by Anne O'Brien
‘Thank you, my lord. I knew you would understand.’
He walked forward, placing his hands tentatively to cup my shoulders. When I steeled myself not to pull away, Louis kissed me tenderly on my brow.
‘Of course I understand. You have been unhappy.’ I tried not to tense, not to pull away. I prayed he would not conjure Raymond’s name between us. ‘You are so high-spirited, it draws you into dangerous currents. It has always been so. But God will know what is in your heart and give you his comfort. As I will give you mine. The past will be wiped clean and we will walk forward together in God’s holy light. Both of us restored to his salvation.’
He kissed me again on the lips.
I escaped before I might vomit over his sandaled feet.
We left for Rome with an escort from King Roger. His teeth glinted in a smile that was almost a grin as he handed me into the swagged and cushioned palanquin.
‘I trust the letter from the Angevin brat was of interest to you.’
My brows rose. Angevin brat? Was he being deliberately provocative? And what did the King of Sicily know of it anyway?
‘Family connections, you know.’ Roger kept hold of my fingers and raised them to his lips, a charming formality, then added with utmost seriousness, ‘If he offers help, don’t reject it out of hand.’
‘And how do you know he offers me help? What help could I possibly need?’
‘Only you know that, lady.’ He signalled for the escort to move off with a distinct gleam in his eye. ‘Henry Plantagenet will go far, I predict. If not always comfortably. He’ll be worth watching.’
‘He’s very young.’
‘Angevins mature quickly, lady! Watch yourself!’
‘I have no intention of doing anything foolhardy!’ I replied, inexplicably ruffled.
King Roger smiled.
Before I left Potenza—how I hated Potenza!—I gave money for perpetual masses to be said for Raymond’s soul and prayed that God would not judge him too harshly. He was a man of much charm and not a little talent. How could I not have loved him? I tried not to think of his naked skull encased within rigid silver, adorning the Gates of Baghdad. I tried not to think of the carrion eaters swooping to peck at the rotting flesh.
Some days I was still sick to my stomach.
But now I looked forward. The image of Henry Plantagenet slipped through my guard—until I banished it. I would be under the control of no man. I had almost fallen foul of his father, who had wooed me for his own ambitions. I would not do the same with the son.
And then found myself smiling again within the sumptuous enclosing curtains as a long-distant memory burst into my mind with great clarity, when the young Angevin had taken my popinjay to teach it to repeat ‘Eleanor’. He had done no such thing. When the troublesome bird had been returned to me it had enunciated with great clarity ‘Henry’, followed by a squawk that might just have been Plantagenet. And continued to do so until I banished it from my solar.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
‘My children. Such troubles as you have faced together.’
Pope Eugenius, a small, rotund cleric with the bright smiling features of an ingenuous cherub—and a similar potential for malice, I suspected—held out his hand bearing the papal ring. We knelt to kiss it. First Louis in a disgusting flurry of bent knee and spine-cringing respect. I followed suit, trying not to shudder at the splay of fat damp fingers on mine. His Holiness was not abstemious in the matter of diet. Neither was he well informed of the need for frequent washing. The heavy perfume did not quite swamp the reek of uncleansed silk and skin. I held my breath and touched my lips to the grubby jewel with marvellous respect. This meeting would be my salvation.
Not being welcome in Rome, part of the ongoing dispute over who might actually be in possession of Saint Peter’s keys, Eugenius had agreed to receive us in his palace at Tusculum, south of the city. It had a lovely aspect, clinging to the northern slopes of the Alban hills, enclosed with gardens and trees. Except that it reminded me of a soft green mirror-image of Antioch and I closed my eyes to its beauty.
I was resilient. I would let nothing—and certainly not this fat little cleric—stand against me.
‘We have looked for this meeting, ever since your messenger arrived to beg an audience.’ Eugenius beamed at Louis. ‘I know your efforts were not crowned with success but God sees the intent in the heart of every Crusader. You are indeed blessed. Come …’
With a swirl of his noxious robes—he dressed the part in gold and purple, whether his status was in debate or not—Eugenius led us out onto a shaded terrace where we sat, accepting the goblets of wine provided by obsequious servants. The foul scent was less obvious here in the open air. I filled my nostrils with the pungency of cloves in the spiced hippocras, not particularly to my taste but better than the alternative.
‘To have worshipped before the Holy Sepulchre. Magnificent! To have stood in Jerusalem …’
I let His Holiness ramble and murmur in admiration as I sat and sipped the wine. Louis nodded and agreed as the unctuous voice filled every space. Such a powerful, rolling voice for so small a man. So far I had said not one word. But when I did, every word would count.
‘And I think your journey to Sicily was not without its trials, my son. We have heard that …’
Even Louis had had enough.
‘Our time here is short, Holiness.’ I saw the quick slide of Louis’s eye in my direction. ‘We need the benefit of your experience. And your intercession. It has been in my mind to proclaim another Crusade—to achieve what we failed to put right. I would ask your advice, Holiness …’
And so had I had a surfeit by now. The two would be knee-deep in plotting another disaster in Outremer if I allowed it. With a little rustle of distress I placed my cup down on the stone ledge beside me and leaned forward, hands raised in open plea. I played the gamut of despair, voice catching with emotion.
‘Indeed, Holiness. My husband has his own concerns. But I need to speak with you. I need your advice. It is a matter of great urgency to me. In fact, without your intercession, I fear for my soul …’
Pope Eugenius’s eyes narrowed slightly in suspicion. Then he remembered to smile.
‘Of course, my daughter.’
‘Alone.’ I held his jaundiced gaze.
‘Then so you shall.’
Sweet Virgin! How I despised God’s Representative on Earth!
He kept me waiting until the following day. I might have insisted but I used my time well. How to make my approach? With Abbot Bernard I had moved from cold rhetoric to impassioned, over-abundant emotion. What would move this fat little cleric other than self-interest? Why was it always necessary for a woman to persuade rather than command? When I finally made my obeisance before him in his private chamber I was still in a morass of indecision. My evidence was undisputable. Had I not had a whole year to plan this meeting? But how to present it—I did not know, now that the moment was upon me.
As I knelt I breathed deep, despite the stink, to still the trembling in my belly. He would not refuse me. He would see the justice of my plea. My heart tripped and jumped. Victory was in my grasp at last. I would weep over his soiled papal slippers if I had to.
‘Tell me what is in your heart, my daughter.’ Eugenius raised me, kissed my cheek with false fatherly affection and led me to a cushioned window seat. ‘I see you are in some torment. I assure you, it cannot be as bad as you think. Tell me all.’
So I did.
Eyes downcast as a woman in sorrow and utter frustration, I touched on the illegality of my union with Louis through consanguinity. I lingered on my failure in twelve years to produce any child but a girl who would never rule France. Did His Holiness not realise that over the past two hundred years no Capetian king had ever failed to produce at least one male heir? Yet Louis and I had failed. It was God’s punishment. It must be—a punishment for a marriage that should never have come to pass. Fat Louis had sinned, making no attempt to gain a dispensation for o
ur rushed union and so we—Louis and I—paid the penalty. And so would France if Louis did not have a son, I finished on this most vital of points. I slid over the fact that Louis had a brother who could quite easily step into his shoes and was probably able to rule far more effectively.
Eugenius sat, head tilted like a gaudy magpie eyeing a nestling. I had kept his attention but could read nothing in his bright gaze.
‘I have something to show you, if you would look …’
‘Then do so, my child.’
From my sleeve I drew out and unrolled a document written out in my own hand, as detailed and explicit as my memory could achieve from my long-ago conversation with the Bishop of Laon, the generations of Aquitaine and Capet that united their children, Louis and Eleanor, within the forbidden degree. I offered the scroll and Eugenius took it but his eyes never moved from my face. Impossible to tell what went on behind that masterfully smiling mask.
‘It is all most explicit, my child. What would you have me do?’
Could he not see what I wanted? I smoothed over the jagged edge of impatience. Would this slimily complacent cleric make me, Duchess of Aquitaine, beg?
‘This document maps the illegality of my marriage, Holiness,’ I urged. ‘And here …’ I produced another elderly scroll with the flourish of a jester releasing Louis’s disastrous flock of singing birds from the contents of a pastry subtlety ‘ … is the well-considered opinion of our own Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux. Our erudite Abbot has already spoken against our marriage. He thinks it should never have been made.’
A powerful weapon. His Holiness was not averse to turning to the Holy Bernard for advice. I watched the effect, once again unsettled as His Holiness barely glanced at the letter, his eyes returning to mine as if he would dissect every thought in my head.
‘I am not unaware of the opinions of Abbot Bernard.’ He placed both documents neatly together, lining up their edges as if therein lay the answer to the problem.
This was not working! Why could the man not be swayed by the weight of legality? So if I must beg …
‘I feel my failure, Holiness. Every day, every hour. I cannot live with it. Can you imagine what I am made to suffer through no fault of my own? My lord needs a son to inherit his throne and feels our lack keenly. He puts the blame on me, because his counsellors tell him that the fault is mine. Do you realise the life I have been forced to lead?’ I stretched out my hands, beseeching his pity. ‘I cannot live like this longer, Holiness. I cannot believe it is God’s will that I suffer for a sin that is not mine.’
‘I agree, my daughter.’ He rose and walked to his prie-dieu where he knelt, lifting his eyes to the crucifix before him, leaving me to sit in terrible uncertainty. Then he pushed himself ponderously to his feet, and smiled across the room. ‘I see my way. I must restore God’s peace and contentment to your heart.’
My heart leapt with hope. ‘God’s peace can only be restored to both of us through a restoration of legality.
An annulment. I beg your consent, Holiness, to put this marriage aside. For both our sakes, and for France.’
Real tears were wet on my cheeks. So much hung on this one decision. So much. If it went against me, what would I do? To remain bound to Louis for the rest of my life was more than I could bear. My tears flowed more freely.
‘I beg of you, Holiness.’ Yes, I begged him for my separation as tears dripped to blot on my carefully prepared vellum that Eugenius had discarded. The lines of consanguinity that tied me to Louis through our ancestors blurred and ran until all but indecipherable.
Eugenius nodded. ‘It is certainly a matter to be considered. Come here, my child.’
Once more I knelt before him, determined to leave no stone unturned.
‘You should know, Holiness, that my lord refuses an intimate relationship with me.’
‘Indeed …’
‘Another child is impossible unless Louis can …’
‘There is no need to say more. You have suffered so much. God will have mercy on you and bless you.’ I felt the touch of his hands as I bowed my head. ‘I admire you, Eleanor. You have presented a powerful case to end this union.’ His voice was warm, he had used the intimacy of my name. He would do it! Thank God! Silence filled the room, broken only by the twittering of finches outside in the close-fitting branches of a towering cypress. The hands lifted from my head. I looked up in gratitude, the tears drying on my face. The Pope smiled at me. ‘I have seen your evidence and heard your passion, my child. You are not at fault, in any of this. There is no need for your conscience to trouble you or to fear God’s continuing punishment … but I think you have misunderstood. It is the duty of a wife to cleave to her husband.’
Cleave? I should cleave to Louis?
‘It is not in your interest or that of His Majesty for you to be set apart. There is no illegality in your marriage.’
Was he a fool or misguided? Did he not understand? How could he simply abandon the facts I had placed before him?
‘Your troubles can be healed, my daughter. Your marriage restored.’
Hope fled out of the window to join the mindless twittering of the birds. ‘He does not come to my bed. How can it be healed, restored?’
Eugenius shook his head in a smooth tolerance that promptly set light to my anger. ‘You have to be compassionate, daughter, to the strain of your husband’s leading the Crusade. His holy vows of celibacy should be commended, not held up for criticism.’
Commended? Irritation was swamped in fury. ‘I’ll not commend him for his neglect of me! He rarely touched me even before he grasped the Cross!’
‘You are a high blooded woman, Eleanor. You must pray for self-control.’ Now my blood ran from hot to cold. How could it be that he made me sound like an importuning whore rather than a neglected wife? ‘And perhaps now that the Crusade is over.’
‘It has been over for twelve months! Our marriage is not tenable!’
‘You are wrong, Eleanor. Abbot Suger thinks it is.’
Suger! The name sounded like a death knell to all my plans. What had Abott Suger to do with this?
‘And Thierry Galeran also advises me that, once returned to the calm atmosphere in Paris, you will regain your dignity as Queen of France and accept your marriage.’
And Galeran! Regain my dignity? How dared that low-born upstart comment on my dignity?
And as if a page in a book had been opened before me, I saw what I had so disastrously overlooked. Louis had sent on a courier to arrange our audience here at Tusculum. He had sent Thierry Galeran. Who had used his time well to drop poison into Eugenius’s ear. Of course he had, and Eugenius had not been slow to listen and be swayed by his favourite Templar.
‘Galeran argues for the marriage to stand. Both he and Abbot Suger understand your situation very well. I have listened to them and I will lean in their favour in my decision. That’s not to say that you don’t have my compassion, my child. But I think you are wrong. I will not give you the annulment you ask for.’
I could barely breathe. It had been a lost cause from the very beginning. They had destroyed my arguments, Suger and Galeran between them, cutting the ground from beneath my feet by their oh-so-smooth and understanding compassion for my situation. Eugenius had never had any intention of listening to me. He had known from the beginning that he would refuse. If I’d had my dagger to hand and Galeran before me, I swear in that moment I would have gutted him. And no point in kneeling before this weak-willed, ineffectual Pope, who would be manipulated by such a creature as Galeran.
I stood, smoothing down my skirts, willing composure over my shaking limbs and features, and addressed him in frigid accents.
‘I assume that both of your esteemed advisers—when daring to discuss the personal matter of my marriage—mentioned the immense value of Aquitaine for the kingdom of France.’ I was pleased to see colour rise to His Holiness’s receding hairline. ‘I assume they informed you that my lands were far too valuable for Louis to lose for the mere whim
of a woman.’
‘We discussed your need for Louis’s protection,’ Eugenius replied with terrible simplicity. ‘How else would you keep your lands intact? It is not practical for you to be unprotected and alone.’
The validity of my arguments counted for nothing. They never had. Tears pricked behind my eyelids again but this time from fury and I refused to let them fall.
‘You must accept that I know what is best for you,’ Eugenious simpered with ill-concealed victory. ‘If you will kneel again, we can pray together.’
I would not. ‘I don’t want your prayers. I want an annulment.’
‘But your husband does not. He loves you. Is that not a blessing, my daughter?’
‘A blessing? Louis’s childish infatuation is a chain around my neck!’
I managed a curtsey, ensured that it dripped with disdain, then strode from the room, striving not to slam the door. I left my evidence—what use was it to me now? The houses of Aquitaine and Capet were cast on the floor at Eugenius’s feet and I left them there. Anger shook me.
I consigned Suger and his interfering to the fires of hell. Along with Galeran and his vicious poisoning. And Eugenius. They were all in it together.
Nor was Louis without blame. I ran him to ground in one of Tusculum’s little antechambers with its view over garden and distant hills, where he stood in the window embrasure, poring, as he ever did, over a list of figures with Galeran.
‘What have you done?’
I gave neither recognition to Galeran nor moderated my voice. The papal guards at the door remained stolidly unmoving.
‘I suppose His Holiness refused.’ Louis looked mildly astonished at my passion.
‘Of course he did. He’d no intention of doing anything other. He played me for a fool, pretending to listen, and then …’ I shut my teeth with a snap. ‘I’ll not speak of it with your creature picking over every word like a vulture over a carcass.’
