Devil's Consort. Anne O'Brien

was merely replicated in the royal apartments. The vast bed with its moth-eaten hangings and damp linens made me shudder. My women for once were smitten into silence.

      ‘By the Virgin!’ Except for Aelith.

      And then the ceremonial feast to acknowledge the new King and Queen.

      Louis presided. Why had his mother found the need to insist? He led me to the dais and presented me to my new subjects. I felt their interested gaze, heard the whispered comment, particularly of the women of the court who were so far behind the fashions of the day as to appear ridiculously outré. Louis attracted no such attention. He looked no better than a well-to-do merchant in a plain tunic and hose. His chamberlain was better garbed. How could he demand their respect as King when dressed little better than a servant? I determined to take him in hand. But for tonight I settled myself to be celebrated and entertained.

      I did not expect to be astonished: to be so rudely awakened into the reality of the Frankish court. But I was.

      Where was the procession of courses at the royal feast? The peppered peacocks, the candied fruits, the rice cooked with milk of almond and powdered cinnamon? The lobsters fried with egg? There was no shortage of food, for sure. Meat upon meat upon meat—venison and wild boar, game birds aplenty—but so coarse and unflavoured. Fish appeared—and languished on its platter. It was not popular. No delicacies of tarts or junkets or fritters. No leaves or salads. Vegetables abounded—particularly onions and garlic—a matter for much regret—stewed or pounded without finesse into an unrecognisable mush.

      Louis ate sparingly. I did what I could. And made a point of ignoring the fastidious grimaces of my women. But even I could not pretend indifference for ever to the presentation of the food.

      ‘What is it?’ Louis raised his cup to sip the thin wine.

      I found my attention fixed on a congealing pool of strangely green sauce on the scrubbed table surface, where a clumsy page had spilt it and failed to mop it up. Nor was the wooden planking that made up the table-top particularly clean despite the scrubbing. It looked no better than the butchery block from the kitchens, and the scars might suggest a pig had been dismembered on it. Did no one care?

      ‘Do you have no table linen?’ I asked bluntly.

      ‘No.’ Louis was surprised.

      ‘Not even for the High Table?’

      ‘No.’

      I focused on the charred-edged flatbread before me, a trencher to serve in way of a plate, beside it a drinking vessel and a knife to hack off portions of meat.

      ‘Are there no spoons?’ I eyed a dish of stewed elvers that would be impossible to deal with if a knife was all I had to hand.

      ‘Do you want one?’ Louis asked solicitously, already raising a hand. ‘I’ll send for one from the kitchens if you wish …’

      I shook my head, repressing a sigh. Glancing along the table, I watched one of Louis’s barons scoop up the elvers with the flat of his knife, from dish to lips with a noisy slurp. I would forgo the elvers.

      The Dowager Queen, clad entirely in black in markedly unfestive manner as before, interjected sharply, ‘I have always found the provisions of our High Table satisfactory.’

      ‘Have you?’ I gave a long look at a thick, glutinous dish that defied recognition. Louis had already given his attention to his Seneschal Raoul de Vermandois on his right so I felt at liberty to allow my dissatisfaction to show.

      ‘You will find life very different here, Eleanor,’ Adelaide reprimanded with a humourless smile. ‘My advice is to learn the ways of the Frankish court and accept them. It is what I did as a bride.’

      ‘It is certainly different from my experience.’

      The feast continued, memorable for its crudity. No songs. No entertainments. Our eating was accompanied by nothing more than the slurp and chewing and belching of Louis’s barons and an increasing volume of coarse comment and laughter as the wine flowed. At the end, a finger bowl was presented to me. It was more than I expected. But I flinched from the layer of grease and traces of food floating on the top. I dipped in the very ends of my fingers and looked up at the page. He stared back at me with an uncertain fear in his youthful eyes. Clearly he did not know what I waited for.

      ‘Fetch me a napkin,’ I whispered.

      He looked askance towards Louis and back to me. Did he expect me to wipe my fingers on my skirts? I found my attention straying from the rank water in the tarnished silver dish to the black-edged nails of its holder. Perhaps he had scoured the fire grate before serving me.

      ‘I don’t think we have a napkin, Majesty,’ he admitted in a hoarse whisper that echoed along the board, his face glowing with embarrassment. ‘I could try …’

      The lack was not his fault. But when the flatbreads were collected, some given to the servants, some thrown to the scavenging dogs that fell on them with enthusiastic snarls, I had had enough. I signalled to my women to leave, gathering my dignity around me to curtsey to Louis. I found it impossible to smile.

      ‘I will retire, my lord.’

      ‘It’s been a long day for you, Eleanor.’ Leaping to his feet, with gentle respect he handed me from the dais. ‘I trust you will sleep well.’

      I gripped his fingers for a moment. ‘I hope you find the time to visit me, my lord, before you retire.’

      ‘Yes.’ I thought Louis gulped but perhaps it was a trick of the guttering and inadequate rushlights. His eyes shone with warmth and, I decided, were full of admiration. ‘I hope you are happy with your new home.’

      ‘I am happy.’ I would make my immediate wishes plain since it seemed that I must. I leaned close. ‘If you come to me I will show you how happy I am to be here as your wife.’

      ‘I will …’

      I ordered candles to be lit. I bathed and combed my hair, robed myself in a lavender-fragrant linen shift heavy with embroidery. The bed had been newly made up with my own linens, thus obliterating much of the damp, and the brazier was stoked, a handful of herbs from the sun-filled gardens of the south thrown on to scent the air and ward off the chills.

      I dismissed my women to find what comfort they could in their own chamber.

      Settled against the pillows, I waited.

      The brazier dimmed into a dull glow and the candles extinguished in their own wax.

      Louis did not come to me. I did not think I could have been more obvious in my invitation, and there was nothing I could do to remedy his decision. I could hardly summon him, like a lord sending for a lackey, neither did I care to advertise my own failure—my continuing failure—in bringing my husband to my bed.

      Climbing from the high bed, I opened the door to rouse my women. For the rest of the night Aelith curled beside me, as she had every night when we were children. For once she was sufficiently sensitive to make no comment. For my part, I seethed with frustration and fury.

      I was not a child. I was a wife. I was a woman and I wanted a man in my bed.

      Where was my husband?

      Next morning I was up betimes. Really, it was very simple. I knew what I must do and how to do it. Before I had broken my fast, leaving Aelith asleep, I was off in search of my absent husband. I would talk to him, tell him of my own needs, and his, not least the need for an heir. He must see sense. If it was shyness I would try to put him at his ease. I would make him talk to me. If necessary, I would demand his presence with me at night.

      I would not be neglected in this way.

      First his own private apartments after asking directions. I entered without knocking—why should I not?—and walked through corridors and antechambers, finding no trace of life. Eventually, opening doors indiscriminately, I discovered what must be Louis’s bedchamber. The bed was as vast as mine, hung with the blue and gold of the Capetians, the never-ending