Devil's Consort (65 page)

‘You’re a selfish woman, Eleanor. You’ve undermined my Crusade at every step on the way.’

I trailed my fingers in the warm water, disturbing the golden fish that swam to the surface in search of food.

‘Your behaviour here in Antioch is deplorable …’

I laughed aloud, leaning forward to see my reflection.

‘By God, Eleanor!’ Louis’s fury was magnificent. ‘They are saying you behave like a whore!’

‘A whore?’ Now I looked up, but in no way disturbed. ‘Do you believe every silly rumour you hear? Are you going to ask me about Saladin? What do you think, Louis? Does it have the ring of truth? Or is it some fabulous fiction worthy of my troubadours?’

‘There! You see? Are you never serious?’

It was a magnificent tale. Seduced by the subtleties of the east, I, Eleanor, had cast my eyes around for a more suitable mate than my bloodless King, and lit upon Saladin, an eminent Turkish leader. When Saladin, equally enamoured, had sent one of his galleys to whisk me away to a life of Saracen luxury, I snapped at the chance, abandoning my forces and embarking in the dead of night.

But Louis was warned by a serving wench. And picture this. My brave husband threw on his garments and rushed to stop me just as I was setting my foot on the galley. Louis took my hand and led me, unresisting, back to my chamber, asking me why I was running away. Such love and devotion from him, to rescue me from a fate worse than death.

Raymond had roared with laughter when he’d first heard the calumny.

‘It’s a monstrous tale.’ Louis was outraged.

‘Particularly if you consider that Saladin is a child of twelve years!’ I couldn’t subdue a peal of laughter. ‘I think I called you a rotten pear, Louis, and claimed to love Saladin more.’

‘It’s not fitting that the Queen of France should be held up to ridicule,’ Galeran intoned in pompous disapproval.

‘It’s not fitting that His Majesty or his ministers should listen to such filth,’ I retaliated. I’d had enough. ‘Let the gossipmongers have their fun.’

But beneath the laughter I was angry: with Louis that he should even pretend belief in so outrageous a slander; with Galeran that he should dare to take me to task.

With a cursory gesture, Louis motioned for Galeran to leave us alone together. ‘Is your reputation strong enough to withstand the rumours that your relationship with the Prince is … inappropriate?’

‘Not again, Louis.’ I yawned.

‘They say you share his bed.’

My hand itched to remove the sanctimonious disapproval from his face. ‘Do they? And do you believe them?’

‘I’ve seen you together. He touches you. He kisses you. He walks alone with you.’

‘He cares for me. His kisses are not intimate.’

‘He is your father’s brother, Eleanor. It is immoral!’

I stood, unmoving, as I absorbed the imputation. So that’s what they were saying, was it? And Louis had believed it sufficiently to repeat it to my face. The itch became more than I could bear. To my shame, I struck out to leave a red weal on the pale skin of his cheek. I did not temper my strength.

Louis flinched but did not retreat. ‘Do you deny it?’ he demanded.

‘No. I neither admit nor deny anything.’

‘You will moderate your behaviour, Eleanor.’

‘Do you think?’ I smiled. ‘I am no longer answerable to you, Louis.’

* * *

So they said I shared Prince Raymond’s bed, did they? The gossipmongers, the trouble stirrers, my enemies. They whispered incest and scandal. They would destroy my name, coating it in the blackest of filth. For so is incest, the worst of perversions, the lowest depravity.

Would I commit such a sin?

Apparently I would. I did. Oh, the rumours were right enough! But not until after Louis’s accusation. I was guilty as accused and I stepped into it with my eyes open.

Raymond, Prince of Antioch, with all the glamour of an eastern potentate in appearance and in fact, became my lover. How seductive is absolute power wielded with confidence and finesse. One snap of his fingers and his will was done. One glance of an eye or lift of a brow and his minions ran to do his bidding. And how beautiful he was to my jaded eye after those weeks of fear and hardship when death had threatened from every side. Oh, yes, I was seduced. I fell willingly into the romance of the moment.

Ah, Raymond. You lured me into fatal indiscretion.

I loved him, I adored him, my senses overpowered by his sheer physical presence. Did I know it was wrong to allow desire to rule? Perhaps I did, but I made no apology for my intemperate emotions. How could I not feel the power of his presence, respond to it against all the teachings of Holy Church, or even of good sense? I had been raised to political awareness, but one smile
and the gleam in those dark blue eyes, and my political wisdom shrivelled into dust at my feet.

He had thirty-six years under his belt and was truly a magnificent animal, more handsome than any man had the right to be—but not the hard russet gloss I had known in the Count of Anjou. Oh, no. Raymond was large and golden, a virile lion of a man. And such physical strength he had. I could not imagine Louis—or any man—able to halt a destrier by the simple clenching of his thighs. Hercules, Raymond was called with affection, and so he was, a handsome Greek hero to shoulder twelve labours and emerge with a triumphant crown.

I’ll not blame Louis for my fall, but what woman wed to a shadow of a man with no steel in his scabbard would not have given more than a passing glance to Raymond of Antioch? He was everything Louis was not—an adventurer, a reputable warrior, a charmer of women, a skilled horseman as his minstrels were forward in telling. My heart leapt as they sang of his hunting, his exploits against the Turk. Beneath the power, his manners were sophisticated, his demeanour gentle and courteous, as smooth as the oriental silk of his robes.

Nothing better than a degenerate owner of a seraglio, Louis had been quick to denounce, yet there was no gluttony or drunkenness or debauchery at Raymond’s court. Raymond was strangely abstemious. Unless it be counted against him when, to honour me at a banquet, golden nets suspended above our heads were released,
to shower us with scented rose petals, floating down on table, on marble floor, on shoulders.

Raymond’s eyes, disarming in their directness, invited me to enjoy the foolishness, the deliberate extravagance created just for me—and I fell into the romance of the occasion as into a bottomless but softly cushioned pit. I swear Raymond was capable of wooing the angelic host down from heaven.

Louis retired, silent in his censure, petals caught incongruously in his hair.

So much for romance. Ah, but should I have gone to Raymond’s bed? It was the magnificent Roman baths within the palace that proved my final undoing, if I wished to believe that I needed to be seduced. Tiled, heated, with the music of splashing water from myriad fountains, the main bath was large enough to swim for those so inclined, comfortable enough with silk-cushioned seats for those who would take their ease. It became my custom to luxuriate in the warm waters in the late afternoon with wine or sherbet and sugared sweetmeats, seated on the steps in a loose bathing robe, the silky water caressing my limbs.

I had not seen him since the war council when Raymond strolled in to join me.

Did he know I was there? Certainly he did.

‘Impressive, Eleanor!’

‘I was, wasn’t I?’

Despite the smile there were lines of strain beside his eyes and mouth I had not seen before—doubtless the
product of the growing threat to his lovely city—as he lounged on the poolside with a groan. For a moment he simply sat, then scrubbed his hands over his face and smiled at me. Without a word, and without any self-consciousness, he stripped off his robe and, naked, eased into the water beside me, where he stretched his arms along the sides of the bath and sighed deeply.

‘I don’t think I could ever return to the West,’ he said, head tipped back against the warm stones, hair curling out into the water. ‘Cold winters. Ice and snow to freeze a man’s balls. There’s too much comfort here.’

‘All eastern rulers run to fat. So I’ve heard.’ Was my encouragement of him indeed reprehensible?

‘So I too have heard.’ He sighed in the warmth. ‘And what do you think now, Eleanor? Having seen one in the flesh?’

He smiled with deceptive sleepiness, turning his head so that I caught the glint of sharp blue beneath his eyelids, and I regretted my ill-considered flirting. Conscious of the transparency of my garment, I swam away to the other side. Was I sure of this? Was this what I wanted?

‘You have left me, delectable Eleanor,’ Raymond mourned. With delicious grace, he poured wine and held out the cup to offer it to me with a crook of his finger, so that I swam back. Taking the exquisite glass, the warm water lapping discreetly over my breasts, I sipped, watching him over the lip of the cup.

‘Louis’s preparations to leave are moving apace,’ he said, surprising me with the change in direction. Were we here to discuss matters of policy? ‘By the end of the week.’

‘I know.’

He tilted his chin. ‘Are you, then, determined to stay?’

‘If you’ll have me.’

‘Oh, yes.’ He leaned to kiss my temple. ‘My lovely Eleanor. You’d stay here with me for ever if I had my way.’

What would your wife say if I did? I admit to giving no thought to Constance. Leading a retired life, as she did with her women, I saw little of her, not at the feasts or the hunting parties, or even strolling in the gardens. Occasionally I visited her in her strangely sequestered life. What did Constance do with her time? She’d have been better, I thought, keeping an eye on her handsome husband.

‘I think I might stay,’ I replied.

With a toss of his head to spray an arc of drops into the water, Raymond drained his cup. ‘No, you won’t. I know you too well. Aquitaine sings in your blood. You’ll find an excuse to go home.’

‘You know me far too well. After only eight days.’ I drank the rich wine of Antioch and sighed in pleasure. ‘It seems a lifetime.’

‘A lifetime …’ Raymond took the cup from me and placed it on the side. ‘Come here.’ Linking his fingers
with mine, he pulled me gently through the water until I stood before him, swaying to keep my balance. Fingers drifting down my arm, barely stirring the air between us, he kissed me between my brows, then transferred his lips to where my hair curled damply at my temple.

He sniffed.

‘What?’

‘Whatever you’ve used on your hair is magical,’ he murmured. ‘I swear you’re a witch.’

‘I use no spells.’

‘No?’ His eyes were quizzical on mine, and very solemn. ‘I’ve been faithful to Constance until this moment—even in my thoughts … But now …’

I shook my head, a sudden bolt of panic now that truth stared me in the face.

‘Come with me …’ Raymond invited.

Just a question, rather than a demand, allowing me the ultimate choice. Before God, I could not put the whole weight of blame on his shoulders. Without a word I went with him. To a robing room, a comfortable divan clothed and cushioned in silk. What passed between us there should remain unwitnessed, unsaid. Enough to say that my Prince of Antioch reminded me of all I had known, and astonished me with much I did not.

‘We would be damned for this,’ I said when I had the breath to speak at all. ‘We would be condemned.’

‘We would be damned and condemned for all manner of things. Are we not free to choose our sins?’

It was wrong. It was, of course, however I might try to excuse what we did together, however much Raymond might persuade me that we did no wrong, that we hurt no one. Incest. An unpleasant word, gathering to it all the condemnation and vituperation of those who held to the high tenets of Christianity. It would be beyond Louis’s comprehension that I should even consider it, much less indulge in it. But it was not beyond mine.

To me, what we did together was out of love, hurting none. To Louis it was a cardinal sin, punishable by the fires of hell, no more, no less.

But what would God’s judgment be?

Raymond might be too close to me in name, in blood, but I had no knowledge of him as family, neither was he of an age to be in authority over me. We were alike in all things, the reflected other half of each other. The blood of Aquitaine ran true and drew us together.

When I was finally called to stand before the Almighty on the day of my death, what would I say?

I was my uncle’s lover.

Would He damn me to everlasting hell for it? Had He damned my grandfather for adultery? My grandmother for her betrayal of her husband and family? Surely He would judge what was in our hearts, Raymond’s and
mine. Not evil or viciousness. Not cruelty or revenge. No, God would not strike me with his wrath. He would touch me instead with his compassion. His tears would mingle with mine. He would understand when I finally stood before him. I knew it.

It was, after all, merely a matter of degree, was it not? So close with Raymond to be called incest, a damnable offence. Close enough with Louis simply to bring the legality of my marriage into question, but not to damn me to everlasting perdition.

If Raymond had been my cousin, there would have been no objection.

See how well I could formulate an argument to my purpose.

My only regret. That Raymond had a purpose of his own. Oh, I had no doubt that he loved me, that he desired me, but he wanted to secure my influence, the power of my forces, and what better way than through my bed? Not like the Angevin, secretive and hard edged, but open and warm. I knew from the beginning what Raymond wanted from me for he never hid it. Neither did it mean he had no true affection for me. We loved each other honestly, with genuine care, knowing that we would be condemned but considering it of no account.

Why did I allow myself to tread that dangerous line?

Perhaps I’d lost my mind in the mountains of Cadmos
and the horrors of Attalia. Just a little. That’s all I can say in my own defence.

Did I think of Constance? No, I did not. Not once. Perhaps for that I deserve to be condemned.

I was asleep—until some sound, some movement in the air, pulled at my consciousness. I opened my eyes, lay still. Nothing. My room was empty, dark, so it was not even near dawn. Perhaps it was a roosting bird stirring in the gardens—the windows were open to admit the cool air. I closed my eyes.