The Secret Eleanor (14 page)

Yet it was startling, and frightening. She thought,
It’s true, Bernard has the gift of sight
. With a wrench of the heart she turned toward Eleanor, remembering what he had said about her.

Her sister was watching her pensively. “And I think I may be pregnant.”

“Oh.” Petronilla clapped her hands to her mouth.

Now she understood the secrecy. She lowered her hands, her mind racing over this, which could ruin all their plans. “Oh. That’s terrible. Eleanor. Just when everything was going so well.”

“Yes,” Eleanor said. “And I mean to keep on going, just as well. We can do this. No one must find out.”

“Alys and Marie-Jeanne are good—but there are so many other eyes—” She felt them teetering on the blade of a knife, poised above disaster.

“I trust them,” Eleanor said. “Even Claire, now. They will learn, soon enough, but maybe not until we’re on the progress, when we’ll all be together all the time anyway, and have little to do with anybody else. And they’ll never betray me.” Eleanor licked her lips, the only sign of uncertainty, even fear in her. Petronilla thought,
If the King finds out—

She turned on her heel and walked down farther into the garden, where the strip of grass shrank down between the rosemary bushes. She sensed rather than saw Eleanor come after her. She said, “It would be adultery, wouldn’t it?”

“They’d put me in a convent. Or, you know,” Eleanor said, trailing along at her side, her palms sliding over the little blue flowers. “In the Bible they stone adulteresses. That way Louis would be a widower, and could marry again.”

“Eleanor, stop.” Petronilla faced her and took her hands.

“No one can find out,” Eleanor said. “Not even, oh, my God, not even Henry.”

“It’s his.” Petronilla squeezed her sister’s hands.

“Yes.” Eleanor dragged in a deep breath. “It could be no one else.” Petronilla glanced up the garden, making sure they were still alone. Her sister’s voice murmured in her ear.

“I know that certainly. But he cannot—how would he be sure he was the father? It’s all over I’m inconstant, and I was inconstant with him. In his mind, it could be anybody’s child, cuckoo cuckoo.” Her voice went ragged. Petronilla turned her gaze back to her and their eyes met. “My God, it ruins everything. By law anyhow, it would be Louis’s baby, and if a son, then—even if Henry claims it, a royal bastard’s only in the way. We need legal heirs, true princes, not gotten under a bush.”

Petronilla said, “But it’s a baby, still.”

“Yes. Maybe, who knows, a sign: We are to be together.” Eleanor raised their clasped hands between them, swung her hands down, and let go. She turned away, her shoulders high and square. “A sign of something, anyway. Maybe, if we get the annulment and go back to Poitiers, I can go into seclusion. I could say I was sick. Have it in hiding.”

Petronilla was counting in her head. “When will it be born?”

“Sometime at the end of the winter. Around Easter, likely.” Eleanor was still turned away. Petronilla thought she was trimming this very fine. They had to get quickly out of the marriage with Louis, and away from Thierry and his malice.

She said, “When is this council?”

“In Poitiers. Before Christmas. We’re to spend Christmas in Limoges.”

They could hide a pregnancy that long, Petronilla thought. If not much longer. She put aside her annoyance with her sister. She said, “How are you feeling?”

“I nearly threw up this morning.”

“Oh, well, that would—”

“I’m going to ask the others to sleep next door. Because of the heat.”

“That room’s so small.” Petronilla shrugged. “They’ll all believe that.” Her hands were wringing together without her even noticing. She made herself grip her skirts, to keep still. “What about Claire?”

“You trust her.”

“That was before. One wrong gossip—”

“I think she will keep faith with me.”

“I hope so.” Petronilla thought of the girl’s pasty face and awkward ways. “We’re risking everything on an unsteady child’s whims.”

“I told her she could stay,” Eleanor said. “You have championed her. And we need them all, with the progress coming on. There’s the packing and the sewing, and then on the progress all that work.”

“Yes,” Petronilla said. She caught herself looking at Eleanor’s waist. Her sister had borne two other children. She would very quickly show the one to come. She went to Eleanor and put her arm through hers.

“I’ll help you. Tell me what you want me to do, and I’ll help.”

“I knew you would,” Eleanor said, and kissed her.

Alys sent Claire off to the market to get some apples, and on her way back, as she went by the corner of the chapel, suddenly a hand gripped her skirt and dragged her into the shadows.

She gasped, ready to scream, and then froze. It was Thierry Galeran, the King’s secretary, staring at her. He let go of her skirt. She put her hand to her mouth, her heart pounding.

“So,” the fat secretary said. “You’ve made your way back into favor. You have more wit than I believed.”

“No,” Claire said into her hand, and shook her head.

He fixed her with an unblinking stare. He had pale eyes, shiny, like glass. He said, “But you have. Clever girl. You know I will take care of you, either way, if you serve me, or you don’t.”

She put her hand down and lowered her eyes. She had thought herself finished with him. Now he lowered over her, and she trembled, remembering the blows of his fist, and she hated him.

His voice droned on, soft and cruel. “I will know everything she does, especially now, when we are to go on progress. There is this folly of an annulment—I will hear everything she says on that subject. Everyone she talks to. Do you understand me?”

She swallowed. She knew what he wanted. She made herself think of the other, stranger thing, that he was coming back to her to find it out. Maybe he was right, and she was cleverer than she thought. She had thought herself done, after he beat her, but then Petronilla had come to rescue her. She had vowed to follow Petronilla, out of gratitude and the warm feeling it gave her. But now he too still wanted her for something. That gave her another feeling, cooler, harder. She had some worth, if she could figure out what it was. She glanced sideways at him, not afraid anymore.

His lip curled. He looked her up and down as if from some height far above her, and his eyebrows arched, expecting some answer.

“Yes, sir,” she said, having to say something. She dipped him a little bow, to make that look good.

He said, “Excellent. You will tell me everything, or she will hear that you’ve betrayed her. She won’t forgive you twice, Claire. Do you understand that?”

She gave the barest nod. She gripped the basket of apples. It seemed not to occur to him that he was arguing both sides of his question. She had to get away from him before someone saw them together. “Let me go, she will be waiting.”

“Yes,” he said, “like wicked Eve, she craves apples. She is full of sin, Claire. Think of that. It’s from her own sins we will save her. I will see you soon. Have some news.” He turned and walked away.

Claire clutched the basket, her heart shaking in her chest. She hated Thierry; her face still bore the marks of his blows. It was horrible of him even to think she would help him. She vowed she would never help him, no matter what he did. She would give him no news.

He was right, Eleanor was full of sin, proud, and boisterous; she delighted in defying the King, and she had gone behind his back with Duke Henry. She was full of joy, too, and she drew Claire toward her irresistibly.

And there was Petronilla. Petronilla would tell no tales. Petronilla would not lie. Claire started up the steps toward the Queen’s rooms. She liked them both as they were, sin or no.

Then it came to her, like a cold dash of water, that it was easier for them.

They had crowns and gowns, and she had only crumbs. Somehow, because she was so clever, she had to find a way to get more.

But not for Thierry’s sake. And with honor, as Petronilla did. On the landing, she gathered herself and lifted the basket of apples in her two hands. The guard reached out to open the door for her and she went into the room, among the other women, safe.

Eleanor slept restlessly, and dreamed of things she remembered only for an instant, and when she woke, her stomach rolled and heaved. She was barely able to scramble out of the bed and reach the chamber pot by the wall before she gave up the bitter remnants of her supper in a stream. Petronilla sat up in the bed behind her. Eleanor hung there a moment, scraping her hair back with her hand, until she was sure it was over, and then rose and went to the window, gulping the fresh morning air.

Petronilla said, “It’s true, then.”

Eleanor turned toward her. “Yes, I think so.”

She put her hand on her belly. Petronilla would protect her. She felt a sudden grateful pulse of love for Petronilla’s tact.

At the same time they both looked toward the chamber door. The waiting women were outside, coming in with the morning wine, their voices sounding. Petronilla swallowed; she gave Eleanor a dark look. Maybe she had not guessed until now what helping her could mean. Eleanor knew better than to say anything.

There was a gentle rapping on the door.

“Call them,” Eleanor said, steadily. If Petronilla gave her up, she was finished. “They’ll think something is wrong.” She turned out the window again, and Petronilla spoke and the door burst open.

Alys and Marie-Jeanne came in first, leading the cook’s boys with the trays of morning bread, and after them Claire, and then two more men with braziers, in spite of the heat, to warm the wine. The aroma of spices and of the fruity wine filled the room. Petronilla said in her high herald’s voice, “Will you come clean this up, please—the wine last night did not sit well with me.”

Her voice rang through the room. The whole room fell suddenly hushed. By the door the cook’s boys stood, their eyes big as biscuits. Eleanor sat down at the window and looked out and said nothing. At a word from Alys, Claire took the chamber pot hastily away. Everybody was staring at Petronilla, who flung herself back into the bed and buried her face in the covers.

Alys brought Eleanor a cup of the wine, warmed and spiced. The waiting woman’s face was flushed with interest. Under her breath, she whispered, “Is the lady Petronilla with child?”

Eleanor frowned at her. “It was the wine last night. Don’t spread rumors.” She took the cup and sipped a little of it, but she dared not swallow it. Alys went off across the room, and Eleanor made sure no one looked, spat the mouthful back into the cup, and emptied the cup out the window.

The weather was breaking, and at last there was a cool breeze in the afternoon and mild evenings. With only three waiting women to help, they all had to work making ready for the progress. Along the way Eleanor meant to see again the places that were part of her patrimony. After the council at Poitiers that would free her from Louis, presumably, they would spend Christmas together at Limoges, where the singing was the best in Christendom, and where they would proclaim the annulment. Then she would go a little way north to Poitiers again, and Louis would go a great way north into France.

Petronilla felt an itch of impatience along every nerve, a hunger for this to be finished and done without any more trouble.

She stood back, looking over the four gowns she had spread out on the bed, Eleanor’s best gowns; for a while at least their plentiful folds would disguise the changes in her sister’s figure. She turned to Marie-Jeanne. “Take all these, then. Alys will know which jewels and shoes.” She glanced toward the window, where Eleanor stood in a shaft of sunlight, her arms folded over her chest, looking out. Even to her knowledgeable eye, her sister looked no different—and she had stopped throwing up in the mornings.

She turned back to Marie-Jeanne. The older woman was kneeling by a chest, folding underclothes into it. By the wardrobe, Alys was taking out more shifts and giving them to Claire to air out and bring away.