Her heart skipped. ‘Is there something wrong?’

‘No, madam, but I saw you come this way while I was checking the guards. If you want me to leave …’

She shook her head and then gestured at the tombs. ‘I barely remember them, yet their loss is always inside me. What would my future have been had they lived?’

His cloak brushed her sleeve. ‘I learned not to think that way after I lost Burgondie and the child in her womb,’ he said. ‘It does no good. All you can do is live each day in their honour.’

Her throat tightened and ached. He had missed the point, perhaps deliberately so. Had her brother not died, she would not have had to marry Louis, and had her mother lived, she might have borne more sons. It made all the difference.

‘Your mother was a gracious lady, may she rest here in peace, and your brother with her. It is fitting that she should have her own place of honour.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I wanted to do this for them.’

This was the closest moment they had shared since his return from the abortive campaign to Toulouse. She saw him on most days, but always in the company of others and connected with his official position. They were careful to avoid being alone together, and their conversation was never over-familiar. That was for the sake of observers, but the underground river still flowed. She did not believe for one moment that he had just happened to see her come this way.

Geoffrey cleared his throat. ‘Madam, I want to ask your permission to return to Taillebourg. My lands need attention and I have not seen my children in three months.’

Alienor felt his words like a cut on her heart. ‘Would you stay if I bid you to?’

‘I will do whatever you wish, madam, but I know what I would consider wisdom.’

‘Wisdom,’ she said with a bitter smile. The dusk was encroaching, filling the abbey with shadows beyond the light. ‘Indeed, without wisdom where would we be? You have my leave.’

‘Madam,’ he said. Under cover of the cloak, he briefly squeezed her hand, and then he was gone, walking briskly towards the door. Her fingers tingling from his grip, Alienor joined her ladies.

The court had been at Talmont for three days and was preparing to ride out on a hunting picnic when news arrived that the life of Alberic, Archbishop of Bourges, had finally guttered out.

‘God rest his soul.’ Alienor crossed herself and looked at Louis. ‘I assume you will put Cadurc forward as his successor.’

‘Of course,’ Louis said. ‘Cadurc has served me diligently and deserves promotion. He is the best man for the task.’

‘And useful to have someone beholden to the Crown,’ she said, and put it from her mind as a routine matter to be dealt with later in council. For now the day was waiting to be enjoyed.

Petronella reclined on a silk cushion in the shade of a sweet-chestnut tree. Dappled sunlight shone through the heavy leaves and branches, weighted with clusters of green spiky cases that in another month would split open upon bright brown nuts to be roasted on the fire, or made into delicious sweetmeats. Petronella loved the chestnut season, and hoped the court would still be in Poitou by then.

The company had been hunting all morning in the forests of Talmont and had paused to eat and socialise at a prearranged spot where servants had set up charcoal cooking fires and put out blankets and cushions in the shade. Everyone was taking their ease, drinking wine that had been cooled in a nearby stream, and eating delicacies: fresh fish caught in the bay beyond the castle walls, spicy tarts, fine cheeses and dates stuffed with almond paste. The hawks, including Alienor’s gyrfalcon La Reina, perched on stands in the shade, resting with heads tucked under their wings.

Musicians played in the background, picking out tunes on lute and harp, singing songs that alternated between rousing military affairs, robust hunting sagas and plangent love songs filled with unrequited longing. One such entertainer, a young troubadour with golden ringlets and dazzling blue eyes, had been casting looks at Petronella, and she had been flirting back at him, playing the thoroughly interested but unattainable high-born lady. It was bold behaviour, but Petronella did not care; she was enjoying herself. Alienor was too wrapped up in her own concerns to give her the attention she craved. The young knights of the household were not immune to her flirting, and the musician’s eyes were deeply appreciative. Perhaps she would sneak him a token later – a small piece of embroidery, or a gold bead from her dress. If she felt particularly bold, she would let Raoul de Vermandois catch her at it, because it would secure his attention too, and that would be exciting. She dozed, lulled by the breeze swishing through the leaves, and the whisper of the troubadour’s fingers over the lute strings.

‘Here is sweetness, for a lady who is sweeter than honey itself,’ a man’s voice whispered, and something syrupy and sticky touched her mouth. Petronella’s eyes flew open and she gave a soft gasp. Raoul was leaning over her and dripping honey on to her lips from a small pot in his hand.

Licking it off, she sat up and swatted at him playfully. ‘Do you always accost sleeping ladies in such a way?’

Raoul chuckled and raised one eyebrow. ‘Usually the ladies I accost are not asleep,’ he replied. ‘But if they are, they very soon wake up.’ He flicked the tip of her nose with his forefinger. ‘I was offering you this while there is still some left. Those greedy gorgers were prepared to devour the lot. Of course, if you would rather not, then all the more for them.’ He indicated the other members of the party, who were finishing off their repast with fruits dipped in honey.

Petronella took the pot from him, scooped up a fingerful and sucked the honey off it. Then she repeated the move but this time popped her finger in his mouth. Raoul made a sound of amusement in his throat, and proceeded to lick away the honey using his tongue with a delicate finesse that sent a shiver down Petronella’s spine and made her forget all about the young knights and the troubadour. No one could see what he was doing, because her finger was concealed inside his mouth.

‘All clean,’ he said, drawing her hand away from his lips.

Petronella looked at him coquettishly. ‘Do you want more?’ she asked.

‘Ah, now that is a leading question.’ He laughed softly. ‘You cannot keep playing with fire and not suffer the consequences, you know that.’ He gave her an assessing look. ‘It does not seem a moment since you were a wide-eyed little girl in Bordeaux, staring very suspiciously at all these strange Frenchmen – especially me.’ He pointed to his eye patch.

‘I am still suspicious of Frenchmen,’ Petronella retorted, ‘and I still think them strange.’

‘Why should you be suspicious of me? Have I not always had your wellbeing at heart?’

‘I do not know, sire. Perhaps you court your own benefit.’

‘Certainly that is true in your case. How could you not be beneficial for me?’ He ran his right forefinger lightly down her cheek. ‘You remind this old warhorse what it is like to be young and alive.’

The troubadour began another song. Petronella shifted position so that she was leaning against Raoul’s shoulder and chest rather than her cushions. ‘You are not old to me,’ she said. ‘The young knights and squires are like children, but you are a man … And I am not a little girl.’

He said nothing, and she twisted her head. ‘I’m not!’

‘Oh indeed,’ he said with rueful amusement. ‘You are a beautiful young woman, and I am as a bee drunk on nectar.’

‘How did you lose your eye?’ She reached up and lightly traced the outline of the leather patch.

He shrugged. ‘It was at a siege. I was struck in the face by a shard of flying stone, and that was that.’

‘Does it hurt?’

‘Sometimes. I was sick with a fever for a while after, and in great pain, but I coped because what other choice did I have? I was never a man for looking in mirrors. I know the value of fine clothes and appearance, but a battle scar like this is honourable and does not prevent me from doing my work, or taking part at court. And these days I am not a young hothead to charge into the thick of the fray at the first trumpet, so it matters not that I have less vision with which to fight.’

Petronella enjoyed the way he was talking to her as one adult to another, and she liked the feel of his strong body supporting hers. He lit her up inside. He had always been able to make her laugh and banish her cares. At first she had thought of him as a surrogate father, but now she was very aware of him as an attractive and powerful man. He had a wife, but she was far away and of no consequence; indeed, it only added spice to the mix.

She covered one eye with her hand and tried to imagine what he must be seeing. Raoul watched her with a smile, but added with a slight edge: ‘Now imagine that you cannot take your hand away, and that is what you will see forever.’

Petronella was immediately contrite. ‘I am sorry; I was not making little of it.’

‘I know, doucette, but some things in my life you cannot begin to imagine or understand.’

‘I could try if you taught me.’

‘Perhaps.’ He left her to go and mingle with others. Petronella watched him, a sinking feeling in her stomach as she wondered if her remark had caused him to walk away. He did not return to her, but socialised with various groups, speaking a word here, touching a shoulder there, laughing at a jest, making a quip of his own. He was thoroughly at ease and knew exactly how to talk to everyone. His face might be seamed and scarred with decades of experience, but he moved with grace and his body was lean and hard.

A young knight settled at her side, and she deliberately flirted with him while still watching Raoul from the corner of her eye. He glanced her way now and again, looking amused, but continued his rounds and was still not disposed to return to her.