By dawn, Alienor was much improved. She drank more of Marchisa’s soothing tisane and ate some bread and honey without bringing it back up.
‘I am in your debt for Marchisa, thank you for sending her,’ she said to Geoffrey when he visited while the army made preparations to set out on the road.
‘She speaks Greek and Arabic too.’ His tone was enthusiastic, like an eager suitor presenting his lady love with a courtship gift. ‘You look much better.’
‘I am on the mend,’ she agreed. ‘Thank you.’
‘I am pleased to be of service, madam.’
There had been no word from Louis, no concern for her wellbeing, although he must know how sick she had been, but Geoffrey had been there immediately. She turned to Marchisa, who had been silent throughout the exchange. ‘I am in your debt,’ she said. ‘I would take you into my household.’
‘I shall be glad to serve you, madam,’ Marchisa replied with a graceful dip of her head that reminded Alienor of a self-contained small cat. ‘But first I must fulfil my duty to my parents and pray at the tomb of the Sepulchre.’
‘Since I will be praying there too, it is settled,’ Alienor replied. ‘Go and fetch your things to my tent.’
Marchisa curtseyed and left. Geoffrey took Alienor’s hands and his lips touched her knuckles. They exchanged a wordless glance, and then he bowed and followed Marchisa outside.
For three more nights, as she recovered, Alienor had the eagle dream. It was always a jolt to awaken and find herself in the dark confines of her tent rather than soaring above the world, but each time the dream came, she felt stronger and more sure of herself. Louis had still not visited to see how she fared, although he sent messages via Geoffrey, who visited Louis’s daily councils and reported back to her.
‘The King is delighted you are recovering and glad that his daily prayers for your wellbeing have been successful,’ Geoffrey said with the neutrality of a polished courtier.
Alienor raised her brows. ‘How gracious of him. What else?’
He gave her a questioning look. ‘About you?’
She shook her head. ‘I doubt there is anything I want to hear on that score from his lips. I meant what news of Constantinople?’
Geoffrey’s mouth turned down at the corners. ‘The King has still heard nothing from the lords he sent as heralds. The Emperor’s envoys say all is well and our men are preparing for our arrival, but we have no news of our own. They could be dead for all we know.’
‘We should consider this carefully.’ Alienor paced the tent. ‘If we are to deal with the Greeks successfully, we must be as cunning as they are, and know their ways. We must learn from them everything we can.’
Geoffrey rubbed his hands over his face. ‘I dream of Gençay and Taillebourg. The harvest will recently be in and the woods full of mushrooms. My son will have grown again, and Burgundia will have made me a grandfather by now.’
‘You are not old enough to have grandchildren!’ she scoffed.
Wry humour deepened the lines at his eye corners. ‘Sometimes I feel that I surely am,’ he replied.
She put her hand lightly on his sleeve and he clasped it briefly in his own before releasing her and going to the tent flaps. Outside, one of Louis’s senior squires was dismounting from his palfrey. He bowed to Geoffrey, knelt to Alienor and said, ‘The King sends word that Everard of Breteuil has returned.’
Alienor exchanged looks with Geoffrey. De Breteuil was one of the barons Louis had sent into Constantinople. His return meant news.
Geoffrey called for his horse.
‘I shall attend,’ Alienor said.
He eyed her dubiously. ‘Are you well enough? If you prefer to remain here, I can report to you later.’
Alienor’s eyes flashed. ‘I shall appear in my own capacity and hear matters as they are discussed here and now.’ She swept her shoulders into the cloak Marchisa was holding up behind her and fastened the clasp with decisive fingers. ‘Do not seek to put me off.’
‘Madam, I would not dare.’ He delayed mounting his horse to help her into the saddle of her grey cob, and plucked her eagle banner from the ground in front of her tent to bear as her herald. ‘It is always an honour.’
She firmed her lips. Her anger continued to simmer. She was a match for all of them but had to fight every inch of the way to be recognised and accorded her due, sometimes even with Geoffrey, who was one of the best.
The army had spread out over a mile: an assemblage of ragged tents, flimsy shelters, horse pickets and cooking fires. In the pilgrim camp, women stirred grains and vegetables in cooking pots, or ate meagre portions of flat bread and goat’s cheese. One sat suckling a newborn baby, conceived when its parents had had a roof over their heads and the security of mundane daily labour. If it survived the journey, which was unlikely, it would be forever a blessed child, born on the road to the Sepulchre. Some women were showing pregnancies that had been conceived along the road. Many pilgrims had sworn oaths of celibacy but had given in to temptation, while others had preferred to remain unsworn and sow their wild oats in the face of death. Alienor was glad Louis had taken such a vow, for she could not bear the thought of lying with him.
Riding into Louis’s camp, she saw the looks of consternation from his knights and felt a glimmer of satisfaction. The falcon of her dream was flying over her and she felt strong and lucid.
Louis was stamping about the tent, hands clasped behind his back, jaw tight with irritation. His commanders and advisers stood in a huddle, their expressions grim. At their centre stood the newly returned baron Everard de Breteuil, a cup in his hand. An angry graze branded his left temple and grey hollows shadowed his cheekbones. Louis’s chaplain Odo of Deuil sat at a lectern, writing furiously between the lines pricked out on a sheet of parchment.
Louis looked up at Geoffrey’s arrival. ‘You took your time,’ he grumbled. His gaze fell on Alienor and his nostrils flared as he drew a sharp breath.
‘I have come to hear your news, sire, since it must surely affect us all,’ Alienor said, pre-empting him.‘It will save you coming to tell me yourself.’ She went to sit on a low curved chair in front of the screen that concealed Louis’s bed, making it clear she was here to stay. ‘What has happened?’
Louis’s brother Robert of Dreux answered. ‘We were meant to rendezvous with the Germans tomorrow, but they have already embarked across the Arm of Saint George.’
‘That wasn’t the plan; we were supposed to join them first,’ Louis said.
‘Komnenos would not allow the Germans to enter the city,’ de Breteuil explained. ‘They were confined to his summer palace outside the walls and food was brought out and sold to them. Komnenos refused to go to the German camp and Emperor Konrad would not enter Constantinople without his army. Each fears treachery by the other.’
Odo of Deuil muttered something over his lectern about what could you expect from Germans and Greeks.
De Breteuil took a swallow of wine. ‘The Germans were ordered to cross the Arm and so were we. When we declined our food supplies were cut off and we were harassed and set upon by infidel tribesmen – while the Greeks stood by and did nothing. At one point I thought we were all going to die.’ He touched his grazed temple. ‘When we sent a deputation to the Emperor, he claimed to have no knowledge of this and said he would set it right, but he was lying. He must have given the order to stop our food, and he did nothing to prevent the infidels from attacking us. He has made it clear we are as a plague of locusts to him, yet he wants us to do all the fighting and dying while his troops look on and pick their nails.’ De Breteuil’s mouth twisted. ‘We are being used, sire, and by men who are no better than infidels themselves. The Emperor has made a twelve-year truce with these tribes who attacked us. What kind of Christian ruler does that?’