‘Very well, I shall write to them,’ he said curtly, ‘but we should say nothing until plans are finalised. It will do your sister and Raoul no harm to spend time repenting without knowledge of this.’
‘As you wish.’
‘You had this all planned before you came to me, didn’t you?’
She looked up at him and put her hands on his chest. ‘Only a little,’ she said. ‘I had been worrying about it, that is all, and I wanted to talk to you. I knew you would know what to do.’
With a gleam in his eyes he set his hands to her waist and kissed her. The notion of slighting Theobald of Champagne through his niece filled him with a sense of power and royal righteousness that translated into a sudden strong sexual urge. And besides, he needed to put his wife in her place.
Alienor responded willingly to his excitement, because she had got him to do her will; she had solved the problem of Petronella and Raoul, and perhaps this time she would conceive.
Cold rain had turned the crowded streets of Paris into a vile, sulphurous-smelling sludge. No one could go about their business without miring their shoes and clothes. Even if puddles were skirted and leaped over, the noisome splatter from the press of general traffic was unavoidable.
At the palace, the shutters were open to admit the daylight, but they also brought in the stink from the city coupled with that of musty stone, damp from a cold, wet autumn.
Wrapped in a warm mantle lined with the pelts of Russian squirrels, Alienor sat before a brazier in her chamber holding a document with several seals dangling from cords at the base; despite the dismal day and the stench, she was smiling.
The door opened and Petronella entered, followed by her customary escort of ladies, all of them sober matrons. Petronella flung her cloak across a chest and tore off her headdress to expose her long brown braids. ‘That is the end!’ Her eyes flashed. ‘I am shriven whiter than a newborn lamb. I have been washing the feet of the poor all morning after they have trudged through that stinking mire. I have given them bread and alms and touched their sores.’ She screwed up her face. ‘I have inhaled their stench and let it out again on the breath of prayer. I have bowed my head and begged for forgiveness.’ She cast a defiant look at Alienor. ‘I didn’t beg forgiveness for loving Raoul; I begged it because I am sick of people turning away from me. I am who I was before, but everyone hates me now.’
‘No one hates you.’ Alienor tried not to sound impatient. ‘Come sit here by me.’
Petronella sighed and flounced over to Alienor. She picked up the piece of sewing she had been working on before she went to church. It was a tunic hem half-embroidered with green silk acanthus scrolls.
‘Look,’ Alienor said. ‘I do not know if this will make a difference to you, but Louis and I have been making enquiries into the likelihood of an annulment for Raoul and we think it may be possible.’
Petronella let her sewing fall to her lap. ‘An annulment?’ she said with widening eyes.
‘I did not want to tell you before, not until it seemed certain, and besides you have had your penance to do, but we have found three bishops who have agreed to dissolve Raoul’s marriage.’ She tapped the piece of parchment in her hand. ‘If matters go well, you and Raoul can be wed as soon as we can arrange matters.’
Petronella clutched her breast as if holding her heart inside her body and gasped. When Alienor leaned towards her in concern, she shook her head and laughed exultantly. ‘I knew you would not let me down! When all is said and done we are the same blood. This is a miracle. I begged and prayed for one all the time I was on my knees in church and washing the feet of the poor!’ She flung her arms around Alienor and kissed her. ‘Thank you, sister, thank you!’
Alienor returned the embrace, tears pricking her own eyes because a sister’s love was unconditional, whatever Petronella did.
‘I promise to be good from now on. I will be the best wife in the world!’ Petronella vowed. ‘We can be sisters just as we were before all this happened!’
But Alienor knew they could never go back: she was wise enough to see that too much had changed, too much had been said and done; yet it was so good to feel Petronella’s arms around her, and to know that at least some of the ties between them, frayed though they were, remained fast.
‘What about Raoul?’ asked Petronella. ‘Does he know?’
‘Louis will tell him. We were waiting for this news from the bishops.’ Alienor raised a warning forefinger. ‘I tell you now there will be great opposition. Theobald of Champagne will not accept it because he will take it as a personal insult to his bloodline. He and Louis are already on bad terms over the matter of Toulouse, and this will only sour their relationship further. I suspect he will call on clergy of his own to refute what we put forward.’
‘They won’t succeed,’ Petronella said with a vehement shake of her head. She hugged Alienor again. ‘I promise I will never ask for anything else in my life now that I have this! It means everything to me!’
Alienor’s smile did not reach her eyes because having something that meant everything was a double-edged sword. It meant you had so much more to lose.
Raoul entered Louis’s chamber with trepidation. A swift glance showed him that the servants had all been dismissed. Abbé Suger, Louis’s brother Robert of Dreux, and his uncles William de Montferrat and Amadée de Maurienne, however, were in close attendance.
‘Sire.’ Raoul knelt and bowed his head. This was the first time he had seen Louis in several days. He was still being kept under close watch, although no longer strict house arrest. He had felt the weight of disapproval at court; instead of being welcomed into the royal inner circles he had been forced to the outer edge and knew how vulnerable he was. Men who were out of favour were easily picked off.
Louis ordered him to rise. ‘You are here to answer on the matter of your conduct with the Queen’s sister,’ he said icily.
Raoul bowed his head. ‘Sire, my life is in your hands. I do not expect to receive clemency. I will do whatever I must do to make amends.’
Louis looked contemptuous. ‘Indeed you shall. You have ever had a glib tongue, but let us hope this time your words and deeds are a match for each other.’
Raoul cleared his throat. ‘Sire.’
‘This is family business, as well as a matter of state,’ Louis said. ‘Whatever I decide will have repercussions far beyond this chamber. To set this right, you must marry the Queen’s sister.’
Raoul stared at Louis in dumbstruck silence.
‘I have found three bishops, including your cousin, willing to declare your marriage to Leonora null and void, which leaves you free to wed the lady Petronella.’ Louis’s mouth twisted. ‘I could wish it otherwise, but this seems the best decision.’
Raoul swallowed. ‘I do not know what to say, sire.’
‘That has to be a unique experience for you,’ Robert of Dreux said nastily.
Louis shot his brother a warning look. ‘The wedding will take place as soon as the bishops have pronounced the annulment, and as swiftly as the nuptials can be arranged. While this is being done, you will go with Abbé Suger to Saint-Denis, where you will dwell in penitence until the day of your marriage.’
Raoul’s stomach clenched. He did not want to enter Saint-Denis lest he didn’t come out again, but what other choice did he have? His life was forfeit anyway and Louis could easily have had him killed long before now. The older men were looking at him with ill-concealed scorn. ‘Sire, you are gracious,’ he said.
‘I am not,’ Louis retorted. ‘I am acting out of expedience and necessity. There is no grace about this scandalous matter at all.’
Raoul left Louis’s chamber in a daze, but slowly began to realise and rationalise what the annulment meant. He and Leonora barely saw each other from year to year and when they did they seldom spoke. She would probably be pleased to be rid of him. The only reason for her to fight would be the diminishing of her status. He felt a slight qualm about that, but it couldn’t be helped.