The Archbishop was watching him with shrewd eyes. ‘It will be a difficult time,’ he said. ‘Our duchess is a strong-willed woman, but nevertheless she will be a woman alone. She will need guidance and many will try to take advantage.’

Geoffrey returned the Archbishop’s look steadily. ‘Not if we are here to protect her. I will defend her rights as duchess with my life.’

‘Indeed. You are an honourable man and you will do the right thing.’

Geoffrey said nothing because he could not tell how much the Archbishop knew, or how much of an ally he was. He suspected they were both fencing in the dark. When Alienor returned to Aquitaine as duchess in full, she would need courtiers and clerics to advise her, and it was only wise to secure those affinities before she arrived.

The Archbishop sighed. ‘I had hoped for great things of the marriage between the King of France and our duchess, as did her father. It was his ambition that his daughter should be the matriarch of a great dynasty. How could we have known that it would come to this?’

‘Indeed,’ Geoffrey said, and then fell silent, because there was nothing else to say. He pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling tired and dull. It was as if he was a fading footprint in the dust, rather than the man striding forward to make his destiny.

There was sickness in the palace. People were succumbing to high fevers accompanied by sore eyes, congestion and an itchy spotted rash. Both of Alienor’s daughters had caught it, as had their Vermandois cousins, and the nursery in the royal palace was full of sick, fractious children. Louis contracted the fever as he was preparing to go to war in Normandy against the young Duke Henry and his father Geoffrey of Anjou. On the day he should have set out to join his army and liaise with Eustace of Boulogne, who was already in the field, Louis was in bed, sweating and shivering in delirium. Beset by terrible dreams in which Abbé Suger threatened him with the fires of hell, terrified of dying, he sent for his confessor and had his attendants dress him in sackcloth. It became clear he was not going to recover in a day or even a week, and that the battle campaign – a major strike against the city of Rouen – would have to be postponed.

‘Louis has decided to call a truce,’ Raoul told Alienor and Petronella when he came to see how the children were faring. ‘He cannot lead an army into Normandy in his condition, and there is no telling how long the contagion will last.’

Petronella turned her head away from her husband and refused to look at him, her attitude one of angry rejection. She wrung out a cloth and laid it across her son’s flushed forehead. The little boy whimpered and began to cry.

Alienor looked at Raoul. ‘How is the truce to be arranged?’

He cast an exasperated glance at his wife. ‘The Count of Anjou and his son are to come to Paris to discuss the situation and agree a cessation of hostilities in return for certain concessions.’

‘Such as?’

‘Louis will recognise Geoffrey’s son as Duke of Normandy in return for their giving up the territories in the Vexin that they hold.’

‘And he thinks they will agree?’

Raoul shrugged. ‘It will be to their advantage. The King is too sick to campaign against Rouen, and has too many other issues to deal with to start another campaign when he has recovered. If he can arrange a truce until next year and gain some land into the bargain, all to the good. The Count of Anjou and his son, for the exchange of a strip of territory, will buy valuable time to deal with their own concerns.’ He gave a half-smile. ‘I am too old a warhorse to be disappointed that we are not riding out on campaign. It will suit me to sign a truce.’

Alienor absorbed the detail that she had better prepare to receive guests, and calculated how long she would have before their arrival. Even if Geoffrey of Anjou was a rogue and far too full of his own masculine dazzle, he would be a distraction from her cares. His son she had never met, although she had heard tales about his precociousness and fierce energy.

Raoul looked at the children. ‘I will go and say my prayers for them,’ he said. ‘There is little else I can do here. Petra …’ He went to touch his wife’s shoulder and she shrugged him off.

‘Go,’ she said. ‘I know what kind your prayers will be, and at what kind of altar you will offer them.’

‘Oh, in the name of Christ, woman, the only thing that will drive me away are your groundless accusations. I can no longer hold any kind of sensible conversation with you.’ Turning on his heel, he flung from the room.

Alienor gazed at her sister. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Other women,’ Petronella said, her lip curling. ‘It is always other women with him. He thinks I do not notice, but I do, and when I confront him, he denies it. Dear God, he is old enough to be my grandsire, but still he cannot stop the chase.’

Alienor took a proper look at her sister. Petronella’s dark hair was flat and draggled. Her eyes were pouched with dark circles and her dress was stained. She smelt sour and unwashed. She was like their grandmother Dangereuse. Her passions were so intense that they burned her out. She had a desperate craving to be wanted and loved, and Raoul could not sustain the fire at that kind of level. And perhaps Petronella was right to an extent. Raoul’s nature was such that he would indeed be chasing women until the day he died.

‘Come. You must eat and rest. How can you think when you are so tired and overwrought? Remember how you counselled me when I was heartsick?’ She took Petronella’s arm and gestured the nurses to attend the children.

‘You know it’s true, don’t you?’ Petronella said. ‘That is why you don’t say anything.’

‘Because there is no point while you are like this.’

Petronella shook herself free of Alienor’s grip. ‘It is all your fault!’ she burst out. ‘Without your annulment Raoul would still cleave to me. Once you return to Poitiers, he will cast me off because I shall no longer be of any use to him – indeed I shall be a hindrance. If my mind is in turmoil, you are to blame!’

There was no reasoning with Petronella when she was like this, and she spoke enough truth for Alienor to feel a stab of guilt. Once her marriage with Louis was annulled, Raoul would indeed have no reason but love to remain wed to Petronella, because all the affinity would be gone and there would be no gain in being shackled to the former Queen of France’s unstable sister.

‘Railing at me will change nothing. If you are to keep Raoul, then you need all your faculties.’

Petronella tossed her head, but allowed Floreta and Marchisa to wash her and dress her in a clean chemise. She refused to eat, but she did drink the wine containing a soporific that Marchisa gave to her. Her lids grew heavy and she lay down on Alienor’s bed. ‘If he doesn’t want me,’ she whispered, ‘then I do not wish to live.’

‘Do not talk like a fool,’ Alienor snapped. ‘Raoul de Vermandois is not the beginning and end of the world. You have three children to call you Mother. You have kin and friends in Poitiers. How dare you say that?’

Petronella just rolled on her side away from Alienor, shutting everyone out.

Alienor went to find Raoul and discovered him, as he had said, praying in the chapel of Saint Michael. She knelt at his good side, where he had vision, and sent up her own prayer while she waited for him. He lingered as if reluctant to engage with her. His thick white hair was thinning at the crown, she noticed, and the flesh that had once been taut on his bones was sagging at the jawline. His clothes were immaculate and he still projected an air of power, but his years sat on him with more weight these days.

Eventually he stood up and she rose at his side. ‘Are you intending to annul your marriage to my sister?’ she asked him bluntly.

Raoul’s expression grew very still. ‘Why should you think that?’

‘You know as well as I do. Do not play a courtier’s game with me, Raoul.’

He heaved a sigh. ‘You have seen how she is, and that is most of the time these days. If I so much as glance at another woman she throws a jealous tantrum. She demands my attention and does not understand that I have duties to perform. She falls into dark moods where she takes to her bed and will not bestir herself for days. The priests say it is judgement upon us for what we did, but I do not believe it. I believe she has always been like this, but now it has become much worse.’

‘That does not answer my question.’

He shook his head. ‘Yes, I am considering the matter, and I must consult with the King. It seems to me that if you are returning to Poitiers, it would be better if Petronella went with you. She will fare better in the land of her childhood – in so many ways she has remained a child herself.’

‘So you would put the responsibility for her on to me?’

‘She needs to be cared for and I believe it will be for the best.’

‘For your best or hers?’ Alienor asked with scorn.

‘For both our sakes, and that of our children.’

‘And when my marriage is annulled and I part company with the King, what then?’

‘Then I shall have to decide.’

Alienor inhaled to remonstrate, but stopped as she saw the genuine pain in his expression.

‘Then I hope your conscience steers you in the right direction,’ she said. ‘You swore to protect her. Do so now.’


38

Angers, August 1151

Henry, Duke of Normandy, was enjoying himself. The young woman straddling his thighs was a beauty with thick ash-brown hair, wide grey eyes and a full, cushion-soft mouth capable of rendering the most exquisite pleasure. Being eighteen years old, Henry’s enthusiasm and capability had remained firm over several sessions of love-sport, begun the previous evening when he had retired to bed with Aelburgh, a flagon of wine and a platter of honey-drizzled pastries.