a sizable escort, one large enough to discourage any ambitious young lordlings with ambush and marriage on their minds.” Knowing that Eleanor had fended off two such attempts to force her into matrimony as she’d journeyed back to Aquitaine after her marriage to the French king had been annulled, she indulged her curiosity to ask: “If you could have been certain, Eleanor, that you need not fear being remarried against your will, would you have remained unwed?”
Eleanor’s mouth tightened, almost imperceptibly. “You do not truly think that the French court would have permitted that? No sooner was the ink dry upon the annulment decree than Louis’s advisors were arguing amongst themselves, deciding which French puppet to place in my bed. Had they even suspected I’d so hastily wed a man of my own choosing, they’d never have allowed me to return to my own domains. But yours was a conjectural question, was it not? So in that spirit: ‘Be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage.’”
Maud blinked, for Eleanor rarely let her bitterness show so nakedly. “Your interpretation of Scriptures is somewhat uncanonical,” she said dryly. “That is from St Paul, is it not? If my memory serves, he also said it was better to marry than to burn, hardly a rousing endorsement of wedlock.”
“I have never understood,” Eleanor confessed, “why the Church sees lust as so great a sin. Why would the Almighty have made coupling so pleasurable if it were so wrong? But when I tried to argue that point with Louis, he was horrified that I dared to question the teachings of the Holy Fathers, and it convinced him that we were a depraved and wanton lot, we southerners. He could never forgive himself for the carnal pleasures he found in my bed. He was not much of a husband, or a king, either, for that matter, but by God, he’d have made a superb monk.”
Eleanor’s face shadowed, for even now, memories of her marriage to the French king were not welcome ones. “He may well have been right, though, about the people of the south. We view lust as we do wine and food and laughter, as essential ingredients for a joyful life. My grandfather…ah, how he loved to vex his priests and distress his confessor! He wrote troubadour poetry, you know, and some of it would have made a harlot blush. He liked to joke that one day he’d establish his own nunnery and fill it with ladies of easy virtue. On our wedding night, I told Harry some of the more scandalous stories about my grandfather, and he laughed until he nearly choked, gasping that between us, we had a family tree rooted in Hell.”
This last memory was both more pleasant and more painful than those from her marriage to Louis, and Eleanor fell silent for several moments. “I think,” she said at last, “that I would have wed Harry even if I were not threatened with a husband of the French court’s choosing. I wanted children, for I knew Louis would never let me see our two daughters, and indeed, he did not. I needed an heir for Aquitaine and I wanted to give Harry sons, to prove wrong those who’d dared to call me a barren queen. I always knew it was Louis’s failing, not mine. How could I conceive if I so often slept alone?”
“And I am assuming that you had no trouble getting Harry into your bed?” Maud queried, so blandly that Eleanor could not help smiling.
“You could safely say that,” she conceded, and Maud felt a surge of sadness that things had gone so wrong between her cousin and his queen. She remembered how it had once been, remembered the early years of their marriage, when they’d been so sure that the world, like the English crown, was theirs for the taking, lusting after empires and each other, striking such sparks with their quarreling and their lovemaking that the air around them always seemed charged, as if a storm were about to break.
Eleanor’s attention was focused again upon the gardens. She was still a very handsome woman, but even queens were
Eleanor’s mouth tightened, almost imperceptibly. “You do not truly think that the French court would have permitted that? No sooner was the ink dry upon the annulment decree than Louis’s advisors were arguing amongst themselves, deciding which French puppet to place in my bed. Had they even suspected I’d so hastily wed a man of my own choosing, they’d never have allowed me to return to my own domains. But yours was a conjectural question, was it not? So in that spirit: ‘Be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage.’”
Maud blinked, for Eleanor rarely let her bitterness show so nakedly. “Your interpretation of Scriptures is somewhat uncanonical,” she said dryly. “That is from St Paul, is it not? If my memory serves, he also said it was better to marry than to burn, hardly a rousing endorsement of wedlock.”
“I have never understood,” Eleanor confessed, “why the Church sees lust as so great a sin. Why would the Almighty have made coupling so pleasurable if it were so wrong? But when I tried to argue that point with Louis, he was horrified that I dared to question the teachings of the Holy Fathers, and it convinced him that we were a depraved and wanton lot, we southerners. He could never forgive himself for the carnal pleasures he found in my bed. He was not much of a husband, or a king, either, for that matter, but by God, he’d have made a superb monk.”
Eleanor’s face shadowed, for even now, memories of her marriage to the French king were not welcome ones. “He may well have been right, though, about the people of the south. We view lust as we do wine and food and laughter, as essential ingredients for a joyful life. My grandfather…ah, how he loved to vex his priests and distress his confessor! He wrote troubadour poetry, you know, and some of it would have made a harlot blush. He liked to joke that one day he’d establish his own nunnery and fill it with ladies of easy virtue. On our wedding night, I told Harry some of the more scandalous stories about my grandfather, and he laughed until he nearly choked, gasping that between us, we had a family tree rooted in Hell.”
This last memory was both more pleasant and more painful than those from her marriage to Louis, and Eleanor fell silent for several moments. “I think,” she said at last, “that I would have wed Harry even if I were not threatened with a husband of the French court’s choosing. I wanted children, for I knew Louis would never let me see our two daughters, and indeed, he did not. I needed an heir for Aquitaine and I wanted to give Harry sons, to prove wrong those who’d dared to call me a barren queen. I always knew it was Louis’s failing, not mine. How could I conceive if I so often slept alone?”
“And I am assuming that you had no trouble getting Harry into your bed?” Maud queried, so blandly that Eleanor could not help smiling.
“You could safely say that,” she conceded, and Maud felt a surge of sadness that things had gone so wrong between her cousin and his queen. She remembered how it had once been, remembered the early years of their marriage, when they’d been so sure that the world, like the English crown, was theirs for the taking, lusting after empires and each other, striking such sparks with their quarreling and their lovemaking that the air around them always seemed charged, as if a storm were about to break.
Eleanor’s attention was focused again upon the gardens. She was still a very handsome woman, but even queens were
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