The Summer Queen by Elizabeth Chadwick

come to Taillebourg to swear fealty to Alienor and Louis, and all had been arranged by Geoffrey to run as smoothly as oil from a jar. A formal feast had been prepared with Louis and Alienor as guests of honour and hosts to their subjects. Later, over an informal gathering, Louis was able to meet and talk with barons and members of the clergy whom he had not met before.
    Amid the throng, Geoffrey paused to speak with Alienor. ‘I have arranged a hunt tomorrow,’ he said. ‘I hope the Prince will approve.’
    ‘He tells me he enjoys the chase providing it is not a holy day.’
    ‘You have made a very great match,’ he leaned forward to say softly. ‘One that any father would be proud to make for his daughter.’
    She looked across the room at Geoffrey’s children, standing with their nurses. Burgundia was the eldest at seven, Geoffrey his namesake was six and Bertha the youngest was four. ‘Would you have made it for one of yours?’ she asked.
    ‘I would do the best I could for them and for the name of Rancon. It would be too great an opportunity to pass up.’
    ‘But in your heart?’
    He raised his brows. ‘Are we still talking of my daughters?’
    She flushed and looked away.
    ‘Whatever hopes I nurtured, I now see clearly were never going to come to fruition – even if your father had lived. He was a wiser man than me. It would not be beneficial for Aquitaine, and that is always our greatest duty … Alienor, look at me.’
    She met his eyes, although it cost her to do so. She was horribly aware that they were under the gaze of the entire court and one beat too long, one moment of overheard conversation was all it would take to ignite a destructive scandal.
    ‘I wish you and your husband well,’ he said. ‘Whatever you ask of me in loyal service, I shall perform as a faithful vassal. You may trust me, always and without reserve.’ He bowed and moved smoothly on to engage in urbane conversation with Ralph de Vermandois.
    Alienor continued on her own trajectory, speaking a word here, giving a smile there, and a gesture of the hand to emphasise the gold lining of her sleeve and the shine of a topaz ring that had been among Louis’s wedding gifts to her. She was the gracious and lovely young Duchess of Aquitaine and no one would ever see her wounds or know the turmoil she felt inside.
    Alienor quietly entered the bridal chamber at the top of the tower. Night had fallen and the shutters were closed. Numerous candles and lamps had been lit and the room flickered with soft amber light and umber shadows. The escape she had made was brief. In a moment the women would arrive to prepare her for her wedding night.
    Someone had hung her father’s shield on the wall – Geoffrey, she suspected – both as a reminder of her bloodline and as a symbol of paternal sanction. She swallowed as she remembered picking it up as a little girl and running behind her father, pretending to be his squire, making him laugh as she strove not to drag its tip in the dust.
    The great bed, which had travelled with them in their baggage train, was layered with fresh linen sheets, soft woollen blankets and a silk coverlet embroidered with a design of eagles. Curtains of red wool formed deep swags, heavy with shadows. The bed had a long history reaching back beyond her parents and grandparents to earlier rulers of these lands, even to a son of Charlemagne who had been King of Aquitaine in the days when Aquitaine had kings. For centuries it had served its purpose as a platform for wedding nights, conceptions, births and deaths. Tonight it would be a stage for the consummation of the bond between France and Aquitaine begun in the cathedral three days ago.
    Alienor knew what to expect. The matrons in the household had explained her duties to her, and she was neither blind nor unknowing. She had seen animals mating, and observed the intimate embraces of people in dark corners when bitter winter weather put outdoor trysting places beyond bounds.