“My lady,” de Rançun said, “I want to say—I have to beg—you must not ride the Barb in this procession tomorrow. It’s too dangerous.”
Eleanor stopped still on the path and her face settled. She did not lose her temper, which surprised Petronilla; she guessed then that her sister had already been considering how to manage this. Eleanor’s eyebrows went up and down, and her gaze flicked toward Petronilla, taking in that she and de Rançun had discussed it, and then she came up beside Petronilla and stood looking out over the wall. Her hand slid down her front, and under the cloak the bulge of her belly showed round and ripening.
“I can still ride the Barb. They have put it out very widely around the city that I am to lead this procession. It will be a great event, and everybody will be watching. Everyone knows that’s my horse. If I don’t ride him, they’ll suspect something. And once they begin to suspect, everything will fall apart.”
“You can say he’s come up lame,” Petronilla said. “Or you like another horse. Or you could ride in the wagon with the icon.”
“You think the wagon is less a jostle than a horse?”
“We can make you comfortable in the wagon,” de Rançun said.
Eleanor swung to face him. “Do you think then people won’t know what’s going on? If I ride around Poitiers in a wagon, everybody in France will know at once there’s something wrong with me. Have we come all this way for nothing? Have we gone so far, to give it all up now?” Her eyes glinted, full of anger, and then, abruptly, full of tears. “No. I won’t give up, not now. I will be free of Louis, one way or another, child or not.”
Petronilla said, “Or I could take your place.”
They all stammered silent, and all their faces swiveled toward her. She said nothing; the words had jumped from her, all but unbidden. Eleanor said, “Sweet Jesus.”
De Rançun said, his voice low, “Yes. She’s done it before, my lady—from any distance, how often are you taken for each other?”
Alys stepped forward. “Oh. Oh, yes, that is the perfect way—Your Grace, don’t you see?”
Eleanor’s mouth was open, as if she would speak, but she said nothing; in her eyes, Petronilla saw the wild thoughts racing each other back and forth. Eleanor jerked away from them all, turning to stare at the tower.
“Can you ride my horse, Petra?”
Petronilla collected herself, excited. Eleanor was considering it, then. She imagined the Barb and could not see herself in the saddle. “I don’t know. You know I don’t ride astride very much.”
“Then we say he’s lame, and get you another,” Alys said.
De Rançun said, “If she rides the Barb, they’ll believe without a doubt she’s Eleanor.”
Now Eleanor faced Petronilla again, narrow-eyed, with a little smile. “You would have to cast off your widow’s white, at least. I’d see that, anyway. In my clothes, and if you take on my manner, which I have seen you do quite well—”
As the thought matured, Petronilla’s courage gave out; she went stiff as wood, a carved puppet. They would all stare at her, everybody, for miles; there would be nowhere to hide. They would laugh at her presumption. She would make a fool of herself.
Yet she could be Eleanor, in front of everybody, just for a day. She could find out at last what it meant to be the center of all attention, the glory of the world.
Alys said, “There are ways to make your faces utterly alike. My lady Petronilla, I have told you often, a little brush of color in your cheeks, and I have a trick for your eyes, that would make you the image of the Queen.”
Petronilla licked her lips; she tried to tell herself that she did not really want to be Eleanor. That it was to save her sister that she did this. But in her heart a new, eager lust stirred up, a sudden ambition.
Eleanor said, “Then we will do it. Petra, you are sure of this?”
Petronilla blinked; she could not meet her sister’s eyes. “I will try,” she said. “I know how to do it, I suppose. And we have to do something. But—” If she was going to be brave, she would be brave all the way. She turned to de Rançun. “As you said, I have to ride the Barb, and I have to ride astride. You must help me.”
“Good,” de Rançun said, with a quick smile; he reached out and touched her arm. “You’re a better rider than you think, Petra. You can do it.” He remembered again, and said, “My lady.”
Eleanor hugged her. “My sister.” Petronilla hugged her back, her cheek against her cheek, and shut her eyes, fighting off her fears, her wild surmises, her awakening will.
De Rançun and Petronilla left almost at once to work with the Barb somewhere; Eleanor lingered in the garden, enjoying the crisp air and the view of the river plunging along far below the wall. Alys went swiftly off to gather her brushes and paints. Only Claire remained behind.
The girl had stood back from all the excitement. She was doing nothing, her hands twining together, her eyes downcast. Eleanor turned away, looking over her shoulder, but still Claire did not leave. A tingle of suspicion went down Eleanor’s spine. She said, “Do you wish something, child?”
The girl lifted her eyes and met Eleanor’s, direct, although a frown dented her forehead. Eleanor faced her, now keenly attuned to her. “What is it, Claire?”
“Your Grace,” Claire said, and came forward, and dipped into a bow. But still direct. Eleanor had never seen her so bold. “There is something—I have long known this, but I thought—what just happened, though—I must tell you.”
Eleanor was drawn tight as a sail in the wind; she watched the girl’s eyes. “Speak, then,” she said.
Twenty-one
The Barb was agile as a cat, headstrong and mischievous; as soon as Petronilla mounted him, he threw her.
She landed hard on the grass, her hands under her. Her stomach seemed to bounce even after the rest of her had stopped. De Rançun was settling the gray Barb down, and he said, “We’ll get another horse.”
“No.” She got up off the ground, shaken but whole, and went back toward him and the horse. They had come outside the city to do this, to a meadow in the woods, and there were no witnesses; here she looked like a fool only to herself. And to de Rançun, who knew anyway.
The horse snorted at her, his ears switching back and forth, and his eyes gleaming with a wicked joy, as if he had just done something wonderful. He tossed his long white mane and snorted. Now that he knew he could pitch her, he would try it again as soon as possible. She said, between her teeth, “I will ride him—help me.”
She thought, I am not worthy if I cannot ride her horse. She did not think what she was worthy of, if she could.
De Rançun said, “Keep your heels down and your head up—I’ll hold his bridle this time.” He boosted her effortlessly up into the saddle, and she flung her leg across, pulling her skirts after her, sitting astride as she had not done since she had ridden her pony bareback as a child.
The horse bounced again and rocked her forward, but this time, expecting it, and with de Rançun holding his head, she stayed on, got her feet into the stirrups, and drove her heels down. De Rançun had the reins close under the horse’s chin, talking in a steady, soothing stream as the animal danced and sidled around him, light on his feet as a deer. She took up the reins.
“Let him go.”
“Keep him collected. Don’t let him stick his nose out!” He turned toward his black horse.
Under her the Barb bounded forward, swift and soft and powerful; she gathered him up, touching her leg to his side, driving him onto the bit so that he had to flex his neck. Turning him in a circle, she held him to a mincing slow trot. De Rançun rode up beside her, and the Barb shied violently, and she went forward out of the saddle again and he bolted.
De Rançun galloped alongside a moment and then fell behind, shouting. She found her seat after only a few strides and, working the reins, was able to turn the horse in a circle, and slow him down again, and get control of him again.
“He’s so fast,” she said, as de Rançun c
aught up to her.
“He’s a damn devil.” He leaned out to slap the curved muscular gray neck. “You did that very well. I told you, you can ride this horse. Just keep him collected. He can’t run away with his chin tucked in.”
Petronilla was trying to picture how Eleanor sat in her saddle, her shoulders square. Often she held the reins overlapped in one hand, one over and one under. Often she laid her hand with the reins together on her thigh, her other hand on her hip. Petronilla’s own thighs were already sore, and her backside hurt in a new place; this was much less comfortable than riding aside, she thought, but also she had more mastery of the horse. She made the Barb canter in a circle, his action smooth as cream, like riding in the crook of an angel’s arm.
I can do this, she thought, with a surge of excitement. I can do everything she can do. With a kind of raw lust, she threw her head back and laughed out loud.
That night Bordeaux came to them, as Eleanor and Petronilla were playing tables in the hall of the Maubergeon, with six candles in a sconce set high over the board. At the announcement of him, Petronilla glanced quickly at her sister to make certain that the darkness disguised her. With relief she saw that only Eleanor’s face showed in the light, and her hands.
The Archbishop strolled across the room toward them, smiling, but he looked weary and worn, and Eleanor with a glance sent a page for a chair for him.
“Good evening, my dear girls,” he said, in his informal, Occitan drawl. He took his place carefully on the chair the page had brought; Petronilla suspected a few untested stools had collapsed under him. He planted his hands on his widespread knees and looked over the board between them. His jowls hung around his collar in round folds; his eyes drooped a little, like little red swags, as if he were always sad in spite of his jokes. “Well,” he said, “you see, playing at tables, here, your girlish impulses serve you very ill, Eleanor.”
Eleanor laughed at him, annoyed. Petronilla said, “Uncle, are you going on with us to Limoges, when we set out again?”
“Ah, no,” he said. “I’m for Bordeaux by myself; I must keep court there, and the quarter day is coming up.” He took off his cap and swiped his hand across his shining head.
Eleanor said, “Then I should thank you now for your service.”
“Now, Eleanor,” he said, “listen to me first. The King agrees on the annulment, but having the council in Limoges is impossible. Now they’re saying Beaugency, on Palm Sunday.”
Petronilla looked away, rolling her eyes, exasperated; she thought, We should have known this would happen. It’s always just too far off. It’s always out of reach. She looked down at the board before her, the counters neatly lined up on the dagger-shaped lines, no home column left unblocked. She scooped up the dice into the little cup and shook them until they rattled. Perhaps they should find some way to get Eleanor into seclusion to have the baby in secret, and put off the council until summer; at once she knew this was impossible.
Eleanor’s voice was tight as a wire. “Uncle, this is not good news. I want to stay in Poitiers, and now I will have to leave again, and until I am free of the King I cannot come back.”
Petronilla gave a little murmur of agreement. Bordeaux bobbed his shoulders back and forth a little, as if he were dodging something. “It’s that bastard shaven Templar, he wants to wring the last drop out of Aquitaine before he lets it go.”
“Before he lets go!” Eleanor rounded on him, her face blazing in the candlelight, vivid with temper. “He will never let go, Uncle, he will keep on putting this off forever.” Abruptly she gave a sigh, and sat back, and turned toward Petronilla. “What now?”
Petronilla said, “We’ll think of something.” She put one hand out, to keep her sister from standing up and revealing herself.
Bordeaux said, “Be patient. I’ll be back with the King after Christmas; I’ll go at it again with him. But—” He gave them an apologetic smile. “I have a favor to ask.”
Eleanor said, “Of course. What is it this time?”
“It’s Thomas again,” said the Archbishop. “The lute player. He wants to come back to you and is afraid he’s lost his welcome.”
Eleanor gave a harrumph of angry laughter. She turned around toward him, her eyes narrow. “Well, how very clever of him to have discerned that. He found the King indifferent to his arts, did he?”
“They will hear only psalms,” Bordeaux said. “Take him back, Eleanor; he is too good to let go to some German, or worse, Troyes.”
“Tell him to sing tonight outside my window again,” Eleanor said. “Let him be a true nightingale. And I will consider it.”
“You’re a generous woman.” Bordeaux heaved himself upright out of the chair. “I’ll deal with the King. I promise I will get you this annulment.” He gave her his hand, and she took hold of it, looking up at him.
She said, “Thank you, Uncle. You’ve done as well as possible, perhaps.” She gave him back his hand, without kissing his ring, and nodded him away.
When he was well gone, she said, “Well, that is evil news.”
Petra reached out and began to lay the pieces on the board for a new game. They had come so far. There had to be some way to win still. “Be patient, Eleanor. Everything will work out.”
Eleanor sat back in her chair, her head down, looking a little upward at her, beneath her heavy brows. She said, “Petra. Tell me the truth. Claire has told me you spoke to Thierry.”
Petronilla went cold all over; her breath stuck in her throat. She said, “Oh, the little slut.”
Eleanor was not smiling. Her eyes were unreadable. She said, “What did he say?”
Petronilla lowered her gaze to the board, where the counters stood on their pointed stations; she shook the dice and moved her men. Her hand trembled a little. When she spoke, even to herself her voice sounded off-key. “It was—it was so monstrous, Eleanor, I could not bring myself to tell you. He offered to give us Aquitaine in return for a baby.”
“Then he knows.” Eleanor’s voice was utterly calm.
“I don’t—I’m not sure.” Petronilla looked up at her. “He thought I was you. He thought he was talking to you. He made it seem as if you—might have a lover, get a child that way, and give it to the king.”
Eleanor’s head shot up. Her face was vivid with astonishment. “Oh, hideous. What a foul thing is a man without his manhood.”
“I would have told you, I swear it. I meant to.” Petronilla knew she was babbling. “But it was so absurd—I half did not believe it. I wanted only to forget it.”
“Yes.” Eleanor sat up straighter and took the dice cup. Her eyes went to the board, and she rolled out the dice onto it. Her voice was cool, pensive. “I certainly would want to forget it. But Thierry may have given us something. Perhaps we could see him again. In secret.”
“What,” Petronilla said, confused. “You would agree?”
Eleanor smiled at her, not a pleasant smile, thin-lipped and cruel, her eyes half-shut. She had rolled doubles, and she moved her men quickly down the board. She said, “But this time, it will be really me he speaks to.”
Petronilla took the cup, her hand shaking. Yet Eleanor did not seem angry, and she felt easier. “Do you think that’s wise?”
“How did you meet him before?”
“In the confessional—in the chapel at Chatellerault. It was dark, and the screen—”
“Ah, yes. You’re very clever, Petra.”
This did not seem as much of a compliment as it might have. Petronilla tipped the cup, and the dice flew out: a five and a four. She moved her men, not thinking, her mind tumbling over with guilty feelings, and a wash of relief that she had not come for one of Eleanor’s tongue-lashings.
“Well,” Eleanor said. “That was unlike you, Petra. You gave me such an opening.” She took the cup, and rolled again, and with her next move carried two of Petronilla’s pieces off the board. “I think we shall arrange this with Thierry, and see what might come of it.”
Claire had been st
udying Alys’s crafts, and her face looked actually pretty, not by nature but from art. She had grown and she held herself with more grace, even pride. Petronilla went by her into the shadowy space behind the stairwell, where they could talk unnoticed. It was early morning, and the hall was still empty, everybody so far waiting down in the courtyard, but they would come quickly up.
Yet the first thing Claire said was, “Please, my lady, thank you for letting Thomas come back.”
Petronilla said, “Give me no thanks. I should box your ears, for telling tales of me to my sister.” Eleanor had made her promise to be kind.
The girl raised her head, her eyes direct. “I am the Queen’s servant, my lady. I may not be brave, and I am indifferent honest, but I can be loyal.” Her voice was prim, pleased with this righteousness. She dipped down in a little bow. “What you are doing, to protect her and save her, that is truly noble, my lady, and very brave; I admire you very much for it.”
Petronilla narrowed her eyes and turned her head slightly away. “And you were annoyed with me over Thomas.”
The girl went red, and her teeth chewed her lip. Petronilla laughed, facing her straight on again. “Then we are even, are we not?”
Claire’s lips parted, and her eyes rose, wide with surprise. Uncertainly she began to smile. Her eyes glinted. “Yes. I suppose we are, my lady.”
Petronilla said, “Good. And I suppose you were being honest, and keeping faith, which I must depend on. Because I need you to do me an honest service.”
Claire’s head bobbed. “I will, my lady.”
“I want you to go to Thierry again.”
The girl blinked, her brow furrowing, and put her head to one side. “You want me to?” she said, with a slight emphasis on the first word.
“Tell him it is the Queen, of course. Tell him she will meet him as before, this time in the palace chapel, here. It must be late—tonight.”
The Secret Eleanor Page 18