Devil's Consort (53 page)

‘It doesn’t become you to dishonour me!’

I clenched my fists, then, when I felt the urge to strike out after all, I thrust them behind my back. As Louis took a step and then another towards the door, clearly intent on flight, I fought to rein in my anger and disappointment. Could he not even stay in the same room with me? He claimed he loved me, but such purity of love was anathema. I needed a man who would hold me close. Who would talk to me of the trivia of the day and what we might do tomorrow. Who did not put God before me over and over again. Who would look at me not as if I were a holy statue on a plinth but
a warm-fleshed woman who could stir him to physical need.

‘By God, Louis! You’re so pure the light shines through you and you have no shadow.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He rubbed his hands over his face then looked at me with what might have been grief. ‘I love you. I thought you would understand.’

I had no pity. ‘No! I don’t!’

‘I need to feel cleansed. I’ve done some terrible things in my life. I have been excommunicated!’ He still could not come to terms with it. ‘I was responsible for all those innocent deaths at Vitry. Those shrieks of agony lie on my conscience and trouble my sleep—’

‘In God’s name, be silent! I’ve heard all this before.’

‘But listen! I feel that this chance to go to Jerusalem, to stop the Turkish onslaught, is God’s path for me to bring me redemption. Christ was chaste throughout his life. How can I not subject my body to the same penance for a few short months? I thought you would understand, Eleanor.’

‘No, I don’t! You’re a fool!’

‘When I have earned my salvation, I believe it will be God’s will that we have a son.’

I gave up. There was no arguing with him. ‘Of course you do.’ Weariness descended on me like an enveloping blanket. There was no moving him.

‘I must go.’ He retreated to the door. ‘I’m expected in the abbey church.’

‘Then go. Go and talk to God. But how he will
answer your prayers for an heir without some direct intervention from you I have no idea!’

‘You should respect my motives, Eleanor.’

I turned my back on him. I could not look at him any longer. The monkish habit, the gaunt cheeks, the shaven head, they repelled me. ‘Do as you will, Louis. Spend the night with your precious Oriflamme and the oath to your long-dead brother. They mean far more to you than I.’ I could not stop the bitterness from flooding out.

I heard the door close softly and I was alone, and celibate for as long as it took Louis to get us all to Jerusalem. I wondered if Odo de Deuil or Galeran had had any part in Louis’s decision to separate himself entirely from me. Perhaps not. He was quite capable of making it himself.

How angry I was. As much with myself as with my contemptible husband. How could I have ever thought that the Crusade could mend the rift that Louis had created between us? How could anything mend it? He would remain a celibate at heart, and for the most part in body, until the day he died. And so, physically, through necessity, would I. I was too angry to weep.

I despised him. I washed my hands of him.

Nothing would be allowed to dampen my spirits. Cheering crowds lined the route next morning when finally I threw off the dark restrictions of life on the Ile de la Cité. At twenty-five years of age, the beauty
of my face and figure was unimpaired, my authority over my Aquitaine vassals unquestionable. For the next month there would be no restrictions on my time and how I chose to spend it. I was free of court life, of protocol, and not least of Louis. Constantinople beckoned with glittering gilded promise. Then Antioch, where Raymond held tight to his control and prayed for help. We would bring it to him. It would be a glorious victory. And finally Jerusalem! By the new year, in Louis’s reckoning, we would be in Jerusalem. The adventure unfolded before me in my mind.

What an impression we made, what a magnificent sight, this vast army inspired by its Papal promise of driving the infidel Turks from the Holy Land so that we might worship feely in Jerusalem. The sun shone on helmet and armour, glinting off the hilts of swords that carried fragments of the true cross. Destriers fretted and stamped, Banners unfurled and lifted in the summer air, proclaiming the might of my vassals from Poitou and Aquitaine. I rode in their midst, their liege lord, my horse proud-stepping with its plaited mane, my saddle picked out in silver. My robes, as richly flamboyant as any I owned, embroidered with the royal
fleurs de lys.
I smiled at my subjects as we passed. Still simmering with anger at Louis’s intransigence, I was not sorry to be travelling without him.

‘Pray for us in Jerusalem, lady.’

I raised my hand in acknowledgement.

And Marie, my daughter? I had already said my
farewells. She had gazed with wonder at my jewels and touched her fingers to the fur of my cuffs. She would be well cared for.

My spirits were high, but doubts nipped at my mind as a terrier nipped at the heels of recalcitrant cattle. Louis was certain of his calculations, his route, but could we trust him to lead such an army to its victory? His past failures scratched at my confidence. How could I have confidence in a dynamic leader of men when he insisted on keeping his pilgrim’s gown? So vast an army of soldiers and pilgrims depended on us, and all those who hung on our sleeves. Servants and minstrels. Vagabonds and criminals and whores. Hunting dogs and hawks. The vast baggage train. Would Louis be able to get us all safely to our goal?

The thought made me shiver in the warm sunlight.

I made a silent prayer that he would surprise us all. Before God, he would need to.

T
HE
Angevins were forgotten. The moment of my liberation grew closer, minute by minute. What a glorious adventure it would be. The bells tolled until their vibrations beat painfully against my ears like the throb of a military drum. Once again I stood in the abbey church of Saint-Denis. Once again Louis approached the altar, and as before the heat and emotion pressed down on us. Today he was clad in a black pilgrim’s tunic, the red cross of the crusader emblazoned on his breast, as it was on hundreds of others around me.

It was over twelve months since Abbot Bernard had preached the Crusade at Vezelay. How long does it take to muster an army and all its accoutrements? Far longer than any of us had expected. Now we were ready, the army gathered, the retinues assembled, the baggage carts pulled by oxen packed and repacked. Around me the church blazed with thousands of candles. Banners
and gonfalons shivered in the air from every surface. It was an awe-inspiring occasion—if only it would end and we could get on with it. I would be in my dotage, my hair grey-streaked, before we set foot out of Paris at this rate.

In honour of the occasion the Pope, Eugenius himself, had journeyed across the Alps to give us his blessing, and there he stood before the altar to imprint our hearts and minds with God’s Holy Presence. As tears flowed unchecked down Louis’s cheeks—Louis had no sense of occasion!—as he trembled visibly with the emotion of the moment, the Pope lifted the silver chest containing the bones of Saint Denis and held the sacred relic for Louis to kiss. Then he handed to him the gilded pike of the red and gold silk Oriflamme, the sacred banner of France, to be taken to the Holy Land and placed on the altar of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

A triumphant roar broke from hundreds of throats. Louis wept copiously. Even I felt emotional tears dampen my cheeks. Mostly from relief that at last—at last!—we were ready to depart.

It had not been without a struggle. Pope Eugenius had damned the taking of fine gowns and cosmetics on Crusade in the same manner as he thundered against whores and blasphemy. My example had been followed by my women and the well-born ladies who agreed to accompany me—how could we be expected to travel the hundreds of miles without some of the comforts and
luxuries to which we were accustomed? Why should a number of ox wagons not be set aside for our needs? And of course we needed our tirewomen. Could we be expected to wait upon ourselves? Was I extravagant? I did not think so.

‘But so much clothing!’ Louis had remonstrated with me when he saw my provisions for months on the road, his lukewarm attention drawn to the steadily increasing number of ox carts by his two beady-eyed advisers.

They disliked me excessively. A feeling entirely reciprocated.

Odo de Deuil, the less poisonous of the pair, was Louis’s secretary, a monk from the abbey of Saint-Denis, appointed on the quiet by Abbot Suger as Louis’s chaplain to keep an eye on him, and, I suspect, on me. A self-righteous little man, under orders to write the official record of Louis’s achievements for posterity. I swear he’d have little good to say about me even if my soul was washed whiter than snow. What possible use would he be to Louis in a war against the Infidel? What was Abbot Suger thinking? Better to have appointed a knight, a man of experience in the field. I found it difficult to keep my contempt within bounds.

And then there was Thierry Galeran.

With this man I failed utterly to hide my dislike.

We were sworn enemies from the first moment we had set eyes on each other. Galeran was of the Knights Templar with experience of Outremer, although limited to the raising and hoarding of Templar gold, he
was appointed as Louis’s treasurer because of his connections along the route. A man who was half a man. Captured by the Turks at some time in his past, he had gained his freedom but had been gelded, and so his temper had soured. Suger intended him to play the part of Louis’s watchdog, a role he took on only too well. He would keep me from Louis’s side, and Louis’s ear if he could, considering me a malign influence. Ha! No eunuch would keep me from speaking my mind. Galeran had a low opinion of women in general and me in particular—perhaps not surprising when his own ability to satisfy a woman had been so thoroughly curtailed. It was a case of mutual enmity.

And there he had been, with Louis, poking and prodding at my baggage.

‘How can you wear so much?’ Louis had whined.

‘Shall we not meet cold weather as well as the burning heat of summer when we reach the mountains?’ I’d asked, knowing the answer. ‘So we need furs for one and veils for the other.’

‘But pallets with mattresses, Eleanor …’

‘You don’t expect me to sleep on the ground, do you?’

‘No. No, of course not.’ Still, he’d looked aghast at the chests and bundles of equipment, lifting a silk tunic, allowing it to trail through his fingers. ‘So much. Is that a basin for washing?’

‘Yes. And soap and napkins and towels.’

‘Perhaps Her Majesty should reconsider the amount
she takes with her?’ Galeran had barely bothered to hide the reproof.

‘Since when does Her Majesty take the advice of a gelded Templar?’ I’d responded crudely—and perhaps not wisely—waving him away. One could have a surfeit of Templar Galeran. ‘Do you really want the Queen of France to enter Constantinople looking like a complete rustic, Louis?’

Louis had retreated in ruffled defeat, Galeran remonstrating furiously but without effect.

Now, before me, Louis held the sacred Oriflamme in his hands but the dedication was far from over. I sighed and set myself to wait out the tedium, and my mind reverted to that day a year ago when we had received our crosses at Vezelay from Abbot Bernard himself. My heart leapt with the memory. I would never forget it.

What an amazing day it had been. A magical day to stir the blood. I had felt like a young girl again, carelessly, selfishly bent on enjoyment and my own pleasure. My spirits had soared to extravagant heights. My life force had returned, my imagination flying free. Too free, some said, but what did they know?

It was a whimsy, of course, but a superbly planned whimsy. With the cross newly pinned to my breast, determined to spur on the faint-hearted, I had whipped up the wives of my vassals for a quick and dramatic change of costume.

Dramatic? Louis had not seen it in quite that light.

‘In God’s name, Eleanor!’ He stared when he saw
us, a strikingly colourful gathering, ready to mount and ride. For a moment his mouth opened and closed without further words. Then: ‘What are you doing?’

‘Gathering support. What else? Look at them …’ I gestured to the ranks of knights. ‘How many here will slink off home as soon as your back and Holy Bernard’s are turned? I’ll get you your army to sweep in victory through the Holy Land!’

‘But this is a sacred occasion. By God, Eleanor! It’s not a Twelfth Night play!’

‘Of course it’s not a Twelfth Night play! Do you not approve?’

Well, of course he didn’t. ‘By God, I don’t.’ It was rare for him to swear on God’s name, and this was the third time in as many seconds. ‘It’s not … not …’

‘Have you forgotten?’ I prompted his memory. ‘At Bourges—did I not say I would be Penthesilea and lead my Amazons? You did not disapprove then when your vassals cheered. And now you see the Queen of the Amazons before you.’

‘You make a spectacle of yourself!’

Which raised my spirits even higher. I laughed aloud for the joy of it and the sight of what I had achieved, with a little forethought. ‘Mount up, ladies. We’ll ride and shame our men who hang back.’

‘You will not, Eleanor! I forbid it! It is frivolous and improper and not to be tolerated …’

Louis’s voice was soon lost to us as, riding astride in leather chausses, we spurred our white horses into the
crowds who had come to hear Bernard preach the War of the Cross.

On that day, that occasion, we were nothing less than Amazon warriors, eye-catching in white tunics emblazoned with our red crosses. With hair streaming free in the stiff breeze, mingling with the red plumes on our hats, we rode like the wind. Red boots completed the striking ensemble as we galloped through the crowds, wielding swords as we called on the reluctant knights and nobles to heed the summons. And those who turned their backs? We tossed spindles and distaffs and insults, shaming them before all.

Oh, I enjoyed it. Of course we did not ride bare-breasted, as some would say, to denigrate our participation. To deliberately undermine my reputation. Of course we did not. How ridiculous that would have been. But if tunics and leather chausses made us men, then we were, and not ashamed of it. What a symbol of freedom it was. What an impact we made on that stolid mass of waverers.