The Summer Queen

2

Bordeaux, February 1137

Sitting before the fire in his chamber high up in the Ombrière Palace, William the tenth Duke of Aquitaine gazed at the documents awaiting his seal, and rubbed his side.

‘Sire, you are still set on this journey?’

He glanced across the hearth at the Archbishop of Bordeaux, who was warming himself before the fire, his tall spare body bulked out by fur-lined robes. Although their opinions sometimes clashed, he and Gofrid de Louroux were friends of long standing and William had appointed him tutor to his two daughters. ‘I am,’ he replied. ‘I want to make my peace with God while I still have time, and Compostela is close enough to reach, I think.’

Gofrid gave him a troubled look. ‘It is getting worse, isn’t it?’

William heaved an exhausted sigh. ‘I tell myself that many miracles are wrought at the shrine of Saint James and I shall pray for one, but in truth I am making this pilgrimage for the sake of my soul, not in expectation of a cure.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Alienor is angry with me because she thinks I can just as easily save my soul in Bordeaux, but she does not understand that I would not be cleansed if I took that course. Here, I would be treated with leniency because I am the seigneur. On the road, on foot with my satchel and staff, I am but another pilgrim. We are all naked when we go before God, whatever our standing on earth, and that is what I must do.’

‘But what of your lands during your absence, sire?’ Gofrid asked with concern. ‘Who will rule in your stead? Alienor is now of marriageable age and although you have made men swear to uphold her, there will be a scramble by every baron in the land to have her to wife or else marry her to his son. Already they circle with intent, as you must have noticed. De Rancon for one. He has mourned his wife sincerely, I admit, but I suspect he has political reasons for not yet remarrying.’

‘I am not blind.’ William winced as pain stabbed his side. He poured a cup of spring water from the flagon at his elbow. He dared not drink wine these days; all he could keep down was dry bread and bland foods, when once he had been a man of voracious appetite. ‘This is my will.’ He pushed the sheaves of vellum over to de Louroux. ‘I well understand the danger to my girls and how easily the situation could spill into war, and I have done my best to remedy it.’

He watched de Louroux read what was written and, as he had expected, saw him lift his brows.

‘You are entrusting your daughters to the French,’ Gofrid said. ‘Is that not just as dangerous? Instead of wild dogs prowling outside the fold, you invite the lions inside?’

‘Alienor too is a lioness,’ William replied. ‘It is in her blood to rise to the challenge. She has been educated to that end, and she has great ability, as you well know.’ He waved his hand. ‘The plan has its flaws, but it is safer than others that might seem promising at first glance. You have contacts with the French through the Church – and you are a wise man and eloquent. You have taught my daughters well; they trust you and are fond of you. In the event of my death, I commend their safety and welfare into your keeping. I know you will do what is best for them.’

William waited while Gofrid read the will again, frowning. ‘There is no better solution. I have racked my brains until they have almost poured out of my skull. I am entrusting my daughters, and therefore Aquitaine, to Louis of France because I must. If I wed Alienor to de Rancon, honourable though he is, I will be condemning my lands to bloody civil war. It is one thing for men to obey my seneschal acting under my instruction, another to see him set above them as Duke Consort of Aquitaine.’

‘Indeed, sire,’ Gofrid conceded.

William’s mouth twisted. ‘There is also Geoffrey of Anjou to consider. He would dearly love to unite his house with mine by betrothing his infant son to Alienor. He broached the subject last year when we were on campaign in Normandy, and I put him off by saying I would consider the matter when the boy was older. If I die, he may well attempt to seize the moment, and that too would be disastrous. In this life, we have to make sacrifices for the common good; Alienor understands that.’ He made a feeble attempt at a jest: ‘If grapes are to be trodden underfoot, then in Bordeaux we have always known how to make wine,’ but neither man smiled. The pain was making William feel sick. The long walk from Poitiers had taken its toll on his dwindling strength. Dear God, he was exhausted and there was still so much to do.

Gofrid continued to look troubled. ‘It may prevent your people from fighting among themselves, but I fear instead they will turn on the French as the common enemy.’

‘Not if their duchess is also a queen. I expect unrest from the usual areas, and there are always petty squabbles, but I do not believe there will be outright rebellion. I trust to your skills as a diplomat to hold the ship steady.’

Gofrid plucked at his beard. ‘Is anyone else to see this?’

‘No. I will send a trusted messenger to King Louis with a copy, but others need not know just yet. If the worst happens you must inform the French immediately and guard my girls until they arrive. For now I entrust you to keep these documents safe.’

‘It shall be done as you wish, sire.’ He gave William a worried look. ‘Shall I have your physician bring you a sleeping draught?’

‘No.’ William’s expression grew taut. ‘There will be time enough for sleep all too soon.’

Gofrid left the chamber with a heavy heart. William was dying and probably did not have long. He might succeed in hiding the truth from others, but Gofrid knew him too well to be fooled. There was so much still to be accomplished and it grieved him that their business would now be like a half-finished embroidery. Whatever was woven in the other half would never match the work already completed and might even cause the former to unravel.

Gofrid’s thoughts turned with compassion to Alienor and Petronella. Seven years ago they had lost their mother and their little brother to a deadly marsh fever. Now they stood to lose their beloved father too. They were so vulnerable. William had made their future certain in his will, and probably glorious, but Gofrid wished the girls were older and more tempered by experience. He did not want to see their bright natures become corrupted and tarnished by the grime of the world, but knew it was bound to happen.

Alienor removed her cloak and draped it over her father’s chair. His scent and presence lingered in his chamber because he had left everything behind when he set out from the cathedral, clad in his penitent’s robe of undyed wool, plain sandals on his feet and coarse bread in his satchel. She and Petronella had walked a few miles with him in procession, before returning to Bordeaux with the Archbishop. Petronella had chattered all the way, filling the void with her animated voice and swift gestures, but Alienor had ridden in silence and on arriving home had slipped away to be alone.

She moved around the room, touching this and that. The eagle motif carved into the back of his chair, the ivory box containing strips of parchment, and the little horn and silver pot holding his quill pens and styli. She paused beside his soft blue cloak with the squirrel lining. A single strand of hair glinted on the shoulder. She lifted a fold of the garment and pressed it to her face, taking it into herself as she had not taken in his final, scratchy embrace on the road because she had been so angry with him. She had ridden away on Ginnet and not looked back. Petronella had hugged him hard in her stead, and departed with bright farewells enough for them both.

Alienor’s eyes grew sore and hot and she blotted her tears on the cloak. It was only until Easter and then he would be home. He had been away many times before – only last year on battle campaign in Normandy with Geoffrey le Bel, Count of Anjou, and there had been far more danger in that than walking a pilgrim road.

She sat on the chair and, resting her hands on the arms, put herself in the position of lady of Aquitaine, dispensing judgement and wisdom. From early childhood she had been educated to think and to rule. The spinning and weaving lessons, the gentler feminine pursuits, had only been the background to the serious matter of learning and ideas. Her father loved to see her dressed in fine clothes and jewels, he approved of womanly pursuits, and femininity; but he had also treated her as his surrogate son. She had ridden with him on progress through the wide lands of Aquitaine, from the foothills of the Pyrenees to the flat coastlands in the west, with their lucrative salt pans between Bordeaux and the bustling port of Niort. From the vines of Cognac and the forests of Poitou, to the hills, lush river valleys and fine riding country of the Limousin. She had been at his side when he took the homage of his vassals, many of whom were turbulent, quarrelsome men, eager for their own gain, but acknowledging her father’s suzerainty. She had absorbed her lessons by watching how he dealt with them. The language of power was exercised in more than just words. It was presence and thought; it was gesture and timing. He had illuminated her way and taught her to stand in her own light, but today she felt as if she had entered a land of shadows.

The door opened and the Archbishop walked into the room. He had exchanged his elaborate mitre for a plain felt cap and his magnificent outer garments for an ordinary brown habit girded with a simple knotted belt. Tucked under his arm was a carved ivory box. ‘I thought I would find you here, daughter,’ he said.

Alienor felt a little resentful, but said nothing. She could hardly tell the Archbishop of Bordeaux to go away, and a small, forlorn part of her wanted to cling to him, even as she had wanted to cling to her father.

He set the box down on a table beside her chair and lifted the lid. ‘Your father asked me to give you this,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you remember it from when you were small.’ From a lining of soft white fleece, he produced a pear-shaped vase fashioned of clear rock crystal, the surface intricately worked in a honeycomb effect. ‘He said it was like you – precious and unique. When it gives off its light, it enhances all things that surround it.’

Alienor swallowed. ‘I do remember it,’ she said, ‘but I have not seen it since I was small.’

Unspoken between them lay the detail that this beautiful thing had been a gift from her father to her mother at their marriage, and at her death it had been put away in the cathedral treasury at Bordeaux and seldom brought out.

She cupped the vase in her hands and put it down gently on the trestle. The light from the window struck through the crystal, scattering rainbow-coloured lozenges across the white cloth. Alienor gasped at the unexpected, shimmering display. Her eyes blurred on a prism of tears, and she choked back a sob.

‘Ah, daughter, hush now.’ Gofrid came round the table to embrace her. ‘All will be well, I promise you. I am here; I will care for you.’

They were the same words she always used to Petronella, whatever the truth of the matter; they were like a bandage on a wound. It might not heal the injury, but it made it easier to bear. She laid her head on his breast and allowed herself to cry, but eventually drew away, and lifted her chin. The sun still dazzled on the vase and she put her hand in the light to see the colours dance on her wrist: vermilion, cerulean and royal purple.

‘Without the light the beauty remains hidden,’ Gofrid said. ‘But it is always there. Just like God’s love, or a father’s, or mother’s. Remember that, Alienor. You are loved, whether you see it or not.’

In the third week following Easter Sunday the weather was bright and warm, and as the sun climbed in the soft spring morning, Alienor and Petronella took their sewing into the palace gardens with the ladies of the household. Musicians played softly in the background on harp and citole, singing of spring and renewal and unrequited longing. The water splashed in the marble fountains, making a drowsy sound in the fine golden warmth.

The ladies, emboldened because Floreta was absent about other duties, chattered to themselves, emulating the sparrows that bustled in the mulberry trees. Their foolish banter irritated Alienor. She did not want to become involved in gossip about who was making eyes at whom, and whether the baby the under-steward’s wife was expecting was her husband’s or the result of an affair with a young hearth knight. When Alienor was a child, her maternal grandmother’s household in Poitiers had seethed with such trivial but damaging rumours and she hated to hear them passed around like tawdry currency. Dangereuse de Châtellerault had been her grandfather’s mistress, not his wife; he had lived openly with her, flouting all opinion save his own, and there had been frequent accusations of moral laxity. Once gossip began, there was no stopping it; a reputation could be destroyed in moments by a few malicious whispers.

‘Enough,’ she snapped, exerting her authority. ‘I would listen to the music in peace.’

The women exchanged glances but fell silent. Alienor took a piece of candied pear from a platter at her side and bit into the sugary flesh. They were her favourite confection and she had taken to gorging on them. Their intense sweetness was a consolation, while knowing she could have them any time she chose gave her a sense of control. Yet there was discontent too, for what use was it to have command over the petty gossip of maids and the ordering of sweetmeats? Such things were no more than gaudy flourishes and there was no satisfaction in such empty power.

A woman began showing Petronella how to make dainty daisy flowers using a particular embroidery stitch. Alienor abandoned her own sewing and went to stroll around the garden. A dull headache banded her temples, not helped by the circlet at her brow. Her monthly flux was due, and her stomach ached. She had not been sleeping well, her dreams haunted by nightmares that she could not remember on waking, but the feeling was always of being trapped.

She paused beside a young cherry tree and lightly brushed the green orbs of developing fruit with her hand. By the time her father returned, the fruit would be dark red, verging on black. Full and sweet and ripe.

‘Daughter.’

Only two people called her that. She turned to face Archbishop Gofrid and even before he spoke, she knew what he was going to say, because the look on his face, full of trouble and compassion, told it all.

‘I have some bad news,’ he said.

‘It is about my father, isn’t it?’

‘Child, you should sit down.’

She faced him squarely. ‘He is not coming back, is he?’

He looked taken aback, but swiftly recovered his balance. ‘Child, I am sorry to say that he died on Good Friday within sight of Compostela and was buried there at the feet of Saint James.’ His voice had a hoarse catch. ‘He is with God now and free from his pain. He had been unwell for some time.’

Grief shuddered through her like the surges of an underground tide. She had known from the outset that something was wrong, but no one had seen fit to tell her, least of all her father.

Gofrid gave her the sapphire ring he had been holding in his hand. ‘He sent you this, so you would know, and he bade you do your best as you have always done and to heed the advice of your guardians.’

She looked at the ring and remembered it shining on her father’s finger as he set out on his journey. She felt as if the bottom had dropped out of her world and everything that was stable had lurched downwards in one piece. Raising her head, she gazed across the garden towards her sister who was laughing at something a maid had said. In a moment that laughter would cease and in its place would come grief and tears as Petronella’s world shattered too, and that was almost harder to bear than her own shock and grief.

‘What will happen to us?’ She tried to sound pragmatic and mature, even though she could not control the wobble in her voice.

Gofrid closed her fist over the ring. ‘You will be looked after, do not worry. Your father left sound provision for you in his will.’ He moved to embrace her with compassion, but she stepped away and set her jaw.

‘I am not a child.’

Gofrid let his hands fall to his sides. ‘But you are still so very young,’ he replied. ‘Your sister …’ He looked towards the group of women.

‘I will tell Petronella,’ she said firmly. ‘No one else.’

He made a gesture of acknowledgement, although his expression was creased with concern. ‘As you wish, daughter.’

Alienor returned to the women, Gofrid walking at her side. After the maids had curtseyed to him, Alienor dismissed them and sat down beside her sister.

‘Look what I have sewn!’ Petronella held up the kerchief on which she had been working. One corner was carpeted with white daisies, golden knots at their centres. Petronella’s brown eyes were alight. ‘I’m going to give this to Papa when he comes home!’

Alienor bit her lip. ‘Petra,’ she said, putting her arm around her. ‘Listen. I have something to tell you.’