The Summer Queen by Elizabeth Chadwick Read Free Book Online Page A

tableware. The fish in the courtyard pond made lazy splashes as they leaped for midges in the last reflection of light. The air was thick with an ancient smell of baked stone. Alienor’s heart was heavy. On top of losing her father and being pushed into a marriage not of her choosing, she now had to leave her home and go to Paris in the company of strangers, one of them her own bridegroom.
    She remembered childhood play here: darting around the columns, playing tag with Petronella. Colours, images and echoes of laughter wove like a transparent ribbon through the reality of now and were gone.
    Petronella gave her a sudden, fierce hug. ‘Do you think it will be all right?’ she asked, burying her head against Alienor’s shoulder. ‘You said it to Ginnet, but is it true? I’m scared.’
    ‘Of course it’s true!’ Alienor had to close her eyes as she hugged her sister, because this was unbearable. ‘Of course we are going to be all right!’ She drew Petronella to sit on the old stone bench by the pond where they had so often sat in childhood, and together they watched the fireflies twinkle in and out like hopes in the darkness.
    Louis gazed at the vase. He had placed it on the small devotional table in his tent beside his crucifix and his ivory statue of the Virgin. The simplicity and value of the gift filled him with wonder, as did the girl who had presented it to him. She was so utterly different to everything he had expected. Her name, which so recently had seemed like a strange, unpleasant taste when he spoke it, was now honey on his tongue. She filled him up, and yet he still felt hollow, and did not know how this could be. When the light from the vase had spilled on to the tablecloth, he had taken it as a sign from God that the forthcoming marriage was divinely blessed. Their union was like this vessel, waiting to be filled with light, so that it could shine forth with God’s grace.
    Kneeling before the table, he pressed his forehead against his clasped palms and thanked his maker with his heart and soul.

6
Bordeaux, July 1137
    Alienor felt a constriction throughout her body as once more she entered the cathedral of Saint-André. This time she was preceded by two rows of choristers and a chaplain, bearing a processional cross on high. Usually marriages were conducted at the church door, but hers to Louis was to be celebrated within the cathedral itself before the altar, to emphasise its rightness before God.
    Alienor took a deep breath and set her feet upon the narrow carpet of fresh green reeds, strewn with herbs and pink roses. The trail of flowers led her down the long nave towards the altar steps. Acolytes swung silver censers on jingling chains, and the perfume of frankincense rose and curled in pale smoke around the vaulted ceiling, mingling with the voices of the choir. Petronella and three other young women bore the weight of her pearl-encrusted train, and her maternal uncle Raoul de Faye paced at her side to represent her male kinfolk. Her skirts flared out and swished back with each step. Occasionally she felt the soft pressure of a crushed rose underfoot, and it seemed almost like a portent.
    The congregation standing either side of her pathway to the altar knelt and bowed their heads as she walked past in slow procession. With their faces hidden, she could not tell their thoughts and see neither smile nor frown. Were they glad for this union of Aquitaine and France, or were they already plotting rebellion? Were they joyful for her, or filled with misgiving? She looked and then looked away, and, lifting her chin, focused on the soft gleam of the altar, where Louis waited for her, flanked by Abbé Suger and the lords of his entourage. It was too late to do anything but go forward, or to think she had a choice.
    Louis’s blue silk tunic was embroidered with fleurs-de-lis and his swift breathing caused the fabric to shimmer with light. A coronet set with pearls and sapphires banded his brow and as