‘She is a thorn in my side.’ Louis’s expression contorted. ‘And all the more painful because I still remember the beauty of the rose.’

‘Many beautiful things are sent by the Devil to do us harm,’ Thierry said. ‘Look at the beauty of a viper’s gleaming skin, but know that it has a deadly bite. And did not the serpent entice Eve into tasting the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and did she not then persuade Adam to eat of it?’

‘I will write to Suger,’ Louis said with a sigh. ‘He will advise me, but you are right. In the meantime she should not remain in Antioch.’

‘I do not think you should bring your army into Antioch. Rather let them join us further on.’

Louis’s gaze sharpened. ‘What are you saying?’

‘Sire, I have heard disquieting rumours.’

‘What kind of rumours?’

Thierry screwed up his face as if he had been drinking vinegar. ‘I believe that the lord of Antioch plots against you.’

‘Think or know?’ Louis’s breathing quickened and panic tightened his chest.

‘I have seen the Prince trying to drive a wedge between our people. He speaks fair words in your brother’s ear, and I believe he is plotting with the Queen too.’ Thierry’s tone dripped with revulsion. ‘I suspect Raymond and the Queen have been inappropriate together. I have seen them sitting as close as lovers, alone without attendants when everyone else is asleep.’ His voice slurred a little on excess saliva. ‘I have seen them embracing. She has behaved inappropriately with other men too. Geoffrey de Rancon was in her chambers until long after midnight on the night before he left Antioch, and my spies report that they parted tenderly. It makes me wonder if what happened to the vanguard on Mount Cadmos was purely an accident.’

Louis stared at him in horror. ‘By Christ and Saint Denis, are you sure of this?’

‘Sire, I would not have spoken if I did not have grave doubts. I say we should leave Antioch the moment our army comes within reach and ride immediately for Jerusalem, bringing the Queen with us. With her at your side, her uncle will not dare to move against us, and where she goes, the men of Aquitaine will follow like drones.’

Louis swallowed. ‘What do you advise?’

‘That we make plans to leave by stealth the moment we know our troops are close. We shall need to move swiftly and only tell the people we trust. Raymond cannot stop you riding away, nor can he prevent you from taking your own wife. You must remove her from his influence and keep her at your side where she will have no opportunity to plot and scheme.’

Louis felt sick. He could not encompass the enormity of what he was being told. He did not want to believe it, and yet Thierry was his eyes and his ears and could nose out plots like a rat discovering a piece of rancid cheese. He had had a sense of danger for a long time now, and it did not surprise him, but he did feel very afraid.

‘Let me deal with it, sire,’ Thierry said smoothly. ‘I shall make sure that the Queen is ready to leave when the moment comes.’

Louis nodded, relief flowing through him. ‘You always know what to do for the best,’ he said.


31

Antioch, March 1148

The night was close and Alienor had told her women to leave the shutters open to encourage what little air there was to circulate. Somewhere in that vast, spangled darkness, Geoffrey was on the road. She remembered their conversation about the stars on the plains of Hungary, and hoped he was making swift progress.

This morning she had visited the church of Saint Peter to offer up prayers and silver for his safety and that of their child. She was eager now for Louis to leave for Jerusalem so she could relax her guard and have peace. Under cover of the square of embroidery on which she was working, she gently cupped her womb and whispered words of love and comfort to the child.

‘Did you speak, madam?’ Gisela asked.

‘Only to myself,’ Alienor said. Gisela had been acting strangely: jumping at the slightest thing, yet withdrawn and preoccupied at the same time. ‘You do not have to stay in Antioch with me,’ Alienor said. ‘I am not stopping you from leaving with the King.’

‘I know that, madam.’

Alienor’s voice sharpened with impatience. ‘Then what is wrong with you?’

‘Nothing, madam, I am just tired.’ Gisela looked down at her own needlework and bit her lip. ‘I have had a headache all day. May I have your permission to go outside and take some air?’

‘Yes, but do not be gone long. I am close to retiring.’

Gisela rose to her feet, slipped on her cloak and left the chamber.

Alienor turned to Marchisa. ‘Do you think she has a lover?’

The maid raised her eyebrows. ‘If she does, I do not know who it could be. The only young man I have seen her talking to is Thierry de Galeran’s squire, and he is not the type to conduct a flirtation.’

Alienor thought of the dour youth with his large Adam’s apple and pockmarked face. ‘Spying then,’ she said, and her stomach sank. Could no one be trusted?

Marchisa shrugged. ‘It may well be, madam.’

‘Do you think she knows about the child?’

‘She may suspect, but she has no proof.’

Alienor bit her lip. She had been careful ever since she realised she was pregnant to show the evidence of her monthly fluxes, even if the rags had been stained with chicken blood smuggled into her chamber in vials by Marchisa.

Gisela returned looking flushed and sparkle-eyed. Alienor vacillated. Perhaps she did indeed have a lover. If she could conceal a pregnancy, then Gisela might be just as adept. Perhaps he was a non-Christian or a man of a lower rank and therefore the affair had to be clandestine. She resolved to get to the bottom of it tomorrow.

Alienor retired to her chamber with Marchisa and Mamile helping her to bed, while Gisela prepared the maids’ room, dousing the lamps and tidying away the needlework. Marchisa took a comb to Alienor’s hair, smoothing after each stroke with the palm of her hand, creating a wave of heavy, shining gold.

There was a sudden soft gasp from Gisela. Alienor looked up and froze as dark-clad figures entered her sleeping sanctum and then closed the doors between the rooms.

Soldiers! They wore swords, and she could see mail gleaming under their cloaks and surcoats. The acrid smell of their sweat pervaded the room. She could feel their eyes raking her figure and her unbound hair. From their midst, Thierry de Galeran stepped forward, his dark eyes filled with satisfied malice, and Alienor knew terror.

‘What is this?’ she demanded. ‘How dare you?’

‘Madam, the King is leaving Antioch now and he desires you to join him. Come, we must go. It is of the utmost urgency.’

‘Let the King do as he wishes,’ she retorted. ‘I am staying in Antioch.’

‘Madam, that is not possible. The King has asked me to make provision for you now.’ He had a bundle over his left arm, which proved to be a man’s cloak of heavy dark green wool, edged with sable.

‘The King knows very well I am remaining here.’ She held herself rigid. The other men stared at her with hostile eyes, not one lowering his gaze in deference to her as a queen. There was no sympathy here, no way out. ‘Or have you come to kill me?’ She realised as she spoke that her murder was a very real possibility. ‘Where is Saldebreuil?’

‘Let us say he is indisposed,’ Thierry said and reached for her.

She batted him away. ‘Do not touch me!’ she hissed, revolted at the very thought of his hands on her.

He seized her wrist and she bit him. Marchisa rushed to the attack, using the comb to rake Thierry’s face. He hit her across the cheek and sent her staggering against a painted chest. Mamile began screaming and one of the other men seized her and set a hand across her mouth. ‘Silence, mistress,’ he growled, ‘or I shall squeeze the voice from your throat.’

Alienor kicked Thierry in the shins and ran from him, but the doors were shut and she was cornered. Even so she turned to fight, grabbing a poker from beside the brazier and jabbing it at Thierry. He laughed, feinted and seized her wrist, twisting it until she was forced to let go. She tried to drag his knife out of his belt, but he spun her round and bundled her in the cloak with aid from his henchmen, parcelling her up and tying ropes around her until she was immobilised. Still she tried to fight. Her mind filled with visions of being thrown into the Orontes to drown, or being taken from here, stabbed and left for the wolves and wild dogs to devour.

Thierry stood back panting, blood running down his face where the comb tines had raked him. ‘Hellcat.’ He wiped his cheek with the back of his hand. ‘Bitch.’ He gave her a nudge with his foot.

She glared venom. ‘I will have vengeance for this. I call upon my father’s soul to witness what you do now and curse you forever! Let me go!’ She struggled against her bonds.

‘It is for the King to say what happens to you. I leave it to him to deal with the traitors and whores in his own household.’ Stooping, he tightened the binding again until Alienor struggled to breathe.

‘There is only one whore in this room,’ she panted. ‘And he is standing before me.’

De Galeran kicked her in the region of her belly. ‘The truth of that will out soon enough,’ he snarled.

She couldn’t scream; she didn’t have the breath. Her vision darkened and blurred, but she was dimly aware of the men seizing Mamile and Marchisa at sword point. De Galeran and another knight picked her up and carried her sideways as if she were a rolled-up carpet in a souk, and bore her into the main room. Gisela stood ready, a cloak around her shoulders and a tied bundle of belongings in her hand. Her eyes were wide with fear, but there was a defensive jut to her chin, and Alienor knew that here was the traitor to match the whore.

After a brief, jolting journey and a clink of a money pouch, Alienor was dumped with unceremonious force on to stony ground. The heavy cloak cushioned some of her fall, but not the entirety. If before it had been an effort to breathe, now it was a supreme struggle. She was going to die, she was certain of it now, and the child with her. She was suffocating inside the cloak. There was liquid in her throat and she was gagging.

Thierry stooped and cut the bindings. Alienor sucked in lungfuls of air, gasping and retching. ‘You will die for this!’ she choked.

‘I doubt it,’ Thierry said. ‘But you might.’ He seized her and with the help of another knight, brought her over to a stamping, unsettled horse. One of the soldiers was already mounted and she was bundled up in front of him. When she began to scream, he clapped a hard, calloused hand across her mouth and under her nose, almost cutting off her breath.

‘Any more, and it will be death for you.’

She tried to bite him and he swore.

‘Gag her,’ Thierry said, and handed up a strip of bandage, which the soldier wadded and stuffed in Alienor’s mouth. ‘Blindfold her too. The fewer senses the bitch has, the better.’

She struggled and fought, but the men were stronger and in a vicious mood. ‘Hah!’ said the soldier and dug in his heels, and the horse sprang forward. She was astride the saddle and there was a terrible feeling in her stomach, as if her muscles were being stretched until they tore. She was jolted and bumped. The wind stung her eyes. She was helpless and terrified, certain they were taking her somewhere isolated in order to kill her and dispose of her body.

It seemed to her that they rode for several hours. The horse’s rapid jog trot slowed to a walk, then a plod. Eventually, she smelled smoke and heard the sound of voices and her captor drew rein. She felt him dismount, and then he pulled her down off the horse and threw her to the ground. Alienor could not prevent the whimper that rose from her throat. ‘Don’t go anywhere,’ he said. She sensed him walking away from her and she heard him greeting the men at the fire, followed by the slosh of liquid into a cup.

‘Perhaps it would be better if she did not live,’ she heard someone say. ‘Better dead than the scandal this will bring on us all.’

‘It is the King’s decision,’ another voice said sharply. ‘We should wait until he arrives.’

‘I do not see why. We can say it was an accident. He is better rid of her, and Christ alone knows what she was plotting with that uncle of hers – if plotting was all she was doing.’

Alienor’s teeth would have chattered with terror if she had been able to close her mouth around the gag. Would they dare murder her here and now without giving her the grace of confession and shriving? She forced herself to lie quiescent while she strained her ears. She would play dead, and if given the slightest opportunity, she would escape.