‘It could be worse,’ Alienor said with small patience. ‘You could have remained in Constantinople as a bride.’

Gisela compressed her lips and finished dressing in silence.

Louis arrived while the women were waiting for their mounts to be brought. ‘Stay in formation and don’t straggle,’ he warned. ‘I want everyone across by nightfall. No foolishness.’

Alienor eyed him with irritation. What did he think they would get up to on a freezing rough mountainside? And why would they wander off when it might mean death from Turkish arrows or tumbling down a stony slope?

‘I have told the vanguard to be vigilant and to wait at the summit for the baggage to catch up.’ Louis nodded briskly, wheeled his stallion and rode back through the camp, leaning down to have a word here and there, bolstering men’s resolve. Alienor watched his progress and grudgingly acknowledged that for all his flaws and the things he had done that made her despise him, he sat a horse well and was an inspiration to his men when he made the effort. He was a strong and skilled swordsman, possessing grace and coordination. If there was anything left that sparked feeling in her, it was the manhood he showed astride a horse.

Saldebreuil brought Serikos round to the tent which the servants had begun dismantling. A thick rug covered his rump this morning and under it, her groom had packed Alienor’s bow and a quiverful of arrows. Everyone carried weapons of some kind; even the poorest non-combatants had a knife and a cudgel.

‘The seigneurs de Rancon and de Maurienne have already set out with the van,’ Saldebreuil said as he boosted Alienor into the saddle. ‘The middle will have to move sharpish to keep up. The van will have a long wait at the top if they get too far ahead.’

‘They know their part,’ Alienor replied as she gathered the reins. ‘The sooner we are over the summit the better for all.’

Together with her women, Alienor set out on the stony track that led up the steep, partially forested slopes of Mount Cadmos. Saldebreuil, ever watchful, rode as close to her as possible, although sometimes before or behind because the path was often too narrow for two horses to go abreast. ‘Make way!’ he shouted. ‘Make way for the Queen!’

The heavily burdened sumpter horses struggled as the steepness of the climb increased. Pilgrims meandered, trying to find the easiest way, planting their staffs in the ground, hauling themselves up step by step and cursing the weather. Alienor heeled Serikos’s flanks, urging him on. Pellets of sleet stung her face. She pulled a scarf across her nose and mouth and felt her breath moisten the wool, each exhalation a momentary burst of warmth that swiftly became an icy chill over her lips and chin. She fixed her mind on the thought of reaching the other side and the welcome of fire, shelter and wine laced with pepper and ginger. Each stony step brought her closer to Antioch, to her uncle Raymond, and release.

Only lightly encumbered and riding good horses, the vanguard progressed swiftly towards the summit of the mountain. Geoffrey de Rancon and Amadée de Maurienne kept their men moving in tight formation. Sometimes they heard the ululation of the Turks who had been shadowing and harassing them all along the route since crossing the Arm of Saint George, but they did not see them. A few desultory arrows curved out of the trees, but they fell short and posed little threat. Nevertheless, the space between Geoffrey’s shoulder blades felt extremely vulnerable. The threat came not only from the Turks. There were men in the train behind who would rather he was dead. He knew of the whispers behind his back: that he was the Queen’s lapdog and not to be relied upon. There was all the prejudice of the northern French nobles for a southern lord, and one beholden to a woman as his liege lady rather than to the King of France. That was why they had paired him with Amadée de Maurienne to take the vanguard over the Cadmos Pass, because the latter was the King’s uncle and considered experienced and trustworthy.

Geoffrey knew that if his deeper intimacy with Alienor were discovered, he would be found guilty of treason against his king and he would die. Perhaps Alienor would too or else face incarceration for the rest of her days. He did not care about his own fate, but for her sake, he had to keep his distance, no matter how difficult it was. That moment at Constantinople had filled him with a maelstrom of conflict. He was ashamed for his loss of control and the danger in which he had put her, but the moment itself had felt sanctified. He had no sense of betraying Louis, because Alienor had been a part of his soul for far longer than Louis had been her husband. She said once they reached Antioch things would change. He did not know how that was going to happen, but since the day was not far off, one way or another the waiting would be over.

The wind drove a fresh flurry of sleet into his face. The higher they climbed, the colder and more exposed they became. Drifting curtains of snow-laden cloud obstructed their vision. The desultory assaults ceased, but the weather continued to batter them all the way to the long summit. Geoffrey drew rein and stopped to listen for the jingle of pack-pony bells and the horns blaring from the unwieldy mid-section of the army. The sound was faint and variable depending on the direction of the wind, which had its own banshee voice and demonic force. There was no judging how long it would be before the centre arrived. Their banner-bearer planted the French lance in the sparse soil of the summit and the silks snapped in the wind, their edges faded and frayed by the months of hard travelling. Geoffrey peeled off one of his sheepskin mittens, and having fumbled his wineskin from his saddlebag, set it to his lips. The sour, tannic taste made him screw up his face and he spat out what was essentially vinegar over his mount’s withers. De Maurienne huddled in his thick squirrel-lined cloak. His bony beak of a nose made him look like a disgruntled vulture.

Geoffrey pulled up his hood as yet again it blew back off his head. His teeth ached and he had to half close his eyes to see through the whirling flakes. He sought the lee of a large boulder. His stallion put down its head and hunched its body, tail streaming between its hind legs.

‘Good Christ,’ de Maurienne muttered, his eyes streaming, ‘by the time the others arrive, we’ll be frozen rigid.’

Geoffrey glanced at him. De Maurienne was not a young man and although he had been robust when they set out, the long journey had taken its toll on his health. ‘We could seek shelter further down off the mountain,’ he suggested. ‘We can put up the tents we have with us and light fires for when the others arrive.’

De Maurienne looked doubtful. ‘The King said to wait here and move off together.’

‘I do not think he realised how much the weather would close in. It’s madness to stay here and freeze. I doubt I could hold my sword if I had to use it.’

The wind veered again, bringing to them the scrape of hoof on stone and the sound of the outriders blowing their horns.

‘I suppose they are not far away,’ de Maurienne said. ‘If it weren’t for this weather, we’d be seeing them by now.’

‘Indeed. There won’t be room for all of us on the summit; we should move on and make camp.’

De Maurienne stroked his white moustaches. ‘Yes …’ he said doubtfully, but another blast of wind-blown sleet decided him. He summoned a squire and sent him down the mountain to liaise with those following on.

Heaving a sigh of relief, Geoffrey ordered the banner-bearer to uproot his lance and take the track to the shelter of the valley.

‘Make way! Make way for the Queen!’ Saldebreuil’s voice rang out again and again, a little hoarse at the edges now. The path had grown steeper and stonier as they climbed, and Alienor and her women had dismounted to go on foot because the horses had become skittish. Alienor had already seen several animals and their riders come to grief, which only added to the ranks of the wounded and to the weight of the packs that everyone else had to carry up the pass.

Gisela’s little grey kept trying to turn back the way he had come, and had to be forced forward with flicks of the whip. He obeyed, but all the time showed the whites of his eyes. Alienor clucked her tongue to Serikos, urging him on, offering him small pieces of bread and dried dates as encouragement. His whiskery muzzle gusted at her shoulder. She could feel the hard stones of the track through her shoes. Despite the weather, the cold and the hardship, the connection gave her a certain sense of satisfaction in the reality of the moment. There was a challenge in going forward, in working her way through the ranks. As a child she had run races against the other palace children, seeing who could be the first to the top of the hill, and there was an element of that feeling now, a testing of her own stamina and strength.

Suddenly an arrow whined through the air and drove into the chest of a man in front of Alienor, hurling him off his feet. He sprawled, drumming his heels and twitching in his death throes. His horse jerked the rein free from the bend of his elbow and plunged back down the track, barging Serikos’s shoulder and narrowly missing Alienor. More arrows showered down, bringing death, injury and panic.

Alienor grabbed Serikos’s bridle close to the bit and ducked under his chin and round to his other flank, intent on reaching the protective quilted tunic in her saddle baggage. The yells of the Turks were clearer now. She saw the flash of a turban from behind a boulder as a Saracen rose to deliver his shot at a burdened pack pony. The initial hit did not down the sumpter immediately; it lumbered and staggered, crashing into pilgrims, creating mayhem. Already the Turk had another arrow at the nock.