The Courts of Love: The Story of Eleanor of Aquitaine by Jean Plaidy Page A

monster. My sister has told me of this matter between you and her.”
    “I await your pleasure, my lady.”
    “I have not yet told the King. He will be even more displeased than I. I am surprised and shocked.”
    “My lady, mortal man cannot go on yearning for the impossible forever.”
    “So he takes the next best? I think my sister should hear this.”
    He smiled at me ruefully. “My great sorrow is that I should cause you concern.”
    “Did you think I should not be concerned to find my sister in this condition?”
    “I will marry her at once.”
    “You have yet to learn that the laws of France allow a man to have only one wife.”
    “I no longer have a wife. I hope soon to remedy that when Petronilla honors me.”
    “And when will that be?”
    “Now. I have the annulment. I am a free man. It was granted to me this very day.”
    “Through the good grace of your Bishop brother.”
    “Families should always stand together. Do you not agree, my lady?”
    “It is fortunate for some that they do. Well then?”
    “I shall soon have the inestimable honor of calling you my sister.”
    “I wonder how much good that will do you when you have to face the wrath of the Count of Champagne         .         .         .         not to mention the Pope.”
    “I am a man who will face his difficulties when it is necessary to do so and not before.”
    “Sometimes that is not a very wise policy.”
    “So I have your approval of our marriage, my lady?”
    “I can do nothing else but approve when I am faced with such a situation. Please go now.”
    He bowed and left me.
    I was very angry. What a deceiver he was! To think that I might so easily have given way. It had been in my mind. He was very attractive and would be a skilled lover, I was sure, for practice makes perfect, they say, and he would be a very practiced man.
    And Petronilla had been his mistress! Of course, she was beautiful and more feminine than I. There was something helpless about Petronilla and men like Raoul of Vermandois were attracted by that sort of thing. I was more handsome than Petronilla but of a stronger and more forceful nature; I lacked that helpless femininity which I supposed was irresistible. And all the time he was pretending to long for me he was making love with Petronilla!
    Moreover she had become pregnant, a state which eluded me although I had been longing for it intensely since my marriage.
    This liaison between Petronilla and Vermandois would make trouble, I was sure. I dreaded to think of the action Thibault of Champagne might take. But what in the first hours upset me was the conduct of this man who had aroused such strong emotions in me.
             
    I had anticipated the effect this would have on Louis. He could not believe it, and when I was able to assure him that it was true, he was overcome with shock.
    “But it is so         .         .         .         immoral.”
    “All men do not care to spend half the night on their knees,” I told him tartly.
    “It would perhaps be better for all concerned if they did,” he retorted.
    He was looking at me with the faintest of criticism in his eyes. This is your sister, he was thinking. It is to be expected considering the family from which you come. Your grandfather’s antics were the talk of Europe         .         .         .         and your father was in perpetual conflict with the Pope.
    I came at once to Petronilla’s defense.
    “She is in love with Vermandois and he with her. There is such a thing as love in the world, you know         .         .         .         real love         .         .         .         not the tepid variety which some have to put up with.”
    He was too bemused to take in what I was saying. “With child,” he kept murmuring. “But this is impossible. We