The Summer Queen

31

Antioch, March 1148

The night was close and Alienor had told her women to leave the shutters open to encourage what little air there was to circulate. Somewhere in that vast, spangled darkness, Geoffrey was on the road. She remembered their conversation about the stars on the plains of Hungary, and hoped he was making swift progress.

This morning she had visited the church of Saint Peter to offer up prayers and silver for his safety and that of their child. She was eager now for Louis to leave for Jerusalem so she could relax her guard and have peace. Under cover of the square of embroidery on which she was working, she gently cupped her womb and whispered words of love and comfort to the child.

‘Did you speak, madam?’ Gisela asked.

‘Only to myself,’ Alienor said. Gisela had been acting strangely: jumping at the slightest thing, yet withdrawn and preoccupied at the same time. ‘You do not have to stay in Antioch with me,’ Alienor said. ‘I am not stopping you from leaving with the King.’

‘I know that, madam.’

Alienor’s voice sharpened with impatience. ‘Then what is wrong with you?’

‘Nothing, madam, I am just tired.’ Gisela looked down at her own needlework and bit her lip. ‘I have had a headache all day. May I have your permission to go outside and take some air?’

‘Yes, but do not be gone long. I am close to retiring.’

Gisela rose to her feet, slipped on her cloak and left the chamber.

Alienor turned to Marchisa. ‘Do you think she has a lover?’

The maid raised her eyebrows. ‘If she does, I do not know who it could be. The only young man I have seen her talking to is Thierry de Galeran’s squire, and he is not the type to conduct a flirtation.’

Alienor thought of the dour youth with his large Adam’s apple and pockmarked face. ‘Spying then,’ she said, and her stomach sank. Could no one be trusted?

Marchisa shrugged. ‘It may well be, madam.’

‘Do you think she knows about the child?’

‘She may suspect, but she has no proof.’

Alienor bit her lip. She had been careful ever since she realised she was pregnant to show the evidence of her monthly fluxes, even if the rags had been stained with chicken blood smuggled into her chamber in vials by Marchisa.

Gisela returned looking flushed and sparkle-eyed. Alienor vacillated. Perhaps she did indeed have a lover. If she could conceal a pregnancy, then Gisela might be just as adept. Perhaps he was a non-Christian or a man of a lower rank and therefore the affair had to be clandestine. She resolved to get to the bottom of it tomorrow.

Alienor retired to her chamber with Marchisa and Mamile helping her to bed, while Gisela prepared the maids’ room, dousing the lamps and tidying away the needlework. Marchisa took a comb to Alienor’s hair, smoothing after each stroke with the palm of her hand, creating a wave of heavy, shining gold.

There was a sudden soft gasp from Gisela. Alienor looked up and froze as dark-clad figures entered her sleeping sanctum and then closed the doors between the rooms.

Soldiers! They wore swords, and she could see mail gleaming under their cloaks and surcoats. The acrid smell of their sweat pervaded the room. She could feel their eyes raking her figure and her unbound hair. From their midst, Thierry de Galeran stepped forward, his dark eyes filled with satisfied malice, and Alienor knew terror.

‘What is this?’ she demanded. ‘How dare you?’

‘Madam, the King is leaving Antioch now and he desires you to join him. Come, we must go. It is of the utmost urgency.’

‘Let the King do as he wishes,’ she retorted. ‘I am staying in Antioch.’

‘Madam, that is not possible. The King has asked me to make provision for you now.’ He had a bundle over his left arm, which proved to be a man’s cloak of heavy dark green wool, edged with sable.

‘The King knows very well I am remaining here.’ She held herself rigid. The other men stared at her with hostile eyes, not one lowering his gaze in deference to her as a queen. There was no sympathy here, no way out. ‘Or have you come to kill me?’ She realised as she spoke that her murder was a very real possibility. ‘Where is Saldebreuil?’

‘Let us say he is indisposed,’ Thierry said and reached for her.

She batted him away. ‘Do not touch me!’ she hissed, revolted at the very thought of his hands on her.

He seized her wrist and she bit him. Marchisa rushed to the attack, using the comb to rake Thierry’s face. He hit her across the cheek and sent her staggering against a painted chest. Mamile began screaming and one of the other men seized her and set a hand across her mouth. ‘Silence, mistress,’ he growled, ‘or I shall squeeze the voice from your throat.’

Alienor kicked Thierry in the shins and ran from him, but the doors were shut and she was cornered. Even so she turned to fight, grabbing a poker from beside the brazier and jabbing it at Thierry. He laughed, feinted and seized her wrist, twisting it until she was forced to let go. She tried to drag his knife out of his belt, but he spun her round and bundled her in the cloak with aid from his henchmen, parcelling her up and tying ropes around her until she was immobilised. Still she tried to fight. Her mind filled with visions of being thrown into the Orontes to drown, or being taken from here, stabbed and left for the wolves and wild dogs to devour.

Thierry stood back panting, blood running down his face where the comb tines had raked him. ‘Hellcat.’ He wiped his cheek with the back of his hand. ‘Bitch.’ He gave her a nudge with his foot.

She glared venom. ‘I will have vengeance for this. I call upon my father’s soul to witness what you do now and curse you forever! Let me go!’ She struggled against her bonds.

‘It is for the King to say what happens to you. I leave it to him to deal with the traitors and whores in his own household.’ Stooping, he tightened the binding again until Alienor struggled to breathe.

‘There is only one whore in this room,’ she panted. ‘And he is standing before me.’

De Galeran kicked her in the region of her belly. ‘The truth of that will out soon enough,’ he snarled.

She couldn’t scream; she didn’t have the breath. Her vision darkened and blurred, but she was dimly aware of the men seizing Mamile and Marchisa at sword point. De Galeran and another knight picked her up and carried her sideways as if she were a rolled-up carpet in a souk, and bore her into the main room. Gisela stood ready, a cloak around her shoulders and a tied bundle of belongings in her hand. Her eyes were wide with fear, but there was a defensive jut to her chin, and Alienor knew that here was the traitor to match the whore.

After a brief, jolting journey and a clink of a money pouch, Alienor was dumped with unceremonious force on to stony ground. The heavy cloak cushioned some of her fall, but not the entirety. If before it had been an effort to breathe, now it was a supreme struggle. She was going to die, she was certain of it now, and the child with her. She was suffocating inside the cloak. There was liquid in her throat and she was gagging.

Thierry stooped and cut the bindings. Alienor sucked in lungfuls of air, gasping and retching. ‘You will die for this!’ she choked.

‘I doubt it,’ Thierry said. ‘But you might.’ He seized her and with the help of another knight, brought her over to a stamping, unsettled horse. One of the soldiers was already mounted and she was bundled up in front of him. When she began to scream, he clapped a hard, calloused hand across her mouth and under her nose, almost cutting off her breath.

‘Any more, and it will be death for you.’

She tried to bite him and he swore.

‘Gag her,’ Thierry said, and handed up a strip of bandage, which the soldier wadded and stuffed in Alienor’s mouth. ‘Blindfold her too. The fewer senses the bitch has, the better.’

She struggled and fought, but the men were stronger and in a vicious mood. ‘Hah!’ said the soldier and dug in his heels, and the horse sprang forward. She was astride the saddle and there was a terrible feeling in her stomach, as if her muscles were being stretched until they tore. She was jolted and bumped. The wind stung her eyes. She was helpless and terrified, certain they were taking her somewhere isolated in order to kill her and dispose of her body.

It seemed to her that they rode for several hours. The horse’s rapid jog trot slowed to a walk, then a plod. Eventually, she smelled smoke and heard the sound of voices and her captor drew rein. She felt him dismount, and then he pulled her down off the horse and threw her to the ground. Alienor could not prevent the whimper that rose from her throat. ‘Don’t go anywhere,’ he said. She sensed him walking away from her and she heard him greeting the men at the fire, followed by the slosh of liquid into a cup.

‘Perhaps it would be better if she did not live,’ she heard someone say. ‘Better dead than the scandal this will bring on us all.’

‘It is the King’s decision,’ another voice said sharply. ‘We should wait until he arrives.’

‘I do not see why. We can say it was an accident. He is better rid of her, and Christ alone knows what she was plotting with that uncle of hers – if plotting was all she was doing.’

Alienor’s teeth would have chattered with terror if she had been able to close her mouth around the gag. Would they dare murder her here and now without giving her the grace of confession and shriving? She forced herself to lie quiescent while she strained her ears. She would play dead, and if given the slightest opportunity, she would escape.

Eventually the discussion between the men ended as the decision was taken to leave her fate in the hands of the King. She felt footsteps approaching and her nostrils drew in the scent of some kind of hot stew with onions and garlic.

‘Here,’ said a gruff voice. ‘If I untie you, do you want something to eat?’

Alienor heaved up and lunged towards him and heard him curse as the hot stew splattered over his hands. He swore at her, and she heard the laughter of the other men from around their fire.

‘Leave her!’ one of them shouted. ‘What do you expect if you try kindness on a she-devil?’

Alienor slumped, tears wetting the blindfold.

Moments later she heard more hoofbeats and the sound of troops dismounting. Then Louis’s voice demanding to know what was happening.

‘The Queen is here, sire,’ Thierry said. ‘We had to bind her because she refused to come of her own accord. We also thought it best to disguise and conceal her.’

‘Let me see her,’ Louis demanded.

Aware of an approaching footfall, Alienor writhed and thrashed.

‘We would have fed her, sire, but she spilled the food all over Simon when he offered it to her.’

Alienor felt fingers on her face and struggled frantically.

‘See,’ said Thierry. ‘She is possessed, sire.’

‘Be silent,’ Louis snarled. ‘Did I order you to do this? I think not.’

The fingers worked at the knot on the blindfold and pulled it away. The gag came out next and Alienor coughed and drew in enormous breaths of unrestricted air.

‘Dear God,’ said Louis. ‘Dear God!’ He turned to Thierry. ‘I did not order this. Give me your knife.’

Stony-faced, Thierry drew his long dagger from its sheath and handed it to Louis.

With jerky movements, Louis cut the bindings around the cloak and set Alienor free. She fell forward into his arms and immediately recoiled.

‘I never meant them to do this to you.’ Louis’s expression filled with shock. ‘I wanted you to come with me, and we had to leave by stealth at night. I would never condone this – never!’ He looked over his shoulder at the now tense and worried knights who had kidnapped her. ‘You have overstepped your bounds.’ He glared at Thierry. ‘Is there no maid to assist the Queen? Where are her women?’

Thierry made a terse gesture and Gisela was brought forward from the other side of the campfire. Tears streaked the young woman’s face and she hung back. ‘I am so sorry!’ she sobbed.

‘Attend your mistress,’ Louis said.

Alienor raised her head. ‘I want Marchisa,’ she said with a last vestige of strength. ‘I will not have this one attend me ever again!’

Louis flicked his fingers and Gisela was led away, weeping bitterly. Marchisa stepped forward, her own face bruised, one eye swelling shut.

‘You beat her maids too?’ Louis was shocked.

Thierry touched the comb rakes on his cheek. ‘That one is as wild as her mistress,’ he said.

Marchisa shot him a glare. ‘I would have cut out your black heart if I could,’ she spat, and knelt over Alienor. ‘Madam, it is all right, I am here now. I am here.’

Alienor clung to Marchisa. Now that the immediate danger had passed, she was numb. Marchisa propped her against a pile of saddle blankets and clothing packs and brought her a cup of wine.

Alienor bowed her head. ‘He will pay for this, I swear,’ she said. ‘I shall still have my annulment.’ She closed her eyes. She was too tired and damaged to think. To feel only filled her with bleak despair. But come the morning she would set about planning her return to Antioch.

She was shaken out of the blackness of deep sleep to a sky that had the milky appearance of pre-dawn but was still scattered with stars. The men were mounting their horses. Her bruises had stiffened and the pain made her gasp as she tried to move. ‘I cannot ride,’ she whispered as the previous day’s horse was brought to her. ‘It is impossible.’

Louis came over to her and studied her with hard eyes. ‘You should not have resisted Thierry when he came to fetch you,’ he said. ‘It is your own fault that this has happened. Some might say you deserve it; nevertheless, I have chastised him for his conduct.’

‘I will not speak with you.’ She turned her head away. ‘It was my right to remain in Antioch.’

A look of revulsion crossed Louis’s face. ‘Antioch is a den of iniquity. Do you know what people are saying about you? Do you know how much you have sullied your name – and mine into the bargain? Do you care that you have made France a laughing stock?’

She closed her eyes, refusing to engage. It was all as nothing.

Louis exhaled hard. ‘I need us united. How can I lead an army if you are in Antioch encouraging rebellion against me and fomenting discord? You shall come to the Holy Sepulchre and you shall be washed clean. Make no mistake, you will never return to Antioch. Do you hear me? Never!’

The French army, reunited, made its way towards Jerusalem. They were travelling in the Christian states now and the way was easier, but the days were hot with encroaching summer and the spring campaigning season had been lost. Louis paused to worship at shrines along the way as they covered the two hundred miles between Antioch and Jerusalem. There was no word from Antioch, but the silence itself burned like the tips of the soldiers’ spears in the baking summer heat and Louis was constantly looking over his shoulder.

Alienor travelled in a litter, enclosed and unseen. It suited Louis because she was with him but out of sight and Alienor did not complain because it fell in with her own needs. She did not have to interact with anyone except when they made camp or she required the necessary screens for her ablutions. She could be alone with her thoughts while her body recuperated. Louis had not been near her since that night. She knew she was being closely watched lest she try and turn back for Antioch, but with each mile that passed, it became less and less possible.

Seven days into their journey, Alienor woke in the night certain that something was wrong. She had been dreaming of a baby, its downy golden head nuzzling at her breast, but when she looked down into its tiny face, it began to change, its rosy colour becoming ashen and its eyes turning as dull and dusty as wayside stones. It flopped in her arms, lifeless, and as she clutched it to her, it crumbled to dust. She sat up gasping, and pressed her hands to her belly. It felt heavy and solid under her touch, like a stone. There was no feeling, no flutter of soft limbs against the wall of her womb. She tried to go back to sleep, but eventually gave up, and went to sit by the embers of the fire until it was time to move on.

Louis wanted to visit the holy sites of the Lebanon, including the place where Saint Peter had been given the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. The land was fresh and green, known as the ‘valley of springs’, and there was some respite from the burning heat. Alienor tried to drink of the tranquillity and absorb some peace into her soul for the sake of herself and the child. Louis’s mood was bright, but then he enjoyed being royalty on the road when all he had to do was parade and be gracious. She had watched him from a distance, effusing to the men and smiling broadly, even at Thierry de Galeran, whom he seemed to have forgiven in short order. All was well in his world. Raymond of Antioch had been outwitted and Alienor was contained in her curtained litter where she belonged and could do no harm.

As the day’s journey progressed, Alienor began to feel unwell. The jolting of the litter was like being on a boat on a rough sea and there was a band of pain across her belly. At first it resembled the niggling ache that came with her monthly fluxes, but gradually it intensified to the surging pains of true labour. ‘No,’ she gasped. ‘No, it is too soon!’ Her waters broke on a sudden gush, and they were streaked with blood and a greenish-black substance. She pulled back the curtain and leaned out to scream for Marchisa who was riding on a mule at the side of the litter.

‘Madam?’ Marchisa bade the men halt the litter and peered in at Alienor. ‘Holy Mary,’ she breathed and for a moment even her aplomb was shaken.

‘No one must know,’ Alienor gasped. ‘At whatever cost.’

Marchisa shook her head. ‘You cannot continue, madam,’ she said. ‘We have to find you shelter.’ She looked round. There was a shepherd’s hut a little off the track. It was no more than a crude stone shelter, but there was nothing else; Louis’s pilgrim site was much further on.

‘The Queen is unwell,’ Marchisa said to the litter-bearers. ‘Take her to that hut and I will tend her there.’

‘But we cannot leave the line, mistress,’ one of them said.

‘If you do not, she will die,’ Marchisa said fiercely. ‘And you will be to blame. Do as I say.’

‘But the King—’

‘I will deal with the King.’ Marchisa drew herself up. ‘My lady’s ailment is a recurrence of the sickness and flux she suffered in Hungary, and worsened by the treatment she received when she was forced to leave Antioch.’

Having prevailed on the men to bear the litter to the hut, Marchisa sent a squire to Louis with the same story she had given the litter-bearers, and had Mamile brought to the hut too. ‘As you are loyal to my lady, say nothing of this,’ she whispered fiercely to her. ‘If anyone asks, the Queen has the bloody flux.’

Mamile looked at her in fear mingled with angry indignation. ‘I know full well what ails her,’ she said. ‘But I am not Gisela and my loyalty is staunch.’

Together they helped Alienor into the hut. The litter-bearers, having heard the word ‘flux’, were keen to keep their distance and Marchisa encouraged them to do so. A messenger arrived from Louis saying he would continue to the pilgrim site and that Alienor should rest where she was until she was strong enough to rejoin the main troop. However, he would leave guards to protect her, who would camp beside the hut. The messenger insisted on seeing Alienor to make sure she truly was ill and not just pretending in a ploy to make an escape back to Antioch.

He took a single glance at Alienor writhing in the straw on the floor of the hut and made a swift exit.

A small spring bubbled beside the hut and Marchisa filled a bucket with fresh, cold water. She lit a fire in the small stone hearth. There was dung for fuel and she had a sack of charcoal among her supplies. She stuffed a linen palliasse with some of the straw to make Alienor a bed and, once the fire was established, brewed her a tisane that would take away the edge of the pain, although she knew she could not dull what was to come. The blood in the waters and the green smears of the unborn infant’s faeces told their own story of impending tragedy. She suspected that the blows Thierry de Galeran had inflicted on Alienor as they left Antioch had been deliberate in more ways than one.

Alienor opened her eyes and stared at smoke-darkened rafters. There was a burning pain in her belly and between her thighs, constant and duller now, rather than cresting surges. Her throat was raw, as if she had inhaled too much smoke, or screamed until her voice was ragged. She put her hand down to her belly and it was flaccid. Her breasts were tight and someone had bound them with linen cloths. There were pads between her thighs too. She felt weak and wrung out.

‘Madam?’ Marchisa leaned over her and pressed a hand to her forehead. ‘Ah, the fever has dropped at last,’ she said. ‘You have been very ill. Here, you must drink more of this.’

Alienor sipped the cool, bitter brew from the cup that Marchisa pressed to her lips. ‘My child,’ she said. ‘Where is my child? He will need feeding.’ She looked round the hut. A linen curtain hung across the doorway, screening the outside but letting in weak light. A thread of blue smoke twirled from the hearth. Mamile was stirring some sort of stew in a pot, but she looked across at Alienor and then swiftly away. ‘What have you done with him? Show him to me!’

Marchisa bit her lip. ‘Madam … he … was born dead. That was why you went into travail early – because he had died. I am so sorry.’

‘I do not believe you!’ Alienor could feel panic and grief gathering like a surge behind a crumbling wall. ‘Show me.’

‘Madam …’

‘Show me! If there is a body, I will see it and know all there is!’

Marchisa turned to a basket covered with a linen cloth on top of which she had laid the cross on its chain from around her own neck. ‘I was going to bury him at sunrise,’ she said. ‘Truly, madam, I am not sure you should look.’

‘I must.’

Marchisa drew back the cloth and Alienor gazed on what lay within the basket. She let out a single wail and then absorbed the grief, curling over, clutching it to her in lieu of a living, breathing infant. Even as the child had died, so now too did a fragile part of her hopes and dreams. She rocked back and forth, nursing her pain. ‘I do not care what happens to me,’ she said. ‘Let me die. This is no holy land; this is my hell.’