The Summer Queen

7

Palace of Poitiers, Summer 1137

Wearing a gown of red sarcenet, the coronet of Aquitaine held between her hands, Alienor sat alone by the pool in the palace gardens. A relentless sun had beaten down all day and now a bruised dusk was mantling the city.

No one had come looking for her yet, but they soon would. Not for her the freedom to do as she pleased. This last fortnight, she had either been immersed in public duties or travelling between them, constantly attended by servants, vassals and family. Her every moment was accounted for as if her time was being apportioned like beads on an abacus counted out by a keen-eyed merchant. Even when she was kneeling in church or at her needlework, she was aware of being scrutinised by members of Louis’s entourage and by Louis himself. He couldn’t take his eyes off her and wanted her with him all of the time, as if she were a precious jewel stitched to his tunic.

She had grown accustomed to the night duty and it hurt less now; indeed it was pleasurable on the occasions when Louis lingered over the foreplay. She just wished he did not have to kneel and ask God’s blessing every time, and then thank Him afterwards and expect her to do the same. He did not share her bed on Fridays or Sundays because he said they should be kept pure for God, but she used those occasions to cuddle up with Petronella in the old way – except it wasn’t the same any more. Her marriage and bedding had severed her from girlhood. Petronella had demanded to know what it was like, sleeping with a man, and Alienor had put her off with vague remarks about it being part of the duty of a wife.

Alienor was still unsure what to make of Louis. Sometimes he was the aloof French prince, looking down from his tall horse, but he was like a child too, having to be told what to think and do by his courtiers, who vied for influence over him. Also like a child, he could be petulant, stubborn and unreasonable. And then there was his stifling piety, born of his upbringing by the Church, coupled with his overweening need for structure and order. Unlike her, he was not good at adapting to suit his circumstances. Yet he could be sweet and charming. He was knowledgeable about nature, loved the trees and the sky, and enjoyed being on the road in merry company where he would shed his solemnity and find his smile, which was winsome and tender. She found him physically attractive too, with his lean, graceful physique, his shining fair hair and dark blue eyes.

Today he had been invested with the coronet of Aquitaine and the look of pride and satisfaction on his face as the diadem was placed on his brow had filled Alienor with resentment and misgiving rather than pride. It was as if he was taking it for granted that it should be his because God had willed it. Receiving her coronet at his side, she had been politically astute enough to show nothing on her face, but seeing him sitting in the ducal chair with that superior look in his eyes had brought to the fore all her feelings of grief and loneliness over her father’s death, together with the certainty that Louis was never going to fill his shoes.

‘There you are!’ Floreta came hurrying down the garden path. ‘People are looking all over for you; it is almost dark.’

‘I was thinking of my father. I wish he was still here,’ Alienor said wistfully.

‘We all wish that, mistress,’ Floreta said, her tone compassionate, but added, practical and brisk, ‘Yet we must make the best of what we have. He did his best to make sure you would be safe and secure.’

Alienor sighed and stood up, dusting the back of her gown. The first stars had begun to twinkle over the battlements, but it was still no cooler. ‘I was also thinking of my mother,’ she said. ‘I miss her too.’

‘You were named for her.’ Floreta gave Alienor a hug. ‘She will always be with you. Assuredly she is watching over you from heaven.’

Alienor turned with the nurse to go back to the palace. Heaven was all very well, but it was her mother’s physical presence she craved. She wanted to feel her arms around her, and to be tucked up in bed like a child. She wanted someone to lift the burdens from her shoulders, and let her sleep without worry. Floreta for all her caring would never understand the true depth of her need. No one would.

Louis was enthusiastic in his lovemaking that night, keen to do his duty and continue the great success of the day following his investiture as Duke of Aquitaine. Alienor answered him fiercely, because it seemed to her that unless she replied with assertion she would lose her identity, and they finished in a sweating, gasping tangle, which left her feeling as if she had been dragged through the heart of a thunderstorm. Certainly Louis behaved as if he had been struck by lightning, and when they prayed afterwards, he knelt at his little altar for a long time, his damp silver hair falling forwards, hiding his face, and his hands clenched so tightly that his knuckles were bloodless.

‘I was thinking we should visit the abbey at Saintes,’ Alienor said when eventually they returned to bed. ‘My aunt Agnes is the Abbess there. She is my father’s sister and could not attend the wedding. I wish to make a grant to the abbey now I am Duchess in full.’

Louis nodded drowsily. ‘That is a seemly notion.’

‘I desire to visit my mother’s grave also, and make her chapel into a proper abbey.’

Again he murmured agreement.

Alienor kissed his shoulder. ‘Perhaps we could stay in Aquitaine a little longer.’

She felt him tense. ‘Why?’

‘Some of the vassals have not yet sworn allegiance. If we leave without their oaths, they may think they can do as they please. We need their allegiance, and the longer we stay, the more loyal people will be.’ She pressed small, seductive kisses to his collar bone and throat. ‘You could always send Suger and the others back to France and then you would be able to make your own decisions without them telling you what to do all the time.’

He was silent, absorbing this, and then he said, ‘How long were you thinking?’

Alienor pursed her lips against his throat. As long as she could keep him here was the straight answer. ‘Just a little while,’ she coaxed. ‘Until it is cool enough to travel in comfort and the vassals are more settled.’

He grunted and turned over, drawing away from her and pulling the sheet over his shoulder. ‘I will give the matter some thought,’ he said.

Alienor did not push further. It had to come as his idea, and would be better digested after a night’s sleep. She could work on him again over the next few days on their way to Saintes. The longer they remained in Aquitaine, the better pleased she would be.

During the night, Alienor was roused by a rapid banging on the door followed by the click of the latch and the sudden flare of a torch. She jerked to a sitting position, still struggling out of sleep. She cried out in alarm as Raoul de Vermandois clashed back the bed curtains. His gaze flicked over her tumbled hair and naked body with passing appreciation, and then shifted to the far side of the bed where Louis was sitting up and squinting against the blaze of the torch borne by Raoul’s squire.

‘What is it?’ Louis demanded blearily.

‘Sire, there is grave news from the court.’ Raoul dropped to one knee and bowed his head. ‘Your lord father took a turn for the worse five days ago at Béthizy and, at dusk, gave up his soul to God. You must return to France immediately.’

Louis stared at him blankly. Alienor pressed her hand to her mouth as she absorbed Raoul’s words and everything expanded in a rush. Dear God, this meant that Louis was King of France and that she was Queen. Her plans to stay in Aquitaine were so much chaff in the wind. They would have to go to Paris now, not just to join the royal household, but to head it as its rulers.

Louis staggered from the bed to kneel at his altar, head bowed over his clasped hands. ‘Blessed Saint Peter, I beg you to intercede on my father’s behalf so that he may be granted entry into heaven. God have mercy, God have mercy.’ He repeated the words in a continuous litany, rocking back and forth.

The seneschal eyed him with consternation. ‘Sire?’

Alienor rallied as she donned her chemise and turned to Raoul. His tunic was inside out and his thick white hair stood up in tufts as if he had come straight from his bed. ‘Has Abbé Suger been informed?’

A grimace crossed Raoul’s face. ‘I have sent a servant to fetch him. He was dining with the Archbishop and staying with him until the morrow.’

Swift to pick up nuances, Alienor had noticed the friction between Suger and Raoul de Vermandois during their progress. The men were not at ease with each other, although both would have vigorously denied there was any incompatibility. ‘My lord, we need to dress and compose ourselves.’

Raoul’s gaze on her sharpened, as if he was reassessing an item that was more interesting than he had first thought. He bowed. ‘I will send in your servants.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I will summon them myself in a moment. My lord husband is overwrought, and it would be imprudent for them to see him like this. It will give you time to sort out your tunic before the good Abbé arrives.’

‘My tunic?’ He looked down, and then plucked at the exposed seams. His mouth twisted in a wry smile. ‘I will remedy the situation and see you are not disturbed until you are ready.’ He took his leave, his stride swift and authoritative. Alienor suspected it would give him great satisfaction to deny entry to the Abbot of Saint-Denis, if only for a few minutes.

Alienor went to kneel at Louis’s side. She knew what it was like to lose a father, but her own prayer to God was swift and practical. The world was waiting outside their bedchamber door and if they did not go out to face it, then it would come to them, and they would be at its mercy.

‘Louis?’ She put her arms around him. ‘Louis, I am sorry your father is dead, but let there be prayers and masses said for him in the proper places. You cannot do it all yourself here and now. We have to get up and dressed; they are waiting for us.’

His chant faltered and ceased. He gave her a dazed look. ‘I knew he was sick and that his days were numbered, but I did not think his time was so short and that I would never see him again. What am I going to do?’

She made him sit on the bed and drink a cup of wine while she brought their clothes from the coffer where the servants had folded them the night before. ‘You are going to compose yourself, and get dressed,’ she said. ‘De Vermandois has gone to organise the household, and Suger has been sent for.’

He nodded, but she could tell he was not absorbing the information. She remembered feeling that initial numbness when her own father had died. Words had meant nothing. She held him against her and stroked his hair. It was like soothing Petronella, as if she was the mother and he was the child. He turned to her with a soft groan and pressed his face into her neck. She shushed him and he clung to her. But then he lifted his head and kissed her with his mouth open. She was startled but, recognising his need, returned his kiss and opened herself to him.

When it was over, he lay beside her and panted like a shipwrecked sailor washed up on the shore. She stroked his back gently between the shoulder blades and murmured hush words, feeling a little tearful herself. They had shared something momentous. She had channelled his grief and panic away through her body and brought him to calm. ‘It will be all right,’ she said.

‘I did not really know my father.’ Louis sat up and buried his head between his upraised knees. ‘He gave me to the Church when I was a child, and I was only taken out of the cloister when my brother died. He saw to my welfare and my education, but it was all at the hands of others. If I have a father, it is Abbé Suger.’

Alienor absorbed the detail with interest but no surprise. ‘I thought I knew mine well,’ she reciprocated. ‘I had been his heir since I was six years old. But when he died, I discovered I barely knew him at all …’ She fell silent before she said something she would later regret.

The sound of authoritative masculine voices rumbled in the antechamber. Suger had arrived, and she could also hear Archbishop Gofrid. She swiftly cajoled Louis into getting dressed.

‘You must show everyone you are capable of fulfilling the role of king – even while you are mourning your father,’ she said as she slipped his shoes on to his feet. ‘You are God’s chosen. Why should you fear?’

His focus returned as he stared at her, and some of the anxiety left his face. ‘Come out with me,’ he entreated her as she fastened his belt.

Alienor hastily donned her gown and bundled her hair into a gold-wire net. Her heart was pounding, but she raised her chin and, showing neither fear nor apprehension, set her hand upon his sleeve and drew him to the door. Under her palm she felt him trembling.

The antechamber was full of assembled courtiers who knelt as one in a rustle of cloth, Suger included. Looking at the serried ranks of heads, Alienor thought that they resembled cobblestones on a road awaiting the tread of their new king and queen.