Devil's Consort (35 page)

But I had my own bones to pick over with Louis. As he sat and the choristers surged into soaring notes, I leaned towards him, mouth against his ear.

‘You gave away my gift to you!’

His eyes flickered. ‘Which gift?’

‘The one I gave you on the occasion of our marriage. The crystal vase that now graces the High Altar in Abbot Suger’s Abbey. A gift from you to Saint Denis! Or to Abbot Suger? It doesn’t matter which. You gave away my marriage gift!’

A look of bewilderment crossed his face. ‘I thought it a fitting offering. It was very precious to me.’

‘I gave it to you. I chose it as a symbol of my … my respect and hope for our marriage.’

‘I know. Do you not approve that I considered it precious enough to offer it—as a gift from us both?’

‘I did not choose it as a gift for Abbot Suger, who barely tolerates me!’

‘It is for God, not for Abbot Suger.’

The gentle chiding, the soft, tolerant closing of his hand over mine, stirred my anger to another level. ‘God has no need of more gifts. Look at it.’ I raised my hand towards the glittering array, now partially masked by the grey swirls of incense.

‘It is a mark of my repentance, Eleanor.’

I flicked my fingers over the coarse cloth of his sleeve. ‘I think you’ve shown your repentance quite clearly enough in your less than kingly display. Within the past hour I’ve heard you described variously as a fool, an idiot and a poor excuse for a monarch. I’m not sure which hurts me most. It’s ignominious, Louis. You should have shown yourself to your people as a man of power, not as a beggar in the gutter.’

‘God understands.’ He clasped his hands and bent his head in prayer. He was beyond my tolerating. ‘Pray with me, Eleanor,’ he murmured, suddenly gripping my hand.

‘I will pray for an heir, Louis.’ My tongue was acid. ‘I hope you will do more than offer petitions to the Almighty.’

His smile was serene as it fixed on the distant reliquary of the saint. ‘Thank you, Eleanor. I too shall pray that we shall be blessed.’

And did he come to my bed that night, in our comfortable accommodation in the abbey lodgings? He did not! The lure of a night vigil with the monks at Saint-Denis before the glittering crucifix was too strong.

I cursed him.

But it forced me to accept that the path I had set myself, here at Saint-Denis, however distasteful to me, was now inevitable.

I had a purpose. A two-fold purpose for being here at Saint-Denis. I needed help, and was driven to acknowledge that there was only one man who had the power to help me. Oh, how I resisted. How I shrank from making my requests. Would I willingly prostrate myself, laying myself open to his sneering hatred?

Holy Virgin! My belly curdled. But I would do it. After seven years of arid marriage I had no pride. The two worries that crowded my days and nights were beyond my solving.

The one possible source of my redemption, the one voice Louis might listen to below God, was that of Bernard of Clairveaux, that most holy and intractable of saints on earth, who had honoured Saint-Denis with his presence, the glamour of the occasion luring him from his austere cell. There was no man with such influence in heaven or on earth. He might damn me as the daughter of Satan, but I had nowhere else to go.

I requested a private consultation with him.

I went to our meeting as Queen of France in robes and diadem, ermine and cloth of gold. I spared no effort, and I had my arguments thoroughly marshalled, my campaign well planned. I would flatter, put my case, and hope that the saint could not resist the sin of pride in achieving what the King and Queen of France could not accomplish alone. When I stepped into the little audience chamber where he granted me a few precious moments of his time I approached him boldly and held his eye, my recent tearful meeting with my sister close in my heart.

Aelith may have achieved her heart’s desire but it had come at a terrible price.

‘Help us, Eleanor,’ she had wept in my arms from grief as she had once wept from happiness in the early days of her love. ‘I’ve condemned Raoul and our children to hell. You’ve got to help me, Eleanor.’ Her tear-drenched eyes were raised to mine.

Pope Celestine might have shown compassion to Louis and lifted the Church’s ban, but my sister Aelith
and Vermandois were still excommunicate, their marriage not recognised by the Church. They were living in sin, their children conceived in sin. I could not allow the Pope to plunge them into everlasting fire on a whim. I had to act since Louis was a man of straw. I would persuade Abbot Bernard to use his influence.

‘What do you request, lady?’ Abbot Bernard was more emaciated than ever, more skin and bone than saint. ‘Is it forgiveness for your part in the horrors of Vitry?’ he asked bitingly.

‘No, my lord Abbot.’ I would be respectful. I must be respectful! ‘This is a matter dear to my heart.’ I choked out the words. ‘I would ask your help, my lord Abbot.’ His eyes stared without compassion. ‘I am in great need.’

His voice held no softness. ‘And so, my daughter?’

I stated my argument, for Aelith and Vermandois, as plainly and forcefully as I could, ending with a plea that surely he could not resist.

‘I wish more than anything to bring my sister back into the love and communion of the Church. She weeps for her sins and can find no comfort without the sacraments. Would you condemn her, her innocent children, to eternal damnation?’ I took a breath. ‘If you would add your voice to those who petition His Holiness to reconsider, my lord Abbot—I am convinced His Holiness would listen to you.’

Bernard’s fine-grained skin flushed an unhealthy red. ‘Such subjects are not for discussion by a woman.’

‘Not even for a woman for the saving of her sister’s soul?’

‘You should be ashamed to raise such matters.’

A bitter taste of defeat rose into my mouth, yet I pressed on. ‘I would make a pact with you, my lord Abbot.’ He regarded me in unpromising silence. ‘If you will speak for me—for my sister—with His Holiness, I will do all in my power to persuade Louis to come to terms with Theobald of Champagne and restore peace between them.’

It was the best I could offer.

‘One does not haggle with God!’ Bernard observed, entirely unmoved. ‘I’ll not mediate. It was your advice that your husband acted upon when he invaded Champagne. It was wicked, evil advice, and yet you have no penitence, no contrition. You are responsible for His Majesty’s fall from God’s grace.and your advice came from the Devil.’

I shook my head, fighting against despair. He was not listening to me. ‘Why should my sister have to suffer when nothing she did was outside the law of man or God? She committed no sin.’

The Abbot all but spat the words at me. ‘You would discuss the fruits of adultery with me? You would excuse the sin committed by Vermandois and your sister?’ This was a disaster. ‘My only advice to you, lady—’ he sneered over the respectful address ‘—go home and stop meddling in affairs of state that are nothing to do with you!’

He turned his back on me and walked from the room, leaving me trembling with righteous anger at his intransigence and my own helplessness.

I was furious with him, but I was equally furious with myself. I had thought I could argue the rights of my case with him with calm, legal precision. What a miscalculation that had been. Through the night hours I mulled it over.

With dawn came no satisfaction, but a change of plan.

‘Go to Queen Adelaide,’ I instructed Agnes, ‘and borrow one of her gowns. And a veil.’ I gave very specific instructions.

Brows raised in curiosity, Adelaide herself came with the selected items. They rose even higher when she saw me clad in them. Meanwhile I requested another interview with the Abbot. And was granted one. Adelaide wished me well. I thanked her with dry appreciation.

In the same audience chamber, Abbot Bernard waited for me. I saw the tightening of the muscles in his jaw as I walked forward. I saw myself through his eyes. A petitioner in a state of abject penitence.

By God, I discovered a talent for deception that day.

Face cleansed of cosmetics, not one jewel except for a plain silver cross on my bosom, all my habitual sparkle doused under severe black damask, I approached the Abbot. I even wore a despised wimple and full veil,
neat as any nun, to hide the red hair Bernard considered to be a mark of the Devil. Adelaide’s plain gown was without ornament, no dagged edges, not a hint of fur. No fur slippers, no train, no long sleeves, nothing that I recalled from that notable sermon that could arouse his disfavour. Since Adelaide was shorter than I by a handspan, I had to wear an under-shift so that my ankles were hidden from unseemly view.

I found it hard not to laugh at my outrageous appearance. I was the source of the counsel of the Devil, was I? Eve with the apple of deceit? Not so. Here I was as discreet as the Holy Virgin herself. Or more like a widow who wouldn’t stand out in a field of autumn rooks.

Even Adelaide had managed a smile.

‘Well, my daughter.’ Dry and rusty, Barnard’s aged voice was almost astonished.

I sank to my knees. The seams around the bodice strained. I would make it hard for Abbot Bernard not to listen to me. I would make it impossible. I would play the role of penitent that even he could not withstand. And so I bent my head and covered my face with my hands, remembering how once in my childish defiance I had vowed never to bow my knee before this man. How immature I had been. What extremities are we driven to by necessity.

There was a little silence. Then: ‘God bless you, my daughter.’

To give him his due, Barnard acted with all Christian
charity. I heard the shuffle of his feet as he approached, felt his touch on my opaque veil. How I resented it! But I must humble myself. I bowed my head, my eyes on the hem of his robe.

‘I have seen the error of my ways, my lord Abbot. I have prayed through the night.’

‘Your confession does you credit, my daughter. Have you come to do penance for your outburst of yesterday?’

‘I have. I was in the wrong.’

‘Do you confess your malign influence over Vitry.’

I could not! I could not do it. ‘My words to my husband were perhaps not wise,’ I managed.

Bernard allowed it to go unchallenged. ‘Have you a request of me?’

I had to ask. And not about Aelith, who was suddenly not my priority. However much I shrank from it, I had to beg.

Seven years of marriage and only one dead child.

Even Aelith had borne Vermandois a child in sin, a son.

I cared little for Louis, even less for France. But I did care for Aquitaine. I must give my domains their own heir for the future. I needed a child.

I lifted my face to look at the Abbot and spoke, my voice raw with real grief.

‘My lord, I come to ask your aid. There is no one in France who can make his voice heard in the courts of His Holiness the Pope or beneath the arches of Heaven.
In God’s name, please help me.’ Tears flowed down my cheeks, and not all to do with artifice. ‘I have no one else to turn to.’

The tears flowed harder.

‘My child! Such emotion does not become you.’

‘But it does. It is a high matter of state.’ A catch in my voice. I sniffed delicately. ‘My life is empty and barren.’ I added an impassioned tone, as I had practised, and bowed my head again. ‘In seven years I have carried one child and not to term. That was six years ago. And since then no more—my woman’s courses have continued to flow.’ I could feel Bernard flinch at so intimate an observation but I held to my plan. ‘I beg of you, pray for me. The gift of motherhood is all I ask, as our Holy Virgin experienced. Intercede for me, my lord.’

My voice broke on the request. I risked a glance. Bernard’s face was strained with some severe emotion. Perhaps he would reject me after all, unable to consider relations between man and woman, much less pray for them. I covered my face with my hands and managed a good bout of weeping.

Bernard responded with a hint of panic. ‘My child. So much distress. I cannot deny you.’ It sounded as if the words were wrenched from him. ‘I will help you—but there are conditions. There are always conditions. Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’

‘You must promise to seek the things that make for
peace. You must not meddle in affairs of the kingdom but guide His Majesty into good relations with the Church. If you will agree to that, I will entreat the merciful Lord to grant you a child.’

I sniffed again. ‘I should tell you, my lord,’ I whispered, glancing up. ‘The King will not come to my bed. He does not do his duty by me. I am dutiful to him … but he will not. I cannot persuade him.’

Bernard’s features stiffened, his mouth disappeared into the thinnest of lines.

‘That is not a matter for you to discuss with me.’

‘How can God grant my prayer, or even yours, my lord, if Louis will not fulfil his role as my husband?’

‘This is disrespectful.’

‘But true. The Holy Virgin conceived knowing no man, but I cannot! His Majesty needs an heir. I think he will never achieve it. And that is not good for the kingdom. How can I not meddle in this, when it is within my female power to put it right? If only Louis will consent to honour his vows before God …’ It was the strongest argument I could wield. He must listen to me. Bernard was silent for so long I thought I had lost. ‘I thought I had wed a king,’ I murmured, ‘and found I had married a monk.’

Bernard sighed. Good or bad?

‘Stand up, my daughter.’

I did. My eyes were still on the begrimed hem of his robe.

‘I will take the burden onto my own shoulders,’ he
stated somberly, ‘as long as you agree to remain obedient and humble, as is the role of womankind in God’s eyes. Will you agree to that?’

How hard it was. I would be more and more a cipher, a voiceless shadow. ‘I will agree to that. If you will also agree to intercede for my beloved sister.’

‘You drive a hard bargain, lady.’

‘And in return my final foray into high politics,’ I replied, hiding my bitterness. ‘I will persuade the King to make terms with the Count of Champagne.’

For a long moment we looked at each other, saint and sinner.