‘Oh, child! If God wills it, of course I shall come back.’ He kissed her forehead tenderly. ‘You have me for a little while yet. Where is Petronella?’
‘Still abed, Papa. I left her to sleep.’
A groom arrived to see to Ginnet and Morello. Alienor’s father drew her into the courtyard where the pale grey of first light was yielding to warmer tints and colours. He gently tugged her thick braid of honey-gold hair. ‘Go now and wake her then. It will be a fine thing to say you have walked part of the way along the pilgrim route of Saint James.’
‘Yes, Papa.’ She gave him a long, steady look before walking away, her back straight and her step measured.
William sighed. His eldest daughter was swiftly becoming a woman. She had grown tall in the past year, and developed light curves at breast and hip. She was exquisite; just looking at her intensified his pain. She was too young for what was coming. God help them all.
Petronella was awake when Alienor returned to their chamber and was busily putting her favourite trinkets into a soft cloth bag ready for the journey. Floreta, their nurse and chaperone, had braided Petronella’s lustrous brown hair with blue ribbons and tied it back from her face, revealing the downy curve of her cheek in profile.
‘Where did you go?’ Petronella demanded.
‘Nowhere – just a walk. You were still asleep.’
Petronella closed the drawstring on the bag and waggled the tassels at the ends of the ties. ‘Papa says he will bring us blessed crosses from the shrine of Saint James.’
As if blessed crosses were any sort of compensation for their father’s forthcoming absence, Alienor thought, but held her tongue. Petronella was eleven, but still so much the child. Despite their closeness, the two years between them was often a gulf. Alienor fulfilled the role of their deceased mother to Petronella as often as she did that of sister.
‘And when he comes back after Easter, we’ll have a big celebration, won’t we?’ Petronella’s wide brown gaze sought reassurance. ‘Won’t we?’
‘Of course we will,’ Alienor said and hugged Petronella, taking comfort in their mutual embrace.
It was mid-morning by the time the ducal party set out for Bordeaux following a mass celebrated in the pilgrim church of Saint-Hilaire, its walls blazoned with the eagle device of the lords of Aquitaine.
Ragged scraps of pale blue patched the clouds and sudden swift spangles of sunlight flashed on horse harnesses and belt fittings. The entourage unravelled along the road like a fine thread, rainbow-woven with the silver of armour, the rich hues of expensive gowns, crimson, violet and gold, and the contrasting muted blends of tawny and grey belonging to servants and carters. Everyone set out on foot, not just Duke William. This first day, all would walk the twenty miles to the overnight stop at Saint-Sauvant.
Alienor paced out, holding Petronella’s hand one side, and lifting her gown the other so that it would not trail in the dirt. Now and again, Petronella gave a hop and a skip. A jongleur started to sing to the accompaniment of a small harp and Alienor recognised the words of her grandfather, William the ninth Duke of Aquitaine, who had revelled in a notorious reputation. Many of his songs were sexual in content, unsettling in their rawness and unfit for the bower, but this particular one was plangent and haunting, and sent a shiver down Alienor’s spine.
‘I know not when I am asleep or awake
Unless someone tells me.
My heart is nearly bursting with a deep sorrow,
But I care not a fig about it,
By Saint Martial!’
Her father kept company with her and Petronella for a while, but his stride was longer than theirs, and gradually he drew ahead, leaving them in the company of the household women. Alienor watched him walk away, and fixed her gaze on his hand where it gripped his pilgrim staff. The sapphire ring of his ducal authority glittered at her like a dark blue eye. She willed him to turn and look at her, but his focus remained on the road ahead. She felt as if he were deliberately distancing himself, and that in a while he would be gone completely, leaving only the dusty imprint of his footsteps in which to set her own.
She was not even cheered when her father’s seneschal Geoffrey de Rancon, lord of Gençay and Taillebourg, joined her and Petronella. He was in his late twenties with rich brown hair, deep-set eyes of dark hazel and a ready smile that made her feel bright inside. She had known him since her birth because he was one of her father’s chief vassals and military commanders. His wife had died two years ago, but as yet he had not remarried. Two daughters and a son from the match meant that his need for heirs was not pressing. ‘Why so glum?’ He peered round into her face. ‘You will darken the clouds scowling like that.’
Petronella giggled and Geoffrey winked at her.
‘Don’t be foolish.’ Alienor lifted her chin and strode out.
Geoffrey matched her pace. ‘Then tell me what is wrong.’
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Nothing is wrong. Why should there be?’
He gave her a considering look. ‘Perhaps because your father is going to Compostela and leaving you in Bordeaux?’
Alienor’s throat tightened. ‘Of course not,’ she snapped.
He shook his head. ‘You are right, I am foolish, but will you forgive me and let me walk with you a while?’
Alienor shrugged but eventually gave a grudging nod. Geoffrey clasped her hand in his and took Petronella’s on his other side.
After a while and almost without her knowing, Alienor ceased frowning. Geoffrey was no substitute for her father, but his presence lifted her mood and she was able to go forward with renewed spirit.
2
Bordeaux, February 1137
Sitting before the fire in his chamber high up in the Ombrière Palace, William the tenth Duke of Aquitaine gazed at the documents awaiting his seal, and rubbed his side.
‘Sire, you are still set on this journey?’
He glanced across the hearth at the Archbishop of Bordeaux, who was warming himself before the fire, his tall spare body bulked out by fur-lined robes. Although their opinions sometimes clashed, he and Gofrid de Louroux were friends of long standing and William had appointed him tutor to his two daughters. ‘I am,’ he replied. ‘I want to make my peace with God while I still have time, and Compostela is close enough to reach, I think.’
Gofrid gave him a troubled look. ‘It is getting worse, isn’t it?’
William heaved an exhausted sigh. ‘I tell myself that many miracles are wrought at the shrine of Saint James and I shall pray for one, but in truth I am making this pilgrimage for the sake of my soul, not in expectation of a cure.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Alienor is angry with me because she thinks I can just as easily save my soul in Bordeaux, but she does not understand that I would not be cleansed if I took that course. Here, I would be treated with leniency because I am the seigneur. On the road, on foot with my satchel and staff, I am but another pilgrim. We are all naked when we go before God, whatever our standing on earth, and that is what I must do.’
‘But what of your lands during your absence, sire?’ Gofrid asked with concern. ‘Who will rule in your stead? Alienor is now of marriageable age and although you have made men swear to uphold her, there will be a scramble by every baron in the land to have her to wife or else marry her to his son. Already they circle with intent, as you must have noticed. De Rancon for one. He has mourned his wife sincerely, I admit, but I suspect he has political reasons for not yet remarrying.’
‘I am not blind.’ William winced as pain stabbed his side. He poured a cup of spring water from the flagon at his elbow. He dared not drink wine these days; all he could keep down was dry bread and bland foods, when once he had been a man of voracious appetite. ‘This is my will.’ He pushed the sheaves of vellum over to de Louroux. ‘I well understand the danger to my girls and how easily the situation could spill into war, and I have done my best to remedy it.’