“Others, of great wisdom, have different opinions,” she said carefully, reaching for some grapes. “Abbot Bernard for one. The Bishop of Laon for another. Bernard is adamant that our marriage is forbidden. He asks why you are so scrupulous about consanguinity when it comes to others, when everyone knows that you and I are fourth cousins. He told me he would speak to you.”

Louis’s brows furrowed; he was inwardly quailing at the prospect of Bernard hectoring him yet again. He looked at Eleanor helplessly. He had stopped eating. He could not face another mouthful.

“Can’t you see—God Himself has made His displeasure clear,” Eleanor went on earnestly. “He has withheld the blessing of a son, an heir to France. Our daughters cannot inherit this kingdom, you know that as well as I. Will you risk your immortal soul, Louis, to stay in this marriage?”

“No, my lady. I cannot fight you anymore,” he said sadly. “It seems I must heed the good Abbot’s exhortations, even though they run contrary to my own wishes.” A tear trickled down his cheek. “Did you ever love me?” he asked plaintively.

“It is because of the love I bear you that I fear for your immortal soul,” Eleanor told him, congratulating herself on this spontaneous response that so neatly sidestepped his question. “And I fear for my own soul too.” She leaned forward. “Louis, we must part. There is no help for it.”

The King continued to sit there in his high-backed chair, weeping silently.

“You have ever had your way of me, Eleanor,” he said at length. “Yet have you thought what our separation will mean for me? I will lose Aquitaine, that jewel in the French crown.”

“You could never hold it,” she reminded him, cutting a sliver of cheese. “You have not the men or the resources. You would be well rid of the responsibility.”

Louis nodded, frowning. “You speak truth. It has proved a thankless task trying to govern your unruly lords. But do you think you can succeed where I have failed?”

“I know them,” Eleanor said, “and they know and love me. I am their duchess.” She drained her wine goblet.

“They might not love you when you rule against them in one of their interminable disputes.”

“That is a risk any prince must take,” Eleanor replied.

“You will remarry, of course,” Louis stated. Looking at her, in all her vital beauty, he could not bear the thought of her as another man’s wife. It was unendurable. She had been his prize, his ideal, and, he had to admit it, his torment. She was so vital and strong, whereas he knew himself to be a poor apology for a king—and a man. He could not help it: he was afraid of the sins of the flesh. He knew he had failed Eleanor in that regard, which was why she wanted her freedom. He understood, of course—he had even forgiven her for her dalliance (he hoped fervently it had been nothing more) with her uncle, Raymond of Antioch, during the crusade—but he could only deplore her craving for sensual pleasures. It was what had always repelled the saintly Abbot Bernard, and Louis’s old tutor and counselor, Abbot Suger. If only Eleanor would think more on the things of the spirit rather than of the flesh …

“I will weigh everything carefully before committing myself to marriage again,” she was saying in a noncommittal tone.

“You cannot seriously be thinking of ruling alone?” Louis asked, shocked. “You will need a protector, a strong man who will govern in your name. And one, I might remind you, who is loyal to me and would not seek to abuse his power.” Which, he thought to himself, is probably asking for the moon.

“I had thought of that,” she said evenly, “which is why I am making no hasty decision. This has to be resolved in everyone’s best interests.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. Eleanor was holding her breath, waiting.

“Then it seems I must grant your wish,” Louis capitulated. She tried to look suitably sorrowful.

“I wish it could have been otherwise,” she said gently, reaching across to lay her hand on his.

“You cannot know how deeply I wish that,” her husband replied, removing his hand and pushing his plate away, sickened at the sight of the uneaten meat congealing in its thick sauce. “There is but one thing I ask of you, for the sake of my pride, as a king and as a man.”

“Yes?” Eleanor responded warily.

“That you allow me to initiate proceedings. Never let it be said that the King of France was abandoned by his wife.”

“I agree,” Eleanor said, biting back the retort that she was not really his wife. There was no point in making matters worse by sparring. She had gotten what she wanted.

“There is another thing,” Louis went on. “I take it you have thought of our daughters.”

Eleanor hadthought. Those two beautiful little girls with their blond curls and wide blue eyes. Every time she looked at Marie and Alix, she marveled that she herself had helped to create them. She loved them, of course, yet had been constrained to do so from a distance. They had never seemed like hers anyway. As the daughters of France, they were given over at birth to a gaggle of nurses and servants, and she had not been involved in their daily care. They were far closer to Thomasine, their Lady Mistress, than they ever had been to their mother. She had rarely seen her children, and consequently established no close bond with them.

Yet there had been precious moments, as when her daughters twined their soft arms around her neck, resting their downy little heads against her cheek as she told them stories of fairies and demons, or sang them lays of the South, learned in her girlhood; but these came rarely. And of course it was better that way, for one day, not far distant, those little girls would leave France forever, to be married to great lords or princes. It was the way of the world, and she had known from the first that it would not do to allow herself to become too attached to them, for she might never see them again afterward.

For all that, she was hoping she might have a chance to enjoy many more sweet moments with her daughters before that inevitable parting, and the opportunity to forge a closer bond with them.

“Yes, I have given them much thought,” she told Louis. “How could I not? Marie and Alix are flesh of my flesh, and very dear to me. How will it be if I take them with me to Aquitaine, then send them back to you in a few years when you have found husbands for them?”

Louis frowned. “Eleanor,” he said, his voice cold, “have you forgotten that Marie and Alix are princesses of France? Their place is here, in France, with me, the King their father. My barons would never agree to them going with you.”

Eleanor blanched. “Louis, they are but six years and one year in age. I am their mother.”

“You should have thought of that when you pressed for an annulment!” Louis said reprovingly.

“I did think of it, constantly! Is it my fault that we are too near in blood? Louis, I beg of you …”

“Is it not enough that I am to be deserted by the wife I love? Should I lose my children too? I tell you, Eleanor, no court in Christendom would award you custody of them, and it would kill me to have you take them away.” There were tears in Louis’s eyes, his pain not all on account of his daughters.

“So you would deprive them of their mother?” Eleanor persisted.

“They will have a stepmother before long. You said that I must remarry, remember? And I will be expected to, for the sake of the succession.”

“I realize that, but they are my children too!” Eleanor cried. “Do not deprive me of them, I beg of you.”

“Eleanor, you know, as do I, that this is not about consanguinity,” Louis replied sadly. “You want your freedom, I have long been aware of that. Who is doing the depriving here?”

“I never intended that, God knows,” she sobbed, sinking to her knees. “I know you love our girls.” They were both weeping now.