the charred-edged flatbread before me, a trencher to serve in way of a plate, beside it a drinking vessel and a knife to hack off portions of meat.

‘Are there no spoons?’ I eyed a dish of stewed elvers that would be impossible to deal with if a knife was all I had to hand.

‘Do you want one?’ Louis asked solicitously, already raising a hand. ‘I’ll send for one from the kitchens if you wish …’

I shook my head, repressing a sigh. Glancing along the table, I watched one of Louis’s barons scoop up the elvers with the flat of his knife, from dish to lips with a noisy slurp. I would forgo the elvers.

The Dowager Queen, clad entirely in black in markedly unfestive manner as before, interjected sharply, ‘I have always found the provisions of our High Table satisfactory.’

‘Have you?’ I gave a long look at a thick, glutinous dish that defied recognition. Louis had already given his attention to his Seneschal Raoul de Vermandois on his right so I felt at liberty to allow my dissatisfaction to show.

‘You will find life very different here, Eleanor,’ Adelaide reprimanded with a humourless smile. ‘My advice is to learn the ways of the Frankish court and accept them. It is what I did as a bride.’

‘It is certainly different from my experience.’

The feast continued, memorable for its crudity. No songs. No entertainments. Our eating was accompanied by nothing more than the slurp and chewing and belching of Louis’s barons and an increasing volume of coarse comment and laughter as the wine flowed. At the end, a finger bowl was presented to me. It was more than I expected. But I flinched from the layer of grease and traces of food floating on the top. I dipped in the very ends of my fingers and looked up at the page. He stared back at me with an uncertain fear in his youthful eyes. Clearly he did not know what I waited for.

‘Fetch me a napkin,’ I whispered.

He looked askance towards Louis and back to me. Did he expect me to wipe my fingers on my skirts? I found my attention straying from the rank water in the tarnished silver dish to the black-edged nails of its holder. Perhaps he had scoured the fire grate before serving me.

‘I don’t think we have a napkin, Majesty,’ he admitted in a hoarse whisper that echoed along the board, his face glowing with embarrassment. ‘I could try …’

The lack was not his fault. But when the flatbreads were collected, some given to the servants, some thrown to the scavenging dogs that fell on them with enthusiastic snarls, I had had enough. I signalled to my women to leave, gathering my dignity around me to curtsey to Louis. I found it impossible to smile.

‘I will retire, my lord.’

‘It’s been a long day for you, Eleanor.’ Leaping to his feet, with gentle respect he handed me from the dais. ‘I trust you will sleep well.’

I gripped his fingers for a moment. ‘I hope you find the time to visit me, my lord, before you retire.’

‘Yes.’ I thought Louis gulped but perhaps it was a trick of the guttering and inadequate rushlights. His eyes shone with warmth and, I decided, were full of admiration. ‘I hope you are happy with your new home.’

‘I am happy.’ I would make my immediate wishes plain since it seemed that I must. I leaned close. ‘If you come to me I will show you how happy I am to be here as your wife.’

‘I will …’

I ordered candles to be lit. I bathed and combed my hair, robed myself in a lavender-fragrant linen shift heavy with embroidery. The bed had been newly made up with my own linens, thus obliterating much of the damp, and the brazier was stoked, a handful of herbs from the sun-filled gardens of the south thrown on to scent the air and ward off the chills.

I dismissed my women to find what comfort they could in their own chamber.

Settled against the pillows, I waited.

The brazier dimmed into a dull glow and the candles extinguished in their own wax.

Louis did not come to me. I did not think I could have been more obvious in my invitation, and there was nothing I could do to remedy his decision. I could hardly summon him, like a lord sending for a lackey, neither did I care to advertise my own failure—my continuing failure—in bringing my husband to my bed.

Climbing from the high bed, I opened the door to rouse my women. For the rest of the night Aelith curled beside me, as she had every night when we were children. For once she was sufficiently sensitive to make no comment. For my part, I seethed with frustration and fury.

I was not a child. I was a wife. I was a woman and I wanted a man in my bed.

Where was my husband?

Next morning I was up betimes. Really, it was very simple. I knew what I must do and how to do it. Before I had broken my fast, leaving Aelith asleep, I was off in search of my absent husband. I would talk to him, tell him of my own needs, and his, not least the need for an heir. He must see sense. If it was shyness I would try to put him at his ease. I would make him talk to me. If necessary, I would demand his presence with me at night.

I would not be neglected in this way.

First his own private apartments after asking directions. I entered without knocking—why should I not?—and walked through corridors and antechambers, finding no trace of life. Eventually, opening doors indiscriminately, I discovered what must be Louis’s bedchamber. The bed was as vast as mine, hung with the blue and gold of the Capetians, the never-ending fleurs de lys glinting in the shadows.

Empty.

And as far as I could see, unused for many weeks. None of Louis’s possessions were strewn about the room. Neither brazier nor means of lighting. The room was cold and unoccupied with dust on coffer and floor. When I punched the bed curtains with my fist, I sneezed on the resulting cloud. I doubted he had been there since his return to Paris.

So where was he?

In an antechamber I came across a servant—a young boy, probably a page—who looked startled to see me but bowed.

‘Where is His Majesty?’ I asked in careful langue d’oeil.

‘At his devotions, lady.’

Of course. Why had I not thought of that? ‘Does His Majesty have a private chapel in the palace?’

‘Yes, lady. The chapel of Saint Nicholas.’

‘Will you take me there?’

‘Yes, lady … But it’ll do no good …’

‘Why not?’ Had I misunderstood his reply? I thought not.

‘I would take you, lady—but His Majesty is not in the palace’ I thought the page looked pityingly at my ignorance. ‘His Majesty is at the Cathedral of Notre Dame.’ The vast edifice that shared the Ile de la Cité with the palace.

‘He rose early?’ I asked.

‘He stayed there, lady. Through the night. His Majesty often stays there, rather than here in the palace. The Prince—His Majesty—has rooms set aside for his use there.’

‘And when will he return here?’

The lad shrugged. ‘His Majesty spends all day at Notre Dame. He observes the offices and …’

I raised a hand to stop him as truth dawned. So Louis had returned to the monks almost as soon as he had set foot back in Paris. Better a hard bed in a monkish cell than mine. The thought resurrected a moment in the previous day. Now I understood the Dowager Queen’s insistence that her son put in an appearance at the banquet. Clearly she knew him well, fearing he would run hotfoot to the monks as soon as he left her rooms. She knew him better than I! I would remedy that soon enough. A little heat thrummed through my blood.

‘I need you to take me to the cathedral,’ I ordered briskly.

Notre Dame crouched in the grey dawn, dark and looming like a sleeping dragon painted in one of the old books in my grandfather’s library in Poitiers. My young guide—Guillaume, he informed me—was for the most part silent, overawed by his royal companion and unsure of why I should wish to go to Notre Dame at this early hour. He led me along the vast arched nave towards the chancel, where I could hear the monks’ voices uplifted in singing the order of Prime.

Where was Louis? Impatient as I was, I could not interrupt the holy brothers. I looked enquiringly at the page, who shrugged his shoulders and ushered me to a seat in the chancel, then bowed and left me as if he considered his task done.

I looked around. It was difficult to see anything in the cool shadows, the early morning light barely illuminating the vast building, but I could certainly not see Louis, neither in the choir stalls nor kneeling before the High Altar, where I might have expected the King to pay his respects to the Almighty. So I set myself to wait until the service was over. And because it seemed appropriate I knelt and bent my head in prayer. For my strange marriage with Louis. For strength to make my new life here.

The blessing was administered, the service ended, the monks filed out towards the refectory for bread and beer before taking up their appointed tasks for the day. With an eye to accosting the Abbot, I rose to my feet. And looked. And looked again at Louis, my husband, his pale hair curling to his shoulders beneath the cowled hood. Now I knew why I had not picked him out. Clad in a rough monkish robe, girded with the knotted rope of the monks, Louis walked silently amongst them as if he were one of their number, under vows of obedience and poverty. His hands were clasped in prayer, his eyes downcast. He had no sense of my being there at all.

But, then, why should he? His mind was not centred on me. I played no significant part in his life at all. And seemed hardly likely to do so, a caustic voice whispered irreverently in my head, if this was where he chose to spend his time.

I stepped out, almost into his path.

‘My lord …’

Startled from his inner prayers, Louis glanced up. It seemed for just a moment that there was irritation in his face at being disturbed by an impudent petitioner, until he recognised me and the lines around his mouth softened, although I thought he was still not altogether reconciled to my sudden appearance.

‘Eleanor. What are you doing here?’

‘I came to find you.’ I would be patient. Louis looked so young, so unassuming, that the hard words I had practised during the night hours drained away completely.

Taking my hand, Louis manoeuvred me adroitly out of the path of the monks. ‘Did you wish to speak with me?’

‘Yes. Why would I be here if I did not?’ More sharply than I had intended.

‘Come, then.’ And with a genuflection towards the altar, he led me to his room, closing the door to give us some privacy. ‘What is it?’

At first I could do nothing but look around me. It was a cell. Nothing better than a monk’s cell with bare stone floor and bare walls, except for a small crucifix over the bed. And the bed, on which I sat as there was barely room for the two of us to stand, was a narrow cot with a single thin covering. Nothing else.

This for the King of France.

‘Well?’ Louis asked, sitting beside me.

‘Do you stay here?’ I asked.

‘When I can.’

‘But why? You are the King of France!’

Louis tilted his head. ‘I was brought up with this,’ he reminded me simply. ‘I think it was what my life was meant to be. I should not have been King.’

The admission, the rejection, startled me. He did not wish to be King. He would rather return to his old life of worship and service. I had not appreciated how deep it ran still: his past, the childhood influences on him.

‘Do you never stay in your own rooms in the palace?’ A dark fear, a fear with claws, began to squeeze my heart.

Louis stared at the crucifix as if he realised that he had been indiscreet. ‘Of course.’ He linked his fingers with mine, although his eyes remained on the crucified Christ. ‘I know that I can’t stay here as I would wish. I am King and now I have other duties that demand my time.’

And I am one of them! ‘Why did you not come to me last night?’ I asked, although before God I knew the answer.

‘Because I was here.’ How simple a statement.

‘A husband has a duty towards his wife.’

‘And I will fulfil it. I have fulfilled it. For the past weeks I have put my father’s demands before my own, neglecting my path to God’s grace. My father did not understand. But now I am King and returned home. And yesterday was a Holy Saint’s day, so I kept a night vigil as we are instructed to do. I could not stay with you, Eleanor.’ Now he looked at me, leaned and pressed the lightest of kisses against my brow. ‘You are so very beautiful—but it is not permitted that I share your bed on a Saint’s Day.’

The claws sank deeper, the fear intensified.

‘And tonight? Will you come to me tonight?’

‘No. You must understand, Eleanor. It is no reflection of my deep affection and respect for you, but today is Friday.’ He was very serious, as if explaining to a child.

‘And you are not permitted to enjoy intimate relations on a Friday.’ My tolerance was fraying rapidly at the edges, like an old, much-worn girdle.

‘No.’

‘But … you need an heir.’

‘As I know. You did not to conceive from our last coupling?’ From our only coupling! And I did not yet know the outcome of Louis’s virility. ‘If you did,’ Louis continued, not waiting for a reply, ‘there’s no need for me to demand intimate relations with you more frequently than seems appropriate.’

Appropriate. Frustration built within me, stone upon stone. I fixed my eyes on his. This was no time for shyness. ‘Do you not think, Louis, that sharing my bed could bring pleasure—to both of us?’

A little frown creased his brow, although he lifted my fingers to his lips. ‘But that is forbidden. It is sinful, Eleanor. The Scriptures teach that the purpose of a man knowing a woman is for the procreation of children, and for no other reason.’

‘But God made us in his image, to experience physical satisfaction—together.’

‘Of course—but within the bounds of Holy Scripture.’

Louis looked at me quizzically, as if amazed that I should not understand this. He was so gentle, so considerate, his certainty so absolute, that I knew I was right to be afraid as I saw my future in his calm explanation. How could any woman—even I—compete with God and the demands of Holy Mother Church for his attentions?

‘God determines the course of my life, although I will always be concerned for your happiness. I’ll not neglect you, Eleanor—but you must understand that I dedicate my life to God.’

‘Will you at least eat with me? Tonight, in my chamber. Privately. Just the two of us so that we might …’ I shrugged helplessly, clutching at a passing straw. If he would at least spend time with me, I might win him over to seeing that intimacy need not be sinful.

‘No. I cannot. On Fridays I fast—on bread and water. It is a day of penitence for our sins.’ He stood, releasing my hands. ‘And now you must go. I keep vigil every day, when royal duties permit, between Prime and Vespers. I must pray for my mortal soul. For my country. And I will pray for you too, dear Eleanor.’ Hand firmly at my waist, he was almost pushing me from the cell.

‘When will I see you again?’

‘When my time permits.’

His smile held the sweetness of honey, the emptiness of a stone tomb. Without a second look, Louis walked away from me, back towards the body of the church and the brotherhood of monks, not caring whether I followed or not.

‘Louis …’

He did not turn his head.

‘Louis!’ This time I did not moderate my voice.

And this time Louis turned his face, even at a distance a study in reproach. ‘You must not shout, Eleanor. Not in church. It is not respectful to God.’

Which left me with nothing much to say. Louis left me standing there, my blood colder than the stone that surrounded me. Isolated. Adrift. Uncertain as the truth hit me. Here I was no longer Duchess of Aquitaine, a ruler with power in her hands, merely a woman with no place but as wife to King Louis.

But Louis did not want to be King. Nor did he want me as his wife.

I was thoughtful on my return, seeking firm footing in the swamp that had suddenly spread itself around my feet, threatening to suck me down. How easy it would be to wallow in misery. Instead, I summoned my women. Quiet, pretty Mamille. Florine and Torqueri, sharp and sly, lovers of gossip. Flirtatious Faydide. Solemn, thoughtful Sybille, Countess of Flanders. There was no laughter here. They were as unsettled as I. Seeing their doleful faces as they huddled in their furs made me decisive. There were changes to be made.

‘Come and walk with me,’ I invited Aelith. ‘And you too, Sybille. Tell me what you think of our new home.’

‘You don’t need me to tell you.’ Aelith grimaced at the encrusted muck from the brazier that our slippers and skirts spread across the floor.

‘Pull it all down and start again!’ Sybille stated with unusual candour.

I laughed, my spirits lifting in their company. ‘Our thoughts run together.’

At the end of an hour I sent for parchment, pen and ink. The result was a list, not long but with consequences. I set it aside until Louis could satisfy God and visit his wife.

The changes I foresaw would not be only in my living arrangements.

CHAPTER FIVE

IT took three days for Louis to feel his soul safe enough, restored to the bosom of the Almighty, to emerge from Notre Dame and come to my apartments. He came after the order of Tierce and greeted me as if no time had passed, and he had no apology to make for his absence. He bowed, kissed my fingers, my lips and cheeks with tenderness, but fleetingly, as if he greeted a friend.

‘Have you ordered affairs to suit you? Are you comfortable, dear Eleanor?’

He was so certain that I would say yes!

‘No. I am not comfortable. How can I be?’ I ignored his startled expression. ‘I cannot be expected to live like this.’

‘Are you unwell?’ he asked uncertainly.

‘Of course I’m not unwell! Do I look unwell?’ Louis needed a firm hand. Pressing a cup of wine into his hand as I drew him towards the detested brazier in my solar, pushing him into a cushioned chair beside it, I presented him with the list.

‘What’s this?’

‘You said you wished me to be comfortable. Did you mean it?’

‘Nothing is closer to my heart.’

‘Then I need improvements to my rooms. These!’

His gaze slid to the parchment. ‘Can you write, Eleanor?’

‘Of course I can write!’

‘Not many women are considered able to acquire the skill.’

I ignored that. Did he think I’d been raised an illiterate commoner in a peasant’s hut? ‘And, as you see, Louis, I have made a list.’

I watched him as his eyes travelled down it. His lips pursed, twisted; he glanced up at me, then back to my demands. If I was to live out my days here, in the sweet Virgin’s name there had to be some concessions to the life I’d been raised to.

‘So you have.’ Louis continued to read—how long would it take him?—tapping the page with one hand. ‘Windows? Why do you need windows? You have windows.’

‘These are not windows. These are defensive slits for shooting arrows.’

‘I need to be impregnable. This is a fortress.’

‘Is the King of France not safe in the heart of Paris? My women do not shoot arrows. We need larger openings to let in air and sunlight. How can we see to sew and read? How can Faydide see to play the lute? Surely your stonemasons can create some wider, taller windows without too much difficulty.’

‘I suppose they could. But would that not allow cold air in?’

‘Shutters! It’s like sitting in a gale even now. I want wooden shutters for all the windows in my apartments. And in my own chambers I want glazing.’

‘Ah! Glazing.’ Louis’s fair brows climbed as if my extravagance was as gaudy as a peacock’s feathers, but he did not refuse. He tilted his head. ‘It says here, “Remove smoke.”’

‘So it does.’ To my good fortune a chance draught wafted a curl of poisonous fumes to envelop him and reduce him to coughing. ‘I’ll die of the smoke if I have to live with it much longer. My hair, my garments reek of it.’

‘But the Great Hall—’

‘Yes, yes, I know the Great Hall must keep its central fire, but in here I want stone fireplaces, Louis, with chimneys built into the thickness of the walls to carry the smoke away.’

Louis eyed the formidable wall of stones before him as if he personally would have to take a hammer to them. ‘A major building programme, then. The cost will be great, of course. My Treasury—’

‘A little thing,’ I disagreed.

‘Well …’

‘In the palaces of Aquitaine we have chimneys,’ I added slyly. ‘Do you not have the wealth to encompass it?’

He thought for a moment. ‘I do.’

‘And I want tapestries,’ I added.

‘As I see.’

‘You have none to my taste. Not one wall in this palace displays a tapestry of any size or quality. Those I’ve seen are in a state of disintegration or covered with soot. What can you be thinking of?’ I allowed him no time to retreat. ‘Think of the display of your wealth and style, Louis. You are not some insignificant lord, still residing in a stone keep, but King of the Franks. Your palace should be a stamp on your authority, not a rough fortress no better than your ancestors could build a hundred years ago. And if that does not appeal to you, think of how much warmer the rooms will be, keeping the damp and draughts at bay.’

‘I don’t feel the cold,’ Louis observed. ‘But if that is what you wish then order them as you will. The tapestries from Bourges are thought to be the best.’

I reached to kiss his cheek, delighted with the resulting quick blush, and tugged at his sleeve. Louis was open to suggestion, a blank scroll on which I might write. And I would write on it. Not Abbot Suger. Not Queen Adelaide. I would be the one to map out Louis’s future.

‘Will you give the orders for the stonework immediately?’

‘If it pleases you, I will. I should be thankful you’ve not gone ahead and done it already, so that I find us knee deep in stone dust and chippings.’ His smile was charmingly rueful, despite the ponderous humour. ‘I’ve been told that you’ve already dismissed one of my appointments.’

So Adelaide had already complained to her son, had she? It had taken her less than twenty-four hours.

‘Yes,’ I acknowledged airily. ‘The cantor at the palace chapel.’

‘My mother was distressed that he’d been removed.’

‘That’s hard to believe.’ I opened my eyes wide. ‘Perhaps you misunderstood her, Louis. The man had no ear and could scare hold a tune. As for leading a choir … When you hear his replacement, one of my own household with a fine voice, you will admit my choice is good.’ I saw the muscles in his jaw twitch as he prepared to refute this, so I pressed on with an argument he could not deny. ‘It’s only fitting that God be praised to the best of our poor talents.’ I was getting the measure of my husband.

‘That is so, of course …’

‘Do you object to my plans, Louis?’

‘No. Not at all.’

‘You would say if I displease you, wouldn’t you?’

‘You’ll never displease me. I admire you.’

Victory fluttered in my breast. It seemed I could play the obedient, grateful wife with skill. I had no experience of it, but a wise woman can learn, and learn fast. I had got exactly what I wanted.

‘And you will give your orders to the stonemasons today?’ I persisted.

‘Yes. Eleanor …?’

‘Hmm?’ I was already halfway across the room to order my women to pack away the most fragile of my gowns.

‘Is there anything you do like here? In Paris?’

I halted. Turned back. He still sat, looking almost dejected at my lack of enthusiasm for my new home, my list in one hand, the untasted cup of wine in the other. How woefully deficient in authority and importance he could be. Poor Louis. He really had no presence.

As if he read my thoughts, he stood and walked towards me, while I sought desperately for something to say to make him look less of a cowed child who had been refused a promised treat.

‘Perhaps you like the gardens,’ he suggested. ‘They’re thought to be very fine. Will you perhaps walk there with me?’

How could I refuse without appearing churlish? I walked with Louis along the pathways enclosed for privacy by walls and trellised vines, bordered with acanthus. Willow, fig, cypress, olive and pear trees gave welcome shade in the heat of the day. They would do very well with some statues and the occasional water display, but these formal plantings were no compensation for the chains on my freedom to travel the length and breadth of my dominions as I had once done at my father’s side. They were no compensation for the stultifying life I had been dropped into. My new existence was almost as rigidly curtailed as if I had taken the veil. The ordered beauty of sight and scent was no compensation at all for Louis’s continued absence from my bed.

‘Louis.’ I touched his hand as we halted beside a bed of fragrant lilies. ‘I am not carrying your heir.’

My courses had come on time. Louis’s energies after the matter of the white gerfalcons had failed. Our one step into the intimacy of matrimony had not had the desired effect.

Louis’s face fell. ‘I must lay the matter before God.’

That was all he said, at least to me. I presume God was the recipient of his disappointment.

‘It is a waste of money. A sheer waste of money,’ Adelaide raged when the stonemasons moved into my apartments and the air was filled with dust, along with the cheerful cursing and tuneless singing of the workmen. ‘And to what purpose?’ She raised her voice above the racket. ‘A soft lifestyle. It is not necessary.’ She glared her dislike of me and the upheaval combined. ‘You should learn to live our Frankish lifestyle. You are too soft, with your flighty southern ways.’

‘Do you not approve, madam?’ Soft, dulcet. My talent for acting improved daily and I had learned fast that to humour the Dowager Queen was more satisfying than to oppose her directly. To annoy, Adelaide had deliberately addressed me in the langue d’oeil in which I was now proficient. I replied in Latin.

‘No, I do not. What have you persuaded my son to do?’

‘Simply to make my life tolerable.’

‘It is not right. I have told Louis so.’

‘You do not have to tolerate the changes, madam. I will instruct the masons to leave your chambers alone. If it is your desire to live in squalor and cold and choking fumes, that is entirely your own choice.’

She had waylaid me in the corridor to the royal chapel after Mass, where my cantor had just surpassed himself in singing the canticles. I made to walk past her, then halted, faced her. It was not in my nature to remain silent after all when my authority was under question. I fell easily into the harsh syllables of the langue d’oeil since it seemed appropriate to express my feelings thus. ‘If you wish to complain about my actions, madam, come to me, not to your son. It does not please me to have Louis troubled by your petty dislikes.’

‘I will complain as I wish,’ she snapped back. ‘I will complain where I think it will have the most effect.’

‘So you think you can persuade Louis?’

‘I am his mother. He listens to me.’ But her furious stare slid from mine.

‘Excellent!’ I smiled thinly. ‘Perhaps you would instruct him that he is no longer a monk but the King of France.’

‘He does not need to be told.’

‘I think he does. We both know that he is at this moment celebrating High Mass and that he will remain at Notre Dame for the rest of the day, despite the official deputation from Normandy that Louis himself summoned. They are kicking their heels in the audience chamber, as they were for much of yesterday.’ I paused, the length of a heartbeat. ‘Your son does not listen to you, madam, does he?’

‘You are discourteous!’ Adelaide hissed. ‘Without respect!’

‘I am Queen of France and Louis’s wife, and as such beyond reproach.’ I performed a polite curtsey. ‘Louis is grown to be a man, away from the woman who gave him birth. Good day, madam.’

‘You will not have it all your own way.’ The final words floated after me.

Would I not? I smiled a little. I did not fear Adelaide. I doubted that she had ever commanded Louis’s full attention. And now Louis would listen to me and to no one else. Who would hinder me?

‘You are a daughter of Satan, madam! You should be ashamed!’

Who would hinder me indeed?

Ashamed? I froze, my mind alive to this threat.

We were in the city of Sens, Louis having moved his whole court to the royal palace there so that we might make an appearance at the formidable Council of Bishops. And the man who had emerged from monkish seclusion to participate in this Council, the man who now addressed me in such vulgar terms, was Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux.

‘Look at you, woman! All airs and graces and mincing steps, laden with ornament.’

I smoothed my hands down my silk-damask skirts, aware of the shimmer-rich tawny cloth. Had I not taken utmost care with my appearance to honour my husband before this important delegation? Would a visitor to our court address me, the Queen of France, in such a manner?

He would if he were Bernard, Abbot of the Cistercian order of monks at Clairvaux. There he stood in the Great Hall, spittle flying with his words of condemnation, his flowing white hair giving him an air of prophetic sanctity as if he were a figure come alive from the Old Testament.

‘Your hair—revealed for all men to see! Have you no understanding of what God demands from the fallen daughters of Eve? In recompense for her seduction of Adam into sin?’

Neither was he finished.

‘Daughter of Belial! Your appearance is an affront to God! If your husband will not take you to task, it is my duty to do so, in God’s name!’

I held the pale gaze, marvelling at the passion in this man, skeletally thin as he was from fasting and the rigours of his holy life. So frail he looked as if a buffet of storm wind would lay him low, but he still claimed the authority to rebuke me.

‘I recall your execrable grandfather, madam’ He was quivering with holy fire. ‘I recall his flouting of God’s teachings.’

True enough. The ninth Duke had preserved an ambiguous relationship with both the Almighty and His Church, upholding the motto ‘I will do as I please’. The Duke would honour God, as long as God’s will did not conflict with the Duke’s. My grandfather had spent much of his life excommunicate from one cause or another, chiefly his unholy liaison with Dangerosa.

‘My grandfather respected God well enough,’ I remarked frostily, looking towards Louis for help and getting none. Louis looked predictably tongue-tied. I decided it would not be politic to recall Dangerosa to Abbot Bernard’s vicious judgement. It would not help this situation.

‘You must learn to curb your tongue, daughter,’ Abbot Bernard challenged, his hostility unabated. ‘How can it be seemly in a woman to voice her opinions? It is not your place.’

‘It is my place, my lord Abbot.’ I would not be silent before this crude attack. ‘I was raised to have opinions and not fear to express them. I shall continue to do so. My lord the King does not object. Why should you?’

Which predictably failed to silence my vicious-tongued adversary. ‘I will preach to this misbegotten court what is acceptable in the eyes of God!’

And he did, every point sharpened like the tip of a poignard to rip my outrageous appearance to shreds.

The skirts of my gown—’… a virtuous man might think such a woman to be a viperous snake by the tail she drags after her in the dirt …’—the embroidered and furred decoration on my hem and cuff—’ … skins of squirrels and the labour of silkworms, all to clothe a woman who should be content with plain cloth …’—cosmetics to enhance, as any woman worth her salt would wish to do—’ … a thrice-damned superficial beauty, put on in the morning and laid aside at night …’

Such was Holy Bernard’s condemnation, his voice trembling with ire, his fist hammering against the lectern, whilst I sat, backbone straight, unmoved by the vitriol. How dared he condemn a daughter of Aquitaine? I would never bow my head before the Abbot of Clairvaux—but I was aware that beside me Louis sat transfixed, concentrating on every word. Louis’s face glowed as if Bernard’s delivery came straight from the mouth of God.

This was dangerous. In that moment I knew I had an implacable enemy. Abbot Suger would undermine me in a subtle, subterranean manner. Adelaide was as vicious as a vixen, snapping at my heels with sharp teeth, but without real influence. Now Bernard of Clairvaux—he was the wolf at my door. Here was Louis hanging on his every word. I could not afford to underestimate Bernard of Clairvaux. He was no friend to me. With Louis’s ear, he might cause me harm.

But then Bernard was forgotten in the excitement of my first escape from the Isle de la Cité. I was crowned Queen of France on Christmas Day at Bourges. In the great cathedral, in a sumptuous ceremony under the astute hand of Abbot Suger, Louis and I were acknowledged as King and Queen of France. Although already crowned in his father’s lifetime, the Abbot considered it no bad thing to remind the cynical and battle-hardened vassals of the Frankish king that Louis was their new monarch. I watched as the crown was placed on his head.

Louis twitched with apprehension, as if he expected the crown to fall at his feet.

I sighed.

Why could he not have been better matched to the position he held? Why could he not have resembled the men of my own family—proud, confident in his demeanour, power at his fingertips? Even with the weight of gold and jewels on his fair hair he looked more boy than man. Why did he have to fidget so? Why could he not stare down these lords who had an eye to every weakness? Louis had the crown and God’s blessing. Why did his hand have to clench nervously on the hilt of the sword of state?

God’s bones! I could play the role with more conviction than Louis ever could.

I was crowned too. I felt the thrill of it run through my blood. I was still young and inexperienced enough to believe that the mystical symbols of crown and oil and holy water would mean something. How could they not bring me happiness and contentment? In those days my heart was full of hope, and Louis did his best to make my experience of Bourges memorable.

By the Virgin, it was!

Louis ordered the creation of a masterpiece to impress me and his vassals. At the climax of the coronation feast, four men staggered from the kitchens under the weight of a giant platter bearing a subtlety worthy of one of my own master cooks.

‘I had it made for you.’ Louis beamed, beckoning the men forward.

It was manhandled onto the table before me, a vast pastry crust on a pottery base, the whole fashioned and gilded into a castle with towers and crenellations, just like the Maubergeonne tower. With its moat of green leaves and ribboned banners imprinted with fleurs de lys floating from its towers, it was a tour de force indeed. With an ingenuous smile of delight, Louis indicated for the lid to be raised.

‘What’s inside?’ Sweetmeats? Flowers? Some impressive creation of precious sugar? Or perhaps even a jewelled coronal to match the official one of my crowning?

‘Wait and see …’

A knife was run around the circumference. I leaned forward. A hush fell as all waited. The lid was raised in a piece …

A gasp.

A murmur of agitation arose from the women as, with a frantic flutter of wings, a flurry of small songbirds escaped from their prison up into the rafters and roof spaces or flew with swooping panic over the tables. The women shrieked, hands to their veils, the men shouted with ale-fuelled appreciation. In mounting terror the birds flew more madly with loud cheepings, their droppings splattering down indiscriminately on tables, food and clothing.

I think I gawped. I certainly hiccupped on an entirely inappropriate laugh. I might have ducked below the level of the table to escape a darting flock of finches.

‘Shit!’ Raoul of Vermandois guffawed crudely.

‘Your Majesty!’ Abbot Suger said deploringly, still retaining his ecclesiastical dignity against all the odds.

Poor Louis! If he had hoped for melodic tweetings, he was disappointed. Shrill and tuneless, the creatures merely added to the pandemonium. Nor was that all. With shouts of laugher from the barons, crossbows appeared in eager hands, arrows aimed—dangerously—at these unexpected targets. Their aim was remarkably good, all things considered. As the barons roared their approval at every hit, my own vassals amongst them, the songbirds began to fall, to be snapped up by the hounds that swarmed and waited below.

I watched with growing dismay.

Aelith giggled in horror.

‘Well, Louis …’ I sought for words through my distaste at so much thoughtless bloodshed, through pity for the small corpses. ‘That was truly spectacular!’

Louis, on his feet, paled to the blue-white of a corpse. ‘I did not mean for this.’

Of course he had not. But had he not thought? Two score or more birds encased in a pie, released from their captivity, would assuredly cause havoc.

‘Clear them out,’ he ordered as one wounded, cheeping creature fell onto the table under his nose.

‘How is it possible?’ I asked, angry now. ‘If you wait long enough, your barons will dispatch most of them.’

It was indeed pitiful. Blood and death and poor little bodies. I tried not to mind the smirks and ridicule from the lords who were sober enough to mock Louis’s failure. The whole was only brought to a halt when a casually loosed arrow buried itself in the shoulder of one ill-fortuned squire.

Poor Louis.

Even his best efforts were crowned with disaster.

When Louis solemnly gave the formal kiss of peace on the mouth to each of his barons, I shivered with uneasy premonition. He was no leader of men and never would be.

It was impressed on me in those early days of my marriage after my crowning that I had misjudged my self-appointed task to make Louis attend to me. Louis continued to apportion his time spent with me and in matters of government to the barest necessity. Almighty God ruled Louis’s world. God demanded his devotion, his meticulous observance of the offices, the measuring of his days. Oh, he was always pleased when his path crossed mine. I could never fault the depth of affection and kindness in him. He would kiss my cheek, give me gifts. Sometimes he would kiss my lips and stroke his hand down my hair, looking at me in delighted, innocent amazement as if he could not quite understand how he had come to have a wife at all.

Sometimes I did not see him for days on end.

Before God, I was patient with him. I would not shout. I would not scold or upbraid him for his neglect of me. Sweet Virgin, I would not! I had to keep a tight hold on my temper as my life was smothered by the flat, tedious, all-encompassing monotony of it all.

Boredom had a heavy hand.

How did I pass my time?

With my women I set stitches in belts and altar cloths. We played chess, we sang and read and gossiped when the weather was unkind. We strolled in the gardens. On bright mornings we rode out to hunt and hawk.

It was stultifying. Suffocating.

Sometimes Louis came to my bed, but not before praying through the order of Compline as if his soul could not survive the night with me without the click of the rosary beads through his fingers. He slept beside me. He did not touch me.

My courses came regularly, again and again, as the months passed. Why would they not? Although Louis’s face fell at my failure to conceive, he had not felt moved to repeat the experience beyond that first brief occasion.

‘How do I bear a child if you will not play the man?’ I demanded, furious with him, unable to contain my frustration when he enquired yet again after my health.

Louis turned his face away.

But not before I experienced that first flutter of fear. What if I failed to carry an heir for France? What would be my future then? Even more important to me—what if I conceived no heir for Aquitaine? I stamped down on the thought before it could bear fruit.

I was thrown back on my own devices. What did I do with my time, my energies? What did I do to warm this cold northern existence, to exercise my mind and my imagination? Songs and stories had a finite quality. The constructions Louis had promised me continued apace. Soon I had my glazed windows and fireplaces, my beautiful tapestries that filled the rooms with vibrant colour and tales of daring and courage, but my heart remained far away in Aquitaine. In Poitiers. I yearned for the warmth, the beauty, the songs and dancing that stirred the blood to passion. I wanted feasting and laughter and.

So there it was. It was no great leap to set up my own court, a close mirror image of what I knew and loved. I would be Duchess of Aquitaine first, Queen of France second. I would drag this backward court into an Aquitanian world of rich hues and sensual pleasures. I would create a little Aquitaine in the heart of Paris. And surely, somewhere in the novelty and excitement of it all, I could bring Louis to my bed as man and lover instead of as an affectionate brother.

‘You’ve been busy again, Eleanor.’ His hands plucked uncomfortably at the embroidered band around his cuff as he surveyed what I had done to the High Table. A linen cloth stretched fair and stainless along its length, as white as snow, with a napkin, a glass, a knife and a spoon at every place. Plates of polished pewter and silver. No more bread trenchers for those who sat at my table. The pages’ hands were scoured to red-fingered purity, the finger bowls perfumed with citrus and rosemary, frequently replenished. A troubadour warmed the strings of his lute. ‘Does it make you happy?’

‘Yes, indeed.’ I smiled encouragingly. I had his full attention. ‘One thing would please me far more,’ I whispered in Louis’s ear. ‘One thing would make me very happy.’

‘Then I will grant it. You only have to ask.’

‘Come to me tonight. We will pray together—’ a lure he could not refuse ‘—and then I will tell you. Will you come?’

‘Yes.’ There was no hesitation. Louis smiled at me.

‘Promise me.’

‘I promise.’

Excellent. I had a plan. My experience told me that there was perhaps one pathway to Louis’s reluctant loins.

‘Do you recall the success of your expedition against de Lezay at Talmont, Louis? When you rescued my gerfalcons?’

We had prayed. At some length. Now at ease, Louis lay beside me in the bed. The room was warm, the bed-hangings sumptuous, the linens soft against our naked flesh. Louis’s skin gleamed in the light from the single candle. I had hidden the Book of Hours in the bottom of one of my coffers.

‘Yes.’ A smile, swiftly followed by a little frown. ‘I recall de Lezay …’

‘It was a victory,’ I broke in, to obliterate his memory of de Lezay’s severed hands.

‘Yes. A victory.’ Still he was troubled.

‘To impose your authority on an impudent vassal who had stolen what was mine.’

‘I recall. I had God’s protection.’ Smiling again, Louis rolled to prop his head on his hand and look at me. ‘What of it?’ His eyes shone with benign contentment, and I leapt in before he could think of another prayer to offer. ‘It’s Toulouse. I want you to get back Toulouse for me.’

‘Toulouse?’ A large kingdom abutting Aquitaine to the south-east, stretching almost to the Mediterranean. Louis looked quizzical. ‘Do you have a claim on it?’

‘Certainly I do. My grandmother Philippa was Countess of Toulouse in her own right. It was snatched from her when my grandfather was too old and ill to fight to retain it for her. The present ruler, Count Alfonso, has no right of blood, only the right of power,’ I explained simply. ‘It should not be. It should be mine.’ Which was not untrue, even though Toulouse had been lost to us for the past twenty years. But here was a circumstance that might just play into my hands. ‘Now that I have a powerful husband of my own …’

I left the words hanging, for Louis to snatch up. Was this not what I had always wanted? A strong right hand to hold my lands? So why not get back what had been stolen from me? And if success in battle should strengthen Louis’s manhood. So many possibilities here. I let the idea settle in the still room as I reached and handed Louis a cup of spiced wine from the nightstand.

‘Think about it,’ I urged as he sipped, faint colour tinging his cheeks, a glow that had nothing to do with the heady spices. ‘It would extend your lands, as well as enhancing your prestige if you launched an assault and crushed the man who dared to steal what is rightfully mine.’ I cupped his cheek with my palm so that he focused on my eyes so close to his. My unbound hair curled with sensual effect onto his chest, his shoulder. ‘I would be so proud of you, Louis, if you could renew my claim to Toulouse and restore it to me—to us …’

I had planted the seed. I could see it grow in his face, in his eyes. Or it was like I had lit a little flame that bloomed and consumed. Louis drank deep as the vision of fame and glory struck home.

‘What a reputation you will build for yourself.’ I added an extra layer. ‘No lord will dare to threaten you.’

‘True …’

‘And you will have all my admiration …’

‘Do you mean it?’

‘Yes.’

Louis took another gulp, wiped his lips with the back of his hand. ‘Then I will. Toulouse will be yours again.’

Taking the cup from him, setting it aside, I kissed him on the mouth. ‘My powerful husband. My victorious lord. I can see it now, the point of your sword at Count Alfonso’s throat so that he has no choice but to hand Toulouse back …’

His lips warmed beneath mine. His hands clasped my shoulders with surprising strength. His erection surged and stiffened against my thigh.

‘Louis …’ I sighed against his mouth.

God was pleased to allow him to complete the deed. Briefly, in truth, but not before Louis had spent the royal seed in me. I felt nothing. How could I, when Louis’s interest was fast and tepid at best? My body remained unresponsive beyond the success at getting him to this point. Through it all I prayed that my womb would quicken.

‘Thank you, Eleanor.’

Louis fell asleep.

By the Virgin, Dangerosa! Did you risk your reputation for this?

CHAPTER SIX

LOUIS acted. The extent of his enthusiasm astonished me as much as it horrified his mother and drove his royal counsellor into a fury. I had not thought he would take my advice so much to heart, or quite so precipitately. I had thought it would take more than one night in my bed to stir him to open hostility against Toulouse, but Louis leapt on the excuse for invasion as a hungry cat leapt on a bird that threatened to escape. The voices raised against such a project were loud and vociferous but Louis was deaf to them all.

‘Why in the blessed name of God make an enemy of the Count of Toulouse?’ Abbot Suger, excruciatingly civil but furious that Louis had made his decision without once consulting him, questioned both the cost and the ultimate value to France.

‘Because he has no claim to it,’ Louis stated. ‘Toulouse is Eleanor’s.’

‘You have been ill-advised.’ Suger’s flat stare encompassed me before returning to Louis. ‘Are you not aware that your vassals will not support you, sire? They’ll refuse to supply you with knights. Not one of them wants an angry neighbour on his doorstep. We have no argument with Toulouse.’

‘I will defeat Count Alfonso, my lord Abbot. He will no longer be a neighbour and his anger will be a thing of no importance.’

Suger lifted his hands helplessly. ‘I pray God thinks you worthy of victory, sire.’

‘I will ask Him. He’ll not refuse me.’

And Adelaide? Her civility was negligible. ‘You will not go, my son.’

A mistake. I saw Louis’s nostrils narrow.

‘I will, madam.’

‘Louis! You will listen to me, even if you refuse to heed Abbot Suger.’

Ha! Adelaide still had not learned. Louis listened to me, and we set out for Poitiers together, where I prepared to stay as Louis gathered his troops. I wished with all my heart to travel farther south with him, into the centre of my own lands, and the temptation to do so stirred my blood from its northern languor—but a miracle had happened. That one night when I had painted for Louis the glory of his victory over Toulouse, his ownership of me, however brief and perfunctory, had been effective. My courses had stopped and nausea struck in the morning hours.

Praise the Virgin! I would carry an heir for France and for Aquitaine.

My delight superseded my wretched mornings when my belly heaved and the thought of food made me retch. Louis proved to be mildly sympathetic but more taken up with the magnificence of his own achievement. I tried not to fall prey to cynicism. The heir would enhance my importance and win over those of Louis’s court who still saw me as an undesirable southern influence in France. No one would dare to slight me when I bore the King a son.

Even Abbot Bernard would be forced to temper his denunciations.

But for now Louis was intent on conquest in my name. Emerging from my chamber, a linen cloth pressed to my lips, I listened to his enthusiastic explanation that they would take Toulouse by surprise and starve the city into submission. Even through my misery I noted that for a siege Louis employed few siege engines. Neither was Louis’s army particularly impressive in size. Was the whole operation too small, too ill-prepared? Yet Louis was so confident that I too saw no impediment to his success. If Count Alfonso did not expect the descent of an armed force, he would be unprepared and the campaign brought to a swift end. Louis would return to me, full of courage and male pride. Perhaps his rejoicing would take him from the long hours on his knees.

‘I will return and lay Toulouse at your feet,’ he promised. ‘I’ll drag Alfonso to his knees to ask your forgiveness.’

I kissed Louis farewell and retired to vomit into a basin.

How many days before Louis returned. Two weeks? Three? We saw the cloud of dust from Poitiers and knew there had been no effective siege. We knew the outcome anyway, long before I saw Louis’s crestfallen face. Rumour travelled faster than the Capetian troops. Count Alfonso had been warned and waiting for him. Formidable defences, banks and ditches and wooden palisades, sufficient to repel Louis’s meagre army, had been hastily thrown up.

And my noble, all-powerful, ambitious King of France, drunk on pride and certain victory? Louis did not even stay to make a token attack but turned on his heel and retraced every inch back to Poitiers without one blow being struck, whilst in Toulouse Alfonso thumbed his nose from the castle walls, catcalls screeching the derision of the Toulousians, the soldiers’ gestures obscene and graphic.

Alfonso could not believe his luck.

I despaired.

Louis begged God’s forgiveness for the unspecified sin that kept him from victory.

A humiliating disaster all round.

I did not use such words to Louis, although it was in my mind to blame him. Where else to lay the faults of lack of preparation, even of abject cowardice, in making no show of force?

‘I failed to take Toulouse,’ was all he said. The misery of failure sat on his shoulders as surly a thunder cloud. The chapel at Poitiers saw more of him than I did.

After a gloomy progress through my domains, we returned to Paris where the reaction of Abbot Suger and the Dowager Queen would await us. With one look at Louis’s doleful expression, Suger desisted, doing nothing more than frown sternly at both of us, as if we were errant children, then unbending enough to take Louis’s arm in a fatherly manner with a sigh. No point, I suppose, in ringing a peal over his head so long after the event.

Adelaide would have something to say about it, she would not hold back. Nothing would keep her silent when she had been proved right. I steeled myself. But her apartments were empty and a message had arrived for Louis during our absence. Adelaide had gone to her dower lands in Compiègne where her eye had fallen—with astonishing speed—on an obscure lord of the de Montmorency family who was unwed. Adelaide expressed the intention of marrying the lord and not returning to court. Poor man. Louis appeared to have little interest in it. It astonished me that the Dowager Queen could accept a return to comparative insignificance but perhaps it was in her nature to keep house in a distant keep where she could concentrate on God and her stitching. Obscurity would suit her very well.

It would not suit me.

So we were returned to Paris, Louis’s reputation smeared, the weight of Abbot Suger’s disapproval heavy, and perversely I missed Adelaide, her acerbic wit and the sharp cut and thrust that had become the essence of all our dealings. Conversation with Louis was as dull as boiled mutton pudding.

At least the child grew and thrived in my belly. It was my only consolation.

Adelaide’s departure had its consequence. Returned to my rooms, I set my women to unpacking my travelling chests since Aelith, who would normally have supervised such a mundane matter, had expressed a desire to remain behind in Poitou. There was the faintest scratch at the doorpost. I turned to find the dark-clad figure of a woman, a servant from her garments, watching me.

‘Yes?’

‘You do not recognise me, lady.’

‘Should I?’ I was out of sorts and missed Aelith’s easy company. My nausea had settled but I had found the long journey in the lurch and sway of the litter more than exhausting. Louis had been no company.

‘I am Agnes,’ she replied with a quiet assurance surprising in one of her status. ‘I was tirewoman to Queen Adelaide.’

I recalled her, Adelaide’s shadow, silent and unobtrusive as she fetched and carried for her royal mistress. She was short and slight, fine boned, her hair covered by a wimple, her figure concealed in dark wool, a woman, I decided, who would pass unseen through life. I could not understand why she had come to me.

‘Why did you not accompany Queen Adelaide to Compiègne and her new life?’

‘I do not wish to retire, lady. I have no desire to disappear into the depths of the country.’

‘Did she allow you to stay?’ My interest was piqued.

‘I did not give her the choice, lady. It was not my wish to go and so I refused.’

I looked at her sharply, reconsidering. Behind the unassuming exterior of this woman of indeterminate age was a remarkable composure.

‘And so?’ I let my cloak slip from my shoulders. Agnes stepped neatly forward to retrieve it before it reached the floor. Impressive! ‘What is your wish?’

‘I wish to offer my services to you, lady.’

‘I have enough women to wait on me.’ I indicated the women from noble families who made up my household, their sole existence to meet my desires.

‘To wait on you, yes. But you need me, lady.’ She placed the fur on the bed, brushing down the soft pelt with her hand.

‘I don’t think I do.’ I yawned. Oh, I was tired.

‘You need me to help you survive at this court.’

What a strange thing to say. I did not think I had any such need. What could a servant offer me? I raised my brows in enquiry.

‘How many friends do you have, lady?’ the tirewoman asked.

‘Friends?’

‘I think you have none. Which of these women would tell you the truth?’

I considered. She had a point. They would tell me what I wished to know.

‘My sister would …’

‘Your sister is in Poitou, lady. I would be your friend,’ Agnes stated. ‘I would be your eyes and ears. And I would tell you the truth. To know the truth is strength.’

‘Why would you do this?’

She gave no reply. Her eyes were dark and direct as she allowed me to make my own judgement. Truth? Truth was a valuable commodity, not to be sneezed at. I walked across the room, singling out Florine, whose ear for gossip was keen.

‘Florine …’

‘Yes, lady?’ Looking up from her task of shaking out my robes from the chest, her face was bright.

‘What is the court saying about Toulouse?’

The change was imperceptible. A tightening of a muscle here, a flicker of eyelid there. Her hands stilled on the silk sleeves she had just lifted from a coffer.

‘That it was unfortunate that Count Alfonso was warned of His Majesty’s campaign.’

‘Is that all?’

Florine could not quite look at my face. ‘Yes, lady.’

‘Thank you.’ I beckoned to Agnes and we walked out of earshot in the deserted anteroom. ‘Tell me, then. What do they say about Toulouse?’

‘They put the blame at your door, lady. They say the advice that His Majesty acted on was not good.’ She looked me full in the eye.

‘And the lack of forces, the insufficiency of siege engines for such a campaign? The ignominious retreat without a blow being exchanged? Where is the blame for that apportioned?’

Agnes shook her head.

‘How can that be put at my feet?’ I demanded.

‘It can if the initial plan was not considered to be sound. And that plan was yours, lady.’

So I was at fault. My claim to Toulouse might be right and just, but blame for France’s defeat would not be levelled at Louis. The Aquitaine Queen must be the cause of France’s failure. I felt the bitterness of it, the unfairness of it. Perhaps it did not altogether surprise me—but I learned the lesson well. I must guard my vulnerability.

I kept her. Agnes came into my employ. A friend? How could a tirewoman be a friend to the Duchess of Aquitaine? But I kept her because she was right—truth was strength.

There were repercussions from Toulouse. Abbot Suger had his revenge for my interference where I’d had no authority to interfere, with the result that I found myself shut out of Louis’s meetings with his council. It was not right! The wife of the King of France had always been given access to decision-making, had always been consulted. Even Adelaide had scrawled her signature on any number of Fat Louis’s charters. I had made it my business to know that.

But after Toulouse there was a wily conspiracy, a change to the custom, quietly done. I was not to be allowed to sit in Louis’s consultations with his advisers. My role as Queen was to be ceremonial. I was to be a cipher, a lovely face and elegant body to stand silently at Louis’s side in royal robes and bear the royal children. All I had feared. Neither my consent nor advice would be sought or acted upon. I was barred. My presence at royal discussions was de trop.

Abbot Suger’s little victory.

I allowed it. Would I embarrass myself by being turned from the door of the Council Chamber? But in my heart I refused to accept defeat. I would say what I wished in the privacy of my bedchamber where the worthy Abbot had no power. But first Louis must make amends for cringing so weakly before his minister. I was carrying the heir to France, was I not? I had every right to punish him.

I withdrew from Louis. I distanced myself from him, made no attempt to seek him out, absenting myself from the formal meals with the excuse that I was unwell. When he came to my apartments, I had a dozen excuses to deny him entry. Indeed, one word of my possible ill health put him to flight like a rat into a sewer in the streets of Paris. I would bring my husband to his knees for his slighting of me. And I did, of course. It was a cunning woman’s ploy, to pretend disinterest. After no more than a se’ennight of the fictitious headache, the troublesome cough, the inexplicable rash, I brought him to me where I had closeted myself in my solar. Abjectly apologetic, Louis had a little coffer clasped to his chest like an offering.

‘My lord.’ My voice held the bitter cold of January, while I continued to give my attention to the troubadour who knelt at my feet, pouring out an impassioned love song. I would not be ignored and Louis would be left in no doubt of it.

She is my heart’s one joy, crown of all ladies I have ever seen,

Fair, fairer still, fair above all the fairest is she, my lady, as I must avow …

My troubadour sang with pain and adoration, all plaintive emotion in his voice.

‘My lady …’ Louis approached.

I waved him to silence as the singer fixed his eyes on my face and completed the sentiment.

Now it is time, lady, that you grant your lover his reward

Or else it would be folly for him to praise you …

‘Lover? Reward?’ Louis’s words were bitten off.

‘Certainly.’ I graced him with barely a glance. ‘My troubadour demands my love in return for his.’ How convenient that he should be singing those sentiments at such a moment—if one believed in such coincidences. ‘This is cortez amors, Louis. Courtly love.’ I yawned behind my fingers. ‘The love of a troubadour for his lady. His worship of the unattainable woman of his heart.’

Louis strode forward to tower over me. ‘I’ll not have that man here, expressing such sentiments to my wife.’

Better and better … ‘Why ever not?’

‘You refused to obey me on the day of our marriage. That was in Bordeaux, your own city. This is Paris. I’ll not have that man in your chamber.’

My troubadour still knelt, head bent, fingers stilled on the strings. Marcabru, another favourite of my father, a songsmith full of wit, of scurrilous verses or the sweetest love songs to turn a woman’s knees to water, renowned throughout Aquitaine and Poitou. I had brought him to Paris with me from our recent visit to Poitiers. A handsome man with great charm and a heart-melting smile. A smile that was now wickedly in evidence at the exchange of words.

Louis waved him away. Marcabru looked at me for confirmation. I hesitated, just for a second, then nodded, smiling at him and watching as he bowed and retreated across the room. My women withdrew too, leaving the pair of us in a little space of hostility.

I turned to Louis. ‘Did you wish to speak with me, Louis?’ I asked sweetly. ‘Did you want my advice at last? Or will you continue to shut me out of your deliberations?’ He slammed the little coffer down, to the detriment of its hinges. ‘Did Abbot Suger allow you to come to me?’ I pursued.

Louis snarled, not diverted. ‘You were flirting with him, Eleanor.’

I made my face grave, hurt. ‘I do not flirt with my servants.’

‘I’ll not have it.’

I lifted my chin a little. ‘By what right do you take me to task, my lord?’

His reply was becoming tedious with repetition. ‘I am your husband.’

‘My husband? I think I’ve not seen you in my bed any time this week—this month, in fact. Even longer than that …’

‘Such comments don’t become you, madam. As for your paid songster. How typical of the louche south,’ he accused viciously, ‘to encourage such wantonness.’

We had been here before, of course. ‘Do you dare accuse me of lascivious behaviour, Louis? The woman who carries your child?’

‘How should I not? Look at your hair, your dress …’

‘I am at leisure here in my own rooms to dress as I please.’ Deliberately I drew my hand down the length of my hair, wrapped about in silk ribbons, the ends clasped in gold finials. Louis’s eyes followed the gesture. ‘I recall a time when you wound my hair around your wrist, my lord …’

‘I’ll not discuss that!’ His face was suffused with colour. ‘I’ll not have you looking like …’

He sought for a word. I supplied it. And not quietly. ‘A harlot?’ I suggested.

It silenced Louis. It drew all eyes in the chamber to us. With a furious look, Louis leaned to whisper, the syllables harsh in the quiet room. ‘You will dismiss your troubadour, Eleanor.’

‘I will not. I am his patron.’

Louis stalked out. The jewels—his peace offering but left behind with bad grace—were atrocious, solid enough to decorate a horse’s harness. I remained obdurate. I knew what I was about. Hardly had the week expired than Louis marched in with another box, small and carved out of wood. Without apology or explanation he thrust it into my hands.

‘A gift, Eleanor. To remind you of your home. I know you love the perfumes of the south so I’ve had this made for you.’

I opened the little box to release a sweet scent of orange blossom with a deeper note that tickled my nose. It was pleasant enough and I was touched that he should think of me with so personal a gift. Feeling magnanimous, I put aside my embroidery. Now was the time to welcome him back into my affections. I kissed his cheek.

‘I had the ingredients from a merchant here in the city,’ Louis explained, as he took the box from me, strode across the room to the open fire and.

‘Take care, Louis—only a little. The merest pinch. That’s too much!’

Louis cast a hearty handful of the contents onto the fire. His enthusiasm was a fine thing.

Smoke rose. There was the sweetness of the orange blossom, perhaps a little jasmine scenting the air, and beneath that. I sniffed. Sandalwood I expected, or even frankincense, as the base notes. That is what I would have ordered. We in the south had much experience of the skills of ancient Rome, now practised and polished by our alchemists. But that was not it. I sniffed again. One of my women sneezed. Louis coughed discreetly. Then not so discreetly as the smoke billowed and the pungency caught at the back of the throat.

There was no escape. The perfume burned, the smoke filled the room and we coughed, sneezed, eyes watering as we were all overwhelmed with the cloying, animal heaviness of it.

‘Open the windows,’ I ordered when I could breathe. ‘Douse the flames.’

To no avail. The perfume continued to give off its secrets and the mingled scents hung like a miasma in the air. By this time any sweetness was entirely obliterated, the draughts from the open windows merely stirring the fire into fresh life.

We fled to the antechamber where we continued to wheeze.

‘It was very expensive,’ gasped Louis, beating at his tunic, dragging his hands down over his face.

‘I can imagine.’ And I began to laugh.

Musk, of course. The most valuable, the most sought-after of base elements. To be used circumspectly, and totally overwhelming when applied with too liberal a hand. Laughter took hold and I could not stop. Everything was permeated with the scent of musk. The tapestries, the very stones of the walls. And ourselves.

‘It was too much, Louis,’ I managed. But Louis was already beating a retreat, still spluttering, as I mopped my eyes. ‘They say its perfume remains detectable for a hundred years …’ I gasped.

‘One week on the skin would be too much,’ Agnes muttered. ‘Your hair, lady! It reeks of the stuff. Who concocted it for His Majesty? They ought to be suffocated in their own product.’

‘Probably the Master of Horse, used to making liniment! They say it’s an aphrodisiac …’ I burst into laughter again.

‘And will you inform His Majesty of that?’

We laughed until we could laugh no more, before Agnes ordered up hot water to scrub and scour our skin and hair. The remains of Louis’s gift we consigned to the garderobe.

Poor Louis! Even his kindest efforts went awry, but at least we were reconciled.

I was still not readmitted to Louis’s councils.

I lost our child. For no reason that I could understand. Although my belly was hardly rounded, the birth far distant, I gave up hunting. I danced only moderately. I ate and drank circumspectly. Nothing must harm this precious child. But then a sharp pain struck in the night, a pain that became agony where there should have been no pain. The child was stillborn, almost too ill formed to be recognisable as a child, certainly too small to take a breath on its own and too incomplete for me to know its sex. Only a mess of blood and disappointment. Of the pain in the bearing of that child as it tore its way from my body I gave no thought, only the loss that lodged its despair in my heart. I had failed. I had failed France and Aquitaine. My grief surprised me.

Did Louis blame me?

No, he never did. He thought our loss was brought about by some nameless, undisclosed sin of his own that he had not confessed, thus driving him to endless hours on his knees to seek God’s forgiveness.

Perhaps it was. Or was the sin mine?

It was Agnes who held my hand when I wept, when the pain was almost too great to bear—not Louis, who was banned as were all men from the birth chamber.

‘What do they say, Agnes?’ I asked when grief ebbed, to be replaced by empty reality.

She pursed her lips.

‘Who do they blame?’ I pressed her.

She gave an eloquent shrug. ‘The child was born before its time. It is always the fault of the woman. It is the burden we have to bear.’

A caustic reply but not without sympathy. I knew she was right.

As for Louis, his despair may have driven him to his knees, but he still found time to banish Marcabru from my court. I did not know my troubadour had gone until I emerged from my chamber to be told that Louis had sent him back to Poitiers on the understanding that he would never return to Paris. I missed him, that bright flavour of the south in his words and music that might have helped me to heal. I was heart-sore, but kept it close within me. I never talked of it to Louis. It had been deliberate retribution on his part. I had not thought him capable of it.

I think in those days my heart began to harden against the King of France.

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