by Anne O'Brien
And the prize for the victor?
Louis, of course.
Abbot Suger’s warning had arisen from political necessity, as he saw it. He would control Louis’s ruling of France and thwart me if I demanded a voice. Here before me was quite a different level of opposition: vindictive jealousy, entirely personal, and perhaps all the more dangerous for it. Adelaide would control the heart and soul of her son.
And the object of so much desire to control and manage? I glanced at him. Did Louis see this potential battle of wills between the two women in his life? Would he stand up for me against Queen Adelaide if it ever became necessary? Was he even aware of the tone of our exchange?
Of course he was not. Louis was irritatingly occupied elsewhere, astonishingly oblivious, leafing through the pages of one of his mother’s devotional missals. So be it. I must rely on myself in a conflict that Adelaide must not win. I was not raised to bow before an inferior force.
Adelaide deliberately turned her shoulder to me and addressed Louis. ‘We shall meet again at supper, my son—a banquet has been prepared to mark your return and your marriage.’ She fixed him with the same formidable stare as she must have done at any time over the seventeen years of Louis’s life. ‘You will be there, of course. There must be no excuses.’
A strange comment, one that caught my attention but then slid away as Louis bowed and ushered me rapidly from the room, striding away purposefully.
‘Will you show me my own rooms?’ I asked, trying to keep up and my skirts from contact with the walls, watching my footsteps in the gloom.
Suddenly Louis was in a hurry. ‘Yes.’ He did not slow his pace. There was an urgency about him.
‘Where are your own chambers?’ I asked.
‘Through there.’ He waved vaguely towards a distant door before ushering me into my suite of rooms. ‘There!’ A light kiss on my cheek, his words delivered in a rush. ‘If anything is not to your taste, you must tell me. This is now your home. I want you to be as comfortable here as you were in your own lands in the south.’
Looking around the stark rooms, their air of abandonment, I doubted it.
But before I could reply, Louis had gone and closed the door behind him. I sat on the bed, sneezing as the mildew from the hangings released its unpleasant odour. Whatever was pulling at him was far more important than his staying with me. But at least now that we were here, in Paris at last, even in the face of the Dowager Queen’s disapproval—which I intended to ignore—we could start to make some sort of life together.
* * *
By the end of that day I was more exhausted than if I had—in my imagination since I had no experience of it—been on a military campaign. Moreover, it proved to be an education, a squint into what was to be my future. How little of my life I had lived so far—a mere fifteen years—and how much still stretched before me with all its promise and excitement. The promise was smothered by my experience of that day, the excitement all but snuffed out. What I had seen so far in the palace, the lack of any refinement or luxury, was merely replicated in the royal apartments. The vast bed with its moth-eaten hangings and damp linens made me shudder. My women for once were smitten into silence.
‘By the Virgin!’ Except for Aelith.
And then the ceremonial feast to acknowledge the new King and Queen.
Louis presided. Why had his mother found the need to insist? He led me to the dais and presented me to my new subjects. I felt their interested gaze, heard the whispered comment, particularly of the women of the court who were so far behind the fashions of the day as to appear ridiculously outré. Louis attracted no such attention. He looked no better than a well-to-do merchant in a plain tunic and hose. His chamberlain was better garbed. How could he demand their respect as King when dressed little better than a servant? I determined to take him in hand. But for tonight I settled myself to be celebrated and entertained.
I did not expect to be astonished: to be so rudely awakened into the reality of the Frankish court. But I was.
Where was the procession of courses at the royal feast? The peppered peacocks, the candied fruits, the rice cooked with milk of almond and powdered cinnamon? The lobsters fried with egg? There was no shortage of food, for sure. Meat upon meat upon meat—venison and wild boar, game birds aplenty—but so coarse and unflavoured. Fish appeared—and languished on its platter. It was not popular. No delicacies of tarts or junkets or fritters. No leaves or salads. Vegetables abounded—particularly onions and garlic—a matter for much regret—stewed or pounded without finesse into an unrecognisable mush.
Louis ate sparingly. I did what I could. And made a point of ignoring the fastidious grimaces of my women. But even I could not pretend indifference for ever to the presentation of the food.
‘What is it?’ Louis raised his cup to sip the thin wine.
I found my attention fixed on a congealing pool of strangely green sauce on the scrubbed table surface, where a clumsy page had spilt it and failed to mop it up. Nor was the wooden planking that made up the table-top particularly clean despite the scrubbing. It looked no better than the butchery block from the kitchens, and the scars might suggest a pig had been dismembered on it. Did no one care?
‘Do you have no table linen?’ I asked bluntly.
‘No.’ Louis was surprised.
‘Not even for the High Table?’
‘No.’
I focused on the charred-edged flatbread before me, a trencher to serve in way of a plate, beside it a drinking vessel and a knife to hack off portions of meat.
‘Are there no spoons?’ I eyed a dish of stewed elvers that would be impossible to deal with if a knife was all I had to hand.
‘Do you want one?’ Louis asked solicitously, already raising a hand. ‘I’ll send for one from the kitchens if you wish …’
I shook my head, repressing a sigh. Glancing along the table, I watched one of Louis’s barons scoop up the elvers with the flat of his knife, from dish to lips with a noisy slurp. I would forgo the elvers.
The Dowager Queen, clad entirely in black in markedly unfestive manner as before, interjected sharply, ‘I have always found the provisions of our High Table satisfactory.’
‘Have you?’ I gave a long look at a thick, glutinous dish that defied recognition. Louis had already given his attention to his Seneschal Raoul de Vermandois on his right so I felt at liberty to allow my dissatisfaction to show.
‘You will find life very different here, Eleanor,’ Adelaide reprimanded with a humourless smile. ‘My advice is to learn the ways of the Frankish court and accept them. It is what I did as a bride.’
‘It is certainly different from my experience.’
The feast continued, memorable for its crudity. No songs. No entertainments. Our eating was accompanied by nothing more than the slurp and chewing and belching of Louis’s barons and an increasing volume of coarse comment and laughter as the wine flowed. At the end, a finger bowl was presented to me. It was more than I expected. But I flinched from the layer of grease and traces of food floating on the top. I dipped in the very ends of my fingers and looked up at the page. He stared back at me with an uncertain fear in his youthful eyes. Clearly he did not know what I waited for.
‘Fetch me a napkin,’ I whispered.
He looked askance towards Louis and back to me. Did he expect me to wipe my fingers on my skirts? I found my attention straying from the rank water in the tarnished silver dish to the black-edged nails of its holder. Perhaps he had scoured the fire grate before serving me.
‘I don’t think we have a napkin, Majesty,’ he admitted in a hoarse whisper that echoed along the board, his face glowing with embarrassment. ‘I could try …’
The lack was not his fault. But when the flatbreads were collected, some given to the servants, some thrown to the scavenging dogs that fell on them with enthusiastic snarls, I had had enough. I signalled to my women to leave, gathering my dignity around me to curtsey to Louis. I found it impossible to smile.
&nb
sp; ‘I will retire, my lord.’
‘It’s been a long day for you, Eleanor.’ Leaping to his feet, with gentle respect he handed me from the dais. ‘I trust you will sleep well.’
I gripped his fingers for a moment. ‘I hope you find the time to visit me, my lord, before you retire.’
‘Yes.’ I thought Louis gulped but perhaps it was a trick of the guttering and inadequate rushlights. His eyes shone with warmth and, I decided, were full of admiration. ‘I hope you are happy with your new home.’
‘I am happy.’ I would make my immediate wishes plain since it seemed that I must. I leaned close. ‘If you come to me I will show you how happy I am to be here as your wife.’
‘I will …’
I ordered candles to be lit. I bathed and combed my hair, robed myself in a lavender-fragrant linen shift heavy with embroidery. The bed had been newly made up with my own linens, thus obliterating much of the damp, and the brazier was stoked, a handful of herbs from the sun-filled gardens of the south thrown on to scent the air and ward off the chills.
I dismissed my women to find what comfort they could in their own chamber.
Settled against the pillows, I waited.
The brazier dimmed into a dull glow and the candles extinguished in their own wax.
Louis did not come to me. I did not think I could have been more obvious in my invitation, and there was nothing I could do to remedy his decision. I could hardly summon him, like a lord sending for a lackey, neither did I care to advertise my own failure—my continuing failure—in bringing my husband to my bed.
Climbing from the high bed, I opened the door to rouse my women. For the rest of the night Aelith curled beside me, as she had every night when we were children. For once she was sufficiently sensitive to make no comment. For my part, I seethed with frustration and fury.
I was not a child. I was a wife. I was a woman and I wanted a man in my bed.
Where was my husband?
Next morning I was up betimes. Really, it was very simple. I knew what I must do and how to do it. Before I had broken my fast, leaving Aelith asleep, I was off in search of my absent husband. I would talk to him, tell him of my own needs, and his, not least the need for an heir. He must see sense. If it was shyness I would try to put him at his ease. I would make him talk to me. If necessary, I would demand his presence with me at night.
I would not be neglected in this way.
First his own private apartments after asking directions. I entered without knocking—why should I not?—and walked through corridors and antechambers, finding no trace of life. Eventually, opening doors indiscriminately, I discovered what must be Louis’s bedchamber. The bed was as vast as mine, hung with the blue and gold of the Capetians, the never-ending fleurs de lys glinting in the shadows.
Empty.
And as far as I could see, unused for many weeks. None of Louis’s possessions were strewn about the room. Neither brazier nor means of lighting. The room was cold and unoccupied with dust on coffer and floor. When I punched the bed curtains with my fist, I sneezed on the resulting cloud. I doubted he had been there since his return to Paris.
So where was he?
In an antechamber I came across a servant—a young boy, probably a page—who looked startled to see me but bowed.
‘Where is His Majesty?’ I asked in careful langue d’oeil.
‘At his devotions, lady.’
Of course. Why had I not thought of that? ‘Does His Majesty have a private chapel in the palace?’
‘Yes, lady. The chapel of Saint Nicholas.’
‘Will you take me there?’
‘Yes, lady … But it’ll do no good …’
‘Why not?’ Had I misunderstood his reply? I thought not.
‘I would take you, lady—but His Majesty is not in the palace’ I thought the page looked pityingly at my ignorance. ‘His Majesty is at the Cathedral of Notre Dame.’ The vast edifice that shared the Ile de la Cité with the palace.
‘He rose early?’ I asked.
‘He stayed there, lady. Through the night. His Majesty often stays there, rather than here in the palace. The Prince—His Majesty—has rooms set aside for his use there.’
‘And when will he return here?’
The lad shrugged. ‘His Majesty spends all day at Notre Dame. He observes the offices and …’
I raised a hand to stop him as truth dawned. So Louis had returned to the monks almost as soon as he had set foot back in Paris. Better a hard bed in a monkish cell than mine. The thought resurrected a moment in the previous day. Now I understood the Dowager Queen’s insistence that her son put in an appearance at the banquet. Clearly she knew him well, fearing he would run hotfoot to the monks as soon as he left her rooms. She knew him better than I! I would remedy that soon enough. A little heat thrummed through my blood.
‘I need you to take me to the cathedral,’ I ordered briskly.
Notre Dame crouched in the grey dawn, dark and looming like a sleeping dragon painted in one of the old books in my grandfather’s library in Poitiers. My young guide—Guillaume, he informed me—was for the most part silent, overawed by his royal companion and unsure of why I should wish to go to Notre Dame at this early hour. He led me along the vast arched nave towards the chancel, where I could hear the monks’ voices uplifted in singing the order of Prime.
Where was Louis? Impatient as I was, I could not interrupt the holy brothers. I looked enquiringly at the page, who shrugged his shoulders and ushered me to a seat in the chancel, then bowed and left me as if he considered his task done.
I looked around. It was difficult to see anything in the cool shadows, the early morning light barely illuminating the vast building, but I could certainly not see Louis, neither in the choir stalls nor kneeling before the High Altar, where I might have expected the King to pay his respects to the Almighty. So I set myself to wait until the service was over. And because it seemed appropriate I knelt and bent my head in prayer. For my strange marriage with Louis. For strength to make my new life here.
The blessing was administered, the service ended, the monks filed out towards the refectory for bread and beer before taking up their appointed tasks for the day. With an eye to accosting the Abbot, I rose to my feet. And looked. And looked again at Louis, my husband, his pale hair curling to his shoulders beneath the cowled hood. Now I knew why I had not picked him out. Clad in a rough monkish robe, girded with the knotted rope of the monks, Louis walked silently amongst them as if he were one of their number, under vows of obedience and poverty. His hands were clasped in prayer, his eyes downcast. He had no sense of my being there at all.
But, then, why should he? His mind was not centred on me. I played no significant part in his life at all. And seemed hardly likely to do so, a caustic voice whispered irreverently in my head, if this was where he chose to spend his time.
I stepped out, almost into his path.
‘My lord …’
Startled from his inner prayers, Louis glanced up. It seemed for just a moment that there was irritation in his face at being disturbed by an impudent petitioner, until he recognised me and the lines around his mouth softened, although I thought he was still not altogether reconciled to my sudden appearance.
‘Eleanor. What are you doing here?’
‘I came to find you.’ I would be patient. Louis looked so young, so unassuming, that the hard words I had practised during the night hours drained away completely.
Taking my hand, Louis manoeuvred me adroitly out of the path of the monks. ‘Did you wish to speak with me?’
‘Yes. Why would I be here if I did not?’ More sharply than I had intended.
‘Come, then.’ And with a genuflection towards the altar, he led me to his room, closing the door to give us some privacy. ‘What is it?’
At first I could do nothing but look around me. It was a cell. Nothing better than a monk’s cell with bare stone floor and bare walls, except for a small crucifix over the bed. And the bed, on whic
h I sat as there was barely room for the two of us to stand, was a narrow cot with a single thin covering. Nothing else.
This for the King of France.
‘Well?’ Louis asked, sitting beside me.
‘Do you stay here?’ I asked.
‘When I can.’
‘But why? You are the King of France!’
Louis tilted his head. ‘I was brought up with this,’ he reminded me simply. ‘I think it was what my life was meant to be. I should not have been King.’
The admission, the rejection, startled me. He did not wish to be King. He would rather return to his old life of worship and service. I had not appreciated how deep it ran still: his past, the childhood influences on him.
‘Do you never stay in your own rooms in the palace?’ A dark fear, a fear with claws, began to squeeze my heart.
Louis stared at the crucifix as if he realised that he had been indiscreet. ‘Of course.’ He linked his fingers with mine, although his eyes remained on the crucified Christ. ‘I know that I can’t stay here as I would wish. I am King and now I have other duties that demand my time.’
And I am one of them! ‘Why did you not come to me last night?’ I asked, although before God I knew the answer.
‘Because I was here.’ How simple a statement.
‘A husband has a duty towards his wife.’
‘And I will fulfil it. I have fulfilled it. For the past weeks I have put my father’s demands before my own, neglecting my path to God’s grace. My father did not understand. But now I am King and returned home. And yesterday was a Holy Saint’s day, so I kept a night vigil as we are instructed to do. I could not stay with you, Eleanor.’ Now he looked at me, leaned and pressed the lightest of kisses against my brow. ‘You are so very beautiful—but it is not permitted that I share your bed on a Saint’s Day.’
The claws sank deeper, the fear intensified.