The Queen's Pawn

by Christy English

  Henry watched as I ate, and I thought I would choke. I ate each bite carefully, chewing slowly, so that I would not disgrace myself. I felt his eyes on my lips and on my throat. I was not embarrassed now, but warm. I opened my palm, and Sampson ate the lettuce right out of my hand, his lips tickling, making me laugh.

  I caught Henry’s eye, and he laughed with me.

  “Will you walk a little way with me, my lady?”

  I took the hand he extended. He had taken his gloves off, and I felt the heat of his palm on mine. I did not flinch or shrink from his touch. If I had any sense, I would have been afraid. But for two men-at-arms, we were virtually alone. I was many things, but I was no coward.

  Henry smiled when I did not back down, or pull away. He raised my hand to his lips. “You will make fine sons, Alais.”

  “God willing, my lord.”

  He looked at me a long time before he spoke again, the sunlight playing in the red gold of his hair. “Yes, Alais. God willing.”

  We walked down to the shore of the river. The king threw his cloak down for me to sit on. The sun was warm, the grass cool against my hands. He stood looking down at me before sitting a few feet away.

  “My lord, you will ruin your clothes.”

  “I have more.”

  I did not speak again, but leaned back on my hands, sunlight on my face. The grass smelled sweet, and the purple irises by the water’s edge glistened in the light.

  It was a stolen moment. I knew that it was nothing, and could lead nowhere, but I decided to put Richard from my thoughts, and Eleanor. I would take them up once more, the people I loved above all others. But for this afternoon, I would sit alone, and enjoy the king.

  “This is an enchanted place, my lord. Thank you for bringing me here.”

  Henry smiled, pleased that I did not dissemble. He heard no false tones of court speech in my voice; as always, I was myself with him.

  “And the little dog,” he said. “How is she faring?”

  I smiled at the thought of what little Bijou might be tearing up even as the king and I sat there. Marie Helene would keep her out of my silks, but that was as far as my assurance went.

  “She is delightful. Thank you again, Your Grace. She has brought me nothing but joy.”

  “It has been only a month, Princess. Do not count your chickens.”

  I laughed at the king’s use of such earthy language, knowing that if he had ever seen a chicken up close, it had been on a plate.

  “What have you named her, then?”

  “Bijou.”

  Henry colored with pleasure. When he brought me the dog, he had called me his jewel.

  I reached for a flower, and started to twist it around my fingers. The king, too, took hold of a daisy, and started plaiting a chain.

  “I did not think kings knew how to make wreaths from flowers,” I said.

  “Every May Day of my childhood, I made one of these for my mother.”

  He wove another flower into the thin wreath in his hands, and I watched him do it with practiced grace.

  “Did you love your mother?” I asked. After the question escaped my lips, I bit my tongue.

  The legendary Plantagenet temper did not show itself, however. His hands simply stopped moving.

  I saw that Henry was no longer with me. He had gone back down the corridor of years, and was looking once more on his mother’s face.

  “She was as beautiful as a spring rain after a winter of nothing but snow,” he said. “She was a hard woman, and fierce, but I loved her always, until the day she died.”

  He seemed sad to think of her. I knew better than to touch him, though in that moment I wished I might.

  “I never knew my mother. She died the day I was born.”

  “I remember.”

  Our eyes held above the wreath in his hand. The only sound was the river moving beside us, and the sound of the wind in the grass.

  “Your Majesty,” I said. “Why did you take my father’s queen?”

  I wondered where my caution had gone, the good prudence, the silent wariness that my nurse had worked so hard to instill in me when I was very small. I thought Eleanor would have slapped me for a fool had she been there, though she had never raised her hand to me in my life. To take such a risk and for nothing, went against all she had ever taught me.

  The wreath of daisies and irises fell from his hands, and he did not reach over to pick it up again. There was no anger in Henry’s face, only a question, one that I could not hear or understand.

  “I did not choose her,” the king said. “She chose me. You will understand the difference someday, Alais.”

  I did not answer him. I had known him long enough to see that no one’s choice would have overridden his own. I thought of the fertile lands of the Aquitaine, and wondered if that was why he had chosen her; I had seen them together at court. There was only a fragment of their old love left between them.

  Henry took my chin in his hand so that I could not look away. His eyes were a light gray, and the lashes that fringed them were peppered with ginger and gold.

  “We will not speak of Eleanor again,” he said. His eyes settled on my lips, caught as if against his will.

  I opened my mouth to agree, to say anything that would break the spell that had fallen between us. I could no longer hear the horses or the men-at-arms where they sat away from us, playing cards beneath a tree. I could hear only the sound of the river, the sound of water on rocks, a soft, clean sound that made me want to turn to it and away from him.

  But I did not turn away and I did not speak, for Henry’s lips were on mine, the first kiss I ever received from a man. I jumped under his hands, but he gentled me as he would a fractious horse.

  He did not come any closer or touch me in any way except to hold me still between his hands, and to kiss me. His lips were like fire on mine. When I drew back, my lips still burned where his had touched them. I looked at him, at the fire in his eyes, and wondered if I was damned already

  I had seen lust directed at the women of the court all my life, both in France and in England. I had never before felt it directed full force on me. It took my breath away, that a man and a king could want me with such unswerving desire.

  It was electric, that first false sense of power.

  Henry did not touch me again. He only offered me his hand and helped me rise from his cloak. He did not say a word.

  He raised me once more onto Sampson’s back, then gestured to me. I leaned down, thinking that he meant to kiss me again.

  He placed the wreath of flowers on my hair, fragrant with the smell of broken stems and the scent of the jasmine nestled by the irises at the river’s edge.

  I straightened the wreath on my head, feeling the soft petals of the irises and daisies under my fingertips. Henry smiled, and spoke the last words that he would say to me that day. He whispered low, there by the river’s edge, so that even his men-at-arms could not hear.

  “Someday I will place a different crown on your head.”

  I clutched my horse’s reins. Henry’s eyes never left mine. I heard his words for the offer they were, a siren’s song, the suggestion, however unlikely, that he might one day set Eleanor aside, as she had once set aside my father, and marry me.

  Guilt and horror mingled to gnaw at me. I said a silent Act of Contrition before my horse even began to move. I had sinned once more, against the queen and my betrothed. Though I rejected the idea that Henry had planted in my head, the seed took root that day. I remembered it later, when I was alone.

  As my horse followed Henry’s mount back to the keep, Henry’s scent was still with me, and the touch of his soft lips on mine. I could taste him still, even as we rode away.

  Marie Helene saw that I was disturbed when she helped me dress for dinner. The dark guilt Henry had planted within me had not gone, though it was no longer in the forefront of my thought. Still, the shadow of it lingered, even as I tried to keep my mind from it.

  I did not speak as
she bathed me. Only when I was dressed once more in my dark blue gown did I reach out, and take her hand. I knew what I must do, the only act that would settle the question, the only act that would assuage the guilt I felt for even listening to Henry’s idle offer.

  “I must write to the king,” I said.

  “My lady?”

  I lowered my voice, so that the walls might not hear. “I must write to the king, my father.”

  She did not answer, but her face grew pale. Her blond hair was soft against her cheek, her blue eyes staring back at me. I knew she would not betray me.

  “I must ask him to call for my wedding date to be set.”

  “My lady, when you rode out with the king ... did you fall into sin?”

  I remembered that before she was my lady, she had been the queen’s. I smiled, though I did not feel it.

  “Of course not. All is well. May God bless His Majesty.” I said this last loud enough for any spy to hear.

  “No.” I lowered my voice once more. “But I would be married. I do not want to wait any longer.”

  “And your father will help you?” Marie Helene asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “As will the queen.” I looked into her eyes; I could see that Marie Helene, too, would stand with me. “But I must ask my father first.”

  I went to my table, and Marie Helene drew out my parchment and ink. Eleanor had given me such things so that I might write to Richard, and practice my Latin. I drew a chair close to the table, wishing I had my writing table from the abbey. Marie Helene placed the lamp at my elbow, for the sun had set, and the shadows in my room grew long.

  “The French ambassador is still at court,” Marie Helene said, her voice low, her breath warm against my ear. “I will deliver your letter to him tonight.”

  From the gravity of her eyes, and the calm purpose behind her gaze, I knew that she understood. To seek help from my father in secret, behind the back of the king, was treason. From the moment I set foot in England, I belonged not to my father’s house but to my husband’s.

  Though I owed my allegiance to Henry and to Eleanor, I would write to my father. As soon as possible, I had to place myself in an honorable marriage, away from the king, for my own sake as well as Richard’s. I would hear no more secret offers. Marriage to Richard would protect me from them.

  I wrote a short letter, wishing my father well, and asking blessings on his health, and that of Philippe Auguste. In addition to this, I asked only that my marriage date be set, that my father use his influence with King Henry to see that it was done.

  I signed this letter and sealed it, using a ring Eleanor had given me just the day before. The ring was gold, and set with the fleur-de-lys of my own crest. Eleanor would help me marry, just as my father would, though I could never tell her why.

  I saw the question in Marie Helene’s eyes. She served me well, and deserved an answer. “I must marry, before the summer is gone.”

  “Did the king ... ?” The horror on her face brought the depth of my sin home to me as nothing else could. My shame rose up from the floor to clutch at me, and I fought it down. I had listened to the king when he made his offer; I had not turned away. I had done wrong, but I would be shriven. I would confess my sin, and see to it that I did not fall into sin again.

  “No,” I said. “Nothing as bad as that.”

  She crossed herself, but did not look comforted. She took up my hand where it lay next to my letter on the table. She knelt beside me, offering me fealty, as I once knelt to my father, so long ago.

  “I will help you, my lady.”

  I kissed her, tears rising in my eyes. I blinked them away. Eleanor taught me well: tears fed no gardens; the salt blighted the flowers of my cheeks, and left my eyes an ugly red.

  Marie Helene rose with me as I stood to go. She took the sealed letter, and slipped it into her velvet alms purse. She gripped my hand. As we turned to leave for the great hall, Eleanor swept into my room, her women trailing behind her.

  “Alais, why do you look so grim? Did you not have a nice afternoon, riding with the king?”

  Her eyes glittered. I felt them accusing me, as if she could see into my heart, as if she knew my guilt already I swore then that she would never know. Such pain would never come to her by me.

  I knelt to her, as Marie Helene had just knelt to me. I did not lower my head in supplication, but met her eyes. I raised my voice to be sure all her women heard me.

  “Your Majesty, I am yours, now and always. May God be my witness.”

  I saw that she wanted to ask me why I had to call on God, for had I not always been hers? But Eleanor was politic, and felt the eyes of our audience as heavy as I did. I thought for one horrible moment that the mother I loved would keep me kneeling, that she would turn from me, without giving me leave to rise. She had heard of our ride, perhaps even of the kiss Henry had given me. I saw in her eyes that she knew nothing of the offer he made me, and I thanked God. I held her gaze; I did not flinch or look away.

  Admiration for my courage dawned on her face. Eleanor extended one long, elegant hand. Her jewels were like cold fire on my skin as I gripped her fingers. I did not need her help, but she drew me to my feet.

  “Come down to the hall, Alais. The table would not be merry without you.”

  I went into her arms, heedless of the women standing by I could feel her shock as my arms reached around her and drew her to me. For one long moment I clung to her in silence.

  In the next, Eleanor murmured into my hair. “Come away now, Alais. We cannot keep the king waiting.”

  I heard her true words, I love you, beneath this. My eyes filled once more, but I blinked my tears away. Eleanor took my hand, and we walked down to the great hall together.

  Chapter 14

  ELEANOR: A LETTER

  Windsor Castle

  June 1172

  My ladies were dancing for me in my solar, one playing the tabor and another, the lute, when Amaria signaled for my attention. She went to my prie-dieu and knelt instead of genuflecting. After she blessed herself with holy water, she stayed kneeling. This signal meant that the news she brought was dire indeed.

  I waited until the song was finished. Angeline and Mathilde, Margaret, and Joan all bowed before me, flushed with laughter. I applauded them, standing, and they bowed lower, sensible of the honor I did them, not knowing that I had a different motive. When they had taken their fill of my praise, I raised one hand. “Ladies, I must ask you to leave me alone. I feel the need to pray for my son’s safe return.”

  The whole court knew that Richard had been invested as duke in Aquitaine, and that he was expected to return to Henry’s court on the morrow. Alais was waiting for him. Even when sitting in my rooms, she always dressed her hair with the gold filet I had given her to match her ring. The filet was decorated with fleurs-de-Iys cast in electrum. It looked well on her dark curls. Though she loved my son, in the hall at each evening meal, I saw that her eyes tended toward the king.

  My women bowed and left me, save Amaria, who made my prie-dieu ready for my devotions. I knelt as my women left, drawing the door closed behind them. Amaria knelt beside me. We prayed together for two long minutes, long enough for anyone standing by my door to withdraw. Only then did Amaria reach into her gown and draw out a letter.

  “Clarissa sends this, my lady, with her compliments.”

  “How charming of her. She has no need to send me missives.”

  I knew the letter in my hand was not meant for me. I did not turn it over and look at the seal. I found, as I knelt in the sunshine as I had seen Alais do, that I did not want to know whose letter it was. Not yet.

  “As you know, Your Majesty, while she is at court, Clarissa makes it her business to be your eyes and ears at Windsor.”

  “Yes.”

  The news must be bad indeed, if my dour Amaria was loath to tell me.

  “Clarissa had the good fortune to spend the night with the French ambassador.”

  I knew then whose letter
I held, but I did not allow myself to think on it. “Good fortune for him,” I said. “Louis’ courtiers were never much for love play.”

  Amaria laughed, as she knew I meant her to. “No, madam. So I have always heard.” She kept her hands clasped together, in case anyone was to peek in and see us there. “The French ambassador handed that letter to Clarissa as soon as he saw her. He asked her to give it to Your Majesty.”

  “He gave it to her before he had her?”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “We must pay him, then.”

  I rose from my cushion, and turned the letter over in my hand. The letter’s seal was the fleur-de-lys from the ring I had given Alais only two days before. She was writing to her father, in secret.

  My mind felt like one large bruise as I looked down at that seal. I thought of Alais as a little girl, how she had loved her father when she first came to me. No doubt she loved him still. Her love, once given, was never taken back. Or so I had always assumed.

  “Pay him in ducats,” I said, “so that the money cannot be traced back to me.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  Amaria stood by, waiting for my next command. She would not send the money herself, but would have one of Henry’s men do it. A young and foolish boy, one who would think nothing of doing a service for the queen’s majesty. One who himself would never speak of it, and thus make himself useful to me again in the future. There were many such men in Henry’s train, more even than he knew of.

  Amaria left me then. She had been in my service many years, and knew without my telling her when I wanted to be alone. She drew the hidden door to my bedchamber closed behind her. She would not go far, but would wait on me, in case I had need of her. She had seen the seal, too.

  I sat in my chair, the bright summer sunshine falling across my hands, making the emeralds of my rings catch fire. Louis gave them to me the day I returned to him from Raymond, when we left the Levant together, to make a fresh start once more in France.