Devil's Consort (68 page)

I’ll not blame Louis for my fall, but what woman wed to a shadow of a man with no steel in his scabbard would not have given more than a passing glance to Raymond of Antioch? He was everything Louis was not—an adventurer, a reputable warrior, a charmer of women, a skilled horseman as his minstrels were forward in telling. My heart leapt as they sang of his hunting, his exploits against the Turk. Beneath the power, his manners were sophisticated, his demeanour gentle and courteous, as smooth as the oriental silk of his robes.

Nothing better than a degenerate owner of a seraglio, Louis had been quick to denounce, yet there was no gluttony or drunkenness or debauchery at Raymond’s court. Raymond was strangely abstemious. Unless it be counted against him when, to honour me at a banquet, golden nets suspended above our heads were released,
to shower us with scented rose petals, floating down on table, on marble floor, on shoulders.

Raymond’s eyes, disarming in their directness, invited me to enjoy the foolishness, the deliberate extravagance created just for me—and I fell into the romance of the occasion as into a bottomless but softly cushioned pit. I swear Raymond was capable of wooing the angelic host down from heaven.

Louis retired, silent in his censure, petals caught incongruously in his hair.

So much for romance. Ah, but should I have gone to Raymond’s bed? It was the magnificent Roman baths within the palace that proved my final undoing, if I wished to believe that I needed to be seduced. Tiled, heated, with the music of splashing water from myriad fountains, the main bath was large enough to swim for those so inclined, comfortable enough with silk-cushioned seats for those who would take their ease. It became my custom to luxuriate in the warm waters in the late afternoon with wine or sherbet and sugared sweetmeats, seated on the steps in a loose bathing robe, the silky water caressing my limbs.

I had not seen him since the war council when Raymond strolled in to join me.

Did he know I was there? Certainly he did.

‘Impressive, Eleanor!’

‘I was, wasn’t I?’

Despite the smile there were lines of strain beside his eyes and mouth I had not seen before—doubtless the
product of the growing threat to his lovely city—as he lounged on the poolside with a groan. For a moment he simply sat, then scrubbed his hands over his face and smiled at me. Without a word, and without any self-consciousness, he stripped off his robe and, naked, eased into the water beside me, where he stretched his arms along the sides of the bath and sighed deeply.

‘I don’t think I could ever return to the West,’ he said, head tipped back against the warm stones, hair curling out into the water. ‘Cold winters. Ice and snow to freeze a man’s balls. There’s too much comfort here.’

‘All eastern rulers run to fat. So I’ve heard.’ Was my encouragement of him indeed reprehensible?

‘So I too have heard.’ He sighed in the warmth. ‘And what do you think now, Eleanor? Having seen one in the flesh?’

He smiled with deceptive sleepiness, turning his head so that I caught the glint of sharp blue beneath his eyelids, and I regretted my ill-considered flirting. Conscious of the transparency of my garment, I swam away to the other side. Was I sure of this? Was this what I wanted?

‘You have left me, delectable Eleanor,’ Raymond mourned. With delicious grace, he poured wine and held out the cup to offer it to me with a crook of his finger, so that I swam back. Taking the exquisite glass, the warm water lapping discreetly over my breasts, I sipped, watching him over the lip of the cup.

‘Louis’s preparations to leave are moving apace,’ he said, surprising me with the change in direction. Were we here to discuss matters of policy? ‘By the end of the week.’

‘I know.’

He tilted his chin. ‘Are you, then, determined to stay?’

‘If you’ll have me.’

‘Oh, yes.’ He leaned to kiss my temple. ‘My lovely Eleanor. You’d stay here with me for ever if I had my way.’

What would your wife say if I did? I admit to giving no thought to Constance. Leading a retired life, as she did with her women, I saw little of her, not at the feasts or the hunting parties, or even strolling in the gardens. Occasionally I visited her in her strangely sequestered life. What did Constance do with her time? She’d have been better, I thought, keeping an eye on her handsome husband.

‘I think I might stay,’ I replied.

With a toss of his head to spray an arc of drops into the water, Raymond drained his cup. ‘No, you won’t. I know you too well. Aquitaine sings in your blood. You’ll find an excuse to go home.’

‘You know me far too well. After only eight days.’ I drank the rich wine of Antioch and sighed in pleasure. ‘It seems a lifetime.’

‘A lifetime …’ Raymond took the cup from me and placed it on the side. ‘Come here.’ Linking his fingers
with mine, he pulled me gently through the water until I stood before him, swaying to keep my balance. Fingers drifting down my arm, barely stirring the air between us, he kissed me between my brows, then transferred his lips to where my hair curled damply at my temple.

He sniffed.

‘What?’

‘Whatever you’ve used on your hair is magical,’ he murmured. ‘I swear you’re a witch.’

‘I use no spells.’

‘No?’ His eyes were quizzical on mine, and very solemn. ‘I’ve been faithful to Constance until this moment—even in my thoughts … But now …’

I shook my head, a sudden bolt of panic now that truth stared me in the face.

‘Come with me …’ Raymond invited.

Just a question, rather than a demand, allowing me the ultimate choice. Before God, I could not put the whole weight of blame on his shoulders. Without a word I went with him. To a robing room, a comfortable divan clothed and cushioned in silk. What passed between us there should remain unwitnessed, unsaid. Enough to say that my Prince of Antioch reminded me of all I had known, and astonished me with much I did not.

‘We would be damned for this,’ I said when I had the breath to speak at all. ‘We would be condemned.’

‘We would be damned and condemned for all manner of things. Are we not free to choose our sins?’

It was wrong. It was, of course, however I might try to excuse what we did together, however much Raymond might persuade me that we did no wrong, that we hurt no one. Incest. An unpleasant word, gathering to it all the condemnation and vituperation of those who held to the high tenets of Christianity. It would be beyond Louis’s comprehension that I should even consider it, much less indulge in it. But it was not beyond mine.

To me, what we did together was out of love, hurting none. To Louis it was a cardinal sin, punishable by the fires of hell, no more, no less.

But what would God’s judgment be?

Raymond might be too close to me in name, in blood, but I had no knowledge of him as family, neither was he of an age to be in authority over me. We were alike in all things, the reflected other half of each other. The blood of Aquitaine ran true and drew us together.

When I was finally called to stand before the Almighty on the day of my death, what would I say?

I was my uncle’s lover.

Would He damn me to everlasting hell for it? Had He damned my grandfather for adultery? My grandmother for her betrayal of her husband and family? Surely He would judge what was in our hearts, Raymond’s and
mine. Not evil or viciousness. Not cruelty or revenge. No, God would not strike me with his wrath. He would touch me instead with his compassion. His tears would mingle with mine. He would understand when I finally stood before him. I knew it.

It was, after all, merely a matter of degree, was it not? So close with Raymond to be called incest, a damnable offence. Close enough with Louis simply to bring the legality of my marriage into question, but not to damn me to everlasting perdition.

If Raymond had been my cousin, there would have been no objection.

See how well I could formulate an argument to my purpose.

My only regret. That Raymond had a purpose of his own. Oh, I had no doubt that he loved me, that he desired me, but he wanted to secure my influence, the power of my forces, and what better way than through my bed? Not like the Angevin, secretive and hard edged, but open and warm. I knew from the beginning what Raymond wanted from me for he never hid it. Neither did it mean he had no true affection for me. We loved each other honestly, with genuine care, knowing that we would be condemned but considering it of no account.

Why did I allow myself to tread that dangerous line?

Perhaps I’d lost my mind in the mountains of Cadmos
and the horrors of Attalia. Just a little. That’s all I can say in my own defence.

Did I think of Constance? No, I did not. Not once. Perhaps for that I deserve to be condemned.

I was asleep—until some sound, some movement in the air, pulled at my consciousness. I opened my eyes, lay still. Nothing. My room was empty, dark, so it was not even near dawn. Perhaps it was a roosting bird stirring in the gardens—the windows were open to admit the cool air. I closed my eyes.

A slide of a booted foot. The rasp and chink of mail. Someone was in my room. Slowly I sat up, my heart beginning to beat hard.

‘Agnes?’

The shadows moved.

With a sudden spurt of fear I grasped the handle of the knife I kept beneath my pillow—a misericord—the deadly, thin-bladed dagger that could be slipped between the joints of body armour that the crusading knight carried to deliver the coup de grâce if they were ever in danger of being taken prisoner by the Turks. I had taken to keeping one close after Mount Cadmos.

‘Who is it? What do you want?’

The blade suddenly gleamed along its length in the light from a partially shaded lantern. I tightened my fist, raised it with intent to strike.

‘Damn you!’ An oath quickly cut off. ‘Oh, no, you don’t …’

A flurry of movement and my wrist was seized in a hard grip, the blade plucked from my fingers by a mailed fist. Saracens come to murder me? Their attack on Antioch a terrible reality that had already begun? But why no melee of fighting? Why no outcry from Raymond’s guards or from the crusading forces?

‘Not a word, lady, if you know what’s good for you!’ the same harsh voice of command hissed in my ear.

I had no intention of obeying despite the fear that curled in my belly. ‘Let go!’

The mailed hand was clapped over my mouth to stop me crying out, then the folds of a heavy cloak dropped over my head and wrapped round me as if I were a parcel of cloth for delivery. I thought a rope was wound around the outside to pinion me securely, to bite into my flesh. I was helpless, immobile, a prisoner in a dark and airless prison, reeking of wool and sweat. The fear bloomed to fill my lungs, my throat. Surely I would suffocate. I had to concentrate on shallow breathing. I must not panic. I must not use the air needed to fill my lungs.

I was lifted, carried clumsily, roughly, clutched and shaken when I struggled.

‘Lie still, damn you.’ A snarl of a whisper. ‘Be still if you don’t want to suffer more.’ And because I was indeed helpless, I lay still as I was carried from my room. Since I understood the orders, it was not the Saracens. I felt no better for the revelation.

I knew when we had left the palace from the change
of footsteps from marble flooring to stone paving. Then I was dropped onto cushions covering a harder surface that moved beneath me. A litter or a palanquin, I thought, hearing the strike of shod hooves and feeling the distinctive sway. The cloak was loosened to allow me air but the ropes were left in place as the busy sound of military activity reached me, the rasp of voices, quietly but clearly giving orders.

Abducted!

I lay on my side, hot, sweaty and terrified, unable to move other than to roll—to no advantage unless I wished to fall blind from the litter—and considered.

I could imagine only one man who would undertake this assault, and I knew exactly where the advice had come from, even the hand that had guided the practicalities of my imprisonment. I might even have recognised the solid body that imprisoned me, the voice that threatened me, if I’d had my wits about me. And what could I do about it? Nothing. All I could do was lie in this stuffy shroud and endure it as the litter began to move. But now my heart began to settle to a steadier beat and my breathing ease. I no longer feared for my life. My death was not the object of this chain of events. And the perpetrator?

Louis, of course.

Since I would not go to Jerusalem of my own free will, Louis would ensure that I did so under duress. Without clothes or possessions, or my women. Doubtless we would be reunited at some point in the future.
Who would have believed him capable of such trickery? But it was entirely within Thierry Galeran’s odious planning.

As fear drained from me, fury raged to replace it and I lay and fumed, pulling ineffectually at the ropes. Galeran had dared to set hands on me, had dared to carry me off without my consent. Galeran, that paid minion, had forced me, Duchess of Aquitaine, against my will.

I had not even been given the opportunity to make my farewell to Raymond.

The hours passed, dark emerging into light. The litter lurched and swayed without compassion. I simply lay and endured.

When the sun rose and we were at a distance from Antioch, quite as I expected, Louis saw fit to release me. Lifted from the litter, I was carried into the pavilion erected temporarily as Louis waited for the rest of his forces and mine to catch up with us. God knew what he had told my commanders. At this point I did not care. My anger had reached vast proportions.

Silent and resentful, head throbbing, I stood as the ropes were loosed and the cloak unwound, and there was Louis standing in front of me, his face a mask of frozen disapproval. He looked at me, lips twisting in distaste at my dishevelment and dusty night robes, all too revealing. Without a word he took the cloak, dismissed the man who had unwrapped me and, deliberately at arm’s length, held out the heavy folds to me.

‘Put this on. You are not suitably dressed. Your garments will arrive soon and you can put your appearance to rights.’

So he did not wish to touch me. I took the mantle but let it drop to the floor, refusing to look away from Louis’s denunciation. I refused to cover myself as if in shame.