The Queen's Pawn

by Christy English

  I smiled. My son was strong and brave, but naive, as all men are. The loss of reputation did not ruin a woman unless she had no one else to succor her. Alais would always have me.

  “Richard, do not trouble yourself over this. There is nothing you or anyone can do to help her. She has chosen this path, and she will walk it to the end. But know this: when he casts her off, I will take her in. I will give her shelter.”

  “And her child?”

  The words were like bile in my throat, sharp and foul, but I meant them. “And her child.”

  Richard knelt to me and pressed his lips to my hand. He felt things so deeply; he always had, even as a child. I saw how much he still loved her, how much he would always love her, as he knelt there at my feet.

  “Richard, enough of this. Come and sit with me. Keep me company. I grow lonely without you near.”

  He rose at once, and crossed the room, my hand in his. He seated me in the best chair, and arranged the cushions behind my back. He kissed my forehead as if in blessing, before he sat beside me.

  “Wine, Mother?”

  “Please. Thank you, Richard.”

  He poured a glass of Anjou wine for me, and I drank it, though I was not thirsty. I watched him, my beautiful golden boy, and cursed Alais for hurting him as no woman ever had, as no woman ever would again.

  I swallowed my bile, and smiled at him. “What brings Alais’ plight to your mind, Richard? Have you been praying for her again?”

  “Yes, Mother. But I also went to see her.”

  I raised one eyebrow, but said nothing.

  “She said something vile about you, about ...”

  He flushed, not willing to repeat the phrase that was on all the court’s lips. My dried-up womb, indeed.

  “Yes, Richard, she spoke foolishly.”

  “She spoke against you,” he said.

  “Richard, things are said at such times that are not meant. No doubt Alais forgot in a moment of pique that every word she says is open to the speculation of others. The court cares for what a queen has to say, as they do not a princess of France.”

  “She is not queen,” Richard said, his face darkening.

  “Nor will she be. But the court does not know that. They must be cautious, and play both sides, until one comes out a clear winner.”

  “It is despicable.”

  “It is politics, my son. You would do well to heed it.”

  “I would rather be run through on the battlefield than force myself to such womanish tricks.”

  I laughed out loud at that. He forgot that I was a woman, too.

  “I’m sorry ...”

  I raised one hand, still laughing. “No, Richard, you do me honor. I know in your world to be thought womanish is a weakness. But women have deviousness, and ways that men do not, to see to it that their will is done.”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “Do not trouble yourself, Richard. Leave the politics to me.”

  His face was still dark, his blue eyes shadowed. “Mother, she is sorry that she hurt you.”

  I felt my breath catch in my throat, as if he brought me news of a lover, and not of a young girl.

  “Is she?”

  I kept my voice from trembling, but I held my breath as I waited for his answer.

  “Yes. She is sorry for what she said.”

  I pressed his hand, and forced myself to smile. “Don’t think on the princess anymore, Richard.”

  He kissed my cheek, and rose to his feet. He had been too long indoors already

  “I love you, Mother.”

  He left me, and my women came in, bringing fruit and fresh wine, smiling at me as if I had not fallen into disgrace with the king, as if no usurper sought my throne.

  “Send for Bertrand,” I told Amaria. ”Let us have some music and be merry, while we may”

  She obeyed me, and my women laughed and clapped, for they loved to look at my troubadour, at his shapely thighs and calves, his broad shoulders and muscled arms, which more than one of them had felt around them in the dark.

  As for myself, I wanted only peace. Music was the only way to get that during that dark, benighted time, when I had nothing and no one but Richard.

  I sat alone that night after the meal in the great hall. Alais had gone to bed early, for pregnancy made her tired. I sent rose water to her rooms, and a snifter of brandy to help her sleep. She sent no reply

  I sat before the fire, my hair trailing down my back. It was still bronze, but silver had begun to make its inroads, the march of time across my forehead, and into the glossy depths of my hair. I was growing old. So be it. I was not dead yet.

  Richard had gone off with his lover, Margaret. Though they saw little of each other now, Margaret was to leave court on the morrow. Her father had heard of her disgrace and had asked me to arrange her marriage. I had done so with little difficulty, for I had settled some money on her, and had chosen for her an older man. Sir Ralph of Nottingham was happy to overlook the fact that Margaret had once been a favorite of my son’s.

  No doubt Richard and Margaret wished to have some lovers’ talk, about old times that would not come again. Richard was not quite sixteen years old. It amused me that he thought he had old times to speak of.

  The fire was burning well, and the charcoals gave off their feeble heat. I was not one for melancholy, but for some reason that night my regrets lingered with me, all the losses of my long life, and precursors of all the losses yet to come.

  I was musing to myself, deep in self-pity, when there was a scratching at my door. When I called, Henry answered, and came in.

  I did not stand and greet him, so surprised was I to see him, there in my rooms, alone. I watched him as he came to me, moving like the lion he so often made me think of, the predator that I had matched my wits against for so many years, the man I had loved.

  “Henry, you are welcome.”

  When I moved to stand, finally remembering the protocol that should govern us even when we were alone, Henry gestured to me to sit, drawing another chair close to me, and to the fire.

  “Eleanor.”

  He sat, staring into the fire, and I did the same. For that moment, it was as if we had both slipped into old age, with lust and fire behind us. As if we watched and waited for death together, as I once thought we might.

  Henry reached over and took my hand in his. In his strong grip, my hand looked feeble and old. My rings gleamed in the lamplight, and my fingers tapered in elegance into his palm. Time was what it was, and had left me as it left me. I would not be ashamed.

  As if he could see these thoughts behind my eyes, Henry smiled at me. His smile was full of grudging admiration as his looks always were, now that we were enemies. But that night we sat together, a moment of detente in the middle of a war. Neither of us knew yet which of us would win, but sitting alone, the court banished from our presence, we saw for the first time what both of us had lost already

  “Eleanor, I am sorry it has come to this”

  I did not answer right away. I knew, even then, that nothing would change between us.

  “You have only to raise one hand, and this war would end, Henry You know that.”

  The gray eyes I had loved for half my life did not leave mine.

  “But you will not,” I said.

  “No,” he answered. “I will not.”

  He did not release my hand, even then. Still we sat together in peaceful silence, the firelight flickering across our faces, and over the silvered bronze of my hair.

  “Your hair shines like electrum in this light, Eleanor. I had forgotten.”

  I felt my tears rise then, for all that we had once been to one another, for what we would never be to each other again. I knew, even as my sorrow rose, that my pain was part of our love, just as the joy once had been. Even now, at the end, I would not have had it any different.

  “Ah, Henry, soon you will be singing me love songs”

  He laughed, as I had meant him to, and my tears receded.


  “And would you have me fetch you barley cakes, and apple butter made with my own hands?”

  Henry barked once more with laughter, but I heard the seriousness under that. “Dear God, Eleanor, stop it. You are a queen.”

  “And so I shall remain, until my days pass from this earth. You know that, do you not?”

  Henry met my eyes, his temper dormant. That night I might have said anything to him, and he would have loved me just the same.

  “I know that you will try”

  I inclined my head. My hand still lay in his.

  “You are a queen, Eleanor, and not because I made you one.”

  “I am surprised you know it,” I said.

  “Ah, Eleanor, I have always known it. I knew it the moment I met you. The day I met you, I knew that if I could make you mine, the world would be at my feet, the throne of England mine for the taking.”

  “I knew it, too.”

  We sat once more in silence, both taken back to that magic time, when all the obstacles that stood in our way were as nothing: my husband, Henry’s mother, the war he fought for his inheritance. When we stood together, looking at each other in the light of my husband’s court, he had known, as I had, that together we could do anything.

  “I love you,” Henry said.

  “I know that, too.”

  As he stood, even then, he was reluctant to let go of my hand. In the end, I took it from him, to remind him that he had made his choice already We walked a path of his own devising. We could not now turn back.

  But at my door, Henry did turn back. He saw me, sitting where he had left me, my green gown drawn around my shoulders against the evening chill. He saw my hair, shining like bronze in the firelight, the silver strands heightening its beauty, the light soft on my face.

  “Henry,” I said. “Why did you come?”

  “I missed you, Eleanor. I am not myself when you are not with me.”

  He left me then, and closed the door. My women did not come in to wish me a good night. Though I had no god to thank, I was grateful, for there were tears on my cheeks. I did not want to shed them in front of another. Not even him.

  Chapter 28

  ALAIS: A CHOICE

  Windsor Castle

  February 1173

  As the months passed, I displayed my belly proudly, setting aside all my fears and misgivings, reminding myself to stand fast and to take what comes, as Eleanor had taught me. Eleanor pretended that she did not see my growing belly, but of course, all the court knew.

  Henry gave me a cloak made of dark blue silk, the blue of the French royal crest. The deep bell sleeves were embroidered with golden fleurs-de-lys, and the waist was gathered with a fleur-de-Iys clasp cast in gold. The blue cloak was my prize possession, lined in the softest white seal fur; the sleeves and throat were trimmed in ermine.

  The court saw me wear that cloak and began to realize that the king was not acting on a whim; he truly meant to make me queen. Only the king and queen wore ermine.

  Henry would not let me write to my father. I was to remain silent, and let the king handle all political dispatches. This troubled me deeply, but as my pregnancy advanced, a mental torpor seemed to spread over my mind, and I did not fight for this concession from Henry I knew well that Eleanor wrote to the Continent often, and never asked for Henry’s leave.

  In spite of my pregnancy, in spite of the fact that she still had not been removed to Fontevrault, it seemed that Eleanor and I had declared an uneasy truce. That winter, Eleanor smiled at me from down the table, and sent me dishes of squab braised in herbs and butter. Marie Helene brought her decanters of the wine my father had given me, but Eleanor and I did not speak alone.

  As my pregnancy advanced, I missed Eleanor more and more. I wished to go to her with questions, but had to settle for the information gleaned from the midwives by Marie Helene. I longed in the evenings, when Henry did not come to me, to sit with Eleanor and have her comb my hair, as I had once combed through hers.

  Though I could not sit alone with Eleanor anymore, from time to time, Henry indulged me. One afternoon deep in winter, Henry and I sat alone together, his hand on my belly, his head on my knee. Such times were rare, and I savored them, as I had savored nothing else in my young life, except the lost presence of Eleanor. During that afternoon, I had no fear for my future, no fear that Henry would turn from me. That day, even the pain of losing Richard had fled.

  I had brought in a musician to play for us, and the sound of the lute was sweet. For once, with my lover next to me, and my child moving within me, the sound of the lute did not remind me of Richard.

  I fed Henry a piece of cheese, for he still did not eat enough to please me. I leaned down and kissed him, almost forgetting that the musician was there.

  “This is lovely, Alais. Thank you.”

  “You work so hard, Henry.” I lowered my voice so that the musician would not hear me use his given name. “You work long hours to protect me, and our child. You need a time of peace, when we can be alone.”

  “Sometimes I think the only peace I have ever known in my life has been with you.”

  Henry’s gray eyes stared up at me, and I knew he meant what he said. I kissed his lips, putting all my love for him into it. He tasted of the bread I had fed him, and the English cheddar I had pared for him alone. The touch of his hand on my hair was sweet as he reached up to hold me to him.

  “My lord king!”

  John burst into the room, coming in past Henry’s men-at-arms, who looked grim. I was surprised that they did not stop him at my door as they should have.

  I thought at first that John, like any child, was running in pellmell to see his father. But I remembered then that John was no ordinary child, but a prince of the blood. He was a creature of politics already.

  Henry’s hand fell from my hair, and he sat up, looking at his youngest son. He was not annoyed, as I was. Henry knew, even in the first moment, that danger, not rudeness, brought John to us without warning.

  I did not move from my chair. Marie Helene came to stand behind me.

  “My lord, Richard and Geoffrey have deceived you. They have formed an alliance behind your back, and now they will turn their armies on you.”

  John extended his hand and held out a letter to Henry I watched as Henry took it and read it quickly, his face darkening, as if the sun had set in his soul, never to rise again.

  Henry’s rage did not surface, as it had always done whenever Richard challenged him. As I watched, Henry grew very still; then he stood to face his son.

  “You did well to come to me.”

  I saw that he would not discuss the matter further with me in the room. Henry’s gray eyes were far from me, even as he leaned down and kissed my hair. I felt the world as I had known it slipping away. I was frightened when I saw that Henry’s rage ran not hot but cold.

  “Alais, I must see to this. Be a good girl, and stay in your rooms until I call for you.”

  “Henry, what will you do?”

  He turned to me, all the soft looks of the afternoon gone as if they had never been. When he met my eyes, his gray gaze was bitter. I shivered beneath it.

  “This is an affair of state, Alais. It does not concern you.”

  Had he struck me, I could not have been more surprised. I sat, my belly large in my lap, and watched him go.

  The man I had thought would be my husband left my rooms without looking at me again, his young son at his heels. John, while only a child, had his father’s ear. I saw at once that I never would. When Henry left the room without another word to me, I knew that I would never be his partner on the throne, as Eleanor once had been.

  As he left to go about the business of the kingdom, as he left to arrest his son, Henry dismissed me, with as little thought as if I had been Bijou, and unable to understand him.

  I saw myself in that moment for what I was, a girl who had nothing and no one but a bastard child soon to come. Henry would no more make me queen than God might one day ma
ke me pope. I had been a fool. Eleanor had foreseen it.

  I had deceived myself, but there was still time. In spite of all I had done, I might still save myself, and my unborn child.

  Even now, Richard sat in his rooms, surrounded by the king’s men, surrounded by enemies. Any one of those men with pikes might push past Richard’s guard, and strike him down, as a knight of Henry’s had struck down Thomas Becket.

  I faced a choice, and I made it without hesitation, without remorse. Once more, I would step out on my own, but this time to defy the king.

  Henry had left me, and Richard might never take me back. Both the men in my life might abandon me, leaving me with nothing. But I remembered Eleanor, and the love she bore her son. If I saved Richard, Eleanor would shield me, even from Henry.

  I rose to my feet. “Bolt my door after I leave and do not open it except to the king himself,” I said.

  “My lady,” Marie Helene cried as she tried to clutch my arm. She reached for my trailing sleeve, but I slipped from her grasp. I could not stop to comfort her. While Henry would not harm Richard, his men-at-arms might.

  I remembered well what Henry’s knights had done to Thomas Becket. They had struck the top of his head clean from his body, leaving him dead and bleeding before the altar of God. If Henry’s knights would do such a thing to an archbishop before God’s very altar, what might they do to a treasonous prince?

  I opened the door behind my tapestry It led into the hidden corridor behind the wall of my room. I had never walked that path alone. Always before, Henry had been with me.

  I took up a lamp, and stepped into the darkness of that passage, closing the hidden door tight behind me.

  Chapter 29

  ELEANOR: AN ESCAPE

  Windsor Castle

  February 1173

  Richard and I were sitting in his rooms, whiling away the long, dark afternoon in my husband’s keep, when Alais burst in on us from the hidden door. I could not have been more shocked if she had risen full-blown from the stones of the floor the way Henry’s ancestor was said to have been raised straight from hell. Richard was on his feet in an instant, trained for war as he was. He had his dagger in his hand before he realized that it was not an assassin who came to us but Alais.