Devil's Consort

by Anne O'Brien

  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.

  We had pitched our tents and pavilions outside the newly constructed city walls, prior to our making a formal entry to greet the burghers who would make their oath of allegiance. That day, after celebrating Mass, we would feast and mark our arrival in informal manner with the great and the good, the wealthy burghers and clerics. A meal was served, platters and dishes carried in from the camp kitchen, wine was poured liberally, minstrels sang. We travelled in style despite the inconvenience of canvas in wet or windy weather. Our guests from the city were seated along the board to toast our union and our felicitous arrival. Henry, deep in conversation with one of the worthy burghers, picked up his knife.

  And stared. So did I as I followed his preoccupation, and saw what Henry saw.

  The platters on the trestle were few, their contents spare. I counted the dishes: no more than a dozen and all of a humdrum nature. A stew of coney with onions. Fish that might have been salmon. A thick pottage of cabbage. Beside me, Henry’s stare turned to a glower.

  I beckoned to a servant. ‘Are there no roasted meats? Send in the rest, if you will. This is no formal banquet …’

  ‘There is no more, lady,’ he croaked.

  Henry skewered our steward with a glance. ‘Send in the cook, if you please.’ The soft accents did not correspond with the tightening of his lips, the white shade that settled around his mouth.

  The cook, a portly man of rare reputation and skill in my kitchens, bowed low, and lost no time in the telling, hands raised in apology. ‘How can I show my skills when I don’t have the wherewithal, my lord? The burghers of Limoges have failed to provide me with the customary supplies due to their liege lord. This is all we have.’

  Henry’s eyes travelled along the table to search out the Abbot of Saint-Martial, who sat in self-regarding splendor, the jewels on his fingers winking.

  ‘Explain, sir.’ Although unnervingly mild, the demand hung in the air.

  ‘We fulfilled the letter of the law, my lord.’ The Bishop had a terrible smugness. I trembled for him.

  ‘Whose law?’

  ‘Our feudal duty to our lord, the Lady Eleanor. Supplies are due from us for her comfort and sustenance.’ Unfortunately the abbatial lips curved into the smallest of smiles. ‘When the Lady is lodged within the city walls.’

  ‘What?’ Henry’s voice grew softer still. He leaned forward, the better to hear.

  ‘Since the Lady Eleanor is domiciled in a tent, not in the castle, and thus outside the walls, we are not duty bound …’

  He was foolish enough to make no attempt to hide the calculated intransigence. I was taken aback by such defiance, such arrogance, such a calculated challenge to Henry as his new overlord. It was also no less a slap in my face. I opened my mouth to reply, to demand the feudal service due to me, but Henry stilled me with a hand on my arm. His other hand grasped a knife from the board as if he would consider burying it in the costly robes of the Abbot.

  ‘Would you care to repeat that?’ Henry invited.

  ‘We are not duty bound …’

  The Abbot got no further. With an upward and downward stroke with his arm, as if he were a blacksmith beating out a horseshoe, Henry hammered the knife to the hilt in the top of the table, snarling an order, the steward leaping to obey.

  ‘You will not insult my wife. You will not neglect your feudal obligations. Summon my military commander!’

  A brief conversation ensued—or rather a barrage of instructions to which the commander nodded brusquely. ‘Do it!’ Henry growled, got to his feet and set his hands to the white cloth that covered the table.

  ‘No!�
�� I managed in horror, gripping hard to anchor the cloth.

  It would have been like stopping the encroachment of a military force in full attack. With white-lipped fury, Henry dragged the cloth and its burden toward him. The feast, such as it was, was swept to the floor.

  ‘Out!’ he ordered, only to seize a handful of the Abbot’s chasuble before he could make it to the door. ‘Oh, no, you don’t. You’ll come with me. You’ll witness this … And you’ll be afraid.’

  And I stood in frozen shock as I watched the first assault on the impressive, newly-constructed walls of the city of Limoges that began as soon as Henry could buckle on his mail and snatch up his weapons.

  The offending structures were razed to the ground, the arches of the new bridge over the river destroyed. No one dared stand in Henry’s path. Or not many, and they paid a high price. And when it was over?

  ‘There, my lord Abbot.’ Henry smiled at the trembling cleric, who had been hauled out of his lodgings to view the aftermath, and clearly feared that he might be the next on my lord’s list for revenge. ‘No abbot, no burgher, not even a beggar in the streets can use the city walls as an excuse to withhold from me or the Lady what is due to us.’

  And as fast as it had descended, the storm was past. Henry abandoned his prey and flung his gauntlets down beside me where I sat in my pavilion, hooking his toe around a stool and sitting in one smooth movement as if nothing were amiss.

  ‘I’m hungry.’

  ‘It’s your own fault. You threw what there was to eat on the floor. A very respectable salmon as I recall …’

  ‘In a good cause.’ His smile was rueful, charmingly apologetic, typically Henry. ‘I don’t suppose you could find me something to eat …?’

  We all learned to treat Henry Plantagenet with discretion at Limoges. This blazing, immoderate exhibition of temper was yet another facet to the man who was my husband and who I loved beyond reason.

  As for the rest, my recollections were sweet. Hunting and hawking in crisp autumn days. Nights enclosed in our own private domain in a haze of pleasure. A time when I had to hoard the bright memories against the coming of drought. For after those four months—nothing. Only endless weeks of vast distance between us and infrequent news. I clung to the memories, like beads on a gossamer thread that could be snapped at any moment if not handled with care. Or like a Book of Hours full of precious jewelled icons to be taken out, lingered over, treasured. Or wept over in private.