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.
Louis took a mouthful of wine, swilled it round his mouth and leaned over his destrier’s withers to spit it out. If he had swallowed it, he would have been sick. He had been unwell with belly gripes for several days, but not so much that he was unable to ride, and his invasion and destruction of Champagne had continued apace. He had crossed borders both geographical and moral. Ever since the monks of Bourges had elected their own archbishop against his wishes, his frustration and fury had been gathering inside him, adding to the morass already festering there. All the bewilderment of a small boy taken from his nurse and given to the Church to be raised with the rigid discipline of the rod. All the hurt caused by the disapproval of his cold and rigid mother, who thought him second-best and not good enough. All the rage at the perfidy and lies of people he trusted. His skull felt as if it were full of dark red fleece. He had frightening dreams of demons grasping his feet and pulling him down into the abyss while he scrabbled for purchase at the chasm’s smooth edge. Even sleeping with candles burning did not afford him enough light and he had taken to having a chaplain and a Templar knight keep vigil at his bedside all night.
Between the daily marches through Champagne, Louis spent his time on his knees praying to God, but his mind remained a fog and the only way God showed himself was by granting him victory after victory as he progressed along the valley of the Marne. His army encountered no resistance and they plundered and looted as they rode, trampling the vines, burning the fields, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. Each town Louis took and ravaged was a triumphant blow upon the backs of Count Theobald and the monks of Bourges. He felt as if he were striking back for the honour of his family and all the old slights visited on his house by the Counts of Champagne. He had ridden so far from the path that he had lost his bearings, his only compass that of knowing he was a king with a divine right to rule, and everyone must bow their heads to his yoke.
Ahead of his army lay the town of Vitry, close upon the River Saulx. The inhabitants had fashioned makeshift barriers out of tree stumps and overturned carts and had shored up the walls with rubble as best they could, but they were helpless in the face of the attack that Louis ordered his mercenaries to launch on them.