Petronella suddenly stopped rubbing and drew in her breath. ‘Alienor …’

She opened her eyes and struggled to adjust to the light after the smooth darkness behind her closed lids. Given her thoughts, she was shocked and astonished to see Louis advancing on her, a white gyrfalcon bating on his wrist, and for a moment thought he was an illusion. She leaped to her feet, her heart thumping. Blanchette, roused from her doze, began a shrill yapping that made the bird flap increasingly agitatedly.

Louis ducked away from the bating wings. ‘Get rid of the dog,’ he snapped.

Petronella grabbed Blanchette and, with a glare at Louis, stalked from the chamber.

Alienor stared at him. His garments were crumpled and dusty. He had lost weight and there was a sharpness about his features that had not been present before.

‘I did not know you had returned. You sent me no message. What are you doing with one of my falcons?’

‘I wanted to tell you myself.’ He untucked a hawking gauntlet from his belt and handed it to her. ‘Your vassal de Lezay declared against you and took your birds as an act of defiance. This one was in the chamber where I killed him. I have kept her by me ever since in token of how far I am prepared to go in your name. See, she still has the traitor’s blood on her feathers.’

Alienor’s stomach tightened. There was a tense and dangerous glitter about Louis, as if he might whip out his sword and stab someone just because he could. Suddenly she was very glad that Petronella had left the room. ‘You killed de Lezay?’ She pushed her fingers into the gauntlet.

‘It was necessary,’ he said harshly. ‘They had offered an affront. I was lenient with the people of Poitiers, so I had to show severity at Talmont.’ He scowled at her. ‘There was no need for Suger to come to Poitiers. I was handling matters on my own, and his arrival undermined me. Everyone thinks I am weak, that I am not good enough and second-best, but I showed them; I showed them all.’ His face contorted. ‘De Lezay forswore his allegiance and dishonoured us by taking the gyrfalcons, so do you know what I did?’

Alienor shook her head and eyed him warily.

‘I cut off his hands and feet with my own sword as a lesson to others and had them nailed to the castle door. Let no one dare to take what is not theirs or to deceive me.’ His eyes were almost black because the pupils were so enormous and Alienor was afraid because she did not know what he might do next. Here was no pious, uncertain youth, but a wild and savage creature. She held out her gauntleted wrist. ‘Let me have her,’ she said.

Louis transferred the hawk to Alienor’s wrist, both of them dodging the beating wings. She felt the weight of the bird, the frantic strength of her. Gyrfalcons were the largest and most magnificent of their species. Their only predator was the golden eagle.

‘Suau, mea reina. Suau,’ Alienor said softly in her own southern tongue. ‘Be quiet, my queen, be quiet.’ She stroked the falcon’s soft white breast feathers and crooned to her. Slowly the wings ceased to flap, and the legs to dance. She perched on Alienor’s arm, gripping fiercely. There was a brown stain on top of her head where she could not reach to preen.

Louis watched Alienor, his chest heaving, and as she controlled the bird he too calmed from his crisis and the wildness left his eyes.

‘You did what you had to do,’ she said.

He nodded stiffly. ‘Yes, what I had to do.’ He clenched his fists. ‘Suger told me you lost the child.’

A pang of grief and guilt surged through her, but she kept her composure because of the bird on her wrist. ‘It was not to be.’

‘On the feast of Saint Denis, so I was told,’ he said almost accusingly. ‘God must have been displeased. We must have done something wrong for Him to take away that grace. I prayed and did penance in the cathedral at Poitiers.’

‘I have prayed too.’ The thought of the dead child was a silent anguish. She felt the loss as a part of her own life-spark that had failed to kindle. Had she done something wrong? The thought haunted her.

He cleared his throat. ‘In Poitiers, I heard a priest say that our marriage would not be blessed by offspring because it was consanguineous.’

Alienor gave him a bitter look. ‘Priests say many things out of their own thoughts as men, and not directed by God. Did not the Church bind us in matrimony and advise we should be wed in the first place? Does that same Church now change its mind on a whim?’ She spoke forcefully, and the gyrfalcon arched her wings and flapped. Alienor soothed her again and controlled her own anger.

‘Yes.’ Louis looked relieved. ‘Of course you are right.’ He rubbed his forehead.

‘I will have a falconer put a perch in here for her,’ Alienor said.

Louis exhaled and his shoulders slumped. She saw the exhaustion smudged beneath his eyes and gestured him to lie down on her bed. ‘Come,’ she said. ‘Sleep a while and your mind will be clearer.’

He stumbled over to the bed, lay down, and fell asleep almost immediately. Alienor looked at his long limbs, his fair hair and handsome features, and then she looked at La Reina, and the brown stains on her white plumage, and shivered.


12

Paris, Spring 1140

Alienor had been busy all morning, attending mass with Louis, answering correspondence from Aquitaine, dealing with supplicants, before eventually finding a little time to spend with Petronella, who was being fitted for some new dresses.

Petronella’s most spectacular new gown was for the celebration of the feast day of Saint Petronella on the last day of May. It was of a rose-coloured silk that complemented her warm brown hair and turned her eyes the colour of woodland honey. There had been remarks about how much Petronella resembled her grandmother, Dangereuse de Châtellerault, a fiery beauty, notorious for abandoning her husband and running off with her lover, William the ninth Duke of Aquitaine. Not that anyone mentioned the scandal. The discussion centred on what a beauty Petronella was becoming.

The gown was sewn with hundreds of little pearls, echoed in the double belt on the dress and in the rings on Petronella’s fingers. More pearls wound through her braids and hemmed her veil. For Alienor this was more than just cladding her little sister in finery. It was a celebration of Petronella’s womanhood and sent out a strong message that she was protected by wealth and power and therefore untouchable. Clothes were every bit as much a weapon and protection as a knight’s sword and shield.

Petronella swished the full skirts of the gown back and forth, showing a glimpse of silk-clad ankles and dainty embroidered slippers.

‘Our father would be so proud to see you,’ Alienor said.

‘I wish he was here.’ The smile left Petronella’s lips, only to reappear as her gaze lit on Raoul de Vermandois who was standing in the chamber doorway.

‘Raoul, what do you think?’ She skipped over to him and pirouetted.

He stared at her as if poleaxed. ‘I think I must be dreaming,’ he said. ‘You are a beautiful vision.’

Petronella laughed and danced around him, light as thistledown. ‘I am flesh and blood. Feel!’ she said and held out her hand.

He took her fingers and bowed over them . . ‘Well then, a beautiful young lady,’ he amended with a bow. From behind his back, he produced a little dog collar woven with rose-coloured braid and set with rows of pearls. ‘I heard rumours about a certain new dress,’ he said, ‘and I thought Blanchette should match her mistress.’

Petronella clapped her hands and, with a cry of delight, flung her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. Then, whirling away from him, she stooped to the little dog and replaced her collar of braided leather with the new one.

‘Perfect,’ Raoul said. ‘Now you are perfect.’ With a courtly flourish to the women, he excused himself.

Alienor gazed in his wake, feeling warm in her heart for his consideration. Raoul was so much the surrogate father to Petronella, giving her the attention she sought and keeping the pestering young bloods at bay.

Leaving the women to their dressmaking, Alienor went to find Louis. He had been distant and difficult to reach lately and she had to work to maintain her influence. She had not conceived since her miscarriage, and on several occasions Louis had been unable to do his duty, a state of affairs that had sent him flying to church to beg forgiveness for whatever sin was inhibiting his virility. Even the times he did accomplish the deed, it bore no result, for her fluxes arrived regularly each month, and the predators circled, awaiting their moment.

Louis’s chamber door was partially open and she could hear the raised voice of her mother-in-law. Alienor grimaced. Adelaide had become more difficult and inflexible since Louis had agreed a marriage between his sister and the English King’s heir, Eustace. Constance had gone to England in February to join her new household. Adelaide, having lost another ally and companion at court and her only daughter to boot, had been morose and querulous ever since.

Currently she was directing a tirade at Louis, her tone unpleasant and cutting. ‘You must not be swayed by those who would try and take you away from your true duty to rule France. When I think of all the sacrifices your father made for you … Your predecessors fought to put you on the throne and you carry all their striving, their dreams and hopes on your shoulders. Do not hold it lightly, and do not allow others to hold it for you. Do you hear me?’ There was silence and Adelaide repeated the question in a strident voice. There was a solid bang as if she had struck something on a table.

‘Yes, Mother,’ Louis replied in a neutral tone.