Devil's Consort

by Anne O'Brien

  As he spoke, he picked up the glove again. Then beckoned to the nearest of my women, Florine, whose attention, of course, was divided, and not evenly, between her embroidery and our conversation.

  ‘My lord?’

  ‘A needle and thread, if you please.’

  Flustered, Florine handed over the needle and thread already in her hand. Henry regarded it quizzically.

  ‘I’d rather not stitch this in green. Or in silk …’

  ‘Forgive me, my lord …’

  Henry took the offered ochre thread and began to stitch the hole in the seam of his glove with considerable aplomb and not a little skill. My women looked aghast. I was amused. Agnes, now standing at his elbow with a cup of ale and a platter of cheese with a heel of flatbread, found it impossible to keep a still tongue.

  ‘We have servants to do such tasks, my lord. Or any of my lady’s women.’

  ‘But I can do this just as well.’ He continued to apply the needle, rapidly stitching up the loose seam. ‘As I was saying, in England …’ He looked up as the quality of the silence around him struck home. His teeth showed in a sudden grimace of understanding.

  ‘So you disapprove?’ He looked at me. ‘It’s Herleva’s blood. As a superior tanner’s daughter, her skills were manifold. And I inherited them. I’m not ashamed of it.’

  Agnes looked askance.

  ‘Why the curled lip, mistress? The Lady of Aquitaine has the same blood as I. Solid stock was Herleva, and I’ll not hear otherwise.’ He completed his stitching, biting off the thread with sharp teeth, and returned the needle to its owner. ‘There—as good as new.’ He took a mouthful of ale but waved aside the food. ‘I’ll eat later. Now I must …’ His eye focused on me. ‘I see you are wearing my gift, lady.’

  I put my hand to my throat. Melusine’s necklace, of course. The opals had a distinctly baleful quality but today they seemed to glow warmly in the early light. ‘It never leaves me.’ I think I smirked. It had been a last-minute thought after my veil and filet, but there was no reason for Henry to know that.

  ‘Then, lady, we have business to discuss. And even less time as you kept me waiting overnight. Is there somewhere we can exchange plans—in private?’

  He stood up, thick-set, powerful, filling the room with his energy. It would have been impossible to refuse him. I led him to my private chamber.

  ‘What is it you wish to discuss?’

  ‘My rights.’ He closed the door firmly.

  ‘Rights?’

  ‘Of betrothal. They’re binding. And I’m claiming them now.’

  Henry was already stripping off his attire—tunic, boots, hose, chausses all dropped and scattered on the floor—with unconscionable speed. And then, as I did not resist, he dealt with my garments too with the same admirable application as he had stitched the glove. I felt as if I were at a centre of a campaign: both siege and seduction in equal measure. Henry was assuredly skilled in warfare and his techniques between the sheets had, I considered, much in common. Cunning deployment distracted me and stole my breath, stealthy advance tricked me, until rapid attack and refusal to retreat ended in overwhelming invasion. Such thorough attention to detail he had. I was stalked, captured and destroyed.

  But then, as my body glowed and my mind struggled to grasp the pleasure, I rethought Henry’s approach. Perhaps it was not a military conquest after all, rather a sumptuous feast of which we both partook, a banquet which we both shared with equal enjoyment.

  ‘You are mine,’ he had once said. ‘And don’t forget it.’

  After an hour in my bed with him, I was not likely to do so.

  ‘Do I measure up?’ he asked impudently, sprawled at my side.

  ‘In which area?’ I could be as arch as any woman in the correct circumstances.

  ‘In any you like.’

  I smoothed my hand over the interesting array of scars on shoulder and torso that I had already discovered, mementoes of a lifetime of lively combat. Oh, but he was impressive, with the smooth musculature of an athlete. And forsooth he had no modesty. But why should he? His possession of me had been both lengthy and magnificently all-encompassing.

  ‘You exceed all my expectations,’ I admitted. ‘I think I have been waiting, all my life, for you.’

  ‘The feeling’s reciprocated. You’re a beautiful woman.’ His hands were cradling my face so that I could not look away, the directness of his gaze overwhelming. ‘I believe I love you, Duchess Eleanor. I thought I did. Now I’m sure.’

  Now, that I had not expected, spoken with such an intensity of feeling, and it drove me to reply in kind, in honesty. ‘I’ve waited a long time to hear a man say that.’ I was shocked at the sudden imminence of tears.

  ‘A man you can love?’ Henry demanded.

  ‘I might,’ I hedged.

  Henry laughed. ‘You give nothing away, do you? But I think we are both satisfied with each other.’ Henry kissed me enthusiastically. ‘You do realise—you might just carry my child, my love. You have to wed me.’

  But when I expected a repeat performance of Henry’s assault, he sprang out of bed.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  His reply was muffled as he pulled a tunic over his head. Already he was searching for hose and chausses. ‘Get up, my love.’ He sat to pull on his boots and looked across at me. ‘Get your bishops and friends and family and witnesses to the cathedral, Eleanor, and we’ll marry.’

  ‘Now?’ Sweet Jesu!

  ‘Why not? Can you think of a better time?’

  When Henry loped from the room, shouting for his squire, I took a small ivory-backed looking glass from beneath my pillow and stared at the reflection. I looked for a long time, until the softness of eye and mouth, the riotous tumble of hair, the delicate flush embarrassed me. It was not right that an hour in the arms of the Angevin should weave such magic. Hearing returning footsteps, I slid the looking glass back out of sight.

  ‘I don’t believe you’re having second thoughts!’ Henry lounged in the doorway. ‘Get up, woman, and get dressed.’

  Still shaken, I did as I was told.

  And here we stood, waiting for the Bishop to make his ceremonial entrance.

  ‘I presume you didn’t ask Louis’s permission for this, as your liege lord?’ I asked Henry, who fidgeted at my side.

  ‘No.’ A man of action but few words, as I was fast discovering. His brows rose. ‘Did you?’

  ‘I did not.’

  We were waiting in the vast nave of the cathedral of Saint Pierre for the Bishop, having taken him by surprise. We had taken everyone by surprise so it was all in the way of a scramble. No one was dressed for so momentous a union and celebration, certainly not the bride and groom. Henry had managed to dispense with his mail but was in hunting leathers, my gown had dust along the hem and my hair in hasty and uneven braiding. In fact, it was no celebration at all, merely a much-desired culmination of a secret agreement set in motion when I had still been a wife. Yet I had gold and opals around my throat, courtesy of Melusine.

  ‘Legally,’ I continued, ‘without a male protector, I am Louis’s vassal and must therefore ask his blessing if I marry.’

  ‘Bugger that!’

  I choked a laugh. ‘Louis would forbid it.’

  ‘By God, he would! I would forbid it in his shoes. His loss, my gain. Look at what we’ll hold together, my love. All the land from the sea in the north to the Mediterranean and the Pyrenees in the south.’ The smile on his mouth slid into a sneer. ‘The King of the Franks—such an inconsequential kingdom in comparison—must be quaking in his pilgrim’s sandals.’

  ‘I don’t suppose we have a dispensation from the Pope either?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Being related in the third degree, as we are.

  ‘Yes, we are. And, no, we haven’t. What does it matter?’

  ‘The Pope still considers me a true wife to Louis.’

  ‘He’ll be disappointed, then.’ Henry turned and frowned at me. ‘Where’s that damned
Bishop? I suppose you did inform him?’

  I nudged him in the ribs. ‘His Holiness might excommunicate us.’

  Henry shrugged. ‘I don’t think the Almighty has enough time to be interested in our matrimonial affairs.’

  A man after my own heart. How different from Louis, who quaked at the prospect of divine disapproval.

  ‘Don’t worry, Eleanor. I didn’t think you were a worrier! I don’t give a pig’s eye for a dispensation.’ Henry took a few steps forward, then back to me, disarranging the procession as everyone moved out of his way, his voice suddenly echoing up into the vaults. ‘I’ll not want an annulment. You’ll carry a son for me—a whole clutch of them—and there’ll be no grounds for an annulment.’

  I sighed as laughter rippled in the air. I had the feeling that my life would become even more public when I was wedded to Henry.

  ‘You’re very confident.’

  The old anxieties of my past failures rose up to choke me, but Henry grasped my wrist to demand my full attention from the scurry of clerics around the high altar.

  ‘Tell me honestly, Eleanor. How often did Louis honour you with his attentions?’

  ‘As little as he could.’ I lapsed into sotto voce as Henry raised his expressive brows. ‘And only when commanded by Abbot Bernard or the Pope in at least a decade.’

  ‘Really? By God!’ Nothing sotto voce about this. I could feel the pricking of ears around me, but Henry was oblivious. ‘Who’d have thought it? A decade? You poor girl. I’ll make it up to you.’ His grip slid to my hand to link his fingers with mine. ‘Nothing will part us, you know. No one will take you from me. I wanted you and I’ve got you. Nothing will stop me from ruling the most powerful empire the Western world has ever seen. Or from me having you as my Queen, at my side. You’re mine and you’ll stay mine.’

  I stopped worrying as we made our way to where the Bishop at last waited for us, a startled but resigned expression on his face.

  When it was over, when the Bishop had gabbled through the requisite words, as if he feared the Pope might be listening from one of the roof beams, when we were finally wed with the good wishes of our small but interested congregation.

  ‘What will you wager?’ Henry demanded, his hand enclosed around mine, and with a smile altogether malicious.

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On the fact that we’ll be at war against Louis within a se’ennight.’

  I didn’t take the wager.

  Two weeks of married life. Henry gave me two whole weeks, although by the end of it he was itching to be about his affairs and I knew I could not keep his attention.

  What did I do, to entertain the new restless Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou?

  Hunting and hawking for the most part. Argument and discourse—mostly argument. He was not a man of regular hours or meals. I swear he would eat on his feet if I allowed it. I would never get a banquet showered with rose petals from Henry. Or a peacock subtlety breathing fire for my entertainment. Meals were something to be got through with speed, to turn one’s mind to more immediate matters.

  We spent an immeasurable amount of time in bed.

  Henry continued to pursue his siege and conquest with vigour. I think I learned a thing or two about attack and retreat to my own advantage. Henry proved to be a lover par excellence.

  If I had taken Henry’s wager, I would have lost it. He was right, of course. The first advance against us was Louis’s summoning of Henry to present himself to his liege lord in the Cité palace to answer the charge of treason. Henry’s response was entirely predictable.

  ‘God’s eyes, I won’t do it. Does he think I’m a fool? Once in Paris I’d find myself clapped in a dungeon. Louis’ll have to do better than that.’

  Henry tore the summons and cast it in the fire.

  Louis did do better.

  The rumours, as Henry had once remarked, filtered in to us in Poitiers, as pernicious as rotting flesh and equally unpleasant, stirring a running and indiscriminately lewd commentary from Henry. Louis set himself to building alliances to isolate us—’God rot his balls!’—joining hands with anyone who had a bone to pick with me or my argumentative husband. We heard of the growing web of enemies without much surprise, although Louis’s acumen was new to me. Some clever dealing here, smacking of Galeran. Eustace of Boulogne, son of King Stephen, who had all to gain if Henry died on a battlefield, was the first to sign up—’Well, he would, wouldn’t he, the turd!’ Brother Geoffrey clasped hands with Louis, simply because it would put Henry’s nose out of joint, and I expect he’d been promised more castles to add to his meagre tally of three—’That bastard always scuttles up like a louse in a seam, just when you think you’ve got rid of it!’ Henry thumped the wall with his fist. And then the two sons of our old enemy the Count of Champagne, Henry and Theobald, the same Theobald who had tried and failed to abduct me. Now both of them, to tie them firmly to Louis’s side, craftily betrothed to my infant daughters Marie and Alix. ‘I’ll kick the balls of the whole sodding lot of them!’

  I laughed. How refreshing to be addressed like a man, rather than a weak woman to be banished from all matters of policy. And it took my mind off the sharp stab of hurt that Louis should use my daughters against me. I would not let Henry see it—but perhaps he did—and found time amidst the logistics of war to prove his possession of me. He might talk to me man to man, but in bed I was all woman to him.

  ‘Louis’s got more sense than I gave him credit for.’ His mind reverted to the immediate as soon as his appetite—and mine—was slaked and his heartbeat beneath my cheek returned to its normal steady thump. ‘When we have a son, Eleanor, my love, he’ll get Aquitaine and your daughters will lose it. By shackling the Champagne lads to his daughters, Louis has given them every incentive to put a sword though my gut before I can impregnate you.’

  ‘Then I’d better pray they’ll fail,’ I retorted dryly, not entirely pleased with my role in this bid for power. ‘And that your efforts to procreate are rewarded.’

  ‘You don’t need to pray, dear heart.’

  After another spectacular display of masculine energy, Henry took his troops and abandoned his new wife.

  ‘Come and pray with me,’ I invited Aelith.

  ‘For what in particular?’

  ‘That Louis’s habitual fever when faced with stiff opposition sends him home before they can come to blows on the battlefield.’

  ‘And Henry’s safety.’

  ‘That goes without saying.’

  I prayed harder than I’d ever prayed in my life, and commissioned a window to be placed in the cathedral to commemorate my marriage. There Henry and I, depicted in a mosaic of vividly hued glass, a blast of colour as strong as his will and mine, knelt in solemn adoration, in perpetuity, to present the gift to St Pierre. I knew Henry would not object. He might even admire it if he returned to Poitiers and stayed with me long enough to notice it.

  The progress of war reached me third or fourth hand and caused me little anxiety. It was a brief and rapidly concluded affair. When Louis, as expected, led an army into Normandy, Henry advanced to meet him, which immediately put Louis, fever-ridden, into retreat. With fast revenge in mind, Henry went on to lay waste to the Vexin, snatching up two of brother Geoffrey’s castles, only leaving the last through shortage of time—and leaving Geoffrey hopping mad but ineffectual. After that, nothing was left bar the shouting. Louis succumbed to his righteous fever, signed a truce and fled to Paris—my prayers were answered. Geoffrey begged some sort of forgiveness, which Henry accepted with sardonic humour and little faith that he meant it. The Champagne contingent skulked below their battlements and Eustace retired to his lair in England.

  A tidy little campaign, all in all.

  What had Roger of Sicily said? Henry Plantagenet was going far.

  My new husband might be going far, but his route never seemed to find its way in my direction. I sat at the High Table in Henry’s palace in Angers, where I had moved my household at Henry’s
request as a good wife should—I did not even have my beloved Poitiers for consolation. Still he did not come. So the succulent dishes congealed neglected before me, and I listened with a heart that ached for the loss of love and adoration, the thwarted aspiration to worship at the feet of the unattainable. Inspired by the sweet songs of my troubadours, of course. Nothing whatsoever to do with ever-absent Henry.

  * * *

  Alas I thought I knew so much

  Of love—and yet I know so little.

  For I cannot stop myself loving her,

  From whom I shall never have joy.

  Plangent chords. The lute sang in the hands of a master of the craft. The angelic voice wrapped its pure notes around my heart.

  Before her I am powerless and really not myself at all.

  Since the moment she met my gaze in the mirror, which put me in her thrall.

  Heart-wrenching words. They touched my need and I almost wept with the sentiment, if I transposed she to he. For Henry left me. Frequently. Lengthily. How could he do that, and I a bride? And I was bereft.

  He managed two weeks with me after our wedding. Then a miraculous four months at the end of the year when we made a progress through Aquitaine to introduce him to my Aquitanian vassals as their new lord. Winter months when sun filled my heart and Henry was of a mind to be understanding of my barons, who resented an Angevin ruling over them—although not as much as they had resented Louis.

  During all that time, Henry had kept an affable smile and friendly approach to my vassals who were at best suspicious, at worst hostile to a new lord who might bleed them dry to fund an invasion of England. He hunted and hawked with them, drank a vast amount of ale with them and wooed them to his side. I was impressed.

  And then we came to Limoges.

  If I recalled the events in Limoges in blood-red detail, so would the inhabitants of that prosperous little town, one of my own.