Part 10 The first year of marriage

Louis and Alienor's marriage seems to have started off with promise - if a few caveats and pointers to later bones of contention - but on the whole to have been workable. But as conventional history tells us, that changed over the years until there was much bitterness and hostility between them. The Akashics is an unparelleled aid in getting at the mindsets and feelings of the personalities involved. 

Here are Eleanor and Louis in the early days of their marriage.

Now to 1138 and Alienor and her relationship with Louis a year into their marriage.

 I am getting Alienor very still, looking down.  There’s a feeling of a spiritual journey.  I feel that she’s meditating.  I feel that Louis is close by.   It feels as if they are joined as well.  For Alienor it feels as if they are sharing a spiritual moment.

Is it a spiritual moment for Louis?  I’m going to the bit after it (they’ve been making love). Louis  just loses himself in her.  It’s like liquid gold.  He loses the sense of himself as an individual being. It’s like his boundaries are all gone.  His body feels as if he’s not there; it’s just everything.  And afterwards he just feels so peaceful and still.  He’s kind of lost in space.  It’s a meditative state. 

How does this make him feel about her in non sexual circumstances?  It makes him a little bit confused because it makes him feel as if he is the same person as her, and when they pass, he feels as if it’s right because he’s becoming who he is with her, and when she goes past it’s strange and he gets a bit confused.  It’s as if he’s more himself when he’s with her, than he is when he’s not with her.  I’ll try and find a time in normal circumstances when they’ve not been close together.  There’s a level where they can intellectually beat each other.  It’s a bit like playing a board game where they can chatter and disagree with each other and be competitors, but only in that little context, so I suppose that would be like talking policy or planning things. Most of the time she just sucks in his senses.  If you imagine you’re taking a plateful of the most delicious meat to the table and your dog’s in the room.  You know how he follows his nose and his whole body follows afterwards, well that’s how Louis is with Alienor.  He feels her go past and – Alison inhales deeply -  He might not show it on the outside but it’s as if his aura is being sucked into her.

That is really fascinating that it has developed like this in the year since their marriage.  When they first married, it was just like 'driving a new car' as far as he was concerned.  So I think we need to go back and find out how this happened.  But  before we go, let’s find out how she feels about him in their ordinary life a year later.  She has an emotional attachment to him from the heart.  It is sometimes disappointed because it feels frustrated and unfulfilled as if something is not there. It’s like someone not being able to meet you intellectually in a conversation.  For her the emotions are not being met on the same level.  There's the sense that she sometimes thinks he’s a bit of a fool.  He doesn’t see the obvious and he’s stubborn in his stupidity sometimes.  He will stick to something for no real, obvious reason and he can’t really argue his case and it seems the most stupid thing for him to stick to and he won’t be moved, but then she can’t really do anything about it. But she’s happy enough with her sphere and to be honest she has quite a lot of influence in his sphere as well. She feels superior to him.  She feels as if he is servicing her needs in all ways – in her life and in her bed. It’s not the full thing, but it’s an aspect of what she’s sensing. So now she is driving the car.  Yes. She’s now in control.  Yes, powerful lady.  It’s not instinctual.  She is totally consciously making her own directions.

So go to snapshots of their marriage between the wedding and now a year later and find out how she got the control. Go to next time they came together after he had to leave her shortly after the marriage and go to Alienor’s POV. She’s very pleased to see him.  She kneels at his feet and kisses his hand.  I can see them dancing together and it makes them both enlivened and relaxed.  They’re breathing faster.  They are chatting in a very relaxed manner about their time apart and what they’ve been doing.   They’re still in the public arena where they’ve been chatting to each other rather than to anyone else.  The feeling in Alienor is of excitement.  She has got something powerful and interesting here, a new toy, and a new maturity.  There’s a feeling that she has entered the adult world and wants to be a proper part of it.  It’s like she’s been given permission and accepted into the adult world, and that has made her more open to her own feelings.    She is finding out about herself.  She feels very secure in her relationship.  It’s very solid, so she can be as free as open as she likes.  She can do just what she wants within that relationship and no one can say ‘You can’t do that’ or ‘that’s wrong, it shouldn’t have happened.’  Because it’s there for everyone to see and it has been accepted.

 So another snapshot.  What has changed that a year later Alienor is in charge?  When Louis comes home, he is not relaxed.  He’s feeling anxious and tight, like a band across his solar plexus area.  There’s distaste for a great deal that’s going on in the court. He finds that there are only a few people to trust. Issues of trust are very close to the forefront to his thinking, and distrust for the ways of the court.  When I say this, the double dealing, the lack of true integrity, so people are doing this for the wrong reasons and not in line with God.  Things are really heavy to move, to get things done, and to get changes made.  Everybody’s got their own vested interest.  Alienor pushes herself forward into his awareness and her whole being becomes more solid and detailed because of that.  She stands out from the others and she can make him feel like a human being.  So when they’re dancing and relaxing, he can react like a human being instead of like a king.  This is very different for him.  I think coming back to Paris as the King is a real awakening for him.  It’s a very different experience to what he had before or whatever he imagined.  So that in itself has knocked him off the pedestal he used to be on where everything was set along definite tramlines.  That surety has gone.  The tramlines have gone.  Very different.  It’s like he has now to make the tramlines for other people.  He wasn’t expecting that.  With her she doesn’t expect tramlines.

Another snapshot.  Alienor is sitting on a dais at the end of the room.  He’s walking round the room.  He’s working the room as they say, and every so often he’s looking at her and she is giving him a smile and a nod.  She is giving him confidence. Because of what’s been happening between them at a personal level, there’s a connection there and it helps him and she feels it’s perfectly how it should be and her mind is already in intellectual mode, planning.  I’m just trying to see what she’s planning, but it’s everything.  It involves people, projects, buildings, how things should look, everything. 

She’s world building then?  Yes, exactly, and he’s part of the plan.

So how is Louis feeling?  He is feeling so warm and full in the solar plexus.  It goes up to his heart and makes him feel warm and loved, as if his whole world is perfectly full.  What he is doing in the room is just the peripheries.  The real world is his heart.  It’s like a warm sun. This is the nitty gritty.  No one has ever understood him, supported him, known him and accepted him as he is ever before, without recriminations or criticism, just as he is.  And given him love.  He has never had an experience like this before.  All his previous relationships, where there should have been love, there has been an element of cruelty there as well, or indifference at the very least.  He’s never known acceptance love.  It’s been correction love that he’s had before.

Alison said something very pertinent to me during these sessions - something that I knew, but it was good to hear her mention it.  People alter.  They don't stay the same, even if certain traits are ingrained. Life experience and the physical metamorphosis from child to youth,  to adult, to old person, all have their part in changing the sculpture from moment to moment.  So when I write my work, I have to factor in those changes.  That's why, for example, Roger Bigod in The Time of Singing, is slightly different to the Roger Bigod in To Defy A King.  One is a young man, flexible and optimistic.  The other is a seasoned politician with the weight and responsibility of an earldom on his shoulders.

 

Alison said - having observed Louis and Alienor:

 

It’s amazing how relationships go through different dynamics.  I’ve seen this time and again in my job.  You think ‘Oh, that’s a marriage made in heaven’ and about 20 years later, it’s all turned to horror.  Or it can go the other way.  Sometimes a significant event comes along and sets in. It’s as if you’ve put a coloured lens in front of everything, and everything then is a different colour.  You can never see that person the same again. 

Part 7. The Vase and Suger

 One of the few items remaining from Eleanor's life is the vase she gave to Louis VII at the time of their wedding.  Louis - or Louis and Eleanor together, depending on who you believe, later gave it to Abbot Suger of St. Denis at the consecration of the magnificent new church of St Denis.  Originally the rock crystal vase was unembellished apart from carving on the crystal itself, but Abbot Suger had it beautified with gold and jewels.  Various biographers and novelists have imagined that Eleanor must have been devastated to  see Louis give up that vase to the abbot, but I honestly do not see why that should be the case.  An item such as this would always have been used for religeous purposes and kings and queens were always in the act of giving magnificent gifts to their favourite religeous establishments.  What was more fitting than that the mausoleum and church of the Kings of France should house this gift with Suger as its custodian? It would hardly have stood on Louis' bedroom windowsill before this would it?

But, I digress.  I wanted to find out about this vase in the Akashic sequence, so I asked Alison to take a look at it.  I also asked her to take a look at the personality of Abbot Suger:

For readers interested in the vase in conventional history, there's an excellent piece in Eleanor of Aquitaine Lord and Lady edited by Bonnie Wheeler and John C. Parsons.  The title is The Eleanor of Aquitaine Vase by George. T. Beech.  You can also find out a bit about it at the Louvre website. http://www.louvre.fr/llv/oeuvres/detail_notice_popup.jsp?CONTENT%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673226029&CURRENT_LLV_NOTICE%3C%3Ecnt_id=10134198673226029&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=9852723696500778&bmLocale=en

 

To the question of Alienor giving the crystal vase to Louis:

A tall man is stooping down to put this crystal vase in her hands and it seems to have straight sides and then flares out a little bit at the top.  I’m not getting past the bit where I see the vase being put in her hands. I’ll try to get it from her point of view.  She’s feeling good.  Warm, excited.  I can’t get the feeling of the vase in my hands though.  I don’t want you to tell me what it looks like…  No, but I can tell you that it was a family treasure and that it had belonged to her grandfather William IX who got it from Spain.  It had been been passed down the family from him.  It’s quite knobbly and it’s got embellishments at the top. Alison is drawing it and it does have a strong look of the said vase but without the top and base that were added later.

She feels very warm about this. She’s holding this precious thing in her hands and she is walking across to Louis and she’s walking across at a diagonal towards Louis, and because of the preciousness of this object, she is just walking with her feet, she’s not making her knees move.  It’s as if she’s giving this delicate thing which is also her delicate self, her heart to him.  She has no qualms about trusting. She is just doing what she needs to do and trusting in this exchange and this shows the level of her trust.  Louis picks it up and holds it carefully, looks at it, and he kisses her right at the top of her brow.  She feels satisfied.  In fact it feels a bit of a relief because she no longer has to have responsibility for this vase and Louis calls someone to come and look after it.  I can see a ring being exchanged now.  It’s a gold ring with a big red stone in it.  He’s taking it off his own finger and giving it to her. He’s not putting it on her finger, he’s putting it into her hand. 

And the incident from his POV?   When he sees this coming across to him and the vase and the bride, he thinks ‘Yummy.’  Again, he accepts it as what ought to be.  He takes this expansion of his belongings, his well being as just normal.  He takes it for granted.  He doesn’t see a limit to it.  He doesn’t feel it needs to stop there.  He feels the ring is something to bind her closer to him.  It’s the sort of gift he’s used to making from the throne to his magnates and he uses it in a similar way.  It feels the right and proper thing to do and he’s done it now.  And then he looks around at his entourage to see what effect that’s had on them.  It’s because he’s used to using these gifts for political reasons and it’s a habit with him now that he has to see the effect of favouring one person on other people. So it’s not just an actor looking for audience response then?  No, I can’t see that.  It’s just a habit.  You have to be watchful and on your guard if you are going to control all this.  Although on the other hand he can’t control it all.  

Go to Suger first seeing the vase.

I can see him looking at the vase, and I can see it as a vase, without all the embellishment. I can see the light shining through it. It's fantastic. Suger's eyebrows go up. It's kind of amazement and a very smooth feeling inside. Suger isn't a very smooth person, he's always got lots of deals going on inside. This calms it all down and smooths it all out. I suppose it supersedes all that, it overlays all that. It's the beauty of it, it clears everything else out. He has this aesthetic ambition (In history) and I think this is what it is. It calms everything down in him. He gets a sense of being at peace; he's not at peace generally, that's not his nature, but being able to be overwhelmed by something beautiful and magnificent allows him that time of peace where he doesn't have to think. There's no thought going on. I suppose that's the closest to God he can be when he can have that lack of mundane thought. He goes blank and he goes through the moment. He is no longer Suger the ball bobbing along the ocean, it's just all gone and he can be himself. It's not even a desire to have the vase. It's like relief. It's like going to a retreat and thinking ‘Ah, I can just let it all go now. ' So I guess that the beautiful things he collects – his vase collection for example, are what do it for him. Yes I suppose that's why he does it, because it's an important part of his life.  We thought how sort of intricate these things are, and busy. We never guessed that it could bring this calmness. I suppose it's a bit like A mandala, for him then.  Yes, but naturally in an unexpected way. It wasn't premeditated or anything. He doesn't hang onto it at the time because that would lose it. He just allows it to happen. How interesting. It shows why he's got the motivation to do this collecting. I suppose he's only like this when he's in the zone. When showing somebody else he would be in a very different frame of mind. I don't think he'll be able to explain it. He would say, Oh the beauty of this object, the proportions, the size… But he wouldn't be able to explain the feelings, or only in terms of God. God is all beauty. So he would use that experience to tell others what God is, but it would be profane for him to tell people that he got this feeling from physical objects. These are only reflection of God’s might and worth.

Why did Louis decide to give the vase to Suger in 1144?

Louis loves this man and there seems to be a flowering of this love as Louis gets older.  It seems to be something that sustains him.  He has been able to rely on Suger right from childhood as someone that sustains him.  He just wants to show his appreciation for everything that Suger has done for him and his family in everything that he upholds.  The way that he’s treated in the family.  The way that Suger has dedicated his whole being and life to upholding the family.  What more loyal member of state could you wish for?  It almost brings tears to his eyes.  So how can he show what he feels without bringing something that is very precious, fragile and more than that, luminous, to give to Suger.  It’s something which appears transparent but in certain…ah this is interesting…but in certain lights gives off other colours like a prismatic effect.  That’s why it would be so precious wouldn’t it?  It would be like a real light show. It would complement the windows that Suger had put in his church – like a reflection.  I can feel that Louis feels the emotional preciousness of it in the connection that he has with Alienor.  So it has that emotional resonance as well as the other resonances.  And to give that, all his love, all this beauty, all his connection with Alienor is an enormous gift.  No wonder it brings tears to his eyes.

What does Suger think of this gift?  He is taking it into his stomach, taking it into his treasury. Mmm, yum, nice. 

But then he tarted it up, didn’t he?  That’s to make it his.  It can’t go back; it’s his now.

Yes, he made an inscription to that effect.  So the tarting wasn’t because he felt it needed extra bling?  No, he was putting his own graffiti on it.  So he thinks it’s a worthy gift?  Oh indeed, yes. Has he coveted it before?  Yes, he has!  Has he ever made mention before that it’s a nice piece?  I’ve lost it now, but I just got the feeling he has commented on it before and seen it before, but said things like ‘If only it was a little bit here and a little bit there, it would be perfect, or it would be gorgeous.  He certainly does like it.

 Following on from our look at Louis giving Alienor’s vase to Suger, I wanted to look at Alienor’s reaction to this event.  1144

Alison: She feels quite tight across the heart area.  This is an Alienor who is quite worked up.  Tight heart, tight cheeks, tight eyes.  Emotional in an anxious way.  I am getting the words ‘Please God, this has got to work.’  She is angry and not that bothered about the vase.  This is about God.  Her anger is connected to her relationship with God, so this is a direct communication with God.  Suger is just a periphery.  I think this is to do with wanting a boy child.  It doesn’t seem fair.  Why can’t she have what she wants?  She will give anything, it doesn’t matter what, in order to have what she wants.  So the actual item isn’t as relevant as what she wants.  Suger to her is just someone who is doing what’s needed in the circumstances.  Not quite a servant, but a functionary. It’s not up to him, it’s up to God.  That’s how she sees it, although she wouldn’t say it outright.  It wouldn’t be necessary.  She can find Suger a bit annoying but he’s got a job to do.  She’ll let him get on with his job, but this isn’t to do with him really.  It’s to do with God. He’s just a functionary of God. 

So this vase is to be given to God as a plea for her fertility?  It’s more of a demand actually!  She hardly even looks at the vase.  It’s only in her side vision and the main part of her vision is to God. Why the vase and not a different gift?  Well she could give anything.  She doesn’t mind what it is, and it isn’t the only thing she’s given.  She’s given loads of things.  She’s given bags of gems.  She’s given gold coverings to things.  I am seeing one of those gold engraved domes that you put over tombs.  She would rake around and give whatever it took.

Suger  and his character.

Adelaide’s and Alienor’s relationships with Abbot Suger.

Adelaide feels that this is a person she can do business with.  He has stature but he knows his place.  I can see something like a bishop’s mitre and it’s very upright.  She’s on a pedestal above him.  There’s a definite demarcation in their positions but they are both upright, and she can rely on him to fulfil his role.  Sometimes he can be a bit over-zealous and working his own machinations, but generally she feels it is for the purpose of upholding the state so she’s prepared to give him a bit of leeway in that.  There are moments when she pushes against him and it’s as if there is nothing there.  She just takes that as an aberration.  Something that doesn’t quite click.  There’s something that’s not quite right, but there’s not enough of those incidents for her to see the whole thing as not quite right, so generally she disregards those for the benefit of the overall structure.  And there is a glint in both their eyes which shows they understand each other.  They’re on the same wavelength.  There’s a glint of humour as well. Their humour is getting one over on someone and how you do it, and I think they appreciate that in each other as very skilled practitioners.  They recognise when each other has a win. 

Alienor and Suger?  Alienor comes from a position of a supplicant, a person who wants to do right by religion, spirit, God.  She has a wider idea of what religion and spirituality are.  While he is a figurehead and part of the structure of a physical church. I am seeing arches in a cathedral here and as if he is one of those arches that holds it up.  In a similar way, if she pushes against that, it could damage the stability of the church.  So she has to accept his position for the sake of the structure, but she does find him quite rigid, like a column made of metal rather than stone, as if he doesn’t have the spirituality that the rest of the church transmits and yet he is this elegant column and arch that looks right, that looks more than right,  She feels sick, looking at it more emotionally. I find I have to go to two levels with Alienor.  That was the higher level, but the emotional level is a bit lower.  He makes her feel physically sick and I am trying to work out why this is... He pokes into the private lives of other people.  He pokes into places where it’s really, really not appropriate and this very much upsets her.   And yet she doesn’t seem to have the power to stop him or keep him out and he can do it when she’s got no intuition about where he’s going to do it next. I suppose he’s got his talons in Louis so he can manipulate Louis all the time.  She is definitely not treated as a human being by him.  She is not considered to have feelings but only to be part of a unit in this political jigsaw.

  

Abbe Suger and his first feelings on meeting Eleanor when he came to Bordeaux.  He seems to be in a very deep state, perhaps he's asleep. I can feel him washing his hands now and I can see him from a strange angle. There are some squared off pillars ornamented, with a basin in front. Yes it's a basin that's built into a pillar and it's all carved. It's like a water fountain in a garden. He's drying his hands now and saying 'Where is she?' He is being told a whole catalogue of things she has been doing today. Oh I see. He is asking about her and he is being given a lot of detail about her lifestyle. He is saying 'We will see her at prayer.' He is asking how pious she is. He is being told that she is very pious. She knows a lot about the Bible.

FFW. I am hearing a bell; I am seeing a long corridor with lots of people going down it. Then they moved back to allow Suger to pass forward through them. I am getting this contemplative feeling. I feel that I am in the church with Suger and he is in the situation where the choir is alongside the altar. The children, not just Eleanor are brought up to the altar to have communion and he watches her.  His attitude to her is that she is a child and as such like a blank tablet that you can mould. Children are not fully formed people. The outside of her looks fine and he doesn't see any problem with it. I just get the impression that he would regard all children as being the same, just blank objects that he puts form to. So it wouldn't matter who she was really inside, just so long as she met the birth criteria. And as an additional bonus she is very attractive and almost jewel-like in her perfection, so everything seems very satisfactory from his point of view. After all this is a world for grownups.

 

Now to take a look at Suger’s spirituality, particularly in the building of St.Denis.

Oh! Such pride!  His head, it circles round.  It’s so mobile it’s like on the end of a snake.  His lips are pursed.  Exquisite!  He’s so over-arched with pride about this.  It is the apex of what man can do in terms of honouring God and it all is to do with artistic taste and exquisiteness.  He feels he has brought all this together, so it is his creation.  He has sourced everything.  Workmen, artists.  He’s claiming the credit for the whole thing.  Not because he’s designed it, but because he’s brought all the designers together to work on this project. So really he’s claiming himself as an artist here.  He’s gone down in history as the creator of this place and seen as massively spiritual.  Why? Because St. Denis is so spiritual.  Mmm.  It gives people an urge towards spirituality? Yes, like when you enter a cathedral and you get this spiritual soaring feeling towards God.  And this is what St. Denis does, and so everyone thinks that its builder must have had this great spiritual vision and been of that mindset himself.  Which may not necessarily be true.  Not at all. He sees it as he is the one who has done the most magnificent thing for God, so isn’t he wonderful? He’s taking so much credit for it.  Not the designers who actually brought that spirituality in through their work, but because of him because he actually thought of having them in to do it.  Let’s have a look at how he actually gelled all these ideas together so I can make sure what his aesthetic involvement actually is.  Yes, he has actually got aesthetic involvement in the sense that he knows what looks nice.  He would know what garments were the best if he was going to a very big service.  He would want very beautiful, ornate, well embroidered garments – it’s just on a larger scale.  It’s like ordering a very nice cake.  I want it to shine here, I want sparkly bits there and it would be a wonderful setting for him to do his sermons with his nice gear on.  I am seeing gear that is basically silver and white with pale blue, pale yellow, pale green embroidery on – delicate colours on a very light background and that’s the setting he puts himself in.  So he looks like a radiant being as well.  Absolutely.  ‘Oh, my dear ones, you are gathered in my offering to God.’   I mention that St Denis was the resting place of the Capetian kings.  Alison comments that St. Denis also gives Suger a place then where he can preside over the bodies of these dead kings and that Kings have to apply to him for special services.  Alison also comments that all of his deep feeling was aggandisement and everything else seems to be quite mundane and practical.

What were Suger’s feelings towards Alienor?

It’s quite interesting because he feels as if she is sending out these golden rays, every so often prodding him.  So it feels as if she can see through him and he has to protect himself against her and guard himself.  He sees her as someone he has to be careful of.  He recognises her intelligence himself, but probably wouldn’t admit to anything like that.

Alienor, birth and childhood.

Our research began with Alienor's grandparents, William IX Duke of Aquitaine and his mistress Dangereuse de Chatelleraut.  However, since this blog is for public consumption and not intended to be X rated, I have decided to come in at Alienor's birth.  Suffice to say that William IX's full blooded poetry was very much reflected in the relationship he enjoyed with the Lady Dangereuse!  I don't cover Alienor's very early years in the novel, but it's always good to know the background.  Here is Alienor as a newborn baby:  Other than headings, the comments in bold are mine.  Those in italic are Alison's personal observations.   Also to note that I'm not putting every single bit of the research in, but there will be a wide range of excerpts.  Sessions are conducted about once a fortnight, and once I've worked through several months of background material, I'll add snippets as they arise.  There is some material that challenges assumptions, but interestingly those assumptions are mostly modern conclusions based on modern notions and mythology about Alienor - and not primary source.

1124

The birth of Alienor.

Aenor seems to have got through it okay.  It doesn’t seem to have been a traumatic birth.  She hasn’t been wiped off the extremes of feelings.  She’s quite satisfied.  She’s looking at the little baby and seeing that all the limbs are there.  She’s quite a catch this little baby.  She looks like a miniature person rather than a baby.  She looks more like those pictures of Jesus as a tiny man, you know the kind of pictures.  Very long fingers and long thin arms.  A delicate little face.  She responds very quickly to any noise, especially mellifluous noise.  She’s like a magical instrument herself.  You only have to touch the feet and the whole being is in movement and waving about.  She’s a very responsive baby – like a toy you can play with.  Knows its own mind when it’s fed it knows how much and when it’s finished – it has table manners! Born refined.   Yes!  Aenor is quite enchanted with the baby and quite proud of herself, but passes it off nonchalantly.  She is glad that the child is in her domain.  It doesn’t need to be shared by the outside world.  Not that you would guess that from her body language.  It’s more of a deep knowing.  And especially that she can lock the door at night and lock them inside and at last she has a companion, someone who understands her and is like her and can be with her.  And she thinks this will make her life become bearable.

What does William X think of his daughter.

Well it’s a girl.  He says I suppose we have still got time to remedy that, but what if we have more girls.  She will have to raise her game.  He’s wondering how soon he can get Aenor back into action.  Like one down, nine to go.  This was just a blip, but never mind, we can get on with it.  So he’s not in this marriage to get girls.  I think as well as the passing on to an heir, it’s also sharing his learning, knowledge and education – that’s what he was hoping to do as well. 

 So go to her when she’s a bit older with her dad.  She is very quiet with him when she is little.  She is a bit afraid.  She has been taught to be distant, quiet and well behaved, a bit like her mother when she was curtseying and putting her head to one side.  I think she’s been taught to do that from her mother.

 His viewpoint?   He’s looking at a basket which is bow shaped with a handle that goes across the middle.  It’s got flowers in. He’s saying ‘No, you shouldn’t do that.’  She’s climbing up some carving to put flowers high up on top of columns.  He’s saying ‘Come down here.’  She has to climb onto his shoulders to get down.  He puts her down quite forcefully on her feet.  She doesn’t look very little even here. (probably tall)  He says ‘You must never do that again, never!  What came into you?’

Alienor is quite calm.  She thinks ‘Nothing came into me.’ She wasn’t afraid when she did it.  She doesn’t understand why he’s all upset, so she just stands quiet and passive.  

An earlier incident than that?  William is just seeing her walking across the courtyard.  She is very beautifully dressed. A miniature little person.  His heart warms and he thinks she’s very sweet.  He calls her to him and she doesn’t respond at first because it’s unexpected.  It reminds me of being in school when you’re very small and everyone seems very big and the head mistress or head master is a massive, massive person that nobody talks to.  That’s the feeling I get about her and her dad.  She knows he is there and she knows he is influential but she daren’t talk to him.

So what happens when he calls her over?  He says ‘What is that that you’ve got on?’  She thinks ‘Oh crikey, and she brushes the front of her dress and says ‘My blue dress, sire.’ And he says ‘It is mighty fine work.’  And it is.  It’s got all like teardrop shapes outlined in gold across the front.  He says ‘Do you like to wear nice things?’  She says ‘Yes, sire.’  He says ‘Then I will have a garment sent to you when I return.’  He says ‘Fare you well for now.’  He picks her up and he kisses her temple.  When he picks her up she feels so light.  When she was on the ground she looked heavy because she had got all those heavy clothes on. He feels a bit of magic when he picks her up.  It’s a similar sort of feeling to the way her mother felt.  It’s sort of a mystery beyond his normal expectations or experience.  It’s like something dropped in there from somewhere else.  It’s quite an odd feeling.  He puts her down and feels quite wistful, but tells her to run off and be with her mother.  There was quite a group of them walking across the courtyard.

 

To an ordinary day in the relationship Between Alienor and Petronella her sister

Alienor wakes up in a sunny space.  It’s a really big room.  She can swing her arms and walk about.  It’s beautifully sunny.  Petronella is reluctant to get out of bed but she’s very playful, and she’s got these very playful big brown eyes.  She is hiding, playing rabbits under the bed-clothes.  Alienor is putting her hands under the bed covers and tickling her and then wrapping her up in the covers and hugging her.  Then she gets in beside her.  They lie face to face talking.  It’s everyday things.  What they’re going to do, things that they like.  It’s just chit-chat.  Now a woman’s come in.  I take it to be be the maid.  She says, ‘Are you in there together again?’ She says ‘Come on, let’s have you out, let’s have you dressed.’  She sets about dressing them and doing their hair.  Hair seems to be a really important thing.  There’s more time consumed working on the hair than anything else.  And Alienor’s hair colour?’  It is that same goldeny colour I saw before and it has a slight wave to it.  Her sister’s hair is dark.  And her eye colour?  I can’t see at the moment I am only getting the back of her head.  Well just keep an eye out for it as we go on (Pun intended).   They are going downstairs.  Everything is so fresh and open and light; it’s lovely.  There’s a long table and it has lots of food, piles of fruit in bowls. It’s like when there are lots of French windows open to the sky – that sort of effect.  It’s really lovely.  They take some fruit and go outside to eat. They are very together.  It feels natural and normal for them to be a pair. Alienor wants to go riding.  Petronella wants to go along with her. It’s the feeling of freedom as much as the riding that Alienor wants, but it’s not that easy to get.  She’s got to find someone who’s willing to take her.  The woman who looks after them doesn’t want to take them.  There’s no one in the household she can really ask.  She’s tried to ask the stable assistants and it seems that they have been told not to, so it seems she has been pretty frustrated.  Does it occur to her to ask her uncle Ralph?  Well yes it would, but she knows he wouldn’t go.  It could well be that he is the one who’s instructed them not to take her.  

That surprises me because I would have thought learning to ride would be part of the curriculum so to speak.  I think it was, but not when she wanted to go. 

Now there are rows of things.  At first I thought it was writing, but it’s weaving of some sort.  She’s getting solace from the colours which she likes.  Petronella's sitting next to her.  She’s not actually doing the weaving, but she’s winding little balls.  Petronella is leaning on Alienor and Alienor is saying ‘Get off, because I can’t use my hand if you do that.’  Petronella is a bit like a kitten.  Sometimes I can see her sucking her thumb.  She just wants some comfort from Alienor.  This is done outside on a veranda as well, half in and half out.  Some other ladies come to join them.  They’re admiring the work.  They have drinks with them and the talk turns to grown up talk.  That’s when the girls get wary. Petronella in particular tenses up and switches off and Alienor separates herself from it.  Is it risqué grown up talk then? It’s adult talk in the sense that it’s all about grownups and in the sense of who fancies who as well – the goings on in the household.  It’s gossip. And this makes the girls wary?  Yes, it makes them tense.  A lot of it is because they don’t want that sort of attention attracted to them and Alienor has already had that sort of thing – men being attracted to her.  She finds it really creepy; she doesn’t like it.  She finds she has to defend herself against it all the time and that’s why they like to keep themselves to themselves if they can.  The weaving goes on all day more or less.  The food is brought in to them. Petronella is getting quite drowsy in the afternoon.  Alienor has stopped weaving.  There is a beautiful flower scent all around.  Alienor seems to be just wandering around and Petronella has gone to sleep. Like a siesta then.  Yes. Alienor has found some young people in the garden to talk to.  It seems to be a mixed group and she’s laughing and joking.  Then she leaves them.  She’s not giving herself away as in not giving her emotions to other people.  It was an interaction that was quite pleasant but she’s still herself. She walks off and she feels really quite constrained.  It’s got edges and although those edges might be fluffy and beautiful like clouds or like trees in full leaf, she can’t go beyond that and that makes her feel constrained.  She’s not happy there.  I was going to say she particularly doesn’t like the people who have power over her, but it’s not as straightforward as that.  It’s not that she doesn’t like them.  She accepts that they have this power, but it makes her feel sad. She’s kind of indifferent to them.  It all feels kind of dreamlike as if it’s real but not real.  She’s going back to her sister now and she’s waking her up in a really playful way.  She’s taking the thumb out of her mouth while Petronella is still asleep.  She’s getting Petronella to get up and to come out into the garden with her.  They go out to a different part of the garden and have a bit of runabout.  Then they go to another quiet part of the garden and have a sit down on stone seat with an arch over it set into a wall, but the wall is just part of a garden and is one level up.  It’s tiered and the wall with the seating is very high.  They just sit there, kicking their toes and being children really. 

            It’s starting to get towards evening now.  Alienor’s starting to feel tired and they are in that room where they woke up now and are being brought warm milk and bread.  I can see some people hugging.  A man and a woman.  These are not nobly dressed.  They are more household people.  The servant who looks after them has brought her man friend up, thinking that the girls will sleep.  She’s always told them to keep very quiet about it and it’s their secret.  But this is a more normal relationship.  It’s not full on.  It’s more of a sociable, convivial relationship.  Then they go to sleep.  End of day.

So Alienor is close to her sister.  Yes, she seems responsible and almost maternal for her.

Alienor’s happiest time as a child before her marriage.

It’s not full on happiness.  It’s a glow in the solar plexus that is warm and bright but below that there is some anxiety.  There is definitely a smile on her face.  She is looking down at her hands clasped close to her body.  She is looking down at something small and fluffy in her hands.  I think it might be a nest of tiny fluffy chicks.  They are so beautiful and vulnerable and she is really moved by it.  She thinks how easily they can be crushed.  She is seeing it as an analogy for herself and her sister with no parents.  Hmmm, well that’s not really a happy time is it?   No. So perhaps she wasn’t happy as as child?  No, and this feeling of being incarcerated, that really came full on later in her life didn’t it? 

Her education?  Her sister is quite a distraction from this, because when Alienor is studying, it means Petronella loses her attention.  I am seeing again the weaving but that’s not really what I want to see, so I’ll retune.  This is quite a good feeling.  Calm, deep, meditative.  She is listening carefully to a story, following it through.  It’s being told but there is music as well, some musical instruments being played.  It’s as if Alienor is imbibing the whole thing and it’s very satisfying.  The story is rounded and whole and complete – perfect. Which fills a whole gap in her life.  She loves things like this and they make her want to write her own and she does spend some time writing out her own versions of these.  She even makes tunes to go with them.  She does play them sometimes, but generally they’re private.  This is the same sort of age as I saw before – young adolescent.

Right, that's all for now.  More later.  I'm not sure how often I'll post - at least once a week though.