Free The Summer Queen by Elizabeth Chadwick

him in the proper places. You cannot do it all yourself here and now. We have to get up and dressed; they are waiting for us.’
    His chant faltered and ceased. He gave her a dazed look. ‘I knew he was sick and that his days were numbered, but I did not think his time was so short and that I would never see him again. What am I going to do?’
    She made him sit on the bed and drink a cup of wine while she brought their clothes from the coffer where the servants had folded them the night before. ‘You are going to compose yourself, and get dressed,’ she said. ‘De Vermandois has gone to organise the household, and Suger has been sent for.’
    He nodded, but she could tell he was not absorbing the information. She remembered feeling that initial numbness when her own father had died. Words had meant nothing. She held him against her and stroked his hair. It was like soothing Petronella, as if she was the mother and he was the child. He turned to her with a soft groan and pressed his face into her neck. She shushed him and he clung to her. But then he lifted his head and kissed her with his mouth open. She was startled but, recognising his need, returned his kiss and opened herself to him.
    When it was over, he lay beside her and panted like a shipwrecked sailor washed up on the shore. She stroked his back gently between the shoulder blades and murmured hush words, feeling a little tearful herself. They had shared something momentous. She had channelled his grief and panic away through her body and brought him to calm. ‘It will be all right,’ she said.
    ‘I did not really know my father.’ Louis sat up and buried his head between his upraised knees. ‘He gave me to the Church when I was a child, and I was only taken out of the cloister when my brother died. He saw to my welfare and my education, but it was all at the hands of others. If I have a father, it is Abbé Suger.’
    Alienor absorbed the detail with interest but no surprise. ‘I thought I knew mine well,’ she reciprocated. ‘I had been his heir since I was six years old. But when he died, I discovered I barely knew him at all …’ She fell silent before she said something she would later regret.
    The sound of authoritative masculine voices rumbled in the antechamber. Suger had arrived, and she could also hear Archbishop Gofrid. She swiftly cajoled Louis into getting dressed.
    ‘You must show everyone you are capable of fulfilling the role of king – even while you are mourning your father,’ she said as she slipped his shoes on to his feet. ‘You are God’s chosen. Why should you fear?’
    His focus returned as he stared at her, and some of the anxiety left his face. ‘Come out with me,’ he entreated her as she fastened his belt.
    Alienor hastily donned her gown and bundled her hair into a gold-wire net. Her heart was pounding, but she raised her chin and, showing neither fear nor apprehension, set her hand upon his sleeve and drew him to the door. Under her palm she felt him trembling.
    The antechamber was full of assembled courtiers who knelt as one in a rustle of cloth, Suger included. Looking at the serried ranks of heads, Alienor thought that they resembled cobblestones on a road awaiting the tread of their new king and queen.

8
Paris, September 1137
    Adelaide of Maurienne, Dowager Queen of France, gestured brusquely with a pale, bony hand. ‘You will want to change your gown and take some refreshment after your long journey.’
    Alienor curtseyed. ‘Thank you, madam.’ Her mother-in-law had spoken with emotionless practicality – the way she might address a groom about a horse that required tending after a hard ride. Adelaide’s grey eyes were cold and judgemental. Her dress was grey too, matching the fur lining of her cloak. Austere and wintry. A short while ago she had formally greeted her new daughter-in-law in the spacious great hall of the palace complex with a stilted speech of welcome and a chilly kiss on the cheek. Now they