The gown was sewn with hundreds of little pearls, echoed in the double belt on the dress and in the rings on Petronella’s fingers. More pearls wound through her braids and hemmed her veil. For Alienor this was more than just cladding her little sister in finery. It was a celebration of Petronella’s womanhood and sent out a strong message that she was protected by wealth and power and therefore untouchable. Clothes were every bit as much a weapon and protection as a knight’s sword and shield.
Petronella swished the full skirts of the gown back and forth, showing a glimpse of silk-clad ankles and dainty embroidered slippers.
‘Our father would be so proud to see you,’ Alienor said.
‘I wish he was here.’ The smile left Petronella’s lips, only to reappear as her gaze lit on Raoul de Vermandois who was standing in the chamber doorway.
‘Raoul, what do you think?’ She skipped over to him and pirouetted.
He stared at her as if poleaxed. ‘I think I must be dreaming,’ he said. ‘You are a beautiful vision.’
Petronella laughed and danced around him, light as thistledown. ‘I am flesh and blood. Feel!’ she said and held out her hand.
He took her fingers and bowed over them . . ‘Well then, a beautiful young lady,’ he amended with a bow. From behind his back, he produced a little dog collar woven with rose-coloured braid and set with rows of pearls. ‘I heard rumours about a certain new dress,’ he said, ‘and I thought Blanchette should match her mistress.’
Petronella clapped her hands and, with a cry of delight, flung her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. Then, whirling away from him, she stooped to the little dog and replaced her collar of braided leather with the new one.
‘Perfect,’ Raoul said. ‘Now you are perfect.’ With a courtly flourish to the women, he excused himself.
Alienor gazed in his wake, feeling warm in her heart for his consideration. Raoul was so much the surrogate father to Petronella, giving her the attention she sought and keeping the pestering young bloods at bay.
Leaving the women to their dressmaking, Alienor went to find Louis. He had been distant and difficult to reach lately and she had to work to maintain her influence. She had not conceived since her miscarriage, and on several occasions Louis had been unable to do his duty, a state of affairs that had sent him flying to church to beg forgiveness for whatever sin was inhibiting his virility. Even the times he did accomplish the deed, it bore no result, for her fluxes arrived regularly each month, and the predators circled, awaiting their moment.
Louis’s chamber door was partially open and she could hear the raised voice of her mother-in-law. Alienor grimaced. Adelaide had become more difficult and inflexible since Louis had agreed a marriage between his sister and the English King’s heir, Eustace. Constance had gone to England in February to join her new household. Adelaide, having lost another ally and companion at court and her only daughter to boot, had been morose and querulous ever since.
Currently she was directing a tirade at Louis, her tone unpleasant and cutting. ‘You must not be swayed by those who would try and take you away from your true duty to rule France. When I think of all the sacrifices your father made for you … Your predecessors fought to put you on the throne and you carry all their striving, their dreams and hopes on your shoulders. Do not hold it lightly, and do not allow others to hold it for you. Do you hear me?’ There was silence and Adelaide repeated the question in a strident voice. There was a solid bang as if she had struck something on a table.
‘Yes, Mother,’ Louis replied in a neutral tone.
‘I wonder if you do. I wonder if you understand that you rule this country for yourself, not at another’s behest.’
‘And whose behest were you thinking of?’ Louis demanded. ‘Are you going to name me names? I do not rule at your behest either, Mother. I see you watching me in the council chamber, and looking to meddle where you can, as you meddled in my father’s policies. I see you watching Alienor and her sister and finding fault with them at every turn.’
‘Is it any wonder when they behave like hoydens and flout our ways? You may believe that butter would not melt in their mouths, but I know differently. I see them scheming like a pair of young vixens, but you do not notice because you are wilfully blind! I am belittled. They never accord me proper respect, and money runs through their hands like water through a sieve. Have you seen the cost of the latest round of dresses for the younger one? The pearls alone would endow a convent! Do you know how much your wife spends on scented lamp oil?’
‘That is what I mean about finding fault. There are worse things in the world. Alienor loves me, which is more than you have ever done.’
‘She plays you for a fool!’
‘You take me for one,’ Louis retorted.
‘In this, you are one, and it pains me to see you thus. But so be it. I wash my hands. Do not come weeping to me when your world comes to ruin.’
Alienor took a backstep as Adelaide stormed out of the room. ‘Spying at keyholes?’ the older woman said with a curl of contempt. ‘That does not surprise me.’
Alienor curtseyed. ‘Madam,’ she said neutrally.
‘You think you have won,’ Adelaide spat, ‘but you know nothing. I have toiled all my life in the service of France. I have been wife to one king and mother to another, and see where it has brought me. You will face the same downfall, my girl, because it all comes to naught in the end. I bequeath you my handful of dust. Take it and sow your own barren harvest. I am finished here.’
Adelaide swept on past. Alienor drew a deep breath, gathered herself and went in to Louis. ‘I came to find you,’ she said. ‘I did not realise you were busy.’
His mouth twisted. ‘You heard what she said?’
Alienor nodded. ‘It must be difficult for her to relinquish power. I think it will indeed be better if she retires to her dower lands for a while.’ She came to place her hand on his shoulder. ‘I am sorry she feels that way about me and Petronella. In truth, we have never disrespected her. She has not been herself ever since your sister went to England.’
‘Nothing is ever good enough for my mother.’ His eyes were dark with pain. He fixed her with a hard stare. ‘Is she right, Alienor? Do you play me for a fool?’
‘You know I do not.’
‘I don’t know anything any more.’ Seizing her round the waist, he pulled her into his embrace and began kissing her with clumsy desperation. Alienor gasped at the roughness of his assault, but he paid no heed and, pulling her to the bed, took her, both of them fully clothed and in open daylight, with him bucking and sobbing as he worked in and out of her body. It was as if he was using her to expunge all his frustration in a frantic splurge of lust – casting off all his bad feelings by releasing them inside her and setting the world to rights once more.
When it was over, he left her lying on the bed and went away by himself to pray. Alienor rolled on to her side; she wrapped her arms around herself for comfort and stared at the wall, feeling sore and used.
Louis looked round the chamber that had belonged to his mother. She had been gone from court for almost two months. Alienor had had the walls replastered and painted with a frieze of delicate scrollwork in red and green, and had hung colourful embroideries around the walls. They were rich and detailed without being heavy. The window seats sported cushions with white backgrounds embroidered in gold, and there were vases of flowers on coffers and tables. The perfume of roses and lilies was heady and sensual.
‘You have been busy,’ Louis said.
‘Do you like it?’
He gave a cautious nod. ‘It is very different. It is no longer my mother’s room.’
‘Indeed not. It needed light and air.’
Louis wandered to the embrasure and looked out at the clear blue sky.
Alienor eyed him. Adelaide and Matthew de Montmorency had announced their intention to marry. It had come as no surprise to anyone at court, but Louis was still trying to assimilate the fact that his mother had chosen to take for her second husband a man of no significant rank. It was as if all that had mattered before had suddenly become unimportant – or perhaps the emphasis had been put on other things.
‘I am going to make Montmorency a constable of France,’ said Louis, picking up a cushion and gazing at the embroidery. ‘I think it is for the best.’
Alienor nodded agreement. That would satisfy honour and ensure Adelaide was not disparaged in the eyes of her family. ‘She must have great affection for him,’ she said.
Louis grunted. ‘He will do her bidding, that is why. She would never choose the cloister for herself, and Montmorency will keep her occupied.’
Alienor thought it all to the good. While Adelaide was busy with her new husband, she wouldn’t be poking her nose into the business of the court. Let them stay away as long as they chose.
She joined him at the window. ‘Have you thought any more about the situation at Bourges?’
‘What situation?’
Alienor mustered her patience. ‘About Archbishop Alberic. He is increasingly frail, and if he dies a new archbishop will have to be elected.’
Louis gave an impatient shrug. ‘They will elect whomever I choose. It is my prerogative.’
‘Even so, would it not be prudent to introduce them to your candidate while Alberic still lives? I know you have your eye on Cadurc in your chancellery.’
His nostrils flared. ‘I will see to it all in good time. I told you, they will elect whomever I put forward.’
She noticed the mulish set to his jaw and mentally sighed. For a man who lived by rigid rules and structures, Louis had a propensity for making the simplest things awkward beyond belief. If she pressed him, he would only become more stubborn and querulous. The right of a king was absolute, and that was that.
‘Toulouse,’ Alienor said to Louis. ‘My paternal grandmother Philippa was heiress to Toulouse, but was usurped by those with less claim and greater strength. Had my father been alive, he would have fought to restore it to our family.’
It was late at night and she and Louis were sitting in bed drinking wine and talking by the light of a scented oil lamp. The signs were auspicious for making a child. It wasn’t a holy day, or a proscribed day; Alienor did not have her flux. Everyone was anxious for news of success but she knew that such expectation built fear of failure within Louis. He said that fornication was a sin, and that either he or Alienor must be doing something against God’s wishes that was preventing them from being successful in conceiving. She could sense his tension now.
‘My father was born in Toulouse,’ she said. ‘But I have never seen it.’
‘Why speak of this now?’
She set her wine to one side and leaned over him. ‘Because it is business that has already waited too long. I must visit Aquitaine also – that too has been neglected.’
‘Are you not content in Paris?’
Alienor did not give him the reply that came first to mind: that Paris was a cold exile from the warm southern lands of her childhood. Since Adelaide had left, she had been able to extend her chambers, refurbishing to her own taste as she went, and she liked them well enough. Paris with its crowded streets and vibrant intellectual life was always stimulating; but it was not home and did not belong to her. ‘France is the land of my marriage,’ she replied gracefully. ‘Aquitaine is that of my birth and entitlement and it is my duty to show myself in person.’ She painted the tip of her braid back and forth over his lips. ‘Think of riding out at the head of an army to conquer Toulouse. Think of the prestige such an undertaking would confer on you. You would be exerting your authority and righting a wrong.’
Louis felt a frisson of desire as he envisaged leading his troops: the jingle of harness; the smooth motion of a powerful horse under him. He imagined Alienor beside him with La Reina perched on her wrist. He thought of camping out under the stars with meadow scents blowing on the summer wind. He imagined adding Toulouse to his conquests and proving to everyone, not least his wife, what a great king and warrior he was.
She adorned his collar bone and throat with small nipping kisses and followed with the tip of her tongue. ‘Say yes, Louis,’ she whispered, her breath in his ear. ‘Say yes. For me. Do it for me … do it for France.’
He closed his eyes and savoured the erotic charge of her words and the butterfly touch of her mouth. He was achingly hard. With a groan, he rolled her over, pushed apart her legs and thrust forward. ‘Very well,’ he gasped. ‘I will do it. I will show you what France can do!’ He surged strongly within her, fired up by the notion of performing great and virile deeds at the behest of his wife even while he conquered her beneath him.
With the warm southern sun on her face, Alienor felt as if she had returned from exile. Apart from her brief visit to Le Puy, she had not seen Aquitaine in four years, and it was like standing in sweet rain after a long drought. Everything that had been wound up tight inside began unfurling and she felt replenished. She found her laugh again, and her bloom.
In Poitiers, she danced through the chambers of the palace, the skirts of her gown flying out in a circle. ‘Home!’ She grabbed Petronella and hugged her. ‘We’re home!’ And knew if she could have her way in all things, she would live here forever and only visit Paris out of duty.
Her vassals gathered to join Louis for the campaign against Toulouse, among them Geoffrey de Rancon, who brought the men of Taillebourg, Vivant and Gençay to the muster. Alienor’s heart quickened as he knelt before her and Louis. She still experienced that jolt in his presence; time and distance had altered nothing.
He was courteous towards Louis and full of the business of organising the army for the march on Toulouse. Their discussion was cordial and professional – there was even an element of friendship that some of the northern barons regarded with suspicious and hostile eyes.
When he had an opportunity to talk to Alienor, he treated her in the same courteous manner, but there was an underlying tension, as if they stood on the course of a vibrant underground river of which only they were aware.