me that Eleanor, of all women, would prefer trinkets and roses and maudlin poems to a throne!”
“Jesu, men can be so dim-witted! Of course Eleanor enjoys being England’s queen. But she is Harry’s wife, too, and that wife has been sleeping alone for nigh on eight months now. If that is not neglect, what is? I can assure you that Raoul was never away from my bed for more than a fortnight!”
“Was that before or after he left his wife for you?” Joscelin jeered and she snatched up his cap, smacking him across the shoulders, only half in jest.
“Petra, I do not doubt that Raoul indulged your every whim. You were all of nineteen and he was nigh on fifty when he first seduced you… or was it the other way around?” Laughing, he ducked as she sought to pummel him again. “What else did he have to do but pamper and cosset his young bride? Whereas Harry rules the greatest empire since the days of Charlemagne. And if you think our Eleanor does not lust after that empire as much as she does Harry, then you’re dafter than a Michaelmas goose!”
Petronilla cast her gaze heavenward. “Why am I talking to you about this? You know as much about women as that poor milksop Eleanor married!”
“No one on God’s green earth could ever call Harry a ‘milksop,’ so I assume we have moved on and are now flaying the French king?”
“Of course I meant Louis,” Petronilla said, and called Louis a highly uncomplimentary name that cast serious doubts upon his manhood, much to Joscelin’s amusement.
“You have a very unforgiving nature, Petra. Do you judge all of us men so harshly, or just Eleanor’s husbands?”
But Petronilla had lost interest in bantering with her brother. “There you are, Eleanor,” she cried, hastening to intercept the woman just coming in the garden gate. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“So I heard.” Eleanor motioned for Joscelin to move over so she could sit down. “Harry wants me to return to Normandy straightaway.”
“You do not look very happy about it,” Joscelin said, wondering why women must make life so confoundedly complicated. “I thought you missed the man?”
“Of course I miss him, Jos. I’ll be glad to watch English shores recede into the distance, too. But Harry’s news was not good. The word out of Paris is that Louis’s queen is finally pregnant again.”
Petronilla and Joscelin were both startled. “Well,” Petronilla said at last, “how likely is it that he’ll sire a son? After three daughters, I’d say the odds are not in his favor.”
Joscelin almost reminded them that women were usually held responsible for the sex of a child, thought better of it in time. “I agree with Petra,” he commented instead. “With Louis’s luck, it is bound to be another lass.”
“I hope so,” Eleanor said, surprising even herself by the depth of her bitterness. “God Above, how I hope so!”
The French King’s palace was situated on an island in the middle of the River Seine, the Ile-de-la-Cite. When his future sons-in-law, the Counts of Champagne and Blois, arrived at the Cite and sought an audience, they were escorted toward the royal gardens at the far western tip of the island. This first Tuesday in October was as mild as midsummer, and the gardens were glowing with mellow golden sunlight under a sky the color of polished sapphire. Pear trees and cypress provided deep pockets of shade, hollyhock and gillyvor flamed along the fences, and butterflies danced on the breeze like drifting autumn leaves.
It was the most tranquil of settings, a private Eden tucked away in the very heart of Paris, but the French king was deriving no solace from his island haven, pacing nervously along the walkways, heedlessly trampling the acanthus borders underfoot. He was trailed by two bishops, his brother Philippe and Maurice de Sully, the new Bishop of Paris, while his chancellor, Hugh de Champfleury, was slouched in a trellised bower, an unread book open upon his lap. Even Louis’s dogs seemed affected by his anxiety, subdued and lethargic, not bothering to bark as Theobald and Henry of Blois entered the garden.
As distracted as he was, Louis still summoned up a wan smile at the sight of the young men; although they’d not yet wed his daughters, he’d already come to think of them as kinsmen. “I could not concentrate upon matters of state,” he confessed. “Even during Mass, my thoughts wandered from God’s Word to my wife’s lying-in chamber. Her pains began last night, and the midwives say the babe ought to be delivered by sun-down.”
Theobald and Henry already knew this; most of Paris knew by now that the queen was in labor. They hastened to assure Louis that Constance would soon present him with a fine, healthy son, telling him what he desperately needed to hear. Louis never thought to question their sincerity and was heartened by their apparent certitude. He had to believe that all would go well, for the alternative was too terrible to contemplate. What would befall France if he could not provide a male heir? And if he could not, what did that say about God’s Will? He had convinced himself that his marriage to Eleanor was cursed in the Almighty’s Eyes, as proven by her failure to give him any sons. But what if Constance failed, too, in a queen’s primary duty? What if the fault lay, not with his queens, but with him? The fear that God might be judging him so harshly, as a Christian, a man, and a monarch, was almost more than Louis could bear. How could the Lord have blessed Eleanor with four sons and still deny him an heir for France?
The afternoon trickled away with excruciating slowness. Twice the midwives sent word that all was progressing as it ought. Louis wandered back into the great hall, almost at once bolted outside to the gardens again. He let his brother talk him into a game of chess, but more often than not, he found himself staring blankly at the chessboard while Philippe fidgeted impatiently. As the sun began to dip toward the horizon, the River Seine turned from blue to amber, and the last of summer’s warmth faded into memory for another year. But Louis seemed oblivious to the dropping temperature. He was leaning against the stone wall, gazing out at the orchards and open fields of the left bank, when he heard a throat being cleared behind him. “My liege…”
He was suddenly, irrationally, afraid to turn around. For a moment, his hands clenched on the wall, his palms digging into the rough stone surface. And then he pivoted to face his confessor. The priest was haggard, his gaze downcast. “My lord king,” he said, very low, “God has given you a daughter.”
Louis closed his eyes, feeling a sorrow so intense it was akin to physical pain. How had he sinned, that the Almighty had forsaken him like this? Four daughters. He was in his fortieth year, and two wives had failed to give him sons. Two daughters he’d gotten from Eleanor in fifteen years of marriage, and then she’d borne the Angevin one son after another. Where was God’s Justice in that? Making a great effort, he said dully, “Thy Will be done.” Remembering, then, to ask, “And Constance?”
The priest flinched as if he’d taken a blow. “You must be strong, my liege,” he entreated. “You must remember the Almighty tests us in ways we cannot always comprehend. The queen is dead. The midwives.. they say she began to bleed profusely when the afterbirth was expelled. They could not save her…”
“Constance is dead?” For a merciful moment, Louis was uncomprehending, and then he sagged against the wall as if his bones no longer had the strength to bear his weight. His confessor hovered helplessly at his side, and his brother Philippe halted several feet away, shocked speechless for once. It was the Bishop of Paris who took charge.
“Was she shriven?”
The priest flushed, shamed that he’d not thought to assure the king of that straightaway. “Oh, indeed! I cleansed her of her earthly sins and placed the Body and Blood of Our Lord upon her tongue. You need not fear for her salvation, my lord king. She died in God’s Grace.”
Louis said nothing, but tears had begun to spill silently down his face. When the Bishop of Paris suggested that they go to the royal chapel and pray for the queen’s soul, he nodded numbly, clutching at the familiar comfort of prayer as a drowning man would grasp at anything that might keep him afloat. “Then… then I would see her,” he mumbled, and none of them could be sure if he meant his dead queen or his newborn daughter.
Theobald and his brother watched as the other men ushered their grieving king from the gardens. They had been vastly relieved to hear that Constance had given Louis another girl, for if Louis did not beget a son, any man wed to one of his daughters might be able to assert a claim on her behalf. But the French queen’s unexpected death changed the equation dramatically. As their eyes met, Theobald said softly, “Are you thinking what I am?”
“Adela?”
Theobald nodded. “Adela,” he said, and they both smiled.
Torrents of rain had turned Rouen’s narrow streets into impassable quagmires, and those who lived close to
