‘You must change your ways,’ he reiterated. ‘And if you do this, I shall pray to God our Heavenly Father that he grants you and the King the great gift and mercy of a child for France.’

She bowed her head over the plain wooden cross in her hand; the leather thong was greasy and dark from the contact with the back of Abbé Bernard’s neck. Despite her revulsion, she felt a strange moment of humility. After all the wealth that had surrounded her today, this object brought her feet back down to the ground. More importantly, it made her see her way forward with Louis.

‘Good, my child,’ he said. ‘I suggest you spend three days and nights in fasting and prayer to purge yourself of any deleterious spirits. And then, doing as I have told you, go to your husband, and all will be well.’

He bade her kneel with him to pray. Alienor closed her eyes as the tiled floor struck cold against her knees through the fine stuff of her garments. She pressed her palms together and tried not to breathe in the sour smell of his body. If prayer and humility would bring her closer to her desire, then she would do what she must.

Newly returned from her three days of fasting and contemplation, Alienor went to her chamber window and looked out on a dazzling blue arch of sky. She felt lightheaded, but her thoughts were lucid and focused. The sky was clear and plain, so unlike Suger’s jewelled use of light in Saint-Denis, and yet its simplicity was the true wonder of God and nothing plain was ever really simple. In that at least, if nothing else, Bernard of Clairvaux was right.

Turning from the window, she studied her bed with its soft sheets and rich golden hangings embellished with scrollwork embroidery in warm fire-orange. She loved them, but she could now see her problem. ‘Strip the bed,’ she commanded her women. ‘Bring me plain sheets and bolster cases, the kind the monks use at Saint-Denis.’

Her ladies eyed her askance. ‘Do it,’ she commanded. Her gaze fell on the beautiful brass bowl at the bedside that was used for her ablutions. It had a flower design worked over its surface that matched the hangings and she loved it. Steeling herself, she bade someone fetch an unembellished one. Everything had to be made simple. She had the niches stripped of their ornaments, her caskets and coffers tidied away into her painted chest, and the chest itself covered with a grey blanket. She placed a book of the lives of the saints on top of it, and put crosses in the embrasures.

When she had finished, the room was stark, but possessed a certain austere beauty. Her ladies were even more wide-eyed when she ordered them to change their fine gowns for others of sober wool, and to cover their heads with full wimples of thick white linen.

‘It is to please the King,’ she told them. ‘That is all you need to know. It is important to put him at ease when he visits, and to do that, the surroundings must suit.’

Alienor opted for a gown of blue wool with modest sleeves, and the same wimple as her women. She hung Abbé Bernard’s wooden cross around her neck and removed all rings but her wedding band. And then she took up some sewing – a chemise to be given in charity to the poor – and stitched the seams while she waited. It was one of Louis’s ‘duty’ evenings, and since she did not have her flux, he had no excuse for keeping away.

He walked into her chamber in his usual rigid manner, like a man forced to wear a garment with seams that irritated, but then he stopped and looked round quizzically. Alienor watched him sniff the air like a deer tasting the dawn. She left her sewing and went to greet him with a demure curtsey. He dismissed the attendants he had brought with him, including the Templar Thierry de Galeran, who flicked her a narrow, speculative look as if measuring an opponent before he bowed and departed.

‘Changes?’ Louis said with a raised eyebrow.

‘I hope you approve of them, sire.’

He made a non-committal sound and went to examine a cross standing in an embrasure.

She waited for him to return to her and give her his cloak. He washed his hands and face using the plain ewer and dried them on the coarse linen towel neatly folded at the side of the bowl. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, he patted the rough woollen coverlet. ‘Yes, this is better,’ he said. ‘Perhaps at last you are beginning to understand.’

Alienor bit her tongue on a sharp retort, determined to play the role of submissive, prayerful wife to the hilt if that was what it took to succeed in begetting an heir for France and Aquitaine. ‘Everything became clear to me at Saint-Denis,’ she said demurely. ‘I realised that a change was needed, and that I had to be the one to make it because you had already done so.’ All of which was true. She had married a young man, never realising he would become this warped semblance of a monk.

Louis pointed imperiously to her side of the bed, indicating she should lie down in it. Anger coiled within her, but force of will held her to her purpose. She was sad too. She wanted him as he had once been, with his tender, shy smile, his tumble of long fair hair and all his boyish enthusiasm and desire. But that person no longer existed.

The sheets were scratchy and uncomfortable and she had to suppress a grimace. Louis, however, seemed to relish the feel of them against his skin, as if their very coarseness made them more real. She turned towards him and put her hand across his chest. ‘Louis …’ His eyes were closed and she felt him recoil. ‘Is lying with me really so terrible?’ she asked.

He swallowed. ‘No,’ he said, ‘but we must guard our honour and do this thing not out of fleshly lust, but because it is the will of God.’

‘Of course,’ she said as if surprised. ‘It is my intention to follow God’s will. I do not kiss you out of lust, but out of a desire to do His bidding and be fruitful.’ Slowly, as if a sudden move might startle him, she sat up and removed the wimple.

He touched her tightly braided hair. ‘All I have allowed myself to feel are harsh things,’ he said in a hoarse voice. ‘Punishment things, because I am not worthy of more. The soft and beautiful things are sent to lure us. You must see that?’

Alienor was tempted to say that the beautiful things were God’s creation too. Where else had Eden come from? But that would only agitate him further. ‘I see that we are being tested, just as the Abbot of Clairvaux said we would be,’ she replied. ‘And I see that we are punished in all manner of ways, but procreating is the will of God and we must do our duty.’

He groaned and rolled on top of her, pushing up her chemise and gown. Alienor lay inert and forced herself not to be a participant. Usually she would have raised her knees and parted her thighs; she would have twined her arms and legs around him, and moved her hips in counterpoint to his; but now she did nothing. He kept his eyes tightly closed, as if even to look at her was unbearable. She heard him muttering a prayer between clenched teeth. He tugged her legs apart and she felt him fumbling. ‘God wills it,’ he gasped. ‘God wills it. God wills it!’ And then he was inside her and thrusting wildly, calling on God to watch him doing his duty, his voice rising to a shout that was a mingling of triumph, guilt and despair as he spilled his seed.

He lay inert on her for a moment and then withdrew to gain his breath. She closed her legs and pressed them together. She was sore from the intrusion without any preparation, but she had achieved her goal – as had Louis. A glance at him showed that his eyes were still closed, but his features had relaxed. He left the bed and went to kneel at the cross she had placed at the foot of it, and there thanked God for his great mercy and benevolence in restoring grace to him. Joining him, Alienor thanked God too, and silently prayed for a swift result.


22

Paris, Autumn 1144

Alienor arrived at the abbey church of Saint-Denis feeling tense and sick. The prayers and the strategies had worked and she was certain she was with child. She had wanted to be sure of her condition before she told Louis, but now that time had arrived, she was apprehensive.

Abbé Suger greeted her with a bright gleam in his eye. ‘I think you will approve of this,’ he said and took her to a locked cupboard containing the vessels used in the mass. Standing on the middle shelf in pride of place was her rock-crystal vase, but she barely recognised it, for Suger had had the neck and base adorned with filigreed gold, precious gems and pearls. There was an inscription around the base, detailing the history of its giving.

‘How beautiful,’ she said, because it was, even if no longer hers. Bernard of Clairvaux would have approved of its plain state – pure and unembellished. Now it was entirely Suger’s thing. He hardly needed an inscription to set his mark on it. ‘And so in keeping with the rest of the church.’

‘I am glad you approve. I wished to do full justice to your gift.’

‘Indeed you have.’ Alienor was almost fond of Suger. He was a consummate politician, prepared like her to deal in practicalities. ‘I have a favour to ask of you.’

Suger looked wary. ‘If I can help, I assuredly will.’

She studied the quatrefoil pattern of the floor tiles. ‘All our prayers have borne fruit,’ she said. ‘I am with child.’ She placed her hand on her belly which showed a slight curve under her belt.

Suger’s face lit up. ‘That is wonderful news! Praise God that He has heard our entreaties!’

Alienor bit her lip. ‘I have not yet told the King. I did not want to raise his hopes after so many years and our other loss. I do not know how he will react to this. I would be grateful if you would prepare him to hear the news.’

‘Leave it with me.’ Suger set his hand over hers in reassurance. ‘I cannot see that the King will be anything but overjoyed by this news.’