Devil's Consort (73 page)

I knew the answer. There was such a high power.

The anticipation strengthened me through those endless months.

Odo de Deuil gave up on writing his History of the Crusade for Abott Suger’s delectation. Enough was enough. Louis’s humiliation before Damascus gave him pause for thought. My own unwritable sin tipped the balance finally and paralysed his hand as it tried to move across the page. At least I had that to be thankful for.

The child would be born at the turn of the year. As early as the first days of November the first pressure of pain woke me. Nothing to concern, only a twinge, a cramp, a knotting of muscles. It was too early and the pains gentled—I was mistaken after all. I had grown soft in my captivity, my sinews lax from lack of exercise. Agnes—whose uncompromising presence I insisted
on in the midst of the seraglio beauties—assured me I would carry the child to full term.

Not so. My body betrayed me.

Even now I recall the viciousness of it. The heartbreak of it. Sharp bites of pain forced me to my knees. The waters stained my skirts, puddled on the tiles. I cried out, in agony and in fear.

It was hard for me, much harder than when Marie was born. A hellish nightmare of sweat and strain, of mingled fear and despair, seized my mind as my thoughts reverted again, when they could escape the confines of my body, to the loss of the stillborn child of the second year of my marriage. I prayed. I called on God’s name. I beseeched the Holy Mother in her mercy. Surely God would not punish me.

But perhaps He would, for my sin.

I cried out, clutching the rosary that Agnes thrust into my frenzied fingers as the pain overwhelmed, its claws agonisingly sharp. Hot as the jaws of hell; cold as my isolation in my extremity. I was nearer to despair than I had ever been in my life. Why struggle, if God had put the mark on me for my double sin of adultery and incest?

Agnes was with me throughout. She was the only one I wanted. Hers was the hand I gripped when I had no more energy to give to this birthing.

‘Push, m’lady. Don’t give up now. Don’t let Galeran have his way!’

And I didn’t, because, in spite of everything, I wanted this child.

The baby was born, slithering from my thighs with amazing speed at the end, as a long day slid towards dusk, but did not draw breath. Small, blue of skin, lifeless. Nothing so much as a skinned rabbit.

It was a girl. A daughter.

‘Give her to me.’

‘Indeed, lady, I think you should rest …’ Agnes was already enfolding the lifeless figure in silk.

‘I want to hold her.’

Too early. Too weak to live alone. Yet, unlike my first child that had not lived, she was perfectly formed, beautiful, fair and translucent. The corners of her mouth curved softly inwards as if she treasured a secret, her eyelashes so pale as to be near invisible. Her hair was nothing more than wisps of gold.

Poor pretty creature. She was already gone from me. I did not kiss her for I dared not. I would have loved her for the blood of Aquitaine doubly in her veins. I would have loved her for Raymond’s sake. Dry eyed, I gave her back to Agnes.

‘Perhaps it’s for the best, lady.’

‘For the best?’ I blinked at her, for the moment not understanding.

‘Convenient. It would be a difficult birth to explain. With His Majesty’s oath and all.’

Convenient for Louis. I could not speak. Grief robbed me of any words but I could not weep. It was as if all
my emotions, my heart and my mind, were frozen to ice, despite the suffocating heat.

Louis did not come near me. Neither did I expect it. He let me do as I pleased.

What to do with my daughter’s tiny body? A hasty burial, drawing no attention, would have been wise perhaps. Or an interment in some unmarked grave. Or even an unspeakable destruction in some midden, merely to be rid of the evidence. I cringed from it even though my thoughts were difficult to harness to their task. I would decide. Not Louis, not Galeran. I used the powers still left to me, and the French coin that, in enough quantity, would buy any man. A priest was summoned who would for a pocketful of gold swear that the child drew breath at the first and cried out so that she might be worthy of baptism. I would not commit a daughter of Raymond, Prince of Antioch, to the horrors of limbo, shut out of heaven throughout eternity.

Philippa. That was her name.

For Raymond’s mother, my own grandmother.

I did not see the child again as I decided what I wanted. She would be embalmed with spices and sweet unguents to preserve her frail flesh, then swaddled and encased in silk and leather, as fine as any cradle and covering. Another purse of gold paid for the passage home of one of my household. On my instructions, and without heralding the news to anyone, he took ship for
Europe, and I charged him with taking my daughter to be buried in the graveyard beside others of my family at Belin, where I was born. She would rest there and know the same warm sun, the light aromatic breezes and the birdsong that I had known. She would have her final resting place in Aquitaine. One day I would find my way to her grave.

It crossed my mind—as it must. I cared more for that lost child than for my healthy, living daughter, both flesh of my flesh. Why should that be? She was a true child of Aquitaine—perhaps that was it.

It was a time of heartbreak for me. It surprised me, how the grief infused my whole body and would not let go. For the first time in my life I could not look forward. I could not think. All was dark and full of misery. I could not sleep but sat and stared blankly. Yet I could not weep.

I would draw a veil over that sad time.

But I knew my enemies would not. Since when is any event appertaining to a queen kept secret?

We left Jerusalem in March of the following year, with a mere three hundred remnant of our original magnificent force, sailing west from Acre. So few were we, so great our failure, that we all fitted into two small vessels, bound for Calabria in southern Italy.

Although my body had recovered rapidly from the birth, my mood had not and I was a broken reed, following Louis’s instructions to make ready to depart with
a draining lethargy. But not so broken that I would consent to share accommodation with Galeran. Nothing! Nothing would make me consent to stay trapped in the same confined space as the man who might just have plotted the death of my child if God had not forestalled him. Neither would I travel with Louis. I had nothing to say to either of them, so I feigned illness. It was not difficult to do, so low in spirits as I was, to the very depths of my soul, that it was almost beyond my powers to rise from my bed. So we travelled separately, I with my household in one vessel, Louis and his advisers in the other. A little victory, even if a petty one.

I think Louis was relieved. He looked positively cheerful.

Looking back, the voyage was as much a time of fear and horror as the one that carried us to Antioch. Surely God and his angels were against us. Ill winds and storms tossed and buffeted us until we were blown off course and my vessel was soon parted from Louis’s. Did I fear for my life? I don’t think I did, shrouded as I was in a melancholy as thick and deep as the clouds that hemmed us in. We seemed to make a circuit of the Mediterranean, to every God-forsaken spot on it—and then to some He had not even discovered, putting into port even on the Barbary shores of Africa, even taken captive by Byzantine raiders until rescued by Sicilian galleys. It all meant nothing to me. I was adrift, wallowing in misery and what could only be
self-pity. Never was I so guilty of succumbing to such weakness.

Eventually, finally, I made landfall in the Kingdom of Sicily, where Louis awaited me. Meeting me on the quay when I walked unsteadily ashore, he fell on my neck with tears of joy for the answer to his prayers. God had saved me, he announced. I had been reunited with him at God’s will. He kissed my brow and assured me that all would be well.

I submitted, as unresponsive as the stone quay beneath my feet. What a miracle a few months of separation had made. It seemed I had been restored to royal favour.

I could not respond. It was beyond me. I did not care.

We were received with honour, Sicily being a Norman kingdom, where King Roger opened his gracious hands to us and provided all the luxuries we could have asked for at his elegant court at Potenza. Seeing my exhaustion, he demanded nothing from me but allowed me to retire immediately. I thanked him. All I wanted was to close my eyes and blot out what life might hold for me on my return to the dread Cité palace.

But then, without warning or apology, before I had even taken occupation of the well-furnished rooms, King Roger paid me a private visit.

‘I have news. From Outremer. And a letter has been brought by courier for you.’ A serious, stolid man, King
Roger regarded me with sombre eyes. ‘I think you should sit. It is not good news, lady.’

So the news first. I sat, sliding the letter into the slashed sleeve of my gown. King Roger wasted no time. What point in attempting to soften news that cannot be softened?

‘The Prince of Antioch is dead, lady.’

I gasped. Struggled to draw another breath. ‘What?’

‘The Prince is dead. I thought you would wish to be alone when you heard.’

For a moment, before the truth of his words hit home, I wondered how much King Roger knew of my liaison that he should make this opportunity tell me alone. But, of course, that was not his reason. Raymond was the brother of my own father and I saw compassion in the Norman’s face. It was right that I should be told first, and in private.

And then the words made sense.

It was a mailed fist to my belly.

Raymond was dead. My magnificent golden hero, my lover, no longer breathed the same air as I. How could it be? How could his love of life, his vibrancy have been extinguished with no more of a ripple than when the flame of a candle is snuffed out? I had not known. How could I not have known it?

‘Tell me,’ I commanded calmly, when I was in a mind to shriek my grief and loss.

So King Roger sat himself beside me and told me, in the baldest and most critical of terms, because that
would be the least painful. Raymond was killed in a foolish, ill-considered skirmish against the Saracen leader Nureddin. An ill-advised campaign it had to be said, refusing a truce with the Turks when it was offered and attacking a massive force with only a few hundred knights and a thousand foot soldiers. Brave, King Roger admitted, but not feasible. Such sheer bravado in the attack, so typical of Raymond, who believed himself invincible, but beyond common sense. My beloved Raymond was surrounded, slain by the stroke of a Turkish sword as exhaustion laid him low. And then.

‘Tell me!’ I insisted when Roger’s flat description faltered.

‘They struck off the Prince’s head and right arm.’

Ah! I could not speak.

The Sicilian king was not finished. How brutal it was. ‘The Prince was decapitated. His head was set in a silver case and sent to the Caliph of Baghdad,’ he finished in a rush. ‘I’m told it’s displayed there over the city gate. There is huge rejoicing. Allah’s most formidable enemy dead. They held him in high regard, even though they killed him.’

Thus I knew the worst.

‘Thank you,’ I managed to say. I drew my veil over my head. Over my face so that the King would not see the effect of his news. ‘Blessed Virgin! Why did he have to die?’

‘It is in the nature of heroes to die at the height of
their powers, lady. We must celebrate his greatness as we mourn his passing.’

‘But I cannot celebrate.’

Sensitive to my loss, King Roger withdrew.

So I mourned him. I did not weep for so brave and foolish a warrior because that is not what he would have wanted from me. If tears were shed for him, perhaps Constance would do the weeping. It was her right. Instead of useless tears I put the blame for Raymond’s death where I thought it lay: Louis’s callous refusal to help him had cost Raymond his life. Louis’s abduction of me had prevented me from giving my Aquitanians to Raymond’s use.

And perhaps if I had insisted on returning to Antioch from Jerusalem—perhaps I too could have made a difference.

And now Raymond was dead.

It made the loss of his daughter even more unimaginably tragic. I had nothing left of Raymond but a bright memory of ten magical days spent in that golden oasis he had created in Antioch.

‘I hope you have a conscience!’ I had no tolerance for Louis, and so accused him.

Louis refused to reply. We never spoke of it again.

I was crushed with sorrow.

Where was the proud, confident Duchess of Aquitaine? Not here in Potenza, that was certain. The woman who sat in her borrowed rooms was buried under a weight
of guilt and loss and unhappiness. Nothing but emptiness. Eating, sleeping, even thinking, seemed beyond me. Until Agnes crouched beside me, her hands closed around mine where they lay unoccupied in my lap, and squeezed hard.

‘Lady. Look at me. Listen to me.’

I looked into her concerned face, surprised by the command in her tone but not particularly stirred to obey. And Agnes, dear Agnes, enfolded me in her arms and rocked me like the mother I had never known.

‘It might be good to weep,’ she said softly.

‘I cannot.’

So we sat silently, until I struggled for release and Agnes turned me to face her.

‘This is no good, lady. You have to be strong. If you do not … do you live under Louis’s subjection for ever? Do you let Galeran win?’

‘Louis will not release me.’

‘No, he won’t.’ I blinked at her honesty. ‘He’s weak and stubborn, both in equal measure, and Galeran has his hands on the reins. When you are returned to Paris there’ll be no respite—it will be Abbot Suger who resumes control. No, the King won’t release you or your lands.’ Her hands gripped even tighter. ‘Not unless you do something about it.’

‘What can I do?’

Agnes released me and stepped away with a fine sneer inappropriate in a tirewoman. ‘You’re as weak as a mouse! Where’s the woman who came to Paris and
took us all by storm? Where’s the woman who cajoled and wheedled and bullied until she accompanied her husband on Crusade? Who demanded an annulment in the middle of a war council? Is she dead for ever?’