Devil's Consort

I wrapped my dignity around me with the chamber robe. He had no intention of spending our wedding night with me. Dismay and disappointment twined to create a bright fury that I could barely contain. ‘Of course it is necessary to pray,’ I snapped. ‘You must not keep God or the Abbot waiting.’

Louis was immune to my barbs. With a bow, he was gone. I might even have thought him relieved to escape.

The water in the tub was cooling as I stepped into it and sank up to my chin, my mind not at ease. Despite the relish of victory over what I might or might not wear, I was mystified by the Prince’s rejection of me. My pride was hurt, and I resented the fact, for was I not descended from an impressive company of proud women? I considered myself not the least of their number. How could I not see my own supremacy in them? Their fire was in my own blood. Their knowledge of what was due to them coloured my own self-worth. Their ghosts had stalked me, their exploits had been the tales of my childhood.

What would they say if they had seen my weak compliance in Louis’s absence from my bed? Forsooth, my female forebears would have taken me to task.

Women such as Philippa, my paternal grandmother. High minded and unbending, she lived by the principles of duty and obedience to God, and the respect due to her as the heiress to the county of Toulouse. A formidable woman, although I found it difficult to condone her retiring to spend her final days with the nuns at the Abbey of Fontevrault, assaulting the ears of God with her prayers for revenge, when the ninth Duke, her husband and my grandfather, lived openly with his lover under Philippa’s very nose, in Philippa’s own favourite palace. I would not have left the field. I would have waged war against my neglectful husband who dared humiliate me, and against the upstart whore who had usurped my bed.

Or perhaps I would not.

Because that whore—Dangerosa—was my maternal grandmother. Originally wife to the Viscount of Chatellerault, she saw my grandfather William in full glory of mail and weaponry, and fell into love, like a gannet diving head first into the waves off Bordeaux. So too did William fall, so heavily that he must abduct Dangerosa from her bedchamber—with no obvious protest on Dangerosa’s part—and carry her off to his palace at Poitiers, where he established her in the newly constructed Maubergeonne Tower. They were besotted with each other, making no secret of their sinful union. Dangerosa raised her chin at the world’s condemnation, whilst Duke William had the lady’s portrait painted on the face of his shield. It was, he boasted, his desire to bear her likeness into battle, as she had borne the weight of his body so willingly and frequently in bed.

A tasteless jest. My grandfather had a strong streak of coarse humour.

Dangerosa never regretted her choice. She was his whore until his death, keeping her unpredictable lover more or less faithful with a will of steel, and with fearful cunning. Since she could not get Duke William legally into her bed, then her daughter would get William’s son. Thus Dangerosa’s daughter Aenor was wed to my father. Dangerosa keeping it in the family, if you will.

What would Dangerosa think of me now?

‘Am I so ugly? So undesirable?’ I asked Aelith. But I knew I was not. What I did know was it would be common knowledge that my husband had chosen not to share my bed, that he would find more fulfilment on his knees before a crucifix than with me. ‘Do you think he dislikes me?’

‘I think he finds you too beautiful,’ Aelith crooned to comfort me as she combed out my hair.

‘But not in chamois drawers.’

‘He is a man. What does he know?’

‘I thought he would erupt in a storm of temper when I refused …’

‘I doubt he has a temper in him,’ Aelith disagreed.

‘Perhaps you’re right.’ Yet there had been just that one moment when I thought I had seen a dark flare of barely controlled rage. ‘But why does he not want me?’

‘He does not know women. He does not know how to please them. Now, his cousin Lord Raoul would not hold back, I swear.’

I slapped her hand away when she tugged on a painful tangle, but she only laughed.

‘I don’t even know that he wants to please me.’ I frowned at my knees emerging from the water.

‘You didn’t make life easy for him, Eleanor,’ Aelith pointed out, fairly enough, I suppose. ‘You challenged him over how you would and would not travel—and what you would and would not wear.’

‘And that wasn’t the first. I’d already been more than forthright over the court position of my troubadour Bernart,’ I admitted with a twinge of guilt.

‘What’s wrong with Bernart?’

‘Nothing—that’s the point. Never mind—we just didn’t agree.’

‘And you haven’t been wed a full day …’

‘I suppose I’ve not been a dutiful wife, have I?’

‘There you have it. He’s a prince. He’s not used to a woman taking him to task.’

My thoughts circled round to the main issue. ‘He seeks the company of God before mine.’ For the first time in my life I was touched with true uncertainty.

‘Then you’ll just have to show him the error of his ways, won’t you?’

I was not much comforted. Aelith shared my pillows. I rose next morning from my marriage bed as much a virgin as I had entered it.

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