The Autumn Throne (60 page)

Once the city was behind, they increased their pace. Alienor remembered other journeys she had made, travelling the long distances with intrepid fortitude. The great venture to the Holy Land with Louis when she had ridden from Paris to Jerusalem, enduring mortal danger, hardship and utter heartbreak. A very different, wiser young woman had returned to France from that experience.

There had been that first crossing of the Narrow Sea in December with Henry at her side as they sailed for England. She remembered the powerful explosion of spray against the ship’s prow, the capricious wind, and Henry’s wide, exultant smile. Their son in her arms, his brother in her womb and crowns waiting to be claimed. Everything had been possible on that day.

More recently there had been the hard journey over the Alps and down to Sicily with Berenguela. So many hopes turned to dust. And this, her last expedition, once more fetching and escorting a bride and bidding farewell to her last daughter. Riding away from Leonora, she knew she would never see her again in this life, and that had been hard. Once she had delivered her granddaughter to the French, her tasks would be complete. She would retire to Fontevraud, oversee the creation of the effigies and live out her final days in prayer and
contemplation. Sadness came upon her like a cool spring wind, but it felt right and she embraced it.

Alienor continued to instruct Blanca as they travelled, but it was difficult distilling the wisdom of eight decades into three weeks. She could only pray that the girl, like a seed given water and nourishment, would flourish and blossom of her own accord.

A fortnight after setting off they crossed into Aquitaine and came to the ancient fortified town of Dax which was famed for its healing springs of warm mud, beneficial for rheumatic bones and skin disorders. Richard had built a castle here and there was a fine welcome for the party and comfortable beds for the night.

Blanca was unsure about immersing herself in one of the pools of warm grey mud but, determined to overcome her trepidation, bit her lip and, wearing her shift, her hair bound up in a linen turban, followed her grandmother and Richenza into the wallow.

‘Come, come,’ Alienor encouraged, ‘this opportunity will not come again and you should experience such things while you are young. The more knowledge you have, the better you will govern.’

‘Yes, Grandmère.’ Blanca wafted her hand through the silty grey liquid.

Alienor studied her, noting the girl’s mingled curiosity and reluctance. During their journey Blanca had been cheerful and responsive on the surface, but there were moments when an almost forlorn expression would cross her face and a couple of times there had been tears, concealed but not swiftly enough.

‘You must be missing your family,’ Alienor said with sympathy, ‘especially your mother and your sister. It is no easy thing to make great changes in your life with so little warning.’

Blanca nodded. ‘Yes, Grandmère. I know my duty and will try to learn from everything you say.’

It was the right response but Alienor could see it was lip service and that Blanca was speaking to please her. Alienor
well understood her anxieties for she had suffered the same when she went to Paris with Louis, and at least she had had her sister to accompany her when she became Queen.

‘You have courage beyond your knowing, child,’ she said. ‘And you have proud blood in your veins. Even if you do not think it now, you are expanding.’ She smiled at her. ‘It is like being small and your mother gives you clothes that are a little too big so that you have room to grow into them. That is what you are doing; you are filling that gap, and soon they will fit you perfectly, you will see.’

Blanca gave her a considering look and once more Alienor watched her absorb the information like a plant taking in nutrients.

‘Of course,’ Alienor said to lighten the moment, ‘for all his great learning, your grandsire Henry never took the mud of Dax, so in that you are ahead of him. Your twice great grandmother Dangereuse did though. I will tell you about her …’

Alienor and Blanca arrived in Bordeaux after just over three weeks of steady travel. Around them spring was in full bloom, the grass fresh and green at the roadside and the air warm and soft but without the heat of May and June.

Alienor brought Blanca to the Ombrières palace on the banks of the Garonne river, and because her young granddaughter was seeing it for the first time, Alienor too experienced the moment with the eyes of a thirteen-year-old girl, and everything became new and magical again.

She stood with Blanca on the battlements on their first evening and together they watched the sun set over the river in a sheet of beaten gold, and gild the stone turrets with the last of the light.

‘This is where I saw my husband for the first time,’ Alienor said, pointing out across the water. ‘The French camp was over there, and they crossed to our side in a barge draped with silks of every hue. I could not tell which one was Louis among all the people, but I met him in the cathedral soon
after and thought him the most handsome youth I had ever set eyes upon.’ She touched her stomach. ‘I felt a clenching here, and fear in my heart, but something greater too. The river was bringing me my destiny and I had all my life before me to live it.’

And now it is almost spent
. The thought was so loud in her head that it was as though she had spoken it. The wheel had turned full circle and here she was with a granddaughter of thirteen standing at her side, soon to marry the heir to France and become its future queen. God willing it would turn out well this time and set all to rights that had been awry before. Gazing at Blanca’s slim shoulders and sleek golden hair, Alienor thought she could indeed be herself from all those years ago. She had to think how best to give this child what she needed and what she herself had never had – advice from older female relatives in the face of so much change and responsibility.

As if sensing her pensive mood, Blanca looked round. ‘Grandmère?’

Alienor shook her head. ‘I was losing myself in the past and the future at the same time and that is never wise.’ Smiling ruefully, she set her gnarled hand to Blanca’s breeze-blown hair in a tender gesture. ‘I did not know what was before me when I stood here all those years ago – all my tasks and all my children. Should you have need of me, I will be here for as long as I am able. Even if I am not, others of your kin will answer your call. Never think you are alone.’

‘No, Grandmère.’

‘You must not let people mistreat you. You must stand up for yourself and what you know you are worth. Do not let them treat you for less. Remember that, and you will be a great queen; this I tell you, and this I know.’

Blanca met her gaze directly and Alienor realised how much the girl had matured even in these last few days – ever since the bathing pool at Dax. Blanca was growing swiftly into those clothes that had been too big for her. It was not so much that she had been removed from her old life, but that new horizons
were opening up with the potential to spread the world at her feet if she played the game with sufficient skill.

Three days later the French entourage arrived in Bordeaux to take Blanca north to Paris and her new life. At the time of parting, Blanca clung to Alienor for the final moment, the last one of her childhood, and then drew herself upright, raised her chin and went with the French envoys in the true way of a queen in waiting, gracious but not haughty, projecting her worth in every step she took.

Alienor watched her leave and sent hopes and prayers winging in her direction, like flinging a young gyrfalcon into the sky and wishing her a glorious maiden flight, free of her leashes.

When Blanca had gone, Alienor returned to the palace to prepare for her return to Fontevraud. She still had work to do, for there were several slabs of pale tuffeau limestone awaiting her attention before she could truly rest and say that all her tasks were complete.

Mercadier had been attending to his own business while she visited Castile, but had promised to escort her to Fontevraud. She had spoken to him earlier that morning, and he had assured her all would be ready by noon.

Before setting out, Alienor visited the cathedral of St Peter to pray and light candles for the repose of the souls of her children, and for Blanca’s safe journey to Paris.

‘I was married here to Louis of France,’ she mused to Richenza once they had attended to their spiritual business. ‘It fills my mind’s eye even now.’ The colours were brilliant in her vision, like an illuminated manuscript – herself standing outside the cathedral in her golden gown and Louis at her side in a tunic of blue and gold, his fair hair nimbused with light. The crowds of cheering people. She had felt soaring elation and raw, painful sorrow, because it was her wedding day and she was mourning the loss of her father and trying not to sink as the politics and ploys of powerful men threatened to close over her head.

‘Were
you happy?’ Richenza asked.

‘No, although God knows I wanted to be. I was excited, certainly. I loved my gown and the splendour of the occasion. I thought my new husband was very fine and beautiful – he was a handsome youth, whatever he became later.’ She could remember her anger and resentment too, because she had been Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right and everything had been taken from her; what she gained in return was not a good bargain. At least Blanca would not have to contend with such a poisoned chalice.

Mercadier was waiting for her outside the cathedral as promised with the horses saddled up and the sumpter beasts loaded. He was wearing his mail and his coif was neatly pushed down to rest on his collar bone. An imposing sword hung at his left hip.

Alienor noted that he seemed preoccupied and his lips were set in a grim line. When she asked what was wrong he shook his head. ‘Nothing, madam, or nothing that concerns your journey and my duty to see you safely there.’ He settled his features into a polite mask, but his eyes remained hard and watchful.

She began to walk towards her mount, stiffly because her left hip was painful today, and she refused to use a stick for it reminded her of her mother-in-law the Empress Matilda forty years ago. Mercadier diplomatically tailored his step to hers and clasped his hands behind his back.

In a sudden blur of motion a man clad in the quilted tunic of a serjeant at arms ran out from the shadows at the side of the cathedral, spun Mercadier round and with one swift slash of a hunting knife, slit his throat. ‘For Brandin, you whoreson!’ he snarled.

Hot blood splashed across Alienor’s face and she recoiled with a scream. Mercadier staggered, clutching his throat, and went down, jerking, struggling, already in his death throes. Pandemonium ensued as Mercadier’s men grabbed the assassin and wrestled him to the ground. Alienor’s knights rallied around
her but before they closed off her view with their bodies, she met Mercadier’s dying gaze in the moment before his eyes rolled up in his head and his last breath bubbled out of his open throat.

Richenza was half gasping, half screaming, blood spatters covering her gown, face and hands. Alienor seized her in her arms, partly to support herself and partly to prevent Richenza from tipping over the edge. Belbel placed herself in front of them, arms outspread in a protective gesture.

The murderer was on his knees, hands behind his back, the dagger torn from his hands. ‘This is a message from my lord Brandin,’ he repeated, unrepentant, eyes alive with the fire that had fled Mercadier’s. ‘So are all men served who break their word!’ He spat on the ground an instant before he was clubbed unconscious by Mercadier’s mercenaries.

Priests came running from the cathedral but it was too late to administer the last rites. Mercadier’s soul had departed without salvation and flies were already buzzing in the sticky blood around the corpse. Someone fetched a hurdle to bear him into the cathedral. Alienor, Richenza and Belbel were taken there too, to another room where they could wash off the blood and clean their gowns.

‘Why?’ Alienor asked. She was trembling with reaction now. ‘Why? I do not understand.’ It was one blow after another. The suddenness had been shocking. Mercadier had obviously been the target, but it could so easily have been her. The mercenary captain was one of her closest links to Richard, had been there when he died. She had relied on his pragmatic solidity and now he was gone in an instant and she was left stumbling.

‘It is too much,’ she told Richenza, ‘and I do not know how to stop it. So many people have left me and I never know who and when the next one will be. God rest his soul, God rest his poor soul.’ He was a mercenary, a soldier of fortune, in need of more prayers than most, but she refused to entertain the thought of him in hell. More than ever she wanted to return to the spiritual security of Fontevraud, but she could
not leave until Mercadier had been buried with the requisite prayers for his soul. She owed him that and much more.

Drawing on reserves that were close to depletion, she went outside to give instructions concerning what was to be done.

In the morning Alienor attended Mercadier’s funeral and gave alms for his soul. The murderer when questioned was eager to volunteer the information that Mercadier had been involved in a dispute with another mercenary leader named Brandin whose honour Mercadier had slighted. As Brandin’s kinsman he had been sent to deal with the matter by killing Mercadier and redeeming the family honour.

Live by the sword and die by the sword
, Alienor thought bleakly. Greatly saddened, she departed Bordeaux, leaving behind her the grave of the most famous mercenary captain of his age. The body of the serjeant who had murdered him in a single blow swung in the breeze as she rode past the gibbet without looking back.