Devil's Consort

by Anne O'Brien

  ‘Needless to say, I don’t approve,’ Louis remarked, his fist clenching on his knee as he sat and frowned at me.

  ‘Why not?’ I was completing my dressing, choosing jewels from a casket. ‘They love each other.’

  ‘So Vermandois tells me. He threatens to leave his wife and children and carry Aelith off and live with her, whether I say yea or nae.’

  ‘So what are you going to do about it, Louis?’

  It had become very important that I win this chance of happiness for Aelith. If guilt was to be apportioned for the events that unfolded, I could not claim my innocence. For I had watched Aelith and Raoul together, in public, marvelling at the latent passion that arced between them. Raoul might be an aging wolf but he was still a wolf, tough and vital. The desire when they looked at each other made me shiver. Never less than courteous and respectful, Raoul’s touch on Aelith’s hand, the deep caress of his voice, the slide of his eyes over her face, had all announced his feelings for her to the whole court. Oh, yes, they loved each other.

  What did I have?

  Nothing. How long since Louis had last touched me? I burned with longing. My heart and my bed were a wasteland, empty and barren, and I could do nothing to remedy it. It almost reduced me to weeping until I reminded myself that Duchesses of Aquitaine did not weep. They took action to remedy the problem—and I could at least remedy Aelith’s lack. She would have her much-desired marriage, she would have her lover. All I had to do was open Louis’s eyes to the advantage for him, for France.

  Louis’s brow creased in familiar worry and uncertainty. ‘Raoul says his first marriage is unlawful. He and the lady are third cousins and no dispensation was sought—so he could demand an annulment.’

  ‘I know.’ The Church and the laws of consanguinity were a positive quagmire into which the unwary fell. No man and woman related within the scope of four generations could wed. Without a dispensation and the passing of much gold from the disappointed couple to the Pope, such a marriage was unlawful. ‘I think you should support Vermandois.’

  ‘I’ve no wish to become embroiled with the Pope …’ I saw Louis almost physically retreat, but I knew how to play Louis, like a fish on a line.

  ‘But Louis, surely you have realised …?’

  ‘Realised what?’

  I pushed onto my finger a pretty amethyst ring and leaned from where I sat to grasp his sleeve. ‘Have you considered the connections of Raoul’s wife, Louis? Is she not sister to Count Theobald of Champagne?’

  Champagne!

  It was as if I had stuck Louis. If Louis hated any man it was Count Theobald of Champagne, the very man who had refused point blank to support Louis in the debacle of Toulouse, denying his feudal obligation to send troops to aid his overlord. If Louis was of a mind to blame any man for his ignominy before Toulouse, it was his disobedient vassal Theobald of Champagne.

  How fortunate!

  Louis blinked. He had snapped up my bait and the possibilities swam in his eyes: revenge of a very personal nature cloaked in political support of Vermandois’s new marriage.

  ‘Champagne’s sister. I had forgot …’ he muttered.

  ‘She is. Now will you support Vermandois and Aelith?’

  I purred. I had stirred the pot—a woman who had never stirred a pot in her life—and now I must leave it to simmer. No need! It took all of ten seconds to come to a turbulent bubble.

  ‘I’ll do it!’ Louis declaimed. ‘I’ll do it. I’ll have a parcel of French bishops annul the Vermandois’ marriage immediately.’

  ‘The Count of Champagne won’t be pleased.’ I held out my wrist and a bracelet of amethyst stones for Louis to clasp there. Which he did with brisk efficiency, as if fastening a bridle to a horse, his mind already distant and planning.

  ‘No, he won’t, will he?’ He smiled, quite wolfishly for him.

  So it was done. Louis found three compliant bishops to grant an annulment on the grounds of consanguinity within the third degree. The same bishops, almost in the same breath, joined Aelith and Vermandois in matrimony.

  All highly satisfactory.

  We rejoiced at the celebrations. Aelith shone with happiness. The Count preened. Abbot Suger’s scowl was swept aside. Louis celebrated his moment of victory at the expense of Count Theobald with more cups of wine than was habitual. Was that the influence, the stimulus? The wine or the splendour of the well-executed revenge? He came to my bed that night and took me as a man should take a woman. My heart lifted. Might he not become the husband I desired?

  Ah, but the repercussions! Perhaps I should not have been so blinded by my sister’s happiness and Louis’s magnificent erection. Why had I not seen it, even when it must have been obvious to all but the most dull-witted?

  The political aftermath was instant and cataclysmic.

  Vermandois’s rejected wife took herself and her children back to her brother’s household in Champagne, putting herself under Count Theobald’s protection with loud complaints against the validity of her annulment. Count Theobald appealed to the Pope—Pope Innocent it was then, as sly a creature as all Popes, to my mind—Theobald claiming that Louis and I had pressured the French bishops into their decision, which I suppose Louis had, but to accuse him so openly, so viciously, was not wise. Neither was it within the realms of acceptable diplomacy for the Pope to respond by stamping his holy foot.

  I could have told Innocent it would not work. With Louis it was a matter of soft words and gentle suggestion, not issuing directives. He may have been raised a monk but he had as strong a sense of his monarchy as Fat Louis.

  The outcome was like a ridiculous scene from a bad mummers’ play, except that there was no humour in it. I listened to the succession of couriers who brought us news and papal directives, each one overlapped by the next. Pope Innocent raged from Rome, deploring Louis’s part in the proceedings, and ordered Vermandois to return to his first wife. Vermandois refused, now happily ensconced with Aelith. The papal wrath building, Innocent excommunicated the French bishops who had acted at Louis’s orders. Louis blamed Count Theobald for the whole mess. Disastrously, the Pope gave his final challenge. The penalty for such disobedience was God’s ultimate judgment. Innocent excommunicated Vermandois and Aelith.

  And then? Pope Innocent excommunicated Louis as well.

  Our whole royal household was placed under an Interdict, thrust outside any relationship with the Almighty. No services, no confession, no penance, no absolution. We were abjured from the bosom of God. Louis was left with nowhere to hide.

  ‘By God! He’ll not do this!’ Louis seethed in horror, lured into blasphemy. ‘I don’t deserve this damnable judgment! The King of France is not answerable to Rome! God’s bones! I’m no cur to be whipped back to my master’s heels!’

  The Interdict fed the flames of Louis’s wrath to a conflagration. He raged, paced the length of the Great Hall and back again, damning the Pope and Count Theobald indiscriminately, his face strained and drawn with fatigue, barred as he was from the comfort of the Church. I made no attempt to placate him. He was beyond soothing.

  ‘This is all at Theobald of Champagne’s door,’ he snarled when he returned to where I watched him from the dais. ‘If he’d not gone snivelling to the Pope in the first place. He’ll pay for this. I’ll teach him a lesson he’ll not quickly forget. A vassal does not stir the Church against his liege lord with impunity.’

  He was already marching out of the door, calling for his steward.

  Oh, Aelith!

  My premonition of disaster was now strong, storm-clouds gathering to engulf us. I prayed her marriage was worth it, for all of us.

  For the rest of the day the palace was a mass of shouted orders and running feet. Rumours flew, multiplying, growing more extravagant. By the time Louis descended on me in my chamber late in the evening in a state of nervous excitement I knew what he planned. Bright eyed, exhausted yet vividly alive, he sat on my bed and laid his campaign before me.

  ‘We leave tomorrow, Eleanor
. I’ve summoned my vassals with their feudal levies. I’ll invade Champagne. I’ll bring him to his knees. Abbot Suger disapproves but I’m not listening. I’ll have Theobald’s head on a platter. It’s good policy, isn’t it, Eleanor?’

  A shiver of caution passed over my skin. I hesitated. ‘Will you be strong enough?’ I remembered Toulouse.

  ‘I’ve no intention of facing Theobald in pitched battle. If I lay waste to his crops and villages, he’ll soon come running to ask forgiveness. Followed hot on his heels by the Pope, who’ll cancel the Interdict fast enough. It wouldn’t be wise for Innocent to be at odds with the King of France with a victorious army at his back.’ He surged to his feet and gripped me by the shoulders. ‘And before I go, Eleanor—I’ll bed you.’ He planted a kiss full on my mouth. ‘Remove your gown!’

  ‘It’s a Friday,’ I remarked waspishly. Louis’s idea of seduction was not mine.

  ‘I’m aware of that, but this is urgent.’ He had already released me and was stripping his tunic over his head. ‘I’ve no thought of my defeat, but I pray God it’s his will that I leave you with my heir growing in your belly.’

  I submitted with ill grace but I doubt Louis noticed. He prayed and maintained an erection with feverish intent. I prayed for his success in Champagne and in the power of his loins. I think I might even have prayed for some vestige of pleasure but it was a brief, businesslike occasion. Louis seemed pleased enough and kissed me before he left. It crossed my mind that he had come to me because he was forbidden to approach God. I think by now I was resigned to it.

  But Louis’s planning disturbed me. I could see no good coming of it, only the conflict getting worse. Neither did I like the lack of courage that made Louis turn aside from battle with Count Theobald to wage war on the villages of Champagne. It was not the policy of a principled warrior.

  Louis marched into Champagne with banners and pennons fluttering gold and blue, and I stayed in Paris, trying not to remember his brave descent on Toulouse and his ignominious return. Would he emerge the victor? I sent a stream of prayers to the Holy Virgin to come to his aid. Surely he could not lose, surely … As I prayed I closed my eyes tightly, trying not to visualise the tales that were trickling back to us, of fire and blood, of indiscriminate killing and looting and abominations committed by the French troops across a swath of Champagne.

  What happened at Vitry-sur-Marne I could not ignore. No one could.

  It was imprinted on my mind in sickening detail.

  ‘We were victorious, lady. We could have made our own terms with the Count of Champagne.’

  Victory. My relief was overwhelming. But no terms? The flat report, the uneasy manner of it, did not ring true with victory. The atmosphere in my tapestried audience chamber pulsed with tension. Our armies had returned showing few signs of depredation, flags flying bravely, but where was Louis? He had not ridden in at the head of his troops to receive the acclamation of his capital. It was now drawing towards evening and one of Louis’s captains, a man I did not know, had, strangely, asked to speak to me.

  ‘You didn’t make terms,’ I stated.

  ‘No, lady.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It was a hard campaign,’ he replied. The captain paused, and looked away to study his hands as they tightened white-fingered around his gauntlets.

  ‘Where is the King?’ I asked, by now unnerved.

  ‘I have to tell you, lady …’ The captain raised his head at sound of approaching footsteps from the antechamber and I saw sweat, slick on his brow, although the room was not warm. ‘Here is His Majesty. I have presumed to come and warn you …’

  His anxiety was now spreading strongly to me. Something was amiss. I felt an invisible hand, as cold as ice, grip my throat. A weight lodged in my belly

  ‘Is the King wounded?’

  ‘No, lady. Not exactly.’ Which did not reassure me to any degree.

  ‘Tell me,’ I snapped.

  The captain, a man of experience in the battlefield, chose his words carefully. ‘His Majesty is … unwell. He has not spoken or eaten since … since Vitry-sur-Marne. We felt constrained to return to France in the circumstances. I gave the order …’ His eyes slid to the door. ‘As you see, lady …’

  By the Virgin! I had needed the warning. Louis was led into the chamber by another Frankish knight whose hand was firm on my husband’s shoulder. Louis’s feet were hesitant, stumbling, his shoulders bowed.

  ‘Your Majesty. You are home.’ The knight touched Louis’s arm to bring him to a halt.

  Louis blinked and looked around, a crease digging between his fair brows. I think he did not recognise his surroundings. Grey and insubstantial, eyes dulled and lacking life, Louis seemed to cower, searching the room for some point of recognition. Then his eye fell on me.

  ‘Eleanor!’ His voice cracked, broke on the one word.

  ‘Your Majesty …’ Louis’s captains bowed themselves out, relief obvious in their speed, and left him to me.

  For a moment shock held me in place. Little more than a walking shadow, Louis seemed to have aged a score of years in the time since he had left. Was this the man who had embarked on his campaign with such assurance, such energy? Still clad in his mail, the royal colours on his surcoat proclaimed him the King of France, but here was no majesty, here no military might. Here was a drained husk of a man.

  ‘Louis?’

  My voice too broke a little, so great was my appalled astonishment. I could never have anticipated such a change in a young man. He might recognise me but there was no communication there in his empty gaze. He simply stood, silent, unmoving, as if waiting for orders. His hair was lank and filthy, his clothes mired. This was far worse than Toulouse. The majesty of kingship had been obliterated—and now I knew why. The vicious rumours had prepared me.

  Vitry-sur-Marne. The name that must not be mentioned.

  Practicalities took over. I took his hand and led him into my apartments. He followed me like a loyal hound, unquestioning, his hand lax in mine. It was just the strain and stress of war, of travel, I tried to convince myself. I would see to his bodily comforts and then when sense and reason returned I would talk with him. A good night’s sleep and a hot meal and Louis would come to his senses. I drew him into my own bedchamber where with Agnes’s help—it was not my wish to subject him to my women’s gossip—Louis stripped, bathed, put on clean hose and tunic, ate and drank a little and sat before a fire. All without a word.

  This was not right. It worried me more and more as Louis followed my instructions without complaint. Not once did he express his own preference. His eyes were focused beyond me, his lips clamped tight. At last, alone, Agnes dismissed, I pulled up a stool and sat beside him, taking his hand in mine when he paid me no heed.

  ‘Louis …’ Nothing. ‘Louis!’

  He pulled his mind back from some great distance, and looked at me.

  ‘Are you comfortable now?’

  ‘I am guilty.’

  Rough and raw, his voice sounded unused. I considered encouraging him to speak of the campaign in general but decided to draw out the blade. Brutally painful it would be, but it would release the poison faster.

  ‘Is it Vitry?’ I asked.

  A shudder ran through his frame and his hand clenched on mine, the nails digging into my flesh. His mouth framed the word but he could not speak it. Ashen, body shaking, he turned his face away from me. When I looked, tears were running silently down his cheeks to drip onto his tunic. Nothing I could do would stop them. All I could do was put him to bed.

  At first he sank into a deep sleep but then the nightmares took hold. Louis thrashed, cried out, then woke to weep into his pillow.

  ‘Tell me what troubles you. Let me help you.’

  But he remained silent, sunk into his own private hell.

  With dawn came Agnes, carrying a tray of ale and bread. When he refused to respond, between us we pulled Louis from the bed and dressed him. When he shook his head at the offered ale, I held it to his
lips until he drank. And then my patience gave out.

  ‘Get him to talk to you,’ Agnes advised. I did not need her to tell me. I had no intention of allowing Louis to continue like this. I pushed him into a chair, pulling up a low stool so that he must look at me.

  ‘Louis. Tell me what happened.’

  ‘I … can’t!’

  ‘I won’t go away until you do, so set your mind to it.’

  And he told me, the words tumbling out from his stiff lips like a river in spring, its flow without restraint. I don’t think Louis saw me but merely let the memories loose.

  ‘It was Vitry. We attacked the keep at Vitry. They fired back at us with a hail of bowshot. So I gave orders to retaliate—we fired flaming arrows. The wooden keep was soon ablaze. They deserved it, didn’t they? They should have offered a truce …’ Tears began to track down his cheeks again but he was unaware of them. Licking his dry lips, he continued. ‘My troops—I lost control. Blood lust swept through them. They stormed through the streets, killing, hacking all who came in their path.’ He spread his palms and looked at them as if the scene was painted there. ‘The thatch and wood of the houses caught fire fast in the breeze. I was on the ridge above and saw it all. The whole town ablaze. I couldn’t stop it. They fled.’ He stopped, his breath catching.

  ‘Go on.’ Even though I knew the pain of what he must recount.

  ‘The people fled into the cathedral. They thought they would be safe there, you understand, under the protection of God. They should have been. But they weren’t. The flames engulfed them. The roof caved in. I saw it—heard it. Every soul trapped and perished.’ His voice dropped to a whisper. He leaned towards me. ‘Over a thousand people, they told me.’

  I gave him a cup of ale again but he could scarce hold it, his hand shaking as if he had the ague. I guided it to his lips once more but he shook his head and raised his eyes to mine. They were haunted. Horror and remorse swam there beneath the tears.