A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver (5 page)

“Louis, my husband,” Eleanor said, “have you noticed the throne upon which Manuel sits?”

“Indeed I have.”

“It is made of gold, pure gold, and it is encrusted with precious stones.”

“That,” Louis said, “is not what I noticed. I do not see the gold of which his throne is built. I see the deceit. He reeks of the sweet perfume of deceit. I fear that he has made an alliance with the Turks. We must leave Constantinople and join Emperor Conrad’s forces.”

“Can we stay just a few days more? I would like to purchase some of the carpets they use here. I think that carpets would do a lot for French floors and French feet.”

“No, Eleanor; we leave tomorrow. Without carpets.”

“Only a few days more, Louis. Manuel just brought you news that Emperor Conrad and his Germans have just had a great victory over the Turks.”

“I am not sure of that. I do not believe that truth is a habit with Manuel.”

Eleanor laughed. “You are right, dear Louis. I notice that his lips speak to his dowdy wife, Bertha—really, she ought to learn to do something with makeup—while his eyes smile at his niece, Theodora. But, Louis, if you are sure a man is lying, you know all you need to know of him. To know another man’s weakness gives you strength. Deal with him on his terms, or let me do it. The Aquitaine breeds this kind of man as readily as cow dung breeds flies! Let us stay. Let me do each thing just one more time. One more time falconing in Manuel’s forest. One more time feasting….”

“We’re leaving tomorrow. We could leave this afternoon, and we would, if you women knew how to travel light.”

Eleanor laughed. “Louis, my dear, I refuse to arrive in Antioch to greet my Uncle Raymond looking like Manuel’s frumpy Bertha. And I can tell you, my husband king, that if it had taken five sumpter trains to carry my wardrobe into Constantinople, it would have been worth it. I am as uncomfortable plain as you are fancy. I don’t know whether you bring up the rear of the caravan because you are dressed for the part or whether you are dressed for the part because you bring up the rear.”

“I will hear no more, Eleanor. We leave in the morning.”

“Do you think Manuel will mind if I take a few of his carpets as souvenirs? We can roll them up and tuck them here and there in my sumpter trains.”

“Eleanor! Thou shalt not steal.”

“But whatever harm I do my soul by stealing, I shall make up for by the help and comfort I shall do my feet. Feet have soles, too.”

“You will hardly enter Heaven on feet that have walked on stolen carpets.”

“And you will hardly learn to take a joke.”

With that, Eleanor turned her back to Louis and left the room.

GREAT WAS THE DISTANCE
that separated the beginning of the caravan from its end, but greater still was the distance that separated the attitude of the forward queen from the attitude of the backward king. Both distances were to cause trouble outside of Constantinople.

The Crusaders had not traveled far before they met some remnants of Emperor Conrad’s army. Manuel had indeed lied. There had been no victory at all for the German army; they had been led into an ambush by the guides that Manuel had recommended. Their supplies of food and water had been too short for a desert trip; the Turks knew it, and they swept down on the thirsty army. The Turks were swift and vicious. When Louis met the scattered, tattered remnants of the German army, they were returning to Constantinople, ready to go home. Only by bribery and promises did Louis convince Conrad not to give up the Crusade altogether.

Louis wrote to me asking for more money. He had done so several times before. Each loaf of bread that the Crusaders had to buy was purchased at an inflated price, and now in addition, Louis had to pay off the Germans to keep them from abandoning the Crusade.

It was an ordeal to travel through the mountains that covered their route. Their caravan was long, longer than most, because of the amount of luggage required by Eleanor and her Amazons. It was difficult for the rear of the caravan to know what the front was doing. The mountain peaks made it difficult to travel in a straight line. The women often had to be carried because they could not handle their horses on the steep slopes.

Eleanor rode up front as usual. There was little about this part of the trip that appealed to her, especially after the magic of Constantinople. It was not her way to sulk, however. A bad mood was nothing but a curtain between her and life, and she did not want to waste even an uncomfortable trip through the mountains. She would enjoy the trip as best she could, she decided. And the scenery. She would enjoy that, too.

In the morning Louis gave orders to the lead wagons telling them the stopping place for the night. He urged all the troops to stay in close file; after all, they were strangers in a strange land. On the day of Epiphany, January 6, Louis told the forward vans to stop at a high flatland, which scouts had spotted over the next peak.

Eleanor emerged from her van to stretch her legs. As she walked around the table of land that she was to call home for the night, she looked over its far edge and saw below her a valley that looked like a sudden springtime.

“Oh, Geoffrey,” she called to the leader of the forward van, “come look!”

Geoffrey of Rancon, who was one of Eleanor’s loyal lords from Aquitaine, interrupted what he was doing and came to his queen’s side. “Look below,” Eleanor commanded. “Doesn’t that pert little valley seem more like home than this pale, dry plain?”

“Yes, my queen, it does,” Geoffrey of Rancon answered.

“I think it would be far nicer to spend the night there.”

“But, your majesty, the king gave orders for us to make camp here.”

“Did the king see this valley?”

“No, your majesty. He had only the word of his scouts; they recommended the plateau.”

“Yes, the king’s scouts seemed convinced that there is no place for comfort in Christianity. Come, we will descend into the valley to make camp.”

“But, Queen Eleanor, the king gave orders …”

Eleanor looked around her. “Come, Geoffrey of Rancon, we will camp on God’s green earth tonight. I swear that Heaven sucked all the juice of life from this plain because he didn’t want man on it,” she muttered.

“Your majesty,” Geoffrey of Rancon began again.

“Yes? What now?”

“The king has given orders for us to stay in close ranks. It is difficult to reckon direction among these mountain peaks. It is absolutely necessary that we stay close together.”

“Who said that we shall not?” Eleanor asked. “The king will come up to the plain and not find us, then he will look below as I just have and see us, and then he will follow. And we shall all sleep close and cozy tonight. Give the order to move on.”

Eleanor’s decision took no longer than it takes me to tell of it, and for that reason, no one in that advance train had time to spot the Turks who were lurking in the mountains that surrounded the plain.

Awkward would be the softest possible description of the path the men in the rearward party had had to follow to reach the flat plateau. Knights had shed their armor to ease their ascent. King Louis brought up the rear of the vans, working, sweating, heaving, and at last, looking for Eleanor; she was nowhere to be found on the whole of the plateau. Louis feared the worst. As he and his men swarmed around looking for the lost forward van, the Turks found their chance. They galloped down from the mountains where they had been watching and waiting.

It was a slaughter. Louis’s men were caught unarmed, unarmored and exhausted from their climb.

Louis fought bravely. Without the glamour and the trappings of a king, he fought like one. Eleanor did not know it. Neither did the Turks know that they were fighting the King of the Franks. That the Turks did not know was fortunate; had they known that the plainly clad brave leader was King of the Franks, they would have taken him prisoner, and they would then have held him for ransom. A king’s ransom.

Meanwhile, night fell at Eleanor’s camp, and Louis and his men did not appear. One man, then two, then a few more straggled in, and the tales they told prepared Eleanor for the worst. She realized that she might at that very moment be a widow.

At daybreak Odo the Chaplain led the king into the queen’s camp. Louis was riding a pack animal. The weary king walked into his wife’s tent. Eleanor smiled, relieved. Her husband had survived.

Louis saw the smile but not its reason. He was exhausted and heartbroken. “Well, Eleanor,” he said, “can you tell me why I find you on this side of the mountain instead of up above?”

“My dear husband, you know that the grass always looks greener on the other side of the mountain, and you see, it is indeed greener here in this valley.”

Louis had had enough of his wife’s wit. He lost patience. As he lost patience, he seemed to lose weariness, too. He swung around and ordered Odo to find the leader of the forward van, Geoffrey of Rancon.

When Geoffrey appeared, the king shouted, “You, sir, are guilty of treason. You have disobeyed orders, and you shall hang in the morning.”

Eleanor, above all things, was honest. “Louis, I am afraid that if you hang my vassal, Geoffrey of Rancon, you must also hang his duchess. For I am more to blame than is he.”

“Hang you?”

“Yes, Geoffrey acted under orders, my orders; it was I, not he, who disobeyed. Geoffrey of Rancon was merely following the commands of his duchess, his queen …” Eleanor paused a minute and added, “and yours.”

Louis paused. His arms fell to his side. “All right, Eleanor. Geoffrey of Rancon shall not hang. He shall leave the Crusade and return home in disgrace.”

“And am I to return home, too, my king?”

“No, Eleanor,” Louis said, “I have a worse punishment in store for you. You will continue on the Crusade.”

“But that is hardly punishment. I love travel.”

“But you shall also show some restraint. And I know you do not like that. You and your lady friends, your Amazons, will control your whims and become obedient pilgrims. Plain pilgrims, I may add.”

“Aye, my lord,” Eleanor said.

“Tomorrow we will climb down from these treacherous mountains and go to Antioch by sea.”

“Why not?” Eleanor said. “We’ve traveled over mountains, along the seashore, and across a plateau. Now it’s down to the sea. I am grateful, my lord, that you cannot stretch your wings and fly; the air is the only route to the Holy Land we have not tried.”

Louis said, “Your bad behavior will end with that remark. Tomorrow we close ranks and head for port, and you, Eleanor, will close your mouth and do likewise.”

Eleanor was struck dumb. Louis had never spoken to her like that. But she smiled. Perhaps, she had married a king after all.

ELEANOR’S NEW HUMILITY
did not last. The Crusaders had to stay in a dirty port town on the coast while they rented enough boats to make the journey to Antioch. Eleanor’s impatience warmed, percolated and boiled over during the three weeks’ wait. She did not like stink or squalor, and the port town had too much of both.

At last they sailed for Antioch. When they reached port, Raymond was there to greet them. Eleanor had not seen her uncle in a decade. He was handsome and daring and gay, and he shared Eleanor’s exquisite taste in dress and furnishings and art. It took only the tenmile trip from the harbor to the castle for Eleanor and her uncle to make up for the ten years they had not seen each other. Eleanor emerged from that ride as saucy as the Amazon who had started out on Crusade.

Antioch appealed to Eleanor. Why would it not? It had as much history as Constantinople, almost as much commerce, and it was even more beautiful. It was more like home. Like the Aquitaine. The stiffness of court life, which Eleanor had seen and had practiced in Constantinople, was softened by her relaxed, high-spirited uncle. What a man was Raymond.

What a man! He showered his guests with gifts. Wines cooled with mountain snow, perfumes, cloths and jewels. He had the openhandedness that comes in men who love to share their great good taste with others.

Raymond also had other reasons for being generous. His other reasons were political. He wanted Louis’s forces to join his to recover Edessa. After all, he argued, no road to Jerusalem was safe for Christians as long as Edessa was held by Moslems. Louis realized that although Jerusalem was in danger of falling as long as the Turks held Edessa, Antioch, which was even closer, was threatened far more. Louis could see that even though he would be helping Jerusalem a great deal by helping Edessa, he would be helping Raymond more. He was not anxious to do that. He resented Raymond; he resented the cozy, shared laughter of his wife and her uncle. Louis was jealous.

The noblemen who were Louis’s vassals resented Eleanor, too. They held her and her willful ways and her Amazons responsible for the tragedy that had overcome them that dreadful day on the plateau. They held her even more responsible than that. Had it not been for her, Louis would never have gone to war years before; and had he never gone to war, he never would have done what he did at Vitry; and had he never done what he did at Vitry, he would never have felt the need to go on Crusade; and if he had never needed to go on Crusade, neither would they; and if they had not gone on Crusade, they would not be halfway across the world now trying to help her fancy Uncle Raymond. Even though Raymond’s plan made military sense, they urged Louis to take Damascus instead. Was it not Louis’s soul, not Raymond’s precious Antioch, that was to be saved?