He nodded. “If you enter the city tonight, you’ll not find it easy to leave on the morrow. The count was sorely aggrieved, my lady, when you declined to stay at his castle. He means to remedy that, by force if need be. He has it in mind to insist that you lodge with him rather than the monks, and I daresay he has a biddable priest ready and willing to perform a hasty marriage ceremony once you’ve…accepted the inevitable.”
Eleanor’s mouth tightened. “Accepted the inevitable.” A discreet description, indeed, of abduction and rape. Beside her, Geoffrey de Rancon was swearing under his breath, revealing a command of obscenity that any sailor might have envied. Saldebreuil de Sanzay was more controlled, but no less enraged. They’d known they might run into trouble. They’d not expected, though, that they’d encounter it so soon, within a day of the divorce.
“So the hunt has already begun, has it?” she said grimly.
Rancon was still fuming. “We would never have let that whelp take you, my lady-never!”
“I know that, Geoffrey. But it would have been an ugly clash and likely a bloody one. Men ought not to die because of a boastful lordling’s lust-not my men, by God. They deserve better than that.” Eleanor wasted no more time fulminating upon Count Theobald’s treachery. “Tell the others,” she said, her eyes resting speculatively upon their Good Samaritan. “You’ve done me a service I will not soon forget. I was very fortunate that you somehow became privy to Theobald’s plans, a remarkable stroke of luck…if that is indeed what it was?”
Even in the fading light, she could see a flash of white as he grinned. “You are quick, my lady, as well as fair. As you guessed, luck had nothing to do with it. As soon as word got out that the Church synod would be convened at Beaugency, we knew you’d have to take this road back to Poitiers. I was sent into Blois a week ago, charged to see to your safety whilst you were in the city. Sometimes a lone man can do more good than an army.”
“If it is the right man,” Eleanor agreed, and he grinned again.
“It was not that difficult to root out the count’s acorns. He was careless and one for bragging.” A disdainful shrug. “The Almighty might not look upon clumsiness as a sin, but I do, and it gladdens me greatly that the count will have so much to repent upon the morrow.”
“I value a man who knows his own worth. I could easily find a place for you in my household if you were interested. But you are not…are you?”
They smiled at each other in perfect understanding. “No, my lady. I am quite content as I am, serving my lord Duke of Normandy.”
Rancon and Sanzay exchanged startled glances, even more perplexed when Eleanor showed no surprise at all. “You must thank your lord for me,” she said. “Who knows, mayhap one day I may have the opportunity to thank him myself.”
He laughed softly, the triumphant laugh of a man who’d acquitted himself well and who would soon be reaping the rewards of it, and then offered to show them a little-used lane that would allow them to detour safely around the city, so they’d be miles away by the time Theobald began to suspect that his scheme had gone awry.
But as Eleanor started to turn her mare, Sanzay drew her aside for a roadside colloquy, switching from French to their native Provencal. “My lady, I confess to some unease about all this. How can we be sure the Duke of Normandy is acting in good faith? He might well want to thwart Theobald in order to claim you for himself. We’ll be entering his territory once we draw near to Tours. What if this man of his is luring you into a trap?”
“He can be trusted. You need not fear.”
Sanzay was puzzled by her certainty, rather than reassured. “How can you be so confident of that?”
“Because a man need not take by force what is to be given to him freely, Saldebreuil.”
It was so dark now that she could no longer see his face, but she could hear the changed rhythm of his breathing. “Are you saying what I think you are?” he asked at last, and Eleanor laughed.
“Yes, I am…and now you know just how much I trust you, dear friend. Hold your questions, though, until after we’ve left Blois-and its hungry young count-far behind in the dust!”
BY riding all night, Eleanor and her entourage reached safety at Tours, the capital of Henry Fitz Empress’s province of Touraine. They arrived at the abbey of St Martin’s in time to attend Palm Sunday Mass, and then collapsed gratefully upon the beds provided for them in the monastery’s guest quarters.
The next morning, they were on the road again, sending out scouts to reconnoiter the terrain ahead. They’d left the fine weather of Passion Week behind at Tours; the sky was lowering and they were caught in a brief, drenching shower before noon. They were just a few miles from Port-de-Piles, intending to ford the River Creuse there, when one of their scouts came into view, traveling at such a fast gallop that they were alerted even before he’d gotten within shouting range.
Geoffrey de Rancon and Saldebreuil de Sanzay spurred their horses out to meet him. So did Eleanor, who was never one for waiting. “Bad news, my lady,” Sanzay declared as she drew up alongside them. “There are men lying in wait at Port-de-Piles, and I think we can safely assume that they’re up to no good.”
Eleanor mouthed an unladylike oath. “They have most peculiar courting customs in these parts.” But her irony was outward camouflage; inwardly, she seethed, outraged that her divorce had of a sudden made her fair game, that there were so many men willing to chase her down like a prize doe. “Do you have any idea who this latest suitor might be?”
To her surprise, Rancon nodded. “The lad here says it is as maladroit an ambush as he’s ever seen. So sure are they of taking you unaware at the ford that they did not bother to post any guards themselves. He had no trouble getting close enough to look them over, and recognized their leader straightaway. Another young lordling on the prowl, and to add insult to injury, this cub’s but a second son! Passing strange, that the Duke of Normandy should have done you such a good turn at Blois, for his brother now seeks to do you an ill one at Port-de- Piles.”
“God and His good angels!” Geoffrey Fitz Empress was all of what…seventeen? No, nigh on eighteen. She’d made it a point to learn as much as she could about Henry’s background, and that included his brothers, but she’d certainly not anticipated meeting one of them in an ambush by the River Creuse. She shook her head, marveling at life’s odd twists and turns. “This gives a whole new meaning to the saying, ‘keeping it in the family.’”
Rancon looked mystified, but Sanzay gave a startled snort of laughter. “You have a wicked tongue, my lady,” he said with a grin, “damn me if you do not!”
“Someone else said that, too. Abbot Bernard, I believe.” It was drizzling again, and Eleanor pulled up her hood as the raindrops began to splatter about them in earnest. “We’ll have to find another crossing. Does anyone know of one?”
Rancon did. “There is another ford downstream, not far from where the Creuse and the Vienne flow together.” He laughed suddenly. “With luck, the Fitz Empress stripling will be waiting out in the rain for the rest of the day. I’d love to see his face when he realizes he’s been outwitted. What a surprise the lad is in for!”
Eleanor winked at Sanzay. “Indeed, he is,” she said blandly, “but you do not know the half of it!”
SAFE in her own domains, Eleanor lingered for two days at her uncle’s castle at Chatellerault, and on Thursday of Holy Week, she was at last approaching the city she most loved, perched on a bluff overlooking the River Clain, the ancient capital of Poitou-Poitiers.
The city walls shone in the spring sunlight, graceful church spires reaching up toward the heavens, and as ever, Eleanor’s heart rose at the sight. Of all the loves of her life, her first and last and greatest would always be for this land of her birth. Aquitaine was in her blood; even its air seemed sweeter to her. She could see the turrets of her palace now, rising up into the sky, crowned with clouds, and the joy of her homecoming was tempered somewhat by regret, for marriage to Henry Fitz Empress might well lead to a throne, but it would also lead away from Aquitaine.
Coming from the north, they crossed the Clain at the bridge called Pont de Rochereuil. It was then that they heard the bells, pealing out across the city, filling the valley with silvery, celestial sound. Eleanor was baffled, for by tradition, church bells were muted during the final three days before Easter, when they would ring in the Resurrection. So why were they chiming now?
Saldebreuil de Sanzay was the first to comprehend. Turning in the saddle, he smiled at Eleanor. “The bells are for you, my lady,” he said. “They are welcoming you home.”
50
