The Secret Eleanor (4 page)

Petronilla said, “My life is over, Eleanor. I don’t think I shall ever smile again.” Her voice was heavy and toneless. They were walking up the garden, toward the far end, where the little gate was. Eleanor took hold of her hand and wound their arms together.

“What you need, my dear, is a lover.”

Her sister gasped. “Eleanor! Oh, oh—” She tried to pull away, her face flushed. A wisp of her dark red hair had come loose over her temple. “You don’t understand.” The tears spilled down her cheeks in streams. “My husband cast me off. No one wants me, I’m worthless.” She tried to pull her arm away from Eleanor’s, but Eleanor held tight to her; with her free hand, Petronilla wiped away the tears.

“Well,” Eleanor said, “what
I
need is a lover, and you can help me.”

Petronilla ground at her eyes with her fist. “You’ve never needed anybody’s help for that.” She sounded grouchy now, rather than grieving.

“But you will, won’t you?” Eleanor glanced around; they were far from any listening ears, although in the high window of the castle tower she saw against the light along the sill the lumps of heads still watching them.

“You have always protected me,” Petronilla said. “Although I don’t know what I can do. I swear, Eleanor. I will do whatever I can, whatever you need me to do.”

“Good.” Eleanor took her hand and kissed it.

Petronilla’s mouth twitched, trying against her will to smile. She looked much prettier when she smiled. Her green eyes gleamed, narrowing. “And this lover. I’m sure you have him already picked out, haven’t you?”

“Yes. But as I said, I need your help. Now listen.”

Petronilla went back to the tower, leaving Eleanor behind in the garden, strolling back and forth, vainly trying to quiet her nervous energy. The Poitevin knight Joffre de Rançun stood at the door into the stairway and gave her a quick smile when she passed him. She fought off the usual urge to tarry with him; he was Eleanor’s, and so he had always been beyond her reach. She went on into the stairwell.

When she entered the room, the other women were all busy at their work, as they had been when she left. Alys sat by the window, her hands full of her needlework, the broad green band of silk spilling down over her knees to the floor. Marie-Jeanne was plumping the cushions on the Queen’s bed. The girl Claire was fussing with the clothes in the wardrobe.

Suddenly Alys said sharply, “Claire, what have you got on your hands? You’ve made that all dirty.” She sprang up from the stool; there was the sound of a slap, and Claire yelped. “Go wash your hands.”

Claire fled. Petronilla went to the window and leaned on the sill. Out there, Eleanor was pacing up and down among the rosemary like a caged lioness.

What her sister had told her still turned over and over in her thoughts. She knew Eleanor well enough to guess that her sister had not spoken her whole mind to her; this was only the beginning of one of Eleanor’s long schemes, risky, probably sinful, certainly dangerous for both of them. Her eyes followed Eleanor’s restless course around the garden. She crossed herself. She would do anything for her sister.

Some small thought nagged at the back of her mind: that perhaps sometime she should do something for Petronilla, or there would be no Petronilla. But she thrust that away, unworthy of a good, loyal sister.

While she stood there, battling her jittery misgivings, Alys reached out and plucked her sleeve. Petronilla turned. The older woman’s mild blue eyes met hers.

Under her breath, she said, “The little one, Claire, left us, was gone awhile, and came back all red-cheeked and happy, and with sticky fingers, as if someone had given her sweetmeats.”

Petronilla’s stomach turned. She kept her gaze away from Claire, who was washing her hands in a basin, her eyes downcast and her cheeks blazing red. She carried the basinful of water away. Petronilla’s heart sank. So they were already caught. Their schemes traded for honeyed walnuts. She met Alys’s gaze again, dear Alys, who loved them both.

“Thank you.” Only her lips moved.

Alys responded in the same wise, her mouth forming words without breath. “Be careful.”

In the morning they were back in court again. In spite of his defiance, Anjou had not left Paris; he came in to talk about the homage Henry owed for the duchy of Normandy. Thierry Galeran was carrying on this negotiation, over on the far side of the dais, head to head with the Count. Eleanor would have liked to join this talk, even with Thierry there, but they would not allow her to say a word. Petronilla sat beside her, as always, and she reached down and took her hand a moment.

Meek and mild little Petra,
she thought;
this is what they want me to be like
.

She was trying not to look at Henry FitzEmpress, who was shifting impatiently from foot to foot while his father argued with Thierry. The rest of the meager crowd was all busy, broken up in little knots of men, talking, making bargains, telling jokes, paying off debts, and collecting favors. By the door her knight Joffre de Rançun smiled at her, square-shouldered, tawny-haired, handsome in his red coat; like Alys and Marie-Jeanne and Petronilla herself, he had come with her from Aquitaine, when she was married, and never left her, faithful as a brother. He knew all her secrets and kept them like a mute. She could depend on him.

The Count of Champagne came in, with some ceremony, so that everybody else stopped what he was doing and watched him. Still a young man, he seemed older than he was, broad, jovial, sumptuously dressed, with several gold chains around his neck and a medal in his cap, which he swept off splendidly when he bowed.

A dozen lackeys pattered around him, enlarging his presence. Eleanor was glad to see him, as he spoke well and cared about gaiety. He might have brought a lute player: The whole family was fond of music. Louis broke off listening to the talk between Anjou and Thierry. His gaze swiveled around toward Champagne, and his fingers tapped nervously on his knee.

“Peace, sir,” Eleanor said to him. “It’s the son, not the father. Send for the princess Marie.”

He blew out his breath, his eyes hollow. Champagne’s most puissant and high-tempered father had been the hero of Louis’s youth, until they quarreled, and came to blows; Louis still ached over this. He and Champagne had finally, formally reconciled, but never in their deepest hearts. The father had died in the previous winter, and Louis had wept for days.

This son was more genial. To mend the rift between them, he was to marry Louis’s and Eleanor’s older daughter. Yet the King still shied, like a horse that had seen a snake once and now flinched every time he passed the place.

Eleanor murmured again, and in a high voice Louis said, “My lord, we are glad to see you.” He sent a page to bring the little princess. The child, who was six, appeared with her nurse and her own court of women, and in front of everybody she and the Count of Champagne exchanged kisses and rings. The Count had to kneel down to put his kiss gently on her lips.

Eleanor sat with her hands in her lap, watching her daughter: another bride without a choice. It was hard to see anything of herself in the little girl. There seemed nothing familiar in the shape of her face, the color of her hair and eyes, the way she stood. They were strangers. As soon as she was born, while Eleanor still groaned in the straw, the cause of her pain had been whisked off to a wet nurse; the first time Eleanor actually saw her, Marie was just a little round hairless head, snugly tucked against another woman’s breast.

Then Eleanor and Louis had gone on the Crusade, and when she came back, the bundled infant she only vaguely remembered was a pale girl in a long dress, who had to be told, “This is your mother.”

And who bowed, her slim white hands folded before her, graceful and compliant, already shaped into her womanly fate. “God’s blessing on Your Grace the Queen.”

Now, the child held her hand out for Champagne’s ring, smiling, her eyes bright; when he had slipped on the token, one of her women brought out her ring for him, and she took it and fit it on his hand. She had to reach out with her free hand and hold his finger to put the ring on, and Eleanor saw in his face how touched he was at this.

She took heart; he would be a kind and gentle husband, perhaps. Marie might be safe with him.

She wondered if the girl would want that for herself, merely to be safe, with a kind and gentle husband, and hoped not.

The betrothed pair drew apart. Standing in the midst of her waiting women, her own set of spies, Marie turned her head suddenly, her face quickening with curiosity, and looked toward her mother. When she saw Eleanor watching her, she gazed shyly back. Eleanor smiled at her, and a little uncertain smile formed on the child’s lips. Then somebody spoke to her, calling her attention away.

Keep her away from that whore her mother,
Eleanor thought. She wondered whose words she heard in her head, and looked around for Bernard.

“My lady Aquitaine.”

The gravelly voice sounded on her left. She knew it immediately; her body stirred, luxuriant, coming awake. She turned to face him, standing by the side of the dais, only the empty air between them. The pale eyes were gray as stone. In the short, wiry red beard his mouth twisted into a smile that broadened when their gazes met. She smiled into his hard gray eyes, delighted.

Hundreds of people watched them; every word fell on dozens of ears. She said, “Good morning, my lord.” She would not call him Normandy yet, not until he gave homage. “I hope you are enjoying your stay in Paris.”

“Well, well,” he said. He stood on the stone floor below the dais, so that his eyes were still slightly lower than hers, although she was sitting. He had something of Anjou’s look about him, but rougher, harsh, and fierce. He folded his arms across the muscular barrel of his chest and was twitching his weight from foot to foot, as if he could not bear to be quiet. His fine red coat was figured in gold thread with lions passant and gardant, but he wore no gold rings or jewels or other fancy work. Although he was younger than she was by several years, he gave off an expansive certainty—not Champagne’s assured ease, but more a wolfish appetite. He said, “This is as fine a city as there is in Christendom, I think.” His smile kinked; his eyes were intent. “But somewhat overcrowded.”

She held herself calm, aware she was leaning toward him, sensing on her skin the attention of the people around them. She said, “I find it so. Have you been outside the city, to Saint Denis? The new church there is quite fine.”

He said, “Do you go to Mass there?”

“Sometimes,” she said. She was looking unblinking into his pale eyes, as if through them she could inscribe her meanings into his understanding. “Usually we pray in the palace chapel, here, as we will at Vespers, but it’s so dark and old, I cannot brag about it. Especially in the Queen’s stall and the ambulatory. Saint Denis is much finer.”

“Perhaps when my father has concluded his business we will go out to see the new church, then,” Henry said.

“I’d like to show it to you.” Her cheeks felt stiff from smiling. Her hands in her lap were locked together.

He said, “I will speak of it to Anjou.” Backing up a step, he bowed down to her, and went off.

She sat down again, realizing only now she had been canted forward, tipped almost out of her place, her muscles tense. Petronilla was watching her with a frown between her eyebrows and gave her a little warning shake of her head; back behind the dais, whey-faced Claire held her hand up to her mouth, her gaze steady on the Queen. Eleanor lowered her gaze. She thought back over what he and she had said, in her mind, and decided their words had gone sideways enough that she could deny anything if she had to. And it served her that they might suspect her, as long as they didn’t catch her at it.

Surely he had meant what she had meant. Her skin tingled; she ran her hand down over the sleek stuff of her gown, impatient for the evening Mass.