“Has your uncle been talking to you?” I remained silent. “I know,” went on Louis, “that you are frequently in his company. The whole Court knows that.”
“He is my uncle, Louis. It was years since we had seen each other. Has he not treated us with lavish hospitality?”
“Lavish indeed. We do not need singing and dancing to beguile our evenings.”
“Perhaps you do not, but others might. All of us do not want to spend our evenings on our knees.”
“We are on a sacred journey.”
“Which we could not have continued without my uncle’s hospitality.”
“He owes that to God.”
I was exasperated but I knew it would be no use talking to Louis.
On the way out I saw Galeran. He was standing close to the door. I was certain that he had listened to everything Louis and I had said.
In the arbor, when I told Raymond about Louis’s responses, he said he might be able to arouse in Louis’s advisers an understanding of the need to protect the route and he would appeal to their logic.
“Louis is after all the King,” I reminded him. “If he did not agree that it was wise, they would doubtless do what he ordered.”
“He is stubborn indeed.”
“It is true that he relishes suffering. He has never complained. He even wanted to march overland to Antioch because his men had to. It took some persuading before he joined the ship. Raymond, I don’t know how I shall endure living with him ... after this.”
“You need not. You must ask for a divorce.”
“On what grounds?”
“Consanguinity. After all, there is a close relationship. That can usually be found even if one does have to go back some way.”
“I must speak to him, Raymond. I will not be dragged away from you.”
“That is something we must avoid at all costs,” he replied.
We always left the arbor separately. Sometimes I went first, sometimes Raymond. Although the whole Court knew that there was a very special relationship between us, we had to observe certain proprieties. Lovers are generally so bemused by their love for each other that they have little thought for the impression they may be giving to others. They hide their faces and think they cannot be seen. Perhaps we deluded ourselves into thinking that the outstanding tenderness and love we obviously had for each other was that which naturally existed between an uncle and his favorite niece.
On that day I left after Raymond, and as I did so I thought I heard a movement in the shrubbery close by. I stood listening. Not a sound. I thought I had been mistaken. Few people ever came this way, and certainly not at this hour.
It was fancy. So I thought then. But of course I was lulled into that sense of security which is often found in lovers.
Raymond called a conference with his advisers and Louis’s. I was present.
Raymond stated his case with clarity. He was a vassal of the traitor Manuel Comnenus. They knew that the Emperor Conrad, as fervent an upholder of the Christian Faith as they themselves, had suffered at the traitor’s hand, his forces annihilated, his mission ended. And why? Because he was yet another of those Christians betrayed en route. It had happened in the First Crusade. Would they help him prevent its happening again? Logical reasoning would show such intelligent men that there was need for action.
I watched earnestly, willing them to agree with him.
Some of them—certainly the Bishop of Langres—saw the point. He said: “If we could have these safe places at intervals along the route, Christians would be able to fight off the marauders with confidence, knowing they were on their way to a respite. I would agree with the Prince.”
Louis spoke and I hated him at that moment. “We have not come to fight wars,” he said. “We have come to worship at the shrine of Jerusalem. I shall never allow myself to be led in another direction.”
“This is a fight for Christianity,” insisted Raymond.
“Christianity is for peace,” replied Louis softly.
I could see the fanatical look in his eyes. He was seeing Vitry burning; he was hearing the agonized cries of the victims. I knew that Raymond was pleading a lost cause.
We met later in the arbor.
“Louis is a fool,” cried Raymond.
“A fool and a monk.”
“How could they have married you to such a man?”
“That is what I ask myself.”
“You will not stay with him.”
“I feel that I cannot.”
We made frantic love. We were both disturbed and afraid, although Raymond did not admit it. We knew we were approaching a climax and were unsure what would happen next. It was easy to talk of leaving Louis, of spending the rest of my days in Antioch and Aquitaine—but how possible was that!
I left first on that occasion. And as I passed the shrubbery, I was aware of a shadow there.
I halted and cried out: “Who is there?”
To my horror Thierry Galeran emerged.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
“I saw you go into the arbor, my lady. I knew you would tarry there some time. I came to protect you on your way back to the palace.”
I felt the hot color flooding my face.
“Are you ... spying on me?”
“My duty is to serve the King.”
“And how can you do that prowling about the grounds?”
“I thought it my duty, my lady.”
He was insolent. There was one thought hammering in my mind: He knows.
Perhaps I should have been aware that the whole Court knew. Neither of us, I thought on reflection, had been exactly reticent.
“You alarmed me,” I said. I wanted to humiliate him. My women said that he was very sensitive about his condition. I had never heard why he had been castrated. I wondered if some enemy had done this to him. “At first,” I went on, “I thought you were going to assault me. Well, never mind ... That is something you could not understand.”
It was his turn to flinch.
I held my head high and walked ahead of him toward the palace. I was very disturbed. Had Louis set him to spy on me? Hardly. It was not Louis’s way. No. Thierry Galeran had taken it upon himself to do so; but I was certain that what he had discovered would be reported to Louis.
I decided that I would confront Louis before Thierry Galeran could do so.
I went to him. He looked rather embarrassed to see me. So perhaps he knew. He would have been aware of my fondness for Raymond but it would never have occurred to him that we could be lovers.
I had changed. Love had changed me. I knew now what I wanted. Before, I had been vaguely dissatisfied. Now I was entirely so. I would not stay with Louis.
I found him at his devotions which irritated me further.
“Louis,” I said. “I must speak to you ... alone.”
He nodded and signed to those about him to leave him.
Before I could speak he said: “We shall be leaving Antioch in a few days’ time. I have been discussing this with those concerned and they believe we can make the necessary preparation, and in, say, three days resume our journey.”
“It is folly,” I cried. “It is going to begin all over again ... all the hardship and misery ...”
“We all know that our goal is Jerusalem. There has never been any doubt of that, and however hard the road is we must take it.”
“Louis,” I insisted, “you have already lost the bulk of your army. Do you intend to lose the rest?”
“We came for a purpose. God will look after us.”
“He has been a little remiss in that direction so far,” I said wearily.
“We are here now. We have come through so far.”
“And what of those who have not? What of those who have died either from the sabers and arrows of the Turks or from very revolting illnesses? Do you call that looking after?”