Devil's Consort (64 page)

‘Are we to have this debate in public?’ Louis, unbecomingly flushed, lashed at me. ‘It’s my right to demand your presence with me. I’ll not brook your refusal, Eleanor. You’ll not dictate terms to me. You are my wife and you will obey me.’

What a day for ill-judged statements. For a long moment I appraised my husband. The furiously working mouth and staring eyes, the clenched fists and monkish attire. This was the man to whom I was tied. By God, it appalled me, but my control was superb.

‘Your wife? Yes, I am. I consider it my misfortune.’

Was this the moment? Should I do it, should I act on the compulsion that had been building and growing within me? My mind flew back to that far distant day when I had visited the Bishop of Laon. It was as if I stood in his room overlooking the green-banked river rather than here in the arid heat of Outremer. What
would it take to be separated from this man who demanded my obedience? This man who had destroyed any vestige of affection or respect or loyalty in our marriage. I knew the steps, but dare I take them?

Everyone was looking at me. How long had I been standing in silence, listening to the Bishop of Laon in my mind, following his pointing finger on the manuscript under his hand? When Galeran shuffled up, and with a hand to Louis’s shoulder leaned to whisper in his ear, when I picked up the words’ … wife … humour her … later we can remove …’ my decision was made.

Humour me, would he? My memory of the content of the clever Bishop of Laon’s document was prodigious. I raised my voice so that everyone in the room would hear and there would be no doubt of my sentiments.

‘Yes, I am your wife, and as such under your dominion, my lord. But the days of that dominion are numbered.’

‘What’s this?’ Louis was puzzled, turning a frowning look from me to Galeran as if the Templar might read my mind. ‘I don’t understand.’

I felt my heart beat against my ribs with terrible anticipation. Dare I do it? Yes, I dared!

‘There’s no misunderstanding, Louis. You heard me. Here, in this council, I state my case. I want our marriage to end. I demand an annulment.’

‘W
HAT?’
Louis jumped like a cat.

There was a silence, like that following a shattering thunderclap. A silence that could be felt on the skin, that could be tasted with the metallic bite of blood. Once again I took in the reactions of the men who sat at the table or stood at my side. Raymond as startled as the rest, but I caught what I thought was admiration in the brief inclination of his head. No admiration in Galeran—his features flattened with hatred. The Count of Maurienne was frankly astonished. Odo de Deuil gulped in sudden anxiety. Only my own vassals vibrated with a lively interest in this unforeseen development. And Louis. Poor Louis! By God, I prayed I wouldn’t have to think that ever again. Well, Louis was simply perplexed, with a burgeoning shadow of fear in his pale eyes.

‘An annulment?’ he croaked. ‘But you cannot …’

‘Oh, I can.’

‘Eleanor.’ As if he had pulled on velvet and ermine robes to cover the black wool, Louis struggled to regain his regal dignity. It was an impressive display of stiffened spine and rigid shoulders, but unfortunately entirely superfluous and too late, far too late. ‘You are my wife and Queen of France. On what possible grounds can you demand an annulment?’

‘On legal ones.’

‘Legal?’ Almost visibly cringing at this public discussion, Louis attempted to take my arm and draw me aside from the council. ‘We have a daughter together,’ he whispered. ‘How can we have an annulment?’

I would have none of it. ‘Our marriage is still illegal, Louis.’

Louis’s face was stamped with utter bewilderment. Or was it? He knew exactly the legal state of our marriage. Then I saw a tiny flicker of fear. And drove home my advantage.

‘We should never have been wed at the outset. Don’t pretend to me that you don’t know! Even Abbot Bernard warned you of this. I was there—I heard him. We are related in the fourth degree and there was no dispensation.’

Face as white and drawn as a corpse, Louis looked from me to Raymond, and back again. ‘Is this his advice?’ he demanded.

‘No. I don’t need advice. Here are the facts. By the
law of consanguinity our kinship makes it unlawful for us to be man and wife. Is that not so?’

Unable to find a rapid rebuttal, Louis swallowed hard. I launched into my argument. I was well prepared. This was my moment and I would make the most of it.

‘It is the truth. We both know it. You are my cousin through four generations. Consanguinity is not new to you. You supported Vermadois and my sister on those grounds. Henry of Anjou was refused as a husband for Marie for the same reason, so there’s no arguing against it. If you chose to close your mind against it all these years and deny its existence—well, that doesn’t change the fact of our illegal union.’ Energy infused my words as I watched Louis almost physically retreat from the force of my arguments. ‘You know it was wrong—and we have suffered for this sin committed by your father who sidestepped the dispensation in his greed. It’s my belief that my failure to bear a son is due to God’s displeasure. I have to presume I shall never carry a male child with you. You need a son for the future safety of France, Louis. If we gain an annulment, you can wed again and get an heir.’

Our audience was agog. So much washing of royal soiled linen in public. More than a few throats were cleared.

‘What’s more …’ here was my most lethal arrow ‘ … if you hold me to a marriage that is sinful, you are placing my immortal soul in jeopardy. As well as your own!’

Louis’s clenched fingers opened and closed convulsively. His eyelids flickered with uncertainty. ‘No. I won’t do it.’

I ignored this, pressing on with my case at my most accommodating. Could I not afford to be? ‘I will give up my rights as Queen of France, of course. And until it’s all settled between the two of us and the Holy Father in Rome, I will remain here, under my uncle’s protection in Antioch.’

‘You cannot agree to this, sire!’ Odo de Deuil could barely find the words, his voice perilously close to a squeak.

‘It’s not possible.’ Galeran’s portentious accents.

‘Why not?’ Raymond had cast himself back in his chair to watch the outplaying, but chose to intervene with a quiver in his voice. ‘It seems to me that your magnificent wife has it all worked out, Louis. If it’s a matter of the law, can you argue against it? Do you fear to lose her lands? I agree Aquitaine and Poitou will be a sad loss for France, but if your immortal soul is in the balance …’

I cast Raymond an arch look and a smile, but turned to make my way towards the door. I had nothing more to say, had I? I had laid my case superbly.

‘I’ll not agree.’ Louis’s weak, querulous tones followed me.

‘I don’t think you have a choice, my lord,’ I replied over my shoulder.

Louis was still standing as rigid as one of the stately palm trees of Antioch, his mouth a seamless line, as I left the room.

‘Eleanor! Wait!’

He followed me, of course, as I strode along the open-sided loggia with its lambent light. I did not slow my steps. If he wished to continue the argument he would have to keep to my pace. I would match my steps to his no longer.

‘Eleanor …’

There he was at my side, then stepping in front of me when I made no move to halt.

‘This hurts me. I love you. How can I agree to what you ask?’

I saw tears gather in his eyes and was forced to look away. Galeran and de Deuil could have him, with my pleasure. I would be free of him.

‘I have always loved you.’

Now I stopped. ‘Love?’ My lip curled. My belly curdled at his tears. This weak, silly man who thought he could provide me with the husband I needed! I had given him too much of my life, but no more. Grabbing the front of his robe in my two fists, I shook him to make him understand. ‘Perhaps you do love me, if it’s some sentimental emotion that demands you shower me with presents. It’s not my idea of love. What is love if you can exist for longer than a year with no desire to actually touch me? I was not meant to live my life as
chaste as a virgin. I am young and my blood races with life. I want a man’s hands to awaken me to passion, a man’s body to be roused with desire for me. What I don’t want is a furtive scramble that leaves my flesh cold and unresponsive.’ Horror at my outspokenness chased across Louis’s austere features but I did not let up. ‘I feel no physical response to you, Louis. And after your treatment of me, I have no other feelings beyond disgust. I don’t want this life. I wish to end it.’ I stepped around him and resumed my sprightly stride. ‘Nothing you say will make me change my mind, so don’t try. And if you consider my argument, you’ll see the value of it for yourself.’

‘But an annulment?’ He pattered behind me. Louis, of course, would never understand. How could I ever have thought he would? ‘The ignominy of it—the King of France forced into this position. The humiliation …’

I whirled round to face him. ‘Is that all you can think about? Your humiliation? It’s no better for me.’

‘I know, but—’

‘You don’t know! You don’t know anything! We don’t have to actually tell the world that you don’t sleep with me, Louis. Now, that would be humiliating!’ Temper surged, adding force to my intent. ‘We don’t have to air our differences in public for the inns and whorehouses to gossip and laugh over. It’s so easy—a mere legal matter of consanguinity. Nothing more. Nothing less. Our marriage can be ended in cold-blooded legality, and save face for both of us.’

‘Eleanor, can we not—?’

‘No, we can’t. Whatever it is. You need a male heir and I’m unlikely to give you one as things stand. I want my freedom from this prison of your making.’

I could almost see the thoughts jostling in his mind. Still, as I continued towards my rooms, he would not let me go and I knew he would placate me, flatter me, anything to stop me shouting my demands to the four corners of the earth.

‘I will consider it, I suppose.’

Just as I thought! ‘Good! You consider it, Louis, but don’t take too long over it.’

‘I’ll need my counsellors and my barons to agree, of course.’

How slippery he could be. ‘Why do you need to ask their permission? Are you not King?’ I turned and faced him at the door to my quarters. ‘Do you not have the power to dictate your own life? Surely you’re answerable to no man.’

‘Yes, I have the power. But I will still ask Abbot Suger’s advice.’

‘Do as you will, but our marriage is at an end. And unless you agree to come to Raymond’s aid, I will withdraw my forces from your command and act independently. The decision is yours, Louis.’

I opened the door at my back.

‘Eleanor …’

‘What now?’ The vitality was leaching from me, leaving me surprisingly exhausted.

‘Why now, Eleanor? Why after all these years?’

Why indeed? I looked at Louis Capet, Louis my husband, King of France, and had no very clear answer. And then saw the man who stood there, hand on my sleeve, a plea in his voice. I saw the dust-begrimed feet in the clumsy leather sandals. The plain woven robe with the heavy cross that banged against his hollow chest when he moved. The rounded shoulders and scanty hair, the death’s head from years of fasting and abstinence with shadows as deep as red wine beneath his eyes. Skin as pale as wax, as if the blood beneath ran cold as ice—how was it possible for a man to be so colourless after months of crusading? The hands that clutched and gripped.

And I knew the answer.

‘Why do I want an annulment, Louis? Because I cannot bear to live with you one day longer.’

I entered my room and closed the door in his face as if I was closing the door on my marriage. I felt victory throb through my blood. I had done it. I had made my desire public. Now I must pursue it to achieve my salvation. Oh, I was presumptuous in my glee. I saw full well the obstacles that faced me. Louis would fight me tooth and nail. But I would persuade, argue, fight. I would do whatever it took to break this foul bond.

Louis could not leave me alone. In palace, in gardens, at leisure in my own rooms, even in the meadows to loose the leopard, there he was at my heels. If I heard
the approaching slap of his wretched sandals once, I heard them a dozen times. He hounded me, soft and persuasive like summer rain, Galeran invariably in his shadow.

‘Don’t say it.’ I stopped him before he even started. ‘Don’t say that I’ll see sense.’

Unendurable. Insufferable. The taint of Galeran was on his skin. I could almost hear the Templar’s brutal advice.
Go and persuade her. She’s only a woman. Take her a gift of eastern jewels to win her over.
I turned my back on Louis and the chest of gaudy gems he had placed before me.

‘I see sense now, Louis. I don’t need gifts, I don’t need persuasion. You should be putting your mind to helping Raymond to save Antioch. And if you think to change my mind over our annulment with this tawdry gesture—you won’t do it.’

‘His Majesty is anxious to continue his journey to Jerusalem.’ Galeran bowed with a slimy pretence at respect.

‘His Majesty is perfectly free to do just that—if his conscience can bear his betrayal of the Prince of Antioch.’

‘There’ll be no annulment,’ Louis howled. ‘Do you hear me?’

‘I think they hear you in Jerusalem.’

Suddenly he was shouting, his words ricocheting off the arched walls of the sun-filled courtyard, all control gone. ‘How dare you hold me up to ridicule before the
whole world? As for helping your precious prince … He disgusts me. His lifestyle—the abomination he has created here. Why should I put myself and my forces in danger for him? I owe him nothing. All I see is a licentious court, immoral and louche, tolerating such debauchery as intermarriage with Saracens and acceptance of their religion. Listen—even now …’ He stabbed his finger towards the sound of the call to prayer beyond the window. ‘He’s been seduced by the east—a popinjay in silk slippers and loose gowns more suitable to the seraglio. No, I’ll not help him. And neither will you and your forces! I forbid it!’

I shrugged elegantly, seating myself on the stone edging of a little pool.