‘That is not true!’
‘Yes it is! I’m just the annoying little sister who gets in the way. You said you would look after me, but you haven’t.’ Petronella rounded on her, eyes flashing. ‘All you want to do is be the Queen. I don’t matter.’
‘You’re wrong. You’re so very wrong. Of course you matter to me.’ A wave of guilt washed over Alienor because she recognised both the truth in Petronella’s words and the injustice of them too.
‘No I don’t!’ Petronella jumped to her feet and pushed past Alienor. ‘And I don’t care, because you don’t matter to me any more! You don’t keep your word. I hate you!’ The last words rose to a shriek. Petronella stamped over to a baggage chest and began flinging the contents around. The chamber ladies lowered their eyes and went about their duties as if nothing was wrong.
Alienor swallowed nausea. Petronella was exactly like their grandmother Dangereuse, who had been so volatile that as children they had never known from one moment to the next how she was going to react. All ordinary emotion was intensified to passion and Petronella seemed to be developing the same worrying traits as she became a woman. She would just have to keep her occupied and try to diffuse some of that raw intensity before it did any more damage. But she loved her, and the rejection was pain.
For the next several days Alienor was on tenterhooks, but as the danger faded that Petronella’s indiscretion might become a larger scandal, she started to relax. The court was preoccupied with packing for long days on the road and Louis was too busy praying and fulminating over the matter of the Archbishop of Bourges to pay attention to other undercurrents.
Alienor was relieved that Petronella seemed to have taken the warning to heart. Having gone to church and been shriven, she had since been behaving in a subdued and demure fashion. However, she was still refusing to speak to Alienor, and the quarrel lay between the sisters like an open wound that had been bandaged but was still bleeding.
Raoul was as good as his word, and was attentive to Petronella in a formal, courteous way when she emerged from the bower to socialise. He partnered her in the dances, sat with her to eat, and rode at her side as the court made use of the final days to go hunting with the hawks and dogs.
Raoul’s polite reserve upset and angered Petronella. He bowed and smiled at her with the blandness of a courtier and pretended not to notice the way she looked at him. She could not bear to think that the one occasion in the garden had been all it was – another little conquest – and that the tawdry gossip about his affairs with women where he used them and moved on was all true. She set out to bait him in an effort to make him respond and to warn him that she would not be ignored. On passing him in a corridor with other people around them, she brushed against him intimately and flashed him a bold glance. She was successful: he responded with a look composed of desire and reprimand. He was not as indifferent as he pretended. Later, she sat beside him for the main meal of the day, and under cover of the tablecloth, curled her foot around his.
Raoul withdrew rapidly as if she had burned him and gave her a slight shake of his head, which she chose to ignore.
The servants brought food from the kitchens and began setting out the dishes at the high table, including tender venison and marinated fruits on skewers with piquant dipping sauces. There was a golden cameline sauce made with cinnamon, a purple one of blackberries, and another that was warm with the taste of ginger.
Raoul served Petronella with two skewers, one of meat, one of fruits.
‘They look like a row of courtiers,’ she giggled. ‘Here’s Thierry de Galeran, and next to him the fat one is William de Montferrat. And this one looks just like Louis. See, it’s the same colour as his gown. Shall I eat him up? Hold the skewer for me.’
Raoul held the length of whittled ash as Petronella closed her teeth around a chunk of golden marinated pear and pulled it off, her action sensual, almost provocative. She chewed and swallowed. ‘Wouldn’t it be good if we could be rid of all our enemies like that?’ she said.
‘I hope you do not mean that the King is your enemy?’
Petronella shrugged. ‘I meant all enemies in general. Come, I will hold yours for you now. Who are you going to eat? That one looks a bit like Theobald of Champagne, no?’
Raoul shook his head but he was chuckling. ‘You are a very naughty girl.’
Petronella gave him a measured look, smoky and dark. ‘No more naughty than you are,’ she said, and licked her lips.
‘Hush.’ He glanced round. ‘This is neither the time nor the place for such behaviour.’ He wanted to grab her and silence her, but his fear was all knotted up in desire, and he imagined that silencing as a hard kiss, her body drawn tightly against his. He glanced round to see if anyone had noticed their whispered discussion and saw one of Louis’s chaplains observing them with neutrality that might at any moment become censure.
‘Then tell me what is the time and place,’ she retorted, breathing swiftly. ‘You keep me company, but you ignore me, and I am left to wonder.’
‘
Doucette
, you do not know what you do.’
She tilted her head. ‘The other day you seemed to think I did know what I did.’
Raoul swallowed, feeling increasingly at a loss. ‘If you do not behave yourself, we shall be discovered here and now. Do you really want to face the consequences of that?’ He grimaced at her. ‘We have to find a way to manage this. Now, let me help you to a piece of this fine salmon, my lady.’ He reached to a silver dish in front of them, his courtier’s mask fixed firmly in place.
‘Perhaps, my lord de Vermandois, you are discovering you have bitten off more than you can chew,’ she said with a narrow smile.
He slowly shook his head, and knew that she was his nemesis.
‘Aimery de Niort,’ Louis said to Alienor.
Alienor ceased putting away her rings in her jewel coffer, and her heart leaped with fear. ‘What of him?’
‘His older brother has asked me for redress. He says you dismissed Aimery without cause and treated him dishonourably when he had never done a dishonour to you. Are you going to tell me what this is about?’
Alienor fiddled with a ring set with small red stones like pomegranate seeds. ‘He was showing too much interest in Petronella and I had to intervene.’
Louis arched his brows. ‘Dismissing him sounds like more than just intervention.’
‘It was necessary, trust me.’
He gave her a brooding look. ‘Petronella must have encouraged him.’
‘I have taken her to task and rebuked her for the folly of indiscretion, but even so it takes a spark to light kindling. I have dealt with the matter and there will be no more of it.’
Louis made an irritated sound. ‘It is past time she had a husband,’ he said. ‘I will look into it the moment we return to Paris.’
‘She is my heir until we have a child, and it is my prerogative to find her a suitable consort,’ Alienor replied to the point. ‘But you are right. She should be wed as soon as a fitting one can be found.’
Cloaked and hooded, Petronella glanced furtively round, gave three taps on the door, and then slipped into the room at the top of the tower. Raoul was waiting for her, seated before the hearth where a small brazier gave off pleasantly scented smoke. His travelling bed stood in a corner of the room, the coverlet and fresh linen sheets turned back invitingly. When Petronella entered, he rose and went to her, took her face in his hands and kissed her on the mouth. She returned the kiss as if she were dying of thirst, and made small whimpering sounds in her throat. He lifted her in his arms and took her to the bed, dropping her on the mattress; she lay back, hitching her gown up, desperate for him. Panting, he freed himself from his braies and joined her, grabbing her hips and thrusting into her like a young man in his first season of rut.
Their need for each other was so frantic that it was over in moments, leaving them gasping and unsatisfied beyond the sheer physical sensation of release. Raoul thought his heart was going to burst through his chest. Filled with tenderness, still alive with lust, he leaned over Petronella and kissed her eyelids, her nose and her mouth. Her eyes were soft and dark with wanting. She looked delectable. He began to undress her slowly, taking his time now, and she followed his lead, smiling, nipping and licking him, tasting his skin.
Their second lovemaking was a more leisurely affair, and when they had both taken their pleasure, they lay curled together in each other’s arms. Petronella closed her eyes and savoured the feel of his hands gently running through her hair, drawing it back from her temples. He was all she wanted. Her father, her lover, a man of standing and prowess who shared her needs and her drives. It was impossible to think of herself as separate from him.
‘What is going to happen to us?’ she asked. ‘I want to be with you always. I don’t care about politics. I don’t care about being the sister of the Queen. If we have to go into exile, I will gladly follow you barefoot in my shift.’
‘I would not ask that of you,’ he said with graceful tact, while being unnerved at the thought of such a fate. Barefoot and impoverished was only romantic as a figure of speech, not in reality.
‘I would do it.’ Leaving the bed, she went to the trestle and took a bunch of sweet, dark grapes from the fruit bowl there. Her long dark hair hung down below her waist. Eyeing her figure with appreciation, he reached for his shirt.
She returned to him and leaned over, a grape between her teeth to feed him, mouth to mouth. ‘A papal legate once told my grandsire to give up my grandmother, who was his mistress, and my grandsire replied that luxurious curls would grow on the legate’s bald head before ever he did that. Would you do that for me? Would you face down Church and State just to have me at your side?’
Raoul’s chest tightened as he saw the vulnerability in her eyes and the way she trembled like a young deer. ‘Ah, darling,’ he said, cupping her cheek. ‘Don’t fret. We’ll think of something when we get to Paris.’
She fed him another grape. ‘You promise?’
‘I promise.’ He patted her buttocks. ‘Come, put on your clothes.’
‘Only if you dress me,’ she said with a wicked sparkle.
Raoul grinned and picked up one of her silk leg hose. ‘That, my love, will be a pleasure – mayhap not as keen a one as undressing you, but still pleasure enough.’ Taking her ankle in his hand, he rubbed his thumb over it, and then leaned over to kiss her toes and lick between them, making her squeal.
Their business finished, Alienor and Louis went to walk in the gardens as dusk encroached. A chill breeze had sprung up and both of them wore soft woollen cloaks trimmed with fur. Side by side, they paused at the pond to gaze into the twilight-coloured water. Alienor remembered a time when they had made love here, their bodies entwined like a pair of sleek fauns. It seemed so long ago now, so distant. In the space of a few short years they had become very different people from the girl and youth who had lain here, discovering and worshipping each other’s bodies. She dared not ask if he remembered that time, because she dreaded the answer he might give. There was a feeling of sadness in the gloaming, as if more than just the evening was drawing to a close. These were their last hours in Poitiers, and when they departed, she did not know when next they would return.
‘I should go to my prayers,’ Louis said with a glance at the sky and she felt him start to draw away from her.
‘You can as easily see God here as in a church,’ she said. ‘Do you not wonder at the marvels of His creation? What does man have to compare with this?’ She indicated the dark band of royal-purple cloud, scored with an under-ribbon of deepest red. ‘Even Abbé Suger would have to agree. This is better than any stained window he could ever devise.’
‘That is true,’ he acknowledged, taking her hand in his – a rare gesture these days, coming of its own accord. She moved into his touch and stroked his hair. It was his finest feature, thick and silver-blond, and she loved the way it swung against the column of his throat.
‘Louis …’ she said softly and thought that there might be a way back after all.
‘Sire?’ The moment vanished like the last vermilion streak of sunset as they broke apart and faced his chaplain, Odo of Deuil.
‘What is it?’ Louis snapped. ‘Why do you interrupt us?’
Looking uncomfortable, the priest cleared his throat. ‘Sire, madam, I am sorry to be the bearer of ill news, but once it becomes common knowledge, there will be no containing it.’
‘What ill news? No containing what?’ Louis demanded. ‘Don’t speak in riddles, man. Out with it!’
Father Odo said, with a glance at Alienor, ‘Sire, it is a matter that touches on the lady Petronella and her relationship to a man of the court.’
Louis threw up his hands in exasperation. ‘Gossip again! I am sick of all the petty tittle tattle.’
Alienor’s heart froze. Dear God, what had Petronella done now? She had thought her sister safe with her women and the crisis averted. ‘Which man?’ she demanded.
‘Madam … it is the constable, the sire de Vermandois.’
Louis exhaled hard, his eyes steely with anger. ‘This is typical court gossip. The Queen and I are well aware of the matter concerning my sister and the lord of Vermandois.’
A look of utter shock crossed the clergyman’s face. ‘Sire, madam, with due respect, I do not believe you are.’
Alienor narrowed her eyes.
‘Very well,’ Louis said, rubbing his forehead, ‘but let this be an end to it. We have more important matters to deal with than this foolishness.’
‘Sire, Raoul de Vermandois is entertaining the Queen’s sister in his chamber in a licentious manner. My scribe overheard them planning their tryst earlier and watched to see where they went. It is all true, I swear it. De Vermandois’s squire is keeping watch in the stairwell even now.’
Alienor felt sick. De Deuil’s scribe would not just have happened to see Raoul and Petronella together. Plainly the court spies had been very busy.
Louis was white. ‘Show me,’ he said.
De Deuil gave a stiff bow and, folding his arms inside his habit, led them out of the garden. More clerics were waiting there in deputation, and Alienor began to feel very afraid as Louis summoned guards to accompany them. Something terrible was about to happen and she could do nothing to prevent it.