The Young Lion (11 page)

Eleanor gasped. ‘Is the Seneschal waiting to arrest me?’

‘I don’t know. But in case he is, I’ll take care of your maid.’

She understood immediately: he would kill Xena as soon as she left. If not, the girl would be captured, questioned until she confessed to whatever they asked, raped, her tongue cut out. Then a guard would run her through. Eleanor stared at the orphan whose huge eyes pleaded with her to do as the man said.

‘You’re quick-witted, I hear,’ Henry said. ‘You’ll need every quick wit you have to save your neck.’ He grinned.

There was something familiar about the grin, Eleanor noted.

‘I almost forgot,’ he continued. He fished in a pocket of his gown and pulled out a small parchment scroll. ‘Read it later,’ he said. ‘Just leave it here on the writing table. It might save your life.’

‘What’s happened to the Duke of Normandy?’ she whispered.

For a moment she thought the man would strike her.

‘He and all his family are still alive – no thanks to you, lady. But thanks for the battle plan.’ He gave a sardonic grin. ‘If I were Louis I’d burn you for treason.’

In some dark part of Eleanor’s mind, a light came on. ‘Are you,’ she asked slowly, ‘the Young Duke of Normandy?’

He ignored her, turned to Xena and with another flick of his dagger removed the gag from her mouth. ‘Say goodbye, ladies,’ he said.

The women embraced in haste – ‘My Ruth’, ‘My Queen Naomi’ – then Eleanor rushed from her closet, wrenched open the bedchamber doors and ran down the staircase. The Seneschal was stamping up and down.

‘I couldn’t find my rosary,’ she said.

‘Let’s be gone,’ he answered. ‘The King will be halfway to St Denis by now. Some idiot of a groom has given your Arabian to one of the guests. Anyway, we can’t find her.’

Upstairs, inside the closet, Henry took the key Xena had given him and locked the door that connected it to the bedchamber.

‘Are you going to kill me, sir?’ she asked.

Henry did not answer.

Guests from the feast and palace staff, all shouting for grooms to bring their mounts, turned the courtyard into a melee. Rushed into the torchlight, the horses were skittery, sliding on the cobbles, rearing and screeching. Stable hands yelled to each other, asking for help to hold this one or that. The Seneschal guided Eleanor through the confusion to where grooms held their steeds and an escort of five knights waited. The Queen’s horse was a palfrey mare, the Seneschal’s a lumbering destrier, known for biting. Eleanor’s mount glanced nervously at the stallion.

‘Kindly control your horse, Estienne,’ she said in a cold voice.

They rode towards the closest bridge. It seemed everyone from the Île de la Cité was streaming north to St Denis. As traffic blocked the roadway, the Baron roared at the escort, ‘Disperse them!’ and drew his sword. The cavalrymen drew theirs and began slashing left and right, shouting, ‘Make way for the Queen!’ People scrambled aside, falling in their haste.

Eleanor silently chanted in rhythm with her palfrey’s breathing, ‘I’m Queen of France. I’m Queen of France.’

A crowd of hundreds, perhaps thousands, was gathered outside the church, some on their knees, others standing, their arms raised to the cold, humid sky to pray for the Abbot. The Seneschal
shoved them aside, delivering kicks to anyone who did not move fast enough.

As Eleanor entered the Abbot’s room she felt as if the terror of three hours earlier had been a fantasy. She was fully in control of herself.

The Abbot’s vast bedchamber, gorgeously furnished in hues of rose, hummed like a summer beehive with a constant, soothing murmur of Latin prayer. Every so often one monk would cross himself, stand and make way for another to take his place at the bedside. Suger was paralysed on the left side of his body. One eye stared open at the ceiling, the other was peacefully closed. He inhaled and exhaled long, jagged gasps.

Eleanor knelt beside Louis. He was so deep in prayer he did not sense her presence until she rested her hand softly in the centre of his back. When he felt her touch the King began to weep. She slipped her fingers into his palm and leaned her head against his shoulder. The Seneschal, she noticed, was watching them from the corner of his eye. After a while he gave a sniff, heaved himself to his feet and left the room. One of the older monks followed him outside. Eleanor could hear the Seneschal’s boots clanking over the flagstones and beside them the soft shuffling step of the monk.

They were heading for the cells.

That afternoon at the palace a messenger had brought the Baron of Selors troubling news: for eleven days the Abbot had kept a prisoner, and that very day during the dinner hour, while the monks were at table, someone had murdered him.

Once out of earshot of those around the deathbed the Baron demanded, ‘Well, you’d better tell me everything.’

The monk could not tell him much. Only that the holy Abbot had seen a vision and he’d said the prisoner was not to be questioned until the Feast of Epiphany was at an end.

‘A vision?’

‘A message from the Guardian,’ the monk whispered.

The Seneschal grunted. Outside the cells they stopped. ‘Where was the man captured?’

‘In the stables beneath Her Highness’s apartment, sir.’ The Seneschal knew that already. He was furious that Suger had not informed him and that he had people in the palace working and reporting directly to him – as if he were still Regent.

Worse, they had not done their job properly.

‘Nobody thought to post a guard in the stable, in case he had an accomplice?’

‘No, sir. It was Christmas.’

‘So it was,’ said the Baron. ‘Season of goodwill and lax security.’

The monk produced from his belt a large key. They needed to crouch to get through the doorway, the Seneschal walking with bent knees. ‘Bring some light.’

His tone sent the monk scurrying out, calling, ‘Brother! Brother! We need more torches.’

The corpse was slumped against a wall of the cell beneath its small barred window. There was a single wound in the front of his throat. It had penetrated his windpipe and severed his spinal chord. ‘A good knife did that,’ the Seneschal remarked. And a very strong arm, he thought.

‘You say, brother, that you’re the only person with the key to this cell?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘So I have to ask you: did you kill the prisoner?’ He paused. ‘Come on, stand up, man! A question can’t make you collapse.’

For almost an hour he studied the cell, the window and the face and clothing of the dead man. He gnashed his teeth in concentration as he felt through the prisoner’s cloak, pulled off his
boots, untied his hose, ran his strong, thick fingers along the seams of his garments. Finally he went outside the cell and tested how far he could push his hands through the bars of the window. His arms stuck halfway between wrist and elbow.

‘Right!’ he said. ‘I think I know what happened here. And I think I know who made it happen.’

The monk said in astonishment, ‘But we don’t even know who the man was.’

‘Oh yes, we do,’ the Seneschal said. ‘He was an Anjevin. You see this?’ He opened his club of a fist. A withered sprig of yellow broom lay in his palm. ‘
Planta genista
. Found it inside his cloak. They all carry it. The little shits.’

The monk tried to ask something, but stammered so badly no intelligible word came out. The Seneschal decided to help him. ‘Who wears a sprig of broom in his hat, eh?’

The monk did not know.

‘Well, you’ve been a good fellow, so I’ll tell you: Geoffrey the fucking Handsome, Duke of Normandy. You mightn’t know this, Brother, but I can tell you there’s not a woman between Andalus and the Low Countries whose legs he hasn’t opened. Dairymaids, duchesses …’ He glared at the monk as if he, too, could be a paramour of the Duke. The monk crossed himself once, twice, three times, until the Seneschal said, ‘That’s enough now. Fetch me writing things and parchment and take me to the stables.’

In the stables the Baron hunkered against a wall with quill, ink and parchment. His note was addressed to the captain of the palace guard. It said:

Despatch riders were waiting. He called two over, gave one the note and said to the other, ‘You deliver this tonight. And if you both drop dead, keep riding!’

He whacked the nearest horse on the rump.

Turning to the monk he said, ‘Let’s go back to the Abbot. I enjoy a good death.’

With the closet door locked, Henry took off his cloak and sat at the Queen’s writing desk where he had dictated the letter to Xena. He picked it up and idly re-read it.
My Beloved Queen,
it said:

‘Your hand is well formed,’ Henry remarked. ‘Are you with child to the Duke of Normandy?’

‘No, sir. What you made me write is a lie.’

‘But you lay with him?’

‘No!’

‘Is the Queen with child to him?’

Xena looked down. ‘I will not discuss my lady.’

‘What if I put my dagger against your throat?’

‘No, sir.’

‘You’re not a vassal. There’s no vow for you to break. Why are you loyal?’

‘The Queen saved me from a cruel fate. She persuaded the Empress of Byzantium to release me from bondage.’

‘So, better to leave Outremer for a cold, strange land than to stay at the richest court in the world?’

‘Better a handful of grass where love is than a stalled ox where love is not,’ Xena replied.

‘You know the Book of Proverbs, eh? So the Queen was kind to you. And the Duke – was he kind?’

‘He gave me a gold coin when I opened the trapdoor for him. And when I passed him messages from the Queen.’

Henry sighed.

She said, ‘Sir, you’re bleeding. May I assist you?’ With his cloak and gown removed she saw the blood-spattered front of his tunic.

‘I’m not bleeding,’ Henry said. His voice was flat.

He moved his chair back from the desk and beckoned her to sit on his lap. When she did he dropped his forehead against her neck.

‘What is it, sir? What’s wrong?’

Henry looked up at her. There was a spot, close to the jawline, just below the ear. She’ll feel my hand begin to press, but I’ll kiss her mouth and in a minute she’ll be unconscious. She won’t feel me cut her. Tears ran out of his eyes onto her neck.

‘I sometimes love the dead more dearly than the living,’ he said.

She ventured to touch his face, stroking it tenderly as she would the Queen’s when Eleanor was distressed. ‘Has someone you love been killed, sir?’

Henry stared at her. Hamelin had run to the window, smiling. ‘Oh, sir, you’ve come to save me!’

‘Have they questioned you, Hamelin?’

‘Not yet, sir.’

‘Forgive me, Hamelin,’ Henry had said.

He dropped his arms from Xena’s waist. She understood she was meant to stand up. He stood too and caught her by the hand.

‘Smile for me, Xena. Let me see happiness in your face.’

She smiled, dimples forming in her broad cheeks, her doe-like eyes big with apprehension. His look made her smile die.

‘You frighten me, sir.’

‘Forgive me,’ Henry said.

Outside it began to rain, a heavy winter downpour.

As a grey dawn broke, Suger passed into eternal life.

All in the chamber experienced the awesome wonder of the veil parting momentarily as the Abbot exhaled a long, final breath. That awed feeling now filled them with a sense of exalted, joyful weariness.

Father Bernard had arrived an hour before the Abbot died and from a corner of the room where he had seated himself on a chair – nobody expected Father Bernard to get on his knees – he beamed with satisfaction. ‘That was very well done,’ he announced, rubbing his thin hands together. His body was skeletal, almost translucent. He took a drink from the medicine flask that hung from his belt.

‘The mystery of death is complete,’ he said. ‘The saints and holy angels rejoice to receive our brother’s soul, now to be cleansed of its imperfections.’ Many of those present knew that Bernard considered Suger the epitome of all that was most deplorable in a worldly and unrighteous Church.

He advanced to the kneeling King and Queen and placed his hands on their shoulders. Suger never dared such familiarity. Nobody dared, publicly, to touch Their Highnesses uninvited. ‘Now you, my dear children, go home to the joy of marital love
that is decreed for you. You’ll get a baby soon. I can see the little thing wanting you to lie together.’

‘Pissed, as usual,’ the Seneschal said under his breath.

Bernard turned his penetrating gaze at him. The Baron looked away.

‘Father,’ the Queen said, ‘when you prayed for me before, when it seemed I would never conceive, your prayer brought me a daughter. Is the child you see now in spirit a son or a daughter?’

He patted her. ‘I’m not allowed to tell you,’ he said. He wondered if, one day, he might be.

‘Priest lies,’ the Seneschal muttered.

‘It’s Bernard’s fault France has gone mad,’ the Baron had told Suger before the second crusade.

‘It’s religious lunacy!’ he’d shouted at the King. ‘Our horses will die! You won’t get provisions! Conrad and his lily-livered Germans will desert. France will be left to fight the Turk alone!’

‘Estienne, calm yourself,’ Louis had commanded. But the Baron could not.

‘The Pope has already pardoned the sins of every man who takes the cross. You realise what that means, Lord King? Rape and pillage! Rape and pillage! There won’t be a virgin left between Chartres and Jerusalem!’

Louis had risen from his throne. ‘Estienne! I’ll hear no more of this. We are going as Christians.’

The Seneschal was close to weeping. ‘Highness! You are going to war!’

When news of the disaster reached France, the Baron rode to Chartres to confront Bernard, who said, ‘We human beings think in a short span of time. The Almighty addresses a longer one.
These are deep mysteries.’ His faintly raised eyebrow had said, ‘Wasted on you, barbarian man of blood.’

‘Like the mysteries of what you’ve got in that drinking flask, sent to you each month from Ireland,’ the Seneschal had replied. Under his breath he added, ‘Fornicating, sodomising Irish monks.’

As the royal party left the Abbot’s bedchamber Eleanor said, ‘Estienne, I forbid you to speak with disrespect to Father Bernard. He’s a living saint and a glory to our realm.’

The King took her hand. ‘The Queen is correct. That is also my command.’ The rain had stopped but it hung in the distance. A coach was waiting to take them back to Paris. ‘Sleep against my shoulder,’ Louis said.

‘I slept earlier in the night,’ she lied. ‘Lay your head in my lap, beloved.’

The Seneschal galloped ahead and arrived at the palace well in advance of the royal coach.

News of the Abbot’s death had spread throughout the city and citizens were already dressed in black. Black flags dripped from balconies, and merchants had shut their stalls. After the twelve days of bright clothing and noisy Christmas crowds, Paris felt eerie. In the palace courtyard the festive wreaths and flags had vanished.

The captain of the guard came running forward to meet the Seneschal.

‘What’ve you found?’ the Baron hissed.

‘A great deal.’

The captain led him to the Queen’s apartment. Two guards were posted outside its door. Inside were four more and the bedchamber was a shambles. All the chests stood open, disgorged of velvets, brocades and furs now strewn across the floor. On
the bed the wolf-fur rug was askew. The door to her closet was shattered. As Estienne suspected it would be, the trapdoor was wide open: he could see it from the bedchamber. He stepped into the closet and kicked aside some of the Queen’s silk clothing that normally concealed the hook and chain to open the trapdoor. He closed it and pulled the rug across it.