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nothing but a curtain between her and life, and she did not want to waste even an uncomfortable trip through the mountains. She would enjoy the trip as best she could, she decided. And the scenery. She would enjoy that, too.
    In the morning Louis gave orders to the lead wagons telling them the stopping place for the night. He urged all the troops to stay in close file; after all, they were strangers in a strange land. On the day of Epiphany, January 6, Louis told the forward vans to stop at a high flatland, which scouts had spotted over the next peak.
    Eleanor emerged from her van to stretch her legs. As she walked around the table of land that she was to call home for the night, she looked over its far edge and saw below her a valley that looked like a sudden springtime.
    “Oh, Geoffrey,” she called to the leader of the forward van, “come look!”
    Geoffrey of Rancon, who was one of Eleanor’s loyal lords from Aquitaine, interrupted what he was doing and came to his queen’s side. “Look below,” Eleanor commanded. “Doesn’t that pert little valley seem more like home than this pale, dry plain?”
    “Yes, my queen, it does,” Geoffrey of Rancon answered.
    “I think it would be far nicer to spend the night there.”
    “But, your majesty, the king gave orders for us to make camp here.”
    “Did the king see this valley?”
    “No, your majesty. He had only the word of his scouts; they recommended the plateau.”
    “Yes, the king’s scouts seemed convinced that there is no place for comfort in Christianity. Come, we will descend into the valley to make camp.”
    “But, Queen Eleanor, the king gave orders …”
    Eleanor looked around her. “Come, Geoffrey of Rancon, we will camp on God’s green earth tonight. I swear that Heaven sucked all the juice of life from this plain because he didn’t want man on it,” she muttered.
    “Your majesty,” Geoffrey of Rancon began again.
    “Yes? What now?”
    “The king has given orders for us to stay in close ranks. It is difficult to reckon direction among these mountain peaks. It is absolutely necessary that we stay close together.”
    “Who said that we shall not?” Eleanor asked. “The king will come up to the plain and not find us, then he will look below as I just have and see us, and then he will follow. And we shall all sleep close and cozy tonight. Give the order to move on.”
    Eleanor’s decision took no longer than it takes me to tell of it, and for that reason, no one in that advance train had time to spot the Turks who were lurking in the mountains that surrounded the plain.
    Awkward would be the softest possible description of the path the men in the rearward party had had to follow to reach the flat plateau. Knights had shed their armor to ease their ascent. King Louis brought up the rear of the vans, working, sweating, heaving, and at last, looking for Eleanor; she was nowhere to be found on the whole of the plateau. Louis feared the worst. As he and his men swarmed around looking for the lost forward van, the Turks found their chance. They galloped down from the mountains where they had been watching and waiting.
    It was a slaughter. Louis’s men were caught unarmed, unarmored and exhausted from their climb.
    Louis fought bravely. Without the glamour and the trappings of a king, he fought like one. Eleanor did not know it. Neither did the Turks know that they were fighting the King of the Franks. That the Turks did not know was fortunate; had they known that the plainly clad brave leader was King of the Franks, they would have taken him prisoner, and they would then have held him for ransom. A king’s ransom.
    Meanwhile, night fell at Eleanor’s camp, and Louis and his men did not appear. One man, then two, then a few more straggled in, and the tales they told prepared Eleanor for the worst. She realized that she might at that very moment be a widow.
    At daybreak Odo the Chaplain led the king into the queen’s camp. Louis was riding a pack