The staircase ended at a doorway, always locked and concealed by a hanging tapestry within arm’s reach of the bed in the Duke’s own sleeping chamber. The eighty-four steps were worn hollow and smooth and dangerous, for they were part of the original castle and in the fardistant times of the Roman occupation of Aquitaine had formed the main approach to the lookout turret at the top of the tower for the past two hundred and fifty years they had been used only by those on secret errands, by lovers and assassins, by grave men on worthy but unadvertised business, by hurried men carrying secret messages from popes and kings and sultans to successive Dukes of Aquitaine. “There are eighty-four steps be careful.” She closed the door, which swung silently on its well-oiled hinges, but she did not replace its heavy iron bar. “Sh! Danger everywhere!” She drew him into the complete black darkness of the tower and guided his hand to the wall. The girl who had been waiting for him said,

In his excitement he momentarily forgot to be cautious and said, “Eleanor. He was fingering a second stone when a door close beside him opened silently and a voice whispered, He stepped back into the shadow and waited while a man might have counted, with deliberation, to fifty. His aim was accurate and the stone disappeared into the opening. There he stood for a moment in the shadow and then, emerging cautiously, moved away a little, took in his right hand one of three small stones which he carried in his left palm, and aimed it at the narrow, unglazed arrow-slit near the tower’s top. JUST BEFORE THE MOON ROSE to full glory over the city of Bordeaux in that June of 1137, a young man who had been moving swiftly and secretively through the deserted streets came to the end of his journey at the foot of a tall round tower.

Eleanor the queen norah lofts