Table. A linen cloth stretched fair and stainless along its length, as white as snow, with a napkin, a glass, a knife and a spoon at every place. Plates of polished pewter and silver. No more bread trenchers for those who sat at my table. The pages’ hands were scoured to red-fingered purity, the finger bowls perfumed with citrus and rosemary, frequently replenished. A troubadour warmed the strings of his lute. ‘Does it make you happy?’
‘Yes, indeed.’ I smiled encouragingly. I had his full attention. ‘One thing would please me far more,’ I whispered in Louis’s ear. ‘One thing would make me very happy.’
‘Then I will grant it. You only have to ask.’
‘Come to me tonight. We will pray together—’ a lure he could not refuse ‘—and then I will tell you. Will you come?’
‘Yes.’ There was no hesitation. Louis smiled at me.
‘Promise me.’
‘I promise.’
Excellent. I had a plan. My experience told me that there was perhaps one pathway to Louis’s reluctant loins.
‘Do you recall the success of your expedition against de Lezay at Talmont, Louis? When you rescued my gerfalcons?’
We had prayed. At some length. Now at ease, Louis lay beside me in the bed. The room was warm, the bed-hangings sumptuous, the linens soft against our naked flesh. Louis’s skin gleamed in the light from the single candle. I had hidden the Book of Hours in the bottom of one of my coffers.
‘Yes.’ A smile, swiftly followed by a little frown. ‘I recall de Lezay …’
‘It was a victory,’ I broke in, to obliterate his memory of de Lezay’s severed hands.
‘Yes. A victory.’ Still he was troubled.
‘To impose your authority on an impudent vassal who had stolen what was mine.’
‘I recall. I had God’s protection.’ Smiling again, Louis rolled to prop his head on his hand and look at me. ‘What of it?’ His eyes shone with benign contentment, and I leapt in before he could think of another prayer to offer. ‘It’s Toulouse. I want you to get back Toulouse for me.’
‘Toulouse?’ A large kingdom abutting Aquitaine to the south-east, stretching almost to the Mediterranean. Louis looked quizzical. ‘Do you have a claim on it?’
‘Certainly I do. My grandmother Philippa was Countess of Toulouse in her own right. It was snatched from her when my grandfather was too old and ill to fight to retain it for her. The present ruler, Count Alfonso, has no right of blood, only the right of power,’ I explained simply. ‘It should not be. It should be mine.’ Which was not untrue, even though Toulouse had been lost to us for the past twenty years. But here was a circumstance that might just play into my hands. ‘Now that I have a powerful husband of my own …’
I left the words hanging, for Louis to snatch up. Was this not what I had always wanted? A strong right hand to hold my lands? So why not get back what had been stolen from me? And if success in battle should strengthen Louis’s manhood. So many possibilities here. I let the idea settle in the still room as I reached and handed Louis a cup of spiced wine from the nightstand.
‘Think about it,’ I urged as he sipped, faint colour tinging his cheeks, a glow that had nothing to do with the heady spices. ‘It would extend your lands, as well as enhancing your prestige if you launched an assault and crushed the man who dared to steal what is rightfully mine.’ I cupped his cheek with my palm so that he focused on my eyes so close to his. My unbound hair curled with sensual effect onto his chest, his shoulder. ‘I would be so proud of you, Louis, if you could renew my claim to Toulouse and restore it to me—to us …’
I had planted the seed. I could see it grow in his face, in his eyes. Or it was like I had lit a little flame that bloomed and consumed. Louis drank deep as the vision of fame and glory struck home.
‘What a reputation you will build for yourself.’ I added an extra layer. ‘No lord will dare to threaten you.’
‘True …’
‘And you will have all my admiration …’
‘Do you mean it?’
‘Yes.’
Louis took another gulp, wiped his lips with the back of his hand. ‘Then I will. Toulouse will be yours again.’
Taking the cup from him, setting it aside, I kissed him on the mouth. ‘My powerful husband. My victorious lord. I can see it now, the point of your sword at Count Alfonso’s throat so that he has no choice but to hand Toulouse back …’
His lips warmed beneath mine. His hands clasped my shoulders with surprising strength. His erection surged and stiffened against my thigh.
‘Louis …’ I sighed against his mouth.
God was pleased to allow him to complete the deed. Briefly, in truth, but not before Louis had spent the royal seed in me. I felt nothing. How could I, when Louis’s interest was fast and tepid at best? My body remained unresponsive beyond the success at getting him to this point. Through it all I prayed that my womb would quicken.
‘Thank you, Eleanor.’
Louis fell asleep.
By the Virgin, Dangerosa! Did you risk your reputation for this?
CHAPTER SIX
LOUIS acted. The extent of his enthusiasm astonished me as much as it horrified his mother and drove his royal counsellor into a fury. I had not thought he would take my advice so much to heart, or quite so precipitately. I had thought it would take more than one night in my bed to stir him to open hostility against Toulouse, but Louis leapt on the excuse for invasion as a hungry cat leapt on a bird that threatened to escape. The voices raised against such a project were loud and vociferous but Louis was deaf to them all.
‘Why in the blessed name of God make an enemy of the Count of Toulouse?’ Abbot Suger, excruciatingly civil but furious that Louis had made his decision without once consulting him, questioned both the cost and the ultimate value to France.
‘Because he has no claim to it,’ Louis stated. ‘Toulouse is Eleanor’s.’
‘You have been ill-advised.’ Suger’s flat stare encompassed me before returning to Louis. ‘Are you not aware that your vassals will not support you, sire? They’ll refuse to supply you with knights. Not one of them wants an angry neighbour on his doorstep. We have no argument with Toulouse.’
‘I will defeat Count Alfonso, my lord Abbot. He will no longer be a neighbour and his anger will be a thing of no importance.’
Suger lifted his hands helplessly. ‘I pray God thinks you worthy of victory, sire.’
‘I will ask Him. He’ll not refuse me.’
And Adelaide? Her civility was negligible. ‘You will not go, my son.’
A mistake. I saw Louis’s nostrils narrow.
‘I
