The Summer Queen by Elizabeth Chadwick

contemplation.
    They had been married for nine months and Alienor had still not conceived. Her flux had been late at Christmas, but had proven to be nothing. Each month, when she bled, Adelaide would make pointed comments about fulfilling her duties and providing an heir for France. She herself had borne Louis’s father six healthy sons and a daughter when she was Queen.
    Alienor coiled a lock of Louis’s silvery hair around her forefinger. ‘My father sometimes took me and Petronella to Le Puy to celebrate the feast of the Virgin,’ she said. ‘My grandsire presented the abbey with a belt that had once belonged to the mother of Christ. She is said to confer the gift of fertility on couples who pray at her shrine. We should go there and ask her blessing.’
    He raised his brows and looked cautiously interested.
    ‘Charlemagne himself visited Le Puy,’ she said. ‘You promised that after our coronation we would go to Aquitaine.’
    ‘I did,’ he agreed, ‘but I have been busy with other duties. However, you are right; I will tell Suger.’
    Alienor held her peace. At least Louis had said ‘I will tell’ rather than ‘I will ask’, and that was progress of a kind.
    He sat up, and gently rubbed her cheek before looking at his thumb.
    ‘What?’ she asked, thinking perhaps she had a smut on her face.
    ‘My mother says that you dress inappropriately and paint your face and that I should be wary. But you listen to me, and give me comfort. When has she ever once done that? I do not care if it is true or not.’
    Alienor looked down while she mastered her anger and irritation. She and Adelaide continued to battle for influence over Louis. Her intimacy with him gave her the upper hand, but even so Adelaide was tenacious. ‘Do you think I should behave and dress like your mother?’
    A small shudder rippled through him. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I do not want you to become like her.’
    Alienor made her tone sorrowful. ‘I know it is difficult for her to give up the power and position she has wielded for so long. I honour her, but I cannot be like her.’
    ‘You are right,’ he said abruptly. ‘We should go to Le Puy, and pray together.’
    Alienor hugged him. ‘Thank you, husband! You will not regret it, I promise!’ She leaped from the bed in her chemise and twirled around, her hair flying out in a golden veil, making Louis laugh. When Alienor was soft and doe-eyed like this, she made him feel as if he could accomplish anything, and he would have given her the world, so great was his love. Yet the depth of his feeling set up a strange friction deep inside him, especially when others expressed reservation. What if he was indeed being duped?
    She sobered and became demure again. ‘We should go and tell Suger together, and ask him what we should take as an offering.’ Because then Suger would be involved and could not disapprove, and if Suger approved, then it left Adelaide out in the cold.
    Alienor and Louis prayed before the statue of the Virgin and child at the Shrine of Our Lady in the cathedral at Le Puy, and made gifts of frankincense and myrrh, presented in a bejewelled golden casket. Alienor prayed over the golden belt of the Virgin and passed it three times around her waist for the Trinity, so that her womb might be fruitful.
    Le Puy was crowded with pilgrims preparing to set out on the road to Compostela, for it was an important place of worship along the route. Alienor and Louis distributed alms to the throng and walked a little way with them. Alienor’s eyes filled with tears as she was reminded of the day her father had set out from Poitiers, with herself and Petronella at his side. Taking her emotion for religious fervour, Louis was moved to love her even more and thought he would burst with pride and adoration.
    Since the pilgrim hostels were overflowing, Alienor and Louis spent the night in the royal tent under a powdering of stars. With the Virgin’s blessing upon them, they made love in the warm