IRA MATH­UR

Bar­bara Al­leyne’s love af­fair with Eng­lish lit­er­a­ture be­gan at the Uni­ver­si­ty of York, where the me­dieval al­lure of the city and the at­mos­pher­ic Tu­dor rooms at King’s Manor set the stage for her lit­er­a­ture stud­ies. Im­mersed in the in­tri­cate tales of “The Ro­mance of the Rose” and “The Al­le­go­ry of Love”, Al­leyne de­vel­oped a fas­ci­na­tion with me­dieval lit­er­a­ture that would shape her fu­ture writ­ing ca­reer. Af­ter grad­u­at­ing, Al­leyne shift­ed her fo­cus to psy­chother­a­py, train­ing in Lon­don, and work­ing in bustling gen­er­al prac­tices across south and east Lon­don.

Over three decades ago, Al­leyne moved to Trinidad with her Trinida­di­an hus­band and their two sons. Here, she es­tab­lished her psy­chother­a­py prac­tice and con­tributed to men­tal health-re­lat­ed com­mu­ni­ty projects, in­clud­ing with neu­ro­di­ver­gent chil­dren and ini­tia­tives at a women’s cen­tre, demon­strat­ing her com­mit­ment to fos­ter­ing men­tal health and well-be­ing in her adopt­ed home­land.

Al­leyne wrote her self-pub­lished de­but nov­el, “True Love Waits”, dur­ing the COVID lock­down, draw­ing on the sto­ry of the “wealth­i­est and most pow­er­ful woman of the Mid­dle Ages who head­ed the Sec­ond Cru­sade but had to strug­gle for lead­er­ship.” The nov­el ven­tures in­to the tu­mul­tuous and in­flu­en­tial world of Eleanor of Aquitaine. At just 14, Eleanor be­came Duchess of Aquitaine, Poitiers, and Gas­cony, in­her­it­ing one of me­dieval Eu­rope’s most op­u­lent re­gions. Her sub­se­quent mar­riages to Louis VII of France and Hen­ry II of Eng­land po­si­tioned her at the heart of Eu­ro­pean pol­i­tics.

The gen­e­sis of “True Love Waits” was Al­leyne’s read­ing of Eleanor’s bi­og­ra­phy, which in­spired her to ex­plore me­dieval mar­riage coun­selling. “What res­onat­ed most for me was those per­son­al is­sues from so long ago—900 years—were quite recog­nis­able, and states of mind, of­ten now la­belled, were just as re­al in those times. I be­gan to un­der­stand why the king and queen of France were on the verge of di­vorce, to imag­ine in de­tail what that jour­ney must have been like and how many rel­e­van­cies to the present still ex­ist­ed. This con­nec­tion to the present day is what makes ‘True Love Waits’ a com­pelling read for any­one in­ter­est­ed in the hu­man con­di­tion.” Through years of metic­u­lous re­search and writ­ing, this con­cept evolved in­to a book that in­tri­cate­ly weaves his­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tives with ther­a­peu­tic in­sights. It’s a jour­ney that re­flects Al­leyne’s pro­found con­nec­tion to Eleanor and the time­less uni­ver­sal­i­ty of hu­man re­la­tion­ships, invit­ing read­ers to em­pathise with and con­nect with the char­ac­ters’ emo­tion­al strug­gles. Al­leyne’s jour­ney as a writer has been deeply in­flu­enced by her per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ences and pro­fes­sion­al back­ground. This be­lief in the ther­a­peu­tic pow­er of sto­ry­telling per­me­ates her work, in­spir­ing oth­ers to write their own nar­ra­tives as a trans­for­ma­tive jour­ney to­wards men­tal health and per­son­al ful­fil­ment.

Bar­bara Al­leyne’s “True Love Waits” is more than a his­tor­i­cal ex­plo­ration. It is a tes­ta­ment to the en­dur­ing rel­e­vance of per­son­al nar­ra­tives and the pro­found im­pact his­tor­i­cal fig­ures have on our un­der­stand­ing of love, pow­er, and re­silience.

Ex­cerpt from True Love Waits ex­clu­sive­ly for the Sun­day Guardian WE mag­a­zine. All rights re­served by the au­thor. Copy­right © 2024 by Bar­bara Al­leyne.

Tripoli

“The Queen stood be­fore Sir Galan, de­fy­ing him and de­mand­ing he quit im­me­di­ate­ly, and for the King to be awok­en and brought. He gave no re­ply to this, say­ing that nei­ther she nor any of her court would be harmed, but the plans were al­tered: the Queen was re­quired to join the roy­al com­pa­nies ready to leave at dawn. The Tem­plars would es­cort her in a closed lit­ter to her place in the col­umn of the army and stay very close for the du­ra­tion of the march to Tripoli, where now we wait on the King’s plea­sure, says the Queen. We are un­der ar­rest and pris­on­ers. In An­ti­och, the Queen asked the knight what he in­tend­ed if she re­fused to leave. He had his re­ply ready, say­ing he would re­gret­ful­ly in­struct mem­bers of his com­pa­ny to wrap her in a wide and strong cloak and car­ry her to the lit­ter, re­strain­ing if nec­es­sary at­tempts to raise alarms. “And my ladies too?” said the Queen. “We must sub­mit to armed bul­lies? I must com­ply or be raped by a eu­nuch? Or per­haps Sir Galan means to mur­der me for the sake of the King’s ho­n­our?” Such ques­tions she asked. He did not an­swer but watched her with his cold eyes. Af­ter a time he said to pre­pare her­self for she had no choice and must join the King. Still Eleanor re­sist­ed and asked if the King knew of this wicked­ness, if he had or­dered her ab­duc­tion. Which sure­ly he had, for Sir Galan would not risk what was left of his puis­sance with­out su­pe­ri­or au­thor­i­ty. Thus the Queen saw that she was with­out aid, for no mes­sage could be sent to Prince Ray­mond, and tru­ly she feared the vi­o­lence of the Tem­plars against her ladies and against the prince. She be­came silent, pulling her cloak around her, and we gath­ered close to­geth­er like shame­ful pris­on­ers. We were bun­dled through nar­row pas­sage­ways to the wait­ing lit­ter, out of An­ti­och through Saint Paul’s Gate to the Frank­ish camp and were on the road as the sun rose hot and bright be­hind the shut­ters of our wag­ons. Some of the ladies have been per­mit­ted to join their hus­bands or coun­try­men, so we are few­er in num­ber and kept in ut­most seclu­sion. Few know that it was the Queen’s in­ten­tion to re­main in An­ti­och, and the news is giv­en out that she is tired from the rigours of the jour­ney and rests in re­treat for this Lenten sea­son. So I make this ac­count in the sud­den leisure of cap­tiv­i­ty, one more re­ver­sal of ex­pec­ta­tions and for­tunes in a long se­quence of events on­ly con­stant in their un­pre­dictabil­i­ty. We are sur­prised and shocked each time, un­able to fore­see which way out­ra­geous fate will turn, taught yet again the les­son of God’s in­scrutable and mighty will. The Queen swears she will have her di­vorce. She can­not be locked up for­ev­er. She can nev­er for­give Louis for in­flict­ing such ig­nominy on her, steal­ing her away, a dark deed of the night. She grieves that no leave-tak­ing of any kind was made, no bless­ings nor fan­fares, no adieux to her dear un­cle the prince. Fi­nal­ly, the King has come to vis­it the Queen and though he would speak with her pri­vate­ly, she re­fus­es to let me leave her side, so I wit­ness how their mu­tu­al anger grows, how they wound each oth­er with words. The Queen ac­cus­es Louis of hold­ing her hostage and pre­tend­ing with ac­cus­tomed cow­ardice no knowl­edge of Tem­plar do­ings. He gives them too much pow­er and at what cost? How much has he promised them, what does he owe them, do they have his crown al­ready? And now he meek­ly comes and asks her how she does, whether qui­et rest has suit­ed her and calmed her? Louis wished she would not set her­self against the brave knights, who have been true and loy­al broth­ers, who have not be­trayed him. To which the Queen says that noth­ing be­trays him but his own lack of abil­i­ty. In anger the King ac­cus­es Eleanor of be­tray­al. She had been watched walk­ing with Prince Ray­mond; they were seen play­ing a guilty game. He pre­tend­ed to be the King of Eng­land and she his Queen. “Your spies saw what was not there,” says the Queen. The prince talked to her of his youth as King Hen­ry’s fos­ter-son, when he had dreamed, im­pos­si­bly, of the Eng­lish crown; there is no harm in imag­i­na­tion. The King says he heard she imag­ined her­self Queen of Eng­land, as if France was not enough. He fears she pre­tend­ed so in se­cret cham­bers. The Queen re­calls that they walked like in­no­cents in the gar­den, ex­cept that they talked of war and what bat­tles must be fought. The King in­sists on the truth, that she con­fess she has be­trayed their mar­riage. She re­fus­es to be in­ter­ro­gat­ed and bids him think what he will.”

–End of Ex­cerpt

More in­for­ma­tion on True Love Waits can be found on Al­leyne’s web­site: https://tru­elove­wait­s­book.com/

Ira Math­ur is a Guardian jour­nal­ist and the win­ner of the 2023 Bo­cas Prize for Non-Fic­tion for her mem­oir, Love The Dark Days.

Web­site: www.iras­room.org Au­thor in­quiries can be sent to iras­room@gmail.com