Devil's Consort

‘Don’t demean yourself,’ I warned.

‘I would not!’

So now we processed down the length of the hall, took our seats and looked out over the no-expense-spared glory of our celebration. Louis and I acknowledged the good wishes and sipped the marriage cup. I tried not to notice the juxtaposition of my braided hair as it lay on my breast, with my gown and the flash of rubies in the sunlight, but I found time to regret that on the day that I was a bride, at Louis’s insistence I wore red silk damask and Fat Louis’s rubies. Louis would not be gainsaid. Red was a royal colour, he said. I should be clad as the future Queen of France. I humoured him—by the Virgin, the gold was heavy!—but not in the style of my gown. The cut of it was opulent and pure Aquitaine so that Louis’s pale brows rose at my trailing skirts and oversleeves that had to be tied in elegant knots to prevent them dragging in the dust. I was right—he did not approve of ostentation.

At least for once Louis looked the part, fair and comely beneath the Aquitaine gold of the ducal coronet, despite the compressed lips. His servants had got to grips with him and turned him out as a prince, as if he had more than two silver pennies to rub together. In fact, he dazzled the eye. Perhaps his father and the omnipresent Abbot Suger had insisted on the red and gold tunic, heavy with embroidery, giving bulk to his figure and an unquestionable air of majesty.

The feast began, the troubadours sang. The great names of the lords of Gascony and Aquitaine were spread as a mosaic before us. Lusignan and Auvergne, Périgord and Armagnac. Châteauroux. Parthenay. My father had kept them tightly controlled by a clever show of force coupled with an open hand of generosity, but I knew that as soon as I was in Paris they’d be gnawing at the edges of my land, like rats on a decaying carcass. The image made me shiver. I sent platters of food and flagons of ale in their direction and bent a beaming smile on them. Nothing like a feast to soften hostilities. Along the table to my right I tried not to watch as Aelith cast inappropriate glances towards the forbidden Count Raoul, who was not slow in returning them, despite his wife’s obvious displeasure, her hand fastening like a claw on his wrist to keep his attention. On my left Louis was toying with a meagre plate of roast suckling pig whilst all around tucked in with hearty appetite.

‘Does it not please you, sir?’ I asked.

Before us on the white cloth was spread a beribboned swan, proud and upright, its neck skewered with iron to keep it erect, the whole resting on a lake of green leaves. Accompanying this masterpiece of creation was a peppered peacock, a spit-roast piglet, a haunch of venison, while servants carried in an endless procession of ducks and geese and sauced cranes.

Louis frowned at the display. ‘I am not used to such opulence.’

‘But this is a celebration.’

‘And it would be wrong of me not to enjoy it.’ He speared a piece of the meat on his knife and ate it. But only one piece, unlike my vassals who stuffed piece after piece into their mouths until they were sated. Perhaps, I made the excuse, it was a reaction against his father’s gluttony. I could not fault him in that.

Bernart, my favourite of all my troubadours, sank to his knee before me.

‘I ask permission to sing of your beauty, lady.’ And not waiting for assent, because no Aquitanian ever refused a song, he broke into the familiar verses.

For beauty there’s no equal

Of the Queen of Joy.

I threw a pouch of gold to land at his feet in acknowledgement of his compliment, as he slid into a verse I did not know.

‘From afar the King has come, come to interrupt the dance.

‘For he fears another man may boldly seize the chance to wed the April Queen.’

So the gifted Bernart had written this verse for the occasion—and my heart fluttered a little at the compliment. My troubadour knew my value to the King of France and would broadcast it to the winds. April Queen. I liked it almost as much as Queen of Joy—and I certainly approved the idea that I was much sought after. What woman would not? And so I turned to Louis, laughing in surprised delight.

‘Well, sir? Do you like the sentiment?’

‘No. I do not.’

‘Why not?’ The flat denial astonished me. ‘Any woman would be delighted with the idea of rivals for her hand. It is the essence of love.’

The muscles in Louis’s jaw tightened. ‘I don’t like the sentiment of having to snatch you up before another man forestalled me.’ I saw his nostrils narrow as he inhaled. The corners of his mouth were tightly tucked in as if the scents of the spiced meats were suddenly distasteful. ‘And I have feasted enough.’ Casting down his knife, he signalled for a finger bowl.

‘Do you not find it pleasing?’ I asked, suddenly uneasy, uncertain of his intentions. It seemed to me petulant beyond words. Did he want the feast to end? Did he intend to leave? It would be far too discourteous. To end my wedding feast now would be the height of bad manners. Did Louis not see that?

‘Not inordinately. Not as much as you, it seems.’ His soft voice had acquired an edge as he turned to stare directly into my eyes. ‘Do you know what they say of you? The lords at my father’s court?’

‘Of me? No. What do they say of me?’

‘Not of you,’ he amended, ‘but of your people. They say that men from Aquitaine and Poitou value gluttony rather than military skill.’

How patently untrue! Was he being deliberately gauche? Surely he would not be so coarse in his criticism on this day of all days. ‘Is that all they can find to say?’

‘They say you’re talkative, boastful, lustful, greedy, incapable of …’

The words dried on his tongue, his cheeks flew red flags, as he suddenly realised to whom he spoke. ‘Forgive me.’ He looked down at his dish with its uneaten mess of meat and sauce. ‘I did not think …’

I felt resentment stiffen my spine. How dared he slander me and my people on so short an acquaintance? I might see their shortcomings but it was not this Frankish prince’s place to denigrate them. By what right did he measure them and find them wanting? ‘Do you not feast and sing in Paris, then? Do the Franks not find time from government for pleasure and entertainment?’

‘I did not sing and feast. Not at Saint-Denis.’

‘What is that? A palace?’

‘A monastery.’

‘Did you visit there?’

‘I was brought up there.’

The words sank in, but with them not much understanding. ‘You were brought up in a monastery?’

‘Did you not know?’

‘No. As a priest?’

‘More or less.’

‘Did you enjoy it?’ I could not imagine it. My quick anger was replaced by interest.

‘Yes.’ A smile softened the tension in his jaw and the feverish light in his eye faded. ‘Yes, I did. The order of the day, each one like the last. The serenity in the House of God. Can you understand?’ His voice took on an enthusiasm I had not heard before, his pale eyes shone. ‘The perpetual prayers for God’s forgiveness, the voices of the monks rising up with the incense. I liked nothing better than to keep vigil through the night—’

‘But did you not learn the art of government?’ I interrupted. ‘Did you not sit with your father and hear good advice and counsel?’ Surely that would have been of far greater use than the rule of Saint Benedict.

‘I was never intended to rule, you see,’ Louis explained. ‘My elder brother—Philip—was killed by a scavenging sow at loose on the quay. Philip fell from his horse when it reared.’ Louis’s voice was suddenly hoarse with suppressed grief. ‘There was no hope for him—his neck broke in the filth of the gutter.’

‘Oh!’

‘He was an accomplished warrior. He would have been a great king.’

‘My son.’ A soft voice from Louis’s other side broke in. The ever-present Abbot Suger, sent by Fat Louis to keep his eye on the son and heir. He leaned forward, a slight, elderly man with deceptively mild demeanour, to look at me as much as at Louis. ‘My son, the lady does not wish to hear of your life at Saint-Denis. Or of Philip. You are heir to the throne now.’

‘But the Lady Eleanor asked if I had enjoyed my life there.’

‘You must look to your future together now.’

The Abbot had the thin, lined face of an aesthete. His hair was as glossily white as an ermine, his small dark eyes just as inquisitive. They summed me up in that instant and I suspected they found me wanting.

‘Of course. Forgive me.’ Louis nodded obediently. ‘That life is all in the past.’