Melisande laughed. ‘I fear you are right on the whole, although sometimes there are men who are different, and we should treasure them.’

Alienor looked out across the blue sky and the heat haze rippling from the ancient golden stones. ‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘But so often we do not get to keep them, do we?’

She was aware of Melisande’s thoughtful scrutiny, but it did not disturb her. Melisande’s blood carried the right to the throne of Jerusalem, but her husband Fulke in his lifetime had tried to seize power from her and she had had to fight for every shred of authority she possessed. She had also been accused of conducting an affair with Hugh le Puiset, lord of Jaffa, one of her closest courtiers, but she had brazened out the storm and emerged from the scandal with her strength intact.

‘No, we do not,’ Melisande said. ‘It is a sad fact of life.’ She gave Alienor a look that was both piercing and gentle. ‘You can tell me what you will and it will go no further. I know enough of you and your situation to listen and understand. See me as a point of respite on your journey from which you will move on in good time.’

Alienor was silent for a moment; then she drew a deep breath and said, ‘I asked Louis for an annulment. Our marriage is consanguineous …’

‘As are many,’ Melisande replied to the point. ‘Most people are related to their spouse in some degree or other, but it does not lead them to annulment unless they choose.’ She tilted her head to one side. ‘You say you asked Louis – not the other way around? Why is that?’

‘Because …’ Alienor looked away, her throat tightening and tears pricking her eyes. ‘Because it was a mistake from the beginning. I love my father and honour his memory. I know he did what he thought was the best for me, but it wasn’t. Louis is …’ Her mind filled with words she could not bring herself to utter. ‘Neither of us has fulfilled the other’s expectations. I am Duchess of Aquitaine and Queen of France, but it means nothing. I desire only to be rid of him and have this marriage dissolved. I want my own power and the wherewithal to make my own decisions. I have been forced to take roads I would never have set foot upon without being coerced.’ She looked at Melisande, who was watching her intently. ‘Louis is weak and foolish. He takes bad counsel from those around him and will not listen to sense. I do not wish to be at the beck and call of a dolt and his minions for the rest of my life.’

‘Ah,’ said Melisande. She clapped her hands and a servant appeared to refresh their cups with wine that had been cooling in a cistern. ‘I well understand that. It is difficult when men prefer to take the advice of other men, and make unwise choices. That decision to attack Damascus was a case in point.’

Alienor grimaced. ‘Indeed,’ she said. ‘How different things might have been if they had made Aleppo their objective.’ She had still been recovering from the stillbirth of her son when she had arrived in Jerusalem. No one knew of it even now save for Marchisa and Mamile. There were scurrilous rumours doing the rounds of the barons and clerics, but those rumours concerned impropriety between herself and her uncle and were being spread by the likes of Thierry de Galeran in an attempt to blacken Raymond’s name and turn against him men who might otherwise have listened to his pleas to strike at Aleppo. A council had been held at Acre and Melisande had been present in her capacity as co-ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Alienor had been excluded by Louis and had been too unwell and powerless to protest the exclusion anyway. Melisande had tried to persuade the other attendees that it would be more to their advantage to ride on Aleppo, but she had been overridden. Damascus was a far more tempting prospect to all in the short term, rather than looking to any longer gain. Raymond had refused to come to Acre to argue his point, declaring that there was too much treachery abounding for him to consider risking his life for what was obviously a foregone conclusion.

The army of Jerusalem, bolstered by the French, had assaulted Damascus and been routed, the campaign a disaster. Louis’s reputation had suffered another setback as all the impetus and opportunity to improve the security of the Christian kingdom had been squandered. Louis had now firmly exchanged the mail shirt of a soldier for the robes of a pilgrim. He said it was a precious thing to breathe the same air that the Saviour had done, walk in the same dust, touch the same temple walls. So it was, and Alienor had visited many of the places herself and been humbled and moved, but pilgrimage had become Louis’s obsession and bolt hole from reality. He was currently absent on an expedition to Lake Galilee where he intended collecting vials of the precious water on which Jesus had walked and where he had declared he would make his disciples ‘fishers of men’.

Melisande gave a flick of her wrist. ‘Indeed,’ she said. ‘Beware all men. I grew to be fond of the husband I was forced to wed, but in our early years, he did his utmost to lock me out of power even though I was his key. It took him a while to learn the ways of this land, and just as we came to an understanding, the fool fell from his horse and broke his skull.’ Her eyes filled with pain, and then she shook herself and reached for her wine. ‘What did Louis say? Has he agreed to give you an annulment?’

‘He would if left to decide on his own, but others have advised him against it,’ Alienor said. ‘He does not want me because he says I am sullied and I do not obey God as I should, and therefore God declines to bless us with an heir – although if Louis will not lie with me how can he beget that heir? But he knows if he does agree to an annulment, he loses Aquitaine and he loses face. Men will call him a failure on all fronts.’ She gave a sour smile. ‘He cannot live with me, he cannot live without me, and so he hides on his little peregrinations, where he can be the King of France with all the dignity and none of the problems. He can fulfil his spiritual needs and forget he has a wife at all. It is an annulment of sorts, just not official.’ Her expression hardened. ‘We shall be visiting Rome on our way back to Paris, and when we do, I hope for a positive outcome.’

Melisande looked troubled. ‘You are set on this?’

‘I already have deputations at Rome working on my behalf.’

‘What will you do if your annulment is granted?’ The Queen of Jerusalem shook her head. ‘You will be an irresistible marriage prize to someone. You will be immensely wealthy and still with many years of childbearing ahead of you. What ambitious noble would not snap you up and devour you?’

‘I have loyal protectors,’ Alienor replied with bravado. ‘I shall do what I must.’

‘Then I wish you well. The world is a murky place, as well you know, and it is wise to look ahead and to plan for more than one situation.’

‘I have always tried to do so,’ Alienor replied. ‘I was taken by surprise in Antioch. I underestimated my enemy and it was my downfall.’

Melisande gave her a sidelong glance. ‘You must be aware of the rumours about you and your uncle in Antioch. I do not for one moment believe them, because I know what it is to have defamatory tales spread about your moral reputation by those intent on bringing you down, but the smear remains.’

‘Yes, I have heard the gossip,’ Alienor said with stiff composure and drew back a little, because Melisande was touching on ground that was still too raw to bear a footfall.

‘You should bear a son, and become a widow,’ Melisande said. ‘That is the best power you will ever have as a woman, believe me – unless you become a nun of your own volition. And even then, sons grow up and demand power in their own right. They will fight you for it, even as a husband will take it from you. That is the way of the world.’

‘What comfort am I supposed to take from that?’ Alienor asked, her throat tight with suppressed emotion.

‘I was not offering you comfort,’ Melisande replied coolly, ‘but if you are going to plan ahead, you should take these things into account so that you may deal with them should they arise.’

‘My heir is a daughter,’ Alienor said. My sons have died.

‘As I was to my father, and as you were to yours.’ Melisande leaned forward in emphasis. ‘You are still young enough to have a different life.’

Alienor took a drink of wine and steadied herself. ‘I intend to,’ she said.

Louis celebrated the Nativity in Bethlehem under a cold star-glittered sky, kneeling at the shrine covering the site of the stable where the Christ child had been born. Tears of exalted rapture streamed down his face. Alienor celebrated at his side, although it was almost more than she could bear, this joy for the birth of a holy infant, when her own son lay in an unmarked grave, never to be acknowledged except by her. She was tired of being a guest of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Much as she enjoyed Melisande’s company, she was ready to leave. All the commands, all the arrangement, all the government was by another’s will and it was not her home. Louis remained obsessed with his pilgrimages. Like a little child craving sweets, he was greedy for more even though he had had a surfeit.

The French army had broken up in September and the troops had begun wending their way home. Louis’s brother Robert had set out with most of the French contingent, leaving a nucleus of soldiers and servants – enough for an entourage, but not an army. Louis said he would follow shortly, but the intent went no further than words and was soon forgotten.

Alienor paced her chambers in Jerusalem like a prisoner, albeit that she had every comfort. She went to the souks and the bathhouses. She attended the local shrines; she prayed at the sepulchre. She read, embroidered, played chess, wrote numerous letters and marked time. Still Louis made no effort to return home. There were more shrines and holy places to see and others to revisit to fix them in his mind. While he was thus occupied he did not have to think about what was waiting for him: the hardships of governance and the decisions about the future. He hid himself amid the glories of God and made them his only reality.