Devil's Consort: England's Most Ruthless Queen
Anne O'Brien
Language: English
Pages: 618
ISBN: 2:00277830
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, is a determined woman who plots and schemes an astonishing path between two equally powerful men in twelfth century Europe, a woman who can manoeuvre and manipulate to safeguard her own lands as effectively as any power-grasping lord. Eleanor is single-minded in her struggle to keep her inheritance intact, leading her to reject one husband and take another who will fulfil her desires. Eleanor intends to reign as Queen and is prepared to bring scandal down upon herself in pursuit of her ultimate prize. Hers is a story of power, political intrigue, passion and love.
Leave it to Louis I’ll never have a man in my bed again …’ ‘Eleanor!’ I covered my mouth with my hands. I had never admitted it—other than to Bernard in my confessional. Not even to my sister. The shame was too heavy. ‘Does he not sleep with you?’ she whispered, aghast. I told her at last and hid none of my humiliation. ‘Then, if I were you—’ Aelith at her pragmatic best ‘—I’d welcome the Angevin to my bed without a second thought. You want him.’ ‘Yes.’ I wet my dry lips with my tongue.
The room. ‘Eleanor! Wait!’ He followed me, of course, as I strode along the open-sided loggia with its lambent light. I did not slow my steps. If he wished to continue the argument he would have to keep to my pace. I would match my steps to his no longer. ‘Eleanor …’ There he was at my side, then stepping in front of me when I made no move to halt. ‘This hurts me. I love you. How can I agree to what you ask?’ I saw tears gather in his eyes and was forced to look away. Galeran and de Deuil.
Neither. At least, not on that occasion. Instead he placed me somewhere between a fallen woman and a leper. In the softest of voices, without recrimination, he offered to pray for my delivery from eternal damnation and for the soul of the bastard child. I think I wish he had railed and roared his fury at me instead. But he could not. My fertility pointed too forcefully at his own lack. ‘Have you considered my request for an annulment, Louis?’ I asked mockingly when he paid me a dutiful visit to.
Full-scale ambush. We slowed as we approached the river, moving stealthily, halting frequently to listen. Nothing but the ripple of water, the wind in the reeds. The call of some night bird. Nothing more. Once across, my own lands would be within my grasp. ‘Do we cross now, lady?’ Raoul asked, low-voiced and tense. After the night of rain the river was fast enough to deter all but the foolhardy, lit infrequently as clouds scurried over the waxing moon. Pale faces of my men glimmered around me.
First. The days of misery under Stephen are thus swept away with the stroke of a pen, the impression of a seal, the lifting of his rough voice. We emerge from Westminster Abbey to stand in the grey light of this nineteenth day of December in the year 1154. No sun to greet us, as I might have fancifully imagined. The clouds are low and heavy with the threat of more snow to come. Before us, our horses stand ready, magnificently caparisoned. And the crowds who line the route we will take shuffle.