“Of course. Lead on.”
Lady Priscilla, who led us deeper into the darkness of the palace, was well dressed, but her hair was completely hidden under her veil. I saw that Parisian women covered their hair like Saracens. This did not please me, but neither did it concern me. It was a fashion that I would change.
Priscilla showed off the audience chamber, where Louis often saw the lords of the kingdom. The high stone walls echoed with our footfalls, and the stench of the rushes filled my nostrils, making my eyes water. I did not lose my smile, though Amaria reached for her scented handkerchief and covered her nose.
If the rushes in that room had been changed in the last month, you could not tell it now. The men-at-arms ate there, when the king was not seated in state at one end of the hall. The smell of rotted food and bones rose from underfoot. The trestle tables had been taken up, and a great fire burned in a pit in the center of the room. That fire was the only light. Though it seemed well tended, its red haze cast our shadows along the stone walls. I stood and stared for one long moment, but forced myself to move on. Priscilla did not see me falter, but Amaria did.
The lords of the kingdom had not been in this room since the old king had stopped taking audiences, and clearly the palace servants had neglected the place since the king’s death. Or perhaps, the standards of cleanliness in Paris were low enough to allow such filth. Even among our men-at-arms, such dirt would not have been tolerated indoors in Aquitaine or in Poitou.
I managed to walk through the hall without speaking and without reaching for a pomander. We climbed some narrow, curving stairs to the second floor, our footfalls echoing against the stone. I shivered; though it was August, it was as cold and damp indoors as it was in December back home.
The woman opened the doors to the queen’s rooms with a flourish, then stood back, that I might enter first.
If the audience chamber was a stable, the queen’s rooms were a chicken coop. Fetid straw lay on the stone floor, and the walls bore no tapestries to make them brighter.
There were three rooms given over to my keeping, one for my sitting room, one for my bedroom, and a tiny one for my trunks and clothespress. The whitewashed walls in the antechamber had once been bright, but had now turned gray from time and from smoky fires lit in the room’s braziers. There was little furniture, but I had brought my own. I wondered where the dowager queen’s chairs and bedstead had gone. Indeed, I wondered where the dowager queen herself had disappeared to. I had been in Paris an hour and had not yet seen Louis’ mother, Adelaide, anywhere.
As I stood, taking in my surroundings in a stunned silence, Priscilla watched me proudly, waiting for my praise.
“How charming,” I lied. “Priscilla, might you do an errand for me?”
“Of course, Your Majesty.” She curtsied low, and I saw in her eyes that whoever she had been before I came, she would soon be loyal only to me.
“Send word to all the heads of staff in the palace, all who do not work to prepare the evening meal. Bring them here, that I might speak to them.”
She curtsied and left at once, eager to please the new queen.
I stared at the clumps of dirty rushes on the floor, and at the narrow windows above our heads. Their panes of glass set in lead casements had not been washed in weeks. Though I was grateful for the luxury of glass windows, the overall state of the queen’s rooms depressed me. Once more, I wondered where Louis’ mother was. Surely these rooms had been clean while she was living in them.
“This will pass, my lady,” Amaria said. She stood beside me and did not falter. “I will see to it.”
I paid the staff of the palace in gold from Aquitaine, coins with my father’s name carved into them. I held back some for myself, that I might keep the distorted image of his face. But more gold would arrive from Poitou with my sister, so most of the contents of my purse I paid out to my husband’s people, that they might make my rooms habitable, clean the audience chamber, and change the rushes in the great hall to keep us from sickening from some dread disease while we ate.
It took dozens of the palace staff all afternoon to make my rooms less horrible. They cleaned and scrubbed as Amaria watched them. My own women began to arrive and after their first moments of horror, they, too, set to work, directing the palace servants.
My antechamber, the one that had first brought to mind a chicken coop, was indeed small, but once it was cleaned, I began to see how a Queen of France might welcome guests there. As I stepped deeper into my rooms, I saw that my bedchamber was spacious and had high windows. Once clean, and once the rain stopped, if it ever did, those windows would bring in sunlight. The third room, the dressing room, was lined in cedar for my gowns to be hung in, a luxury I had never seen before. I would have my men take its measurements, and re-create such a closet for me at home in Poitiers and in Bordeaux.
Petra arrived and stood in the door of my antechamber as if she hoped she had come into the wrong room. I went to her, blocking her face from all who stood near. She looked so horrified that, at first, I thought she might faint. I spoke low in the langue d’oc. “It is only a little dirt, Petra. It will soon be gone.”
Eleven years old, she swallowed her tears. She missed our home as badly as I did, and she was still a child, with no crown to succor her. I took her in my arms as if to greet her, offering her comfort instead. Her own rooms and those of my women were close by. I was having those cleaned as well, so that none of us would have to sleep in filth that night.
My clothes arrived at last, along with my furniture and my own tapestries. I did not have those hung yet, but waited until the walls could be whitewashed on the morrow.
My bed arrived and was put together in the center of the largest room. I did not want it near the walls until I knew that everything was clean enough that vermin would not mount my bed. I hoped I might coax Louis to spend the night with me. Whether he touched me or not, I did not want him sleeping in his own rooms until I had a look at them. I could not leave my husband in the dirt, to be bitten by fleas and to sleep on straw. He was King of France, whether he knew it or not.
When I saw Louis that night in his banquet hall, I saw that he was not well pleased with my arrangements. He spoke low to me as we entered the hall, and I wondered if I had truly offended him by cleaning out some rushes.
“Eleanor, you have set the palace in an uproar. Queens of France live quietly, and do not bribe the royal servants with gold. It is unseemly.”
“Louis, it is unseemly for your home to be left in a state of disarray. I am shocked at it. Where is Queen Adelaide, your lady mother, who I thought to be running the household while you were away?”
At the mention of his mother, Louis’ face grew dark. He would not speak of her.
“That gold might have been better spent serving Our Lord and His Church,” Louis said.
I could not answer him, for we had come into the firelight, and were surrounded on all sides by his vassals, who welcomed us.
The lords and ladies who had greeted us earlier in the bailey stood now when Louis and I entered the great hall. They bowed to us and called his name. A blush mounted his cheeks, but he nodded graciously, inclining his head to them.
We sat together, and with great ceremony washed our hands in the silver basin his chamberlain held out for us. We dried our hands on the soft linen cloths Amaria handed to us next. Only as the first course of meat was brought into the hall did Louis meet my eyes.
“My lady mother is indisposed. She rests abovestairs. She is not well.”
His face was closed, his mouth pinched, his pale face red with fury. Clearly his mother was out of favor. I would have to find out why.
I saw that I would get no sense from Louis on the subject that night, so in honor of peace, I pressed his hand and leaned over to kiss him. He turned to me, his blue eyes on mine.
“Let me make you cheerful tonight, my lord king. It is not every night that a man is welcomed back into his own hall.”
My closeness br
ought a blush to his cheek, this time a blush not of fury but of desire. For one long moment he stared down at me, and I thought he might carry me from that place and have me in my rooms at once, or up against a wall in some quiet, soot-stained corridor. But he did not.
Louis kissed me, and offered a bite of squab from his own plate. I ate it from his hand, my lips caressing his fingertips, but his color did not rise again. He turned from me to listen to the Count of Valois, who sat at the high table with us. As the count described some matter of state that had lately been settled in the city of Orléans, he watched me down the table, to see if I might try to draw the king’s attention back once more. I did not, but instead listened to the men’s talk of politics as if I did not have a thought in my head. The Count of Valois frowned to see me so silent, and so seemingly biddable. He had heard tales of me already.
After the feast, I raised my hand and my troubadour Bertrand stood to sing. The Parisian lords and ladies looked askance at this, some of the women going so far as to laugh softly behind their hands. I saw at once that a troubadour’s song after supper was not the tradition in the French court, but Louis politely gave his attention to my man, so one by one, his lords and ladies did as well.
Bertrand sang a song of my beauty, of how all the world would come to Paris to kneel at my feet and worship me, as the Greeks had once worshipped Aphrodite. Louis turned puce when he heard that, and the courtiers around us began to mutter. Bertrand, always quick to take the mood of his audience, brought his song to a close two verses early. My own people applauded him, but the Parisians sat in stony silence. Louis nodded once to my troubadour, and I smiled at him. Bertrand took his seat quickly, wiping the sweat of fear from his brow. I saw for the first time, as he did, how different this court was from my father’s. They could not stand to hear a woman praised, not even their queen.
Louis said nothing, nor did he look at me. His confessor, Brother Francis, rose from his place below the dais. “We love and honor our queen, but we must first love and honor the Queen of Heaven. Let me now lead the company in an Ave Maria, that we might remember the Virgin and Her Grace.”
No one knelt, but all around the hall my husband’s courtiers took up rosaries from their belts. I had none with me, but I closed my eyes and murmured the prayer along with the rest. My own people, seeing me do this, fell into prayer as well. For a moment, I thought the whole place might have run mad, but then I remembered: this was Paris. There were more churches in this city devoted to the Mother of Christ than in any other, save Rome itself.
Once my father had spoken to me about French courtiers and their love of the Virgin Mary, but I had never before witnessed it. I knew that Queen Adelaide had held power in her husband’s court, for my father had told me so, using her as an example of how I would rule at Louis’ side. But as I raised my eyes from false prayer, I saw that whatever power Queen Adelaide had once held had died with her husband. I would have to look to Louis, and shore up my power with him, for these courtiers would grant me nothing.
The Count of Valois nodded to Brother Francis, who bowed low in return, as if Valois were royalty. My husband’s confessor supported the count and his faction, and wanted to be certain that I knew it. Francis stood with those who did not favor my marriage to Louis, those courtiers who did not wish me well.
I held my smile in place and lowered my eyes as if in piety. I would take control of this moment, and wrest the focus of the court away from the Church. I would return the devotion of the court to where it belonged, to my husband, the king. I turned my gaze first to Francis, then to Valois, before touching Louis’ hand.
“My lord king, Brother Francis does well to remind us of the Holy Mother, and of God’s Grace. We thank him for his prayers, both for your rule and for the kingdom of France.”
The Count of Valois’ face darkened at the return to the secular subject of the kingdom of France, as did Brother Francis’, but my people knew what I was about. My barons who had traveled with us to see me safe in Paris rose together and saluted the king. When they did, the Parisians could do nothing but join them. Thoughts of the Virgin Mary and Her Church pushed aside, the court raised their glasses and called on Louis. I did not rise with them but sat beside my husband, nodding my head as he did, accepting the tribute with him.
When his people had finished cheering him, Louis rose to his feet, bringing me with him. “My good people, Queen Eleanor has yet to learn our ways. Let us welcome her into our bosom, into the very heart of our halls, that she may become one of us.”
This bizarre and cryptic statement chilled me, for surely marriage to Louis had made me one of them already. But as I looked around that hall at the faces raised to us, I saw that not just Brother Francis and the Count of Valois hated me. Some wished me ill simply because I was a duchess in my own right, with power a woman would never be allowed to hold in Paris. I was a foreigner, and a wealthy one, a foreigner who had the ear of their king.
Louis did not make love to me, but neither did he spend the night praying. He lay in my great bed, as trusting as a child. I lay beside him long after his breathing deepened into sleep, his hand still in mine. How I would watch over him and keep his eye always turned on me among power-hungry courtiers like Brother Francis and the Count of Valois was beyond my comprehension.
The next afternoon, after the whitewash had begun to dry, I sat in my rooms while my women set up their tapestry frame in the center of the antechamber. They were to make a new altar cloth for Louis’ favorite church, the old cathedral at the center of Paris. I had not seen the church yet, but I knew that I was sure to. Let my women show piety for me, since I had none.
The room got the afternoon sun. In spite of the narrow windows, some light streamed through the heavy glass. The newly whitewashed walls gleamed, their paint not yet dry. The constant rains that had dogged our steps to Paris had lifted, and I longed to be outdoors. I would first get my household in hand, and then the government. The palace gardens would have to wait.
One of Louis’ many priests came to me then, bowing low just inside my door. I stood to greet him as a courtesy, a courtesy I saw he had not looked for.
“Your Majesty,” he said. “I have come to show your chamberlain the list of the properties settled on you since your marriage.”
I raised one eyebrow. I knew my marriage contract by heart. Louis the Fat had signed and sealed it, as I had. I got no lands in the bargain, and I brought no dowry other than the coronets of Aquitaine and Poitou. I was not sure what this clerk was referring to, but I would find out.
“My chamberlain is abroad in the palace, seeing to the needs of my household,” I said. “I will hear your report.”
“My lady queen, the report is written in Latin.”
I did not raise my voice to him as I would have done at home, had anyone there had the temerity to question my learning. Of course, everyone on my father’s lands knew that I read and spoke Latin, as well as a little Greek. A very little. I had never taken to it as my father had.
The Greeks were too long dead, too far from the world I lived in, to fire my mind. I was glad that the scholars of Paris kept the language of the ancients alive, but for myself, I would stick to languages that might actually serve my purpose in the here and now.
“You may hand it here,” I said.
He swallowed hard and stepped forward. He had enough sense that, in spite of my youth, he feared me. He had seen Louis and me in the hall the night before. He knew well that I had the ear of the king.
I perused the vellum quickly. It was only one page, drawn in a clear hand. The dower lands that had belonged to Queen Adelaide were hereby given to me. This meant that Adelaide, now dowager queen, had nothing but a pittance from her son to live on.
This was a message, telling me that if I was not careful, I, too, might be relegated to nothing and no one. The document in my hand showed me the power the Queen of France held once her king was dead, or once she had the misfortune to fall from favor.
Th
ough Louis had signed the order, his even, monkish hand clear at the bottom of the page, I knew that the order had not come from him. No matter how angry he was at his mother, he never would have thought to disinherit her himself. Louis was too softhearted; someone else had encouraged him to do it.
The Lady Priscilla agreed to take me to Queen Adelaide’s rooms. I would have visited Louis’ mother in any case, whether she was out of favor with Louis or not, but with the loss of her dower lands, I knew I must seek her out in earnest.
Priscilla took me deep into the bowels of the palace. Queen Adelaide’s rooms were far from the court, down a long stone corridor. There was no light in this corridor, and no windows. The torches in their sconces were damp, and were not lit. I saw at once why Priscilla carried a lamp with us, though it was early afternoon, and the sun was still high.
Priscilla knocked on a plain door set deep into the stone wall. We did not wait long before the door swung open, held by an old woman. It was not Adelaide; this woman was the gatekeeper. I was glad to see that not everyone had abandoned Queen Adelaide when her son left her in the dust. Her face was wrinkled and worn, but the look she bore was one of pride. I was not used to finding power in the eyes of a woman, save for my own in the mirror. But as I gazed at this old crone, I saw she was one who had stood fast and had seen much. The experiences of her life had left deep rivets on her forehead, and in two lines around her mouth.
She stared at me without speaking. I touched Priscilla’s arm, and she fell back to stand behind me.
“I am Eleanor of Aquitaine,” I said.
I saw by the look on her face that she recognized me at once as her mistress’ usurper. For all she knew, I had killed Louis the Fat myself. My youth would not dissuade her from such thoughts. Some people looked at me and saw only a girl of fifteen. This woman did not make that mistake.
To Be Queen Page 10