Devil's Consort. Anne O'Brien

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СКАЧАТЬ wished with all my heart to travel farther south with him, into the centre of my own lands, and the temptation to do so stirred my blood from its northern languor—but a miracle had happened. That one night when I had painted for Louis the glory of his victory over Toulouse, his ownership of me, however brief and perfunctory, had been effective. My courses had stopped and nausea struck in the morning hours.

      Praise the Virgin! I would carry an heir for France and for Aquitaine.

      My delight superseded my wretched mornings when my belly heaved and the thought of food made me retch. Louis proved to be mildly sympathetic but more taken up with the magnificence of his own achievement. I tried not to fall prey to cynicism. The heir would enhance my importance and win over those of Louis’s court who still saw me as an undesirable southern influence in France. No one would dare to slight me when I bore the King a son.

      Even Abbot Bernard would be forced to temper his denunciations.

      But for now Louis was intent on conquest in my name. Emerging from my chamber, a linen cloth pressed to my lips, I listened to his enthusiastic explanation that they would take Toulouse by surprise and starve the city into submission. Even through my misery I noted that for a siege Louis employed few siege engines. Neither was Louis’s army particularly impressive in size. Was the whole operation too small, too ill-prepared? Yet Louis was so confident that I too saw no impediment to his success. If Count Alfonso did not expect the descent of an armed force, he would be unprepared and the campaign brought to a swift end. Louis would return to me, full of courage and male pride. Perhaps his rejoicing would take him from the long hours on his knees.

      ‘I will return and lay Toulouse at your feet,’ he promised. ‘I’ll drag Alfonso to his knees to ask your forgiveness.’

      I kissed Louis farewell and retired to vomit into a basin.

      How many days before Louis returned. Two weeks? Three? We saw the cloud of dust from Poitiers and knew there had been no effective siege. We knew the outcome anyway, long before I saw Louis’s crestfallen face. Rumour travelled faster than the Capetian troops. Count Alfonso had been warned and waiting for him. Formidable defences, banks and ditches and wooden palisades, sufficient to repel Louis’s meagre army, had been hastily thrown up.

      And my noble, all-powerful, ambitious King of France, drunk on pride and certain victory? Louis did not even stay to make a token attack but turned on his heel and retraced every inch back to Poitiers without one blow being struck, whilst in Toulouse Alfonso thumbed his nose from the castle walls, catcalls screeching the derision of the Toulousians, the soldiers’ gestures obscene and graphic.

      Alfonso could not believe his luck.

      I despaired.

      Louis begged God’s forgiveness for the unspecified sin that kept him from victory.

      A humiliating disaster all round.

      I did not use such words to Louis, although it was in my mind to blame him. Where else to lay the faults of lack of preparation, even of abject cowardice, in making no show of force?

      ‘I failed to take Toulouse,’ was all he said. The misery of failure sat on his shoulders as surly a thunder cloud. The chapel at Poitiers saw more of him than I did.

      After a gloomy progress through my domains, we returned to Paris where the reaction of Abbot Suger and the Dowager Queen would await us. With one look at Louis’s doleful expression, Suger desisted, doing nothing more than frown sternly at both of us, as if we were errant children, then unbending enough to take Louis’s arm in a fatherly manner with a sigh. No point, I suppose, in ringing a peal over his head so long after the event.

      Adelaide would have something to say about it, she would not hold back. Nothing would keep her silent when she had been proved right. I steeled myself. But her apartments were empty and a message had arrived for Louis during our absence. Adelaide had gone to her dower lands in Compiègne where her eye had fallen—with astonishing speed—on an obscure lord of the de Montmorency family who was unwed. Adelaide expressed the intention of marrying the lord and not returning to court. Poor man. Louis appeared to have little interest in it. It astonished me that the Dowager Queen could accept a return to comparative insignificance but perhaps it was in her nature to keep house in a distant keep where she could concentrate on God and her stitching. Obscurity would suit her very well.

      It would not suit me.

      So we were returned to Paris, Louis’s reputation smeared, the weight of Abbot Suger’s disapproval heavy, and perversely I missed Adelaide, her acerbic wit and the sharp cut and thrust that had become the essence of all our dealings. Conversation with Louis was as dull as boiled mutton pudding.

      At least the child grew and thrived in my belly. It was my only consolation.

      Adelaide’s departure had its consequence. Returned to my rooms, I set my women to unpacking my travelling chests since Aelith, who would normally have supervised such a mundane matter, had expressed a desire to remain behind in Poitou. There was the faintest scratch at the doorpost. I turned to find the dark-clad figure of a woman, a servant from her garments, watching me.

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘You do not recognise me, lady.’

      ‘Should I?’ I was out of sorts and missed Aelith’s easy company. My nausea had settled but I had found the long journey in the lurch and sway of the litter more than exhausting. Louis had been no company.

      ‘I am Agnes,’ she replied with a quiet assurance surprising in one of her status. ‘I was tirewoman to Queen Adelaide.’

      I recalled her, Adelaide’s shadow, silent and unobtrusive as she fetched and carried for her royal mistress. She was short and slight, fine boned, her hair covered by a wimple, her figure concealed in dark wool, a woman, I decided, who would pass unseen through life. I could not understand why she had come to me.

      ‘Why did you not accompany Queen Adelaide to Compiègne and her new life?’

      ‘I do not wish to retire, lady. I have no desire to disappear into the depths of the country.’

      ‘Did she allow you to stay?’ My interest was piqued.

      ‘I did not give her the choice, lady. It was not my wish to go and so I refused.’

      I looked at her sharply, reconsidering. Behind the unassuming exterior of this woman of indeterminate age was a remarkable composure.

      ‘And so?’ I let my cloak slip from my shoulders. Agnes stepped neatly forward to retrieve it before it reached the floor. Impressive! ‘What is your wish?’

      ‘I wish to offer my services to you, lady.’

      ‘I have enough women to wait on me.’ I indicated the women from noble families who made up my household, their sole existence to meet my desires.

      ‘To wait on you, yes. But you need me, lady.’ She placed the fur on the bed, brushing down the soft pelt with her hand.

      ‘I don’t think I do.’ I yawned. Oh, I was tired.

      ‘You need me to help you survive at this court.’

      What a strange thing to say. I did not think I had any such need. What could a servant offer me? I raised my brows in enquiry.

      ‘How СКАЧАТЬ