Devil's Consort

by Anne O'Brien

  I was simply regretful.

  So now what? His death opened quite another box, which proved to be not to my disadvantage. The old lion of Anjou was dead, and into his shoes would step the young lion. Henry, Count of Anjou, Duke of Normandy, now with no curb on his power or his direction. Henry would rule. My future suddenly seemed bright with possibility.

  And even at home Fortune was angling her capricious face to smile on me. Within a matter of months, in January of the new year of 1151, Abbot Suger was dead, the one voice that was raised so eloquently to the bitter end to keep Louis from setting me free. He died peacefully in his sleep and that voice was silenced at last, Almighty God taking him to His bosom for all his Good Deeds in Louis’s name. And thank God for it. I would now hound Louis at every step and there would be no one to drown out my demands. There was still Galeran, of course, but I ignored him with smiling arrogance and set my sights on my quarry.

  The tide was running strongly for me at last.

  At Matins I knelt at Louis’s side in Notre Dame as the choir lifted its voice to heaven in joyful praise.

  ‘In God’s name, Louis, give me an annulment.’

  Louis closed his eyes and covered his face with his hands.

  At supper, when Louis picked at the fish during Lent.

  ‘Why will you not consider it? There’s nothing left in this marriage for either of us.’

  ‘We are man and wife in the eyes of God and the law.’ He gobbled the mess of salt cod as if it were his last meal.

  ‘The saintly Bernard doesn’t see it that way.’ I considered a spoonful of the harsh, unspiced flesh, then rejected it.

  Louis too pushed aside the portion unfinished, eyes bleak. Much as those on the cod’s head on the serving platter. ‘I can’t do it. You’ll make me a laughing stock.’

  ‘Better an annulled marriage than no male heir,’ I stated under cover of the mournful wailing of a group of travelling minstrels who did not deserve my patronage. His face paled. I had him there. I was destroying his appetite and had no compunction.

  * * *

  In his audience chamber. I approached as a supplicant with Alix in my arms.

  ‘If this is the last child I carry for you, your brother will inherit your throne.’

  ‘I know what you want. My answer is no.’

  I smiled serenely. ‘You know it is so. Your brother can’t wait to snatch the crown. He watches every breath you take, and prays it will be your last.’

  ‘I won’t do it, Eleanor. The Pope blessed our union.’

  ‘But I am incapable of conceiving a son.’

  When Alix let out a high-pitched female shriek of infantile wrath, Louis flinched.

  In his bedchamber, where I sat in wait for him to return from a night vigil, pale-faced and gaunt.

  ‘Is Aquitaine worth all this, Louis?’

  He shut himself in the garderobe and groaned as if his bowels were gripped by a flux.

  I pursued him to the stables where he inspected a favourite horse.

  ‘Majesty …’ I was conscious of the listening grooms.

  ‘No!’

  ‘You louse, Louis! I’m out of all patience with you!’

  In the Great Hall. I steeled myself. I would not relent. If I could not rest with this marriage, Louis must not be allowed to sweep the problem behind the tapestry either. And here was Galeran at his shoulder, deliberately summoned to stiffen Louis’s spine. Even better.

  I marched across to them.

  ‘Grant me an annulment! I will have it!’ Louis turned to look at me, eyes unnervingly expressionless.

  ‘Louis …!’

  ‘Then have it.’

  No, his eyes were not expressionless. They were full of misery.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Have your annulment!’

  ‘Do you mean it?’

  ‘Yes. Have I not said?’

  ‘But, Majesty …!’ Galeran plucked at his sleeve, lines of agitation suddenly digging deep from nose to mouth.

  ‘Enough!’ Louis pulled away with quick temper. ‘I know the arguments against this. I know what I’ll lose.’

  ‘Half your kingdom, Majesty!’

  ‘Do you think I don’t know? I’ve had enough of it. You’re right, Eleanor. It’s God’s will. Have your annulment. Before God, you’ve worked hard to get it!’

  ‘But you’ll lose Aquitaine,’ Galeran almost wailed. I watched his efforts to force a rebuttal on Louis, and rejoiced at his defeat as Louis turned on him.

  ‘Do you think I don’t know it? Of course I do, you fool. But what is Aquitaine to me if I don’t have a son to inherit it? It’s a choice created by the Devil to torment me.’ And to me, voice thin in querulous anger: ‘We can’t live together any longer. Take your freedom. Go back to Aquitaine. I’m done with you.’

  It had come at last. And so swiftly I was astonished. I could barely believe it.

  ‘I will. Gladly. You’ll not regret it.’

  ‘Yes, I will. I’ll lose an empire. I’ll lose face. But have your annulment.’ He snatched his arm again from Galeran’s clutches. ‘Leave me alone. And you …’ he glowered at me ‘.can go and crow over your victory.’

  Louis stalked into the church to prostrate himself, so I heard.

  I was breathless, a constriction around my ribs. But my mind was not at ease. In all these weeks of my wearing away at Louis’s defiance, I had heard nothing from Henry Plantagenet. Not one word. Did our pact still stand? For all I knew, he might be in England, engaged in a lengthy campaign. Would he still come to my aid if I found myself under threat?

  Oh, I knew he would. I had to believe in his promise.

  One step at a time, I told myself. I would get my annulment and get myself to Poitiers. Then I would face the new Count of Anjou.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  WELL, now. This should be interesting. They marched down the centre of the Great Hall, the booted feet of the Angevins and their entourage advertising the mood, even if the bristle of swords and spears did not. They were not there to be conciliatory. The scratched bows, curt and graceless, were barely polite. How could they be when they had been at war with Louis along the border between Normandy and France for the past twelvemonth, off and on?

  ‘Your Majesty.’ Louis’s steward tried to hide his anxiety but his smile wobbled. ‘The Count of Anjou.’

  ‘Well, we’re here, Majesty.’ Count Geoffrey’s stance left us in no doubt of his uncompromising mood. ‘At your request.’

  Request? They had been summoned. And Geoffrey of Anjou was not prepared to make an effort at friendliness. Even their attendance had been in doubt until this eleventh hour before Louis had threatened a renewal of hostilities.

  The question was, of course, why had they come at all?

  Louis, seated formally beside me, was limp in his chair, face ashen and unhealthy, his hands in a death-grip on the chair arm. I turned my face away. It continued to astonish me how often my husband sank into a fever and took to his bed when faced with a strong challenge. This time he’d almost fled the battlefield, leaving it to Abbot Bernard to try to patch up the damage. My lip curled as much as our guest’s while Louis squirmed like a butterfly on a pin. Even if he had been turned out in regal splendour to cow the unruly Plantagenets into obedience, rather than this grey and ill-tempered object only recently emerged from his sick-bed, nothing could take away the impact of the Angevin contingent. Or of Louis’s Seneschal of Poitou, Gerald Berloi, a proud man, a formidable soldier, only now weighed down by heavy chains, being dragged the length of the Hall by two Angevin men-at-arms. He looked like some trussed and bound result of a day’s hunting, a boar most like, about to be dismembered.

  Groaning, with a hefty nudge in the back, Louis’s Seneschal sank to his knees under the burden of the metal looped over his shoulders. The Angevins ignored him.

  So Geoffrey of Anjou had come to court.

  My first impressions? I let my gaze travel over this man who had once lit fire in my blood. Geoffre
y had aged in the handful of years since I had last seen him. Still a handsome man, still upright and gracefully agile with a soldier’s bearing—I doubted he would ever change—but there was grey in his bronzed hair and I thought the lines in his cheeks were deeper. Nor was there the intimate smile in his eye as he acknowledged the inclination of my head. He had, thank God, no wish to remind me of our past liaison. Neither charm nor mischief lurked there, rather a formidable cold.

  Interesting, I thought, my attention fully engaged. For behind the controlled façade was anger. Indeed, I realised, the façade was barely controlled at all.

  Not surprising, in the circumstances.

  What would Louis do with this flagrant defiance—an armed force all but filling this vast chamber and his Seneschal in irons? I knew what I would do. With wine and food and soft words, I would soothe the ruffled feathers of this brood of raptors until they came to my hand. That’s what I would do—but as yet I did not have the power.

  Not yet. But soon.

  ‘My lord of Anjou. You took your time getting here.’

  Typical of Louis, ruffling the already hunched feathers even further. Count Geoffrey raised his chin and braced his legs. He was out for blood.

  My eye moved on from the Count to the three who flanked him. One I deliberately overlooked for now, but concentrated on the two I did not know, both on the edge of manhood with a distinctive Angevin cast to their features and the same tall, rangy build of their father. How true these Plantagenets bred. The elder—this one would be young Geoffrey, I supposed, Count of Nantes, bright eyes taking everything in, a handsome youth except for an unfortunate narrowness to his attractive features. I would not trust any one of them, I decided, but certainly not Geoffrey. And then a younger lad. William. I’d made it my business to know this family, for many reasons. They had come to court in force.

  The heat, oppressive, excessively humid as it often was in September in Paris, pressed down on us. We all sweated in formal robes or leather and mail, but it was more than the heat that made the temperature in the room rise and perspiration touch my top lip. The third of the trio who supported the Count I knew. I was aware of him even when I did not look at him. As he was aware of me.

  The Count of Anjou yanked on the chain to force the Seneschal to his feet, to stagger forward.

  ‘That is my Seneschal!’ Louis’s outrage was vast.

  ‘I know who he is!’ Count Geoffrey snarled.

  ‘How dare you treat a noble prisoner, and my own appointment, in that manner?’

  Louis’s hands now clasped and unclasped around the carved lions’ heads. To his left, dark and brooding, stood Abbot Bernard, looking to have no real hopes for a lasting truce here, despite his efforts.

  ‘I dare when he attacks my lands. Did you put him up to it?’ I hid a smile at the lack of respect in the Count’s demand. ‘Your damned Seneschal erected a castle on the border between Poitou and Anjou at Montreuil, and from there he’s been harassing my lands every time my back’s turned. And it took a year of my time and far too much money to take it by siege. I demand reparation for the damage done to my people, my lands and my honour.’

  Louis could not take his eyes from Berloi. A horrific sight indeed. Filthy, ill used, wrists and ankles chaffed and rubbed raw, his undershirt and chausses were in rags, his face showing signs of recent violence, with a swollen eye and cut lip barely healed. Here was no evidence of cushioned imprisonment, as befitted a man of birth and rank. The Angevins played by different rules.

  ‘You imprisoned him like a common criminal.’ Louis again. ‘A man of noble birth!’

  ‘You’re lucky I didn’t hang him from his castle gateway for his sins.’ The Count wheeled on Abbot Bernard, so far silent. ‘And don’t think to threaten me with your damned hellfire and excommunication. I can see it writ on your face. If my holding this man prisoner is a sin, I’ll embrace excommunication. There’s blood on his hands—the blood of my own people—and I’ll stand before God and argue the justice of my case.’ He swung back to Louis. ‘I want justice from you, my lord. And I’ll have it! That’s my final decision on it.’

  ‘And mine,’ Bernard fired back, ‘is that you’ll be dead within a month if you challenge Almighty God! Blasphemy! The reek of it is enough to damn your soul to hell.’

  ‘I care not!’ Geoffrey sneered. ‘You black crows watch and wait to pick over the entrails of honest men in the name of God. You’ve no jurisdiction over me. I’m no puppet of yours to dance to your tune.’

  The defiance thrilled me. This was war. Abbots Suger and Bernard had done their best to hammer out a truce but I could see the Angevin temper was up, fire-bright, and Louis was in a fractious mood.

  ‘You’ve no right to besiege my Seneschal in his own castle.’

  ‘I do if it’s used as a base for attack.’

  ‘Neither have you the right to bestow Normandy on your son.’

  ‘I have every right.’

  ‘Not without my permission you don’t.’

  ‘My will is my own in my lands.’

  ‘I am your liege lord. You answer to me for Normandy.’

  From bad to worse. Berloi groaned in agony, grey-faced with pain and fatigue.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ Louis snapped at last. ‘Let my Seneschal sit.’

  Count Geoffrey hauled him upright again with the chain. ‘Not until I have a judgment from you. Or until you acknowledge me as Duke of Normandy, sire.’

  A little silence settled on us.

  A new voice in the argument, heavy with respect, low and with a rough edge, it was a voice that took command. When he had last come to court he had remained silent until spoken to. But no longer. My eye slid to its owner. It had been difficult to keep it away. And so I allowed myself to take cognizance at last of what had become of Henry Plantagenet.

  The Seneschal’s all-too-vocal sufferings faded away, my surroundings retreated as my focus changed and centred on the man who had dared to write to me when I had been lost and bereft.

  If you should find a need for the protection of a strong arm from a man who has always admired you, I am he. I can be your eyes and ears …

  Henry Plantagenet. Henry, now Duke of Normandy. Henry, would-be King of England.

  I appraised him thoroughly, marvelling at his bold self-belief. What if I had rejected him, shown the letter to Louis? He would immediately have been branded traitor, with Louis breathing fire and swearing revenge. Had it even crossed his mind? I thought it had not, and even if it had, he would not fear Louis. A threat from Louis to this man would be as limp as a pennon in a damp breeze.

  ‘I am now Duke of Normandy, and accepted by my barons,’ he said in that same forthright manner. ‘I’ll not be your enemy, sire, but neither will I step down.’

  A challenge, no less. Here was a man, much like his father, and yet not. The russet hair was the same, surprisingly close cropped, unlike the prevailing fashion, the clear grey eyes that watched and assessed and pierced—I recognised those. And the physical energy that all but shimmered around him, but was at this moment carefully reined in with a thick gloss of command. The hand that gripped the sword hilt at his belt would seize and hold just as firmly as his father and his forebears had done to carve undisputed territory for themselves.

  But there were differences. Geoffrey might still be the lion of the Plantagenets but the heir to that authority was already making a stance. Henry had grown into his strength. Not over-tall, and I thought he would grow no taller—if I stood, I decided our eyes would be on a level. His shoulders and chest were broad and well muscled, thighs firm with power. He had the look of a soldier as he stood, legs braced, a man who preferred to spend his life outdoors rather than in the council chamber or the Great Hall. I suspected that he had to fight hard for patience, for tolerance of those whose wishes did not run in tandem with his own. I watched as that confident stare latched onto Louis, and knew that Henry Plantagenet would happily take my husband by the neck with those capable hands and shake h
im, like a terrier with a rat, until he complied.

  Even more interesting—he had not once looked at me yet I felt the direction of his interest as if he had touched my sleeve. I had to swallow hard against the tremor that began deep in my belly.

  Henry’s hand, white-knuckled, tightened around his sword hilt as Louis shifted under the joint scrutiny of the Angevins. Would I be willing to put myself into those hands? Would he be impatient and intolerant with me? The lad who had flown my falcons had gone for ever. Perhaps diplomacy would never be an easy talent for this young lord. I thought he would speak direct from the heart without dissembling.

  A movement caught my attention again.

  Count Geoffrey was beckoning, and took a scroll from Henry. Striding forward, he unrolled it and slapped it down before Louis on the table behind which we sat, with Henry flanking him to hold down one edge as his father stabbed at it with impatient fingers.

  I looked with interest. A map. The lands of the Capets, the Plantagenets and my own vividly coloured by some enthusiastic scribe in reds and greens and blues, and I was aware of how vital my own lands were, stretching as they did from Poitou all the way south to the Mediterranean. No wonder Louis was reluctant to let me go. No wonder Abbot Suger and Galeran had formed a bulwark against me.

  ‘Here’s your proof. This is mine. And this yours—Poitou. This is your Seneschal’s castle, newly built. It encroaches on what’s mine.’ The finger almost drilled a hole in the parchment. ‘It’s deliberate provocation.’

  ‘My Seneschal had every right to protect my land. He can take whatever means necessary.’

  ‘But, my lord,’ Henry observed, soft voiced. ‘Poitou belongs to the Lady.’

  Again a hiccup of suspended breath.

  ‘So it does,’ I replied, before Louis could stop me.

  ‘Do you approve of this, my lady?’ Henry tilted his head, now regarding me with unabashed interest. No, he was not a youth but a man full grown with an impressive skill at homing in on the salient point. ‘Do you agree to illegal encroachments made from your lands?’

  I was taken aback. That he should ask me. And even more that he should wait for my answer, brow quirked in enquiry. And to my discredit, it had been so long since I had been asked such a question I was slow in deciding the most politic reply.