The Summer Queen Read Online Free PDF Page B

their way to greet the French delegation and bring Louis and his courtiers to the city for a formal first meeting of bride and groom.
    Louis wouldn’t be fat, she told herself, trying to be positive. This was all happening for the greater good. But her stomach was hollow because it did not feel as if it was for the greater good, and she was moving ever further away from familiar shores.
    Petronella joined her, jostling at the window. She was dancing on her tiptoes and the liveliest Alienor had seen her since their father’s death. Her initial upset at the news of the wedding had been subsumed by the excitement of the preparations. She adored fine clothes, distractions and entertainments, and this was satisfying all those appetites.
    The Archbishop and her uncle disembarked on the opposite bank of the river and a servant hurried to the great blue and gold tent. Moments later a gathering of brightly clad courtiers emerged.
    ‘Which one do you think is Louis? Which one?’ Petronella craned her neck.
    Alienor shook her head. ‘I do not know.’
    ‘That one – there in the blue!’ Petronella stretched her arm and pointed.
    Alienor could see various churchmen in glittering regalia, and many nobles, but several were wearing blue and they were too far away for her to make a guess.
    The awning shaded the party as the crew began to pull back across the water, but unlike her sister, Alienor felt as if she was watching an invasion rather than the joyful approach of a bridegroom and his retinue.
    Louis felt sick with apprehension as the barge moored beneath the great walls of the Ombrière Palace. Envoys kept telling him how beautiful, gracious and demure his bride-to-be was, but envoys often told lies. He was keeping a tight rein on himself and hoping his fear did not show on his face for others to see. His father had entrusted this responsibility to him and he had to deal with it like a man.
    The intense heat made it difficult to breathe. He could almost taste the sun-warmed canvas of the awning and feel it sticking at the back of his throat. Archbishop Gofrid of Bordeaux looked as if he were melting, sweat dribbling down his red face from the soaked brow-band of his embroidery-crusted mitre. He had greeted Louis with gravity and deference, and had added a smile for Abbot Suger who was an old friend and ally.
    Louis’s seneschal, Raoul of Vermandois, wiped the back of his neck with a chequered silk cloth. ‘I have never known a summer so hot,’ he said, mopping carefully around the leather patch over his left eye.
    ‘You will find the palace cool and pleasant, my lords,’ the Archbishop said. ‘It was built long ago as a refuge from the summer heat.’
    Louis glanced at the towering walls. The palace of Shade; the palace of Shadows. There was more than one meaning here. ‘We will welcome it, Archbishop,’ he said. ‘We often travelled after dusk and by moonlight to avoid the heat on the way here.’
    ‘Indeed,’ Gofrid replied, ‘and we are glad for your haste in this matter.’
    Louis inclined his head. ‘My father understood the necessity.’
    ‘The Duchess looks forward to welcoming you.’
    ‘As I look forward to greeting her,’ Louis answered woodenly.
    Raoul of Vermandois tossed a flash of silver coins into the water and they watched as youths dived for them, brown bodies glistening. ‘Your father said we should treat these people with courtesy and largesse,’ he said, grinning at Louis’s raised brows.
    Louis was not certain that his father had meant quite so low down the pecking order, but Raoul was a man of cheerful and spontaneous gestures, and it could do no harm to throw money for the city youths to dive after, even if it was frivolous and less dignified than giving alms at the church door.
    Once disembarked, they were greeted by various clergy and nobles before being escorted in slow procession under a shaded palanquin to the cathedral of Saint-André where Louis was to wed his young bride on the