Soldiers and pilgrims hastened to lend their shoulders to the back of the cart while others threw down logs and hurdles into the mire to add purchase. As they heaved and pushed, one man fell; when he staggered to his feet again he was dripping like a primordial demon. Another lost his shoe in the slurry and had to grope with his hands like a beggar hunting through a bowl of pottage for meat.

Geoffrey de Rancon handed Alienor a mantle of robust waxed leather and a cowled hood of the same. ‘Good Christ, madam,’ he muttered, ‘we’ll not reach the border before sunset at this rate.’

Grimacing, Alienor struggled into the garment. It had not properly dried out from the last occasion she had used it, and the smell of beeswax and leather was permeated by that of damp and smoke. By the time they made camp tonight, she would stink like a charcoal burner, but it was preferable to being soaked to the skin and covered in glutinous mud like most of these poor wretches.

After much heaving, cursing and struggling, the cart eventually sucked out of the ooze and rolled on its tortuous way, but more carts were following, and the same fate awaited them. Alienor had no idea where Louis was, save somewhere ahead, and in truth she did not care, as long as he was out of her sight.

They had been on the road for six weeks, having set off from Saint-Denis at the end of May. On a burning hot day, in the presence of Pope Eugenius, Louis had received the oriflamme banner from the hands of Abbé Suger as part of an elaborate ceremony to bid Godspeed and success to the French army as it embarked on the long march to Jerusalem via the bone-bleached battlefields of Edessa, Antioch and Tripoli. Alienor had sweltered in the many layers of her formal attire. Adelaide too, and for a moment the women had been in accord as they stood side by side, struggling to cope with the heat.

Louis had retired to dine in the cool of the abbey with His Holiness and various clerics. Everyone else had to wait outside, and Alienor added inconsideration and disparagement to her grievances.

At least she did not have to travel with Louis. The army was divided into sections and she rode either with the non-combatants and the baggage in the centre, or else with the men of Aquitaine under the leadership of Geoffrey de Rancon. The latter suited her very well indeed, for among her own she was respected.

Alienor tried not to dwell on the farewells she had made on the steps of Saint-Denis, but still the visions came. The hard hug from Petronella and the tears welling in her sister’s eyes had reminded Alienor of their father leaving for Compostela.

‘What will I do without you?’ Petronella had sobbed.

‘Survive,’ Alienor had replied, her throat swollen with emotion and her eyes full of tears. ‘Survive, my sister, and care for Marie until I return.’

‘As if she were my own daughter,’ Petronella wept.

The children had not been present among the gathering at Saint-Denis. Alienor had kissed Marie farewell earlier in the guest house. She had told her daughter she would bring her jewels from Constantinople, silks and frankincense from far lands and a candle from the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem to light her way on God’s path. And then she had gone from the room, closed the door on her child and buried her emotions deep.

Thunder rumbled in the distance and Alienor shuddered. Ten days ago on the road from Passau to Klosterneuburg a cart had been struck by lightning and the driver and horses killed instantly.

‘Let us hope the worst holds off until we have crossed the Drava,’ muttered her constable, Saldebreuil de Sanzay, glancing at the sky from under the rim of his helm. ‘The last thing we need is a flood.’

Alienor agreed with him and sent up a silent prayer. Of late she had developed an active interest in the weather. When it rained, roads swiftly turned into quagmires and traversing rivers became a matter of life and death. Crossing the Rhine and the Danube had been moderately simple due to decent barges on the one and a fine bridge on the other. Alienor thought they should have taken the sea route via Sicily, but Louis had refused because of the enmity between Roger of Sicily and Konrad, Emperor of Germany. Louis had not wanted to risk upsetting the Germans so instead they were following the land route to Constantinople. Thus far they had travelled through Metz, Worms, Wurzburg, Ratisbon, Passau and Klosterneuburg heading for the crossing of a tributary of the Danube lying across their path into Bulgaria.

Shortly after noon, they arrived at the site where the Germans had camped a week previously as they prepared to cross the Drava. The ground was muddy and waterlogged. The surrounding area had been stripped of resources; the horses had eaten all the immediately available grass and Louis’s army had to make do with what they had brought with them. Since half of that was in bogged-down carts stretching back down the road, neither man nor beast was going to eat or be comfortable for some time.

The few ships, barges and rafts at the bank were insufficient to carry the horses. Two rafts proved large enough to take a couple of carts at each crossing and twenty people, but the going was painfully slow. The horses had to be swum across, and although entering the river the bank was shallow, the opposite side was steeper and the state of the bank worsened as each animal churned up the mud when lunging to gain solid ground.

Alienor watched with trepidation as her groom took her dappled gelding. The current was not particularly swift, but the river was muddy and turbid and her mind filled with images of an aquatic monster dragging horse and rider under. She had read stories in bestiaries about such creatures. Crocodiles for certain. Were there crocodiles in Hungary?

The river’s milky-brown surface dimpled with raindrops as Alienor accepted Geoffrey de Rancon’s hand and boarded the barge to cross to the far bank. Her groom, wearing only shirt and braies, waded into the river with the cob, grasping its mane at the withers, speaking constantly to the horse in reassurance as they went out of their depth and began to swim, the man being towed along by the animal’s strength. The grey was placid and strong and they reached the far bank without difficulty, but others were taken by the current and ended up far downstream. Some animals were skittish, refusing the water. One horse panicked in the shallows and kicked the side of the barge. Gisela screamed and Alienor gripped Geoffrey’s sleeve to steady herself. Cursing, the horse’s rider whipped his mount back to the boggy river’s edge before reining around and spurring back into the water in a surge of muddy spray. Geoffrey swiftly turned his back to the deluge, pulling Alienor into his body so that his heavy woollen cloak took the brunt of the drenching.

‘Thank you,’ Alienor said with a swift glance at him.

He briefly tightened his grip before he stepped back and bowed. ‘I but fulfilled my duty to protect my liege lady.’

‘Then I am glad you were swift to do so.’ Her heart was uplifted and warmed as she turned to her women. ‘Come,’ she encouraged, ‘let us pray and sing. All will be well. God will look after us.’

‘Then why is He making it rain?’ Gisela sniffled. Her fine blond hair showed beneath the end of her wimple in draggled rats’ tails.

‘That is not for us to question,’ Alienor replied sharply. ‘We cannot know His plan.’ Her only hope was that God’s mysterious ways would bring her safely to Antioch and the haven of her uncle Raymond’s court.

The army continued its muddy crossing of the Drava. Once disembarked, Alienor made a point of thanking her groom and checking on the grey.

‘He’s a good horse, madam. No more than one pace in him, but he’s game. We both are.’

‘I know that.’ She smiled and gave him a coin, which he tucked into the waistband roll of his sodden braies.

The German army had stripped the grazing on this side of the river too, and the only available supplies were for sale at exorbitant prices from the few locals who dared to enter the camp with their wares.

Alienor’s servants found a place to pitch her tent on a shelf of ground slightly higher than the river. It was hardly salubrious but at least it afforded shelter. Many of the poorer pilgrims had nothing but a single waxed linen sheet held up with sticks to protect them from the elements. Alienor’s tent canvas stank of mustiness, smoke and mould. The servants covered the floor with a thick layer of straw. That too was damp, but better than standing in mud. Alienor grimaced. This was no way to live – little better than a pigsty. Sleeping under the stars on a balmy summer’s evening in your own territory was one thing, but doing so night after night in the pouring rain far from home with scant supplies was a very different prospect.

Supper was stale bread and ammoniac goat’s cheese washed down with sour wine on the verge of being vinegar. As dusk fell, Geoffrey de Rancon returned from overseeing the crossing. It was still raining and the heavy edges of his cloak dripped water on to the straw. ‘Just a few stragglers left,’ he said. ‘We lost another cart and will have to redistribute the load. We can use the horses as pack beasts.’

‘As you see fit,’ she said.

‘Supplies are low, but providing we husband them, we should have enough to reach the border.’ His gaze was troubled. ‘I had to hang two men for thieving from the rations cart and selling on the goods. It’s constant; they are like rats in a granary.’

Alienor said with contempt, ‘When the sainted Abbot of Clairvaux released all prisoners who vowed to expiate their sins on crusade, did he truly believe they would reform?’

Geoffrey looked wry. ‘I think he lived in that hope.’

‘And left us to deal with the consequences of his idealism. Talking of resources, we must ensure what we have gathered from the wealth of Aquitaine goes to supply the men of Aquitaine.’

Geoffrey’s hazel eyes were shrewd with understanding. ‘Madam, it is already being done and shall continue.’

‘Good. I want the soldiers beholden to me to be in their best condition when we reach Antioch.’ She gestured to Gisela. ‘A towel for the sire de Rancon.’

Geoffrey took the proffered cloth and rubbed his dripping hair. ‘I heard a rumour that the King was short of funds.’

Alienor widened her eyes in sarcasm. ‘Surely not with the wise and judicious Thierry de Galeran in control of his money chest? How can that have happened?’

‘I am sure de Galeran will have a plausible explanation,’ Geoffrey said neutrally. ‘He always does.’ As he returned the towel to Gisela they again exchanged glances of perfect understanding. Thierry de Galeran was a Templar knight and effectively Louis’s chancellor on the journey because he was in charge of the money chests in Louis’s entourage. Alienor disliked him intensely for the influence he had over Louis and the way he treated her as if she were a serpent in female clothing.

‘Well then, Louis must apply to Suger for more funds in his next message home. Let me know how much silver our own contingent has and how many horses, sacks of grain and the like. You don’t have to count every one, a good estimate will suffice.’

‘Madam, I will go and set it in motion now.’ He bowed and left the tent.

The rain ceased and a three-quarter moon shone between tatters of cloud. Soldiers clustered round the fires they had built out of whatever firewood they had come across along the way. The wood was damp and belched smoke, but eventually caught. Resin hissed and knots in the branches spat out showers of sparks. Alienor wrapped herself in a dry cloak and, sending for her musicians, left her tent to join her household knights at their fire.

The damp had played havoc with the stringed instruments, but the pipes and whistles were still in good tune and the tabors beat out the rhythm as the singing began. ‘High are the mountains and the valleys deep in shadow, and the waters swift …’

Alienor folded her cloak around her and leaned towards the flames. Joining her, Geoffrey pressed a cup of wine into her hand.

‘It’s decent,’ he said. ‘I bought it from one of the merchants hanging around the outskirts of the camp.’

She smiled at him. ‘That must have cost you dear.’

‘Anything for my queen,’ he said with a toast of his cup.

She took a cautious sip and discovered he was right. It was indeed drinkable … and if she drank enough it might make this journey bearable for another day, and it would be one day closer to Antioch.

Geoffrey studied the sky. ‘Let’s hope it stays clear now,’ he said. ‘We need the drier ground.’

Alienor nodded and continued to savour the wine. ‘I wonder what an astrologer would say if he read the sky now. What would he see for all of us? Are our fates truly dictated by the position of the stars at our birth?’