Devil's Consort. Anne O'Brien

Fair, fairer still, fair above all the fairest is she, my lady, as I must avow …

      My troubadour sang with pain and adoration, all plaintive emotion in his voice.

      ‘My lady …’ Louis approached.

      I waved him to silence as the singer fixed his eyes on my face and completed the sentiment.

       Now it is time, lady, that you grant your lover his reward

       Or else it would be folly for him to praise you …

      ‘Lover? Reward?’ Louis’s words were bitten off.

      ‘Certainly.’ I graced him with barely a glance. ‘My troubadour demands my love in return for his.’ How convenient that he should be singing those sentiments at such a moment—if one believed in such coincidences. ‘This is cortez amors, Louis. Courtly love.’ I yawned behind my fingers. ‘The love of a troubadour for his lady. His worship of the unattainable woman of his heart.’

      Louis strode forward to tower over me. ‘I’ll not have that man here, expressing such sentiments to my wife.’

      Better and better … ‘Why ever not?’

      ‘You refused to obey me on the day of our marriage. That was in Bordeaux, your own city. This is Paris. I’ll not have that man in your chamber.’

      My troubadour still knelt, head bent, fingers stilled on the strings. Marcabru, another favourite of my father, a songsmith full of wit, of scurrilous verses or the sweetest love songs to turn a woman’s knees to water, renowned throughout Aquitaine and Poitou. I had brought him to Paris with me from our recent visit to Poitiers. A handsome man with great charm and a heart-melting smile. A smile that was now wickedly in evidence at the exchange of words.

      Louis waved him away. Marcabru looked at me for confirmation. I hesitated, just for a second, then nodded, smiling at him and watching as he bowed and retreated across the room. My women withdrew too, leaving the pair of us in a little space of hostility.

      I turned to Louis. ‘Did you wish to speak with me, Louis?’ I asked sweetly. ‘Did you want my advice at last? Or will you continue to shut me out of your deliberations?’ He slammed the little coffer down, to the detriment of its hinges. ‘Did Abbot Suger allow you to come to me?’ I pursued.

      Louis snarled, not diverted. ‘You were flirting with him, Eleanor.’

      I made my face grave, hurt. ‘I do not flirt with my servants.’

      ‘I’ll not have it.’

      I lifted my chin a little. ‘By what right do you take me to task, my lord?’

      His reply was becoming tedious with repetition. ‘I am your husband.’

      ‘My husband? I think I’ve not seen you in my bed any time this week—this month, in fact. Even longer than that …’

      ‘Such comments don’t become you, madam. As for your paid songster. How typical of the louche south,’ he accused viciously, ‘to encourage such wantonness.’

      We had been here before, of course. ‘Do you dare accuse me of lascivious behaviour, Louis? The woman who carries your child?’

      ‘How should I not? Look at your hair, your dress …’

      ‘I am at leisure here in my own rooms to dress as I please.’ Deliberately I drew my hand down the length of my hair, wrapped about in silk ribbons, the ends clasped in gold finials. Louis’s eyes followed the gesture. ‘I recall a time when you wound my hair around your wrist, my lord …’

      ‘I’ll not discuss that!’ His face was suffused with colour. ‘I’ll not have you looking like …’

      He sought for a word. I supplied it. And not quietly. ‘A harlot?’ I suggested.

      It silenced Louis. It drew all eyes in the chamber to us. With a furious look, Louis leaned to whisper, the syllables harsh in the quiet room. ‘You will dismiss your troubadour, Eleanor.’

      ‘I will not. I am his patron.’

      Louis stalked out. The jewels—his peace offering but left behind with bad grace—were atrocious, solid enough to decorate a horse’s harness. I remained obdurate. I knew what I was about. Hardly had the week expired than Louis marched in with another box, small and carved out of wood. Without apology or explanation he thrust it into my hands.

      ‘A gift, Eleanor. To remind you of your home. I know you love the perfumes of the south so I’ve had this made for you.’

      I opened the little box to release a sweet scent of orange blossom with a deeper note that tickled my nose. It was pleasant enough and I was touched that he should think of me with so personal a gift. Feeling magnanimous, I put aside my embroidery. Now was the time to welcome him back into my affections. I kissed his cheek.

      ‘I had the ingredients from a merchant here in the city,’ Louis explained, as he took the box from me, strode across the room to the open fire and.

      ‘Take care, Louis—only a little. The merest pinch. That’s too much!’

      Louis cast a hearty handful of the contents onto the fire. His enthusiasm was a fine thing.

      Smoke rose. There was the sweetness of the orange blossom, perhaps a little jasmine scenting the air, and beneath that. I sniffed. Sandalwood I expected, or even frankincense, as the base notes. That is what I would have ordered. We in the south had much experience of the skills of ancient Rome, now practised and polished by our alchemists. But that was not it. I sniffed again. One of my women sneezed. Louis coughed discreetly. Then not so discreetly as the smoke billowed and the pungency caught at the back of the throat.

      There was no escape. The perfume burned, the smoke filled the room and we coughed, sneezed, eyes watering as we were all overwhelmed with the cloying, animal heaviness of it.

      ‘Open the windows,’ I ordered when I could breathe. ‘Douse the flames.’

      To no avail. The perfume continued to give off its secrets and the mingled scents hung like a miasma in the air. By this time any sweetness was entirely obliterated, the draughts from the open windows merely stirring the fire into fresh life.

      We fled to the antechamber where we continued to wheeze.

      ‘It was very expensive,’ gasped Louis, beating at his tunic, dragging his hands down over his face.

      ‘I can imagine.’ And I began to laugh.

      Musk, of course. The most valuable, the most sought-after of base elements. To be used circumspectly, and totally overwhelming when applied with too liberal a hand. Laughter took hold and I could not stop. Everything was permeated with the scent of musk. The tapestries, the very stones of the walls. And ourselves.