The Secret Eleanor

by Cecelia Holland

  Through the corner of her eye she saw Louis’s face working, fretful, and his fingers stroked the robe over his knees. He spoke to his knees. “I cannot—this cannot be the will of God, to immure her. Then there would be no prince ever.”

  Eleanor lifted her face, solemn, earnest with hard thought. She let her voice come slowly, the words unwilling. “Sire, perhaps the blessed Abbot is right—another wife, another woman would be more favorable to God, and bear a son to France. That may be the only solution.”

  Bernard gave an unsaintly, throaty growl. She turned to look at him. “It’s true—we should not be married anymore.”

  Bernard’s eyes widened in a blue fury. Thierry said, “Sire—if the marriage ends—we lose Aquitaine.”

  She ignored him. She kept her whole attention on the tall, lanky Abbot of Clairvaux, her quarry. He half-turned away, the hoods of his eyelids shuttering down. His white robes hung around him like dirty wings; his sparse white hair clung to his scalp like softest wool. Lamb of God, she thought, take away my sinful marriage. She said, “My lord Abbot? What say you on this?”

  His voice grated like broken teeth. “She is right in that, twisted though it be, as everything she does is twisted. Your marriage is a curse upon you.”

  Eleanor felt suddenly huge, and light, and on the wing, as if she had burst up out of a narrow little box. She stifled a smile. In a voice she could not keep entirely steady, she said to Louis, “Pray, sir. God will show you what to do.”

  Bernard faced her, crooked, his hands clawing at each other. She realized he had seen, too late, how she managed him to her own use. His voice flew at her like a volley of arrows. “Foolish woman! You think to be free—as those schoolmen think they are free, and then fly here to be defended from their follies. Who will protect you, if the King gives you up? You go from a kind heart into a wilderness of wolves. You will be a hind fleeing the hunt. Trust no one, I warn you—even those you have never doubted will turn on you now.”

  A hush had fallen over the whole hall, as everybody strained to witness; as always he commanded every listener, held the crowd utterly in his sway. Everyone else, she thought, heard his words as another curse. Only she saw the door he opened for her.

  She plunged through it. “We must have an annulment, Sire. For the sake of France. You see even the blessed Bernard agrees.”

  Thierry cried, “Sire—Aquitaine—”

  She said, “What use is Aquitaine, if no prince is born to rule it when you die?” She stabbed a look at Thierry. “Not that such a thing as inheritance matters to him, of course.”

  Thierry jerked his head back. Louis gawked at her, his dazed eyes white, his mouth half-open. Bernard’s clutching fingers rose, as if he could rend her apart. He reeled up his eyelids and fixed her with his fierce blue gaze. “How dare you,” he said. “How dare you.”

  She sat back, enjoying his temper, triumphant, and folded her hands in her lap. She knew she needed say no more; Louis would heed Bernard as no other, and here was the saint, agreeing with her, even against his will, but agreeing they ought not to be married.

  Bernard raked his gaze away from her and turned to the King. For an instant, she feared he would take back what he had said.

  The shrouds of his eyelids lowered. He seemed suddenly pale. He spoke in a heavy, weary voice. “Sire, I think I have come here for the last time. I am growing sorely tired here of dealing with the same matters over and over, and I have done what I wanted and brought peace between you and Anjou, although at an unforeseen cost.”

  Louis broke in on him, his voice keen, for once, with real feeling; he said, “My lord Abbot, I would keep you by me. Let me know what I might do to make you welcome in my court again.”

  Bernard shook his head slowly. “I feel my age upon me. Since old Suger died I have thought much of death, and I know my time approaches when I shall emigrate this world, and I would come to that beginning in my own abbey, in my own cell.”

  Louis said, “Without you, I cannot tell what God wants of me. Think of me. Think of my kingdom.”

  The saint shrugged his shoulders. He never looked again at Eleanor. He had just given her everything she wanted, but against the King’s pleading he was unmoved as a stone. He said, “Sire, I go.”

  Louis said, “Ah, I beg of you—”

  But the Abbot was already moving. On stiff legs he teetered toward the door. His acolytes fell in around him and he swayed away across the hall, his head bowed.

  “Then he will not stay?” Louis said, in a childish voice.

  Eleanor glanced at him. He had outwardly agreed to nothing, and yet something had happened, something surely irrevocable. Thierry knew it and was bent over him, plucking on his sleeve, whispering in his ear; she heard the word Aquitaine, over and over. Louis’s eyes blinked at her, damp in the corners. She came to her feet.

  “By your leave, my lord.”

  She dropped into the slightest of bows, and her women got up around her with a great general whispering of their skirts and followed her away, but it seemed to her, in her lightness and triumph, that she flew rather than walked.

  Eleven

  “The King will allow an annulment, and we’ll go back to Poitiers.”

  Petronilla clutched Eleanor’s hand. “Poitiers!”

  Eleanor put her arm around Petronilla’s waist and leaned her cheek against her sister’s. “I told you. The King is going to see that our marriage is dissolved. Aquitaine is mine, by my own right, so that goes with me.” Her voice dropped to a luxuriant whisper. “We’ll be home again. And we shall command it all. I will bring every great troubadour, every poet, every man who thinks for himself to Poitiers.” She leaned back, her eyes merry, green in the sunlight, fearless.

  “Now—I have a longing to celebrate my victory. We’ll dance!” She leaped to her feet and kicked her shoes away. “Marie-Jeanne, lock the door. No one will stop us, not the King himself. Alys, sing a roundel for us. And all—come dance with me!”

  For a moment, no one moved, but then as if the sun rose before them their faces brimmed with excitement. Marie-Jeanne pulled the latch closed. Alys, who had a good voice, cleared her throat and began an old melody. Petronilla’s hair prickled up. A thrill passed through her, as if somehow in this little room she were free as a bird in the sky.

  She began to sing with Alys; she remembered this song from her childhood, and thought perhaps her grandfather, the great troubadour, had first sung it. She took her sister’s hand in one of hers, and Alys’s in the other, and Marie-Jeanne joined the ring. Now they were all singing.

  Uncertain, little Claire came up, and they let her in between Marie-Jeanne and Alys.

  Alys sang, “White and radiant goes the bride—”

  Eleanor cried, “One, two, three, kick!”

  They whirled in a circle around the room, knocking stools and cushions out of the way; they were making a lot of noise. Petronilla bubbled up with laughter. She dipped and swung her arms as they all sang along with Alys.

  “The signs rise of a new love, sacred on the altar—”

  Leaping into their midst, Eleanor drew back her skirts, pointed one toe forward, then the other, and spun around, her arms over her head, her hips swaying. The others clapped and whooped; even Claire looked happy now, and suddenly she also began to sing—not the words, which she could not know, but the sprightly tune. She had a fine, high, clear voice, sheer behind Alys’s. Eleanor swung back into the circle.

  Someone banged on the door and gave a muffled shout of indignation. The women ignored this. Hands joined, they all rushed into the center, their arms lifted.

  “Love! Love! Glorious is the new love—”

  Then back out again, bowing, and wheeled around the room. Surely everybody in the tower heard this. Surely even Louis heard this boisterous joy. Petronilla leaped into the center of the circle, stepped and stepped, and whirled, and joined hands again.

  “Claire,” Eleanor cried. “Claire, you do it next!”

  The girl’s
pocky, bruised face was flushed. As they circled around, her tongue ran over her lips, and she looked shyly from one face to the next. Then the other women dropped back and began to clap, and Claire sprang into their midst.

  She did not know the steps; awkwardly she kicked out one foot, and then the other. Eleanor bounded in to join her. Taking her by one hand, drawing her skirts aside with the other, she showed her how to point her toes, how to hop from foot to foot. Claire laughed. She lifted her face to the Queen, unafraid, her cheeks glowing. Eleanor leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. They spun apart, and back into the circle, and all the women whooped. The door thundered under a rage of banging, but no one went to let them in.

  “Kiss the cross, and cast off weeping—”

  Petronilla saw that Claire had been seduced; her sister had won her over. She clasped Alys’s hands and whirled around, amazed.

  “Glory, glory to the new love, the one that I have waited for!”

  Oh, Petronilla thought fervently. Let it be so. Let it be so.

  The day following, after morning Mass, the King sent his chamberlain to summon Eleanor to him.

  Petronilla started to accompany her, but the chamberlain, with many bows, forbade it; the King wanted to see the Queen alone.

  Her sister gave her a frightened look. Eleanor smiled, to reassure her, but she felt a start of warning in all her nerves. A little queasy ripple went through her stomach. Maybe they had uncovered something, Thierry and Louis; maybe they knew about Henry d’Anjou. Somehow, maybe they knew what she herself was only now coming reluctantly to suspect.

  If they found out anything, there was no telling what Louis might do; she had no control over what might happen next. She wondered if she had celebrated too soon.

  She set off after the chamberlain, collecting her arguments as she went. The old man led her up into the North Tower, to the King’s private room, and announced her, and held the door for her, and she went in.

  She expected to find Thierry there, and to hear reproaches, and possibly proofs of her adultery and other sins, and as she went along she prepared her defenses, thought of quick, hot words for Thierry, and how to nullify whatever suspicions they might have. But when she came into the chamber, the King was alone.

  He had been kneeling at his prayers, on a prie-dieu below the floor below the cross on his wall, and he got to his feet when she entered. He wore the plainest of robes and his feet were bare. His chamber was stark as a monk’s cell, save for the crucifix of vermeil and jewels, the silver basin where he washed, and the splendid furs on the great bed. No hangings covered the stone walls, and the rushes on the floor were plain and filthy as in a peasant’s hut. The only furniture besides the bed and a few stools was the kneeling board, uncushioned, worn into hollows from the King’s obeisances.

  In the center of the room Louis stood with his head bowed and his hands together, like a monk. Eleanor dipped down into a salute to him, wondering, with even more alarm than before, what he intended.

  “My lord,” she said. “Good day to you, sir, I hope you are well.”

  Louis was wan as paper, his eyes red-rimmed. He said, “Eleanor. My Eleanor. Thank you for coming to me.”

  She gave an angry laugh, taut, unreassured. “Sir, you command me utterly.”

  “Oh, would that I did,” Louis said. He went to a stool by the wall, sank down on it, and passed one hand over his face. “But you are your own lord, my Eleanor, and you heed only your own commands. Come sit by me, and share your mind with me, as you did when we were first married.”

  With dragging feet, she approached him. The other stool was on the far side of the room, and she spread her skirts out on the dirty rushes and sat on the floor next to him. Thus she had done when they were so much younger, newly crowned and fresh as flowers; then they had talked like angels over great plans and schemes, which she realized now had been all her plans and schemes, which he only longed to inhabit.

  He seemed so heavy now, and old. He ran his hand over his face again, as if he could push his features into shape. For a moment he did not speak, and she did not hurry him, edgy as she was over what he meant to tell her.

  At last, he said, “The Holy Father himself said we were fit to be married. He led us to the chamber with his own hand. I cannot believe—”

  “You heard Bernard,” she said; her belly tightened. Everything she had thought settled seemed about to come undone. “Sir, we cannot stay together. God Himself has unmade our marriage, by keeping from us the seal of it, our son, the prince of France. I know this is God’s judgment. I will obey it; I shall never come to you again as a wife.”

  “But what will happen to you?” he cried. “You know—” He bent toward her, took her hand between his; in spite of the heat, his palms were clammy and cold. “If you heard what they say of you. Of what may befall you, if I withdraw my protection from you. I can’t bear it.” He let go of her and raised his hands up to his face; his fingers wound in his hair. “God gave you to me, and now I am giving up my charge; I am failing, again.”

  “Sir,” she said, looking up at him, “calm yourself. Remember, you are King of France.”

  “I can never forget,” Louis said. He lowered his hands to his lap. Perched on the stool, he straightened a little, as if with a great effort, his lips pressed together, and gave her a long look.

  He said, “What I have of kingship I have learned from other people: Suger, and Father, and you. But you were born royal.”

  “Bah,” she said.

  “I never know what to do,” he said. “And yet everything I do shakes the world.”

  She said, “Without me here, you will find it easier. You could marry a German princess. I understand the cold weather gives them iron wombs, where you may cast a prince.”

  His pale eyes searched over her face. “Then you want this, in spite of all?”

  “Yes,” she said, “for both of us. Louis, it’s the only way.”

  He put out his hand, and she took it, trying to be patient, waiting for him to agree, as he must agree, but before he spoke, there came a thunderous knock on the door.

  Eleanor got up to her feet, knowing that imperious clamor, and Louis spoke. Thierry Galeran came in, his face shining with sweat, drawing after him a man in a dirty coat. The eunuch secretary went up before the King, who was still sitting on the stool, holding her by the hand. She backed away, letting go of Louis. She expected some barrage of accusations from Thierry, but he spoke straight to the King.

  “Anjou’s dead.”

  Eleanor said, stupidly, “What?” She thought, at first, he meant Henry, and her heart shrank. Louis only blinked, his lips parting. Thierry looked from Louis to Eleanor and back again to the King.

  “The Count of Anjou, Geoffrey le Bel, is dead. They were riding back to Anjou when they left here, and they stopped at the river to swim, it being so hot, you remember, this was a week ago, how hot—anyway, he came out of the water and took a chill and he lay down in a strange bed and he died.”

  Eleanor turned slightly away, hiding her chaotic thoughts from them. In her mind, Bernard’s voice rang out, telling Anjou he would be dead inside the month, and now he was. She shivered. Louis’s voice creaked; she knew he remembered that also. “Who is this with you? The messenger? You, tell me your news.”

  Eleanor looked over her shoulder. The messenger stepped forward; the dust of the road lay in a gritty film on his skin. He said, “I saw the Count lying there, cold as cheese.”

  Eleanor pressed her hands together, not praying. She forced her mind away from Bernard’s curse, toward something else about this: With his father dead, Henry was Count of Anjou, as well as Duke of Normandy, all the better to promote himself to the English crown. She remembered his impatience, his fierce lovemaking, and she began to feel better; a thrill of delight went through her, a lusty throe, that he who wanted her grew greater by the day.

  She laid one hand on her belly. Something there, she feared, grew greater day by day, and that could ruin eve
rything.

  The messenger was saying, “They dragged him on up to Le Mans, and he’s buried there. There’s a council called, they say, but it’s a wonder who will come; they’re already fighting over his leavings.”

  Thierry said, “So. Now that there’s all this uncertainty, we could stir up some of the old rivalries.” He rubbed his hands together, smiling like a merchant over his scales. “Half the barons will rebel, and in Normandy, too. We’ll see how well this new lord manages that.”

  Louis waved that off. “They’ll do what they usually do.” He turned his head away, looking down. Anjou’s death itself still held him. “So sudden. He was a man in the fullness of his strength, not much older than I am.” He would not put his mind to policy, was still thinking of Geoffrey the Handsome, now worm meat, Bernard’s curse come to pass. He rose from the stool, which grated on the floor, and Eleanor twisted toward him, looking up. He was watching her. He said, “Bernard knew.”

  “Yes,” she said, harsh, following the path through this to her own desires. “Bernard knows what must be, sir. Heed what he said about our marriage.”

  “Still,” Louis said heavily. “Anjou dead, and he was only here a little while ago, full of life as a kitten.” He turned to Thierry. “Go. Await me outside.”

  “My lord—”

  “Go.”

  Thierry went out, with his dusty messenger. Louis faced her, his shoulders hunched, his face drawn. Now, with the prospect before her of escape, she looked across the widening space between them and saw how he struggled to be good, and her impatient, resentful heart woke to him, who could never be good enough.

  He said, “See how it is. We think we have time, and if we did as God willed, we would have time, God would give us time, but then the blade comes down.” He nodded to her. “My dear Eleanor. You will ever have what you want, God willing or no, but maybe God wills this. I will see to it.”

  “Sir,” she said, excited.

  “It will take some while,” he said. “There will have to be a council, something, I don’t know. We are to go soon on a progress to Aquitaine, anyway, and I suppose we can summon a council there. Perhaps in Poitiers. We must have the priests at it, the bishops, who know the laws. Be patient.”