Devil's Consort (31 page)

A different seed uncurled within my breast, springing into life.

If my marriage was in sin, should it exist?

This is a way out for you. An annulment of an illegal marriage.

Annulment. Freedom. In the confines of my litter, the curtains pulled against the world, my heart began to beat heavily against my ribs.

Aelith has achieved it, why should Eleanor not pursue it?

The little bubble of hope expanded, only to burst as soon as it grew because, of course, it was not possible. Louis would reject the illegality out of hand. It was useless to even contemplate it. If by some miracle
Louis agreed to give me my freedom, he would have to be willing to give up Aquitaine too. He would never do that. Even if he could be persuaded that I was not a comfortable wife for him, Louis would never give up half his kingdom.

Abbot Suger would never allow it.

The door that had opened was suddenly slammed shut.

I had the document now tucked within my bodice where it all but burned a hole. I could have truly laughed if it were not so tragic. Aelith and the Bishop of Laon had inadvertently showed me a means of escape from Louis, from France, from a life that clipped my wings, a means I was not free to take. I had found the doors and window to my prison but was not free to open them.

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 powerful 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.

‘Needless to say, I don’t approve,’ Louis remarked, his fist clenching on his knee as he sat and frowned at me.

‘Why not?’ I was completing my dressing, choosing jewels from a casket. ‘They love each other.’

‘So Vermandois tells me. He threatens to leave his wife and children and carry Aelith off and live with her, whether I say yea or nae.’

‘So what are you going to do about it, Louis?’

It had become very important that I win this chance of happiness for Aelith. If guilt was to be apportioned for the events that unfolded, I could not claim my innocence. For I had watched Aelith and Raoul together, in public, marvelling at the latent passion that arced between them. Raoul might be an aging wolf but he was still a wolf, tough and vital. The desire when they looked at each other made me shiver. Never less than courteous and respectful, Raoul’s touch on Aelith’s hand, the deep caress of his voice, the slide of his eyes over her face, had all announced his feelings for her to the whole court. Oh, yes, they loved each other.

What did I have?

Nothing. How long since Louis had last touched me? I burned with longing. My heart and my bed were a wasteland, empty and barren, and I could do nothing to remedy it. It almost reduced me to weeping until I reminded myself that Duchesses of Aquitaine did not weep. They took action to remedy the problem—and I could at least remedy Aelith’s lack. She would have her much-desired marriage, she would have her lover. All I had to do was open Louis’s eyes to the advantage for him, for France.

Louis’s brow creased in familiar worry and uncertainty. ‘Raoul says his first marriage is unlawful. He and the lady are third cousins and no dispensation was sought—so he could demand an annulment.’

‘I know.’ The Church and the laws of consanguinity were a positive quagmire into which the unwary fell. No man and woman related within the scope of four generations could wed. Without a dispensation and the passing of much gold from the disappointed couple to the Pope, such a marriage was unlawful. ‘I think you should support Vermandois.’

‘I’ve no wish to become embroiled with the Pope …’ I saw Louis almost physically retreat, but I knew how to play Louis, like a fish on a line.

‘But Louis, surely you have realised …?’

‘Realised what?’

I pushed onto my finger a pretty amethyst ring and leaned from where I sat to grasp his sleeve. ‘Have you considered the connections of Raoul’s wife, Louis? Is she not sister to Count Theobald of Champagne?’

Champagne!

It was as if I had stuck Louis. If Louis hated any man it was Count Theobald of Champagne, the very man who had refused point blank to support Louis in the debacle of Toulouse, denying his feudal obligation to send troops to aid his overlord. If Louis was of a mind to blame any man for his ignominy before Toulouse, it was his disobedient vassal Theobald of Champagne.

How fortunate!

Louis blinked. He had snapped up my bait and the possibilities swam in his eyes: revenge of a very personal nature cloaked in political support of Vermandois’s new marriage.

‘Champagne’s sister. I had forgot …’ he muttered.

‘She is. Now will you support Vermandois and Aelith?’

I purred. I had stirred the pot—a woman who had never stirred a pot in her life—and now I must leave it to simmer. No need! It took all of ten seconds to come to a turbulent bubble.

‘I’ll do it!’ Louis declaimed. ‘I’ll do it. I’ll have a parcel of French bishops annul the Vermandois’ marriage immediately.’

‘The Count of Champagne won’t be pleased.’ I held out my wrist and a bracelet of amethyst stones for Louis to clasp there. Which he did with brisk efficiency, as if fastening a bridle to a horse, his mind already distant and planning.

‘No, he won’t, will he?’ He smiled, quite wolfishly for him.

So it was done. Louis found three compliant bishops to grant an annulment on the grounds of consanguinity within the third degree. The same bishops, almost in the same breath, joined Aelith and Vermandois in matrimony.

All highly satisfactory.

We rejoiced at the celebrations. Aelith shone with happiness. The Count preened. Abbot Suger’s scowl
was swept aside. Louis celebrated his moment of victory at the expense of Count Theobald with more cups of wine than was habitual. Was that the influence, the stimulus? The wine or the splendour of the well-executed revenge? He came to my bed that night and took me as a man should take a woman. My heart lifted. Might he not become the husband I desired?

Ah, but the repercussions! Perhaps I should not have been so blinded by my sister’s happiness and Louis’s magnificent erection. Why had I not seen it, even when it must have been obvious to all but the most dull-witted?

The political aftermath was instant and cataclysmic.

Vermandois’s rejected wife took herself and her children back to her brother’s household in Champagne, putting herself under Count Theobald’s protection with loud complaints against the validity of her annulment. Count Theobald appealed to the Pope—Pope Innocent it was then, as sly a creature as all Popes, to my mind—Theobald claiming that Louis and I had pressured the French bishops into their decision, which I suppose Louis had, but to accuse him so openly, so viciously, was not wise. Neither was it within the realms of acceptable diplomacy for the Pope to respond by stamping his holy foot.

I could have told Innocent it would not work. With Louis it was a matter of soft words and gentle suggestion, not issuing directives. He may have been raised a
monk but he had as strong a sense of his monarchy as Fat Louis.

The outcome was like a ridiculous scene from a bad mummers’ play, except that there was no humour in it. I listened to the succession of couriers who brought us news and papal directives, each one overlapped by the next. Pope Innocent raged from Rome, deploring Louis’s part in the proceedings, and ordered Vermandois to return to his first wife. Vermandois refused, now happily ensconced with Aelith. The papal wrath building, Innocent excommunicated the French bishops who had acted at Louis’s orders. Louis blamed Count Theobald for the whole mess. Disastrously, the Pope gave his final challenge. The penalty for such disobedience was God’s ultimate judgment. Innocent excommunicated Vermandois and Aelith.

And then? Pope Innocent excommunicated Louis as well.

Our whole royal household was placed under an Interdict, thrust outside any relationship with the Almighty. No services, no confession, no penance, no absolution. We were abjured from the bosom of God. Louis was left with nowhere to hide.

‘By God! He’ll not do this!’ Louis seethed in horror, lured into blasphemy. ‘I don’t deserve this damnable judgment! The King of France is not answerable to Rome! God’s bones! I’m no cur to be whipped back to my master’s heels!’

The Interdict fed the flames of Louis’s wrath to a
conflagration. He raged, paced the length of the Great Hall and back again, damning the Pope and Count Theobald indiscriminately, his face strained and drawn with fatigue, barred as he was from the comfort of the Church. I made no attempt to placate him. He was beyond soothing.

‘This is all at Theobald of Champagne’s door,’ he snarled when he returned to where I watched him from the dais. ‘If he’d not gone snivelling to the Pope in the first place. He’ll pay for this. I’ll teach him a lesson he’ll not quickly forget. A vassal does not stir the Church against his liege lord with impunity.’

He was already marching out of the door, calling for his steward.

Oh, Aelith!

My premonition of disaster was now strong, storm-clouds gathering to engulf us. I prayed her marriage was worth it, for all of us.

For the rest of the day the palace was a mass of shouted orders and running feet. Rumours flew, multiplying, growing more extravagant. By the time Louis descended on me in my chamber late in the evening in a state of nervous excitement I knew what he planned. Bright eyed, exhausted yet vividly alive, he sat on my bed and laid his campaign before me.

‘We leave tomorrow, Eleanor. I’ve summoned my vassals with their feudal levies. I’ll invade Champagne. I’ll bring him to his knees. Abbot Suger disapproves but
I’m not listening. I’ll have Theobald’s head on a platter. It’s good policy, isn’t it, Eleanor?’