The Summer Queen

17

Paris, Autumn 1141

The court, much subdued, arrived in Paris after a week of steady travel on hard autumn roads. Raoul was kept under guard, permitted to ride his own horse but shunned by Louis. They had had strong words on that first night at Poitiers, or rather Louis had bellowed and Raoul had stayed silent in shame, and since then they had not spoken. Taking their lead from Louis, the rest of the court spurned Raoul, so that although he rode among them, he might as well have been invisible – and this a man who was the heart and soul of long journeys with his stories and humour. Petronella was kept under close guard, travelling in a litter well away from Raoul’s part of the progress.

On their arrival in Paris, Raoul was escorted to a chamber and put under house arrest while Petronella was brought to Alienor’s apartments under close supervision and given no opportunity to have any sort of contact with her lover. Her manner remained stubborn and unrepentant, but Alienor heard her weeping behind the closed bed curtains and, despite her vow to remain unmoved, her heart ached for her fragile sister.

‘Louis, may I have a word alone?’ Alienor said.

He raised his head from the document he was reading. ‘About what?’

‘The matter in hand.’

He hesitated, and then ordered everyone to leave the room.

Going to the window, Alienor gestured to the cushioned embrasure seats. ‘Will you sit with me?’ A flagon stood close by and she poured wine into two goblets.

He sighed and tossed the scroll on to the trestle. ‘What is it?’ He folded his arms and made no move to join her.

She sipped her wine. They had brought it back with them and it tasted of Bordeaux. ‘I have been thinking what to do about Petronella and Raoul. They cannot stay under lock and key for the rest of their lives.’

Louis shrugged. ‘Tell me why I should loosen the reins? They have sinned grievously against God and they have betrayed us both. If you have come to make excuses for them, then your journey is wasted.’

His priggish reply irritated her. ‘Whatever blame we apportion, it does not solve the problem. I agree that they should do penance, but I also think they should be allowed to return to some kind of life. You need Raoul in council, and Petronella cannot live out her days at the top of the Great Tower.’

Louis examined his fingernails. Eventually he heaved a sigh and, leaving his chair, joined her at the window. ‘If Raoul and your sister will shrive themselves and spend time in repentance and contemplation of their sin, I will see what can be done.’

‘Thank you.’ Alienor lowered her eyes, knowing it best to yield a little to sweeten his mood. She suspected Petronella would not be in the least repentant, but if she could pretend remorse, then perhaps there was a way through. After a moment she said thoughtfully, ‘It would be much simpler if we were ordinary folk not watched by all. Petronella and Raoul could be wed and no harm done.’

Louis frowned at her. ‘Raoul has a wife. He is not free to marry.’

‘He conveniently forgot that fact when he seduced my sister,’ she said acidly. ‘He may have a wife, but he has long lived apart from her.’

‘She is the niece of Theobald of Champagne.’

‘Yes, and Theobald has defied you twice and treated you as if you are of no consequence. If they married, Petronella would be safe with her chosen man and you would not have to send Raoul away. The criticism would have to be quelled, but eventually people would have no choice but to accept the match.’

Louis gnawed his thumb knuckle.

‘All you would have to do is arrange an annulment for Raoul so he and Petronella could wed,’ she said, her tone soft and persuasive. ‘It solves our dilemma.’

Louis’s frown deepened. ‘That may be so,’ he said slowly, ‘but we shall have to find bishops willing to annul the marriage.’

‘I have thought of that. The Bishop of Noyon is Raoul’s cousin, and Laon and Senlis will also be willing to assist.’ Bishops who could be bribed, in other words, or who had an interest. The knowledge hung between them like a bad odour, but she was determined to do everything in her power to make this right for Petronella. There would be opposition, but once Louis had decided, she could count on him to see this through. His motivation might have more to do with slighting Theobald of Champagne than securing Petronella’s future, but that did not matter.

‘Very well, I shall write to them,’ he said curtly, ‘but we should say nothing until plans are finalised. It will do your sister and Raoul no harm to spend time repenting without knowledge of this.’

‘As you wish.’

‘You had this all planned before you came to me, didn’t you?’

She looked up at him and put her hands on his chest. ‘Only a little,’ she said. ‘I had been worrying about it, that is all, and I wanted to talk to you. I knew you would know what to do.’

With a gleam in his eyes he set his hands to her waist and kissed her. The notion of slighting Theobald of Champagne through his niece filled him with a sense of power and royal righteousness that translated into a sudden strong sexual urge. And besides, he needed to put his wife in her place.

Alienor responded willingly to his excitement, because she had got him to do her will; she had solved the problem of Petronella and Raoul, and perhaps this time she would conceive.

Cold rain had turned the crowded streets of Paris into a vile, sulphurous-smelling sludge. No one could go about their business without miring their shoes and clothes. Even if puddles were skirted and leaped over, the noisome splatter from the press of general traffic was unavoidable.

At the palace, the shutters were open to admit the daylight, but they also brought in the stink from the city coupled with that of musty stone, damp from a cold, wet autumn.

Wrapped in a warm mantle lined with the pelts of Russian squirrels, Alienor sat before a brazier in her chamber holding a document with several seals dangling from cords at the base; despite the dismal day and the stench, she was smiling.

The door opened and Petronella entered, followed by her customary escort of ladies, all of them sober matrons. Petronella flung her cloak across a chest and tore off her headdress to expose her long brown braids. ‘That is the end!’ Her eyes flashed. ‘I am shriven whiter than a newborn lamb. I have been washing the feet of the poor all morning after they have trudged through that stinking mire. I have given them bread and alms and touched their sores.’ She screwed up her face. ‘I have inhaled their stench and let it out again on the breath of prayer. I have bowed my head and begged for forgiveness.’ She cast a defiant look at Alienor. ‘I didn’t beg forgiveness for loving Raoul; I begged it because I am sick of people turning away from me. I am who I was before, but everyone hates me now.’

‘No one hates you.’ Alienor tried not to sound impatient. ‘Come sit here by me.’

Petronella sighed and flounced over to Alienor. She picked up the piece of sewing she had been working on before she went to church. It was a tunic hem half-embroidered with green silk acanthus scrolls.

‘Look,’ Alienor said. ‘I do not know if this will make a difference to you, but Louis and I have been making enquiries into the likelihood of an annulment for Raoul and we think it may be possible.’

Petronella let her sewing fall to her lap. ‘An annulment?’ she said with widening eyes.

‘I did not want to tell you before, not until it seemed certain, and besides you have had your penance to do, but we have found three bishops who have agreed to dissolve Raoul’s marriage.’ She tapped the piece of parchment in her hand. ‘If matters go well, you and Raoul can be wed as soon as we can arrange matters.’

Petronella clutched her breast as if holding her heart inside her body and gasped. When Alienor leaned towards her in concern, she shook her head and laughed exultantly. ‘I knew you would not let me down! When all is said and done we are the same blood. This is a miracle. I begged and prayed for one all the time I was on my knees in church and washing the feet of the poor!’ She flung her arms around Alienor and kissed her. ‘Thank you, sister, thank you!’

Alienor returned the embrace, tears pricking her own eyes because a sister’s love was unconditional, whatever Petronella did.

‘I promise to be good from now on. I will be the best wife in the world!’ Petronella vowed. ‘We can be sisters just as we were before all this happened!’

But Alienor knew they could never go back: she was wise enough to see that too much had changed, too much had been said and done; yet it was so good to feel Petronella’s arms around her, and to know that at least some of the ties between them, frayed though they were, remained fast.

‘What about Raoul?’ asked Petronella. ‘Does he know?’

‘Louis will tell him. We were waiting for this news from the bishops.’ Alienor raised a warning forefinger. ‘I tell you now there will be great opposition. Theobald of Champagne will not accept it because he will take it as a personal insult to his bloodline. He and Louis are already on bad terms over the matter of Toulouse, and this will only sour their relationship further. I suspect he will call on clergy of his own to refute what we put forward.’

‘They won’t succeed,’ Petronella said with a vehement shake of her head. She hugged Alienor again. ‘I promise I will never ask for anything else in my life now that I have this! It means everything to me!’

Alienor’s smile did not reach her eyes because having something that meant everything was a double-edged sword. It meant you had so much more to lose.

Raoul entered Louis’s chamber with trepidation. A swift glance showed him that the servants had all been dismissed. Abbé Suger, Louis’s brother Robert of Dreux, and his uncles William de Montferrat and Amadée de Maurienne, however, were in close attendance.

‘Sire.’ Raoul knelt and bowed his head. This was the first time he had seen Louis in several days. He was still being kept under close watch, although no longer strict house arrest. He had felt the weight of disapproval at court; instead of being welcomed into the royal inner circles he had been forced to the outer edge and knew how vulnerable he was. Men who were out of favour were easily picked off.

Louis ordered him to rise. ‘You are here to answer on the matter of your conduct with the Queen’s sister,’ he said icily.

Raoul bowed his head. ‘Sire, my life is in your hands. I do not expect to receive clemency. I will do whatever I must do to make amends.’

Louis looked contemptuous. ‘Indeed you shall. You have ever had a glib tongue, but let us hope this time your words and deeds are a match for each other.’

Raoul cleared his throat. ‘Sire.’

‘This is family business, as well as a matter of state,’ Louis said. ‘Whatever I decide will have repercussions far beyond this chamber. To set this right, you must marry the Queen’s sister.’

Raoul stared at Louis in dumbstruck silence.

‘I have found three bishops, including your cousin, willing to declare your marriage to Leonora null and void, which leaves you free to wed the lady Petronella.’ Louis’s mouth twisted. ‘I could wish it otherwise, but this seems the best decision.’

Raoul swallowed. ‘I do not know what to say, sire.’

‘That has to be a unique experience for you,’ Robert of Dreux said nastily.

Louis shot his brother a warning look. ‘The wedding will take place as soon as the bishops have pronounced the annulment, and as swiftly as the nuptials can be arranged. While this is being done, you will go with Abbé Suger to Saint-Denis, where you will dwell in penitence until the day of your marriage.’

Raoul’s stomach clenched. He did not want to enter Saint-Denis lest he didn’t come out again, but what other choice did he have? His life was forfeit anyway and Louis could easily have had him killed long before now. The older men were looking at him with ill-concealed scorn. ‘Sire, you are gracious,’ he said.

‘I am not,’ Louis retorted. ‘I am acting out of expedience and necessity. There is no grace about this scandalous matter at all.’

Raoul left Louis’s chamber in a daze, but slowly began to realise and rationalise what the annulment meant. He and Leonora barely saw each other from year to year and when they did they seldom spoke. She would probably be pleased to be rid of him. The only reason for her to fight would be the diminishing of her status. He felt a slight qualm about that, but it couldn’t be helped.

He thought of Petronella instead. He truly did love her; and beyond the physical attraction, it did no harm that she was Alienor’s sister and, while Alienor remained childless, Petronella was heiress to Aquitaine. Should he make her pregnant, their offspring would stand in line to succeed to the duchy. In truth, despite the rough road he had recently been forced to travel and the difficulties still to come, things might just work out rather well.

Petronella and Raoul were married quietly at Christmastide in the chapel of Saint Nicholas in the royal palace, the nuptials absorbed into the general Nativity celebrations. Petronella wore a gown of deep red wool trimmed with ermine. Raoul was plainly besotted by his nubile young bride, as well he might be. What the bride saw in a one-eyed man beyond his fiftieth year was not quite as obvious to the court, but she seemed just as infatuated as he was.

Following the wedding, the couple retired to Raoul’s estates north of Paris to spend time alone as newlyweds and wait for the dust to settle on the scandal. However, trouble rapidly fermented. Theobald of Champagne was furious at the insult to his niece and called Raoul a fornicator, adulterer and debaucher of young girls. Bernard of Clairvaux allied with him and together they lobbied the Pope. Theobald slighted Louis by giving succour to Pierre de la Châtre, elected but spurned Archbishop of Bourges, providing him with a safe refuge at his court.

Louis promptly threatened to cut off de la Châtre’s head and stick it on a pole on the Petit-Pont in Paris, with Theobald’s rammed beside it for good measure. He made a public vow before the altar at Saint-Denis that while he was king, de la Châtre would never set foot over the threshold of Bourges Cathedral. Pope Innocent immediately retaliated and put all of France under an interdict. Louis replied with a furious letter declaring he had always supported the Church, that he revered the Pope, and that the rebellious clergy at Bourges in collusion with Theobald were the real malign influences at work.

The silence that followed was akin to the still before a storm. Louis existed in a state of strung tension, his temper to the fore, and the court jumped at every footfall.

Alienor was in her chamber sorting through her casket of rings. She had several she intended giving as gifts to people who had served her well. A particular one glinted at her from the bottom of the coffer and she slipped it on to her finger. It had once belonged to her grandmother Philippa and was set with several rubies resembling pomegranate seeds. The stones were supposed to represent the women of her bloodline and the ring had been passed down through each generation.

Alienor held out her hand to study the ring on her finger and wondered if she would ever pass it on to her own child. Louis continued to lie with her in his intermittent way, but without success. The red stones might equally stand for her wasted blood as each month the result of his infrequent attentions failed to take root in her womb.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a frantic knocking on her chamber door. Gisela opened it to a flushed and panting squire. ‘Madam, you are summoned to the King’s presence immediately!’

She stood up. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘A letter has arrived from the Pope. The King is asking for you.’

Alienor could tell from the young man’s expression that the news was bad. Bidding Gisela accompany her, she followed him to Louis’s chamber.

Louis was sitting at his lectern, clutching a parchment scroll and looking grim. When Alienor entered the room, he fixed her with a furious glare. ‘Theobald of Champagne has hosted a council in Troyes, behind my back, with the Papal Legate in attendance. See what he has done now!’ He thrust the parchment towards her.

As Alienor read the scroll, her heart sank. The Pope had upheld Theobald of Champagne’s protest on behalf of his niece. He had declared Raoul and Petronella’s marriage invalid and suspended the bishops who had agreed to the annulment of Raoul’s first match. Furthermore, Innocent had ordered Raoul and Petronella to separate on pain of excommunication and had expressed astonishment that Louis should condone such a union.

‘I will not be dictated to by meddling prelates,’ Louis snarled. ‘Their words do not belong to God, and I will brook no more interference from Theobald of Champagne or the Pope!’

‘You must do something about it,’ Alienor said, wondering whom they could influence in Rome to lobby the Pope on their behalf.

‘I intend to. I shall root out this wasps’ nest in Champagne. If an insect stings you, then you squash it underfoot.’

Later, in their chamber, Louis took her with all the vigour his fury lent him, uncaring that he hurt her, expending his temper on her body as if it was all her fault. Alienor endured the pummelling because she knew once he was spent, his rage would dissipate and she would be able to deal with him. He was like a child having a tantrum. Finished, he adjusted his clothes and, without a word, strode from the room. She knew he was going to pray: to spend the night on his knees doing penance and exhorting God to strike down his enemies.

Sore from his aggression, glad he was gone, Alienor hugged her pillow and tried to think of solutions to the dilemma of the papal opposition, but there seemed no way out. Innocent was a stubborn old mule, and when he did listen, it was to pernicious troublemakers such as Bernard of Clairvaux, who was Theobald’s advocate. Eventually, she rose, lit a candle and knelt to pray, but while the ritual helped her to sleep, it delivered no answers.