He slammed the little coffer down, to the detriment of its hinges. ‘Did Abbot Suger allow you to come to me?’ I pursued.
Louis snarled, not diverted. ‘You were flirting with him, Eleanor.’
I made my face grave, hurt. ‘I do not flirt with my servants.’
‘I’ll not have it.’
I lifted my chin a little. ‘By what right do you take me to task, my lord?’
His reply was becoming tedious with repetition. ‘I am your husband.’
‘My husband? I think I’ve not seen you in my bed any time this week—this month, in fact. Even longer than that …’
‘Such comments don’t become you, madam. As for your paid songster. How typical of the louche south,’ he accused viciously, ‘to encourage such wantonness.’
We had been here before, of course. ‘Do you dare accuse me of lascivious behaviour, Louis? The woman who carries your child?’
‘How should I not? Look at your hair, your dress …’
‘I am at leisure here in my own rooms to dress as I please.’ Deliberately I drew my hand down the length of my hair, wrapped about in silk ribbons, the ends clasped in gold finials. Louis’s eyes followed the gesture. ‘I recall a time when you wound my hair around your wrist, my lord …’
‘I’ll not discuss that!’ His face was suffused with colour. ‘I’ll not have you looking like …’
He sought for a word. I supplied it. And not quietly. ‘A harlot?’ I suggested.
It silenced Louis. It drew all eyes in the chamber to us. With a furious look, Louis leaned to whisper, the syllables harsh in the quiet room. ‘You will dismiss your troubadour, Eleanor.’
‘I will not. I am his patron.’
Louis stalked out. The jewels—his peace offering but left behind with bad grace—were atrocious, solid enough to decorate a horse’s harness. I remained obdurate. I knew what I was about. Hardly had the week expired than Louis marched in with another box, small and carved out of wood. Without apology or explanation he thrust it into my hands.
‘A gift, Eleanor. To remind you of your home. I know you love the perfumes of the south so I’ve had this made for you.’
I opened the little box to release a sweet scent of orange blossom with a deeper note that tickled my nose. It was pleasant enough and I was touched that he should think of me with so personal a gift. Feeling magnanimous, I put aside my embroidery. Now was the time to welcome him back into my affections. I kissed his cheek.
‘I had the ingredients from a merchant here in the city,’ Louis explained, as he took the box from me, strode across the room to the open fire and.
‘Take care, Louis—only a little. The merest pinch. That’s too much!’
Louis cast a hearty handful of the contents onto the fire. His enthusiasm was a fine thing.
Smoke rose. There was the sweetness of the orange blossom, perhaps a little jasmine scenting the air, and beneath that. I sniffed. Sandalwood I expected, or even frankincense, as the base notes. That is what I would have ordered. We in the south had much experience of the skills of ancient Rome, now practised and polished by our alchemists. But that was not it. I sniffed again. One of my women sneezed. Louis coughed discreetly. Then not so discreetly as the smoke billowed and the pungency caught at the back of the throat.
There was no escape. The perfume burned, the smoke filled the room and we coughed, sneezed, eyes watering as we were all overwhelmed with the cloying, animal heaviness of it.
‘Open the windows,’ I ordered when I could breathe. ‘Douse the flames.’
To no avail. The perfume continued to give off its secrets and the mingled scents hung like a miasma in the air. By this time any sweetness was entirely obliterated, the draughts from the open windows merely stirring the fire into fresh life.
We fled to the antechamber where we continued to wheeze.
‘It was very expensive,’ gasped Louis, beating at his tunic, dragging his hands down over his face.
‘I can imagine.’ And I began to laugh.
Musk, of course. The most valuable, the most sought-after of base elements. To be used circumspectly, and totally overwhelming when applied with too liberal a hand. Laughter took hold and I could not stop. Everything was permeated with the scent of musk. The tapestries, the very stones of the walls. And ourselves.
‘It was too much, Louis,’ I managed. But Louis was already beating a retreat, still spluttering, as I mopped my eyes. ‘They say its perfume remains detectable for a hundred years …’ I gasped.
‘One week on the skin would be too much,’ Agnes muttered. ‘Your hair, lady! It reeks of the stuff. Who concocted it for His Majesty? They ought to be suffocated in their own product.’
‘Probably the Master of Horse, used to making liniment! They say it’s an aphrodisiac …’ I burst into laughter again.
‘And will you inform His Majesty of that?’
We laughed until we could laugh no more, before Agnes ordered up hot water to scrub and scour our skin and hair. The remains of Louis’s gift we consigned to the garderobe.
Poor Louis! Even his kindest efforts went awry, but at least we were reconciled.
I was still not readmitted to Louis’s councils.
I lost our child. For no reason that I could understand. Although my belly was hardly rounded, the birth far distant, I gave up hunting. I danced only moderately. I ate and drank circumspectly. Nothing must harm this precious child. But then a sharp pain struck in the night, a pain that became agony where there should have been no pain. The child was stillborn, almost too ill formed to be recognisable as a child, certainly too small to take a breath on its own and too incomplete for me to know its sex. Only a mess of blood and disappointment. Of the pain in the bearing of that child as it tore its way from my body I gave no thought, only the loss that lodged its despair in my heart. I had failed. I had failed France and Aquitaine. My grief surprised me.
Did Louis blame me?
No, he never did. He thought our loss was brought about by some nameless, undisclosed sin of his own that he had not confessed, thus driving him to endless hours on his knees to seek God’s forgiveness.
Perhaps it was. Or was the sin mine?
It was Agnes who held my hand when I wept, when the pain was almost too great to bear—not Louis, who was banned as were all men from the birth chamber.
‘What do they say, Agnes?’ I asked when grief ebbed, to be replaced by empty reality.
She pursed her lips.
‘Who do they blame?’ I pressed her.
She gave an eloquent shrug. ‘The child was born before its time. It is always the fault of the woman. It is the burden we have to bear.’
A
