Devil's Consort (58 page)

Galeran’s smug complacency disgusted me. His influence was surely in the ascendant.

Never had I been brought so low.

If I had to choose the moment when I knew that I
could not tolerate this sham of a marriage, perhaps this was it. That my husband would denigrate me without foundation, listening to the slanders of those who bore me ill will, treating me like a woman rather than as a ruler in her own right with as much authority as he. I knew I would never forgive him as I walked away from that pavilion, knowing that I had been rendered powerless.

I recall I accused Thierry Galeran of being no better than an emasculated cur, snapping to protect its master. The Templar would never forgive me for that. Unfortunate, as it turned out.

That was not the end of it. Our shattered army limped out of the mountains to the nearest port, the town of Attalia, where we found no relief but instead weeks of unspeakable horror. Already half-starved, with the loss of our baggage train lack of food threatened our very lives quite as severely as the Turkish attacks. Even now my belly revolts at the memory of being reduced to eating the rotting flesh of dead horses and mules. Some knights bled their horses to drink the sustenance from their blood. We lacked clothes, shoes even. My hands and feet blistered, my lips cracked, my clothes fell into rags around me.

‘We will regroup in Attalia,’ Louis predicted.

He was wrong, of course. Storms battered us. Food continued in short supply and was expensive as the local Greeks determined to make their fortunes from us. Yet
only three days away, so short a journey by sea, was the golden city of Antioch. All we needed were the ships to take us there. The local fishermen rubbed their fingers at the prospect of crusader gold falling into their pockets.

‘I’ll not pay the price!’ Louis fumed. ‘Four silver marks for each passenger—on top of the cost of each vessel! I’ll not pay it.’

‘Do we have a choice?’ I asked wearily.

‘Of course we have a choice! Galeran says we can’t afford it. With God’s help I’ll beat them down.’

God was beyond persuasion. Five weeks of haggling, with Antioch nearly within our sights. Five weeks of indescribable torment. Dysentery broke out amongst the troops. The stench of death and bodily waste enclosed us—and then the first outbreak of plague. Death stalked us, whilst Louis refused to pay and we sat there in Attalia. Filthy, starving, dying.

Enough! In God’s name, enough! I sought out Louis, as usual praying with Odo de Deuil, Count Maurienne looking jaundiced, Galeran standing guard at the door. Without a word I pushed past him, daring him to draw the sword in his scabbard.

‘We can’t stay here, Louis.’ I didn’t wait until he struggled to his feet. ‘It’s intolerable. Our army is dying on its feet.’

And, taking me aback, Louis smiled. ‘I know. We leave tomorrow.’

‘Thank God! We’ve enough ships to move most of them—’

‘No. We march.’ What? March? ‘I’m determined on this, Eleanor.’ The fervour was back in his eyes. ‘We’ll march in the footsteps of the first crusaders. Their valour is remembered today—and so will mine be. We shall achieve glory in heaven.’

‘A hazardous journey of two months on foot—when we could be there in three days by sea? You must be insane.’

‘I’m assured of God’s blessing. If we die it will be as martyrs for a righteous cause.’

God’s bones! I was beyond valour and martyrs. I felt the strongest impulse to strike Louis’s self-satisfied, self-righteous face. Did he not understand? What mad dream of martyrdom did he hold to? My mind was made up.

‘No!’

‘I don’t understand.’ At least I had wiped the smile from his face.

‘Then let me explain, Louis! I’ll not march with you,’ I stated. ‘If you persist with this madness I will leave you and go by sea. What’s more, I’ll take my own vassals with me,’

‘But the cost …’ Galeran gasped. ‘No, sire.’

‘Cost? What are four silver marks compared with a man’s life?’ My voice rang clear, fired by a sense of rightness. ‘Our troops who can pay will do so. The rest remain here until we can make other arrangements.’

‘You would not …’ Louis looked aghast as I threatened to rob him of the major portion of the army that was left to him.

‘Try me!’ I showed my teeth in a smile that was not a smile. ‘If you march, you go without the men of Aquitaine and Poitou.’

Louis fell into an agony of indecision. His fingers writhed, his teeth bit into his lower lip. Such weakness! Such unforgivable weakness. Such lack of either compassion or common sense. As he rubbed his hands over his face I knew with real certainty that all feeling I had for him was as dead as the troops on Mount Cadmos.

‘You are forcing my hand,’ he muttered

‘Yes. I am. Tomorrow I sail for Antioch. We should have been there days ago!’

Maurienne smirked. Galeran scowled. Odo de Deuil raised his eyes to heaven for guidance. And in the face of my obstinacy Louis’s resistance collapsed. We were barely on speaking terms when we took to the little fleet of round ships.

A nightmare of a journey.

Storms descended, bringing with them all the fear of shipwreck and grim, unrelenting seasickness. Three weeks it took us of winds that drove us off course. Three weeks in which Louis lamented the loss of his dream to follow in the footsteps of those who had captured Jerusalem. He offered me no comfort, only a continued fretting that my decision had lost him an army on the slopes of Mount Cadmos. By the time we reached Saint
Simeon I could no longer bear the sight of his strained features, his bent shoulders, the unending drone of his prayers. He did not even show concern for the thousands of unfortunates who could not pay the passage and had been left behind in Attalia to starve or die of plague.

‘I forbid you to approach your uncle over this,’ Louis lectured me. ‘I’ll see to the rescue of my army. Do you hear me, Eleanor?’

‘Yes. I hear you, Louis. Do it soon, before they all die.’

If we were barely on speaking term when we left Attilia, we were not at all three weeks later when we finally arrived in Antioch. I fell into Raymond’s open, welcoming, compassionate arms.

‘W
ELCOME
, lady. Everything has been made ready for you. Come and regain your strength. Rest now. Be at ease.’

As rich and smooth as the oil from the olive trees that had lined our route. As succulently sweet and melting to a frozen heart as a cup of hippocras on a winter’s eve. Raymond helped me to alight from the cushioned travelling litter he had provided for me into the sun-filled courtyard of his palace. He smiled at me and I smiled at him as bright memory rushed back.

Raymond of Poitiers, my father’s young brother, who, landless and ambitious, had taken himself to England as a young lad where he had been reared and trained for knighthood until King Fulk of Jerusalem had invited him to travel to Outremer and become ruler of Antioch. Raymond’s visit to us in Aquitaine en route for that honour, when I was barely twelve years old,
had left a lasting impression. Only nine years older than I, yet already a man to my young girl, he had been tall, immensely strong and ridiculously good to look at. And he could sing. I recalled the velvet-warm vibrancy of his voice as he had sung the troubadour’s verses of love and devotion of a man for a woman. Sometimes he had been audacious enough to sing them to me. I had watched him as he’d honed his knightly talents in the tilt yard, battling with sword and mace. On horseback he had been a dream of long-limbed grace, of power, of polished skill. Raymond had laughed and danced and played foolish games. For those few short weeks he had entranced me, before disappearing as fast as he had arrived, all energy and vital life, like a magic creature from a troubadour’s tale.

Oh, yes! I recalled Raymond of Poitiers. I had not forgotten him, this epitome of gilded knighthood. And now here he was, in the flesh, welcoming me into his home.

‘This is wonderful!’ It was all I could think to say as I looked around, astonished at the wealth, the sheer luxury. All the fears and that terrible sense of isolation that had dogged me for days now calmed to leave me enfolded in luxuriant pleasure.

Raymond smiled and took my hand to lead me up the flight of shallow steps. ‘I think it will remind you of home. Of Aquitaine.’

‘Oh, it does. It does.’ I did not wait to see if Louis
followed me. In that moment I did not care if I never set eyes on him again.

‘Let me introduce you.’ A young woman was waiting at the top of the steps, her hands lifted to take mine. ‘My wife, Constance.’

I knew of her, daughter and heiress of the late King Bohemond of Antioch. We kissed formally as required.

‘My husband’s family is welcome here.’

Clad in flowing eastern robes, a small, fair young woman with soft blue eyes, a little younger than I, she smiled shyly before leaving us.

‘My wife keeps to the ways of the seraglio,’ Raymond explained.

So I was left to experience this manner of living in Raymond’s care. The sunshine touched my head, my shoulders. It was as warmly embracing and dulcet as a southern spring in the castles of my childhood. On the ten-mile journey from Saint Simeon I had cast back the curtains to look out in wonder. I had not expected so magnificent a city, or the instantly recognisable trace of Greek and Roman foundations as I had known in the cities of Aquitaine. Antioch unfolded before me like a precious book as it gripped the terraces on the slopes of Mount Silpius, quite magically shimmering in the light. So beautiful it was. If I did not love my own Aquitaine so much, I would choose to live here, I decided in that moment. No wonder Raymond was captivated by it. No wonder he was in fear for its survival at the hands
of the Turks. Hanging gardens, tumbling from terrace to terrace, perfumed the air, as did the tall sentinels of pine woods. Orange and lemon groves hemmed us in, their heavy perfume intoxicating.

And then the city. As we entered under the arched portal, it promised comfort in colonnaded villas, its streets paved with marble, a pleasure to walk along. All protected from those who wished us ill by great walls and watch towers.

All now under threat, however impregnable they seemed. It broke my heart that this would be overrun if Turkish aggression was not halted. But now was not the time for such heart-tearing. Indeed I was too weary for it. Here was friendship and quiet enjoyment and the easy tolerance of family. Mount Cadmos with its failure, its hurt and rejection, seemed a thousand miles and an equal number of years away. For the briefest of moments as I stood on the steps I closed my eyes and let my feverish mind rest.

‘You look weary, Eleanor.’ Raymond drew me into the first of a series of cool audience chambers. ‘You look as if you have travelled far and hard.’

‘How flattering you are!’ My cracked lips managed to smile even as I felt the burn of tears. ‘You have no knowledge of how far and how hard it has been.’ His concern struck deep and I was forced to blink. I must be more tired than I had thought.

‘You’ll soon recover your beauty. What better place than this?’ It wrapped me around, as smooth as the
silk of the new robes laid out for me on my bed, as soft as the swan’s down of the pillows provided for me. Without fuss, without drawing attention, Raymond handed me a square of linen to wipe my eyes.

‘I can think of nowhere better.’ I touched his hand in gratitude.

‘I trust there are accommodations for my knights, sir,’ Louis broke in, his voice cold, his Latin clipped. And I realised that Raymond and I had slipped into the
langue d’oc
through ease and habit. Rude, but not intentionally.

Louis had not even noticed that I was so weak as to weep in public.

‘Of course.’ With the slightest apologetic smile to me, Raymond now gave his attentions to his noble guest, returning to educated Latin. ‘Forgive me, Majesty. If I have been remiss, it is only that your wife’s health gives me concern. But now I see that she needs only rest and time.’ He gestured to a waiting servant to present Louis with a cup of wine. ‘You are as free of my hospitality as my dear niece. Your knights have all been allotted accommodation in villas and palaces as befits their rank. You may stay and enjoy what we can offer you as long as you need. Certainly until you have recovered from your ordeal.’

Churlishly, Louis refused the wine. ‘We cannot impose on your hospitality long.’

‘We can stay for a little while.’ I tried to draw the
sting of Louis’s discourtesy. ‘Our knights and foot soldiers need to recover.’

That only earned a sharp response from Louis. ‘We must press on to Jerusalem.’

‘Undoubtedly you must. And we will talk of that.’ The perfect host, in no manner disturbed, Raymond snapped his fingers to summon a waiting steward. ‘Show His Majesty to his quarters.’ Then he turned back to me. ‘Now, let me show you to your rooms, Eleanor. They have the most magnificent view to the north towards Trebizond …’

But I was considering not the views from the palace but Raymond.

He had grown, filled out into manhood since we last met, as fair as I recalled and even more impressively regal, and I saw in his sun-kissed skin and hair, in his patrician cast of feature, in those intense blue eyes the noble blood of Aquitaine—the troubadour, the wily politician, the flamboyantly handsome warrior lord. Warmth flooded back into me from my crown to my toes.

I walked with him to my rooms, senses adrift.

It was like a dream. A sensuous, scented dream. With the windows—superbly glazed now—open to the warm air, I bathed in fragrant water, lulled by perfumed candles. Servants moved silently to bring me fruit and sweetmeats from a fragile porcelain dish and a goblet of wine chilled with mountain snow. Potions
and salves were brought, redolent of herbs, to anoint my wind-and rain-cracked skin. After Mount Cadmos and its aftermath, the glamour of Raymond and his court overwhelmed me. I sank into it, wallowed in it, luxuriated in it. Some of my wounds healed with the scented water that ran into the bowls.

I sank up to my nose in the water in a mosaic tub as I admired this room I had been given. Frescoed walls with a charming frieze of musicians and dancers who leapt and capered, and for my own pleasure a serving girl strummed softly on a lute. When I rose from the tub to a servant waiting with the finest of linen, a silk gown was provided for me, soft footwear and a jewelled band to hold the transparent veil, material so delicate that it slipped through my fingers.