He dismissed his chamberlain and knelt once more to pray for the dead man. Tomorrow he would have masses said and bells rung for Raoul’s passing. He felt like a tree in the forest, where all the trees either side that had given him support, shelter and camouflage were being cut down one by one, leaving him to bear the brunt of the storms alone.
‘How did de Vermandois die?’ Alienor’s aunt Agnes, Abbess of Notre-Dame de Saintes, fixed her niece with a compassionate but inquisitive gaze. Her eyes were so light a brown as to be almost pale gold, and they missed nothing.
Alienor had been furnished with a cup of wine and a platter of the abbey’s delicious chestnuts candied in honey, which usually she loved, but for now was too preoccupied to enjoy. She was here to see Petronella, attend on her aunt and tell her about her new marriage. ‘He had been unwell for a while and retired from court, but suffered a seizure while in bed with his new wife, having been warned to abstain.’ Alienor grimaced. ‘He was ever ruled by that part of him, although Petronella’s jealousy always imagined it to be more than it was.’
Agnes shook her head. ‘May God have mercy on his soul.’
‘The manner of his death is not something my sister needs to know,’ Alienor said quietly.
‘Of course not,’ Agnes agreed. ‘Such news would do more harm than good.’
‘How is she?’
Agnes took a moment to ponder. ‘Much improved in her mind. The services and daily prayers have been of great benefit. I cannot say she is happy, but she is no longer distraught. I do not believe she is ready to leave us – may never be, but neither do I believe she will take vows. I shall take you to her in a moment.’
Alienor knew what was coming. Agnes would want to know everything about Alienor’s marriage to Henry as just exchange for looking after Petronella. She gave her aunt an edited but fair telling of the tale.
‘And are you content?’
Alienor smoothed her dress over her knees and looked at her wedding ring. ‘I have no complaint, but then I barely know him. He left for Normandy almost immediately.’
‘From what I hear he is intelligent and well educated.’
Alienor smiled. ‘He soaks up knowledge like moss soaks up water, and is thirsty for more. He is never still, except when he sleeps, and then he is so still that his breathing barely stirs the covers.’ Her face grew warm. When he slept he looked so young and vulnerable that she felt a great welling of tenderness towards him, some of it maternal, some of it the pangs of a lover for her mate.
‘You have much to deal with between you. It is a great gamble you have taken.’
‘But more attractive than the alternatives. He has the capacity to rule an empire.’ She raised her chin. ‘We both do.’
‘Yes, niece, you do. I have always thought that, ever since you were a small child. You ran rings around us all.’
The wine and chestnuts finished, Agnes took Alienor to a quiet, sunlit cloister where two women sat embroidering, one a nun, the other Petronella, robed in a dark blue gown, her head covered by a plain white wimple.
‘Petra?’ Alienor went to her with hands outstretched.
Petronella lifted her head from her sewing and looked at Alienor. Her face was fine-drawn, but her eyes were clear and knowing.
‘It is so good to see you!’ Alienor kissed her sister on both cheeks and embraced her warmly. ‘I hear you are faring well!’
Petronella returned the hug. ‘So they tell me.’ As they parted, she gestured around. ‘With all this light, there is little room for the darkness, and when it comes I pray to the Holy Virgin to help me – and she does.’
‘I am glad.’
Petronella picked up her sewing again and began to work steadily and neatly. ‘I did not want to come here,’ she said. ‘But I know now you were right. If I returned to court, everything would fall to pieces around me. Here I am safe.’
Agnes and the nun quietly departed, leaving the sisters alone. Alienor hesitated and then drew a deep breath. ‘I have so much to tell you that I hardly know where to start. Two weeks ago I married again, to Henry, Count of Anjou.’
Petronella stopped sewing and looked at her in her old, knowing way. ‘You were planning that, weren’t you? When they came to court in Paris. I knew it! I knew you were up to something!’
‘I had it in mind, but didn’t make the decision until the annulment was actually pronounced,’ Alienor said defensively. ‘It is a good political decision, and I had no choice but to remarry because the moment the marriage was dissolved I became a magnet for every unwed man of ambition.’
Petronella took up her needle again. ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘I do not suppose a nunnery would be a choice for you.’ A note that was almost accusation entered her voice.
‘I would not be safe even if I retired to one – some power-hungry fool would abduct me and force me into marriage, and then what would happen to Aquitaine? Perhaps one day I shall find peace in one, but not now.’ She bit her lip. ‘Petra … I have to tell you something about Raoul.’
Petronella set her jaw. ‘I do not want to hear it,’ she said. ‘I have cast him out from me like a devil. He was the cause of my sickness. I loved him beyond bearing and then I hated him. Now he is nothing.’
‘Petra, he … I … he is dead. He had been unwell for a little while.’ She looked at her sister with trepidation.
Petronella pricked herself and a bright drop of blood welled on to the delicate white linen. She watched it soak in. ‘You always come to tell me people are dead,’ she said in a trembling voice. ‘First our father, and now my husband. I should run away when I see you coming.’
Alienor felt grief-stricken for her sister. ‘I wish I was not the bearer of these tidings, but someone had to tell you, and the responsibility falls to me. I could have sent you a letter and asked Aunt Agnes to read it, but it would have been the coward’s way.’
Petronella looked away down the cloister. ‘I do not care,’ she said. ‘I will not care.’ She looked at her pricked finger. ‘He has made me bleed for the last time.’ Leaving her sewing on the bench, she rose to her feet and walked a few paces before suddenly crumpling to the ground and beating her fists in the dust and howling. Alienor rushed to pick her up and their aunt and the nun came running from the other side of the cloister.
‘Yes,’ Alienor said as she held and rocked Petronella. ‘He has hurt you for the last time. Hush now, sister, hush. You can be at peace now.’
A week later, Alienor arrived at the abbey of Fontevraud to visit Henry’s aunt this time, and collect her new chamber lady.
Fontevraud lay within Angevin territory, close to the Poitevan border. It had been founded on land donated by her maternal grandfather William the ninth duke of Aquitaine. His two cast-off wives had retired to the secular house and Alienor’s grandmother Philippa had died here well before Alienor was born. The abbey was Benedictine, the complex housing both monks and nuns in separate buildings, and was ruled overall by an abbess, currently Henry’s aunt Mathilde.
Mathilde was a handsome woman of middle years with clear, youthful skin and keen grey eyes like Henry’s. Her brows and eyelashes were sandy-gold, hinting that beneath her wimple, her hair, if allowed to grow instead of being shaven three times a year, would be Angevin-gold. She had been a nun at Fontevraud ever since the death of her young husband on the White Ship more than thirty years ago.
‘I am pleased to greet you and offer felicitations on your marriage to my nephew,’ she said with cordial formality.
Alienor curtseyed. ‘And I am pleased to call you kin, madam abbess.’ She gazed at the pale stones gleaming in the sunlight. ‘This place is truly beautiful.’
‘Indeed it is,’ Mathilde replied. ‘It has a special tranquillity, and I hope all within its walls benefit. I certainly did when I came here as a young widow.’
She brought Alienor to the church and as the women entered the pale-columned nave Alienor felt a sense of wonder and rightness. High windows blazed early summer light on to the tomb of the founder, Robert of Arbrissal, and the entire space glowed as if it were an antechamber to the great hall of heaven. The walls were painted with scenes from the life of the Virgin, but they did not detract from the clarity, but rather upheld and enhanced it. Here was no reliquary of a church like Saint-Denis, but one of pure and living light. Alienor felt as if she could stand at its centre, open her arms and feel God’s love pouring into her like sunshine. Drawing a deep breath, she inhaled a lingering scent of incense, and with it came a feeling of serenity and spiritual grounding.
‘You sense it?’ Mathilde smiled with approval. ‘This place gives me sustenance every day.’
From the church, Mathilde took Alienor to the secular guest house set aside for women who did not wish to take vows, but for one reason or another needed a safe haven away from the world. Many were widows who had retired to spend a peaceful old age, but younger women stayed too, sent by their families for education and safekeeping.
‘Emma?’ Mathilde called softly to one of the latter, who had been sitting sewing near the window. She was swift to set aside her needlework and join them, and clearly had been expecting the summons.
‘My lady aunt,’ she said and, ‘Madam,’ to Alienor as she curtseyed. Mathilde made the introduction. Emma was slender and not as tall as Alienor, but well made. There was a resemblance to her father in the shape of her face, and the grace with which she bore herself. Her hair, glimpsed under her gauze veil, was a thick golden-brown with a hint of red, and she had lovely hazel eyes.
‘Your brother desires you to join my household as one of my ladies,’ Alienor said. ‘Now he has a wife, there is a fitting place for you outside of the cloister – if you wish to leave it, of course. You have a choice.’
Emma swept her a look that Alienor thought at first was shy, but then realised she was being appraised just as much as she was appraising Henry’s half-sister.
‘I mean what I say,’ Alienor said. ‘Having a choice is a gift more valuable than gold. You do not need to give me an answer now.’
‘Madam, I shall be glad to join you.’ Emma’s voice was quiet but firm. ‘I am happy here, but I am also pleased to serve my kin and I thank you for asking whereas my brother would have commanded.’
Alienor approved of the reply. Emma FitzCount had both grace and backbone. ‘You may be my lord’s sister and subject to his will,’ she said, ‘but it is my business how I select the ladies of my household. I hope we shall quickly come to know each other and be friends.’ She gave Emma a conspiratorial smile, and Emma returned it in kind.
Abbess Mathilde took Alienor to the nun’s cemetery behind the church and showed her a simple stone slab, the grass around it well tended and clipped short. The delicate scent of dog-roses from a nearby trellis perfumed the air. ‘This is the resting place of Countess Philippa your grandmother,’ she said. ‘She died before I came, but some of the nuns knew her well and will tell you about her.’
Alienor knelt at the graveside to pray, setting her hand to the sun-warmed stone. ‘I am glad she found peace here.’ It would indeed be easy to live in tranquillity in this place. The birds were singing and the sun was a benediction on her spine. One day, she thought … but not now.
She dined with Emma and Mathilde in the Abbess’s lodging, the women sharing a simple dish of trout and fresh bread.
‘Last time I saw Henry was at his father’s funeral, God rest my brother’s soul.’ Mathilde made the sign of the Cross. ‘He had matured so much from the reckless imp I remembered, but then he has had to. There is so much expectation and responsibility resting on his shoulders.’
‘Indeed,’ Alienor murmured. Emma said nothing and kept her eyes downcast, making Alienor wonder at the relationship between Henry and his half-sister.
‘He still fidgets though,’ Mathilde added, lightening the moment. ‘He is never still – even in church.’
Alienor laughed and agreed. ‘It is a pity he does not spin because if he was given a distaff full of wool and a spindle, he would have enough for a tunic in no time.’ She looked thoughtful. ‘But his mind is always focused. He is like the hub of a wheel with many different spokes of purpose going out, and all of them direct and clear. I believe he is capable of ruling everything that comes under his hand.’
‘You see it well,’ Mathilde said. ‘My nephew is a rarity indeed, although I admit my bias. He is the nearest I shall ever have to a son.’ She leaned across to squeeze Emma’s wrist. ‘And you are the closest I shall ever have to a daughter. It is time you went out into the world, but I shall miss you.’
The women were interrupted by the Abbess’s chamberlain, Sister Margaret, bearing a message for Alienor on a travel-stained scroll.
Alienor broke the seal and swiftly read the contents.
‘Trouble, my dear?’ Mathilde looked concerned.
‘The French have struck at Normandy,’ Alienor said, glancing up from the letter. ‘They have attacked and seized Neufmarché – Louis and Robert de Dreux and the Blois brothers. Henry could not get there in time from Barfleur.’ She bit her lip. ‘Also Eustace of Boulogne and Henry’s brother Geoffrey.’ The whole world, it seemed, was determined to quash them before they could succeed. She felt an initial jolt of fear, but her anger and contempt were stronger. ‘The rats were bound to come crawling out of the corners. It does not surprise me, so I know it will not surprise Henry.’
Mathilde looked dismayed but resolute. ‘I am sorry to hear it, but it does not surprise me either.’
Alienor rolled up the parchment. ‘I will conclude my business here and return to Poitiers to wait for Henry – as we were going to do before. This is reason to be wary, not alarmed, because our enemies are inept and Henry is not.’ Despite her bold words, she hoped her young husband had not bitten off more than he could chew.
‘They will try to bring him down because if they do not succeed now, they never will,’ Mathilde said with a partisan gleam in her eyes. ‘That brother of his is a vain, silly boy. He will not rest until Henry makes him Count of Anjou and Maine, and that will never happen, no matter how much he rebels.’ She shook her head. ‘The men of Anjou are not good at sharing. My brother Elias was always being locked up for raising rebellion because he refused to accept his lot. It is in the blood, my dear, as you will doubtless discover once you bear Henry sons.’