Beloved Enemy (26 page)

Although he showered her with gifts—a delicate Persian vase, a gold cross set with rubies—as the weeks went by it became increasingly evident to Eleanor that Louis was having her watched. He either accompanied her everywhere himself or had her escorted by his own equerries. What did he think she would do? Try to flee back to Raymond? She longed to do just that but knew it was impossible. There had been no word from Antioch since she left and as time passed the lack of news became increasingly ominous.

Meanwhile she wandered restlessly about the city, momentarily distracted by the shaded courts, the narrow streets with their countless steps, the stalls of the bazaars, the camel caravans loaded with spices and perfumes. But all the while her thoughts turned to Raymond as she relived again and again their enchanting afternoon together.

In order to put her attention on something other than what might be happening in Antioch, she joined Louis in his pilgrimage along the Via Dolorosa, listened to mass in the Holy Sepulcher, observed the spot where the Last Supper had taken place, and toiled up the slopes of the Mount of Olives. One pearly dawn they visited the Sea of Galilee.

“Look,” Louis said to Eleanor as they stood on the shore watching the fishermen in their little boats. “They’re dropping their nets just as they did in the days of the apostles.” He fell to the ground and began to kiss with rapture the sandy bank.

Eleanor observed him coldly. In all their eleven years together he had never approached her with anything like the passion he displayed now.

“Really, Louis, how can all these ruins excite you? Everything we see is ancient and falling to pieces. A treasured monument to the holy past, I grant you, but only valuable as it reaches into the present and has something to teach us. I have seen and learned everything I’m interested in. Let us return to France.”

“I’m not ready to return,” he said, rising to his knees. “I was hoping the city might have a holy influence on you. Whatever you may have learned it does not strike me that you have become a more repentant and dutiful wife.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I think you know.”

Eleanor forced herself to keep silent. Louis was continually dropping veiled hints about her behavior with one breath then refusing to clarify what he meant with the next. The situation was intolerable.

Without a word Eleanor stormed back to the waiting litter. “Take me back to the city at once,” she told the grooms. “You can return for the king later.” She experienced a perverse pleasure in leaving the astonished Louis stranded by the sunlit shores of the lake.

When she returned to their lodging in the Tower of David, seething with frustration and resentment, a knight from Antioch awaited her.

“Lady, I bring ill news.”

Eleanor dismissed her women, called for some of the local Syrian wine, then seated herself on a cushioned divan in a chamber. Her heart was heavy with foreboding; she did not want to ask the dreaded question lest she be proved right.

“It is Count Raymond,” said the knight.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Tell me.”

“The tale does not make easy telling.”

“Be that as it may, I would hear it all.” She gripped her hands tightly in her lap. Thank the Holy Mother Louis was not with her.

“I am one of only a handful of knights who managed to escape from Antioch and make his way to Jerusalem,” he began.

“When Prince Raymond returned to the palace, and found you and the king gone, he became violently angry, determined to prove to the French that he did not need them. I’ve never seen my lord so distraught, so unwilling to listen to reason. Exhibiting a rash impulsiveness—”

Eleanor held up her hands. “I can hardly bear to hear the rest. Sweet St. Radegonde, this sounds so typical, so characteristic of my family.” Her breath caught in her throat. “Forgive me. Go on.”

“Your uncle, who is a peace-loving man at heart, ignored the advice of cooler heads as if he were seized by some kind of madness, provoked beyond all reason. He senselessly attacked the Turks with a meager force of men. A massacre followed. Count Raymond was slain almost immediately. His head—” He paused while Eleanor exclaimed in horror. “Forgive me, Lady, I knew this would distress you but you wanted to hear. His head was cut off, the skull set in silver, and sent to the Caliph of Baghdad. Antioch is lost to the Turks.”

Tears filled her eyes and an intolerable weight bore down upon her chest. Beyond speech, Eleanor reached out and pressed the knight’s hand. Unable to stop herself, she sobbed uncontrollably. Dimly she heard the knight leave and her women enter. She felt wine being virtually forced down her throat, then, still weeping, she let herself be led into her chamber and put to bed.

It seemed like she had just closed her eyes when she opened them again. It was dusk. The candles had been lit and the chamber was filled with a soft light. Eleanor, clad only in the chemise she had worn earlier that day, slid out of bed, her body numb, her head cloudy, unable to get her bearings. Where were her women? As she stumbled toward the closed door, she almost fell against a small olive-wood table. In the center were two vases and the ruby cross Louis had given her. Without warning she was seized by such an overpowering rage that it took her breath away.

Eleanor snatched the cross from the table and raising her arm above her head brought it crashing down on one of the vases. The fragile porcelain cracked like an eggshell; violet shards flew over her, slid across the table and onto the thick carpet.

“I’m going to kill you, Louis!” a stranger’s voice screamed. “I want to make you suffer as you have made me suffer.” She smashed the other vase, then began to beat the table. Huge dents, smeared with a scarlet stain, appeared in the satiny wood. “Do you hear me? I’m going to kill you, kill you, kill you!”

The scarlet stains spread. Eleanor stared at them in confusion then looked down. Her chemise was spattered with scarlet; one hand was dripping blood. A piece of sharp porcelain had lodged in her palm and she had not even felt it. Quickly she pulled it out, leaving a narrow wound in the center of her hand. Dropping the cross she covered her mouth with her hands, sobbing as her body rocked back and forth, back and forth.

Somewhere, deep, deep within her, Eleanor had suspected the existence of this wild, crazed maenad who had overcome her reason. The creature was terrifying, capable of anything, and she must suppress it at all costs. She
must.
This same frenzied impulse to destroy when thwarted, to vent rage, had led Raymond to his untimely death. It was the curse of her impetuous family, and she could not give in to it and hope to survive.

She heard the sound of running feet. By the time her women burst into the chamber, stunned at the blood, ruined table, and smashed vases, Eleanor, trembling, had forced upon herself a semblance of control.

“Bandage my wound. Tidy the chamber and find out the cost of the table. Remove that cross. I never want to set eyes on it again.”

After a few days the first onslaught of grief and rage had abated. By the time she regained control of her anguish and recovered a measure of composure, Eleanor was able to review the entire sequence of events with a clearer head. One outstanding fact emerged: Raymond had behaved rashly but Louis was to blame for his death.

Whenever she looked at Louis, she saw a horrifying image of Raymond’s skull nailed to the gates of Baghdad. She had long been disgusted by her husband; now she began to hate him, with an icy calmness that was almost frightening.

Day after day she went over and over in her mind what Raymond had told her about dissolving the marriage, examining all the legal and political aspects involved. What had begun in Antioch as mere speculation now hardened into a deadly resolve. Eleanor promised herself that she would be rid of this monkish Frank she had married, however long it took, no matter the cost. Only by freeing herself would Raymond’s death be avenged—and her own life restored.

Although she clearly remembered that the marriage contract specified that she would retain Aquitaine should the marriage ever be dissolved or Louis die, Eleanor did not dare put this openly to the test. Not yet. Any steps
she
initiated would be suspect. Not only that, there was no guarantee the contract would be honored. After all, neither Louis nor his council would willingly accept the loss of the largest fief in France. Regaining her freedom but losing Aquitaine was unthinkable. An idea began to take shape in her mind, far too soon to put into full execution, but, if she chose her moment with care, a first step could be initiated.

Early in the new year of 1149, on a bright morning in January, she accompanied Louis on an expedition to the Dead Sea, two thousand feet lower than Jerusalem. They had taken few attendants; this seemed like a propitious moment. Louis was marveling at the change in temperature—it was much hotter—and the tropical foliage, when they came upon several pillars of salt.

“Look!” Louis crossed himself, then indicated one of the pillars that wind and weather had formed into some semblance of a human shape. “This must be Lot’s wife. I was told to look for it.”

“What? That pillar?” Eleanor burst out laughing.

“Why not?”

“Louis, you’re too credulous. It’s just a pillar of salt.”

Suddenly his face contorted with rage. “Ever since we arrived all you’ve done is mock everything sacred in this glorious city. That uncle of yours has cast an unholy spell upon you. I am glad he is dead, do you hear? Glad!”

“Murderer! Murderer! The blame for his death lies at your door.”

Louis pointed a shaking finger at the pillar. “This will happen to you, make no mistake, for you have disobeyed the Lord and looked back at the Sodom that was Antioch.”

Eleanor could hardly believe her ears. He was getting madder all the time. Obviously it was not the right moment to put into action the initial part of her plan. They did not speak all the way back to Jerusalem.

The next opportunity came in Acre.

Louis, having fulfilled his vow to pray at the Holy Sepulcher, traveled to Acre, the second city and chief port of the small kingdom that comprised the Holy Land. To Eleanor’s disgust he allowed himself to be talked into joining an expedition against the Saracen city of Damascus. Since his arrival in the Holy Land, Louis appeared to have become even more obsessed in his desire to destroy the infidel—with or without provocation.

“It is one thing to mount an attack when Christian lives are at stake, but from what I understand Damascus has always been friendly to Christians. Why do you listen to unwise counsel?” Eleanor asked.

“Unwise counsel? The emperor of Germany? The king of Jerusalem?”

“The Germans are barbarians. You saw their vicious behavior on the crusade. King Baldwin is little better than a stripling, under the influence of his Palestinian barons. It is beyond my comprehension that you denied Raymond help against a very real enemy while you are positively eager to attack a friendly state for no reason whatsoever.”

Louis ignored her. He and the others mounted an expedition against Damascus which ended in disaster. The Christian armies suffered many casualties and were forced into a humiliating retreat. Eleanor had the grim satisfaction of knowing that she had been right and Louis wrong—as usual. Not that Louis ever admitted an error. If a thought came into his mind, God put it there. If matters went awry, someone else was at fault, aided by the devil.

Shortly after Easter, Eleanor finally persuaded Louis to make preparations to return to France by threatening to leave without him. Several days before they were to leave Acre she confronted Louis right after Prime as they walked down the church steps and into a waiting litter that would take them back to their quarters in King Baldwin’s palace. Louis was always the most susceptible right after mass.

“Have you never wondered, Louis, why misfortune continues to dog us?” Eleanor spoke softly, letting her tone convey doubt and anxiety.

Louis, greatly affected by his harrowing experiences since leaving France, had recently cropped his head and shaved his beard like a monk; he spent even longer hours at prayer.

“What do you mean?”

She hesitated for a moment, fearful of the risk she was about to take. “For instance, this pilgrimage has been a total disaster from beginning to end. Can you deny it?”

He stiffened and gave her an aggrieved look, unwilling, as usual, to take the slightest responsibility for his part in the whole wasted venture.

“I deny that it is my fault. Why are you always blaming me? If everyone else had done their job properly—”

“Did I say it was your fault?”

“You imply it all the time.” He paused. “Why bring it up?”

“To point out what has now become obvious to me, why our lives have taken such a dismal course. Think on it: no sons. The terrible business at Vitry. No victories since leaving France. Countless dead as a result of our pilgrimage.”

Although Louis still would not admit it, by now it was obvious to everyone that the crusade had been a complete failure, with only hundreds left of the thousands that had started almost two years earlier. After careful thought, Eleanor had come to the conclusion that this very failure might well prove her salvation.

“As usual, you exaggerate,” Louis said.

She let the silence lengthen between them, rapidly going over in her mind yet again the arguments she had prepared in her favor.

The only grounds upon which an annulment could be granted was consanguinity or adultery. If adultery were used she could be immured in a convent and Aquitaine would be taken from her. She doubted that Louis would favor adultery. His pride would forbid it, he had no proof, and Aquitaine would erupt into total rebellion if anything were to happen to her, or France tried to keep the duchy for itself. Louis’s resources were exhausted. She doubted there would be enough men returning to France to permit a widespread invasion of Aquitaine, should it come to that. Those that did return would hardly be disposed to fight so soon again.

On the other hand, Louis was often unpredictable. Her ploy was a gamble, but one she had decided to take, regardless.