Raoul stared at Louis in dumbstruck silence.

‘I have found three bishops, including your cousin, willing to declare your marriage to Leonora null and void, which leaves you free to wed the lady Petronella.’ Louis’s mouth twisted. ‘I could wish it otherwise, but this seems the best decision.’

Raoul swallowed. ‘I do not know what to say, sire.’

‘That has to be a unique experience for you,’ Robert of Dreux said nastily.

Louis shot his brother a warning look. ‘The wedding will take place as soon as the bishops have pronounced the annulment, and as swiftly as the nuptials can be arranged. While this is being done, you will go with Abbé Suger to Saint-Denis, where you will dwell in penitence until the day of your marriage.’

Raoul’s stomach clenched. He did not want to enter Saint-Denis lest he didn’t come out again, but what other choice did he have? His life was forfeit anyway and Louis could easily have had him killed long before now. The older men were looking at him with ill-concealed scorn. ‘Sire, you are gracious,’ he said.

‘I am not,’ Louis retorted. ‘I am acting out of expedience and necessity. There is no grace about this scandalous matter at all.’

Raoul left Louis’s chamber in a daze, but slowly began to realise and rationalise what the annulment meant. He and Leonora barely saw each other from year to year and when they did they seldom spoke. She would probably be pleased to be rid of him. The only reason for her to fight would be the diminishing of her status. He felt a slight qualm about that, but it couldn’t be helped.

He thought of Petronella instead. He truly did love her; and beyond the physical attraction, it did no harm that she was Alienor’s sister and, while Alienor remained childless, Petronella was heiress to Aquitaine. Should he make her pregnant, their offspring would stand in line to succeed to the duchy. In truth, despite the rough road he had recently been forced to travel and the difficulties still to come, things might just work out rather well.

Petronella and Raoul were married quietly at Christmastide in the chapel of Saint Nicholas in the royal palace, the nuptials absorbed into the general Nativity celebrations. Petronella wore a gown of deep red wool trimmed with ermine. Raoul was plainly besotted by his nubile young bride, as well he might be. What the bride saw in a one-eyed man beyond his fiftieth year was not quite as obvious to the court, but she seemed just as infatuated as he was.

Following the wedding, the couple retired to Raoul’s estates north of Paris to spend time alone as newlyweds and wait for the dust to settle on the scandal. However, trouble rapidly fermented. Theobald of Champagne was furious at the insult to his niece and called Raoul a fornicator, adulterer and debaucher of young girls. Bernard of Clairvaux allied with him and together they lobbied the Pope. Theobald slighted Louis by giving succour to Pierre de la Châtre, elected but spurned Archbishop of Bourges, providing him with a safe refuge at his court.

Louis promptly threatened to cut off de la Châtre’s head and stick it on a pole on the Petit-Pont in Paris, with Theobald’s rammed beside it for good measure. He made a public vow before the altar at Saint-Denis that while he was king, de la Châtre would never set foot over the threshold of Bourges Cathedral. Pope Innocent immediately retaliated and put all of France under an interdict. Louis replied with a furious letter declaring he had always supported the Church, that he revered the Pope, and that the rebellious clergy at Bourges in collusion with Theobald were the real malign influences at work.

The silence that followed was akin to the still before a storm. Louis existed in a state of strung tension, his temper to the fore, and the court jumped at every footfall.

Alienor was in her chamber sorting through her casket of rings. She had several she intended giving as gifts to people who had served her well. A particular one glinted at her from the bottom of the coffer and she slipped it on to her finger. It had once belonged to her grandmother Philippa and was set with several rubies resembling pomegranate seeds. The stones were supposed to represent the women of her bloodline and the ring had been passed down through each generation.

Alienor held out her hand to study the ring on her finger and wondered if she would ever pass it on to her own child. Louis continued to lie with her in his intermittent way, but without success. The red stones might equally stand for her wasted blood as each month the result of his infrequent attentions failed to take root in her womb.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a frantic knocking on her chamber door. Gisela opened it to a flushed and panting squire. ‘Madam, you are summoned to the King’s presence immediately!’

She stood up. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘A letter has arrived from the Pope. The King is asking for you.’

Alienor could tell from the young man’s expression that the news was bad. Bidding Gisela accompany her, she followed him to Louis’s chamber.

Louis was sitting at his lectern, clutching a parchment scroll and looking grim. When Alienor entered the room, he fixed her with a furious glare. ‘Theobald of Champagne has hosted a council in Troyes, behind my back, with the Papal Legate in attendance. See what he has done now!’ He thrust the parchment towards her.

As Alienor read the scroll, her heart sank. The Pope had upheld Theobald of Champagne’s protest on behalf of his niece. He had declared Raoul and Petronella’s marriage invalid and suspended the bishops who had agreed to the annulment of Raoul’s first match. Furthermore, Innocent had ordered Raoul and Petronella to separate on pain of excommunication and had expressed astonishment that Louis should condone such a union.

‘I will not be dictated to by meddling prelates,’ Louis snarled. ‘Their words do not belong to God, and I will brook no more interference from Theobald of Champagne or the Pope!’

‘You must do something about it,’ Alienor said, wondering whom they could influence in Rome to lobby the Pope on their behalf.

‘I intend to. I shall root out this wasps’ nest in Champagne. If an insect stings you, then you squash it underfoot.’

Later, in their chamber, Louis took her with all the vigour his fury lent him, uncaring that he hurt her, expending his temper on her body as if it was all her fault. Alienor endured the pummelling because she knew once he was spent, his rage would dissipate and she would be able to deal with him. He was like a child having a tantrum. Finished, he adjusted his clothes and, without a word, strode from the room. She knew he was going to pray: to spend the night on his knees doing penance and exhorting God to strike down his enemies.

Sore from his aggression, glad he was gone, Alienor hugged her pillow and tried to think of solutions to the dilemma of the papal opposition, but there seemed no way out. Innocent was a stubborn old mule, and when he did listen, it was to pernicious troublemakers such as Bernard of Clairvaux, who was Theobald’s advocate. Eventually, she rose, lit a candle and knelt to pray, but while the ritual helped her to sleep, it delivered no answers.


18

Champagne, Summer 1142

Louis took a mouthful of wine, swilled it round his mouth and leaned over his destrier’s withers to spit it out. If he had swallowed it, he would have been sick. He had been unwell with belly gripes for several days, but not so much that he was unable to ride, and his invasion and destruction of Champagne had continued apace. He had crossed borders both geographical and moral. Ever since the monks of Bourges had elected their own archbishop against his wishes, his frustration and fury had been gathering inside him, adding to the morass already festering there. All the bewilderment of a small boy taken from his nurse and given to the Church to be raised with the rigid discipline of the rod. All the hurt caused by the disapproval of his cold and rigid mother, who thought him second-best and not good enough. All the rage at the perfidy and lies of people he trusted. His skull felt as if it were full of dark red fleece. He had frightening dreams of demons grasping his feet and pulling him down into the abyss while he scrabbled for purchase at the chasm’s smooth edge. Even sleeping with candles burning did not afford him enough light and he had taken to having a chaplain and a Templar knight keep vigil at his bedside all night.

Between the daily marches through Champagne, Louis spent his time on his knees praying to God, but his mind remained a fog and the only way God showed himself was by granting him victory after victory as he progressed along the valley of the Marne. His army encountered no resistance and they plundered and looted as they rode, trampling the vines, burning the fields, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. Each town Louis took and ravaged was a triumphant blow upon the backs of Count Theobald and the monks of Bourges. He felt as if he were striking back for the honour of his family and all the old slights visited on his house by the Counts of Champagne. He had ridden so far from the path that he had lost his bearings, his only compass that of knowing he was a king with a divine right to rule, and everyone must bow their heads to his yoke.

Ahead of his army lay the town of Vitry, close upon the River Saulx. The inhabitants had fashioned makeshift barriers out of tree stumps and overturned carts and had shored up the walls with rubble as best they could, but they were helpless in the face of the attack that Louis ordered his mercenaries to launch on them.

The assault was fierce and vicious. Fire blossomed along the rooflines and took hold in barns, swiftly spreading from house to house, fanned by a hot summer wind. Louis reined in his stallion on a high vantage point and watched his troops wreak destruction. Battle cries and the clash and scrape of weapons rose amid gouts of smoke and twists of flame. A dull ache throbbed at his temples and the leaden sensation in his belly made him feel as if all the foulness inside him was going to spew out in a glistening dark mass. He imagined that his mail shirt was a burden of sin, weighting his body.

His brother Robert joined him, sitting easily in the saddle but holding his destrier on a tight rein. The sun glittered on his hauberk and helm, reflecting polished stars of fire. ‘The way the wind is veering, there will be naught left of the town come morning.’

‘Theobald of Champagne has brought it on himself,’ Louis replied grimly.

Robert shrugged. ‘But I do wonder what we are bringing down on ourselves by this.’

A grim silence stretched between the brothers. Abruptly Louis reined away from Robert and rode back to the tent that his attendants had set up to provide respite and shade while Vitry was devoured.

The canvas dissipated some of the sun’s punishing strength. Louis dismissed everyone and knelt to pray at his small personal altar. The cold gold and marble concealing various saintly relics gave him a momentary respite from the pounding red darkness inside his mind. Bernard of Clairvaux had warned him that God could stop the breath of kings and he was intensely conscious of each inhalation, and of the weight of his hauberk, his coat of sins. He counted his prayer beads through his fingers, trying to find calm in the cool, smooth agates, while he recited the Lord’s Prayer.

The tent flaps flurried open and Robert ducked inside. ‘The church is on fire,’ he said. ‘Most of the townspeople are inside, including the women and children.’

Louis stared at him and as comprehension dawned, so did the horror. While the monks of Bourges deserved all that came their way, the wider Church was still the house of God. Even if he was laying waste to Theobald’s lands, it was with the expectation that the people would have opportunity to flee or seek refuge. ‘I gave no such order.’ He jerked to his feet.

‘It was wind-borne from the houses.’

‘Well, give the people space to flee.’ Louis had removed his swordbelt to pray, but now he buckled it on again. ‘Tell the men to stand back.’

‘It is too late for that, brother.’

Feeling sick, Louis followed Robert from the tent back to the vantage point. The church was indeed ablaze: the roof, the walls, everything. The wind had veered and the flames surged towards heaven like the ravenous tongues of a thousand demons. No one could survive such a conflagration.

‘Douse it,’ Louis commanded. Emotion twitched across his face like raindrops in a pool. ‘Organise buckets from the river.’ He fancied he could feel his mail shirt becoming as hot as a griddle and see the flamelight dancing on weapons, leaving an indelible stain.