RAIMOND DREW REIN and glanced back at the abbey walls. His men exchanged puzzled looks, but he was their lord and it was not for them to question why he’d chosen to halt in the middle of the road. Raimond could not have explained himself why he suddenly felt this reluctance to see Fontevrault recede into the distance. Returning to Toulouse would ease Joanna’s qualms about their children and his troublesome vassals; staying here would not. And although he was loath to admit it, he felt a certain relief that he would not have to watch helplessly as his wife suffered. Joanna’s women had made it clear—without saying a word—that they did not want him underfoot whilst they dealt with female matters that no man could truly understand.
He’d had a private talk with Joanna’s midwife and felt better afterward, for she seemed quite confident that Joanna’s nausea would not last much longer. He saw no reason to doubt her, for he’d never heard of a woman afflicted with morning sickness for the entire length of her pregnancy. And when he’d bidden Joanna farewell, she’d been in better spirits, revealing that she was sure she was bearing a son. The midwife had performed a test that she claimed was utterly reliable: putting a few drops of Joanna’s blood into a bowl of springwater. If they’d floated, that would have meant she would birth a daughter, but they sank, proof that the baby in her womb was a boy. Raimond did not wait for her to ask, suggesting they name their son after her brother, and he would take back to Toulouse the memory of her grateful smile. He did not doubt that she’d bedazzle their son with embellished stories of his renowned namesake, but a nephew would not feel the need to live up to the legend of the Lionheart the way a son would. If it would give Joanna comfort, he’d not care if she turned Richard’s crown into a halo and transformed what he saw as a needless death into a holy martyrdom.
Sensing that his men were growing restless, Raimond at last gave the signal to move on. When he returned to Fontevrault, he would bring Dame Esquiva with him, for Joanna would have greater trust in the midwife who’d delivered their children than in a stranger from Saumur. And he meant to have a confidential conversation with Esquiva, one that he doubted he’d share with his wife.
The Church preached that it was a mortal sin to prevent conception, but he had a more flexible concept of sin than Joanna, and he valued her life and her health more than the teachings of self-righteous holy men who knew nothing of the pleasures of the flesh. It was common sense that three pregnancies in three years would take a toll upon a woman’s body. Joanna could not keep getting with child every year like this. But abstinence was for monks and nuns, and even they often found it an impossible vow to keep. He remembered, though, a discussion with one of his bedmates, remembered her saying that a woman could avoid pregnancy by drinking wine mixed with willow leaves. She’d also claimed that there were magic charms and amulets that kept a man’s seed from taking root in a woman’s womb.
He did not doubt that Dame Esquiva would know of these methods. Because she was a good-hearted, practical woman, he was sure she would agree that Joanna needed time to recover her strength between pregnancies. Who understood the dangers of the birthing chamber more than a midwife, after all? And if Joanna never knew what they’d done, she’d be innocent of sin. Whereas his sins were beyond counting, so why would one more matter? If he must choose between risking his wife’s life and risking more time in Purgatory, that was not a difficult choice to make.
ELEANOR HAD NEVER SPENT much time at Tours during her marriage to Henry, for he preferred his castles at Chinon and Angers. The fortress at Tours was notable neither for its defenses nor its comforts, consisting of a great hall over ninety feet in length, with living quarters above and an adjoining square tower in the southeast corner of the bailey. But on this stifling summer afternoon in mid-July, it was the scene of a historic and dramatic ceremony. Eleanor was about to do homage to the French king for her Poitevin domains.