Devil's Consort (8 page)

As the hours and the miles passed, I felt his anxious eyes travel over me when my muscles shrieked their weariness and my eyelids threatened to close. Yes, he had concern for me, I thought. There was no malice in the frequent glances, even though I had insisted and must now pay the price. I doubted there was a malicious bone in his body. But I would give him no cause for complaint. I stiffened my shoulders, set my mind
against aching muscles and chafed skin and pushed my horse—a clumsy, raw-boned creature but the best to be had in the circumstances—on again into a gallop.

‘Did you hear what they called him?’ Aelith whispered over a shared cup of wine at the next brief halt. ‘At the feast?’

‘Yes.’

‘Colhon! Stupid as a testicle!’

‘No need to repeat it!’

What woman would wish to be wed to a figure of ridicule?

Taillebourg. At last. In the considerable fortress belonging to one of my more loyal vassals, I was shown into the private quarters of Geoffrey de Rancon where comfort closed around me. Too exhausted to do more than give passing thanks for the hospitality, I took possession. A bathtub was commandeered, hot water ordered. My body might ache unmercifully from crown of head to feet but I would go clean to my marriage night. I looked at the lord of Rancon’s bed, appreciating the solid wooden frame and silk hangings complete with down mattress and fine linen sheets. The whole might not match the splendour of mine but it would suffice. Better than the threat of a dank and very public ditch.

Anticipation was a pleasant murmur in my blood as the servants arrived with a tub and buckets of water. I was neither unwilling nor anxious. I sensed that Louis, an ignorant child-monk, would have more qualms than
I. I laughed softly, perhaps unfairly. Louis would not have the good Abbot to offer advice on this occasion. The water steamed, herbs filled the room with aromatic fragrance, my limbs cried out for soothing. Aelith fussed to unlace me. I cast off my gown, my undergown, my full-length shift.

A knock sounded on the door. I raised my hand to the chambermaid to forbid entry, but too late. The door opened and Louis himself, still in tunic, boots and hose and mail, stepped in. He halted on the threshold, pushing back his coif, thrusting a hand nervously through his matted hair, which clung wetly to his neck.

‘Forgive me.’ With a shy smile and what could only be described as a charming little bow, mailed gloves still clutched in his hand as if he had come straight from the stabling—as perhaps he had—he took in our surroundings. ‘I came to ask after your well-being, my lady. I see that everything has been provided for …’

His words dried. His jaw dropped. His eyes focused on my legs, where they became fixed, until they slid nervously away to my face.

‘My lord?’

‘Madam!’

I waited.

‘That … that garment …’

It had been made for me, of chamois leather. Soft, figure-hugging, hard-wearing and above all protective, it enclosed my body, covering each leg as with a soft skin of its own. Wonderfully supple, wonderfully
liberating, it enabled me to move and stretch with great freedom. And to ride without discomfort. As accommodating as a man’s chausses on which it was clearly modelled.

‘Excellent, is it not?’ It pleased me to tease him. His opinions were as inflexible as stones set in gold. His reaction was much as I had anticipated.

‘It is indelicate, madam!’

‘Do you expect me to ride well nigh a hundred miles, astride, in a shift? In linen drawers perhaps?’

‘No … I … That is …’ Louis stumbled.

‘I had them made for me. For hunting. We enjoy hunting in Aquitaine.’

‘It is not seemly. The women at our court in Paris would shrink from wearing such a garment.’

‘A woman from Paris would not shrink from it if she had to flee for her life on one clumsy animal after another! But do your women not hunt? I think I must instruct them on such a garment’s practicality.’

‘You will do no such thing. My mother would be appalled.’

‘How so?’

Louis shook his head, refusing to elaborate. He did not see a need to, only to enforce my obedience. ‘As my wife, you will not wear them again.’ The expression that settled on his face was not attractive, almost vicious in its intensity.

Would I not? As if I, Duchess of Aquitaine, did not know how to conduct myself, how to present myself.
‘Really?’ I opened my mouth to tell him exactly that. But realised that I was just too tired to cross swords with this man who was almost squirming with embarrassment. If the floor had opened before his feet I swear he would have willingly leapt in. Glancing round, I saw the sly smile on Aelith’s face. I could not humiliate him more. Louis would soon learn and become accustomed to my ways. Taking pity on him, I donned a robe to cover the offending article. But that was as far as I would go.

‘I should inform you, my lord—I shall wear this garment again tomorrow when we ride on to Poitiers. You have no right to forbid it.’

‘But I am your husband.’ His response was brutally frank.

‘As I am your wife.’

‘You have sworn to obey me.’

‘You will not dictate what garments I choose to wear. Particularly when they are covered by my skirts and not obvious to any onlooker. Only to a man who entered my chamber without my invitation when I might—after the day I’ve had—expect some privacy!’

As a stand-off it was magnificent.

‘As I see it,’ I continued before Louis could draw breath, ‘we’re set to travel another vast distance tomorrow. I will ride at your side, my lord, but not without protection.’

‘As you say, madam.’ He glared his rancour but I knew I had won. Louis’s response was as tight as the
muscles in his neck and shoulders. ‘I advise you to take some rest. You must be exhausted. We leave early tomorrow.’ There was that flare of colour again in his face. ‘I’ll not make more demands on you. Your sister will keep you company tonight.’

It took a full minute for his words to make sense.

‘You will not stay with me?’

‘I need to pray, my lady.’ Again almost a rebuke, as if I were thoughtless and inconsiderate of any needs but my own. ‘For my father the King’s health. For our safe travel. Archbishop Suger awaits me in the chapel.’

I wrapped my dignity around me with the chamber robe. He had no intention of spending our wedding night with me. Dismay and disappointment twined to create a bright fury that I could barely contain. ‘Of course it is necessary to pray,’ I snapped. ‘You must not keep God or the Abbot waiting.’

Louis was immune to my barbs. With a bow, he was gone. I might even have thought him relieved to escape.

The water in the tub was cooling as I stepped into it and sank up to my chin, my mind not at ease. Despite the relish of victory over what I might or might not wear, I was mystified by the Prince’s rejection of me. My pride was hurt, and I resented the fact, for was I not descended from an impressive company of proud women? I considered myself not the least of their number. How could I not see my own supremacy in them? Their fire
was in my own blood. Their knowledge of what was due to them coloured my own self-worth. Their ghosts had stalked me, their exploits had been the tales of my childhood.

What would they say if they had seen my weak compliance in Louis’s absence from my bed? Forsooth, my female forebears would have taken me to task.

Women such as Philippa, my paternal grandmother. High minded and unbending, she lived by the principles of duty and obedience to God, and the respect due to her as the heiress to the county of Toulouse. A formidable woman, although I found it difficult to condone her retiring to spend her final days with the nuns at the Abbey of Fontevrault, assaulting the ears of God with her prayers for revenge, when the ninth Duke, her husband and my grandfather, lived openly with his lover under Philippa’s very nose, in Philippa’s own favourite palace. I would not have left the field. I would have waged war against my neglectful husband who dared humiliate me, and against the upstart whore who had usurped my bed.

Or perhaps I would not.

Because that whore—Dangerosa—was my maternal grandmother. Originally wife to the Viscount of Chatellerault, she saw my grandfather William in full glory of mail and weaponry, and fell into love, like a gannet diving head first into the waves off Bordeaux. So too did William fall, so heavily that he must abduct Dangerosa from her bedchamber—with no obvious
protest on Dangerosa’s part—and carry her off to his palace at Poitiers, where he established her in the newly constructed Maubergeonne Tower. They were besotted with each other, making no secret of their sinful union. Dangerosa raised her chin at the world’s condemnation, whilst Duke William had the lady’s portrait painted on the face of his shield. It was, he boasted, his desire to bear her likeness into battle, as she had borne the weight of his body so willingly and frequently in bed.

A tasteless jest. My grandfather had a strong streak of coarse humour.

Dangerosa never regretted her choice. She was his whore until his death, keeping her unpredictable lover more or less faithful with a will of steel, and with fearful cunning. Since she could not get Duke William legally into her bed, then her daughter would get William’s son. Thus Dangerosa’s daughter Aenor was wed to my father. Dangerosa keeping it in the family, if you will.

What would Dangerosa think of me now?

‘Am I so ugly? So undesirable?’ I asked Aelith. But I knew I was not. What I did know was it would be common knowledge that my husband had chosen not to share my bed, that he would find more fulfilment on his knees before a crucifix than with me. ‘Do you think he dislikes me?’

‘I think he finds you too beautiful,’ Aelith crooned to comfort me as she combed out my hair.

‘But not in chamois drawers.’

‘He is a man. What does he know?’

‘I thought he would erupt in a storm of temper when I refused …’

‘I doubt he has a temper in him,’ Aelith disagreed.

‘Perhaps you’re right.’ Yet there had been just that one moment when I thought I had seen a dark flare of barely controlled rage. ‘But why does he not want me?’

‘He does not know women. He does not know how to please them. Now, his cousin Lord Raoul would not hold back, I swear.’

I slapped her hand away when she tugged on a painful tangle, but she only laughed.

‘I don’t even know that he wants to please me.’ I frowned at my knees emerging from the water.

‘You didn’t make life easy for him, Eleanor,’ Aelith pointed out, fairly enough, I suppose. ‘You challenged him over how you would and would not travel—and what you would and would not wear.’

‘And that wasn’t the first. I’d already been more than forthright over the court position of my troubadour Bernart,’ I admitted with a twinge of guilt.

‘What’s wrong with Bernart?’

‘Nothing—that’s the point. Never mind—we just didn’t agree.’

‘And you haven’t been wed a full day …’

‘I suppose I’ve not been a dutiful wife, have I?’

‘There you have it. He’s a prince. He’s not used to a woman taking him to task.’

My thoughts circled round to the main issue. ‘He
seeks the company of God before mine.’ For the first time in my life I was touched with true uncertainty.

‘Then you’ll just have to show him the error of his ways, won’t you?’

I was not much comforted. Aelith shared my pillows. I rose next morning from my marriage bed as much a virgin as I had entered it.

‘H
OW
long will this … this affair last?’ The Prince’s lips tightened into a thin line of disapproval.

As was customary at so momentous occasion as a ducal marriage, we gathered in the antechamber of the Ombrière Palace, to lead the procession through the Great Hall and up to the High Table. Louis looked weary, as if he would gladly cancel the whole affair and make a run for it. It could not be. Today, the day of our marriage, we were on show, and I was alert for even one disparaging expression, one whispered aside.

‘As long as it takes to impress your new vassals!’ I smiled at him with clenched teeth, my new husband of less than an hour, and closed my hand over his arm to shackle him to the spot. Words hot enough to scorch sprang into my mouth. Did this Frankish prince not understand what he was getting from this marriage, how much land was now his? Surely it was worth an
hour or two of feasting, of building bridges. I almost lost my struggle not to lecture him on the value of diplomacy over a cup of wine and a platter of succulent meats—until Aelith attached herself to my side. She pulled me a little away.

‘We’ve no time for gossip,’ I remarked, seeing Louis almost physically retreat from the crush without my restraining grip.

Had I said that all was done in a hurry? Two weeks was all it took to get us to the altar. Two weeks that gave my vassals ample time to respond to the summons to attend the wedding and pay homage to their new overlord. Most did, with ill grace, but at least they put in a stiff-necked, close-lipped appearance. Some were conspicuous by their absence—the Count of Angoulême being the one to cause tongues to wag—but enough were present to raise their voices in acclaim of Louis, who, in joining his hand with mine, was now Duke of Aquitaine and Gascony, Count of Poitou. Walking through streets afterwards to cheering crowds, music, leaves cast before our feet, Louis’s guards had pressed close about us, but still it was an auspicious beginning. The cries were not hostile, although, in truth, the roasting carcasses of beef and the hogsheads of ale craftily provided by my Archbishop for the populace would have sweetened the voices.

Now the deed was done.

In those two weeks I never set eyes on the Prince
unless he came as a reluctant guest to a celebratory event, and never alone, always hedged about by soldiers and under the watchful eye of the man I learned directed his every step. Abbot Suger, right-hand man of Fat Louis. I knew no more about the Prince than on that first day. Rumour had it that he spent the hours in his pavilion on his knees, thanking God for the success of this venture and praying equally for a safe return to Paris. For certain he had no stomach for outstaying his welcome in Bordeaux, just as he had no stomach for the feasting so beloved by the Aquitanians.