To Be Queen

by Christy English

  The last man to sing was the young Baron Rancon.

  Rancon sang alone, strumming his own lute, with no musicians to play for him. He gave the company a song of how my beauty rose with the sun each morning, and did not fade when night came; of how I ruled the sun and the moon both, which were mere spheres in the sky, come to circle my throne.

  My blood raced, though I schooled my features to cool politeness. His song done, I extended my hand, and let him take it.

  My voice did not shake, and neither did my hand, though my heartbeat was loud in my own ears. “The Baron Rancon has carried the day. Let him be the victor, then, for he has conquered me.”

  The barons laughed and applauded Rancon, and my father applauded with them. Rancon did not smile, but held my gaze. His palm was warm on mine as he brought me down from the dais onto the dance floor.

  Amaria whispered to the musicians at one end of the hall. They struck up a dancing tune, and the men at the lower tables took up their women and came onto the center of the floor as if they had waited all day for it.

  Geoffrey of Rancon led me into the dance seamlessly, and I fell into step with him. We moved as if we had danced together before, as if our bodies knew each other already.

  His eyes were the brown of chestnuts in autumn, and his gaze was warm with more than lust as he stared down at me. He looked at me as if I were his lady in truth, as if he might offer me marriage and all the kisses and sweet words men offered women alone in the dark.

  It was a heady feeling, that first sip of power. I had been raised to rule men all my life, but the heat that rose between us was a different matter altogether.

  “I would see you again,” he said.

  I stepped away from him, and did not answer, having to count carefully to keep time in the motion of the dance. I hid my hesitation and did not falter. His heated gaze still followed me, until I drew close to him again.

  “You will see me many times for the rest of your life,” I said. “I will be your duchess.”

  My light tone hid the elation I felt. I had learned to lie as a child, so that now, when my blood was pounding in my throat, I did it easily. But for the first time in my life, the effort of a lie cost me something. I breathed deep, keeping my hand back from his, touching only his fingertips with my own.

  “I would see you again tonight,” he said, his gaze hot, his flesh warm on mine.

  I drank in his scent, the hint of some unknown spice on his skin. My heart pounded so loudly that I thought Rancon might be able to hear it.

  I raised my eyes to his, and took in the sight of him. He was a man of the world with many mistresses; he had sung their praises before he ever sang mine. But in that moment, as my green eyes cradled him, I saw the Baron Rancon falter.

  “My lady, you are the most beautiful woman in the world.” I stood on the slippery slope of a man’s desire. The choice and the power of this moment were mine. I might slide into Rancon’s bed, and seal the promise of the heat that rose between us.

  I drew my hand from his as the music ended. “My lord,” I said, “you flatter me.”

  I spoke as if I were a modest maid, but my eyes held the same heat as his own. I watched him pause, searching my face, before he turned to lead me back to the dais.

  As we walked, I tripped, catching myself on his arm, as if I feared that I might fall. I bent to adjust the dyed leather slipper on my foot, and he leaned down to balance me.

  “Meet me behind the curved staircase on the second level three hours before dawn,” I said, my voice low so that only he would hear. When I stood again, still clinging to him, Rancon’s breath was as short as mine.

  He said not a word and did not meet my eyes again, but delivered me to my father.

  I danced every dance, the fire of new-discovered lust mounting in my belly. As I whirled and touched hands with each young man in turn, one after the other, I felt Baron Rancon’s eyes on me. I did not look at him. Instead I wove a spell over each man I danced with, so that they all began to love me, at least a little. What else is beauty for, if not to hold all men in your sway?

  Chapter 4

  Palace of Poitiers

  County of Poitou

  Easter 1136

  WELL AFTER MIDNIGHT, WHILE ALIX SLEPT SOUNDLY ON HER pallet, Amaria helped me dress to meet Rancon in the hallway of my father’s keep. Her dark blond hair lay neatly across her forehead. Her clear blue gaze met mine without judgment. She said not a word, knowing that any warning she might give me would fall on barren ground.

  Amaria had been with me for more than three years, and she knew me well. I would never injure my chances to be Queen of France by losing my maidenhead to the Baron Rancon. But I would have my will, or why else be queen at all?

  At the appointed time, hours before dawn, I slipped out into the corridor, carrying no lamp. I knew my father’s palace at Poitiers so well that had I been struck blind, I would still have found my way. So I moved along the corridor toward the curved staircase, my hand trailing along the damp stone, until I felt warm flesh beneath my fingertips, and the Baron Rancon’s hand closed over mine.

  He whispered low, “My lady, I have waited for you.”

  He drew me close, retreating with me beneath the curved staircase. There was a little space for both of us to stand upright. He turned his back to the corridor, pressing me against the stone. My heart leaped in my chest. I had thought him biddable, completely my own creature, but here, alone, without my father’s court between us, he was a man, and I, a girl.

  My heart thundered in my breast, and my breath came short as my lust rose, a great tide that almost swamped my reason. Rancon pulled me to him, his hands on my waist beneath my cloak, his breath hot on my cheek.

  “I did not mean to keep you waiting,” I said.

  The sound of his laughter caressed me, like hands running up my spine and into my hair. I shivered, and Rancon drew me closer, the heat and weight of his body against mine.

  I felt a tremor of fear, but my lust rose to conquer it. Rancon leaned down and took my lips with his.

  I drew back from his mouth before I fell to him completely. I forced lightness into my voice, a tone that belied my desire. “How do you know who I am? I might be any number of women, come here to meet you . . . one of my ladies, perhaps.”

  Rancon laughed low, and again, I felt the heat of the sound on my skin. His hands moved up from my waist to caress my rib cage, as he pressed me back against the stone wall. “My lady, I would know you anywhere.”

  “Then let me be clear,” I said. “I will not give you my maidenhead. That is for another.”

  He kissed me, but drew back almost at once, as if to seal a bargain between us. “I swear I will protect you, my lady. Even from yourself. You will beg me to take you, but I will not. I seek only to give us both a little pleasure.”

  He leaned close, and I felt his smile against my cheek as he bent down to nuzzle my throat. “After all, it was you who invited me.”

  I thought to reprimand him for his impertinence, but his hand moved to cup my breast, and his lips trailed over my throat. He opened his mouth on mine as his hands caressed me.

  I understood now why women must guard themselves so carefully before marriage. It would have been so easy to slip, to give myself and my future away for a trifle.

  But it did not feel like a trifle, with Rancon’s tongue on mine, his rough, large hands caressing me. Just as I thought to push him away, his touch turned gentle, and his lips caressed my cheek, his breath warm in my ear.

  “Lady, forgive me. I can go no further with you. I do not trust myself to stop.”

  Rancon laid his forehead against my own, and we clung to each other. He caught his breath before I caught mine.

  “You will soon be bound in marriage to another. But know this, lady. Nothing is over between us.”

  His promise was a warm balm against my already heated skin. He covered my lips once more with his, pressing his body against me for one long, delicious moment. Then
he pulled away and left me without his heat or touch.

  The cold of my father’s castle surrounded me, and crept along my flesh beneath my gown, for Rancon’s hands had laid my cloak open. I was light-headed, and my blood still thundered in my ears. I knew that I had come too close to the abyss.

  But how sweet it was, to touch a man like that. When I was married, I would touch my husband that way, and no one would stop me.

  I made my way back to my rooms. When I scratched on the door, Amaria drew me inside and brought me close to the fire. I did not let her undress me right away, but sat by the brazier, my cloak wrapped around me. Rancon’s scent lingered in its woolen folds.

  I remembered his last words to me as I sat safe in my rooms. I heard the promise in them, and I shivered, as if his hands were once more on my body.

  The next morning, my father called me to him. I had slept little; I still felt the heat of Rancon’s touch. Amaria dressed my hair with pearls and gold, covering her handiwork with a veil of silk. My bronze hair hung down my back in braids, in case my father wished to go on a hunt, as he had promised me we would.

  I entered Papa’s antechamber and found a tall, emaciated monk whose tonsure revealed a network of veins and bumps on the crown of his head. Never before had I noticed a monk’s tonsure, but never before had one looked so hideous to me.

  My father stood when I entered, but the monk remained seated, as if to show that he had no more respect for me than if I had been a common drab. I felt the first flame of my temper rise, but I tamped it down. I curtsied to my father, including the monk in the gesture of good manners that Alix had spent years of her life drumming into me. The monk had hoped to see me falter. I saw from his annoyance that I had succeeded in hiding my ire from him.

  “Daughter, may I present Bernard of Clairvaux, come lately from Paris with greetings from our esteemed lord King Louis of France.”

  I had heard of this man before. My father had abased himself once to him in public, out of political necessity. I was surprised to find Bernard of Clairvaux in my father’s rooms, but there were times when even enemies needed to be placated.

  The monk still did not speak, furious that he had been presented to me, and not me to him. I saw his throat working, as if to swallow bile.

  Bernard rose from his chair as if scalded. I think he had expected some show of subservience from me. When he did not get it, he lost his temper. I wondered then why my father had ever abased himself to this man, begging for forgiveness that he did not need.

  “A daughter of Eve cannot be lord in these lands. Not today, and not tomorrow. William, you are a fool. Marry at once, before it is too late.”

  I raised one eyebrow, shocked that this enemy, a man who had the ear of the king, would reveal himself and his position so quickly.

  We were negotiating my marriage to the king’s son, the Aquitaine as my dowry. The king would never encourage my father to remarry and sire a son, for that would cost his own son the duchy. It was clear to me, and no doubt to my father as well, that in this moment Bernard spoke not for the King of France but for the Church.

  I felt the creep of fear along my skin. Could the Church block my marriage to the king’s son? My father worked night and day to place me on the throne of France. And though two years had passed since formal negotiations had begun, the deal was not done yet.

  Bernard’s blue eyes were chilling. He looked at me not as if I was a woman but as if I were a contagion, a disease he must guard against. He drew his brown robes back as if to retreat from me, so that I saw his horned toes beneath the hem, gnarled where they poked up from his sandals.

  My father sat down to his breakfast once more, and I sat beside him. When Papa gestured to a third chair, Bernard stood fuming over us.

  Breakfast was laid out for us as it always was, but this morning there was enough bread, fruit, and honey for three. I accepted the small gold plate my father offered. When my father ate of the soft, good bread, I dipped my own in honey and took a bite.

  These common gestures angered Bernard more than anything else we might have done. He saw himself dismissed, and my father had not even opened his mouth to speak.

  “No woman can hold these lands, nor any lands in Christendom. No oath of fealty to a woman can be kept. Every man who swore to follow your daughter in the house of God on Sunday is forsworn, and need not burn for it. For they cannot be held to an oath that has no power!”

  Bernard of Clairvaux finished spewing this last bit of bile, and drew himself up taller still, as if he was certain we would collapse before him and his holy fire.

  As I ate my pear, my hand shook once. I was fortunate that the old man did not see it. My father reached for me, as if to offer fresh linen, but his eyes met mine and I saw his strength.

  The monk’s argument against me would appeal to many. The Church preached that women were weak vessels fit only to birth the next generation of men. From the point of view of the pope, the monk’s position held validity.

  The remnants of the old Roman, secular tradition had begun to fall to the Church’s laws in the last generation. Always before, the law had come from the king, and from his vassals. Now the Church sought to make all laws come from the pope in Rome, and his minions among us. My father and I stood against this encroachment from the Vatican, but not all our barons did.

  Bernard’s voice softened for a moment, as if he was certain that, upon reflection, my father would agree with him, and cast me aside. “William, you must marry and sire a son. Only a son can hold these lands for you.”

  “Brother Bernard, please, sit and eat with us. I hear your words, and I consider them. I have considered them all my life.”

  The monk sat with us finally but did not touch the plate my father offered him. I finished my bread, and ate the last of my pear. I did not look at Bernard directly, but caught a glimpse of him through my lashes. This demure show did not fool him; clearly stories of my true self had preceded me. Or perhaps he simply knew me at once as an implacable enemy, just as I knew him.

  “William, you will marry before the summer is out. You must listen to me, and to my lord the king. The duchy of Aquitaine is too valuable a property to leave undefended by your death.”

  I froze where I sat, a piece of fruit poised at my lips. I heard the threat, thinly veiled. My father heard it, too.

  Papa’s voice was soft. “The king is my lord, and I owe him my allegiance. Even now, he works with me to secure my daughter’s marriage to his son.”

  The monk’s threat still lingered in my ears like poison. “As to my death, the king and I have looked to that as well. I have made my daughter a ward of the crown. The king has taken my family as his own. You would do well to heed it.” The honeyed tones were gone. His speech was like an unsheathed blade. Only now did he draw his malice out, and show it to our enemy.

  Bernard’s face darkened as if a summer storm had risen in him, blotting out the sun. He had no words to spit at us, no weapons from his keepers in Rome to cast back at us. He had known nothing of my father’s dealings with the king; that much was plain from the look on his face. Though the king kept this monk close, there were things he did not tell him. The fact that I had been made the king’s ward was clearly one of them. The shock of this news was Bernard of Clairvaux’s undoing.

  “The Church will see to it that you are brought to heel,” Bernard said.

  My father only smiled. “And no doubt the king will do the same with you. Best you look to him, Bernard. As Christ teaches us, you cannot serve two masters.”

  I thought the monk would run from the room, but a tall man can move quickly without running. This one did, as if the devil were at his heels.

  We sat in silence, my father and I, the remains of our breakfast forgotten. I heard my father’s words again; the king had taken me as his ward. The marriage was a fait accompli. I had only to wait a few months more, or perhaps a year, just long enough for the marriage contract to be drawn up and signed.

  Joy rose in
me, and with it relief that we had vanquished our enemy, that our years of hard work had not been undone. I laughed my deep, throaty laugh. My mirth filled my father’s antechamber, and reverberated off the stone walls. Even the tapestries could not muffle the sound.

  Papa drew me close, covering my mouth with his hand. “The walls have ears, daughter, even in our keep.”

  I needed to be reassured, though my heart told me we had won. “Is it true, Papa, or were you merely stalling?”

  My father smiled. In this moment, even he could not maintain his iron control. We had triumphed over two enemies, the Church and Bernard of Clairvaux, and this victory was sweet.

  “It will be true. The papers making you the king’s ward in the event of my death have not been signed yet, but they will be. I expect them any day.”

  “But you made him think that it was an accomplished fact.”

  “Of course. Always lie to your enemies.”

  My laughter filled my throat again, and spilled from my lips. I could not catch it, or hold it back. My admiration for my father rose in me as my fear had done, but stronger. If I lived to be a hundred, I would never know another man like him.

  “I love you, Papa.”

  “And I love you, Alienor.”

  The next day my father and I rode out on our hunt. After another evening of eating, music, and dancing in our hall, most of our barons had gone. Bernard of Clairvaux left the keep after his interview with my father. The taste of that victory was still on my tongue. I knew my father savored it, too.

  I rode a war stallion, a destrier far too large for me. Papa had finally given me permission to train on a man’s mount. My Merlin was too broad and strong for any lady, but that was why I loved him.

  My horse was as black as a moonless night, with a patch of white on his forelock and on his chest. This patch of white was like a knight’s shield. Merlin loved it when I stroked him there, raising his head so that I would have clear access after I fed him his apple and cheese.

  A groom rode beside me, bearing my falcon on his arm. I wanted to hunt with a hawk, but Papa said such birds were far too big for me. I told him that Merlin was too big for me as well, but that all men must bend to my will, even hawks, even stallions. Papa laughed and kissed me, but did not change his mind.