To Be Queen (17 page)

Louis left his ministers, the men who had counseled his father before him. He came to me alone, without even his men-at-arms. He scratched at my door, and when Amaria opened it, Louis bore a bunch of flowers. He had picked them from my garden on the way, and his hands were full of daisies and asters, primroses and columbine. He did not hand them off to Amaria, but held them out to me.

“For you, Eleanor.”

As if he would bring flowers to any other.

Tears rose in my eyes, the easy tears of early pregnancy. Louis saw them, and stepped close to me, blocking me from the sight of my women. He did not wait for my ladies to file out behind him, but kissed me in full view of all my people. I knew then that he loved me truly. He had left his shyness behind and followed his heart.

I felt a piercing warmth stir close in my chest. I leaned against him, breathing in the scent of his perfume, the musky scent he had his perfumers press for him and no other.

“I love you, Louis.” I had never said those words to him before.

Tears rose in his eyes, tears to match mine. My women were gone, Amaria closing the door behind her. Louis held me close, as if I were made of spun glass. He kissed me lightly, gently, letting his tears fall. He was the only man I ever knew who was not frightened by his own tears.

“A son,” he said. “A son for France.”

I did not answer, but nestled close to him, as if he were my protector in truth. We stood together, the first flowers of spring between us, our child in my belly, hope rising in both our breasts.

We left for Aquitaine the next month, though the Count of Valois and Louis' churchmen were against my traveling at all. Valois and his faction counseled the king to leave me behind in their tender care. I saw in their smiles only sharp teeth and in their gestures of obedience only narrow fingers that looked like claws. I did not want to give birth to my son among them. I would have been gone from that place, even if we were not headed home.

The spring came with May, and the sun lit our way every day we traveled. The roads were dry and Melusina stepped lightly, as if she, too, knew that I carried the next King of France.

Louis rode at my side, and I thought once more that we might indeed be happy. I was sure that all I had ever wished for with my father at my back would come to fruition. My son would be a new Charlemagne and would rule a united kingdom at peace.

I was still very young.

We rode into the lands near Poitiers and my people did not stand to greet me. The ones who saw us coming as they worked in their fields stopped work, but only long enough to bow before turning once more to their crops. I felt the first chill then, though the sun was warm above us, burnishing my bronze hair. In place of crown and coronet, my mother's fillet rested on my brow. It fit me now, engraved above my temples with the crest of Aquitaine.

My people knew me, though I rode with a party of Parisians. They bowed to me, but none would meet my eyes. I remembered a spring two years before when my father and I had stepped from our fortress in Poitiers, greeted by the calls of the people. They had cheered us for joy that day. As we rode through the countryside now, no one so much as raised his hat to me. I did not know why my people might have turned from me. I swallowed my confusion, and rode on. Louis and his men did not notice, for their people cheered for them only if paid to do it.

We slept that night in tents five miles outside the city of Poitiers. We would ride the rest of the way in the morning, an easy distance on horses as fine as ours.

Melusina tossed her head as I came down from her back. Louis stood by, ready to catch me if I fell, though of course I did not. To be cherished by my husband, even a weak husband, warmed my heart. Louis did not come to my bed now, for fear of harming the child, but he would sit by me, his hand in mine, until I slept.

At first, this made me uneasy; I feigned sleep so that he might leave me in peace. But over the last week, I had grown to find comfort in the warmth of his touch.

Louis and I dined alone that night, a luxury we never would have had in Paris. Amaria attended us, and Louis' page Alfonse, but that was all. The rest of my women had a tent of their own, well guarded by knights who would turn their backs if one of my women wished to entertain a suitor elsewhere. This leniency did not extend to the young girls in my care; I would make marriages for them. But for the widows and the women older than twenty summers, I let them take their ease as they pleased. If one of them had the misfortune to fall with child, I would arrange her marriage then.

So Louis and I sat alone, the fire in the braziers burning beside us. Louis held my hand, and I drank the last of my wine. It was well watered; in my pregnant state, I could not stomach heavy burgundies. Only the lightest wines and the purest water would satisfy me. Louis indulged me in this as he did in all minor things. It was statecraft and policy that he turned to Suger for, unless I kept a close watch on him. During the months of my marriage, there had been a constant battle between myself and Suger to keep the king's ear. But I held it now; his son was in my belly.

That night, statecraft was far from my thoughts. We sat in comfortable silence, as if we had been married nine peaceful years and not nine grueling months. Louis toyed with the ring of Aquitaine that I wore next to my wedding band on my right hand. My father's ruby glinted in the half-light. I wondered that Louis had never asked for the signet of Aquitaine. I would have had to muster some excuse then, for I would never give it up. But he never asked.

The chief of Louis' guard, Jean, came to us as we sat alone in my tent, and knelt to my husband. I sat up straight, my warm, comfortable haze clearing like a fog at morning.

Alfonse stood by the flap of the tent, looking as if he wanted to run through it, and away from us. Jean stayed kneeling before us. I stared at him, the scent of his sweatstained tunic filling my throat with bile. Louis took his hand from mine.

“What news?”

“There is word from Poitiers, my lord king. The people there have risen. The burghers have cast out Lord Philip, and set a council of their own in his place.”

I did not breathe or move. My people had not waited a year before turning me out of my own capital. For my husband's man was my man; his representative was my own.

The citizens of my lands hated the Parisians, but that was the first day I understood how much. I also realized that the remnant of my father's web of spies was worthless. I had paid them as my father had always done, and even increased their fees. I had assumed that each man would be loyal to me, as he had once been to my father. I saw now that I was wrong. At the very least, the bishop of Limoges should have sent the news of this uprising to me. Instead, I had to hear it from Louis' man, not half a day's ride from the city. My father's men were not loyal, in spite of the gold I paid. My own spy network, a few men and priests gathered into my service since my marriage, would not be enough to keep information flowing into my hands. I would have to rebuild my father's network, one man at a time. Such a task might take years, and my people had risen up against me in Poitiers already.

Fear rose to swamp me, the taste of it bitter in my mouth. I felt the flutter of my heart beneath my rib cage, like a bird that wished to fly free. All I had worked for, all my father had died for, might go up like so much smoke and ash. I looked to Louis.

He was as calm as any bishop.

“My lord king,” I said, “I am sorry that I have not gotten word of this before.”

“And how would you, Eleanor?” Louis took my hand, and pressed it between both of his. “This is men's business. Politics is not a woman's province.”

I stared at my husband, searching his eyes for some trace of mockery. I saw none. He truly believed what he said. After nine long months, he still did not know me. At that moment I felt encased in a cocoon of velvet, as if all the world were muffled and distant, as if I were already in my grave.

Louis sent for his army, and we rode up in three days' time to the very gates of Poitiers with his knights at our backs. The sight of Louis' army quickly had my people singing a different tune. Hating the thought of a Parisian overlord, they had risen up and formed their own government, assuming my husband too weak to defend his rights. But when they heard that his army was coming from Paris, they realized that not only did Louis command countless knights, but he would use those knights against the city. Like the Babylonians when Alexander the Great threatened their walls, the city of Poitiers came out to greet us, flowers in their arms and songs of praise on their lips.

The velvet shroud that wrapped me almost burst when I saw that. These were still my people, fickle and fractious though they were. They called my name in that spring sunshine. I felt my father's presence beside me so clearly, I knew that if I were but to turn my head, Papa would be sitting on Excalibur beside me.

So I went into my father's palace with an army of Parisian knights and foot soldiers at my back. I saw my own lands held by an enemy, and my heart bled all over again. Then I remembered: these soldiers were my husband's. These soldiers were also mine.

This thought heartened me, and the next day, Amaria stopped giving me the curds and whey with my breakfast; before, she had offered them to me in an effort to build up my strength. Amaria knew me better than anyone alive, and watched me as I came back to life. My statecraft returned to me then, and I told Louis to take hostages, one child from every rebelling family. Like the Pharaohs of Egypt, I instructed Louis to take the eldest son; if there was no son, to take a daughter.

Louis blanched at this, but I explained to him slowly and carefully that we would not kill these children. If we did not take hostages, if we did nothing at all, my people would rise behind us, and the rebellion would spread from the capital at Poitiers to all my lands. Even the knights and foot soldiers of France could not hold that much land by force of arms. The threat of arms as well as hostages in hand would suffice.

Louis stared at me, but gave the instructions to take hostages as I looked on. I felt a cramping in my belly like an ill omen, but I ignored it. Though my father had warned me of the possibility, I had never truly believed that my people would ever turn from me. Now I did. I must put their hearts and minds to rights and remind them, not only of their love for me, but of their obedience. I must convince them that I was still duchess, and that I ruled with a firm hand. I might be married to a French king, but I was my father's daughter.

Still, I was uneasy, and could not sleep. I was five months into my pregnancy and my belly had begun to swell; all could see that I was with child. After almost a month in Poitiers, I left my rooms only once a day, when I went out among my people, my husband's guards attending me, my women left behind. Louis did not like it, but I knew that I had to remind my people of a different time, of a time when they called my name with joy, a time when my father stood beside me.

The swelling of my belly seemed to comfort them. They saw this child not as my husband's son but as mine. One woman came to me, and pressed her hand against my stomach.

“A son for Aquitaine,” she said.

“Please God,” another answered.

And I, who believed in nothing but myself, said, “Amen.”

Louis came to me that same day, when I was taking my ease among my women in the solar of my father's keep. He sent them out without so much as a by-your-leave, and I felt another cramp in my belly, as I had already three times that day.

“Eleanor, I have word from Paris.”

“Has the populace risen up against us there, too?” I asked.

Louis looked shocked at my feeble joke, as if I had called down a curse upon our heads. He crossed himself. “God forbid, my lady.”

“God does forbid it, Louis. Sit down.”

He sat down beside me and took my hand in his. I felt a flutter of pain close to my heart, matched by another cramp in my belly. I bit down on the pain, and ignored it.

“What news comes to us from Paris, my lord king?”

“Suger has written. He has taken me to task on the order of the prisoners.”

My mind, still wrapped in velvet, could not at first understand what he said. That Suger would reprimand the King of France was beyond my comprehension. But as I looked at Louis' face, I saw the guilt there warring with the sense of righteousness he always displayed after he had made up his mind to be a fool.

“I have let the prisoners go,” he said.

“The hostages?” I asked. “But they are the only insurance we have that my people will not rise again behind us when we go.”

“Eleanor, I cannot take children from their families, mothers from their sons, fathers from their daughters. Suger said that this was evil, that God would curse us if I did this thing. I have been at prayer and have been shriven. You must go and do the same.”