LOUIS THE FAT, KING of France, lay half-dozing as he attempted to fight off the virulent effects of a persistent flux of the bowels, his third such attack in less than a year. As Paris lay sweltering under an unseasonably hot June, he had been taken to a hunting lodge on the outskirts of the city where it was somewhat cooler. Here, in a crowded chamber, servitors vainly tried to swat away the dark swarm of flies clustered thickly on the oaken table and bed, on pewter pitchers of fetid wine, even on Louis’s bloated body.
Through slitted eyes he could see one black-robed physician taking his pulse with the aid of a sand-glass, while another examined his urine, swirling it round and round in a silver basin. The stench of excrement and unwashed flesh hung over the chamber like a shroud.
His eyes closed and he was about to drift off into sleep when a voice startled him awake.
“Sire, I have important news. Couriers from Bordeaux have just now arrived to tell us that Duke William of Aquitaine has died in Santiago, Spain.”
The voice belonged to Abbé Suger, his chief advisor. Louis forced his eyes open and tried to speak. Although his debilitating illness had not impaired his wits, sometimes he could not force his weakened body to obey the dictates of his reason.
“Give thanks to God and all His Saints,” he finally croaked, even as his heart burned with a fierce joy. The most unruly, rebellious, and stubborn of his vassals was dead. “It is nothing less than a miracle.”
A palsied hand made the sign of the cross while his mind leapt to embrace the full significance of the abbé’s news. “If Duke William is dead then who—let me think—didn’t the son die some years ago? So there is only the young daughter?”
“Eleanor. She inherits all of Aquitaine and Poitou. And that’s not all,” Abbé Suger said. “These couriers say that with his last breath the duke begged you, as overlord of Aquitaine, to find the daughter a suitable husband.”
The King tried to raise himself then groaned, shaken by a spasm of pain. The physicians hurried forward.
“Sire, let us bleed you again—”
“Imbeciles, there’s hardly any blood left in my body now.”
One of the physicians held out a goblet. “Wine mixed with juice of poppy—”
“Will put me to sleep when I most urgently need to stay awake. Bring more servants to help me sit. I feel stronger. This news has done more for me than all your accursed potions and bleeding.” He waved them away. “Go on.”
“Naturally Duke William would have been concerned,” Abbé Suger said. “As always, his lands seethe with unrest. And when his death becomes known—”
“I am not an idiot, Father,” Louis interjected. “Why else would Duke William have entrusted the girl to my care? There was no love lost between us. He gave her to his overlord for one reason only: to protect the duchy from his own vassals and other lords hoping to make themselves wealthy by marrying the heiress of Aquitaine.”
He licked bloodless lips. “So rich a prize must not be allowed to slip through our fingers.” The king’s eyes met the rheumy blue gaze of his advisor. “We must get there first.” A sly chuckle escaped through rotting teeth. “A suitable husband, you say? Who could be more suitable than my son, Louis, heir to the throne?”
He managed to lift a swollen arm. Bloated fingers resembling thick white sausages grasped Abbé Suger’s shoulder. “Think on it! Since time out of mind the rebellious dukes of Aquitaine have flouted the authority of king and Church. Now their troublesome reign has come to an end. Only a maid stands between the French crown and the most affluent fief in all Europe. A miracle!” He lay back, panting heavily; the speech had exhausted him.
A score of servitors arrived to hoist his massive bulk into a sitting position against the pillows. After he sipped some wine, Louis’s color improved and his voice became stronger.
“My son and a huge force of knights should leave at once for Aquitaine. The wedding must be celebrated at Bordeaux as soon as he arrives. We dare not wait for the mourning period to be over. Where is the boy now?”
The abbé coughed. “In the cathedral, Sire.”
“God’s wounds, I need not have asked. The boy is still more oblate than future king.” He pointed an accusing finger at Suger. “This is your doing, Father, now you must undo it. Accompany him to Bordeaux. Prepare him for marriage. Make a man of Louis.”
The king knew the accusation was unfair. If the boy was not ready to become a husband—or a monarch for that matter—it was hardly the abbé’s fault. Bred for the cloister not the crown, only the accidental death of his eldest brother had catapulted Louis from the monastery to heir to the kingdom of France.
Abbé Suger rose slowly to his feet, a frown creasing his forehead. After a moment’s hesitation he spoke:
“There is the matter of consanguinity, Sire. You are aware Louis and Eleanor are related in the third degree? The marriage will need a dispensation from the pope himself, which may take—”
“I don’t care if they are related in the first! I want Aquitaine and I want it now! Before someone else gets it. Haste is the main issue here. Stop putting obstacles in the way; you can supply the necessary dispensations. The primary thing is to get Louis wed.” His eyes narrowed. “If you are fool enough to mention this—this unimportant fact of consanguinity, then it will become the scandal of Europe. Let sleeping hounds lie.”
Abbe Suger, looking extremely uncomfortable, cleared his throat.
The King glared at his advisor. “May God give me patience, I can see by your face there is more to come. All right, what now? Get it out. Get it out.”
“It concerns the young duchess.”
Louis raised his brows. “The maid is deformed? Addled in her wits? Resembles a toad? Cursed with a harelip?”
“On the contrary, the maid is rumored to be too beautiful for her own good, unusually intelligent for one of her sex, and lettered as well.” The abbé’s disapproval was evident in every word he uttered. “It is also said that she is hot-headed, frivolous, and mettlesome, not amenable to control. You may recall that her mother died when she was a child. There was only that adulterous grandmother as a womanly influence, God save us.” He signed himself.
“Worse than no influence at all.”
“Exactly, Sire. The father and all his court have indulged her, allowing the child to run wild. She has been taught that Aquitaine is her trough and she may swill from it as she pleases.” There was a meaningful pause. “Nor is she a dutiful daughter of Holy Church.”
Louis shrugged impatiently. “Have you ever known an Aquitainian who was? The duchy is a hotbed of heresies—” His black brows suddenly came together in a single hirsute line. “By God’s wounds, do you say she is unchaste?”
The abbé pursed his lips. “I have not heard that she is, only that the creature has stirred more than one heart to folly. However, with these southern women—” He shrugged. “What concerns me, Sire, is her moral character, the problems she may present in the future. Such an undisciplined influence might well have an evil effect upon our innocent Louis and, subsequently, on France itself.”
Louis’s eyes became hard black slits in his puffy face. “Are you suddenly grown deaf? How many times must I say it? With this marriage Aquitaine falls effortlessly into the royal power of France. So long as she is still virgin, nothing else matters. Do you understand that? Nothing, nothing, nothing!”
He glared at one of the guards by the door. “You, rout my son out of the cathedral. Tell him to make ready to leave at once for Bordeaux.”
The guard hesitated. “Now, Sire?”
“No, next week, next month, next year! May God give me strength, I’m surrounded by imbeciles and fools! Oh never mind! Just do as I say.”
He turned back to Abbé Suger, his breath coming in short gasps. “Do you tell me that—this daughter of Eve, member of an inferior sex, still hardly more than a child, is of any real concern to you? That between us we cannot tame this wild eaglet long before she becomes queen of France?” Suger turned red; Louis smiled. “Good. Now go.”
When the abbé had bowed himself out of the chamber, Louis closed his eyes. The encounter had robbed him of his strength.
Still, the prospect of Aquitaine becoming a French possession was sure to breathe new life into his ailing body. Indeed, even now, he felt a frisson of anticipation pulse through his veins. Although he had made glib assurances to Suger, he had hidden his own disquiet, a disquiet related not only to a sense of his own mortality, but grave concern for his realm as well.
At his death—which he feared might come sooner rather than later—the old order of things would pass. It always happened in a new reign. Then what? If only he could look into the future. Heavenly Father, he prayed, do not let me die. Not yet. Not for a long time to come. With a shy, devout, inexperienced youth and a willful, tempestuous maid at the helm, what will happen to France?
“My father only put Aquitaine in the French king’s safekeeping and asked him to find me a suitable husband—in time,” said Eleanor, her voice trembling with mingled anger and fear. “How can I agree to marry his son, or anyone else for that matter, when I’m still in mourning?”
Aghast at the news that the French prince was on his way to Bordeaux not six weeks after her father’s death, Eleanor was still sitting in the straw-filled cart that had brought her from the small vineyard outside Bordeaux into the courtyard of Ombrière Palace.
“Such haste is unseemly, but God will understand,” said the archbishop of Bordeaux in an agitated voice. “King Louis feels that he cannot properly protect Aquitaine unless you are closely allied to the Capet family. It is really a great honor he bestows upon you.”
His nose wrinkled in reproof as he took in her skirts bunched up around her knees, purple grape juice dribbling down her chin, smeared across her mouth, and staining her bare legs.
“Although I doubt if the French king would be so eager to have you if he saw you like this. Still treading the grapes at your age! Disgraceful.”
Eleanor ignored this. He had been criticizing her behavior as far back as she could remember, and she had never paid the slightest attention. “How can you call this enforced wedding an honor, Your Grace? Protect the duchy! The French king has always coveted Aquitaine for himself.”
Grieving for her father, struggling to accustom herself to the overwhelming task of trying to replace the late duke, Eleanor had been treading the grapes with the other inhabitants of Bordeaux when the equerry Conon had appeared with the unwelcome news that Prince Louis had left Paris with an escort of five hundred knights. He was on his way to Bordeaux to marry her and she must return to the palace at once.
“Five hundred knights! Fat Louis of France does not give me much choice in the matter.” She prayed she would not disgrace herself by suddenly bursting into tears. “Do my feelings, my grief, count for nothing in this matter?” A foolish question, as she already knew the answer.
The archbishop threw up his hands in a gesture of impatience. “Your feelings? We are all grieving. By God’s wounds, what do one’s feelings have to do with the matter?” He folded his arms across his black-robed chest. “What do you think it means to be a duchess? To do just as you please? Have everyone jump when you give an order? You have a vast inheritance in your keeping. To rule is also to serve, to bend to the will of others as needful.”
Eleanor shot him a defiant glance. “I don’t recall my father bending to the will of others.” Except when he was forced into doing so, echoed a small voice in her head.
“Naturally not,” the archbishop said in a dry tone. “That was one of the reasons he was an incompetent duke. Of course he was forced to—well, no need to go into that now. In any case he is not an example to follow, my child. Your grandfather, on the other hand, however disgraceful his personal morals may have been, knew how to yield with grace when the occasion demanded.” He paused. “Or so he was able to make others believe. A great gift.”
Eleanor felt a lump rise in her throat. Her charming Troubadour grandfather. Who would rather have conquered women than enemies. Hadn’t her father once said she possessed her grandfather’s gift?
“We waste time. There is much to discuss.” The archbishop gestured imperiously at the driver. “Take this cart back to the vineyards.”
When the cart didn’t move, he frowned. “Well, go on, boy, go on. Did you not hear me?”
The boy driving the cart looked questioningly at Eleanor. An unexpected glow of triumph spread through her, warming the chill in the pit of her belly, giving her a surge of courage. She gave a tiny shake of her head.
The equerry, Conon, spoke for the first time.
“Now that word of your father’s death is no longer secret, Lady, the French king is anxious to move quickly and I, for one, thank God for his haste, no matter how unseemly.” He glanced at the archbishop. “We didn’t want to alarm you, but there are rumors of an uprising in the Limousin, and indications that your vassals there intend to march on Bordeaux, take you captive, then marry you by force.” He signed himself. “In truth, you don’t have much choice in this matter.”
“You should have told me.” The surge of courage diminished. Bile rose in her throat.
The barons of the Limousin! Her childhood had been haunted by their continual unrest.
“But I do have a choice,” she said bitterly. “Rape, and then a forced marriage by my own vassal, or an enforced marriage to the French prince, and then a rape blessed by Holy Church. I feel just like Queen Radegonde must have felt with the Franks pursuing her.”
“I would hardly call you a candidate for canonization, my child,” said the archbishop.
Six centuries earlier, this learned queen had fled the kingdom of the Franks and her brutal husband. She was later consecrated as a nun and founded the Convent of Ste.-Croix in Poitiers. St. Radegonde, now a patron saint of Poitiers, was one of Eleanor’s favorite heroines.
If only she too could run away. Tears spurted to her eyes and to avoid shaming herself, Eleanor jumped down from the cart and walked a few steps away. Across the river, in the far distance, she watched the line of dark blue hills melt into the blazing sapphire hue of the sky. Closer to view were the purple vineyards she had just left, a winding river, and a herd of cows placidly grazing in a nearby field. In truth, she was just like St. Radegonde. A martyr to—behind her she heard a discreet cough.
“If I may interrupt your reflections, Lady?”
She brushed away the tears and turned. “Well?”
“There is another aspect of this business that has not been mentioned,” said Conon. “The most important part.” He paused. “One day you will be queen of France.”
“I?” She could not grasp the meaning of his words.
“Yes, Lady, who else? No one, not even the great Troubadour himself, would have dared aim so high.” With his usual dramatic flair Conon flung himself down on one knee. “On that auspicious day, on that most glorious occasion, every one of your loyal vassals—I among them—will sleep sounder in his bed knowing that Duchess Eleanor—Queen Eleanor—rules in Paris.”
Queen? The thought took her breath away. It was impossible to imagine. Until this moment she had not realized the full implications … Queen Eleanor! She silently repeated the title to herself.
She felt Conon’s and the archbishop’s steady gaze. After a long pause she asked, “How old is this French prince and what does he look like?”
The archbishop let out a long sigh and signed himself.
“Sixteen. A year older than yourself. Of pleasing appearance, they say, isn’t that so, Conon?”
“It is as His Grace says, Lady. The prince is indeed pleasing. Though, in truth, ‘pleasing,’ does him scant justice. Comely is more apt. Did I say comely?” Conon closed his eyes and staggered back a few steps. “Mere words fall far short … Never have I seen a youth so fair. His beauty is beyond—”
“Yes, yes. But what does he look like?”
“Blue-eyed, with silver gilt hair like all the Capets. Pleasant and modest as befits a youth fresh out of the cloister.”
Conon thought for a moment. “Also malleable, was my impression. Quite docile in fact.” He gave her a significant glance.
Malleable. Of all that had been said, that word leapt out at her. Conon understood her dilemma far better than the archbishop. A malleable husband would not attempt to interfere too strongly with Aquitaine; a malleable husband would not try to control or overpower her. As Queen of France she would be able to protect her domains.
And the prince must be pleasing to look upon. Conon might well exaggerate but he would never tell her an outright lie. An image of a knightly figure, dashing and debonair, rose before her. The Limousin barons, she recalled with distaste, were dark-visaged, portly, and smelled strongly of garlic.
“There will be a lot to do to prepare for the wedding before he arrives. When I come back we can decide on the guests.” Eleanor jumped up on the back of the hay-filled cart. “All right, Jean, I am ready.”
“By God’s wounds, where are you going?” the archbishop called as the horse pulled the cart away.
“To help finish the grape harvest.”
All the way back to the vineyards while the cart bounced over deep ruts in the road, Eleanor thought about her decision. Had she done the right thing? Not that she really had any other choice, but still … she could change what she did not like, as her grandmother had advised so long ago. What else had the canny old woman said? To get what you want you must take matters into your own hands. Until the death of her father six weeks earlier, Eleanor thought she had what she wanted: a life of merriment, frolic, and idle romance. Free from care and concern. One day, of course, to inherit the duchy; one day, an idyllic love and marriage with some appropriate suitor. But all that was now changed.
Her own hopes and desires must be subordinate to the welfare of Aquitaine now. The duchy had to be kept inviolate. Free from harm. Surely a queen of France would be able to accomplish that? As if in a dream, Eleanor remembered how desperately she had wanted Aquitaine, never imagining there might be a price to pay. In some dark corner of her mind she could hear Dangereuse laughing …