To Be Queen (29 page)

“Now you have two.”

I let the matter drop. I had sent word to Stefan just that morning. I would have my annulment if it took all the gold I possessed, and the rest of my life.

I raised my queen. “Checkmate.”

Raymond laughed, the warm sound filling that walled garden. It was as if even the roses turned, that they might hear him better. I did not lean closer, though I wanted to. What my laughter did to men, Raymond's laughter did to me.

“We must go out among the others, Alienor. There is food in the hall, and music. Come and be my guest.”

“And your wife's?”

His smile did not falter, but neither did he take my hand. “Yes. Come and meet Constance. I think she will like you.”

The hall in Antioch was beautiful and open, larger than the great hall at Louis' palace in Paris. Its vaulted ceiling of white plaster arched above our heads, held in place by carved cedar beams. Its windows rose as high as that ceiling, and opened out onto the gardens beyond. Pomegranate bushes and date trees whispered together in the wind beyond the hall, and the scent of flowers drifted in on the warm evening breeze from the sea. The floors were done in mosaics of many shades, lapis and vermilion and saffron, outlining fantastical dragons and horses with wings. I walked over them slowly, watching every step, their colors like jewels beneath my feet. Those bits of colored glass were works of art, too beautiful to be on a floor.

When I finally raised my eyes, I caught Raymond smiling at me. The East made me feel like a country girl as no place ever had. I found I enjoyed it, seeing each new thing and taking it in. I wondered how I might make such things, like baths and tiled floors, come to pass in Aquitaine.

I was seated on Raymond's right side at the high table, which was made of mahogany inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Louis, who had just returned to the palace from his day of prayer and fasting, sat on Raymond's left. My husband nodded gravely to me from beyond my uncle's shoulder. The Parisians were talking low among themselves of how Raymond and I had been closeted alone for most of that day. Let them talk. One day, I would be free of them all.

I drank the sweet wine from Cyprus I had come to love and listened as Raymond's queen spoke at my right hand. She was a sweet thing, and quiet, except when she was praising her husband. I could see that she loved him, from the way her dark brown eyes shone when she spoke of him. When she could, Constance would glance at him past my shoulder, in small sips, as if he were a favorite dish that might be taken away if someone saw her looking.

Raymond's men, many from Poitou, had come to join him in the Levant and make their fortunes. They savored the taste of the langue d'oc on their tongues as I did. Louis frowned to hear it spoken, but for once, I did not heed and cajole him. I let him be.

The music was of Poitou as well. I felt as if I sat in my father's great hall once more as I closed my eyes and listened to it. But there was Eastern music as well, some blend of Christian, Saracen, Greek, and Frank that I had never heard before. Had I not known better, I would have said that I had fallen under an enchantment.

My women laughed and flirted with the dark-skinned men in Raymond's court, some darkened by sun, others by birth. The men seemed to find joy among the Eastern women as well, for in Raymond's court, the sexes mingled as they always had at home. He was no potentate with a harem here. He was simply a fair-haired, golden god who sat on his dais and let all who pleased come and worship him.

His troubadour sang to me, of my beauty and wit. I could tell plainly that it was a standard song in that court, with my name slipped into the verse, as would have been done in Aquitaine. The men and women of the hall applauded as if the song were newly minted and had never been heard before. I smiled graciously, and sent the singer a sack of gold. Louis glowered to see me pay the man so openly and so well, but by now he should be used to my ways.

The Parisians frowned like thunder, unhappy since our arrival in Antioch. Now that I would be free, I found that their glowers had no power over me. Let them sulk. Let them return to Paris, to their rainy streets and their dark, smoky halls. I would wait for my divorce here in Antioch, among my own people.

I made that decision suddenly, sitting beside Raymond at his board. As soon as I had the thought, his hand caught mine beneath the table and gave it one swift squeeze.

He was talking and laughing again in the next moment, his hand once more aboveboard, his eyes on the company. I took his lesson, and smiled on his wife, offering her choice bits of fruit from the plate near my hand as if I were mistress there, though I sat in her castle, with her husband beside me.

 

 

ALMOST TEN DAYS LATER, LOUIS CAME TO VISIT ME IN MY rooms. My ladies were braiding my hair in an elaborate Eastern style for the feast that night, and I was wearing a new gown of dark blue silk for which I had sent Amaria to the market. My new silver belt gleamed in the light of the lamps. Now that Raymond was near, I took pleasure in my beauty once more, as if it had been returned to me, newly polished. I could see Raymond took joy in it whenever he was with me.

It seemed that I was not the only one to notice Raymond's joy. Louis' people had seen it, too.

Louis came into my rooms alone but for his confessor, Francis. His other churchmen, the kindly Matthew and the quiet Gilbert, had been left outside.

I had spent the week in idle joy, visiting with Raymond and his men from Poitou, drinking in the East even as I spoke with the men on how to make war against the Saracens in Edessa. I had broached this subject with Louis twice already, asking him to lend some of his knights to support Raymond. Both times I asked, I had been rebuffed. My power with Louis had fallen low since the massacre, and I had little influence left to sway him.

I told Raymond in private that I would call on my men in the Aquitaine to come and serve with him if they desired, once my marriage was annulled. Raymond said that by then it would be too late. The French must move with him against Edessa, and move now, or the Turks, Nur ad-Din's men, would overrun the country of Antioch as they had Edessa in the north.

I sympathized, though there was little I could do. I planned to ask Louis yet one more time, though I was certain of the answer already. If I had been in doubt of what that answer would be, one look at Louis' face as he stepped into my borrowed chambers would have reminded me. I was on thin ice with him already. I must step carefully, that I might not slip beneath the floes, and drown.

I had been lax in my politics since coming to Antioch, but I had not known how lax until the sight of Louis' eyes brought it home to me.

I reached at once for the nearest rosary, a beautiful piece Raymond had given me of gold, diamonds, amethysts, and pearls. He had had it remade from a set of Saracen prayer beads, and had thought to give it me when he believed I was a pious woman, come on Crusade to save my soul. Once he met me, and saw his own soul in my eyes, he gave it to me anyway, that it might be a bond between us. I took it up now, and crossed myself, looking suddenly grave, sending my women away.

“My lord king, have you come to me for evening prayers?” I asked. “Let us kneel together and be shriven, since you bring your confessor.”

Brother Francis nodded to me, his paunch great beneath his penitent's robes. He was one for outward show in religion, as I was. Enemies though we were, we understood each other.

“Have you done something to be shriven for, Eleanor?”

Louis did not move his eyes from my face. He had heard the wild rumors of my connection with Raymond. I saw that he thought us lovers already.

I kept my face smooth, the blank mask my father had trained into me. I knew who I was, and what I wanted. But to get it, I would have to pay better attention to the world around me. I was not free of Louis yet.

“No, my lord king. Only the daily sins that all flesh is heir to.”

“Like fornication?” Francis asked.

It was a clumsy move, and a foolish one. It turned Louis' attention from me, and from my sins, imagined and otherwise. To speak so to a crowned queen was not permitted, even so far from Paris. Francis saw his mistake at once, but by then it was too late.

Louis did not speak, but stared him down.

I forced my voice into a soft tone, for I was my lord's obedient wife. “God forbid, Brother Francis.”

Francis would have said something else, but Louis raised one hand to dismiss him. “Amen,” the king said.

Brother Francis had the sense to back out of the room then, and close the door behind him. But I did not relax my guard. I had not won with Louis, if I could ever truly win a battle with him again.

“Have you played me false, Eleanor? With another man, or in any other way?”

I went to Louis and for the second time in my life, for the second time in half a year, I knelt to him. “No, my lord king. I swear before God, I am your faithful wife.”

Louis gave me his hand, and helped me rise. He hated to see me abase myself, and I knew then that he had not truly believed the rumors that surrounded me. He pulled me close, his hand at my waist, the other in my elaborately styled hair.

“Thank God,” he said, as if at prayer. “I knew it. I knew it was not true.”

I drew back, for I could not bear his touch. Raymond was too near. I could not press myself against Louis, and think of the man I could not have.

“My lord, I must confess. My heart is troubled.”

Louis' face darkened. “Why, Eleanor?”

I took his hand and brought him to sit beside me on my bed. He was roused, and I knew it, but I feigned ignorance, for I knew he would not touch me.

He had taken a solemn vow not to take me in the marriage bed until he had been blessed at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. I saw now that he had turned from the war he had hoped to win. His army was in shambles, the war lost before it had even started. Louis prayed now only for a son. A year before, I would have prayed with him, and meant it, had I a god to pray to. Now I wanted only to be free.

“We have no son, my lord. I fear it is my sin that makes this so.”

“No, Eleanor.”

The man who had come with his priest to force a confession of adultery from my lips now rose and stood over me like an angel avenging my benighted honor.

“Eleanor, you are a godly woman. I would not have thought to come to the Holy Land but for you. You are my wedded wife, and blessed before God. We will go to Jerusalem, and God will free me from my sin. And once He has done that, we will have a son.”

I was careful to frame my speech in language that Louis would understand. I called on God, for Louis always heeded Him. “My lord king, I fear that God has turned His Face from me. I fear that He has cast me aside, and that now you must cast me aside also.”

Louis turned away from me. He paced across the deep handwoven carpet almost to the door. I thought for one moment that he might leave the room altogether. When he stayed, I hoped that he had heard my words. And so he had, but he rejected all I said.

He was praying silently to his god, there in my borrowed rooms, words to a god who did not hear him, or at best would not heed him. I was done with Louis and all his praying. But I could not leave him yet. I must plant this seed, and water it to make it grow. Tonight was only the beginning.

“You must leave me behind in Antioch, my lord. Go to Jerusalem, be shriven, and cast your sins on God. Then go to Rome and ask for our annulment. You must be free, my lord king. France must have a son.” I spoke fervently, as fervently as I had spoken a year ago for him to keep me.

I saw then that Louis wept. I went to him, and took his hand in mine. I kissed him, not as a wife, but as a mother who would soothe all his hurts, and heal him, if only she could.

“Forgive me, Eleanor. I am unmanned.”

I lied once more. “You could never be.”

I still held the rosary Raymond had given me, a prop to shore up my false piety; I pressed it into Louis' palm. Let him have the joy of it.

“Louis, take this rosary, given me by my uncle who loves you. Pray for our marriage in Jerusalem. Pray for us, that we might know the will of God. Only you can do it, Louis. You and no other.”

My husband kissed me, and held me close. I think he knew it, too; the road we walked together had ended. That was why he wept. Our marriage was over.

But it did not take him long to deny that knowledge, even to himself.

“Eleanor, come down with me to dinner. We will eat your uncle's food and drink his wine. But on the morrow, we will leave this place. We will go forth to Jerusalem together, so that we might know the will of God, and be shriven of our sins. There is no sin so great that God cannot cure us of it.”

I knew that to answer with my true thoughts would be my undoing. Instead, I pressed my lips to his cheek, the words I spoke then yet one more lie between us.

“Let it be so,” I said. “Let it be with us as God has wrought.”

“Amen,” Louis answered.

He took me down to dinner that night, and I drank in the sights and sounds of Antioch for the last time. For I knew that, in this, Louis was determined. We would take to the road once more, in his endless quest to find a god that ran ever before him, elusive, fleet, a dove of peace that could never be caught.