Devil's Consort

by Anne O'Brien

  ‘Have you ordered affairs to suit you? Are you comfortable, dear Eleanor?’

  He was so certain that I would say yes!

  ‘No. I am not comfortable. How can I be?’ I ignored his startled expression. ‘I cannot be expected to live like this.’

  ‘Are you unwell?’ he asked uncertainly.

  ‘Of course I’m not unwell! Do I look unwell?’ Louis needed a firm hand. Pressing a cup of wine into his hand as I drew him towards the detested brazier in my solar, pushing him into a cushioned chair beside it, I presented him with the list.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘You said you wished me to be comfortable. Did you mean it?’

  ‘Nothing is closer to my heart.’

  ‘Then I need improvements to my rooms. These!’

  His gaze slid to the parchment. ‘Can you write, Eleanor?’

  ‘Of course I can write!’

  ‘Not many women are considered able to acquire the skill.’

  I ignored that. Did he think I’d been raised an illiterate commoner in a peasant’s hut? ‘And, as you see, Louis, I have made a list.’

  I watched him as his eyes travelled down it. His lips pursed, twisted; he glanced up at me, then back to my demands. If I was to live out my days here, in the sweet Virgin’s name there had to be some concessions to the life I’d been raised to.

  ‘So you have.’ Louis continued to read—how long would it take him?—tapping the page with one hand. ‘Windows? Why do you need windows? You have windows.’

  ‘These are not windows. These are defensive slits for shooting arrows.’

  ‘I need to be impregnable. This is a fortress.’

  ‘Is the King of France not safe in the heart of Paris? My women do not shoot arrows. We need larger openings to let in air and sunlight. How can we see to sew and read? How can Faydide see to play the lute? Surely your stonemasons can create some wider, taller windows without too much difficulty.’

  ‘I suppose they could. But would that not allow cold air in?’

  ‘Shutters! It’s like sitting in a gale even now. I want wooden shutters for all the windows in my apartments. And in my own chambers I want glazing.’

  ‘Ah! Glazing.’ Louis’s fair brows climbed as if my extravagance was as gaudy as a peacock’s feathers, but he did not refuse. He tilted his head. ‘It says here, “Remove smoke.”’

  ‘So it does.’ To my good fortune a chance draught wafted a curl of poisonous fumes to envelop him and reduce him to coughing. ‘I’ll die of the smoke if I have to live with it much longer. My hair, my garments reek of it.’

  ‘But the Great Hall—’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know the Great Hall must keep its central fire, but in here I want stone fireplaces, Louis, with chimneys built into the thickness of the walls to carry the smoke away.’

  Louis eyed the formidable wall of stones before him as if he personally would have to take a hammer to them. ‘A major building programme, then. The cost will be great, of course. My Treasury—’

  ‘A little thing,’ I disagreed.

  ‘Well …’

  ‘In the palaces of Aquitaine we have chimneys,’ I added slyly. ‘Do you not have the wealth to encompass it?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘I do.’

  ‘And I want tapestries,’ I added.

  ‘As I see.’

  ‘You have none to my taste. Not one wall in this palace displays a tapestry of any size or quality. Those I’ve seen are in a state of disintegration or covered with soot. What can you be thinking of?’ I allowed him no time to retreat. ‘Think of the display of your wealth and style, Louis. You are not some insignificant lord, still residing in a stone keep, but King of the Franks. Your palace should be a stamp on your authority, not a rough fortress no better than your ancestors could build a hundred years ago. And if that does not appeal to you, think of how much warmer the rooms will be, keeping the damp and draughts at bay.’

  ‘I don’t feel the cold,’ Louis observed. ‘But if that is what you wish then order them as you will. The tapestries from Bourges are thought to be the best.’

  I reached to kiss his cheek, delighted with the resulting quick blush, and tugged at his sleeve. Louis was open to suggestion, a blank scroll on which I might write. And I would write on it. Not Abbot Suger. Not Queen Adelaide. I would be the one to map out Louis’s future.

  ‘Will you give the orders for the stonework immediately?’

  ‘If it pleases you, I will. I should be thankful you’ve not gone ahead and done it already, so that I find us knee deep in stone dust and chippings.’ His smile was charmingly rueful, despite the ponderous humour. ‘I’ve been told that you’ve already dismissed one of my appointments.’

  So Adelaide had already complained to her son, had she? It had taken her less than twenty-four hours.

  ‘Yes,’ I acknowledged airily. ‘The cantor at the palace chapel.’

  ‘My mother was distressed that he’d been removed.’

  ‘That’s hard to believe.’ I opened my eyes wide. ‘Perhaps you misunderstood her, Louis. The man had no ear and could scare hold a tune. As for leading a choir … When you hear his replacement, one of my own household with a fine voice, you will admit my choice is good.’ I saw the muscles in his jaw twitch as he prepared to refute this, so I pressed on with an argument he could not deny. ‘It’s only fitting that God be praised to the best of our poor talents.’ I was getting the measure of my husband.

  ‘That is so, of course …’

  ‘Do you object to my plans, Louis?’

  ‘No. Not at all.’

  ‘You would say if I displease you, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘You’ll never displease me. I admire you.’

  Victory fluttered in my breast. It seemed I could play the obedient, grateful wife with skill. I had no experience of it, but a wise woman can learn, and learn fast. I had got exactly what I wanted.

  ‘And you will give your orders to the stonemasons today?’ I persisted.

  ‘Yes. Eleanor …?’

  ‘Hmm?’ I was already halfway across the room to order my women to pack away the most fragile of my gowns.

  ‘Is there anything you do like here? In Paris?’

  I halted. Turned back. He still sat, looking almost dejected at my lack of enthusiasm for my new home, my list in one hand, the untasted cup of wine in the other. How woefully deficient in authority and importance he could be. Poor Louis. He really had no presence.

  As if he read my thoughts, he stood and walked towards me, while I sought desperately for something to say to make him look less of a cowed child who had been refused a promised treat.

  ‘Perhaps you like the gardens,’ he suggested. ‘They’re thought to be very fine. Will you perhaps walk there with me?’

  How could I refuse without appearing churlish? I walked with Louis along the pathways enclosed for privacy by walls and trellised vines, bordered with acanthus. Willow, fig, cypress, olive and pear trees gave welcome shade in the heat of the day. They would do very well with some statues and the occasional water display, but these formal plantings were no compensation for the chains on my freedom to travel the length and breadth of my dominions as I had once done at my father’s side. They were no compensation for the stultifying life I had been dropped into. My new existence was almost as rigidly curtailed as if I had taken the veil. The ordered beauty of sight and scent was no compensation at all for Louis’s continued absence from my bed.

  ‘Louis.’ I touched his hand as we halted beside a bed of fragrant lilies. ‘I am not carrying your heir.’

  My courses had come on time. Louis’s energies after the matter of the white gerfalcons had failed. Our one step into the intimacy of matrimony had not had the desired effect.

  Louis’s face fell. ‘I must lay the matter before God.’

  That was all he said, at least to me. I presume God was the recipient of his disappointment.

  ‘It is a waste of money. A sheer waste of money,’ Adelaide raged w
hen the stonemasons moved into my apartments and the air was filled with dust, along with the cheerful cursing and tuneless singing of the workmen. ‘And to what purpose?’ She raised her voice above the racket. ‘A soft lifestyle. It is not necessary.’ She glared her dislike of me and the upheaval combined. ‘You should learn to live our Frankish lifestyle. You are too soft, with your flighty southern ways.’

  ‘Do you not approve, madam?’ Soft, dulcet. My talent for acting improved daily and I had learned fast that to humour the Dowager Queen was more satisfying than to oppose her directly. To annoy, Adelaide had deliberately addressed me in the langue d’oeil in which I was now proficient. I replied in Latin.

  ‘No, I do not. What have you persuaded my son to do?’

  ‘Simply to make my life tolerable.’

  ‘It is not right. I have told Louis so.’

  ‘You do not have to tolerate the changes, madam. I will instruct the masons to leave your chambers alone. If it is your desire to live in squalor and cold and choking fumes, that is entirely your own choice.’

  She had waylaid me in the corridor to the royal chapel after Mass, where my cantor had just surpassed himself in singing the canticles. I made to walk past her, then halted, faced her. It was not in my nature to remain silent after all when my authority was under question. I fell easily into the harsh syllables of the langue d’oeil since it seemed appropriate to express my feelings thus. ‘If you wish to complain about my actions, madam, come to me, not to your son. It does not please me to have Louis troubled by your petty dislikes.’

  ‘I will complain as I wish,’ she snapped back. ‘I will complain where I think it will have the most effect.’

  ‘So you think you can persuade Louis?’

  ‘I am his mother. He listens to me.’ But her furious stare slid from mine.

  ‘Excellent!’ I smiled thinly. ‘Perhaps you would instruct him that he is no longer a monk but the King of France.’

  ‘He does not need to be told.’

  ‘I think he does. We both know that he is at this moment celebrating High Mass and that he will remain at Notre Dame for the rest of the day, despite the official deputation from Normandy that Louis himself summoned. They are kicking their heels in the audience chamber, as they were for much of yesterday.’ I paused, the length of a heartbeat. ‘Your son does not listen to you, madam, does he?’

  ‘You are discourteous!’ Adelaide hissed. ‘Without respect!’

  ‘I am Queen of France and Louis’s wife, and as such beyond reproach.’ I performed a polite curtsey. ‘Louis is grown to be a man, away from the woman who gave him birth. Good day, madam.’

  ‘You will not have it all your own way.’ The final words floated after me.

  Would I not? I smiled a little. I did not fear Adelaide. I doubted that she had ever commanded Louis’s full attention. And now Louis would listen to me and to no one else. Who would hinder me?

  ‘You are a daughter of Satan, madam! You should be ashamed!’

  Who would hinder me indeed?

  Ashamed? I froze, my mind alive to this threat.

  We were in the city of Sens, Louis having moved his whole court to the royal palace there so that we might make an appearance at the formidable Council of Bishops. And the man who had emerged from monkish seclusion to participate in this Council, the man who now addressed me in such vulgar terms, was Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux.

  ‘Look at you, woman! All airs and graces and mincing steps, laden with ornament.’

  I smoothed my hands down my silk-damask skirts, aware of the shimmer-rich tawny cloth. Had I not taken utmost care with my appearance to honour my husband before this important delegation? Would a visitor to our court address me, the Queen of France, in such a manner?

  He would if he were Bernard, Abbot of the Cistercian order of monks at Clairvaux. There he stood in the Great Hall, spittle flying with his words of condemnation, his flowing white hair giving him an air of prophetic sanctity as if he were a figure come alive from the Old Testament.

  ‘Your hair—revealed for all men to see! Have you no understanding of what God demands from the fallen daughters of Eve? In recompense for her seduction of Adam into sin?’

  Neither was he finished.

  ‘Daughter of Belial! Your appearance is an affront to God! If your husband will not take you to task, it is my duty to do so, in God’s name!’

  I held the pale gaze, marvelling at the passion in this man, skeletally thin as he was from fasting and the rigours of his holy life. So frail he looked as if a buffet of storm wind would lay him low, but he still claimed the authority to rebuke me.

  ‘I recall your execrable grandfather, madam’ He was quivering with holy fire. ‘I recall his flouting of God’s teachings.’

  True enough. The ninth Duke had preserved an ambiguous relationship with both the Almighty and His Church, upholding the motto ‘I will do as I please’. The Duke would honour God, as long as God’s will did not conflict with the Duke’s. My grandfather had spent much of his life excommunicate from one cause or another, chiefly his unholy liaison with Dangerosa.

  ‘My grandfather respected God well enough,’ I remarked frostily, looking towards Louis for help and getting none. Louis looked predictably tongue-tied. I decided it would not be politic to recall Dangerosa to Abbot Bernard’s vicious judgement. It would not help this situation.

  ‘You must learn to curb your tongue, daughter,’ Abbot Bernard challenged, his hostility unabated. ‘How can it be seemly in a woman to voice her opinions? It is not your place.’

  ‘It is my place, my lord Abbot.’ I would not be silent before this crude attack. ‘I was raised to have opinions and not fear to express them. I shall continue to do so. My lord the King does not object. Why should you?’

  Which predictably failed to silence my vicious-tongued adversary. ‘I will preach to this misbegotten court what is acceptable in the eyes of God!’

  And he did, every point sharpened like the tip of a poignard to rip my outrageous appearance to shreds.

  The skirts of my gown—’… a virtuous man might think such a woman to be a viperous snake by the tail she drags after her in the dirt …’—the embroidered and furred decoration on my hem and cuff—’ … skins of squirrels and the labour of silkworms, all to clothe a woman who should be content with plain cloth …’—cosmetics to enhance, as any woman worth her salt would wish to do—’ … a thrice-damned superficial beauty, put on in the morning and laid aside at night …’

  Such was Holy Bernard’s condemnation, his voice trembling with ire, his fist hammering against the lectern, whilst I sat, backbone straight, unmoved by the vitriol. How dared he condemn a daughter of Aquitaine? I would never bow my head before the Abbot of Clairvaux—but I was aware that beside me Louis sat transfixed, concentrating on every word. Louis’s face glowed as if Bernard’s delivery came straight from the mouth of God.

  This was dangerous. In that moment I knew I had an implacable enemy. Abbot Suger would undermine me in a subtle, subterranean manner. Adelaide was as vicious as a vixen, snapping at my heels with sharp teeth, but without real influence. Now Bernard of Clairvaux—he was the wolf at my door. Here was Louis hanging on his every word. I could not afford to underestimate Bernard of Clairvaux. He was no friend to me. With Louis’s ear, he might cause me harm.

  But then Bernard was forgotten in the excitement of my first escape from the Isle de la Cité. I was crowned Queen of France on Christmas Day at Bourges. In the great cathedral, in a sumptuous ceremony under the astute hand of Abbot Suger, Louis and I were acknowledged as King and Queen of France. Although already crowned in his father’s lifetime, the Abbot considered it no bad thing to remind the cynical and battle-hardened vassals of the Frankish king that Louis was their new monarch. I watched as the crown was placed on his head.

  Louis twitched with apprehension, as if he expected the crown to fall at his feet.

  I sighed.

  Why could he not have been better matched to the posi
tion he held? Why could he not have resembled the men of my own family—proud, confident in his demeanour, power at his fingertips? Even with the weight of gold and jewels on his fair hair he looked more boy than man. Why did he have to fidget so? Why could he not stare down these lords who had an eye to every weakness? Louis had the crown and God’s blessing. Why did his hand have to clench nervously on the hilt of the sword of state?

  God’s bones! I could play the role with more conviction than Louis ever could.

  I was crowned too. I felt the thrill of it run through my blood. I was still young and inexperienced enough to believe that the mystical symbols of crown and oil and holy water would mean something. How could they not bring me happiness and contentment? In those days my heart was full of hope, and Louis did his best to make my experience of Bourges memorable.

  By the Virgin, it was!

  Louis ordered the creation of a masterpiece to impress me and his vassals. At the climax of the coronation feast, four men staggered from the kitchens under the weight of a giant platter bearing a subtlety worthy of one of my own master cooks.

  ‘I had it made for you.’ Louis beamed, beckoning the men forward.

  It was manhandled onto the table before me, a vast pastry crust on a pottery base, the whole fashioned and gilded into a castle with towers and crenellations, just like the Maubergeonne tower. With its moat of green leaves and ribboned banners imprinted with fleurs de lys floating from its towers, it was a tour de force indeed. With an ingenuous smile of delight, Louis indicated for the lid to be raised.

  ‘What’s inside?’ Sweetmeats? Flowers? Some impressive creation of precious sugar? Or perhaps even a jewelled coronal to match the official one of my crowning?

  ‘Wait and see …’

  A knife was run around the circumference. I leaned forward. A hush fell as all waited. The lid was raised in a piece …