The Plantagenet Prelude - Plaidy Jean (книги серия книги читать бесплатно полностью .TXT) 📗

The Governor of that city gave them shelter.

‘We will not encroach on your goodness,’ said the King.

‘We shall stay only until we can find transport to Antioch.’

The Governor told the King that Antioch was forty days’ march from Satalia, the port close by, but by sea it would take only three days.

‘My army is in no fit state to march,’ said Louis. ‘If you can provide us with boats to take us to Antioch we will repay you well as soon as this can be arranged.’

The Governor said he would do what he could.

Impatiently Eleonore awaited the arrival of the vessels. She had heard her father talk of his brother Raymond who had become the Prince of Antioch through his marriage with the granddaughter of Bohemund. ‘Raymond,’ her father had said, ‘was the handsomest man I ever saw. Women always found him irresistible.’ So it seemed had Constance, Bohemund’s granddaughter, and so she had brought him Antioch. Eleonore was eager to see this man.

As her uncle he would surely make them welcome. In Antioch she could acquire some beautiful clothes. She was deeply grieved at the loss of the baggage, for to appear romantic and beautiful was necessary to her enjoyment of life.

Each day she awaited the arrival of the vessels which would carry them to Antioch, and when at last they came there was bitter disappointment. Seaworthy they undoubtedly were, but there were so few of them that they could not carry the army and all its adherents.

Louis was nonplussed. This could only mean that some of them would have to do the hazardous land march which would take forty days.

‘I cannot subject any to that,’ he cried to his bishops. ‘We must try to carry everyone in the ships.’

‘They would sink,’ was the terse reply.

‘Yet I cannot leave them to march across the land. The Arabs will attack them. They would suffer hardship, hunger… No, I cannot do it.’

‘Yet we cannot stay here, Sire.’

He spent long hours on his knees begging Heaven to show him what he must do. Time was passing; he must act quickly. Finally he made his decision.

He embarked on the ships with the queen, her ladies, the best of his army and some of the bishops.

And so Louis and Eleonore left for Antioch. The King had lost more than three-quarters of his army.

The journey which was to have taken three days had stretched out to three weeks. The weather had been good however and it seemed as though fortune was smiling on them at last.

Ahead lay the green and fertile land, and Raymond, Prince of Antioch, uncle to Eleonore, having been advised of their coming had prepared special honours for them.

As soon as the ships were sighted he personally set out to greet them, and he had ordered his subjects of Antioch to gather and line the route the visitors would take that they might be given a welcome.

Thus it was that Eleonore and her uncle met. She looked up at him for although she was by no means small he towered above her. Rumour had been true when it had said that he was the handsomest prince in Christendom. There was the faintest resemblance between them; they were both gay and adventurous; they were both ambitious; they were both eager to live their lives to the full and take the utmost advantage from it. They recognised each other as two of a kind and there was immediate rapport between them.

He took her hand and kissed it. ‘What pleasure this gives me,’ he said.

‘I am very happy to be here,’ replied Eleonore.

He had turned to Louis. The King of France! This poor creature! Noble-looking in a saintly kind of way, of course, but no husband for his fiery Queen. It was going to be an amusing and exciting situation.

‘Welcome to Antioch, Sire,’ said Raymond, bowing.

‘Our gratitude to you, kinsman. We have had an arduous journey.’

‘I heard with dismay of what had happened to your army.

But let us not despair. Here you may rest among friends and make fresh plans. But come. Let me conduct you to the palace I have prepared for you, and there I hope you will be furnished with all you need.’

There were horses for them to ride – for Eleonore a beautiful white palfrey.

‘I somehow knew that this should be yours,’ said Raymond warmly, and he would allow no one but himself to help her into the saddle.

He rode between the King and Queen into Antioch.

‘What a beautiful city!’ cried Eleonore enchanted by the olive groves, the palms, and the people who shouted greetings and waved leaves as they passed.

From time to time Raymond glanced at her. His niece was not only spirited but beautiful. A worthy heiress of Aquitaine. The most interesting phase of this development would be his growing acquaintance with his niece, and the possibility, perhaps through her, of bringing to fruition plans which had long been in his mind.

‘If the palace I have had made ready is not to your liking,’ he told Eleonore, ‘you must tell me. Another shall be made ready for you.’

‘How good you are!’

He leaned towards her. ‘Are we not bound by kinship? And were we not I would wish to do everything in my power for you.’

His eyes glowed in a manner which was something more than avuncular. Eleonore was delighted by such conversation, it was the essence of that romance of which she sang. If he were attracted by her, so was she by him.

Never before had Louis seemed so insignificant. As she rode into Antioch she asked herself how different her life would have been if the King of France had had the bearing, the manners and the vitality of the Prince of Antioch.

Into the courtyard of the palace they rode. There bloomed brilliant flowers and the spring sunshine glinted on the waters of the fountains and the feathery leaves of the cypress trees. From the balconies of her apartments Eleonore could look out on the olive groves and vineyards of the fertile land, and she was enchanted by it.

How Raymond understood her. He had heard of the loss of her baggage and sent to her beautiful cloths that she might choose from them, and with these came seamstresses that they might immediately provide her with the garments she needed. He gave her presents of costly jewels.

Eleonore exulted for she realised that Raymond was wooing her far more insistently than he was her husband.

There were entertainments for her pleasure. After a banquet Raymond would beg her to sing for him, and she sang some of her songs of love while he watched her with glowing eyes.

Raymond’s wife Constance, through whom he had inherited Antioch, was less pleased with the visitors. She was well aware of the disturbing presence of the Queen of France, and she rejoiced in the Queen’s close relationship to Raymond for a man could hardly make his niece his mistress. Raymond was the most handsome and charming man Constance had ever known and she was proud to be his wife, but she did realise that her opinions were shared by many and this of course meant that temptation was constantly offered to her attractive husband.

She preferred not to know of his infidelities. She was his wife. He could not put away the granddaughter of great Bohemund. She was safe enough. But she would be pleased when the French party left to get on with their crusade.

Eleonore had no wish to leave. Crusading had turned out to be not quite the joyous adventure she had dreamed of.

There was more to it than riding at the head of her ladies, beguiling the crusaders with her songs and enchanting them with her presence. The recent debacle had taught her that. It had been utter misery in the boats which had brought them here, and when she thought of her baggage being rifled by those infidels, she grew so angry that in her rage, her ladies feared she might do herself some injury.

All that was behind her. Here she was in Antioch with the most adorable of hosts and between them a very exciting relationship was springing up.