Devil's Consort

by Anne O'Brien

  ‘Florine …’

  ‘Yes, lady?’ Looking up from her task of shaking out my robes from the chest, her face was bright.

  ‘What is the court saying about Toulouse?’

  The change was imperceptible. A tightening of a muscle here, a flicker of eyelid there. Her hands stilled on the silk sleeves she had just lifted from a coffer.

  ‘That it was unfortunate that Count Alfonso was warned of His Majesty’s campaign.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  Florine could not quite look at my face. ‘Yes, lady.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I beckoned to Agnes and we walked out of earshot in the deserted anteroom. ‘Tell me, then. What do they say about Toulouse?’

  ‘They put the blame at your door, lady. They say the advice that His Majesty acted on was not good.’ She looked me full in the eye.

  ‘And the lack of forces, the insufficiency of siege engines for such a campaign? The ignominious retreat without a blow being exchanged? Where is the blame for that apportioned?’

  Agnes shook her head.

  ‘How can that be put at my feet?’ I demanded.

  ‘It can if the initial plan was not considered to be sound. And that plan was yours, lady.’

  So I was at fault. My claim to Toulouse might be right and just, but blame for France’s defeat would not be levelled at Louis. The Aquitaine Queen must be the cause of France’s failure. I felt the bitterness of it, the unfairness of it. Perhaps it did not altogether surprise me—but I learned the lesson well. I must guard my vulnerability.

  I kept her. Agnes came into my employ. A friend? How could a tirewoman be a friend to the Duchess of Aquitaine? But I kept her because she was right—truth was strength.

  There were repercussions from Toulouse. Abbot Suger had his revenge for my interference where I’d had no authority to interfere, with the result that I found myself shut out of Louis’s meetings with his council. It was not right! The wife of the King of France had always been given access to decision-making, had always been consulted. Even Adelaide had scrawled her signature on any number of Fat Louis’s charters. I had made it my business to know that.

  But after Toulouse there was a wily conspiracy, a change to the custom, quietly done. I was not to be allowed to sit in Louis’s consultations with his advisers. My role as Queen was to be ceremonial. I was to be a cipher, a lovely face and elegant body to stand silently at Louis’s side in royal robes and bear the royal children. All I had feared. Neither my consent nor advice would be sought or acted upon. I was barred. My presence at royal discussions was de trop.

  Abbot Suger’s little victory.

  I allowed it. Would I embarrass myself by being turned from the door of the Council Chamber? But in my heart I refused to accept defeat. I would say what I wished in the privacy of my bedchamber where the worthy Abbot had no power. But first Louis must make amends for cringing so weakly before his minister. I was carrying the heir to France, was I not? I had every right to punish him.

  I withdrew from Louis. I distanced myself from him, made no attempt to seek him out, absenting myself from the formal meals with the excuse that I was unwell. When he came to my apartments, I had a dozen excuses to deny him entry. Indeed, one word of my possible ill health put him to flight like a rat into a sewer in the streets of Paris. I would bring my husband to his knees for his slighting of me. And I did, of course. It was a cunning woman’s ploy, to pretend disinterest. After no more than a se’ennight of the fictitious headache, the troublesome cough, the inexplicable rash, I brought him to me where I had closeted myself in my solar. Abjectly apologetic, Louis had a little coffer clasped to his chest like an offering.

  ‘My lord.’ My voice held the bitter cold of January, while I continued to give my attention to the troubadour who knelt at my feet, pouring out an impassioned love song. I would not be ignored and Louis would be left in no doubt of it.

  She is my heart’s one joy, crown of all ladies I have ever seen,

  Fair, fairer still, fair above all the fairest is she, my lady, as I must avow …

  My troubadour sang with pain and adoration, all plaintive emotion in his voice.

  ‘My lady …’ Louis approached.

  I waved him to silence as the singer fixed his eyes on my face and completed the sentiment.

  Now it is time, lady, that you grant your lover his reward

  Or else it would be folly for him to praise you …

  ‘Lover? Reward?’ Louis’s words were bitten off.

  ‘Certainly.’ I graced him with barely a glance. ‘My troubadour demands my love in return for his.’ How convenient that he should be singing those sentiments at such a moment—if one believed in such coincidences. ‘This is cortez amors, Louis. Courtly love.’ I yawned behind my fingers. ‘The love of a troubadour for his lady. His worship of the unattainable woman of his heart.’

  Louis strode forward to tower over me. ‘I’ll not have that man here, expressing such sentiments to my wife.’

  Better and better … ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘You refused to obey me on the day of our marriage. That was in Bordeaux, your own city. This is Paris. I’ll not have that man in your chamber.’

  My troubadour still knelt, head bent, fingers stilled on the strings. Marcabru, another favourite of my father, a songsmith full of wit, of scurrilous verses or the sweetest love songs to turn a woman’s knees to water, renowned throughout Aquitaine and Poitou. I had brought him to Paris with me from our recent visit to Poitiers. A handsome man with great charm and a heart-melting smile. A smile that was now wickedly in evidence at the exchange of words.

  Louis waved him away. Marcabru looked at me for confirmation. I hesitated, just for a second, then nodded, smiling at him and watching as he bowed and retreated across the room. My women withdrew too, leaving the pair of us in a little space of hostility.

  I turned to Louis. ‘Did you wish to speak with me, Louis?’ I asked sweetly. ‘Did you want my advice at last? Or will you continue to shut me out of your deliberations?’ He slammed the little coffer down, to the detriment of its hinges. ‘Did Abbot Suger allow you to come to me?’ I pursued.

  Louis snarled, not diverted. ‘You were flirting with him, Eleanor.’

  I made my face grave, hurt. ‘I do not flirt with my servants.’

  ‘I’ll not have it.’

  I lifted my chin a little. ‘By what right do you take me to task, my lord?’

  His reply was becoming tedious with repetition. ‘I am your husband.’

  ‘My husband? I think I’ve not seen you in my bed any time this week—this month, in fact. Even longer than that …’

  ‘Such comments don’t become you, madam. As for your paid songster. How typical of the louche south,’ he accused viciously, ‘to encourage such wantonness.’

  We had been here before, of course. ‘Do you dare accuse me of lascivious behaviour, Louis? The woman who carries your child?’

  ‘How should I not? Look at your hair, your dress …’

  ‘I am at leisure here in my own rooms to dress as I please.’ Deliberately I drew my hand down the length of my hair, wrapped about in silk ribbons, the ends clasped in gold finials. Louis’s eyes followed the gesture. ‘I recall a time when you wound my hair around your wrist, my lord …’

  ‘I’ll not discuss that!’ His face was suffused with colour. ‘I’ll not have you looking like …’

  He sought for a word. I supplied it. And not quietly. ‘A harlot?’ I suggested.

  It silenced Louis. It drew all eyes in the chamber to us. With a furious look, Louis leaned to whisper, the syllables harsh in the quiet room. ‘You will dismiss your troubadour, Eleanor.’

  ‘I will not. I am his patron.’

  Louis stalked out. The jewels—his peace offering but left behind with bad grace—were atrocious, solid enough to decorate a horse’s harness. I remained obdurate. I knew what I was about. Hardly had the week expired than Louis marched in with another box, small and carved out of wood. W
ithout apology or explanation he thrust it into my hands.

  ‘A gift, Eleanor. To remind you of your home. I know you love the perfumes of the south so I’ve had this made for you.’

  I opened the little box to release a sweet scent of orange blossom with a deeper note that tickled my nose. It was pleasant enough and I was touched that he should think of me with so personal a gift. Feeling magnanimous, I put aside my embroidery. Now was the time to welcome him back into my affections. I kissed his cheek.

  ‘I had the ingredients from a merchant here in the city,’ Louis explained, as he took the box from me, strode across the room to the open fire and.

  ‘Take care, Louis—only a little. The merest pinch. That’s too much!’

  Louis cast a hearty handful of the contents onto the fire. His enthusiasm was a fine thing.

  Smoke rose. There was the sweetness of the orange blossom, perhaps a little jasmine scenting the air, and beneath that. I sniffed. Sandalwood I expected, or even frankincense, as the base notes. That is what I would have ordered. We in the south had much experience of the skills of ancient Rome, now practised and polished by our alchemists. But that was not it. I sniffed again. One of my women sneezed. Louis coughed discreetly. Then not so discreetly as the smoke billowed and the pungency caught at the back of the throat.

  There was no escape. The perfume burned, the smoke filled the room and we coughed, sneezed, eyes watering as we were all overwhelmed with the cloying, animal heaviness of it.

  ‘Open the windows,’ I ordered when I could breathe. ‘Douse the flames.’

  To no avail. The perfume continued to give off its secrets and the mingled scents hung like a miasma in the air. By this time any sweetness was entirely obliterated, the draughts from the open windows merely stirring the fire into fresh life.

  We fled to the antechamber where we continued to wheeze.

  ‘It was very expensive,’ gasped Louis, beating at his tunic, dragging his hands down over his face.

  ‘I can imagine.’ And I began to laugh.

  Musk, of course. The most valuable, the most sought-after of base elements. To be used circumspectly, and totally overwhelming when applied with too liberal a hand. Laughter took hold and I could not stop. Everything was permeated with the scent of musk. The tapestries, the very stones of the walls. And ourselves.

  ‘It was too much, Louis,’ I managed. But Louis was already beating a retreat, still spluttering, as I mopped my eyes. ‘They say its perfume remains detectable for a hundred years …’ I gasped.

  ‘One week on the skin would be too much,’ Agnes muttered. ‘Your hair, lady! It reeks of the stuff. Who concocted it for His Majesty? They ought to be suffocated in their own product.’

  ‘Probably the Master of Horse, used to making liniment! They say it’s an aphrodisiac …’ I burst into laughter again.

  ‘And will you inform His Majesty of that?’

  We laughed until we could laugh no more, before Agnes ordered up hot water to scrub and scour our skin and hair. The remains of Louis’s gift we consigned to the garderobe.

  Poor Louis! Even his kindest efforts went awry, but at least we were reconciled.

  I was still not readmitted to Louis’s councils.

  I lost our child. For no reason that I could understand. Although my belly was hardly rounded, the birth far distant, I gave up hunting. I danced only moderately. I ate and drank circumspectly. Nothing must harm this precious child. But then a sharp pain struck in the night, a pain that became agony where there should have been no pain. The child was stillborn, almost too ill formed to be recognisable as a child, certainly too small to take a breath on its own and too incomplete for me to know its sex. Only a mess of blood and disappointment. Of the pain in the bearing of that child as it tore its way from my body I gave no thought, only the loss that lodged its despair in my heart. I had failed. I had failed France and Aquitaine. My grief surprised me.

  Did Louis blame me?

  No, he never did. He thought our loss was brought about by some nameless, undisclosed sin of his own that he had not confessed, thus driving him to endless hours on his knees to seek God’s forgiveness.

  Perhaps it was. Or was the sin mine?

  It was Agnes who held my hand when I wept, when the pain was almost too great to bear—not Louis, who was banned as were all men from the birth chamber.

  ‘What do they say, Agnes?’ I asked when grief ebbed, to be replaced by empty reality.

  She pursed her lips.

  ‘Who do they blame?’ I pressed her.

  She gave an eloquent shrug. ‘The child was born before its time. It is always the fault of the woman. It is the burden we have to bear.’

  A caustic reply but not without sympathy. I knew she was right.

  As for Louis, his despair may have driven him to his knees, but he still found time to banish Marcabru from my court. I did not know my troubadour had gone until I emerged from my chamber to be told that Louis had sent him back to Poitiers on the understanding that he would never return to Paris. I missed him, that bright flavour of the south in his words and music that might have helped me to heal. I was heart-sore, but kept it close within me. I never talked of it to Louis. It had been deliberate retribution on his part. I had not thought him capable of it.

  I think in those days my heart began to harden against the King of France.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I DID not see it but my feet tottered at the edge of a slippery slope that would take me tumbling down into a black void. It was my own fault. Had I not been so taken up with the loss of my child, with Louis’s disregard, I would never have neglected Aelith. What possible harm could come to her in Poitiers, where she was known and well loved? I should have remembered that she could be too passionate for her own good. But in fairness I could never have imagined the consequences of the freedom she enjoyed there.

  She returned to Paris, her face alight, as full of joy as I had ever seen her.

  ‘Aelith!’ I hugged her. ‘I missed you …’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Eleanor. I should have been here.’

  ‘What could you do?’ I studied her, suddenly suspicious. ‘You look pleased with yourself!’

  ‘Oh, Eleanor! I’m in love.’

  I laughed, relaxed a little. ‘Which troubadour this time?’

  ‘No, no.’ Gravity and an unusual maturity settled on her features. ‘I love Raoul of Vermandois. I want him. I want to marry him and, before God, he wants me. Will you help us?’

  Raoul of Vermandois. The man Aelith had cast her eye over at my marriage feast. Count Raoul, the Seneschal of France with the well-connected wife. Of an age to be wed, Aelith had distracted me when I had suggested it was time and beyond to find her a husband. And why was that? Because she’d had Raoul of Vermandois in her sights. And why had she remained behind in Poitiers? To be with him, as Count Raoul had been ordered by Louis to remain there and take soundings of any incipient uprisings.

  Aelith’s voice was urgent, her fingers digging into my arm. ‘I am in love with Raoul of Vermandois.’

  Simple words but heralding such disaster if I had but known it, so that it was to be Aelith who unwittingly brought me great distress. I meant well. All I wanted was happiness for her, the happiness and fulfilment such as I did not have, with the man she loved and who loved her. I did not see the outcome for her, for Louis, for me. How could I? It was beyond what anyone could have foreseen.

  ‘Tell me,’ I said.

  And she did, her eyes sparkling, her words extravagant with infatuation, unable to sit. In Poitou, as I had guessed. Late summer, the weather had been fine, offering good hunting and long lazy days. It had given much more. Aelith and Count Raoul, free from too many interested glances, had stopped attempting to deny the strange fascination they had for each other.

  I produced all the arguments. She would not go blind into this relationship.

  ‘He’s married, Aelith.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘A wife with powe
rful connections. And children.’

  ‘I know that too.’

  ‘He’s old enough to be your grandfather.’

  ‘He loves me. He’s more of a man than Louis!’

  Which was true. I sighed. ‘What makes you so certain he’s not in love with your dower, more than your mind and body?’ Aelith was a wealthy woman, a desirable bride for any man, with estates in Normandy and Burgundy. Vermandois would be a fool not to see Aelith’s value.

  ‘He likes my mind and body very well.’ She blushed.

  So that was it. I tried not to appear shocked at what my little sister had been doing in Poitou. ‘Have you slept with him?’

  ‘More often than you have with Louis, I warrant!’ she retorted with uncomfortable percipience. ‘At least when Raoul looks at me, it’s with a man’s desire for a woman, not veneration at the feet of the Madonna!’

  ‘Aelith!’

  ‘Well, it’s true!’

  True it may be, but I was not prepared to admit it.

  ‘Please, Eleanor,’ Aelith continued, wrapped up in her own problems. ‘Talk to Louis. Get his support.’

  ‘The Count is married, Aelith.’ The final nail in the coffin of Aelith’s love, as far as I could see.

  ‘So Raoul divorces his wife!’ A distinct flounce, unworthy of her claims to adult emotion. ‘If Louis will support him, why should he not demand his freedom? The Church will agree.’

  ‘Are you sure about this, Aeli?’

  ‘I am. Raoul’s come to Paris with me. I love him.’ She looked so radiantly happy. ‘Would you deny me love because there’s precious little in your life?’

  It was not something I had ever talked of, not even to my sister. How could a proud woman confess that the man she had married could barely tolerate her body? But how true her accusation. Jealousy! It struck home, a fist to my belly, and I was ashamed. How could I not give her my blessing? I promised to test Louis’s feelings, and soon discovered that I did not need to. Count Raoul had already broached the subject with Louis over a cup of ale. Taking time off from his daily appointment with the Almighty, Louis sought me out to complain of my sister’s flighty ways and questionable morals.