The Secret Eleanor Read Free

wolves in mail who attended him were likely his sons; one was standing still, watchful, but the other paced restlessly back and forth, as if he could not wait to get this over, or to find some new victim to pounce on.
    On Louis’s far side, Bernard in his long white cassock had remained completely still, his lanky shape craned slightly forward, his jaw set. Now abruptly he stepped in between the King and the Count, and his voice rang out.
    “Anjou! Did I not command you to set this man free? What do you mean, coming in here like this, like a pack of dogs dragging along a lamb? Unchain him, now, or this goes no further, and the ban of excommunication stays on your head.”
    Geoffrey d’Anjou took a strutting step toward him. Some of the effect of this was spoiled because Bernard was much the taller, but the Angevin Count produced a fine sneer anyway, jamming his fists against his hips.
    “By God’s balls! I told you I would come; I told you I would bring him, although I should have hanged him when I got my castle back. And so I would have, except for the Pope’s immunity decree. But now that’s over.” His head swiveled around toward Louis, sharp, like a snake striking, and his lips curled contemptuously. “Now that you’re back from your glorious Crusade.”
    Bernard’s face was taut; he moved a step to one side to put himself farther from the King, and in the rolling deep preacher’s voice that carried without shouting throughout the wide hall, he said, “I will not accept you back into the community of the faithful unless you free him, my lord Count.”
    “By God’s cock!” Anjou wheeled toward him, so that he was almost backward to Louis. He pulled back his foot and kicked the groaning lump of chains again. “I don’t care if you absolve me of the ban or not, Abbot. Why do I need to go to church? I’ve got my own bread and wine. I’ll hang him. God listen to me, I’ll hang him today, and from this puling King’s own rooftree.”
    Bernard jerked backward a step, as if the Count’s words had struck him like stones, and his hand rose to the breast of his shabby white robe. Tall and ungainly, he swayed, seeming for a moment about to fall over. Petronilla admired his ability to command every eye. Even Anjou was motionless, staring, and the man pacing back and forth behind him was the only movement in the fascinated stillness of the hall.
    Then Bernard straightened to his full height, his arms thrown out as if he himself were on the cross and his head tipped back toward heaven.
    His voice was soft, so they all had to strain their ears to hear him, and yet every word was clear. “Oh, God. To Whom alone belongs all glory and all praise. Hold back Your mighty hand, although they mock You, these creatures of Yours, who imagine themselves free, these scum, who dare take even Your holy name into their mouths and defile it thus worse even than their foul oaths and foul acts defile it.”
    As the words rolled out, his voice rose, clear in the silence; he pressed his right arm wide, as if to summon up the divine wrath, and with his left hand pointed down at Anjou, who was for once quiet, for once listening to somebody else. Even the pacing man behind him had stopped, drawn into the transfixed hush, and pulled his helmet off.
    Bernard lowered his head toward Anjou, and suddenly his eyes opened wide, his lids drawn back to uncover the startling crystalline blue blaze of his stare. Petronilla had seen this before, this stunning effect, as if God himself looked through Bernard’s eyes. Then Bernard’s voice cracked out like thunder in the silent hall.
    “Hear this, Count of Anjou. You have gone too far. Within a month, you will be dead, gone to judgment. There will be no more time to change and to repent. Listen, and hear me, because God speaks through me. Repent. Repent now, before it is too late, and hell yawns for you!”
    In the stillness the curse seemed to billow out like a poison fog. Every gaping face was