Devil's Consort (63 page)

‘I think they had little choice. We had abandoned them.’

‘I should have stayed to lead them by land.’ Anger descended into the habitual refrain of maudlin despair.

‘Then you too would be dead!’

Shaking his head, Louis thrust his foot against his chair to send it hurtling onto its side, the cushions scattering. ‘I shouldn’t have listened to you. A monstrous debacle.’

So I was once more to be the whipping boy. But I
was stronger now and Raymond had done much to restore my confidence. I would not be downcast. I would not take on this burden.

‘I’ll not be blamed for this, Louis. I would have saved them.’

But Louis fell into silence, his eyes focused on the floor, reminding me vividly of those weeks in Paris when his mind had become completely taken over by the depth of his sin at Vitry. This was not the time for him to fall into a melancholy that would freeze him into an inability to make any decision other than to spend every night on his knees before God.

I struck his arm with my hand.

‘Louis! For God’s sake …’

‘Go away, Eleanor.’ He looked around with distaste at the grandeur of the room with its hangings and gilded furniture. ‘I must talk to Odo. The sooner we leave here the better.’

At least he was thinking, planning. It was the best I could hope for. ‘I expect you’ll tell me when you’ve made your decision.’ My scorn was heavy.

‘Yes. I’ll tell you. And I tell you this.’ Face pale, mouth set, he turned foursquare and his eyes focused on me at last. ‘I consider your intimacy with your uncle unfortunate.’

‘My intimacy? I hunt with him, eat with him …’

‘You talk to him. You’re always talking to him. What do you talk about?’

‘All the things you will not talk to me about!
Politics. The Turkish threat. The safety of Antioch and Jerusalem. You won’t—and Raymond will. You can’t find fault with me for that, Louis.’

‘I don’t approve. I forbid you to discus French policy with him.’

‘Forbid me? By what right do you forbid me?’

‘As your husband.’

‘If you acted as my husband I might listen to you. Since you do not, I will spend my time as I choose. And if I wish to discuss affairs of war and politics with the Prince, my own blood—I will!’

I thought that would be the end of it. It was not. Louis took a deep breath and blurted out the accusation.

‘I don’t like the rumours I hear, Eleanor.’

I was alert. All senses came alive. But I remained as cool as a glass of sherbet, my eyes commanding his.

‘What rumours?’

‘You are too much in Prince Raymond’s company.’ At the last his gaze slid uncomfortably from mine. ‘You are too intimate with him.’

It made no sense. ‘Louis—you are a fool!’ I announced.

Louis’s lips tightened with disapproval. He stalked past me. I rejected his ridiculous words. I had more important things to think about.

How do you live with a man like that? Will you spend the rest of your life with a man for whom you have no respect?

Raymond’s questions, even though I had answered
them, would not leave me. They remained, like burrs under a saddle, to irritate. They disturbed my sleep, stalked me through my waking hours. They troubled me.

Or did they? Did they not light a tiny flame of hope? And in the leisure hours in the heat of the day in Antioch did I not breathe on that little flame until it glowed and the idea began to emerge as a bright phoenix stretching its wings from the flames? Sometimes I thought it impossible. In other moments—well, why not? It was entirely possible if I made it so.

The fact that you are Eleanor, and a woman of some remarkable spirit, might have every relevance.

So I worried at it, like loose threads on the worn cuff of a gown. I must think and plan.

‘Lady—you should be aware … Court gossip …’ Agnes hovered.

‘Of what?’ I hadn’t time for empty tales and false chatter.

‘They say that you and the Prince.’

‘Raymond’s court has nothing better to do with its time than to indulge in idle speculation. Lies and artifice—either a figment of Louis’s disordered imagination or Galeran’s poisoning tongue. I’ll not hear it.’

‘As you will, lady …’

Once I would have asked her, ‘What do they say of me?’ Once I would have listened to her sage advice, but now my mind was too caught up in my Grand Scheme. So I thought and planned, until every argument was
worked out in my mind, as clear as the reflection in the Venetian looking glass that Raymond had provided for my use.

For a little time I was diverted when Raymond summoned his war council. I was not invited—in matters of government Raymond could be as intransigent as any man—and so was forced to glean information from the violent after-effects. It was not difficult. The palace was awash with opinion and conjecture, not least because within minutes of the council’s meeting Louis and Raymond were at each other’s throats.

Raymond’s plan of campaign, which I well knew, was to show Louis the wisdom of diverting the crusading army from its progress to Jerusalem and launch instead an attack on the Turkish strongholds of Aleppo and Caesarea. With the Turks distracted and weakened, it would be an easy next step to recover Edessa and thus save Antioch from Turkish inundation. And Raymond’s strongest argument, to appeal to Louis’s principal objective, was that to drive the Turks back would in the long term strengthen Jerusalem.

Louis had balked like a stubborn mule. Jerusalem was his goal and that was where he would go. My own vassals had sided with Raymond, but their inclination was ridden over roughshod. With terrible conviction and total blindness, Louis declaimed that he would not deliberately shed the blood of his enemy until he had completed his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to lay his
standard on the altar and be washed of his sins. Then he might consider Raymond’s vulnerability, but not before.

Stunned, Raymond had retaliated, not choosing his words in an unusual show of anger.

‘God’s wounds! If you are not prepared to help a fellow Christian, you may as well leave tomorrow. What point in you staying when you would close your eyes to my plight? And that of every man and woman in this city.’

‘I am aware of your plight, but I don’t consider it to be immediate.’

‘Then God help you if you are ever forced to witness a city sacked by the Turks.’

The council had ended in a tumult of bad blood. Regrettable, but in it I saw my way to achieve my heart’s desire. I would be mistress of my own destiny yet.

After the council’s collapse, Raymond seethed. I had no idea what Louis did. Raymond was the one I went to.

‘It would have to be a holy miracle to get that damned husband of yours to see beyond his immortal soul!’ Raymond’s anger had cooled, but not greatly.

‘Not a miracle.’ I smiled disarmingly. ‘An ultimatum. I want you to recall your war council. And this time I will be there.’ I waved him to silence when I saw the objection of a man who still saw a woman’s place as the kitchen, the solar or the bedchamber spring to his lips.
‘You should have invited me to the first one. I should not have needed an invitation.’

‘It is not customary.’

‘Is it not? I will be there.’ I laid my hand on his sleeve and weighted my voice with authority. ‘Call the council, Raymond.’

He studied my face—would he refuse?—then nodded once, a sly glint in his eye. Of course he would agree. Was Raymond not a military man, a skilled tactician, awake to every opportunity? ‘I don’t know what you’re planning but you are a clever woman,’ he observed with the calculating grin reminiscent of the boy I remembered. ‘And a beautiful one. I will do it, because you ask it. We’ll see if Louis can be forced to bend with the wind.’

Yes, we would indeed see. I could barely wait.

I delayed my arrival at the war council to enjoy the effect as I walked into the room, as Raymond rose to lead me to the chair that had been placed for me at his right hand. There was a rustle of interest around the table. Louis stiffened, fingers closing round the cross that lay on his breast, probably for strength to withstand me. Galeran’s narrow features were harsh with condemnation. Odo de Deuil looked contemplative, as if deciding whether to write about my uninvited presence or if it might be better to gloss over what might become a vituperative occasion. The rest of Louis’s knights were
uneasy. Only my own vassals showed any pleasure in my appearance.

‘I have allowed my niece to attend because she requested it,’ Raymond announced, suitably enigmatic.

I smiled at him, at the council, inclined my head graciously and took my seat.

‘Well?’ Louis made no concession whatsoever to my appearance but, eyes sliding first toward Galeran, addressed Raymond. ‘There’s no need for this council. I’ve given my answer, and have put into place arrangements for us to leave for Jerusalem immediately. I’ve made my case perfectly clear—’

I wasted neither time nor breath.

‘You have refused to help him, haven’t you?’

Louis’s mouth thinned, predictably. ‘This has already been aired. What need to ride over the same ground again? I don’t even understand why you’re here, Eleanor.’

‘Hear me, Louis.’ I raised my hand. ‘I reject your decision!’

‘To what end? I leave for Jerusalem immediately.’

‘And I don’t agree.’

I looked at Louis, at the unhealthily sallow skin, the tightness of it over his sharp cheekbones, the dart of his restless gaze. And I saw the infinitesimal twitch of a muscle beside his eye. He fears me, I thought. He fears what I might say, what I can do. And Galeran too was uneasy, his jaw set hard. My anxieties and strained emotions
of the past weeks vanished. Latent power surged through my blood.

I smiled at Louis as if I would put his mind at rest.

Louis sighed, his voice gentled. ‘What do you want here, Eleanor? What can you add to this that hasn’t already been said? I will do what is necessary for both of us.’ I could feel the tension lessen in the room as he reached across the board to take my hand. Surely this show of generosity would silence me. ‘It is not seemly for you to put yourself forward and …’

I looked at his hand, palm up on the table in open demand, Louis expecting me to place my hand in his in feminine compliance. And I did. I saw Louis exhale in utter relief. And then, when he smiled encouragingly at me, I launched my attack.

‘It is my right to be here—and I have made my decision, Louis. Here it is for you to consider. I say we give our remaining forces to the aid of beleaguered Antioch. The Prince has asked for our help and, before God, we should not refuse him. If you are determined to set your face against him—a disgracefully selfish action, to my mind—I can do nothing to alter that. But this is what I can do.’ I hesitated, just for a moment, to draw out the tension, enjoying Louis’s discomfort. ‘On my own authority I will give my own troops from Aquitaine and Poitou to Raymond’s cause.’

‘What?’ Louis snatched his hand back as if suddenly scratched to blood-flow by a soft and purring kitten. ‘What did you say?’

‘If you march for Jerusalem, I’ll not go with you. I’ll remain here and put my forces under Prince Raymond’s command.’

‘You will not.’

‘And how will you prevent me?’

Louis’s voice sank to a whisper that hissed in the silent room. ‘You would destroy any final chance I have of getting to Jerusalem. You know that to remove your men would tear the heart out of what’s left of my army.’

‘I know.’

‘You would disobey me!’

‘Not necessarily. I think you should reconsider Antioch’s position. When Antioch is safe, you are free to go on to Jerusalem.’

With a sweeping glance, I assessed the faces that looked back at me. Some aghast. Some intrigued at this battle of wills. My Aquitanians nodding in agreement. I had the whip hand and everyone knew it. Louis had no choice but to acquiesce. He would give in, Antioch would be safe. I felt the slide of Raymond’s gaze, felt the appreciation in the curve of his mouth.

‘God’s balls!’ Louis was on his feet, leaning over the table towards me. ‘You’ll not do it, Eleanor. You’ll not defy me.’

I stood too, and Raymond. In the same moment my Aquitanian captains were on their feet. Suddenly the atmosphere in the chamber was intensely volatile.

‘It’s his influence, isn’t it?’ Louis’s stare at Raymond
was vicious. ‘It’s the self-seeking ambition of a man who has lured you into his power by fair means or foul!’

‘Foul means …? Don’t be a fool, Louis!’ I felt Raymond stir as if to take issue, his hand automatically moving to the knife at his belt, and put out my hand to stop him. I’d misjudged Louis, thinking he would bow before a stronger force. I saw the anger begin to build, the violence that could sometimes race out of control, as the ill-fated de Lezay had once experienced. But I would not back down. ‘Surely any commander of insight would see the good sense of Prince Raymond’s plan of campaign—to attack the Turks in their own base, to drain their strength. But if you choose not to see it …’

It was if I had struck him. Louis loped round the table, clumsy in his urgency, to lurch to a halt so close that his foot crushed the embroidered hem of my gown. ‘Insight be damned! You’ll not stay here. You’ll come with me when I leave, even if I have to tear you away by force!’

Like the crack of a whip his hand closed on mine as if he would drag me from the room, but Raymond’s reaction was even swifter, gripping Louis’s wrist, fingers white so that Louis winced and cried out, letting me go.

‘Tear her away from here by force, man?’ Raymond snarled. ‘Have you gone mad?’

I took a breath, stunned by this show of open
violence, yet still with enough presence of mind to take a step between Louis and Raymond.

‘My lords …’

‘Take your hands off me,’ Louis demanded.

‘You’ll not force her without her consent,’ Raymond flung back. ‘Is she some common kitchen slut to be ordered by you?’

‘She’s my wife and will obey me.’

‘I will not leave Antioch.’ I added to the tension.

There we stood, a three-cornered knot of savage hostility at odds with the sophisticated surroundings, our audience looking on open-mouthed.